Winner, winner chicken dinner!

I feel like I came back from Vegas a winner!  I didn't win any money, and I didn't loose vast amounts of weight, but I walked for 40 mins at least twice a day... that's almost an hour and  a half of walking at the bare minimum.  On the scale I think I will either break even or have a small gain, because my clothes feel the same, if not baggier in the ass... but... buns of steel always happen when I walk on vacation :)

Because we had a kitchen in our resort condo, we ate in there for lunch/brunch and only ate out once a day.  A few times we ate out twice and one of the meals we tried to split between the two of us to save on $$ and calories. 

I have food pictures!  I will start posting them tonight.  I was going to post them while on vacation, but between walking, touring, sight seeing, roller coasters, eating out, going to bed late and getting up early, I was too pooped out to do more than watch TV and drink water when we were in the condo....

Pictures to follow and official weigh-in is on Wednesday morning!

Stay tuned :)

One step forward, one step back... rinse and repeat

Weigh in this morning has my weight back up to 236.2.  I could stomp my feet, hold my breath and whine about it until the cows come home, but that's really not going to help anyone :)

It's the week before vacation, I'm excited about leaving and doing all the wonderful things we have planned.  We seem to have a pretty heavy social calendar this week, which I will make mental note that we really shouldn't do that before leaving, but certain things like softball playoffs can't be helped.

I need to get in at least one run this week before we leave, I haven't run since last Thursday and it's weighing on my mind... hahaha and on my scale :)  I'll take the poundage hit this week without too much self hatred and kind of lump it into "vacation mode" but it just fuels me more to make sure I run while we are away.

As it stands I may have more alone time on the trip that I thought I'd be able to have since there are several early morning poker tournaments.  Tentatively I've booked myself to run Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings when the boys are off gambling.  Hopefully while they loose money, I'll loose weight LOL

One bright shinning light of optimism:  I've realized that packing technical wicking shirts is even better than traditional cotton t-shirts:  they are wrinkle free, pack really small, can be used for sightseeing and exercise equally.  Which leaves more room in my bag if I want to buy cotton souvenir t-shirts and I also get to take a much smaller bag, which means less lugging of luggage :)  Yay for the silver lining!

Vegas Baby!

So you're probably not going to hear much from me in the next two weeks because we're going on vacation in Vegas!  Sin City!  I'm not a gambler, I prefer to shop and have bags of stuff to bring home for my money :)  My main sin while i'm in Sin City is usually eating badly and drinking lot's of slushie drinks NOM NOM NOM  *ahem* sorry i'm getting carried away already.

My plan to stay on track is to bring my running gear and get in some kms while we are there... along with some middle of the road food choices that are not too decadent.  That way, I'm hoping that I'll still be able to have a good time and not totally fall off the wagon and get dragged behind it for several miles LOL  We'll have a full kitchen and there is a shuttle to a grocery store, so we can have most breakfasts and lunches in the room, which i'm really excited about... i'll get to see how many extra Weight Watchers products that are available in the US :)

My goal is to break even, it's a big gamble to hope that a bit of exercise (if I manage to get up early and do it) and some decent food choices (if I manage to find any) will work out for me.  This gamble is also compounded by the fact that I'm not taking my Iphone with me (don't want the roaming charges) and I won't have my easy peesy tracking tool with me.  I may try and track stuff on paper (always have a notebook in my purse) but if you're mainly eating out of restaurants and you can't measure your own food and know if they've cooked those "seasonal veggies" in a pound of butter or not, then who the hell knows how many points are in what??

I really love how one of my fave bloggers (http://www.loserforlife.com/) posts pictures of everything (and I mean everything) she eats to stay on track and accountable.  She says that if she's unwilling to show people what she wants to eat, then she shouldn't eat it. period.  end of story.  Maybe I can just use my camera and snap pics of what I eat, so that if it gets too embarrassing (50 pounds of wings and 2 pitchers of beer all to myself) than i'll probably think twice before I go ahead and eat it, if I know that someone will look at the evidence of my gluttony.... besides, pictures would be way faster than writting it down :)

We're supposed to have wi-fi access in the room, I'm not gonna hold my breath, but if we do, I'll try and at least post my food pics!

Wish me luck!  Not in gambling, but in gambling with my food/exercise and hopefully I can at least break even cause that poor horse on my horseback ride is counting on it!  LOL

Pictures!

Since i absolutely have to put up some pictures of the Great Raisin River Footrace on August 8th, I decided I'd get off my ample buttocks and post a few other pics at the same time.  I aspire to be one of those bloggers that puts up pictures everyday and I think to achieve that I'd have to purchase and carry and extra Iphone cable with me everywhere hehehe but it's a doable!

On with the pictures!  I think I'll post oldes stuff first.. leading up to the run pictures:

Picture of me from February 2010

Picture of me with my rented treadmill in February 2010

My new bike!  Gift from me to me after I ran the May 2010 5km race in Ottawa

Got my hair chopped in June, got it cut even shorter on the sides a few days later :)

Running towards the finish!  My finish time was 44:44

This is the whole gang of us that ran the 5km on August 8th, 2010 in Williamstown, Ontario GO PEEPS!

That's all i've got for now :)  Next I really wanted to take a new picture with me in that white running shirt and paste it next to the original pic that is on my profile for this blog so that you can see the difference.  I also want to finish my big bathroom mirror of ambitious things that I want and post up a picture.  More pictures to come peeps!

Raisin Run, weigh-in and big bathroom mirrors

This past Sunday August 8th was the annual Great Raisin River Footrace, which was held in Williamstown, Ontario.  It's less than an hours drive away from Ottawa, nice little place and they were having their fair on the same weekend as the race.  Good idea since i'd probably never have gone to the fair if there was no race :P

It was your typical small country fair with crafts, preserves, quilts, horses and a footrace for added fun.  I was told there were about 1000 runners registered for the 11km and 5km races.  The day started off gloomy with a bit of a chill, we went to the local high school and picked up our race bibs and our ankle bracelet timing chip thingy and made a pit stop in the washrooms.  Then we drove over to the fair grounds, got parked in the field/parking lot and wadered towards the big red barn that was the focal point of the fair. The start/finish line was next to the barn and it had metal fencing on either side to ensure the runners could go through easily to get their chip time recorded when going over the electronic mats.

While we were standing around waiting and finding more and more people we know from the Running Room, lot's of recognizable faces, it started to rain.  Boooo!  Now normally I would have been happy with rain, but it was just cool enough that my hands were starting to get cold.  So standing there in my thin tech shirt and knee length yoga pants made me worry about getting too cold, but I figured I'd warm up a lot while running so hopefully it would balance out.  Just before our 9 the rain stopped.. YAY

Last minute there was a change of plans for the 5km racers.... we were supposed to start at 9am and then the 11km group were going to start 5 minutes after us, but I guess last year it caused some traffic jams when the 11km people (who are must faster) kept trying to get around us slow runners at the back.  So they decided that our 5km group would walk down the end of the road where the red barn road turns to the left and we would stand to the right of the bend and watch the 11km runners go by at 9am and then our group would depart at 9:05.  It worked out great!  We got to see a pretty large group of runners coming straight towards us and then they turned to their left while we cheered them on with hoots, hollers and lots of applause.  I think it helped them because they were all grinning like they ate the canary :P

I didn't hear the master of ceremonies tell us to go (apparently there was a countdown) I just took off when I realised we were on the move.  Lynn and myself had placed ourselves at the back because we know we run slow and it was a good idea because we didn't want to get trampled hehehe  It was a good race, first 10 minute stretch was a bit tough, felt stiff and tired, but the first 10 minutes always seems evil.  While I was running the race I kept wondering if I felt any faster, if I felt better at what I was doing and I couldn't honestly answer yes to any of those questions for sure.  If there were improvements they were too subtle to measure from the May race weekend to August.  I took heart that in the practice 5km we did during our clinic that I'd run in 45:42 or something like that, which was an improvement on my 47:36 of race weekend.  At one point I kind of whinned to Lynn and said "when will doing the 5km feel any easier??"  On the last 2.5 km stretch I just wanted to stop and sit down for some reason... just cranky I guess LOL  I was really hoping that I was faster, but I felt slower, I felt less efficient and I felt a bit sore too....So I concentrated on my running form, roll from the heel to the toes, tuck in the abs and pelvis, pump the arms and breathe!  I should have concentrated the whole way like that because my final race time was 44:44 !!!  YAY!  New personal best. :D

After the race, we walked around the fair, I got a piece of skor cheesecake as a celebratory snack.  We were going for a BBQ at Linda's for supper, so I figured small breakfast, cheesecake for lunch and then BBQ hopefully the points would even out hehehe.  Today I weighed in at more than I was on Friday, remember I was saying I was happy to be back at my pre course weight?  yeah, well it went up over the weekend and back down yesterday/today, but officially I'm down to close to pre-course weight.  I have a feeling i'm going to go up and down several times in the 230's before I can squeeze into the 220's.

I am thankfull for large bathroom mirrors.  This is not me going crazy, I have a point that is fitness, weight and life goals related with that statement.  In my last post I spoke about how Pam had been our motivational speaker before running class and how she made her lists, her realistic and tangible goals.  So over the last few days, while relaxing and watching TV, I decided to take my craft skills and make myself a nice list with stencils and notecards.  First I typed out a list of life goals and a list of things I want.  Life goals were harder to list, but I settled on these:

I want out of life:
- Goal Weight
- Be an Athlete
- Be a running instructor
- Write/Publish a book
- Plastic Surgery

Then because there were still things I wanted that weren't things that I wanted to be, but things I wanted to have, I made the second list:

Things I want:
- Garmin watch
- Size 18 pants
- To be less than 220
- Run the 5km in <42 minutes
- Fit into my brand new never worn blue winter coat (size XL)
- Fin into my leather jacket (size 1X, but feels like XL)

I also made extra cards for Size 16 pants, < 210, <200, 5km in <40, 5km in <38,  so that when I acheive the first goal, I can check mark it and go towards the next goal.

As you can see from the list and the size of a regular recipe card, I'm happy that I have a huge bathroom mirror LOL

I have some pics from the Raisin Race and I think I'll take pics of my bathroom mirror, since it looks so cool.  I'll try and remember to wear clothes when I take the mirror picture... since it's in front of the mirror LOL

Fly by the seat of your pants Friday

Well hello everybody!  I'm happy to report that my weight is already back down to my pre training-week-fiasco weight. 233.2 on the scale this morning wooohooo!  So that was a 3 pounds on and 3 pounds off fairly quick in my opinion... now to get down below 232 and head to those 220's like planned.

I'm not sure what I will do to celebrate 100 pounds lost (when I reach 219) but it's gonna have to be something good... something that I will wear or look at everyday to remind myself how far I've come and how hard I've worked.  Ideas anyone?  Is this mike on? *tap, tap, tap*  LOL

Last night before my running class we had a great guest speaker.  Her name was Pam, she's 61 and she used to be over 320 pounds and used to work for one of the government departments until her retirement.  She's like me, but 20 years-ish older:  I used to be over 320 pounds and I work for the same department as she did :)  Her session was about Motivation, not about weight loss, but it's unavoidable to talk about weight loss when you've lost over 150 pounds... wow, I was quite impressed.  Her topic focused on motivation, and she said the way she motivated herself (with the help of a great doctor) was to write a list of things she wanted to be or accomplish. 

Her first list was something like this:

- I don't want to be really fat anymore
- I don't want to be unappreciated anymore
- I don't like the townhouse I live in
- I don't want to be invisible anymore
etc etc.

Her doctor said it was a great start, but that he list wasn't good enough.  He wanted her to write down positive things, because her list has a lot of negatives in it (unappreciated) and they needed to be tangible, reachable goals.

I can't remember her second list very well, but her final list was something like this:

- I want to be healthy
- I want to live in a mansion
- I want to be published (article in magazine)
- I want to win a medal
- I want to get flowers from a handsome man

Already you can see the trend of the positive thinking, no more "I don't want" and all about the "I want".  Over the following few years she lost 150 pounds, she started walking/running and won a medal in her age category, she had several articles published about her journey to getting healthier, she bought a new house (slight tweak from mansion, but it feels like a mansion to her) and finally after she had her tummy tuck from loosing all that weight, her handsome personal trainer came over with flowers when she was recovering from the surgery.

Her journey isn't over, she's struggling with the last 30 pounds and she has come to another conclusion; she's only struggling because she believes she's let herself subconsciously decide that where she is now is good enough.  She believes that because of that and not wanting to reach her goal "enough" she's self sabotaging herself without even knowing it.  She said the key is to want something so much that you'll do almost anything to get it and at that point my brain made the *TING* sound (in my head of course) which of course signals an "Aha!" moment, and no I don't mean the band Aha LOL  The reason that bell went off for me is because it solidified the idea in my head that has been forming slowly for the last year or so.  Success is about motivation for sure, but it's also about dedication and sacrificing the immediate pleasure, for the long term goal.  Which is something I pretty much already knew, but the part I hadn't clicked on yet, was the fact that I'm capable of doing that, the fact that I've done it before.

I thought back to the things that I've accomplished that are non weight related and thought about how I felt about those accomplishments.  For example, when I went back to school at 32 years old to get my IT diploma, did I want to succeed and get a promotion at work?  You're damn right I did!  And what did I do to accomplish that?  I dedicated myself to studying really hard and I sacrificed some short term pleasure by going on a very strict budget while I was at school to help pay for everything.  The end result was that I graduated with honors, I became an IT technician level 1, which was a promotion from my administrative assistant type job, 4 years afterwards I became an IT technician level 2 and in September I'm applying for a level 3 position....  I graduated in 2004, which means that I potentially have gone to 4 levels of promotion in 6 years.  I wanted it, and I wanted it bad.

Now thoughts turn to weight loss.  I wanted to complete a 5km race.  I wanted it bad.  I worked at it for a year and finished with a 47:36 race time.  I want to complete another 5km race this coming Sunday with a 45 minute race time.  I want it bad.  I will get it, I already got it in the practice runs.  So what is stopping or slowing me from the success of weight loss?  Is it because I'm not dedicated?  I am, but I think I could be even more dedicated to the eating plan.  Is it because I'm not sacrificing enough?  I am, but obviously not enough.

I'm not doing enough.  Why am I not doing enough?  FEAR.

Fear?  You scardey cat of the little points measuring system?  You scardey cat of sweating a bit?

Nobody every drowned in their own sweat and nobody ever goes on Weight Watchers for eating too many carrots.

So what's the dealio?  Come on, spit it out!

I'm afraid of success
I'm afraid of getting to goal weight
I'm afraid of being in a place I've never been before
I'm afraid of the number 150 on the scale
I'm afraid of feeling like I'm not me anymore, afraid that the image in my minds eye will shatter
I'm afraid of things that I can't even formulate into words to put here, it's just a nameless emotion, almost like a feeling of being in a dingy in the middle of the ocean with no oars to move you around and just floating around forever.
I'm just plain afraid.

I'm not sure how to fix it, I just know that as time goes on, as I keep running with the groups, listening to the guest speakers, trying new things like spinning and learning as much as I can that slowly I will figure out how to deal with the fear.  I need to figure out how to conquer it because let's face it.... I can probably get to goal eventually in the long run, someday, but staying there and maintaining will be the hardest part of all if that fear is still with me.

I need to train myself to want it... to want it bad, badder and baddest of all.

Heaving myself back onto the wagon

So I gained weight while I was on training... that was pretty much a given and totally expected.  But was it worth it you ask?  Nope not at all.  The food that I inhaled was not super yummy homemade like your Mom makes can't leave it on the plate kinda food.  It was just free food.  I let the idea of free food get to that part of my brain that likes free stuff.  It wasn't free at all, I'm totally paying for it and it wasn't even good food. 

Bottom line is that I'm not going to crank up a pity party just for me.... I'm just going to heave and haul my ass back up on to the wagon and start truckin' in the right direction :)

I'm down 2 pounds from what I had gained, but I'm still almost a full 3 pounds above what I was the week before.  I'm sure this won't be the last time I gain, but next time, I'm going to hope that it's not as big of a gain.