Day 37 - Got me a plan

Let's hope I can stick to this one. I will stick to this one.
It started off pretty rainy today and I momentarily thought about not going to the gym. Then I gave myself a talking to and said when you hit the half marathon training you'll have to overcome weather. I will never forget that half marathon walking clinic I did with the Running Room years back some of those training days were cold. I got dressed anyway and packed my gym bag then I looked outside and it had stopped.

I was walking to the gym and about the half way point it rained again but I had my umbrella alas 2 min later it stopped again.

I hit the treadmill for 44:54min, 5.63km, 353 calories burned, Pace 7:58-6:21, HR 161-180 and I did 15 intervals of 2 min walk/ 1 min jog. I did increase my speed today from 5.4 to 5.8 and didn't use any incline. I wore my garmin but I also kept an eye on the treadmill as it was counting in miles and I was counting in KM. I discoverd I walk fast then 16min/mile so the pace requirement shouldn't be an issue for the Tinker Bell Half.

I walked home again after that so earned another 37 min of brisk walking on top of the treadmill workout.

When I got home I created a plan for the next 17 weeks of prep work before I start half marathon training. It's pretty much just a way to track activity for the next 17 weeks and uses the workout plan I posted yesterday but I also created a seperate plan to increase the run on the intervals.

I'll continue with 2:1 for the rest of the run/walk days this week. Next week I'll do 1:30:1:30 and then the week after that go down to 1 min walk and start increasing the running by 30 seconds every week after that. I have 3 run/walk days per week. In 17 weeks I should be able to at least do 9 min of running and 1 min of walking.

I'm not starting from scratch or the couch as I've been doing the 2:1 thing for quite sometime but I want to take this slow so 1. I don't freak myself out and 2. build up safely. Who knows perhaps as endurance and recovery get better I might be able to accelerate that as right now my plan is slower then the C25K plan.

At site I normally eat dinner and then go workout so I'm re-thinking that. If I make sure to have a snack at least 2 hours before I could probably eat after and not make my body try to run when it just ate.

I also booked my hotel for the race and decided to go with the Disneyland Paradise Pier. I've never stayed on the property before. The first time I went it was across the street and the last time I was actually staying in Long Beach. We got bored and hopped in a cab to the park and back.

I did like the idea of staying close to the start/finish line. I fully plan to be a little kid so I also got a 3-day pass. Space Mountain and Indiana Jones I have missed you.

I booked through the race travel provider as I did look around and they had the best deals -they also have limited availability so that's why I booked now. Now that just leaves flights but as I'm not going for 7 months I'll keep my eye out for seat sales.

Can you tell I'm excited about this?

Other than that it was laundry day and I watered my flowers.

I do hope you all had a fabulous Sunday!

Hugs!!!

Day 36 - How motivational is this?

They released the picture of the finisher's medal for the Tinker Bell Half Marathon and how cute is this. Apparently Tinker Bell spins.



I'm kind of impressed. The other finisher medals I've received in the past have been so so. I think Vancouver had the nicest so far. This one seems super nice. Well Disney does have a pretty good reputation.

Went to weigh in today and I was up .6, so better then I expected but that also means I'm back to bouncing between the 170s and 168.

I watched Finding Sarah last night and I'm quite enjoying this show. When Dr. Phil quoted the saying  "there are no victims just volunteers" to the Duchess on the topic of self sabotage that struck a chord in me. I'm looking at this from a weight loss perspective. I can come up with a million excuses of why I had a bad week i.e. stress, hormones, tired but when it comes down to it I'm a full fledged volunteer in causing that bad week.

The deciding factor to sign up for this race in January 2012 has a lot to do with having a goal outside of a scale number. It's been all about the scale for a while now and that's not exactly working so it's time to shake things up. I needed a challenge and I do best when challenging myself.  I have something to prove to myself.

There are 31 weeks until race day. So my plan now is to build endurance, build running skills and focus on being lighter for the next 17 weeks. Then the last 14 weeks will be concentrated training on the half marathon itself. I plan to do intervals of running/walking through the race. What those intervals are will be decided when I nail down my training plan for the race itself.

So for my first chunk I'm starting with simple back to basics goals for the week:

1. Track

2. Stay within points (including WP)

3. Water - aim for 2L a day

4. Follow the workout schedule

The workout schedule is:

Saturday - cross training (today it was mowing the lawn and walking to WI and back - 7 AP)

Sunday - Run/Walk

Monday - Rest ( I need to sell 50/50 tickets during my normal workout time and it's an obnoxiously long day)

Tuesday - Run/Walk

Wednesday - Cross train (Rower or bike or skipping)

Thursday - Yoga

Friday - Run/Walk

I've written this down in my tracker as that goes with me everywhere.

I need to add in strength training which will be the Iron Reps class at the gym as it's full body. I plan to weigh in this Friday due to having to wait for the cable installation people all day Saturday.

Ideally I'd like to have strenght training twice a week, especially in the last 14 weeks, so I'll have to add that on a cross training day. It might sound like I'm getting ahead of myself but I'm a planner by nature. I was re-reading sections of Running for Mortals and realize maybe it's not the best idea to be doing all my run/walks on a .5 incline. Better idea when I start doing hill training add it in then.

I saved a whack of points for tonight as my original plan was to go to a new restaurant that offers 100 different beers on tap. I started to feel a headache coming on so I asked for a rain cheque. I think it was probably due to low blood sugar as I ate dinner and feel a bit better but I think it will be an early night.

I hope your Saturday was fabulous!!!

Day 35 - 2nd post of the day - preparing for winter training?

As I think I've mentioned before my Shaw PVR is dying. I still get channels but no guide, no pvr and no shaw on demand. It's now truning off and re-setting about every half an hour.
The service guy came to today to confirm it is dying and that it's no longer under warranty. I apparently have a fabulous signal though. I ask him if he had a PVR I could buy now. The answer was no and he suggested I shop around. Great.

I looked at what shaw had to offer and they've changed things and the deal did not seem all that good. So I checked and Future Shop had a pvr on sale so I bought it online. Then I thought why am I doing this?

I cancelled the order and looked into Telus Optik. That commercial is on heavy rotation in Alberta and the free Xbox isn't such a bad add on. Plus for a small extra charge I could add Kinect. I'm a sucker for the animal commercials. I've also been coveting a X-box kinect. I really like the idea of no controller and the variety of fitness games for those winter days and perhaps the cross training days for my half marathon training schedule. See the earlier post for details on my new adventure.

I attempted to sign up online but right at the moment of confirmation something goofy happened and the page was lost. I didn't want to sign up again without confirming how far it had gone.

So I phone Telus and the guy says we can do it over the phone. He tried to talk me into HD channels. I don't have an HD tv and until it dies I have no intention of replacing it. The package I wanted is $48 month and included my love - time shifting. It will go up by about $20 in 6 months but I am bundling phone and internet as well so at the end of the day it's better then what I'm paying now.

He also told me that they could take care of the cancellation with Shaw.

So now I have a tentative installation date of next Saturday, they'll give a half hour warning somewhere between 8am and 5pm so I should plan to weigh in on Friday that week.

No idea when Shaw will cut the connection so we'll see. I might need to stay up and watch True Blood on Sunday night though.

Hope your Friday was groovy!!!

Day 35 - Out of left field and fairy dust

I got an email from my uber boss (the boss of my boss) sending an invite about the Tinker Bell Half Marathon in January. There's a few people from work doing it and I'm intrigued and conflicted.
After the last half marathon I did I vowed never again. I had a miserable time and I felt like a fat cow through the whole race. I decided long distances were not for me. Mind you, I didn't exactly prepare that well either.

This is what has been zipping through my head since reading that email:

• This is the first Tinker Bell run and it's all women. I've never done a race with all women.
• I love Disneyland and well Disney.
• California in January would be better then here in January.
• This race does have a minimum time of 16min/mile.
• If I did this it wouldn't be walking it as I did in the others I'd have to commit to run it or at least interval run/walk but with more running.
• Serious training would have to start by the end of October which would allow me to build on my running skills and focus on weight loss between now and then.
• I could perhaps run with a tutu on or at least be incredibly girly
• I would be doing the bulk of training on a treadmill as I'm only home for 3 days a week
• Longer training runs would be on the weekend
• It would give me a non weight loss goal to work towards
• It's not like I don't know what to do - I have done two half and a full

What the hell, I'm in. I just registered.

Day 34 - Lazy A$$

 Yes, that would be lately.
I once again find myself with one day to weigh in thinking how can I undo the damage I've done all week in one day. Oh I started off well..again. I am developing a pattern of sabotaging myself at the midway point. Well the sabotage started on Monday this week. Perhaps TOM was part of it or just plain laziness.

I'm 34 days into my self imposed 90 day challenge and not exactly doing what I planned.

I've watched all the episodes of Extreme Makeover - Weight Loss Edition and I see a pattern with the contestants/ participants. They start off really well for the first 3 months but that 2nd set of 3 months tends to be less then stellar results.

Now I've been at this weight loss thing for far longer than 3 months but I definitely experience the periods of "whoo hoo" and "boo hoo".

I know I'm being ridiculous and if I want this bad enough I need to make the commitment. So my first week attempt at the Wendie Plan didn't go off as planned.

This is not a throwing in the towel post. Oh no, this makes me want to turn this around even more.

I bought this book:

It's had quite a few positive reviews on Amazon and I first learned about it from another blogger (I'm sorry I can't remember from who).


I want to think of myself as a quiet ninja on this goal so I'm hoping this can help maintain my motivation. I'm good at starting it's the finishing that's a little iffy lately. I've been reading a lot of books about what can cause falling off the wagon but I want to branch out and read something that's not food focused.

I still have about two months left of my self imposed goal and a lot can be done in two months. I did re-evaluate my goal to get to goal and have set a target for Sept. I'm heading to Kingston, ON for a course then and it just seemed a little more realistic so really it's now a 95 day goal but I'll continue the countdown from here and then we'll see what happens.

All you can do when you fall down is get back up.

Hugs!!!



Day 32 - Whoa Nelly

Yesterday was crazy, not life wise it was food wise. Hormone fueled craziness. Sometimes that's the bad part of being at site. All food is at your finger tips and free.

There's pizza, burgers, cake, cookies, salads mostly consisting of mayonnaise. Oh you can eat healthy too but if you are in full swing of foodapalooza you can be dangerous.

Oh and I was yesterday.

Today was better not brilliant but better. I also hit the treadmill for a 60 min brisk walk.

The focus must be strong tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

Not looking back now looking forward.

Hugs!!!!

Day 31 - The start of progress pics

I very very very rarely put photos of myself on this blog as I like to keep it relatively anonymous. However today I decided to post a full body pic to highlight my newest acquisition from Lululemon which is the Astro Crop. Plus I thought it might be about time to track some sort of photo progress.

So this is me after my walk to the gym and 50min on the treadmill workout on Friday. Yet to happen was the groceries and the walk home.  I just couldn't resist the wall of mirrors. I'm 170ish in this picture as the next day I weighed in at 170.2. I don't really have any pictures from the beginning at 204 as I was pretty good at avoiding cameras. Really it was like I had spidey senses. I remember being in Germany and my cousin's boyfriend would try to take a  picture and I'd casually side step behind a statue or tree.

Forgive the spacing as blogger is doing something odd. I've never bought bottoms from Lululemon before. I took the plunge on these as I wanted a crop for summer and the reviews were really good. I'm considering maybe getting another. They are rather fitted which is out of my comfort zone but it's a Women only gym so I'm cool with that. The top is Under Armor and the shoes Mizuno.

Today was fairly low key. I made Turkey Chili (followed the directions on the Old El Paso seasoning pack substituted turkey for beef) for today's lunch and to bring with me tomorrow for lunch, I did laundry, next up is dishes and the wrap down to being in bed as I fly out tomorrow morning.

The weather has been erratic. It rained all night and the more rain seems to swoop in and out on a whim. As I did a killer workout on Friday and lighter workout yesterday I decided to have rest day today. My goal is to hit the treadmill tomorrow for another round of intervals.

Today is also a 29 point day and that's on track.

I hope you all had a fabulous Sunday.

Hugs!!!



Day 30: Different strategy

Some of my most successful weeks on WW was when I was doing the Wendie Plan. If you're unfamiliar with this it's basically changing up your points so you're not eating the same each day. The creator named Wendie discovered she had better losses on weeks where there was some sort of event that caused higher points i.e. birthdays, Christmas.
Now last week was crazy and had I tracked Thursday I'm sure I'd be way way way over points. I squeaked by with a .2 loss this week which I'm very happy about as remember Friday morning I saw a 1.6 gain.

I decided to treat today as a treat day (within reason and tracked) or in Wendie language my super high day, now tomorrow will be dead on points no WP. It's today because it's the furthest day from next weigh in.

My treat day did get a little crazy as I used 7 more points then I should of. This is what happens when I ate my meals for the day and then re-familiarized myself with the Wendie Plan.

There's definitely a difference when I start my day with protein. Last week I went to Starbucks and got my traditional Grande Non Fat Caramel Macchiato and they're reduced fat turkey breakfast sandwich. Today I got my traditional Macchiato but I went with the Blueberry Buttermilk Muffin instead. Not only is the muffin 3 points higher but I was super duper munchy all day. Now part of that might be TOM.

The link above takes you to a Wendie Plan website that actually helps you calculate your week. It's really your daily points plus the weekly points dispersed through the week.

So because I went a over by 7 points today I recalculated the rest of my week so I still wind up with 252 points (29 per day plus the 49 WP) at the end of the week.

Today was 58 (should be 51)
Tomorrow 29
Monday 37 (should be 39)
Tuesday 35 (should be 36)
Wednesday 29
Thursday 35 (should be 37)
Friday 29

When I do the Wendie Plan I don't eat my activity points unless I earn a whack on a lower point day. As I'm flying home on Wednesday (on a way later flight than normal) there will be no workout. Thursday is a meeting of all my fellow HRAs (Human Resources Advisors) and we're going to Canada Olympic Park so that will be some sort of physical activity as we've been told to wear appropriate clothing and I think some sort of social time afterwards. So really this plan really worked out for this particular week. Normally Thursday is a pretty long day as it's my fly home day so it still works out.

The other reason I like this is I'm better at planning my WP. If I know they're there with no purpose it's always sort of an excuse in the back of my head. I also believe the WP are there to be used.

I went to the meeting today and by 9am (the meeting start time) there was still no leader. I guess there was a sub and they were lost. I decided to leave at that point and go to Walmart and pick up the rest of my groceries. I'm making Turkey Chili tomorrow and I needed diced tomatoes.

My PVR is having some sort of issue. I can see all the channels but the guide shows no details, I can't access the PVR nor Shaw on Demand. So a cable guy is coming on Friday. I'm thinking my box might be getting old. I am spoiled by technology as I'm finding it onerous to switch channels one by one.

I hope you had a fabulous Saturday.

Hugs!!!!

Day 28- How quickly things change

When I last wrote to you I was very encouraged by my successful day on plan and avoiding some familiar triggers.
Well now I'm holding on this week by the a thread.

Tuesday - the Fun 5K was a huge success. 100 people dead on the nose ran or walked. I sold a whack of 20/20 tickets and cheered them on. I did plan that day and grabbed a pb&j sandwich from the pack lunch kitchen to be dinner as it wouldn't be eating at my normal time. Well I didn't get back to till about 8pm and I was hungry so I whipped into the pack lunch kitchen for a snack and left with a cinnamon roll. Yeah not so successful. Yet it's all tracked.

Wednesday - Did fairly well there to but the bowl of Hershey Kisses on my desk turned on me that day. I had the points for them so not a total disaster but then when I got home at about 10 to 8pm and was hungry so noshed a little over my points.

Thursday - Team off site day. The day went well and I think everyone had fun. It was also a foodapalooza. I used the wrong strategy in the morning. I should have had breakfast at home but I knew they'd have breakfast there and it was a smallish group. Lunch was of course catered. Then the evening activity of cooking at the Cookbook Company was awesome but so much food. The Risotto Croquettes were awesome, as was the cheese plate they set out for us. The grilled veggies and arugala salad also awesome. The dressing they put on the arugala was spectacular as normally I think it's pretty bitter and don't really like it in my salads.

I was team Gnocci and they're suprisingly easy to make. The chef took care of the brown butter sauce with prosciutto and lemon. This dish actually started the meal.

Then the chicken breast (skin on and boned) stuffed with goat cheese and herbs. It looked good but I don't do bones. I had a bit to try it but my chicken looked a little pink and that threw me off.

Dessert was a tirimasu that involved the traditional lady fingers, mascarpone, whip cream but it had a twist chocolate raspberry brownie. Delicious but my favourite remains the traditional. I didn't track any of that as my points for the week are now in the stratosphere. I should have left all my WP for Thursday

Alas this morning I stood on the scale in my bathroom and 172 stared back at me. On Tuesday I was 167.8.

Today was all about damage control. I woke up and a huge glass of water and then waited till I was hungry for breakfast. I had oatmeal later as I wanted to go to the gym and needed sustenance. I walked to the gym and biked for 5min while I waited for a treadmill. When I got a treadmill I did my 2:1 interval of walk/run for 15 intervals. Sometimes I miss the expensive gym I went to before. The gym was warm and an alarm was going off at about the half way mark of my workout but there was no announcement and no one was moving. I just reminded myself you're only home for 3 days a week this gym is fine.

After the workout I went over to Safeway and got my groceries and then I walked home. All in it was 838 calories burned.

Came home and had a green monster along with 3 Ryvitta crisps. I had one with hummous, one with light onion and chive cream cheese and one plain.

Later as a snack I had Yoptimal strawberry yogurt.

For dinner I'm planning zucchini spaghetti with organic tomato sauce.

I'm keeping it fairly low points to compensate for yesterday.

So 6/7 days tracked for the week.

Bring on weigh in.

Hope you had a great last few days.

Hugs!!!

Day 24- Kidnapped by aliens?

This bowl is filled with Hershey's kisses and hugs and sits on the corner of my desk at work. Yes, you might think I'm crazy to have it there but I do for two reasons. One - I work with 98% men and it helped me be a bit more approachable as my office is tucked away in a quiet corner and two - it's a test for me. Now there have been times where I've indulged on a number of these little babies (and tracked them).

Today I had none, zip, zilch zero. I've been re-reading the End to Overeating and I looked at them today and thought "Fat and sugar". I had cherries with me so I snacked on those instead.

Today I won the battle with the chocolates. I had the tacos for dinner but tried something different with the toppings. I grabbed a soup bowl and put in about 2 tablespoons of grated cheese, salsa, about a tablespoon of sour cream (full fat at site) and a whack of chopped tomatos. I mixed it up and then put it on my tacos at the table. I used half of what was in the bowl. Now had I tried to load my tacos it would have been a far different story as the extras are on a sort of salad bar so you use a giant spoon to try to take small amounts.

I did tell myself I could have jello for dessert but I thought of another trick from the Mindless Eating book. I didn't take the jello with me to the table. I told myself to eat dinner first and then go back if I still wanted the jello.

In the interest of full disclosure I did get a few french fries that were next to the tacos but I left some on my plate and it was a small serving to begin with. I didn't go back for the jello and walked out of the kitchen without even going into the pack lunch kitchen (cookie source).

So I did use 3 WP points today but I'm 3 days into my week and I've use 4 WP.

Tonight's activty was treadmill. I went down to 13 intervals and this time on the run I ran at 6.0. Normally I run at 5.4 - 5.5. Wowsers that tired me out and I didn't finish the intervals. So at the end of the day it was 10min running and 27 min brisk walk.

One other victory is after the gym I didn't wander back to the pack lunch kitchen to grab a cookie.

Tomorrow will be interesting as I accidentally volunteered to sell 50/50 tickets at our fun run. So not sure what workout will happen tomorrow. My right knee has been feeling a little off so it's a good thing I'm not taking part in the run/walk (due to selling tickets) as that would be running on gravel roads.

Now Wednesday and Thursday are iffy too, so I need to pay super attention to food and water.

So many mini victories today now just repeat it tomorrow.

Off to watch EMWLE

Hugs!!!

Day 23 - Busy little bee

I was more on top of things today as opposed to other Sundays.
Laundry was done and put away in the morning, I made turkey meatloaf to take to work and I mowed the lawn all before 1pm. Next up is dishes and I'm done for the day.

I saw the parchment paper trick on an episode of Marilyn Denis. It made the bottom less soggy which can happen in a muffin tin. This is a classic WW recipe that I've had forever and can't remember the source.

OMG they smelled amazing while in the oven and I had two for lunch, plus one right when it came out of the oven to test it....yummy.


1 box Turkey Stuffing Mix
456g (1 package) of Extra lean ground turkey
3 egg whites
1 cup of water
1/2 cup of grated carrot
1/2 cup of chopped yellow pepper
1/2 cup of chopped red onion
Some garlic powder, some Chipotle Chile powder, salt and pepper

I love this recipe because you just pretty much toss everything in a bowl. The first 4 ingredients are the core recipe the rest I just added for fun. You can change up the seasoning or add different spices. Everytime I make it's slightly different.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30- 40min. They're 2 propoints each. I ran it through recipe builder so when I had two for lunch it rounded up to 5pts.

Yesterday was perfectly on plan and stuck to my 29 daily points. This morning the scale already showed 170 gone, however it's early days yet. I am a daily weigher as it helps me keep on track. I even have an app on my phone for that purpose plus you can kind of see I right in my tracker (picture below).

Today is on tap to be right on plan as well. It's so funny how sometimes it's so easy to blitz right past the daily points and rack them up and then other days you have to give it some thought to get them all in.

There have been times that I track everything and I'm at 29 and then I go a little overboard in the evening so I'm trying a different trick this week.

This is my tracker page from yesterday. The picture is a little blurry but Saturday is my meeting day hence the Starbucks breakfast.

I've said before I have a sticker thing. I have the smiley faces on my calendars (home, work, camp) for activity (today's activity was mowing the lawn for an hour), I've added a heart sticker for tracking as my goal is to track all 7 days this week. I'll take a picture of the calendar at the end of this week and post it.

I had another sheet that had all these sayings like "good job", "excellent" and so on. I use them in the tracker at the front next to the weigh ins. I'm trying to give myself positive affirmations everywhere I turn. Well last night I plunked one on my tracking page sort of as a stop marker to stop myself from eating anything else. Of course I could eat and not write it but that's what got me back to 170 and as I said yesterday it's on like Donkey Kong. I'll repeat this all this week and see how it goes.

On Friday my new toy arrived in the mail. So I've talked about my Kobo before and how I love this e-reader well when I heard a touch version was coming I couldn't resist.

On the left is the new Kobo Touch and on the right is the original. The screen size is identical but you can see that the Touch is smaller. It's also lighter. My one beef with the original Kobo is the button. It's especially a little painful when you're on the shop and trying to enter an author's name while navigating left and right to click on the letters. What I'm loving about the touch is you don't need to do that. Plus I enjoy the touch page flip.

I bought a book style cover for the Kobo Touch but I'm not loving it so next week if I hit a Chapters I might get a sleeve like I had for my other Kobo. Not sure what I'll do with the old Kobo just keep it as a spare for now. You can tell I have a thing for purple.

My challenge for this week is I fly home a day early and it's a later flight so not sure what will happen with a Wednesday workout perhaps get up early and hit the gym at camp but not sure if that's realistic as it will be a later day. Thursday is an all day offsite for team bonding in Calgary. I think we're going to the Cookbook Company for a cooking lesson that night. So Thursday's workout is also in the air probably a yoga dvd when I get home. My plan now is to be mindful and use some tools from Mindless Eating like eat 20% less of the plate.

I hope you all enjoyed your Sunday.

Hugs!!!

Day 22 - Emotional vs Logical it's time for a showdown

Dear 170,
We meet again. In fact you were there the first week I decided to challenge myself to 90 days of being on plan. You went away the first week and I was happy to say good bye yet now you're back.

Oh I admit I enabled your return. The logical brain knows you're just a number and with tracking and a good attitude you could be anhilated. The emotional brain seems to have a connection to you and keeps bringing you back. Emotional brain doesn't believe they deserve success.

You think you're not so bad as you're still 34 lbs from my original start weight but you must also remember you are the point where I've backslid before. Oh yes you thought I forgot. Logical brain never forgets.

Well the emotional brain has ruled for far too long and logical brain is ready and armed for a fight. You see logical brain is re-learning some lessons like reading Mindless Eating and re-reading The End to Emotional Eating. You see 170 this is war. Logical brain knows that by not following the plan I'm throwing away $15 a week for the WW meetings and just going through the motions. I can talk the talk but it's time to walk the walk. I went today and though the topics have been heard before it's a good reminder and the better part is seeing the success of others. In fact today a woman celebrated 75lbs loss.

Plus my dear 170 you know how I like trinkets and stickers. I want another 25lbs medallion on my WW key chain and you will not stop me. I want more 5lb stickers. I will rock a bikini in Vegas next June. I will finally be able to be the fashionista I am in my head. More importanly 170 I'll be healthy and strong. Oh I still very much want that Tiffany Key I promised myself when I hit goal.

After weigh in I went to the grocery store and armed myself with healthy food and snacks. I know deprivation is not the answer but accountability is. You see 170 I will no longer be ruled or controlled by food.

I'm breaking up with you 170. This is on like Donkey Kong.

See ya.

Day 21 - Highly Ironic and pretty stupid

Last Friday on my birthday I went to the closest convenience store to get some half and half as my Dad was coming in the next day and that's what he likes in his coffee. As I was walking to where the cream is stored I was passing the freezers where a sign stopped me in my tracks. Haagen Daz - 2 for $10. Now in Canada $5 for Haagen Daz is a deal. Keep in mind I was a bit in the dumps about this birthday so I came home with two pints.
Last night I got home and I was tired still feeling a little blah so that was my dinner. I finished off the 3/4 of Cookie Dough Dynamo and the 1/4 of Caramel Vanilla Latte. Yup 1 pint of Ice Cream for dinner.

I do find it highly ironic that I'm reading a book about mindless eating and that's exactly what I did.

The whole week has been a little rough food wise. There have been good days and some so so days and then last night which to me would classify as a disaster.

However I might have lost the battle - I haven't lost the war. Today I'm super on track and went outside for the 4th workout of the week. I did attempt my walk/run but I wasn't feeling it at all.

All morning I felt a tension headache coming on but I was hoping it would just go away. I had planned to mow the lawn today and at about 10am I heard a whole whack of noise out front. The city was delivering our black bins. I went outside and retrieved my bin and rolled into the backyard only to discover it doesn't not fit through the gate. When I got the blue recycle bin it barely fit through the back gate. I had to roll the thing back to the front and down the block so I could go down the alley and put it next to my blue bin. Thankfully I only live 4 houses down from the entrance to the alley. By the time that was done I was now into full blown tension headache. I took some advil, put on a sleep mask and went back to bed.

I felt more human later on still feeling a tinge in my left shoulder ( I carry all my stress in my upper back). Had some lunch and then headed outside for the workout. I decided the lawn could wait. There are thunder showers forecasted so I just kept one eye on the sky. I got through two intervals of 2:1 and I wasn't feeling it at all. I could still feel the tension in my shoulder and running mojo was just not there so I walked.

Heck I lost the first 20lbs pretty much just walking.

It was 46:48min, 5.3k around the neighbourhood. I burned 274 calories, at a pace of 8.5 to 5.56 and heart rate of 130-162.

The one thing I like better about my Polar FT7 monitor vs my Garmin is that at any time I can see calories burned on the Polar but not on the Garmin.

I'm committed to going to weigh in and getting back into a successful pattern. Sure I'm a bit disappointed that I've goofed off for 2 out of 3 weeks of my re-committment alas rome was not built in a day. For the rest of this journey there will be no skipping weigh ins on purpose. If there's a gain - suck it up and deal with it.

So in a few hours it will be food cut off and I'll return to my Saturday morning meeting tomorrow, then it will be off to the grocery store to make sure Saturday and Sunday continue on the good track plus get me into my work week on a positive note.

I hope you guys had a good last few days.

Hugs!!

Day 18 and 19 - Positive Self Talk

So I had good intentions yesterday, I had planned to do yoga in my room but I also needed to do laundry. I decided to tackly laundry first as I didn't want to interrupt a yoga practice with having to race down the hallway to retrieve my laundry. I never want to experience strange men touching my laundry so they can access a machine 3 minutes sooner then me getting there and retrieving my own laundry again.

All went well until we got to the dryer. The dryer said the cycle was 48min, that's similar to my home machine so great I set the alarm on my iphone, went back to my room and watched MasterChef. I go back 48min later and the dryer now says 36min remaining. Huh, it took 56min to wash and an hour and 20 to dry? The dryers at camp are iffy. My ridiculously fancy dryer at home can dry a load in 41min. Alas by the time I put the laundry away it was now 8pm and I was tired. So Tuesday became a rest day.  So far 3 smiley stickers are earned for the week and I've earned 6AP each time so that's 18 so far.

This evening I knew I needed to kick it in the cardio so I went back to my walk/run intervals.

Tonight was 57:48min, 515 calories burned, Heart rate 177-154, 5.5 km on .5 incline on the treadmill. Whenever I do stuff on the treadmill I have it on a minimum .5 incline. I did 15 intervals of 2 min walk with 1 min run.

The treadmill at site is about a foot from a wall and you can look up at an odd incline at the tv. The tvs are nice but for some reason you can't change the channel so it was Seattle news for the bulk of my workout. The CBC app on my phone alerted me that the Bruins scored in the first period of tonight's game.

I do find it challenging to stay into it when staring at a wall, so I decided to pump myself up mentally. I counted the intervals up to 10 and then down from 5. I gave myself pep talks the entire time like chanting in my head "fit, fab and fierce", "you can do it"  or just 3 more to go.

I'm still reading "Mindless Eating" and it's still funny, I think I'll need to read it again to actually note specific things.

Tomorrow will be yoga when I get home, and then Friday will be back to cardio. I'm thinking gym so I can go grocery shopping right after as they're next door but we'll see.

Hope you all had a fabulous few days.

Hugs!!!

Day 17 - 2nd day of run/walk

Hello my friends,

Left the house in pouring rain this morning and landed in +20. I don't spend a whole lot of time outside at work. So the nice weather was a little lost on me.

Had a plan to take my lean cuisine lasagna lunch outside but it was too dusty. Oh well there's always tomorrow.

I came across a blog written by the CEO of Weight Watchers written by David

First of all it's really well written and he has an excellent sense of humor. He also has some good insight.

He's been talking about a book called "Mindless Eating" written by Brian Wansink. I decided to put it on my kobo and check it out. Not only is this book fascinating in terms of human behaviour but it's also funny. I was laughing out loud while waiting for the plane this morning. I'll write more when I finish it but so far I'd highly recommend it.

Tonight's workout was another walk/ jog. This time 57:44, 498 calories burned, HR 151-176, fat burn zone 4:36, fitness zone 53:08. It was just under 6 km not including the walk there and back from my room.

Tomorrow I'm taking a break from the cardio and do some yoga.

Now settling down to watch Extreme Make-over - weight loss edition

Hope your Monday went well!

Day 16 - Post 2 - Gymboss goes outside

Gymboss and I headed outside for my first atttempt at walk/ jog intervals outside in a very long time. I don't enjoy looking at my watch to see how much time has passed. It's not unusual for me to think I've run for a full minute to look down and see it's been like 20 seconds.

All I had to do was run till it beeped then walk till it beeped. It was hard a first as my neighbourhood as a whack of inclines but I made it. I liked how it kept me guessing.

My intervals were 2 min walk/ 1 min jog for 51:26 minutes (there was a bit of a cool down walk after the intervals were done). 6.45 km, 396 calories burned, pace 7:58- 5:57, heart rate 159-181.

I got home and created a bit of a workout plan for this week. Yesterday I bought new stickers. I was getting too complicated with the stickers as I had one for water, one for tracking and one for workouts. I started off well but then gave up. I'm going to keep it simple this time and just use stickers for activity on the calendar. I've started putting stickers in my actual tracker for good weeks or good days. Positive re-inforcement I'm thinking.

How cute are these? My plan is to remind myself everywhere so these will go on the calendar at home, at my desk and in my camp room. The plan to create a bit of streak and to stay focused. One sticker earned today with my walk/ jog.  I have the multicoloured paper clip chain representing every pound I've lost since my starting weight of 204 also in my house, office and camp room.

Alright that's all for me today, hope your weekend was wonderful.

Hugs!!!

Day 16 - Week 3 begins with a pledge

Got a little messed up on my days as today is in fact Day 16 of my 90 day challenge.
Alright I'm technically two days into my Week 3 but all distractions are now gone.

Dad left about 15 min ago as he likes to head out early. Yesterday we planted, grocery shopped and when we got home from shopping my toilet handle broke. We had lunch at KFC which is tradition and then zipped up to Rona so I could buy a new handle. Dad had a nap and I installed the new handle. I think I suprised him by doing it all on my own.

He brought me a strawberry shortcake as my birthday cake which was nice and I had one piece with him yesterday and today that thing goes into the garbage. I sent him home with 3 bags of cat food plus two bags of treats for the wild/ partially domesticated cats who I call my siblings. Mom cat is gone but the two older boys (Fred and Spook) are still around plus the two newer additions (Dusty and Max). Yes I name them even though they couldn't care less well apart from Fred. He's the only who likes to be petted the others just tolerate you because they know you have accesss to the food.

We watched Vancouver beat the Bruins a few minutes into OT. All in all a pleasant visit.

I'll got out to his house for a week in August but after my 90 day (well technically 94 day) challenge is over.

The workout today will be outside me thinks. I have yet to take the gymboss outside and the weather while cloudy should be nice-ish today. I'll probably be back later to talk about that.

I leave you now with my as promised pledge ala #fitafterfitbloggin with a few modifications particular to me:

My #FitAfterFitbloggin Pledge:

I Cowgirl Warrior aka Sylvia do solemnly swear I have finally learned after 39 years I can not let my workouts plateau or emotional eating rule my life and expect to grow more healthy, fit and strong.

I recognize the importance of tracking, cross-training, of trying new things and of letting go of my vice-like grip on my self definition.

I will greet each day with a renewed commitment to my overall health & wellness and remember I am never as far away from my healthy living path as my very.next.choice.

Day 12 - 15 - Old habits die hard

Sorry about being MIA, this tends to happen for two reasons. The first being busy and there was a part of that and the second being I've fallen off the wagon - well that happened too.
Tuesday started as a good day it was long I had meeting almost till 8pm and had to deal with some drama between co-workers. I'm sure I mentioned before I'm in HR so every so often it's a bit like being a social worker, kindergarden teacher or a referee. That day felt more like kindergarden teacher. That resulted in grabbing cookies at the end of the day when I had so successfully avoided them at the beginning of the day.

Wednesday the big wigs were in for meetings which means pastries everywhere, plus a celebration dinner that night for a project. Yeah Wednesday didn't go so well. My co-worker was back from vacation. Don't get me wrong my co-worker and I are friends and I was happy to see her and glad she had a great vacation. I had a lot of fun the last 3 weeks supporting everyone and felt like I had purpose, was contributing  and more importantly felt like I was appreciated. I knew when she returned that I wouldn't be as busy anymore so I was a little sad about that. I know at some point things will ramp up for me again but it's been 6 months now and I'm itching to go. It will happen soon I must just be patient. The being busy is probably the thing I miss most from my previous job and I have to remember this is the right move career wise and they wouldn't have chosen me if they didn't think I could do it. I love the group I support so this is all in my head.

Thursday I did better as I knew I had to get the emotional eating under control. Then I got home and stood on the scale. I didn't like what was looking back at me and I also knew I self sabotaged myself.

Another thing that could be part of it is today is my birthday. I don't normally have issues with birthdays but today I turned 39. My vain self is happy that people would never think that as they always think I'm in my 20s but my head was going to more places like "you're 39 years old and your still not a goal weight". I think I truly became conscious of being fat when I was in junior high and it's been a battle ever since. I think back to my younger self and when I imagined what my life would be when I was older. I imagined a successful career and a husband and maybe a couple of kids. Well I have one of those 3. Now really I have no reason to complain. I have wonderful friends and I got a few surprise Happy Birthdays from people I wasn't expecting. I was also really happy that I am comfortable with my own company. Any other day I'm content and know if I'm meant to be married it will happen. The kid part I'm not so sure about anymore and let's be honest I'm getting older.

I knew I wanted to spend today alone. I had a few offers to go out some birthday related some probably had no clue. Today was a day like any other and the lawn had to mowed as it was jungle status. I had to clean the house as my Dad is coming tomorrow. I decided to eat whatever the heck I wanted to today so there where oreos and pepperoni pizza. I've decided to write off this week and we'll start fresh tomorrow. I've also decided to not go to weigh in tomorrow. I'm taking a birthday pass. Many of you will disagree with that and that's cool everyone is entitled to their opinion. I will not tailspin and completely abandon the wagon.

I'm going to be smokin' hot on my 40th birthday and I'm going to Vegas to rock the short dress and the high heels. Perhaps my version of midlife crisis :)

I'm still committed to my 90 day plan and the positive, go gettem' attitude will be back. I'm going to take the #fitafterfitbloggin pledge that Mizfit has created in the next few days. I like that it's a re-affirmation to yourself and there's no challenges or plan. I just need to do what I've done on successful weeks which is track and move more. I didn't know anything about Fitbloggin until I saw it all over twitter but I think I might go next year. How fun would that be to connect to other bloggers who've put a piece of themselves on the world wide web to be healthier.  I have zero intention of turning this blog into a money making entity it will always be my little soap box to talk about whatever the heck I want and if you enjoy reading it - bonus.

I do hope all of you had a great week and I'll probably be back on Sunday as tomorrow will be busy with papa.

Hugs!!!