Can You Stand The Rain?

I. Can. Not. Stop. Singing. That. Song.  (Sunnnnny days, everybody loves them. Cannnn youuu staaand the rainnnn?)  It's mostly because it was in a movie preview (Oohh Taye Diggs, I can't wait until Christmas time. We'll be reunited soon.)  I saw this weekend but it also  rolls right in to this week's blog post.

So last Wednesday we weighed in at WW - up 0.4 lbs. Really? 0.4? Grr. That's ok.  We'll get that straightened out this week I hope.  After that buzz kill I really was ready for our Downtown Mile run with Jaime and my friend Amanda. As the day went on, other hurdles (other than that blasted 0.4) kept popping up.  Stupid me let lunch time get away from me so I opted for a protein smoothie and a banana for lunch  before heading downtown after work.  Big mistake. Big. Huge!   Let's just say the natives got restless in my digestive tract.  It was game on with every bathroom I crossed (and I have a HUGE public bathroom phobia. Ugh. Ew.) for the next hour and a half.  As we trekked up to the park for our race start we hit another hurdle- a giant, close-by, lightning strike followed by a hellacious thunder storm! That lightning strike really did almost make me poop my pants!

Post race wet t-shirt girls- Amanda, Me, Jaime.
Note that my boobs kept the rest of my shirt dry.
Who needs an umbrella?

As the storm went on, the thunder and lightning calmed down. The rain did not.  -But the race must go on, so off we went for our best mile time try in the pouring rain.  I might add, here, that our friend Missy (bless her heart) was waiting on top of a roof bar in the weather so she could video us running by! She showed up with cute flat ironed hair and everything, and we repaid her with a thunder storm and a soaked cell phone.  Some friends we are, huh.

We ran in the rain. Jaime kept me going along, only stopping for a few little shuffles, and were able to finish in 13 minutes! Big deal for these girls and we weren't last! It was a blast and I'm proud of our time considering I was basically praying not to poop my pants for the second half of the mile.  I know. TMI, but you'll all get over it.   After the race in our soaking wet running clothes we had a great dinner with dear friends, old and new and it was just an awesome night! {I recommend The Whiskey Jar if you're in downtown Charlottesville!} I really appreciate the support these girls give me and my other friends on the new lifestyle train with me.

Leroy Jenkins too proud of
his self after blocking my run.

I haven't had Big A training hour at the gym since last Tuesday. He's on a much needed family vacation until later this week and I've been trying to keep up the good work in his absence.  We'll see what happens we he gets his paws on me this Friday.  I've been doing mostly cardio - walking, running intervals, inclines on the treadmill, etc. and keeping up with our 100 squat challenge.  It's my off-day for that today but I'll be on 85 tomorrow! I'm almost there.  I'm not sure what we do after 100. I guess we'll see.  I had a great day out today -  2.92 miles in 47 minutes doing 30-60 intervals; running as fast a possible for 30 seconds and then walking for 60 seconds.  It was such a perfect evening for it with the lack of overkill Virginia humidity.  It was much better than my outing yesterday, which ended after about 1 mile and 1/2 with my dog lying down in protest in the middle of the street until I picked him up.  He's such a mess and he was too proud of himself.

What's on tap for the next week?  

• Back to beast mode training.
• More running outside. 
• More deep breaths as our busy season at work gets going. All of our student-athletes are coming back to school and we're gearing up for fall sports; starting with our football team which reports for training camp this weekend.  Fall fun is fast approaching!
• Hopefully I'll be a loser rather than a 0.4 gainer.
• A yard sale at my momma's house - because I can actually get rid of some clothes that are too big, rather than too small!
• I'm going to listen to this over and over: 

Back to the blog: The case of the bad time manager

Oh. My. Stars.

It's been too long since I've posted! I've meant well all along, taking notes and making notes but man life has smacked me in the face hard-core.  By the time I'm home from work and/or the gym and I finish school work, I'm toast.  Dry, crusty, tired toast.  I'm going to pencil in more time to blog - because it helps me stay accountable and some you actually enjoy reading it, though I don't know why!

Me and Jaime at our latest 5k in June.

First, it's my 9 month mark of starting this crazy business, and my 6 month gym anniversary.  I didn't think I'd ever be typing that. That said, doing this and walking through those gym doors are the best decisions I've ever made, next to marrying my sweet husband.  I had another little victory in June with completing another 5k.  It was tough because it was very hilly and it was 200 degrees out that day.  Thank God for Jaime who made me shuffle my feet.

So let's start with the latest "breakthrough" moment. Jason and I went to a beautiful wedding yesterday and had an absolute ball!  What's the big deal?  I've been to very, very few weddings since my own.  A year or two ago I would have tried like hell to find something else to do (sending a gift, of course), or prayed for diarrhea so we wouldn't have to go.  Why? Shopping for dress clothes is horrible and should be outlawed! It got really old trying to find dresses in size 26, etc. as most them fell in to two categories:   moo-moo and great-grandmother-of -the-bride.  Who wants to wear those? And also, God forbid someone might snap a photo. Ew.

So lately I feel better, and am wearing a size 20 and even a smaller shoe size oddly enough.  I was able to find a cute dress and heels (yes, Lord, heels!) and I didn't feel like a big weirdo.  We had a great time with friends, and happily got over this little past hurdle.  Any night that ends with you walking with your shoes in your hands was a good one.

Me and the Mr. at the wedding 7/5.

I hope I'll be breaking the size barrier soon, and getting down to the 'teens.  I've got to step up a little bit to get back on the pace at which I was a few weeks ago.  Vacation was great - I managed to eat fairly well, exercise, and when I came back I had lost a few pounds.  Woohoo! That was mid-June.  I've had both up and down weeks since then but I'm still moving in the right direction.  I am starting to flirt with a big number - 50 pounds. (Did I say that out loud?)  I may actually be there by the end of the summer. I have about 12-ish pounds to go.  My team JAG girls are doing well too, and as a team we've lost almost 100 pounds between the three of us.

Training is still great. My trainer is still great because I'm a pain in the ass and he puts up with me. I'm being challenged a bit more and I'm hanging in there.  I love it. I may be a little addicted. And I know I'll keep getting better.  Where I need work, again, is with food.  I haven't been following my food plans as closely lately and it directly affects the scale.  Working on that....starting....now.

Kitchen sink post...

Still here. 
Still alive. 
Still working hard. 
Still studying. 
Still training and loving it. 
Still trying not to eat everything in the house and not loving that.  

Hold on to your hat, Jack! This is what I call the kitchen sink post. I'm going to dump the past couple of weeks on you here without writing 20 pages of things you all don't want to read:

Still here.

I'm still here! I haven't forgotten y'all.  My time management of late has been difficult; especially when I go from work to home to the gym to home for schoolwork and husband time and then I'm exhausted.  I am one tired girl, but I'm happy to be here.  I've been feeling great aside from the occasional headache and achy knee. We had a nice Easter with family which included my mother-in-law's lasagna,  a little mini hike up the mountain and my mom's Banana Pudding (which she modified just for me using fat free and sugar free stuff). It was still pretty damn good!  

WW and the team JAG girls are still working hard! I had an up week last week, but only .8 pounds so I'm ok with that for now. We are still down over 70 lbs as a group! 

Still alive.

Me, Jaime, and Cav-Man

Well - the 5k came and went this weekend and we survived! Jaime (the J in team JAG) and I had a great time and finished in just over 49 minutes, which is great! It was my first one ever, and her first in a very long time.  What a great experience! -And we have a little cheering section at the end too. I felt good afterward and even went to the gym for training - nothing crazy. I felt only a little sore this morning. I'm ready to do it again! 
...and I am. 
I'd love for y'all to join in. Here's the info on my next one - http://www.4thewounded5k.com.  It's for the Wounded Warrior Project on 6/1/13 and my team name is Team Truffle Shuffle. You can run or walk it - so come on!

Still training.

I'm still training and seeing some results. 
-And I still love it. Again, I'll ask as I have 80 times - Who am I???  Big A has me bumping up to an hour 3x per week now! (Just getting started with that) so it'll be interesting to see what I can do! It's kind of sad though, now, at the gym. All of those motivated people who were there in January are nowhere to be found.  Where are you people? Next door at the Dunkin' Donuts? Seriously though, that's kind of sad.  Not only are they cheating themselves out of some good choices, they're wasting their money. I hope they come back - it's so interesting to people-watch and see how people are changing physically. Thankfully, though, there is a crew of folks I always see and they are fun and are in to it. -Good motivator!

Well - as my husband would say, I'm so tired I'm about to start blowing bubbles. See y'all next time, and until then just ponder - WWOEWD?  What would One Eyed Willy Do?

At least I tried...Also, A New Picture of Perfect...

Well...I can't say that I was 100% percent good this weekend but I should at least get a participation ribbon! The tailgate food was not a problem until the homemade German chocolate cupcakes showed up. I resisted after taking a big sniff. Whew!  My friend also gave me the best birthday present every by NOT bringing me a cake as she had previously planned.  I appreciate that more than you know Angie! I did have a few drinks which are definitely not diet-approved and I did have a Coke. (I had to drown my sorrows after our football loss. :( ) -A great dinner tonight with my hubs and MIL! Little victory there - don't put the dressing on your salad! Just dip it. I didn't even use 1/2 of the container and I was more than satisfied. I normally just dump the whole thing on there and dig right in.  Funny, huh.

I weighed in today and somehow I'm down another 1/2 pound! This was very encouraging considering I'm just getting started. I also got more encouragement this week from a friend who has been working very hard for about 2 years and has seen some wonderful results! I definitely would love to hear any tips you have! A lot of my football buddies came up Saturday and many are actually reading my ramblings (women and men!) and they were so supportive. They also, like a few other male AND female friends, wanted to make sure that my boobs weren't going to go away if I lose weight.  {I do have to say I hope for the same thing - for a larger person I do have a pretty nice rack if I do say so myself. And they have names. Yes, I know, shake your head at me go ahead.}  So to the members of Regina and Latoya's fan club: Fear not- hopefully they'll stick around if all this works out well. TMI, I know.

Size 10

I wanted to talk about something that folks brought up in conversation over the weekend.  A few friends immediately asked something like this after reading my first blog, "So what size do you want to be? I'm with you because I'm so fat I want to get down to a size 2, 4, 6"  Mind you most of these people, I would say, fall in the size range of 6-10. Really? Your'e fat? Check out the model in black - she's a 10. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that body. She's bangin'!  Just think about that ladies - your size 10 body is skinnier than I'll likely ever be! And it's perfect!

Size 16

This is Chloe who's a a size 16.  This is my perfect.  -Just to let you all see that when you say you want to drop a few sizes too, we're likely not headed down the same road.  This is a beautiful body to me - and if I get to a 16, I will have still lost the equivalent of 1 Olsen twin.  Oh - and don't worry- when I make it there, I will not put on a bikini (at least not in public y'all). I'm not trying to scare everyone!

So here's to a good week. I just packed my lunch and planned out our dinners for the week. This should help with calories AND money! I also have a lunch buddy who's going to walk with me!  I'm also back to the drawing board on the bike - it is backordered for 6 weeks so I'm searching for another good one I can afford. Have a good one...

There's An App For That...

Well even with my nonfat mocha this morning (I might this a daily thing!) my head has hurt just enough to bug the tar out of me today! Odd, huh.  I have the bit of caffeine in the coffee so that means, to me, that my body just wants that Coke! Ridiculous. I also noticed it hurt a little more after my Nats lost today. :(

Anyway - not much different today. I'm just still trying to figure this thing out.  For now you all will likely see a lot of "this is what I ate today" and "I choose this when I would normally have this".  I ate well today and didn't really make any bad decisions, but was still hungry a lot. I'll just deal! I think that might have to be my little mantra for a while. I'll Just DEAL!

Victory of the day:  Resisted the candy isle at CVS. Bam!

Oh, also, if you're not getting the Cleo salad (I got mine with turkey) when you go to Bodo's in Cville you're crazy. I had it for dinner tonight - very light and filling! -And the dressing is not heavy either!


To finish up - the App.  My best good friend showed my My Fitness Pal and it's very cool! She's using it to track what she's eating. I played around with it and really like it. I'm going to use it to track what I eat to see if I'm REALLY being as good as I think I am. You can track your physical activity too.

I mentioned the other day that I had a walking/running app.  I want to give you a little more detail about it. It's LoLo Treadmill.  LoLo is my girl!!! She even talks to me a little. What's great about LoLo is the integration between the music on my phone and the workout.  You can create a playlist that LoLo loads in to the app and it then calculates the bpm of each song and pairs the songs to play when you're walking, running, etc.  So fun!


Speaking of walking/running and such-  I haven't done much this week. I'm on it.