Just. Breathe.

Well, it's another weigh in. Another Tuesday. Another day closer to the mission trip and my 30-pound weight loss goal. And I had pizza last week. Really, really good meat lover's pizza. Thin crust - points for that. I'd like to be annoyed that I seem to have slowed to less than a pound a week, but I really can't be. I have to figure that for every half-pound lost, it's really like a pound: the half I lost, and the half I didn't gain. So it's like I've really lost 52 pounds already! See? Told ya I do math. Seriously, I'm down about a half-pound (.4) this week and I'm okay with that. It's that lovely time of month on top of finally getting to work out again, so I'll take the celebration and move on. And it's already freaking hot in Texas. My total so far is 26.5 pounds. Three and a half to go in three weeks for the next goal. Next week I won't be in such a good mood if it's less than a pound again! Let's do this. ...

Why do Mondays come around so regularly? I much prefer Saturdays, which seem to not come around often enough. Anyway, to the workout recap for this week: Last Monday I recorded my run, and the intent I had to do water aerobics that night. Instead, I got to unexpectedly buy a new washer and dryer because mine decided to blow up Monday afternoon. NOT a fun way to spend money earmarked for other stuff! So, I didn't get the two-a-day I intended. Tuesday -- water aerobics. 50 minutes, reps of 50 or 100 for each movement, plus 5 minutes treading water/running in place for cardio. Arms sore next day! Wednesday - 2.1 mile run in 25 minutes. I didn't drop off quite as much as I do on the 2nd mile. It was already HOT at 7:30 in the morning. Thursday - off day. And in case that wasn't enough, I had pizza. Yes, it was incredibly good. Friday - 1.9 mile run (not sure why I didn't get 2 miles on the Garmin). Started about an hour later and the heat slowed me down. Satur...

Roughly six months down, and somewhere around six months to get to my goal. I looked back at my summary page and realized there was only one week where I've tracked a gain - hooray! A few had no loss at all, but I think that's okay. Given that I can show a 3 pound shift up/down in three days, I think the Tuesday weigh ins are, on average, showing reality. So for today's weigh in, I was down about 1/2 pound (.6) -- I really think my scale only has even numbers on it anymore. Total to date is 26.1 pounds I did get my work outs done this week - I still took it easy and just stayed on the elliptical for the week just to see how I felt. The first day was a little uncomfortable, but the others weren't bad. I'm calling myself back to normal now (or as normal as I get). __________________________________ Yesterday I posted a working tracking set of goals for the next month before our mission trip. I got to run for the first time in a month, and today I can't ...

At long last, I'm getting serious about tracking my workouts. I know, you've all been wondering and waiting with bated breath about it. I blog to serve. Here's what I'm thinking. I already do my weigh ins on Tuesday mornings and blog about that at some point on Tuesday. I think I'll do an entry on Mondays (hey, look! It's Monday now!) listing out what I did the previous 7 days. Or, that might be really boring so I'll do something else. Let's just play this by ear. Week of 6/11 to 6/18 Monday: [first workout since injury 3 weeks ago] elliptical, rolling hills setting, difficulty 4 (minimum) to 12 (maximum); 30 minutes; 420 cals Tuesday: elliptical, rolling hills setting, difficulty 4 (minimum) to 12 (maximum); 38 minutes; 475 cals Thursday: elliptical, rolling hills setting, difficulty 3 (minimum) to 10 (maximum); 40 minutes; 450 cals -- I wanted to see if I could increase my time without hurting. It worked, but I'd rather up the difficulty a...

Welcome to my new readers! Thank you, Katie's blog , for sending people my way. In case you were wondering, and to keep you from reading a bunch of blog posts to figure it out, the following is a list of why I decided to change to a Paleo/caveman/dino-food way of eating. Okay, I'm really doing this list for me, but you're welcome to read along! I am tired of measuring/weighing/counting my food intake. After a half-lifetime of dealing with calories or WW points, I'm just over it. It's a challenge. When I first learned about it, I was all "I can't give up...[fill in the blank]!!! Turns out, I can. I can pretty much do whatever I decide to do. But it's not particularly difficult. "In" and "out" foods are pretty straightforward. Once I wrapped my head around the fact that peanuts are legumes and not nuts, it was all easy from there. When I read a menu or a recipe, I immediately know whether it's Paleo friendly or not. And I can...

After almost three weeks of being sick and unable to work out, having no motivation to cook, and just general yuckiness, I'm finally on the mend. An extremely annoying doctor visit reminded me why I don't go to doctors, but at least I got some medicine that helps. I got to work out yesterday for the first time! I could only do 30 minutes on the elliptical but it was a good 430 calories that I needed to burn. If you saw yesterday's post, you know grocery shopping played a big part of my weekend, and this week I'm making lots of new Paleo food and trying new things. And the result? Down two pounds! Sweet! Especially after being stuck for a while. That puts my total at 25.5 pounds total loss. I've got five weeks to lose 4.5 more to hit my 30-pound goal. __________________________________ I was surprised at how scared I was about not working out for three weeks. After not missing many workouts all year, I was convinced this was going to derail me -- it would ...

I'm finally feeling better and can expend some energy on menus and food. Starting at 8am Saturday: Farmers Market #1 Farmers Market #2 Sam's WalMart Kroger And yes, I've already thought of something I forgot. Sigh. And this is the current state of my refrigerator: Does everyone's fridge look like this after grocery shopping? This doesn't count the cabbage, cauliflower, pineapple, jicama and limes that are still on the counter. I've got to get all the veggies cut up, and maybe that will keep me from feeling so stressed! If I do that at lunch today, maybe I can post an after picture. The top shelf has Paleo "cookup" labeled. I have a new cookbook that gives details on what to pre-cook once a week to keep from those panic nights of "I don't want to take an hour to cook!" Those two containers have my first Sunday cookup meats -- ground beef and grilled chicken to be used as needed through the week for lunches or a quick st...

I've had movies on the brain lately, and got this idea for writing about some of my favorite movies/books/TV shows from a "what can I learn from this" perspective. Notice the title doesn't say "Lessons I'VE Learned" -- that's because I don't think I've learned all this stuff yet! But, maybe it'll make me think about it again. Starting with one of my absolute favorites, The Shawshank Redemption . I can't guarantee no spoilers, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.   Life is not fair. Andy's not guilty of the crime, but convicted anyway. He gets proof of innocence, and it's taken away. No matter the surroundings, know that "fairness" is not the standard nor a guarantee. Deal with it. People in power may abuse it . Warden Norton, Captain Hadley, even the the "sisters" took the position of power and made life miserable for anyone they could. Figure out how to work around that, and don't become...

To keep from dragging this out -- not a good week. Not AWFUL, but not good. No loss (that's bad) but no gain (that's good). I'm so very frustrated that I haven't been able to work out at all for over two weeks now. That scares me more than anything -- since the beginning of the year, I've not gone more than 4 days in a row, usually over a weekend, without a decent workout. Now it's been 15 days and I still don't know when I'll be pain free and able to do something. Walking isn't even an option. I've done a little bit of water aerobics, but not enough to count. Grrrr. My fear is that I'll find it harder to get back in the routine more than it is about whether I can still run as far/long as before this break. I worked so hard to make sure the habit was there, that now I've broken that habit for far longer than is good for me. This was not how I wanted to start the summer. This is the time I could ramp it up, since my schedule frees ...