Humidity.

Wow, it's muggy out there!

Take a look at that - 97% humidity! Then take a look at the time - 5:58AM! Does it officially make me a runner that I got up that early to run? I was on the road by 6:10AM, and would have been there earlier if I knew what time it actually got light outside.

Mr. Skinny has had this dream of me making him breakfast every morning before he leaves for work. I refused to do it in Maryland, but now that we're back in PA and living with my parents AND I didn't have a job for so long, I started getting up with him at 4:45 to make his egg sandwich and tea, and pack his lunch for him. Usually I would go back to sleep, but after being awake for about 30 minutes, it takes me a while to get back to sleep. Since I've started working, I've been getting up at 7 to get some cardio in before work, so this lets me sleep for no more than 1 hour after Mr. Skinny leaves. I wondered if it was really worth it. So today was the day to see if it really was. After Mr. Skinny left about 5:20 or so, I went back into our room and played on my laptop for a bit since it wasn't light enough out yet. I got dressed, ate my pb&j toast for breakfast, and headed out to run. At first, it wasn't awful, but it was humid. By the end of my run, however, it was HUMID! After the sun came up it was just seemingly impossible to breathe.

I didn't run the whole thing straight. At first, I ran 10 minutes, then walked for 2, then ran 5 minutes and walked for 1. After I got more tired though, I was walking more. However, I shaved 2 minutes off my 5K time from December! I was so excited for that! It was motivation to continue running for sure!

Once I was done, I stretched and took a cool shower. I'm all ready for work now, boo, minus packing my lunch, which I'll do after hitting "post".

So let's discuss this pace. Do you see that green part in the upper left hand corner? Ya know, that part that says I ran a 6:51 pace? I think it's full of bologna! There's no ran I ran that fast, I don't even think I can sprint that fast. So I'll be taking my 11-12 minute pace and sticking with that. The only thing I can think of is that I was running downhill, but I still don't think that would have been that fast. You can see I took a good amount of walking breaks, but it is 97% humidity.

Tomorrow I'll be back with a WI post, I haven't been doing them as weekly as I'd like to be. Good news? I know I'm down lower than I've been since I don't even know when. :)

Happy Thursday!

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How do you keep cool when exercising in high heat/humidity?

WI Friday.

So ya know how I said a little bit ago I was going to do bi-weekly weigh ins? Yeah, I haven't been doing that. For right now though, weekly weigh ins work for me. I'm loosing, even though it's v e r y s l o w, it's going. I lost another 0.8 this week. This is really great for me, seriously. Slow and steady wins the race, and I know that, for sure!

I went for my run this morning, and it was another "eh" run, but it's done. I haven't had a good run in a while. I probably need to drink more water and eat more fruits and veggies. I'm slacking on veggies especially, big time. Another 2.81 finished. I only walked 3 times, and I timed the last 2 to make sure it wasn't over 1 minute. I think I held a pretty steady 11-12 minute pace for all of the running section, and my walks weren't too bad either.

Now for my plans this weekend. I'm going to my cousin's house, ya know the one who serves her kid toaster strudels for breakfast, and pizza rolls for dinner? Yeah, her. Now don't get me wrong, she's my favorite cousin in the world, and her and I are basically like sisters. Neither one of us has a sister, and even though we're 6 years apart, we've stayed close our whole lives. I want to come up with a plan. I've been tracking every day for 20 days (according to My Fitness Pal), and I want to keep that going. There is NO reason to give myself a free-for-all all weekend.

With my oatmeal discovery this week, I think I'm going to make my own prepackaged oatmeal for breakfast. I'm taking some fruit for fruit salad, but that's the only plan that I have. At least I'll have a filling breakfast? It's so hard to plan for stuff like this. As long as I track everything though, that's what really matters. I'll make smart choices and really watch my hunger signals, that's the most important.

I probably won't post until Tuesday, but have a nice long 4th weekend!!

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What are your plans for the 4th weekend?

Oatmeal, Part 2.

You guys are the best! Thank you for all the responses about oatmeal. I actually made some this morning after my run! Speaking of my run, it was an "eh" kind of run. I did it, but not without a good amount of walking. I was glad when it was over. I added a hill into my run. The hill I've been avoiding since we moved back up here. And I ran up it once and walked up it once. It. Was. Intense. I don't know if it was the hill that made me so tired and "eh", but it wasn't an awesome run. I'll be repeating W6D2 for sure. Not a bad pace for most of the run portion. 2.84 miles completed.

Okay, now onto the oats. I'd like to try Overnight Oats, but I wanted to just try straight up oats first. I was going to do a peanut butter/banana, but I think I tried that before and didn't like it, so I just stuck with a basic cinnamon/sugar mixture.

Gathering Ingredients.

Oats. Skim milk. Cinnamon Almonds. Bowl. Measuring cup. Sugar.

1/2 c. of oats in the bowl.

1/2 c. of milk in the bowl. I added a splash more.

Ready to be nuked!

... And go!

"Mmm, I'm hungry. Let's have a snack!"

Overflowed. Guess I need a bigger bowl next time.

Ready!

"Oooh! Another add-in!"

Cinnamon Almonds. Peanut Butter. Sugar.

Looks pretty good!

But is it going to be good?

Hmm.

... Um...

It's a winner!

I ate about half of it and was satisfied. I'm gonna head out and do some yoga, then probably finish it up depending on if I'm hungry or not. The oats weren't awesome, but there were eatable. I'll definitely be trying it a bunch more times!

On a side note, Wells Fargo called me back this morning while I was out for my run. I tried to call her back when I got in, but I got the answering machine. I left a message, but she hasn't called yet. It's been over an hour. I think I'm going to call once more now. She didn't say any news, just wanted me to call her back. I don't know what to think. I'll keep you posted!

Update: still haven't heard from Wells Fargo, but I am enjoying my cold, leftover oats better than the warm, fresh oats.

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Do you prefer your oats warm or cold?

Being Comfortable in your Body.

Running. I'm starting to really love it. I enjoy my time alone, with, ya know, the iPhone and the music and the heart rate monitor, but alone. ;) I love focusing on what my body can do, and how strong my body is. I'm really starting to love my body, accepting my bigger thighs and hopefully, someday, child bearing hips. Accepting my cellulite and my dimpled thighs. It's who I am. Hopefully, I think, my body is shrinking. The scale says so anyways. There are days when I look in the mirror and really like what I see. Knowing that I am taking care of myself and making myself healthier is a wonderful feeling.

This past weekend wasn't as healthy as I would have liked, but a lot of it, I did the best with what I could. I went over my recommended calories both days, but I'm not gonna harp on it and bore you with what I ate. There was ice cream, burgers, not a ton of veggies and pasta. No big deal, moving on. It's a new start and I got up and went for a run this morning. My brother is at nerd camp, oh I mean engineering camp, for the week, so I'm running myself. It's kind of nice to not have to keep up with his pace, although I do miss having someone to talk to.

It was a do-over of Week 6, Day 1. With all the eh food I ate this weekend, I didn't want to have to stop halfway through my run, and I think it was a good plan. 2 miles completed.

Now I have some pictures. I want to be honest with my readers and I've never hid from telling anyone my weight, so now I have some progress pictures. Back in February, I bought some bikinis, hoping that they would motivate me to loose my weight so I could wear them this summer. Well they've been sitting in my closet since I bought them. I had them in the back of my mind, but I'm just so slow at loosing, I don't know that I can wear them this summer. Since I moved back home, though, and really got going on my weight loss, I'm a little more confident.

I haven't taken progress pictures regularly, but if Leah can put herself out there, I can too!

The following 2 pictures are from the beginning of December, roughly 10 pounds ago.

And these 2 are from this morning.

I think a little bit of the love handles/muffing top went away, but other than that, I don't thing the 10 pounds did a whole lot. I'm going to keep going though. And hopefully I'll take some more progress pictures. I'm almost confident to wear a bathing suit. Probably not a bikini, but I'm getting more comfortable in my skin every day!

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Are you comfortable in your skin? How did you get there, or why aren't you?

Scales and Trails.

Rhymes, huh? :)

I'm really bad with coming up with clever post titles, my days are pretty repetitive, so it's nothing new or exciting. Looking for jobs, running, yoga, blogging, reading. Boring life right now.

Anyway, I'm going to start doing Weekly Weigh Ins again. On Fridays. I'm really trying to focus more on how I feel than what the scale tells me, but it's really hard. Now that I've been actually working out and running regularly, I want the scale to show what a great job I'm doing. It's not always working like that, but it is on the right path at least. Since my last official blog WI, I've lost 6 pounds. It's not a ton, but I'm truly accepting the fact that I'm a slow loser. The upside to this is that I know I won't go back to the way I was eating. It's going to be hard to figure out exactly how to maintain, but I'll deal with that when I get there, and probably won't until the end of the year.

My current weight as of this morning is 153. I'm so close to the 140s, I can taste it. I've been in the 150s since January, but there was a TON of maintaining in there. Right now I'm aiming for a goal of 140. We'll evaluate when I get there and see if I want to go lower. I'm not worried about it. Sure, I'd love to be done loosing weight, but I'm just going to focus on being healthy, rather than being attractive. Healthy is what matters.

On the other side of things, my brother and I went for a run this morning. It was an okay run. I thought after my 2 mile run on Wednesday that todays run (run .5, walk .25, run .75, walk .25, run .5) would be cake. Boy was I wrong! I think the root of the problem was that I was running with my brother, who could probably run a 6 minute mile, so he's naturally faster than I am. I try to keep up with him as much as I can, but it's hard. I thought I was just having a bad run day, but when I looked at my pace once we were finished, I ran an 8:30 pace! That's crazy! And I actually kept it up for a little bit, too! So I blame that. Even my walking pace wasn't so bad. By the last 3/4 of a mile or so, I just told Brother to go ahead. I knew I wanted to go slow and he could have sped up.

I walked most of the way home the last little bit, but I'm not ashamed of it. My right arch was bothering me, so I didn't want to get a blister or anything, so I walked. I hope there's nothing wrong with my shoes, I just bought those shoes! All in all, I don't think I'll have to repeat the day, but it was a difficult outing.

Does anyone know how accurate Nike+ GPS is? My brother's said 2.9, and he did go a little farther than me, but I think it would have been more than that. I've been doing all my training runs off this app, and I don't know what I'll do if it's inaccurate...

Do we look alike? I'm not gonna lie, Brother is RIPPED!

When we went down to stick our feet in the water, last week we noticed there were some fish eggs around the steps on our dock. Today there was this...

Last time we saw them they were in a different spot and they were more string-like, so what the heck happened? Do I have any biology people reading my blog?

Have a great weekend!

Running.

My running is going really well. Yes, I might only be on week 5, but I'm going at my own pace, making sure I've just about mastered each day. Most weeks have turned into at least one a half weeks, or two weeks even. I'm not worried about it. I'm going to get there. It doesn't bother me if this training takes me 18 weeks instead of 9, I'm not in a rush. I might do a 5K in August with my 2 sisters-in-law, but I know I can do it.

Anyways, today was the day. The week 5, day 3 workout - 2 miles. I knew I had done it before, but I was determined to do the whole 2 miles. I wasn't going to wimp out, I could do it. So I got up this morning, fueled up with my PB toast, got dressed and set out. I did my 5 minute warmup walk, and started running. I took a few walking breaks, but I did it! I ran a new route, because I know when I loop past my house, I want to be finished or nearly finished, not only halfway done. I'm slowly finding out new routes around my lake. I refuse to run up or down the GIANT hill to get away from the lake, but I know it's going to have to happen sooner or later, so I do a lot of loops right now.

So I completed it! This is a huge step for me. I'm on the path to a 5K! After the run, I did this.

I was really tempted to go swimming, but I didn't feel like changing into my bathing suit just to jump in the lake. I really should have just jumped in with my shorts and tank on. Sticking my feet in was just as effective.

Woo! I did it!

Excuse the bright red-tomato face. It was HUMID out!

My route and pace.

Honestly, I've been running about a 10:30 pace, and thought I could do it on the 2 mile run, but it was about a 12:30 pace, but I know I can work on pace. For the right now, the biggest accomplishment was that I finished the whole run.

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How did your last good run go?

Running Update.

I'm sure some of you have been wondering about my current running status. Well now I'll tell you, just to end your curiosity. Well really, I had 2 great outings this weekend and so now I want to brag about how great they went.

Last week, after finding out we were moving, I just started packing. On Wednesday, I think I'm going to partake in Wordless Wednesday and show you just how crazy our apartment has looked in the last week. So I didn't really have time to run at all last week. On top of that, I had to quit my gym membership since we're moving farther than 15 miles away from an Anytime Fitness. My only option was to run outside, and let me tell you, it hasn't exactly been ideal running weather. I'm such a wimp about running when it's too hot, too cold or too humid.

So Saturday I woke up, Mr. Skinny was working and I almost talked myself out of going for a run, but I laced up and went out anyway. I was still on week 4 of the couch-to-5k training plan, which has you running 1/4 mile, walking 1/8 mile, running 1/2 mile, walking 1/4 mile and repeat. You can also train by time, but after realizing that I didn't fully train for my first 5K back in December, I thought I would do it by distance this time.

Since I track on my Nike+ GPS app on my iPhone, I wanted to not watch my distance or my watch, and run until the app told me to stop. The settings on the app will have a voice feedback every 1/4 mile, so instead of walking that 1/8 mile, I just walked 1/4 mile instead to make it easier. It worked! I completed the whole workout. I was pumped to be finished with week 4. I truly almost didn't finish it, I had to convince myself to finish it, but with a few breaks.

Now onto today. I'm off work since I have some hours of sick leave to use that I wouldn't get paid for and we could use the time off to pack, even though I'm currently sitting on my butt catching up on blogs and watching House Hunters, and errands, which are all finished. Same situation as Saturday, I didn't really want to get up and run, I thought it was going to be too hot and humid, but I got a new part of running shoes yesterday and it'll probably be the last time that I'll get to run on my favorite trail that I just discovered a few months ago. I got my butt out to run.

Todays workout? Run .5, walk .25, run .5, walk .25, run .5 - easy enough to remember and actually it wasn't too bad! I couldn't run the full half mile of the last section, so I split it up and ran .25, walked .25, and ran .25 which was a success. Week 5 of the program is different each day, my next workout should be run .75, walk .5 and run .75. I think I'm going to hold out on that workout until I master the one I should have done today. Hopefully it only takes me one more time, but if it takes 2, then that's fine.

I'm so much more confident this time around. I know my body is more capable than what I thought it was last time. I know I can do it, and I know I can push myself. I may not complete all my workouts the way that I should, but I'll be able to run a 5K this summer hopefully. I haven't signed up for a race yet, but I would really like to. I'm not sure I'd want to in the summer though. All in all, I'm chugging along, slowly making my way to being a "runner" - again.

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When did you consider yourself a "runner"?

What was the coldest/hottest race you've ever done?

Happy Trails.

When I got home last night it was such a nice day I had to go outside for my C25K training. Actually this whole week has been absolutely beautiful down here. Tomorrow afternoon the rain is supposed to come though, and stay until next week! No lie. I hope it doesn't rain every day though, with Mr. Skinny being in construction, we can't afford that many rain days.

Anyway, I come home and went for a run last night. Well W3D2 of C25K - run 90 seconds, walk 90 seconds, run 3 minutes, walk 3 minutes and repeat. So I did that no problem, with a 10 minute warm up. I wasn't ready to be done though, so I walked for a total of nearly 3.5 miles.

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm really enjoying myself this time around with C25K. I think because I'm more fit, it works out better. I know what to expect, too. I really want this to be the last time I do this program. I learned my lesson and know that you can't magically keep up your fitness when you don't work on them. I got it, and I'll keep it up.

There was another victory - I wore an outfit I've never worn running before...

I wore shorts!!! I've never wore shorts before when I was running. I thought the "chub rub" was going to be awful, but I wanted to try it out. So I did and it went pretty well. I was a little self conscious at first, then I realized that I shouldn't care. If I was comfortable, then that's all that matters. I put some body glide on my shopping list so that I can wear shorts without worry of chafing when I run this summer.

Finishing up my training for the day! I don't know why I don't really sweat at all, maybe I'm not pushing myself enough? I just don't sweat. I think I might hit up some cardio tonight on my Nike+ app on my iPhone, and I'll do some weights too.

Oh, I'm finished school! I had my last final this morning, so I'm totally done. As long as I passed everything, which I have no doubt that I did, I'll be graduating on May 21st! I went to Walmart after school and grabbed some things, now I am relaxing in front of my TV when I have a list of a ton of stuff I could be doing. Oh well, I can take a 1/2 day off, right?

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How was your last workout?