Friday, December 29, 2006

Sniffles

My success at avoiding getting sick finally failed...oh well bring on the cold meds.
I hadn't planned anything for New Year's anyway so if this makes me stay in my pjs so be it.

I do hope everyone has a wonderful New Year and may we all complete our goals in 2007.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Ho Ho Ho - Oh Oh Oh

Hello All,
Well my Christmas festivities involved food and not the world's greatest choices by any sense of the imagination. Even when I got back to the city my decent into madness continued. Attempted to curtail it yesterday and did better but still not on plan. However today is a new day and I will be on plan.

I was inspired by Totegirl to come up with a few of my own plans and resolutions.

Since I've already declared I will hit goal this year this what I plan to do to get there.

1) Follow the plan as it's attended, no tweaks, no gimmicks. Stick to my points, use my flex and AP in accordance. Just not the tracking of the good, the bad and the ugly, I need to follow the entire plan..ie water, fruits, veggie, oils.

2) To create an exercise/training plan. I'll probably train with my friend for the Vancouver Half Marathon again, not so sure I'll go but I'll train. I'm also going to incorporate more strength training and keep myself interested by incorporating different types of cardio as well. Just ordered some new Ripped Dvds and the Biggest Loser 2. Quit the gym because it bored me to tears, plus I want to save some cash.

3) Embrace fish, I don't mind it but have to admit generally avoid it. I also want to create more menus I so get into ruts with food where it's the same thing time and time again.

4) Track my progress beyond the scale. I don't take my measurements very often and that can be a huge motivator when the scale isn't moving. Establish mini goals and rewards. Work on better self talk and track trends by journalling more often.

Do all the above with a positive mind set and remind myself I'm doing this for life and to not set unrealistic goals. If I see a gain this Saturday, then I'll suck it up and go on.

I will be the Biggest Loser!!!

Friday, December 22, 2006

Hair is better


So stylist phoned and said she'd have to charge me to fix it. I was like WHAT! She promised me copper highlights and they were mahogany, fire engine red. I told her any other stylist in this city would fix it for free. She said it's the company policy. Fine, I will never set foot in that salon again and I'll make sure everyone I know will know not to set foot in that place.


So Belle Colour #65 to the rescue and it's much better but I'm putting another box on just to seal the deal. The highlights now look a little burgundy but more brown.


Enough about hair drama.


I will for sure see a loss on Saturday which makes me quite happy, today I have to race home and clean it from top to bottom, well I have to finish my Christmas shopping first :) Only one gift so not so bad.


The blogs will probably be quiet over the next while but I wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a healthy and happy 2007.


Here's to success for all in the New Year!


Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Ronald McDonald

Well that's what I thought I looked like this morning.
On a total whim last night I stopped in at this little salon in my local mall that's been there for 30 years. People are always going in and out so I thought I'll just see if they'll take a walk in for a cut because my hair has been driving me bonkers. Well I got the cut and highlights that the stylist described as a coppery red. Ah...it's red, to me- fire engine red. I didn't know what to think in the salon but everyone around was ooing and ahhing so I thought o.k I'll sleep on it. Well all of last night and this morning I had a continuous dialogue in my head of "I hate it". I thought everyone was looking at my head on my way to work. I get to work and everyone says "I love it", one collegue said it's sexy. Our receptionist who was at one time a stylist says it's awesome. To me it's way to bright. Everyone assured me that it will calm down, it's red afterall and that fades.

I did wash it the moment I got home because I thought it was way to0 bright so perhaps in a few days I'll feel better about it. I think another major hang up is that I'm seeing my Dad this weekend (provided my sniffles are gone by then - he's 84 I don't want to pass on a cold or anything) and he's a bit conservative. So as long as it looks good, I don't think I'll freak him out but I need to get over being freaked out first. I'm meeting TP tonight for coffee and she'll give me an honest opinion. I did call the salon and left a message for the stylist and when I told the person on the phone that I wasn't crazy about it and they said they'd have to charge me. I asked why since I was technically told they were copper highlights. She said then the stylist would have to absorb the cost. Oh well we'll see what she says when she calls me back tomorrow. Receptionist has now recommended an over the counter shade to tone it down if the stylist thing doesn't work out.

Weight wise I stepped on the scale this morning and it said 171 which is a bit miraculous since when I got home from Hawaii I stepped on the scale and it said 179. Just goes to show what an impact going back on plan can have. Of course today we have our Christmas potluck at work but I saved 16pts for that - well dinner needs to come out of that too and I have 12 flex points left for the week. I'm not planning on using all of those flex points today but if I use 16 on the potluck I'll need 2 flex for vegetable soup for supper.

I went up 1pt with the new plan to 23pts of course when I get back into the 160's that goes back to 22. I've abandoned the wendie plan for now and I'm going back to the traditional program and see how that goes. I like the new format of ww stuff but I think the 3mth journal needs to have more lines.

In Hawaii we picked up some WW goods that we didn't have in Canada at the time (not sure if new stuff has been launched). We got the individual serving drink crystals sweetened with splenda in Raspberry and Lemonade. I bought a few boxes of 2pt bars - Lemon Dream, milk chocalate chip, mint chocolate cookie. TP also bought the vanilla smoothie mix which we both agree isn't all that great - you're probably better off with making your own. Even the people in the meeting said you had to make it with milk and add fruit to make it palatable. I haven't tried the crystals or the bars yet but I'll report in when I do. Who knows Canada might have them.

DDD- I did tape BL but I'm not sure if I taped over it. I'll double check and get back to you.

Off to potluck might report back later.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

7 Hours and 7 minutes

And I'm damn proud of that. This was the craziest race ever!

First of all arrived in Honolulu and got to condo with no problems whatsoever. Had dinner with training partners family and then TP, her Mom and I headed back to the condo and too bed.
Saturday- Picked up our race packs and toured the expo a bit. GU was there sampling some of their gels. The lime tastes just like key lime pie. Very obvious that out of the 25000 people signed up for this 16000 where Japanese. Their running clubs were well represented.

Mom and TP went off for Vietnamese but because that hadn't been a part of my training I went off on my own. Toured this gigantic mall called Ala Moana Centre. It's 55 sq miles, no Victoria Secret but they had a Sephora where I did a bit of damage. Unfortunately got blisters on my feet from my mary jane crocs...not a great start. Picked up some first aid and went to bed early.

Race day- Up at 2:30am, had breakfast, got dressed, taped the blisters and loaded the hydration packs and packed the fuel gels put the timing chip on runners. Headed out at 4:30am, got to start line and lined up under the 6hrs and over bannner. It was craziness. I took pictures that I'll post in the next few days.

It took 28min to actually cross the start line. At the 3 mile mark there were about 20 Japanese racers lined up at Jack in the Box....not sure why.

We had our best times up to the 20K mark and then we both hit a mall at about 30k. This race was crazy because you spent more time going around people then forward. When you think of it their were 1000 people for every mile. We probably did our slowest 12k ever but we crossed that finish line in one piece. Because the majority didn't speak English saying " on your left" was useless.

It was taxing, it was hot and people were throwing their used cups and sponges into the middle of the road so some areas were pretty slippery. We went up and down Diamond Head twice, first time fantastic, second time rough. There was a guy racing in a Yoda costume complete with rubber mask, one guy in flip flops with the timing chip strapped on. The guy that really got everyone's attention was racing in a Sumo training (diaper?). I saw a naked butt up a head and thought I was imaging things. The very last person crossed the finish line at 15hrs. Huge kudos to that guy.

We passed a load of runners and a lot of people who didn't look like they trained for this at all. I now know why they say don't aim for your best time at this race.

When the race was over it was like an obstacle course to find your finishing t-shirt. Your body is completely exhausted and now you have to navigate around a park trying not to trip on roots because you can't pick up your feet.

We had to take public transit back to the condo which wasn't too bad and then TP and I hit the living room floor and stayed their for 2 hours. I got a few more blisters and thought I had sprained my big toe, she had a swollen ankle and all of the muscles in our bodies ached. We pried off running shoes and ate real food (it will be awhile before I can look at a gel again). We both vowed never again.

The next day at Starbucks which we walked very slowly too and cursed any unlevel sidewalks and stairs (there were lots). Her Mom almost spit out her coffee when TP and I looked at each other and said ...next time. Mom was wicked race support lugging cheese and crackers, chocolate milk and gatorade to the finish line and finding both us in sorry shape. She just rocks.

For the next 5 days we couldn't go far, I'm not kidding it didn't take much to make you hurt again. On the Tuesday we went for massages at the Aveda spa and of course they said they couldn't do deep tissue massage because our bodies were simply not ready. We knew this of course but even a gentle massage helped. It takes 21 days to recover from a Marathon so we're both taking it easy.

We did attend a WW meeting at the YWCA in Honolulu. They have a great leader! We picked up some bars that we don't have or didn't have when we left and we got the new booklets about the tweaked program. I'm still going to try to get a set from my meeting on Saturday to see if US and Canada differ. Oh yeah the weigh in results were very interesting. I was up 6.8 and TP was up 10. We know we were retaining water and of course weighed in at the end of the day. So know the mission is to be back on track.

Suprisingly when we got home we both felt better, probably because neither one of us did much on the Saturday...got home at 2am.

Spent the last two days not doing too much, trying to fend off a flu that TP came down with in the last 3 days of Honolulu. We watched a lot of season 2 of Top Chef :) I have been back on points for the past two days.

This weekend off to visit Dad for Christmas, which will be interesting he was completely opposed to Hawaii and we've had a bit of a rough patch lately. This will be the first time I've laid eyes on him in over 2 months.

Back to work tomorrow of course.

I haven't read anyone's blogs yet but I'm looking forward to catching up.

Sonya- Did you have the baby?

Hugs to all!

Thursday, December 07, 2006

One Sleep!!!!!

Holy Crap! At this time tomorrow I'll be at the airport waiting to board my plane...craziness so much to do before hand. I'm now second guessing myself of do I really need to bring that and that and that?

Well hard core packing will be tonight. I'm hoping I can pre call a cab for the morning. Apparently we have a cab shortage thanks to a short employee market and Christmas party season. I don't think it will be a problem at 6:30am, coming home on the 16th just after midnight might be.

Called the condo people yesterday and apparently I call them when I get to the airport and they'll meet we there with the key. My training partner is already in Hawaii so she'll have to do the same thing. I'm really hoping there's two keys and that I don't have to wait for her when I get there. If there's only one key this will not be fun. I'm kind of hoping to be there first. Just because I'm a worst case scenario thinker, I checked into hotels, not one room is available until the Monday. Oy vey, I'm hoping not to be homeless in Hawaii.

I'm going to try these no jet lag things that my dear friend Glitterati recommended, it's got great testimonials and will hopefully keep my energy level up. I'm so used to just getting off the plane and going to the hotel not this coordinating business.

Weighed in this morning at 7:15am, yes I was up at 5am. Was up 0.2 but I'm not worried about it. I'm going to Hawaii tomorrow after all. I will be at my meeting on the day I get back because I don't want to miss a beat. Toronto in June!

If anyone is up around 8am MST time on Sunday - send me speedy thoughts!

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

2 Sleeps

1. Yourself: Myself
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): Nada
3. Your hair: Undecided
4. Your mother: Deceased
5. Your father: Stubborn
6. Your Favorite Item: MP3
7. Your dream last night: Hawaii
8. Your Favorite drink: Bailey's
9. Your Dream Car: BMW
10. The room you are in: Office
11. Your Ex: Moron
12. Your fear: Poverty
13. What you want to be in 10 years? Me
14. Who you hung out with last night? Me
15. What You're Not? Patient
16. Muffins: Lemon_Poppyseed?
17. One of Your Wish List Items: Car
18. Time: Early
19. The Last Thing You Did: Typed
20. What You Are Wearing: Clothes
21. Your Favorite Weather: Fall
22. Your Favorite Book: Many
23. The Last Thing You Ate: Waffles
24. Your Life: Busy
25. Your Mood: Hopeful
26. Your best friend: Plural
27. What are you thinking about right now? Packing
28. Your car: Nada
29. What are you doing at the moment? Typing
30. Your summer: Short
31. Your relationship status: Single
32. What is on your TV? Off
33. What is the weather like? Chinook!
34. When is the last time you laughed? Today


Thanks to Sonya for that list, quite fun to do.
Not much to report today, weigh in is tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

3 Sleeps

Thanks so much to Glitterati for answering my questions - The garmin is smaller than an Ipod Nano for you to file in your head of phenomenal information.

I actually sat down and made a list of all the things I need to get done before I leave, time will fly I know it. Started using the hint of tanner lotions yesterday so hopefully I won't the colour of snow when I get there. Looked for yoga/track pants last night and nothing really worked. I'm either flying in a sort of faded pair I have now, fleece pants or I can hit a Sport Chek before I leave. I'm probably going to check sport chek.

Going out to a client lunch today at a fairly shwanky restaurant. I might go for the buffet because then I can control what's on the plate. I have 14pts for the remainder of the day so I know I can make that work. I'll definitly be careful, stepped on the scale this am and it said 170.5, which would be a pound less at WI, so I'm not rocking the boat.

I'll have to wait until I come back to find out about the new plan. I'm intrigued as to how WW will change it.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Questions

Has anyone flown internationaly lately or Canada-USA or reverse?

I want to be clear on all this new hullabaloo that you have to go through. So I get the liquids under 100ml only in carry on and they must be in a resealable plastic bag no bigger than 1L. Should I put my prescription in the same bag (I'm only taking BC pills and my name and all the doctor info is on the package)? Since they'll probably want to know that.

I'm also thinking of putting all my electronics (MP3, camera, garmin, cell phone) in one bag in my carry on so it's easy to pull out and put in the tray. I want to make everything easily searchable so I can speed the process along. I'm taking my backpack as carry on and I can zip that thing open all the way along the front so I'll be their dream traveller. I was going to wear jeans on the plane, now I'm thinking track pants or yoga pants.

Do you lock your suitcase or not? Normally I lock but with all the searching going on maybe I should leave it unlocked and pray to the divinities of transport that no one takes anything. The last time I flew through the U.S I had to wait for my bag to screen because it was locked, it it wasn't locked you could just walk away. Now I think they just cut the lock off.

I'm trying to be as organized as humanly possible - 4 sleeps until I'm on a plane...eek! Yeah so I'm obsessing about it but that's my thing I need to be prepared. It's already freaking me out that I'm staying in a Condo that I had nothing to do with. I get to call a couple of days ahead and find out how to get in. I have no idea when my friend and her mom will be there. I'm definitely thinking of this as a solo trip with roommates.

So far I have 76 songs on the mp3 and I'm listening to it on my travels to and from work so I can weed out the not so get up and go songs and perfect my list. I'll be adding more so I only have to listen to the loop twice then I'll know I'm half way done.

I'm so happy I finally figured out the plug n'play problem. I downloaded all the info off my garmin too and it's pretty neat.

Didn't really go for a walk yesterday (got a paper) I was just zipping around the house doing chores. It's supposed to be pretty warm on Thursday and I'm taking the afternoon off so I'll think I'll do an easy 10k and test the hydration pack plus it will be daylight. Tonight I think step aerobics (it's walking ish).

Food wise the goal is 24pts today so far:
2 Eggo Fibre Waffles - 3
Becel Spray-0
Light Aunt J Syrop - 1
Milk-2
2xCoffee-4
Source yogurt-1
Burger and Fries at Pub - 13

Which would take me down to nothing, so a workout is definitely in order tonight. I should eat pasta for dinner because one is supposed to carb load for a week ahead not just the day ahead. By carb load I don't mean gobs of pasta just pay attention to the ratios.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Finally!

I finally figured out what was wrong with my computer and it not being able to read my new mp3 player. Plug n' play wasn't enabled...oy vey for months I've been trying to upload photos using the dock, the camera, a scan thingy and tada I got it done today. Plus I loaded a whack of songs on to my Sansung Mp. (that's red and has a Canadian flag on it). I only have it half loaded simply because I need to rip more songs. Well I have a few days to think of more tunes.

Let me ask all of you...I need fast paced, go go go songs for my marathon...any suggestions?

I stayed exactly the same at weigh in, which in itself is a bit of a miracle. This week I have to weigh in either bright and early (7:30am) or late in the day (6:30pm) on Thursday. I'm going to get up earlier and go to the early one. I'm leaving work at 1pm that day so I can pack and get sorted for leaving the next day.

Training partner left today and is probably about half way there by now. I'm really hoping it doesn't rain during the race. I raced in rain for my half marathon and it's not fun. This time it's double the distance so I really don't want to be a drowned rat by the end with water gushing out of the shoelace holes on your runners.

Yesterday was treat day food wise, today is 22pts and so far so good. Yesterday I walked everywhere to run errands so that was good exercise.

Just a quick post today, must do laundry and I should go for a walk today since the weather isn't so bad.

Later!

Friday, December 01, 2006

New week in 24 hours

My training partner is off to Hawaii on Sunday and I must admit I'm a bit jealous. I know that I'll now be there in not time whatsoever but there's something magical about leaving snow covered terrain for ocean and palm trees.

Supper was interesting yesterday, I didn't feel like cooking so I cut up a tomatoe, a bit of red onion, a bit of cheddar cheese and topped it with balsamic vinegar. It was alright, a bit odd but alright. I also whipped the cream for the cheesecake and topped it with crushed candy canes and grated white chocolate. Everyone loved it.

The supper thing got me thinking how there's no cookbooks geared at single people. Everything either serves 2 or more. The kraft canada website has a neat feature of one week menus and you can print off a shopping list. Most of the recipes aren't too ww friendly but all of them serve 4. But imagine if it were WW friendly and you could choose how many servings. I should copyright this idea.

I'm happy it's Friday and a new week is about to start. I need a clean start.

I'm also going to start getting organized for Hawaii, start packing what I don't need now so the day before I leave won't be chaotic. Tomorrow I'm grabbing the bulk of what I need (fuel gels and such) so the running around is limited. Not

The Food:
Breakfast
2 Eggo Fibre Waffles - 3
Becel Spray - 0
Wee bit of light syrup- 1
Milk-2
Coffee-2
Lunch
Sukiyaki Beef (with rice and sprouts)-7
Snack
Small piece of my fabulous cheesecake - 5
Supper


Subtotal:20/22
Yeah, well supper will probably be soup and I'll bediligently trying to distract myself from eating anything else while drinking lots of water.

Water: 1/3L

Exercise: Trying on all my summer clothes to see what fits, including the bathing suit...eek!

A.M Scale: 172