What's going on in my life.

School is almost over. Only 2 finals, 1 paper and 1 assignment is between me and graduation.

I didn't weigh myself today. As per my post last week, I'm not weighing myself until next Wednesday. I feel good, but I know I went over my calories two days in the past week, which is good. I'm focusing more on calories than points, and it's pretty great.

I've been going to the gym regularly again. On Sunday, I went to the gym for 1 1/2 hours, and walked/ran about 5 miles. This movie was on, and even though I'd seen it before, I didn't want to miss it, so I kept going.

I've been doing weights! This is huge for me, and I'm really enjoying them. I'd like to get a few more weights, but the Nike+ app for my iPhone is SUCH a huge help! I can do weights in the comfort of my own home.

My cousin had her baby! I'll be posting a picture later today. It's a boy - Colton Michael and he's precious! I stayed over with her in the hospital on Monday night and I'm having a tough time catching up on my sleep. Oh well, babies are SO worth it. Although this doesn't help my baby fever, but I can spoil her kids until I have my own, right?

I'll keep chugging along though, and keep an eye out for picture update tonight!

Another Exercise Victory!

For the first time in a loooooong time, I went to the gym after work yesterday. It was probably the first time since the first week of March. Yes, it's been that long. I wanted to start running again, so I looked up the couch-to-5K program. If you want to start running, and don't know how - this is the program for you. It took me 6 months to almost complete it last year, from May to the end of November, running my first 5K in December. Although I wasn't completed trained for it, I ran it anyway, and really thought I did my best.

When I went to the gym last night, I knew I wanted to run, I really want to become a runner, although I don't know when that takes place, or what the prequisites are. I'm determined, even if I never achieve the dream of running a marathon, I want to be a runner. Okay so I looked up the couch-to-5K plan, and I was going to start the whole program over and try to train myself to run faster, but I stepped on the treadmill with an open mind of what I was going to do.

I started walking, before I knew it I walked .5 mile. Okay, time to run. Now, when I first joined the gym, I "ran" at a speed of about 4.3 - yeah, not really running. I'm sure some of you walk at 4.3. In my defense I do have short legs.

Anyways, I started running after walking .5 mile. I thought I'd run about .25 and walk .5 and repeat. Nope, I ran .5! Another great thing though was that I can now run at the speed of 5.5 - that's huge for me! I actually got tired at one point and put the speed down to 5 and I couldn't do it, it was like an awkward run/walk/skip thing. I also ran 0.05 mile at 6! I know, I know, it's like 30 seconds, but still, that's something, right?!

The best part was I continued the pattern of running 1/2 mile and walking 1/4 mile 3 times for a total of a 3.3 miles! No, I lied, the best part was finishing up a 5K (3.1 miles) faster than the time of my actual 5K in December!!!

I was SO excited at this! I could have jumped, skipped and hollered out of the gym I was so excited. I beat my time by like 30 seconds, but still. Also, I took walk breaks, and not just for 1 minute, but for about 5 minutes because my walking speed was about 3.5. This is SO encouraging for me, I know that I can keep running now, and someday consider myself...

.....a RUNNER!

When did you first consider yourself a runner? What was your last "exercise victory"?

finally friday

Since this is my first full week back to work and school since everything happened with Pop Pop, I feel like this week has been so long! I'm rather happy that it's finally Friday!

I don't have a lot going on this weekend, but I am planning for some Super Girly Time with two of my besties from college. I don't get to see them much, and we need some catch-up time. Apparently both of them are on the verge of being in a relationship and I didn't know this! They wanted to tell me in person, and I saw a glimpse of one yesterday and she blurted it out--I was in shock! I've known these girls throughout college and we've seen each other through it all. They were the first I told when I got engaged and they were there through all the wedding planning.

Other than Super Girly Time, there will be some packing, some cleaning, a lot of cooking, and a lot of homework and maybe even a house showing?! Yes, you read that right, we might be buying a house!!! Mr. Skinny absolutely hates living in our apartment, and I get rather annoyed with it as well.

Reasons why?
-I have to climb 39 steps to get into the apt. This means any groceries, heavy bags, suitcases need to be drug up 39 steps.
-My kitchen is miniscule. No lie. I have about 10-12 inches of counterspace on either side of my sink and that's it. That's it people! I can't cook in those conditions.
-The dining room table is on the opposite end of the apartment.
-There's a creepy attic door that opens and closes when it's windy
-The whole building shakes when it's really windy
-There's no where near enough outlets. For example, our microwave, toaster over, toaster, coffeepot, lamp, cell phone chargers and television are all plugged into one outlet. Yeah, I know it's not safe, but what are we supposed to do?

We have been dreaming of buying a house for quite a long time, and went our driving around the neighborhood a few months ago, and found a house we really liked. Lo and behold, it's still for sale, and we still like it! It's a half of a duplex, but it has a nice yard. I think the best part is that there are only 3 steps to get in the house! 3 steps! That's so nice!

Mr. Skinny can't stand paying rent when we won't be getting anything out of it. I'm just not looking forward to packing everything up. I'm going to try to not get my hopes up though, if for some reason we can't get it, I don't want to be so upset. We haven't even seen any houses yet, we just got the pre-approval and started looking at houses online. God will lead us to the right decision, whatever it is.

Oh! Last night I went to a spinning class, it was really great. If you remember, I went to one in January and didn't like it. This one was a lot better. The instructor was nice, plus it was great to actually know someone in the class. I think I might actually stick to this class!

Happy Friday!

WI wednesday

I lost 0.2 pounds this week. I know why (I think), and I know a loss is a loss. I know. I just started working out again on Saturday after a near 3 week hiatus. I tracked everything that I ate, and mostly accurately I think. I'm hoping that it was just my muscles retaining water once I started working out again. I ate all my WPs, but none of my APs (I earned 23), but tried to eat my APs (as WPs) on the day that I earned them, does that make sense?

From the week that I had lost 2.4 pounds I ate all my points, WPs and APs and had a huge loss. As a result of that week, I thought that I am one of those people that needs to eat all their points. Now from this week, I'm not sure. So what do I do? Should I try to eat all my points again, following the week that I had a big loss and chalk my small loss up to my muscles retaining water? Or should I try to eat less, maybe half my WPs and see what that does?

What would you do?

We'll be home again this weekend, so I can stay OP pretty easily and keep getting my hiney to the gym. I already have a date with a friend for a cycling class tomorrow night. I have my gym clothes with me at work and I'm planning on doing W1D2 of my couch-to-10k training after work tonight. I'm also planning on getting up at 5am again tomorrow and doing yoga, which I really enjoyed yesterday morning.

My goal this month is to get back into yoga, and I'm aiming for April's goal to be weights. I finished reading "The New Rules of Lifting for Women" and really liked the book.

Have any of you read it and done the program?

I bought and read it on my Nook though, and would like to get the book as a real book so I can take it to the gym with me. I'm kind of excited to do weights though. Hopefully I can figure out how to finagle my way around the weights at the gym. I'll get up in the morning and specifically go just so I can have the least amount of people there.

What is it about weights that scare women off? How do you deal with that?

Really, I guess that only way to deal is to suck it up. I wish I had friends around so we could buddy up and hit the gym together, but I'm a loner.

Okay, rambling post over. Happy Hump Day!

... and we're back to the gym

After my near 3 week hiatus from the gym, mostly within good reason, if I do say so myself, I stepped foot back into my gym yesterday morning. It. Was. Glorious. It felt so good to put my running sneakers on again, and with my hiatus, I thought that I would find a training program to follow to start running again. I search through my good friend Google to see what I can find.

I've seriously been slacking on the running, I would go to the gym and do a mixture of the treadmill, elliptical and bike for about 35min - 1 hr depending on how I felt and how much time I had to spend. I found a couch to 10k training plan that someone from Spark People had come up with for a 13 week plan to get me from barely running to a 10k. It looked half decent, so I printed it out and studied week 1, day 1 before I went to the gym.

The plan: 5 min. warmup walk, run 1 min, walk 2 min. and repeat 8 times. Finish up with a 5 minute cool down. I hopped in the car, drove to the gym, not knowing if it would be crowded or not at 11am on Saturday morning. The parking lot wasn't too bad, but I didn't know what I would find inside. I decided that I would be flexible with my gym plan since I didn't have much to do all day. As I walked in there was a guy I recognize. Mr. doesn't-wipe-off-his-machines, curses-and-talks-to-himself-loudly-and-openly, not-so-nice guy. Sigh. I know we're not supposed to judge, but I really don't like him. Well, anyways, I walked in, technically before him, and see that there's only 1 treadmill left. I was nice, and didn't feel like listening to him yell. I jumped on the bike, and let him take the treadmill.

Like I said, I had time, and hadn't been to the gym in awhile. I was on the bike for about 20 minutes, and a treadmill was open, so I made sure that the person on the treadmill was done, hopped off my bike and onto the treadmill. Instead of a 5 minute warm up walk, I did a 10 minute walk. I did all my runs/walks and even ran at a 6.0mph pace! I know that it was only for 1 minute, but that's another reason why I want to start running all over again, to train myself to run faster.

Anyhow, I finished my session, but wanted to keep walking. I like to burn an exact number of calories so that I know exactly how many APs I deserve. I finished up with a 4.14 mile run/walk and burning nearly 800 calories between the bike and the treadmill. You better believe that I ate them all yesterday, too. I had cheese fries, 2 hot dogs (no bun, and they were light hot dogs) and it was glorious. I reached all my GHGs yesterday, too! So proud of myself.

Today, if I can convince DH to get off his recliner, we're going to walk down to the tennis courts and play some tennis! We haven't done that in forever, and I'm really excited to exercise together again. I miss it!

Hope you're having a fantastic weekend!

a weekend recap

The plan was to stay OP this weekend, and while I did, my plan changed. My friend didn't come over on Friday night. The truth be told, I told her that Mr. Skinny was sick at work and she might not want to come over. Call me a rotten friend, but we found out Mr. Skinny wasn't working late Friday night, and wasn't working at all on Saturday, so we wanted to have a date night. Some date night, grocery shopping and a Walmart run, oh so fun. That's what happens once you get married I suppose. I still did get Chinese, but I stuck to my original foods that I tracked and was good with that.

Once Mr. Skinny found out that he wasn't working Saturday, we gave my cousin/almost sister the option of coming to our apt. still, or we could go to their house. Of course, we went to their house. Her husband and son are both homebodies and would rather stay home. So we went there yesterday morning, and just got home about an hour ago. We had a good time, made lasagna last night, and I had too much of that. I would have rather have thrown up or had it come out the other end than feel how I felt last night. Oh my word, it was terrible. I haven't felt like that ever, I think, and it was a real eye opener. It showed me that I can't eat that much food anymore, and hopefully taught me not to do it again.

Other than that, I did okay, food wise, this weekend. I roughly tracked what I could, and still have about 20 WPs left, and I haven't even touched my APs yet. Hopefully that means I'll have a good loss this week.

Once my sports bra is finished drying, I'm planning on going to the gym and pounding out a good 4 miles or so on the treadmill. I need to get back into working out on a regular basis. Granted, school is starting this week, and it's going to take me awhile to find a balance between school, work, homework and working out. I'm not sure how that's going to work out, but I'll find it and it'll be okay.

Okay, I'm going to find a way to dry my sports bra faster, I need to get to the gym. I'm nervous for school to start and I think I'm going to take it out on the treadmill.

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How was your weekend? Anything upcoming that you're anxious about?

WI wednesday

Yes, I changed it again. The sad, pitiful reason why? I didn't like what I saw on the scale yesterday. I will find a good day to WI. I think I'll keep it on Wednesday now. If I have a terrible weekend, I have 2 days to drink enough water and eat enough fruits/veg to counteract what I can. I should be able to keep some WPs for my weekends if I need them, and honestly, I'm trying to use a few everyday rather than all 49 of them for one meal.

Anyhow, I lost again. Down to 158.6. Not too bad, but not the greatest. Looking back, I'm not sure why it wasn't a better loss. I know, I know, any loss is a good loss, but I didn't eat all my WPs. The only thing is that I didn't get to the gym as much as did the week before. That's this week's goal, to get back to the gym. Even if I only go for 20 minutes, I need to go everyday. And if I don't go to the gym, I can do a yoga video. There is no reason why I can't at least do yoga. I really miss yoga, I need to get back into a habit to go to the yoga classes at my gym. They offer them, why can't I just get myself to go? I think it's the new class jitters. I'm afraid I'll be left out, feel odd, awkward, whatever.

At least the scale is moving the right way, right? And I had a decent loss. I *will* get my butt to the gym today, tomorrow, Friday AND Saturday. No excuses! I *will* get back to earning APs and getting my GHGs in everyday.

On a side note, classes start next Tuesday. Blah. I am not looking forward to them, but it's my last semester, and it shouldn't be too hard. I'd just love to fast forward to when I'm a mommy and I have to take care of my children, and cook and clean - that would be so fantastic.

Happy Hump Day!

my first gym class

Yep, that's right - I went to a class at the gym. I went to spinning last night from 6:30-7:30. It was.... awkward. There were only 9 of us, including the instructor. I was the only newbie. Seriously, it's the week after New Years and I'm the *only* one with a NYR of going to more classes at the gym? There were two teenagers there, and both were with their moms. The other women, including the instructor, were in the 40s or 50s. They were all in a conversation, I felt totally out of the loop.

The class was hard! I know that it's supposed to be, but my bike seat was tilted downward, so I kept sliding down and having to pick my butt off the seat and move it back. That resulted in my crouch/butt area killing me today! My thighs are pretty sore, too, but not as sore as I thought I'd be. I'm not sure that I'd go back. I burned a heck of a lot of calories though - 830 in the one hr. class, so I was pretty stoked about that.

Tonight is kickboxing and pilates, and while I'd love to do both, I'd really love to just do my running tonight on the treadmill, and I'm not going to be a gym rat and stay at the gym for 3+ hrs. I refuse. I have to make dinner, and my husband's lunch for tomorrow. And do dishes. And laundry. Maybe next week I'll skip the spinning class, run on Tuesday, and do kickboxing and/or pilates on Wednesday. 1 or 2 new classes a week sound pretty good to me. Hopefully once the month is over I'll find new classes that I love and will continue with, and I'll come up with a solid WO schedule.

Next week I'm going to start up my yoga/strength training routine in the morning. I've gotten up at 6am yesterday and this morning. Tomorrow and Friday I'll get up at 5:45am, in preparation for my waking up at 5:30am next week. I'll do either 30 minutes of yoga, or 30 minutes of strength training according to SparkPeople, and start to tone up my body. *fingers crossed*

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How was your experience when you went to your first gym class? Have you continued with anything?

WI tuesday

I gained - again. I'm up to 163.2 and I've realized something; I've become comfortable with this number. First of all, this is not a good thing, I've just been so incredibly used to seeing these low 160s that it doesn't shock me when I step on the scale and that's what it says. I'm a little bummed that I got down to 160.8 for 2 weeks and blew it away, but this is a journey, not a race. I will kick the butt of the 160s and finally meet up with the 150s again, but hopefully not for too long. I don't want to get too friendly with them. I hope to break-up in about 2 months :) just in time for my birthday!

My first day back OP went very well yesterday, other than the few crackers I had, and a piece of cheese. BTW - did you know that light American Cheese is 0p+? Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Makes my egg sandwiches come down in p+! I'm continuing my cycle 2 of OP to overcome and I will rock this!

Last night I went to the gym after work and for whatever reason, my shin splints are coming back! Ugh! I thought I was over these. Mr. Skinny thought that maybe I needed new shoes, but these sneakers are only 6 months old, and it's not like I run tons of miles in them. I do want to get fitted for real running shoes, but I want that to be a goal - I need things to get me motivated. Or I was going to do it when I started half-marathon training, which I don't think is going to happen anymore. I feel like I need to do C25K again before I bother half-marathon training. I want to comfortably run 3 miles a few times a week, then I'll thinking about conquering that 13.1 miles.

Anyways, I'm going to a cycling class tonight. I'm kind of nervous, but I know that I can do it. I'm not likley to be the heaviest one in the class, or the only newbie. Tomorrow I might do kickboxing and pilates, I'm pretty excited. If I don't like the class, I don't have to go back. It's as simple as that.

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How long do your running shoes last? What are your favorite classes at the gym?

falling off the wagon?

It's been a while since I blogged, so this post is a little all over the place. I apologize in advance.

I know I'm falling off the wagon, and I'm okay with it. I weighed myself on Monday morning - just to see where I was after my long, food filled weekend, and I was up at 161.4 - my last WI was 160.8, not too shabby! I knew that some of that wasn't a true gain, with sodium and not drinking water, I figured I haven't really gained anything. I was off work on Monday, and when I'm home, I don't really eat, so I didn't track. Yesterday, we went out to eat with a co-worker who is retiring and I ate wayyy too much fried food. So much fried food that I'm still feeling it - food hangovers suck. With all the fried food, I just didn't track. Today I could track, but what's one day of tracking worth? Forget it, not worth it, since I'll just be off again tomorrow.

I will be weighing myself tomorrow to see the damage from all that gross fried food. Why does fried food have to be SO delicious? Anyways, enough about the fried food. I *will* be back on track come January 3rd. I *will* start working out again regularly. And I *will* start loosing weight again.

I did go to the gym yesterday - I wasn't sleeping well anymore. Oh man, I slept like a rock last night. It felt so good. I'm going to be going back to the gym today and hopefully sleep like a rock again tonight and sleep in late tomorrow because I took the day off! It's amazing how exercise really changes your life. I'm slowly getting used to eating healthy and working out. I can tell how different my body feels and when I slip into old habits, how terrible my body feels. Hopefully this is a change for the good. I have high hopes for 2011.

Oh, by the way, Christmas was good. I got a nook, which was awesome. I ate a lot of good food, not so healthy, but good food. There was a little snow involved on the ride to take my sister-in-law home, but we got out of that. Another awesome present I got? My brand new MACBOOK! I've wanted one of these babies for so long! We got a Best Buy credit card and got it interest free for 24 months - I can't say no to that. So I crossed that off my 101 in 1,001 list! :) After January 1st though, we're done spending money! We have to come up with a strict budget and save money if we ever want to have kids or buy a house.

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How was your holidays?

Finals update & Weekend Plans

Oh yes, it's that time of year - finals time. I took my first final yesterday, Old Testament, and I'm pretty sure I got a really good grade. If I got about a 90 or above, I'll finish the class with an "A" which would be fabulous! Now I'm down to 3 more finals, all tomorrow, and a 4 page paper to write. Ugh. My plan was to leave early from work today and go home, go to the gym quick, and write my paper. I can't wait to this weekend.

Mr. Skinny and I will be married for one year on the 27th, and we're going to Hershey Park this weekend to celebrate our anniversary early. Since our real anniversary isn't on a weekend, and it's Christmas weekend, we'll just go a week early. I'm so excited though, but Mr. Skinny has to work on Saturday, so we won't be going as early as I would have liked. But its still a weekend away. We're going to get dinner and watch a Holiday Musical, go see the lights, and I think on Sunday we'll be going to the park to walk around and see the lights, and maybe ride some rides. I'm pretty excited.

With finals this week, I haven't been going to the gym like I should. I think I'll go Friday after work, and hopefully Saturday morning, too. Starting next week, I might start going to classes after work. I'll be back to full time next week at my job for 5 days, so no more going to the gym first thing in the morning, I'll probably stick to going every day or almost every day, and hopefully in the morning, I'll get up and either do yoga or strength training from Spark People. That's my ideal goal. We'll see how well that works out, considering that it is so cold in the morning.

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What do you do for your anniversary?

WI Friday

I lost! I lost 2 pounds and I'm quite excited. I snuck a peek on Wednesday (bad idea) and was at 163 - meaning I'd maintained, but I hopped on the scale this morning and lo and behold, it said 161! Yay! This is the first SV I've had in a while, thank you new plan. I'm still determined to get in the 150's by Christmas, maybe even a little beyond the 150s.. like 155 or something, but I know that's pushing it.

Now that I joined the gym, I can definitely work out 5x week. I already have it planned out to go to the gym Monday, Wednesday and Friday after work, and Tuesday and Thursday before school, well until I'm back to work full time. Then I don't know what I'm going to do. I should get up every morning at the same time, if I don't then I slack off the mornings that I should get up at 5:30. Maybe I'll do strength training on Tuesday/Thursdays and yoga on Mondays/Wednesdays. I'm not going to lie, I give myself Fridays to "sleep in" until 6:15, since I don't have to get up early the next day.

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What's your work-out schedule?

Joined a gym, but I'm scuuured

Woo Hoo! I get to cross another thing off my 101 list! I went and joined a gym today! It's been something I've been waiting to get the "okay" from my financial adviser husband, meaning he does the bills. I got the okay, and away I went today.

I'm nervous and excited. I feel like I won't fit in, or I'll look too fat to be on the treadmill, running, or on the elliptical. It also comes with a few personal training sessions, and I'm nervous that I'm too weak. I know this is all in my head, but it's the truth. I want to go to pilates, and spinning and yoga, but I'm nervous about meeting new people and not fitting in. It's the little kid in my coming out.

Since one of my 101 things is to photograph what I could, here are my photos :)

I got a little muscle going, right?

Me and the 12 month contract

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How did joining your first gym go?