The First Thing I See

I had a good workout today, my calves & shins have been really bothering me (silly me won’t stay away from the beach where the sand re irritates my shins), so a strength days was needed.  The breeze was night today & I worked really hard, I tried to use my 8 pound weight more than my 6. It was a good workout.

I have noticed in the past week or so that the first thing I think when I look in a mirror now is not “I’m fat”, it’s now “I look pretty”. Not to sound conceded with saying that, but I am one of those people that I like how I look. I can now start to see the difference I have made with my weight, with my hard work. I am still not satisfied with my body, but I sure am a happier girl.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

I measured myself yesterday and even though I only just broke my weight plateau of about 5 weeks and only lost 4.2 pounds this month my measurement showed that I really did work hard this past month. Here is how I did:

                                April's Loss             Total Loss

Neck                        -.25”                      -1.25”

Arms                        -.25”                      -1”

Bust                         -1”                          -5.25”

Waist                       -1.5”                      -6.75”

Stomach                   -1.5”                      -6.5”

Hips                         -2.25”                    -9”

Butt                          -2”                        -5.5”

Thighs                     -.5”                         -3.25”

I finished my week two of the Couch to 5K training today, it felt good but I sure am worried about moving on to week 3. A 3 minute steady run may seem like nothing but to me it is a ton. I have never been able to run more than a minute straight, even in high school, nor walk/run a mile in a healthy time. I am a firm believer that runners are made not born & I am just a bit of a late bloomer, LOL. Other than that the weekend was good, I feel like my eating was not as bad as it could have been and I did not drink. A beer or glass of wine or two (or three, or four, depending on the situation) at least one weekend night is pretty normal around our house. This week I plan to enter in all my points Monday thru Friday into my Weight Watchers points calculator.

I am going to do well this week.

W2D2

A few of my muscles I worked on Tuesday are still a little sore so I decided to run again today & strength train tomorrow. So I finished my day two of week two, it was tough but I did it & it didn’t kill me. Here is a fitting picture for today.

Running Backwards W2D1 C25K

I am coming to terms with understanding that this couch to 5K journey is going to be an eventful one. :) Today I had everything ready to go, I fixed my favored timer app, had my music set, I’ve been really pampering my shin splints, I’ve been doing everything I can to push past my cold & the weather was beautiful, I was headed out for my first day of week 2, looking forward to the challenge. Challenge is what I got; I didn’t realize I programmed a 3 minute warm up timer until I was 2.5 minutes into running it & thinking “this 90 seconds is killing me!” No big deal right, I would just adapt & walk the remaining 30 seconds then walk the upcoming 90 second jogging cycle then jog the walking cycle since this week was 90 sec jog/90 sec walk. Wrong. This week was 90 sec jog followed by a 2 minute recouping walk. I kept wondering why my timer wasn’t matching up with my watch & why 90 seconds seemed to be so much harder than 60 seconds, which I jogged fairly easy last week. I pushed hard and did my best to stay on track with the training schedule though. Then it all dawned on me to verify the times. So the last 2 cycles of jogging I got everything back on track with the correct plan & finished up.

I have to say I am proud of myself though for doing my best & really pushing hard to complete today’s backwards training. I am hoping that day 2 of week 2 done properly will be easy breezy compared to today. I am also proud of myself today because it is Secretary’s Day and my boss and a co-worker got me a cup full of candies (that will probably go to Landen) and offered to take me to lunch if I wanted as well, I declined because I would rather continue spending my lunch break exercising. I didn’t take the easy way out or a day off to go eat, I made the healthy, dedicated decision & he fully understood. I may have a little glass of wine to celebrate myself tonight though. I think I deserve it today.

W1D3 C25K

I am starting to feel that something is against me in this C25K training. Today again was a struggled success, my timer app removed itself from my phone, but luckily I had more than one kind downloaded to try a few, so I just programed a different one. I didnt like this one nearly as much you really had to pay attention to the clicking & I couldnt listed to music over it. Oh well. The crazy Florida weather and decided to play a trick on those of us who were getting use to the warm weather, it was around 55-60F out and super windy, not real ideal for the cold I am now battling. All complaining aside though, my lungs didnt completely fail me today, they made it a little harder than normal but over all I finished my week 1, day 3! On to week 2 if this cold subsides or at least doesnt get any worse.

W1D2 C25K

I had no complications today, I got outside before the rain and my phone worked as my interval timer and tunes. I didnt die either! I had to push myself, reminding myself that 60 seconds would be over quicker than I knew it, and it usually was, I did well and finished the whole program today successfully today. I am looking at moving to week two with optimism.

My Arms are Noodles

Today was my strength training day. I look forward to these the most, it is easy to see my progress when I can do more reps or a new harder exercise, or for the old ones to get easier. Push-up are one of my favorite pushing and bragging points, when I started and as far back as I could remember I could never do  even one modified (on my knees) push-up. I am now working on doing regular (on my feet) push-up, and today I did 5, and then did another 20 modified push-ups. Planks are another huge pushing point, I have been doing planks for 30 seconds on my forearms and today I cranked out 45 seconds in full push-up position!!!! I’m darn proud of myself today! I tried not to over work my legs since I am pushing myself on the Couch to 5K and running is hard for me, but boy, do my arms feel like noodles. Feeling good.