Unusual Week

I had a bit of a crazy week.

Monday was badminton and loads of fun. Some of us are discovering we have some killer instincts even Badminton Sensei says we might be ready to face off against the crazy good people in a few weeks.

Flew home on Wednesday due to meetings in Calgary on Thursday. It was eluded that I might get a new responsibility. I say eluded as absolutely nothing has been directly said but just inferred. That's happening a lot lately. There's so many changes going on but no communication. It's very cloak and dagger and making me feel very in limbo.

Had to go into work on Friday for a 5hr meeting. I'm going to be coaching some senior leaders in an offsite at the end of April. This meeting was to prepare us coaches. One facilitator was awesome and I think is a superb coach. The other one was meh. It was an interesting exercise though as there was a portion where you had to be a coach, the coached and an observer. When I was the coachee I wasn't sure what to use as my thing to be coached on so I just sort of winged it of course I volunteered to go first as I just wanted to get it over with.  What I did realize is I'm totally freaked about a meeting I need to facilitate on Tuesday.

It was funny when I was the coach my coachee started with one thing that she thought was bothering her but over the course of the conversation it was something different. I've very much looking forward to this opportunity to be a coach as I think I'll learn a lot about myself in the process.

You see the topic is not my strong suit, it's not rocket science either but my co-worker has done it for the past few years and done a tremendously good job so I really really don't want to mess it up. I know I'm making it out to be far worse than it really is but that's what I do. I wish I didn't.

I could feel a headache coming on Friday afternoon. I went to bed early yesterday.

I woke up with the same headache so I got up took some Advil and went back to bed. I could tell it was a tension headache and those always take forever to go away for me. I didn't wake up till 10:30am so I completely missed both WW meetings today. I also missed Zumba.

I went grocery shopping as I couldn't do that on Friday and then I had plans to do to housework but I had absolutely no get up and go.

Goal wise was all over the place. Took my vitamins for 4 days, got 2L of water in for 5 days, exercise was 2 days.

So my first week of the RFS challenge is a bit of a write off. However tomorrow is a new day and a new month. There's something about April that's just so positive perhaps it's because it's starting to really feel like spring.

Tomorrow I re-start my C25K with run 1 and the goal this week is to get 3 runs in. I'm still technically on track for that goal as there's 9 weeks left of the challenge and it's a 9 week program. That also means absolutely no excuses from here on out.

Happy April!

Hugs!!

RFS Challenge Begins

Well technically it begins tomorrow but I'll be using my WW weigh ins to judge my weight goal and this week I was down 1.8 so I'm starting this challenge at 177.8.

Now my ultimate goal is 20lbs down so that's 2lbs a week. To do that I need to be focused and I'm talking military like focus. Which I'll get to in a minute.

Activity wise this weekend it was all about the dogs. Yesterday I took the dogs for an hour walk plus the 40min walk minus dogs to WI and back.

Today I took the dogs for another hour walk. They went home at noon and while I'm going to miss those little guys and I only had them for two days.

I did get a bit of additional walking in as after the dogs left I went to MEC to get a different back pack.

One of my co-workers had this one and I liked it immediately. The other one I bought wasn't quite right so it will have another use. What I liked about this one is has laptop pocket at the back and the main compartment is pretty roomy. It will road tested tomorrow. I did ask him if it was o.k if I went out and got the same one. There were only 2 left in the store so pretty popular I think.

I then booted it on foot from MEC to the mall as I wanted to go to Shopper's Drug Mart.

Last week I also got my new luggage. With all the travelling I'm doing this year I decided to upgrade my packing style. The luggage is Revolution Elite from Heys.ca.  I love the green and the 10 year warranty.

I also got packing cubes, a luggage scale and shoe bags from Heys.ca.

Now on to the challenge. My goal for this week is to hit 200% of the goal I laid out so that means. Tracking, vitamins and minimum 2L of water, that also means activity 6 days a week. 

I'll doing day one again of the C25K on Tuesday as I didn't get day 2 in this week. 

I have badminton tomorrow, C25K on Tuesday, I need to do an early morning workout on Wednesday as I fly home that day due to meetings in Calgary so that might be C25K day two just due to scheduling. Thursday I have to work in Calgary and have an after work shindig I need to go to. Friday I also need to go into work even though it's my day off for a 9-2 meeting but I'll pack my gym bag and workout after the meeting and do C25K day 3, if the weather is nice I might just come home and do that as I can leave at 2pm. 

So Thursday and Friday will be challenges this week. Thursday because it's night out but the good thing about working on Friday is that it can't be late. Friday is a catered lunch. I'll need to stay focused and do some mental rehearsing for those two days. 

Alright time for me to wind down as I need to be up at 3:30 am. 

Hope you had a great weekend.

Hugs!!

Ah Friday

My week flew by so I didn't post much but today I finally have some time to sit with my computer. 

On Monday I played an hour of badminton and absolutely enjoyed myself so happy that this will become part of my routine.

On Tuesday I did get up at 4am and went to the gym. I completed day one of C25K and I really like this app. I downloaded the Active.com C25K app on my Iphone. I like that you can choose from 3 voices to prompt you. There's a Sergeant who's "hard core", Billie a no nonsense trainer and Charlene an alumni of the C25K program. I went with Charlene. I can use one of my playlists for music and Charlene's voice comes on to tell me when I need walk or jog. The visual of the app is nice too on the treadmill. I see the countdown of whatever I'm doing plus what coming up next and for who long. There's also an oval around the clock that changes colour as the workout progresses so you know how much is left to do. Kind of reminds me of a track. Now when I go outside I won't see any of this but the voice is nice as I don't need to look at my watch. 

The workout itself went really well. 

I had planned to do day 2 on Thursday but I had some issues. I woke up and checked my BB to see what time it was and the BB was dead. My work BB is also my alarm clock. So I grabbed my Iphone and found out it was midnight then programmed the alarm on that. Then I just lay there till about 3am. So with little sleep I opted not to run on Thursday. 

I had thought I might do it today. I got off to a late start this morning and did some grocery shopping. Today I get the two Westies (Griffin and Chloe) to dog sit this weekend. They were supposed to be here at 6pm but my old boss's boss husband was flying Air Canada today and with all that's going on with that his flight was cancelled. He rebooked on West Jet but will be delayed. Now I won't get the dogs till closer to 7pm or later. 

Now at 3pm I was tired so I had a nap. I woke up half an hour ago. Now it's looking like I'll do run 2 on Sunday. 

Tomorrow I'm not going to the gym instead I'll walk the dogs a few times. I feel like I need to spend some time entertaining them and I already know that I'm going out for dinner tomorrow plus leaving in the morning for weigh in. I like to think when I take care of people's dogs that the dogs are on vacation when their parents go away. 

The owners will only be away for the weekend and promised me that they'll pick up the dogs by noon on Sunday. 

I think I'll see a loss tomorrow. Tracking was better not perfect but got 6 out of 7 days, water was better always got at least a litre mostly 1.5 but the goal is 2. Exercise was 3 days this week. 

Ready for Summer starts Monday....

Hope you had a great week!

Hugs!!

New Challenge and new goals - Ready for Summer Challenge

Got word today that I will be dog sitting two westies next weekend so I had to change my plans a little. It was up in the air until it was confirmed today. Today's focus was cleaning the house. As I'm only home 3 days every week I tend to only do full out clean every two weeks. My original plan was to do that next weekend but with two dogs in the house I changed it to this weekend. Plus only being home 3 days a week my house tends to be dumping ground so I also did a little dog proofing today.

My first C25K run will be Tuesday as I have no scheduling nor time change wimp outs so it will be the return of the early morning workout. This is the other motivation to run more. I've pretty much figured out my run days will Tues, Thurs and Sun. I'm going to follow the Jeff Galloway training plan this time which is the one actually endorsed by Disney. This plan does focus on walking breaks which I'm totally in support of I just want to have longer run spurts in between the walking spurts.

I've organized a beginner badminton night for Mondays. My badminton Sensei (aka co-worker) has agreed and I got two other badminton newbies to join me. Normally badminton night is Wednesday in the work gymnasium but that's when all the crazy good people play and they're intense and whack that birdie around like a weapon. I'll wear my HR monitor to see what kind of workout that will be.

It's time to set up some goals for the new Ready for Summer Challenge  that starts on Mar. 26 (pop on over to join up) and I'm going to adopt something we do at work. At work we set up goals so they're measured at 100%, 150% and 200%. We get a bonus at 100% but an even better bonus at 200%. 100%  represents a definite you can do it, 150% represents a bit of a stretch and 200% is a bigger stretch but still doable. I'm starting now with these goals as there's no time like the present and it's a bit of practice week.

In the challenge you choose a minimum of one goal from any or all of the following categories.
1. Weight loss
2. NSV (non scale victory)
3. Exercise
4. Nutrition

As this challenge ends on my birthday I've got some extra motivation so I'm setting goals in all 4 categories.

1. Weight loss
100% - 10lbs
150% - 15 lbs
200% - 20lbs
Now if I hit the 200% goal I'll need to give myself an awesome prize.

2. NSV
100% complete the C25K program before this challenge ends
150% run 5K in 40min
200% run 5K in 35min.

3.Exercise
100% exercise (min 30min) 4 times a week
150% exercise (min 30min) 5 times a week
200% exercise (min 30min) 6 times a week

4. Nutrition
100% track 7 days a week
150% track 7 days a week and get a minimum of 2L
200% track 7 days a week, get a minimum of 2L and take my vitamins

I've got Vegas coming up too so Operation Enough/Hottie needs to get some fire under it's patootie.

Today I got an invite on Facebook to a sort of informal reunion with people I went to high school with. Now I always considered myself an outsider in high school. I was chubby and went to school with some fairly wealthy kids and I came from a not so wealthy background add that I was super shy and had zip for self esteem. I didn't go to my prom instead I went to work. I was in the bilingual program so there was kids from all over the city. This Facebook thing looks like it's covering elementary, junior and high school (at the time there were a handful of bilingual schools. The motivation reason behind it seems to be the bulk of us are turning 40 this year. So the BBQ is a family affair.

Nowadays it looks like the bulk of them are married with kids and of course I'm neither so at the moment I'm not to keen to go. Mind you all the people I went to high school with who are my friends on Facebook found me so I guess some people remember me fondly.

It's not till August so loads of time to think about it.

I need to go to bed soon as that alarm is going off at 3:30am.

I hope you all had a great weekend.

A challenge ends and a new one begins

I didn't have a very successful Spring Chick Challenge from a pure weight loss perspective. In fact today I was up 2.4.

However I am happy with myself for going to weigh in. When I stepped on my bathroom scale this morning I thought about not going, I thought about going to the later meeting in hopes I'd miraculously lose 2lbs by then.

Then I decided no I'm not going to avoid the scale or go into denial.

Let's face it tracking stopped after Tuesday. Thursday night I went out for drinks and appetizers with my client group. That was me and 9 men.

I ordered a super stoked vodka coke which is not exactly a low point drink. The first batch of appetizers was everything I don't eat fish and things with bones i.e. chicken wings. The second batch of appetizers has sliders and chili chicken - that's more my style.

Friday I thought I'd eat lighter to compensate. That was disaster as I just grazed without a plan.

What I did learn during this challenge is that I need to more committed and make my weight loss and getting healthier a priority. I talk a good talk but the walking part has been sorely lacking.

Today at weigh in I picked up some brochures: Manage Your Thoughts, Mental Rehearsing, Empowering Beliefs and Motivating Strategy.

Today's meeting topic was a good one for me to hear. I had a bad trend this week of starting the day out well and then throwing it out the window. Then giving myself some good negative self talk that had me reaching for a cookie.

I wonder if it's because I'm a Gemini. One side of my brain is saying you want to rock a bikini in Vegas, run the whole 5K at Fitbloggin, shave mega time off a Wine and Dine and the other side of my brain is nah I'm not going to workout today, forgetting the tracker on my desk.

Going today was a good shake to the head. This week I'm focusing on back to basics and following the plan 101.

I will do well over the next few weeks and rock the Ready for Summer challenge.

Now after weigh in I shook myself off and went to the gym. I did a quick grocery shop and picked up All Bran buds because my fibre could use a boost and I also found bagel thins plus the new Laughing Cow Garlic Herb.

Then I hit the gym. I was early for Zumba so I walked on a new treadmill for 30min, then had Zumba for an hour and then Iron Reps for an hour.

Yesterday I watched an interesting documentary on The Nature of Things called The Perfect Runner . It more or less says that has human beings we are designed to run and that it's unnatural for us to sit all day. So that inspired me to download a C25K app from active.com. Tomorrow is run one. I'm committed to completing the entire cycle as I have picked my training days for the half in November and I want to run for far longer periods of time then I did at Tinkerbell.

Let's turn this ship around.

Hugs!!

All registered

So when I thought Disney Wine and Dine (DWD) registration opened on Monday at 10pm I was totally wrong. It opened at 12pm EST not 12am. Duh!

I did get registered that day though. Also got a deal on a park pass. This time I opted to buy the commemorative pin and necklace. At Tinkerbell I just got the pin.

Then I hunted accommodations. I used GET travel for Tinkerbell but the link on the DWD page takes you to last years info. I also checked their website and nada. I was hesitant to use the options provided by Disney as it's based on double occupancy and I'm going solo. They also have a disclaimer the deal is available till Nov 13 and I'm staying till the 15th.

So I started hunting. I wanted to stay in the same hotels mentioned on the DWD page because then race transportation is provided. I used an app I downloaded called Hipmunk. It took me to Orbitz where I found an even better deal for the All Star Music resort. I upped to a "preferred room" for an average of $114US per night no extra fee for being solo. The Disney deal was $121 per night. I wanted to book this now as it will fill up. I checked Expedia first and there was nothing available.

Oh and the park pass I ordered shipped today.

Now the only option I can't get is the Disney Dining plan but I'm cool with that. I found the plans confusing and again I'm solo so I don't want to be confined to a plan.

This weekend I'll get a travel book as Disney World is gigantic. So now 34 weeks and 3 days to race day.

Now other than that not a stellar week. No workouts and food is all over the place. Today I re-did my tracking spreadsheet to remind myself of my goals. I've been too distracted by getting caught up in stress. I've been stressed for awhile and I can narrow it down to a person. What I don't get is why do I let this person get to me. I can rise above it.

Home day tomorrow - yippee. Hope you enjoyed your Wednesday!!

Hugs!!!

Change of plans

Yesterday I spent the whole day in my pajamas. I don't know if it was the time change but Sunday flew by. The walk/ run didn't happen as while I was doing laundry I got sucked into Face Off on the Space channel, not the movie with John Travolta. This was a competition among special effects make-up.

Then dishes and general clean- up happened and by the time I was done it was time to wind down for the 3:30am wake- up time.

Slept so-so last night and I got back to my camp room tonight and remembered I had to do laundry. All of my workout clothes are in the hamper. Now also got to camp a little later then I had planned. I wound up eating dinner with some friends as opposed to grabbing food and eating it in my camp room.

When I got back to my room I realized I was behind schedule for laundry. It takes 2 hrs to do laundry. To be up for the gym tomorrow I need to be asleep by 8pm. Then I realized registration for the Disney Wine and Dine technically opens tonight for me. It starts at 12am EST. That's 10pm MST.

So I booted it to the laundry room. All washers were taken but one was done with clothes in it. I just stood there and waited. I didn't feel right moving someone's clothes to a dryer and I was traumatized when I once found all my clothes on top of a machine. Perhaps it's because as a woman I'm in the minority up at site and I'm not crazy about strange men touching my underwear.

Alas another male coworker who's washer wasn't finished yet came by and moved the clothes to the dryer so I could use the machine.

So now my plan is to register for the race tonight. As I won't have workout clothes for another hour and a half I'll skip the am workout tomorrow as I won't be effective on less sleep after no sleep. Now I have a meeting that runs till 8pm tomorrow (thinking of a way out of it) so I'll be diligent food wise and do my best this week. Workouts might be erratic but that doesn't mean I can't focus on other things.

Sometimes you just need to roll with the punches.

Hope you had a fabulous Monday.

Hugs!!!

Good reminder

Pleasantly surprised by a .6 loss today. I didn't weigh myself at all yesterday or this morning at home so I didn't have a clue.

I also enjoyed the meeting topic about portions. At camp I have to eye everything. So it was a good reminder that a tennis ball is about a cup.

Someone in the meeting said that a typical restaurant will serve you 30% more then what's listed as the serving size on their nutritional info. Holy smoke that makes you think.

After grocery shopping yesterday I pulled out my WW calculator and wrote the points right on the package. I love Danone's Oikos line of Greek yogurt. So far I've tried strawberry, blueberry, key lime (all 2% MF) and cherry (0%). Well I saw a new one raspberry/pomegranate now I was about to write 2 on it as that's been the points on all of them so far. I stopped myself and ran the numbers. Well this one is 3PP. Just goes to show it's good to double check. It's yummy by the way.

I've tried the key lime one with a teaspoon of graham cracker crumbs and it's key lime pie at far less points.

After today's WI I hit the gym for an hour of Zumba and an hour of Iron Reps. It's been months since I've done either class. This time I really want to make incorporating cross training a priority in my half marathon training and just general training for life.

Zumba was so much fun and I got my sweat on. My polar heart rate monitor had issues 15 min in so that was unfortunate. I almost talked myself into going home after Zumba but then reminded myself that strength training has been missing for far too long.

Iron Reps is a free weight class set to music and each song covers a body part for example there's a back track, tricep track, bicep track, shoulder track, abs track, squat track and lunge track. I despise lunges. As it's been a long time since I've done this class I stuck to beginner weights. For some parts like triceps that was perfect but for other parts like biceps and back I could have done more. Now I know for next class

I can tell I'll be sore tomorrow even after beginner weights.

Including the walk there and back I earned 13 AP today. I planned today as a bit of a treat day so it's a good day to earn a whack of AP.

During parts of Iron Reps I could definitely tell I need to incorporate more stretching. I must put more focus on yoga. I haven't rolled out my mat in ages either. This week I'll do that tomorrow, Monday after work and I could on Wednesday after work as well.

Tomorrow is a run/walk day. I'm going to take it easy and shoot for min 3 miles or max 4 miles tops. I won't focus on speed but more on dusting off the cobwebs.

As I'm planning Tue and Thur as early workouts those will be run/walk days. When I start adding a Wed early morning workout that will focus on strength. Now I won't add that just yet. I'd first like to build the early morning habit and that will take some practice and establishing new habits.

I'm also debating on changing my WI day mainly because there having a hard time getting a consistent leader for Saturday at my location. It looks like Deb is gone and we've had subs for 3 weeks. Today the sub was Barb who does the Friday noon meeting. I really enjoyed her she's funny and has spunk. I'll give it a couple of weeks but at least I have the option.

Don't forget to turn your clocks forward an hour before you go to bed it's daylight savings time. I also need to plug in my Garmin so it's ready for tomorrow.

Hope you all had a great Saturday!!!!

5 days...

Alright so I do realize I haven't given morning workouts too much of a chance. In fact my only one this week was Tuesday. Which is o.k as I often get a little too gung ho only to bail so perhaps baby steps is better.

Next week I'm going to try 2, Tuesday again and Thursday. My ultimate plan is do it Tues to Thursday. I spend 3 nights in camp so that's the only time I really need to focus on early am. Fri- Sun are my days off so that's got more wiggle room.

My game plan to try an after workout on Wednesday was kaboshed by a late meeting that didn't have me back to my room till 8pm. This is the primary reason I need to make am workouts work. Next week isn't too much better but on Tuesday I have another meeting that will run till 8pm so I won't be in my room till even later. This is why I'm not going to attempt an am workout on Wednesday right away as that's an unusually late meeting and I want to ensure a good night's rest before any am workout.

Which brings me to my other plan which is pay close attention to bed time, if I have an am workout I need to make sure to get to bed at a good hour.

Thank you for all your fabulous comments by the way, you inspire me.

Today I did pick up some Fiber One Chocolate granola bars to keep in my room as a morning fuel options as they're 2PP. I use GU under duress and my other option is make sure to grab a banana from the kitchen the night before. There isn't always bananas available though so the Fiber One is a back up plan.

I've tried some version of Fiber One bar in the past and thought it tasted like twigs so I went into this with some trepidation. However I did try one of these today and it kind of reminds me of a puffed wheat square so I'm relieved.

Turbo Fire finally met my DVD player today. I popped in Fire 30 + Stretch 10. I lasted 20min. It reminds me of Tae Bo with better music. Earlier I did walk to the mall and back with groceries so I still got more then a 20min workout in today. Turbo Fire is a fun workout. I used the "new to class" option where she breaks down the moves. I found the break down pretty fast so I could probably skip it next time and just figure it out in the regular portion of the dvd. This is something that I'll need to work on.

It just showed me that my cardio ability has suffered a bit since half marathon training not really super surprising. I won't be following the Turbo Fire workout plan but using it with my running plans as an alternate workout.

Disney Wine and Dine registration opens Tuesday so 5 days from now which does have my mind focusing on running. I really really want to smoke my Tinkerbell time in November. I'm already planning on doing Tinkerbell again and I would really like to do the Princess Half at Disney World in 2013. I follow #rundisney on twitter and read great things about Princess.

I don't need to start traditional half marathon training just yet. However I do need to build my base and that's just not running that's muscles and general cardio.

Tomorrow after weigh in I'm going to hit the gym and revisit Zumba and Iron Reps which I haven't done in forever. I want to run/walk on Sunday as the weather is great.

Not sure what the scale will say. I had a wonky tracking week, some days great some days not so much. I definitely need to focus more on that. However I am feeling more inspired then ever. Vegas in 3 months plus a week...time is ticking.

I hope you all had a great week.

Hugs!!!

Not sure it's for me

I did get up at 4 am this morning and walked on the treadmill for 46min.

It was tough getting up as sleep was so-so.

I tried running for exactly 1 minute and just wasn't feeling it as I was tired.

The one thing I didn't plan well was fuel. The kitchen opens at 5:30am. I didn't have any food in my room.

So today I packed lunch and breakfast. I didn't eat breakfast till I was at my desk by 6am. Up for 2hrs with no fuel doesn't work so great.

I'm not sure I'm cut out for early am workouts at work. At home I find it easier to do am workouts.

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt a after work workout and compare energy.

Tonight when I got back to my camp room I jumped up and down a few times. Hmmm...perhaps Turbo Fire will work....

Hope you had a great Tuesday!

Hugs!!!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Not yet

I lost track of time yesterday so Turbo Fire didn't happen. It will I promise and definitely no later then Friday.

By the time I did laundry and hand hemmed a pair of Lululemon pants,that took forever, I was distracted by Wayne Dyer on PBS.

Today it took forever to get to work as the plane needed to de- iced and our plane had a bit of a wait. Got to work 2hrs later then usual.

Calgary got a good dose of spring snow today. The blessing about working in Northern Alberta is I didn't have to deal with the hundreds of accidents in Calgary due to the slippery snow.

It's supposed to be +13c when I fly home on Thursday.

Tomorrow I attempt the early morning workout. Alarm is set for 4 am, gym clothes are on the chair next to the bed, Garmin and IPod are next to clothes, hair band and elastic are also there and runners are unlaced on the floor. I also set out tomorrow's clothes.

I'll let you know how that goes.

Hope you all had a fabulous Monday!

Hugs!!!!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

No more excuses

Kind of fitting that today's meeting topic was about exercise. That has been a challenge for me recently.

When I get back to camp by 5:30 -6pm I can schedule it but lately my end time is erratic. My schedule is a 10hrs a day but that can easily turn into 12 or 13. That's when I run into trouble.

The camp gyms are having some issues with over crowding due to the volume of people staying there. There are solution being worked on that should be sorted by the end of this month. This includes adding equipment to the bonus rooms in our sleeping wings. They're not used now so when a treadmill, elliptical, bike and free weights go in it will be perfect as it's only a few doors down from my room.

However now if you're not in the gym before 6pm good luck getting a treadmill.

I've come to the realization I should become a morning exerciser during the work week. Now when I'm at home I can be a morning exerciser but that's partially because when I'm home I'm not working. So I can get up when I want and it's easy to schedule it in the day.

I'm going to try a new strategy next week. This will involve getting up at 4am and hitting the gym. The good part I can work out Tues - Thurs no excuses. The bad part is getting up at 4am. I might need to sleep in my workout clothes.

It's a fine balance as I like to be in the office early and right now I go in at 6am. I'm also conscious of not disturbing my neighbours. Our rooms are like dorm rooms except we all have our own bathroom. Now I've never heard my neighbour in the shower but that could just be we have different schedules so if I take a shower at 5am and then blow dry my hair hopefully that doesn't bother them.  Right now I'm an evening shower person.

My routine won't be too badly disrupted as I can eat breakfast at work and not in the kitchen so that saves time and all I would need to do is pack my lunch and then hop on the bus to the office.

The other reason I like to be in the office early is it's a less busy time. Around 6:30pm more ruckus occurs as that's probably rush hour in the morning.

Today at WI I was up 1lb and though was up from my last WW weigh in it's down from when I stepped on my bathroom scale last weekend. We had a sub leader today and I guess they had a sub leader last week too. I guess our leader Deb is having issues with her schedule and the Saturday morning meeting which kind of sucks. I like her and we just got her after our other fabulous leader Tony stopped being a leader. We'll just have to see what happens.

I found a new flavour in my new favourite yogurt. I'm really liking Oikos by Danone. It's their Greek yogurt line and the individual containers are 2PP. Today I found key lime. Now normally I'm purely a berry girl or moka in terms of yogurt but this was yummy.

Today is also 3 months away from my birthday. I got a new 3 month tracker today so it will see me straight to the weigh in the day before my birthday. I have two weigh ins left until the end of the Spring Chick Challenge.

I can still have decent finish.

Tomorrow I finally attempt Turbo Fire, review to follow.

Hugs!!!

It was a week

It's funny, I work 4 days a week on a compressed week work schedule yet it felt like a long week. On Thursday when we were all waiting for the bus to the plane (the bulk of us on a 4 day work week) were all saying it's been a long week.

So I'm quite happy to be home and enjoy my 3 day weekend.

I've been told I'll be working remotely for another year and then most likely transfer back to a position based in Calgary. While I do adore my current client group I've been taking two flights a week and getting up really early on Mondays for almost 3 years now. I'm kind of looking forward to going back to the corporate world even if it means working a traditional 5 days a week again. Plus it adds a little fuel to hit goal and rejig my corporate wardrobe. So I'll enjoy this year and picture snazzy work outfits that don't consist of t-shirt and jeans (which is my work wardrobe currently).

Today I finally got a little coordinated and did my grocery shopping first thing this morning. Then I went to MEC to get a new work backpack. I needed one that's slightly bigger then my current one as I always seem to be leaving things behind because it doesn't fit. I do pack a lunch on Mondays and bring food items like snacks for the week.

My Turbo Fire experiment didn't get off to the start I planned. It was a bit idiotic of me to think I'd do anything on Monday after getting up at 3:30am. Tuesday and Wednesday were exhausting and I was in bed early both days. To be honest I don't really don't want to do Turbo Fire 5 days a week as I do want to keep working on my running so I'll have to sort out my own plan which will probably be alternating them. I will definitely try the first DVD this weekend. I still need to determine if I can even do this in my camp room or if it it will be too disruptive to my neighbors.

I did track all week, some days it wasn't pretty but I wrote it down.

Tonight my original plan was to stay home but then I got an offer to go for dinner with a friend. I do have weigh in tomorrow and let me flash back to last Friday where I decided to bail on weigh in due to dinner. Well not this time. I went to dinner and tried to make better choices and I will be going to my meeting tomorrow.

I kind of like that it's a start to a new month also.

It doesn't matter what the scale says tomorrow it's data. I really regret not going last week. All I did was put my head in the sand. I've done this before where I skip a weigh in and think I'll erase all the damage by next weigh in...never happens. I need to face the scale and get inspired at the meeting. Life happens and there's nothing I can do about that. All I can do is do my best.

I did come across a new challenge for when the Spring Chick Challenge ends on March 19th

Ready For Summer Challenge

The rules so far are very simple. Starts March 26th and runs for 10 weeks. Which means this challenge will take me right to the WI the day before my birthday. I like that you set your own goals and check in weekly. It's noted that there will be small optional weekly challenges. So if this sounds interesting to you hop on over to the Ready For Summer Challenge

My plan for tomorrow is weigh in and then the gym. It's been ages since I've been to Spalady. Then it's do a thorough cleaning of my house.

My plan for Sunday is to do nothing well a workout of some kind but then just chill.

I hope all of you had a great week, talk to you tomorrow.

Hugs!!!

Operation Enough and SCC Week 8

I faced my bathroom scale this morning and it says I'm up 1lb. O.K now to focus on a new week.

I planned today out and tracked all of it, and even managed to drink 3L of water with the help of Nestea singles (no sodium). One day down.

I was thinking about my Operations as in Operation Butterfly and Operation Hottie well today I morphed them into one Operation Enough. No more sugar coating it as this is now war.

I've felt like I've been home for 5 minutes this weekend without having Friday off this week. Today was all about housework and laundry. I did watch the "Get Fired Up" dvd of the Turbo Fire collection. This an introduction to the program and kind of gives you what to expect. Of course the package came with a schedule to follow but due to my work situation (3 nights in camp a week) I modified it a bit. Calgary got hit by a cold front so the only time I went outside was to take out the garbage...brrrr.

The workouts break into different themes and combinations of  HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), Fire, Core, Tone, Sculpt and Stretch. Of course the pack comes with a workout schedule. I had to tweak this as I don't have a regular Mon - Fri job and spend 3 nights a week in a camp room. I intend to do these workouts in my camp room. My room is on the 2nd (top) level so I made sure to keep all the HIIT workouts (which seem to involve a lot of jumping) to when I'm at home. Your not supposed to do two HIIT workouts in a row so Friday and Sunday will now be HIIT days. Though in the first week there's only one HIIT workout. I do like how it's scheduled to get progressively more difficult to challenge yourself. Now let's see if I can do week 1.

Tomorrow I test out Fire 30 + Stretch 10 (one dvd) the good part is each dvd has a "new to class" option so you see the break down of the moves and work towards skipping that and going right into the workout. This DVD shows up 3 times in the 1st week so that will be tomorrow, Wednesday and Saturday. I'll break down the different workouts as I go through them and give you a little review- well hopefully I can get all the way through a workout.

Now to the Spring Chick Challenge as I wrote yesterday Week 8 was rough I could say PMS was partly to blame but I'm accountable for my actions and I more or less took last week off and forgot everything I knew about staying on plan. However I have now regained my senses.

Week 9 goals:
Activity - Start Turbo Fire
Track every day
Water minimum 2L but shoot for 3L
Check in with my fabulous buddy Enz every day. She very kindly volunteered to remind me to track so I asked her to add in a reminder about water. I'm so lucky to have her.

This coming Friday might be another night out to celebrate a birthday however if that happens I'll weigh in on Friday at noon. It's all about planning. I sat down and actually planned out my week by checking the camp menu for the week and having a good idea of points for dinner so that I can plan breakfast and lunch accordingly. I have traditional stand byes for breakfast and lunch so I can control the points better.

I'm also thinking about creating some blog cards for Fitbloggin as a way to introduce myself and give my blog deets. Do any of you have such a thing or advice on this?

In about an hour I'll make my way to bed with a book as I have cab coming at 4:30am to fly to work tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend. To a new week!!!

Hugs!!!

It seems to be going around and SCC wk 8

Hello my friends,

It felt like a long week this week and probably even longer as I had to go into work yesterday which is normally my day off.

I have a confession to make I skipped weigh in today. I'm not proud of that but I just didn't want to face the scale today. I seem to be back into the pattern of waffling and tracking last week was pretty iffy plus I had a few derailments. I've noticed I'm not alone. For challenge purposes I'll weigh myself tomorrow morning and use that weight.

I do keep up with all your blogs via a feed reader on my phone and Ipad and it's my daily ritual to go through and read them. I try to comment but sometimes on the iPhone it's hard especially with that new word verification that I have now turned off as I find it ridiculously cumbersome.

Last week my company declared they were sponsoring the Canadian Olympic team for another 4 years and a site we had a conference room full of red and white cupcakes as we were watching the announcement via web conference. I had one cupcake as they were ridiculously good which I have to admit is pretty rare a site. Later in the day the extras where in every kitchen so I had another one.

I did return to the treadmill on Wednesday and did 1:1 intervals for 20min and then walked for an additional 10. It felt good to run again and I was pleased that I could still run for 1 min.

Thursday was touch and go if we would land as this weird snow storm hit the north of Calgary. At one point no planes were landing but then we got clearance to go. The plane that was supposed to leave half an hour after us got delayed for 5.5 hours. We thought we might be delayed. A few of us were sitting near the vending machines and joking that this would be our source of dinner. It was pretty funny when people came up to use the machines and we told them that we got to choose what they got. It was surprising how many people let us pick what they were having. We were asking salty or sweet to narrow down the options. I didn't buy anything in the vending machine but when I got home I made myself a plate of nachos.

As for Friday's meeting I have to admit I wasn't sure if it was going to go well but I'm quite happy with how it all went. It was a grab and get lunch so we could keep plugging through and perhaps end early. I went to a sandwich place and got a chicken salad (with grapes in it) sandwich. Probably not the healthiest option but I didn't want Subway. Had I given it more thought I could have had a better plan.

I had to pick up my race plaque from FedEx which is by the airport. My friend M came to the rescue and saved me a mess of cab fare by coming with me and then we did dinner last night. I hadn't planned dinner and fully intended to go the meeting today but after dinner last night and two beers I realized I had thrown the week.

In between the meeting finishing and before M finished her day I went to Origins and picked up the Andrew Weil line as my skin has been angry lately. I've used the serum before but yesterday I went all in with cleanser, toner and moisturizer - so far so good. I also picked up a new moleskin LEGO journal, with the thought of needing a restart. I also love LEGO.

Though last night I wrote in my current journal as I realized I need to see this through not stop a journal a third of the way through. Suck it up, pick myself up and keep going. I do realize that stress is the biggest factor in my self sabotage but I do believe there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The LEGO journal will wait until I'm done with my current one. I gave myself a good talking to in that journal last night.

I got the package notice that Turbo Fire had arrived and I debated picking it up today as there's a mess of weather warnings of blowing snow. I finally just sucked it up and headed out and walked to Walmart and the post office. The weather wasn't so bad actually just fairly windy.

It came with booklets and a whack of DVDs. This is the trend in the workout world it seems P90X, Insanity, Turbo Fire and Jillian Michael's Body Transformation seem to all come with the same stuff and a whack of DVDs. This is on tap for tomorrow as the weather is supposed to be pretty awful with more blowing snow.

I also picked up some good stuff grocery wise today.

I've never tried this particular bread before. Silver Hills also makes Squirrelly Bread which I used to buy all the time but then got tired of it so I thought I'd try something new. 2PP per slice.















A new find was Summer Fresh's Greek Yogurt Asiago and Artichoke dip, now normally Asiago and Artichoke dip is dangerous and Summer Fresh's regular version is pretty dangerous however they launched a new line of dips made with Greek yogurt as a base. This version is 1PP for 2 tablespoons. I think it would lovely on a sandwich or dip veggies in it.

I love cherry yogurt. My go to breakfast at camp is the hot cereal of the day and yogurt. Now I'm fairly positive the yogurt in the camp kitchen is full fat and full sugar. So next week I'll bring this with me and use it as my morning snack and skip the yogurt in the morning and stick to hot cereal. This is 2PP per container. I like the Oikos greek yogurt, it's kind of funny that the individual 2% ones are also 2PP.

These are coming with me as well. I have Ryvitta crackers in my desk and you can get WW bread in the pack lunch kitchen so I might make my own sandwich of hummus and tomato/onion or something as supposed to the Mr.Noodle soup (8PP) which is starting to be a habit These packs are 3PP each.




Tonight for dinner I'm having zucchini spaghetti (zucchini spiraled and lightly sauteed in a little EVOO) with organic tomato sauce and some freshly grated Parmesan.

This is going to be a great week. 3 weigh ins remain until the end of this challenge so all is not lost.

Tomorrow will be my adventures of trying Turbo Fire...

Hugs!!!

Impossible - SCC WK7

One of my friends posted this quote on facebook:

"nothing is impossible, the word itself says I'm possible" - Audrey Hepburn

I need to remind myself of that. The medal rack arrived now I just need to install it but it's a pretty good tool to remind myself that I am possible.

Well I did see a gain on Saturday. I was up 1.6lbs. While not ecstatic about the gain I'm happy I didn't bail on my meeting. It was great to see Deb and be back in the meeting. At the end of the meeting she said even if you saw a gain today or not as much of a loss as you were hoping know that you've honoured the commitment to yourself by being there today.

All my grand plans for Friday went out the window when my friend called who's also a co-worker. We needed to pick up the coasters we had painted for our out going director. Well I wound up spending the whole day running around with her. So that involved a vegetarian salad roll lunch and dinner at Mongolie Grill. While I did think I made good selections at Mongolie I forgot about the sauces and the high likelihood there'd be a good chunk of sodium.

Mongolie Grill is one of those restaurants where you will a bowl with ingredients from a salad bar type of set up, add a sauce and they cook it up. The good thing is you totally control what's in it, the part I forgot about is I don't know what's in the sauces. I went with honey garlic, coconut and peanut sauce on my plethora of veggies and chicken. I am betting sodium was a factor in my 1.6lb gain.

On Saturday I could finally return to Starbucks but I had a muffin with my latte as breakfast. I should have had something with protein. I needed to pick up the rest of the things I needed as on Friday I didn't have my list with me. I didn't go the gym instead I went outside as the temperature was mild and the sun was shining. I decided to go for a walk and I didn't look at my Garmin once I just wanted to move as this was pretty much my first workout since the Tinkerbell Half.

All in all I did 5.06km, 48:25min/ Avg pace 9:34/ 191 calories burned.

Today I'm getting myself sorted. I've baked some thinly cut chicken breast after marinating it in a garlic lime marinade yesterday - this for my salad lunches at work. I've portioned it out into 3oz packages. I'm also making a pot of turkey chili to be a quick meal when I fly home and another option for Monday lunches.

I've started a pile next to work bag of things I need to bring with me, which includes that extra set of workout clothes for my office (I did get another pair of runners), a whack of Nestea single flavour packs to get me back on track with water and my lunch is packed and in the fridge.

Next up is laundry.

Yesterday food wise was a total foodapalooza, now I do want to use Saturday as my treat day as in if there has been something I've been craving all week I can have it on Saturday. I pretty much snacked all day and then went out to dinner with another friend. Know I knew about the dinner all week. I could have planned my day a lot better. I really should have had the egg sandwich at breakfast instead of the muffin as I suspect it would have kept me fuller and not so likely to snack.

Before I left for WW I was watching an infomercial for Turbo Fire, well after my walk I ordered it. It looks like a load of fun and it's something I could do in camp and as the workouts range from 20-40min, it's my no excuses tool when the weather is not great for running.

Today I'm focusing on water and staying on track. I fully plan to annihilate those 1.6lbs.

A wee less then 4 months till my birthday - this is war.

Goals for this week:
Track
Water
Exercise: Mon - Run, Tue- Yoga, Wed-Run, Thurs-Yoga, Fri- Rest

Now my challenge this week is I have to work on Friday (normally my day off) and it's an all day offsite meeting so that's why I've made it a rest day. The offsite is out of town so I have no idea when I'll be home. I will be focused.

Hope you had a good weekend.

Hugs!!

Where did the week go

This week kind of flew by and at the same time messed with my schedule.

When I last posted on Monday I had full intentions of hitting the treadmill on Wednesday.

Tuesday was of course Valentine's Day. The camp bus driver wished me a Happy Valentine's day and hoped the company bought me roses. That didn't happen but the company did provide a plethora of Valentine's Day themed baked goods. I went a wee overboard on that. The weird thing the next morning when I weighed myself I was down. Mind you I skipped supper.

Wednesday I wound up working an hour and half longer then I had planned therefore missing my opportunity to get a treadmill. My camp is facing some gym overcrowding issues and if I don't get a treadmill before 7pm I'm kind of hooped as by 8pm I'm pretty much ready for bed. I start work at 6am.

Thursday I fly home.

Today I had full intentions of going the gym and then grocery shopping but then I got a call from my friend/co-worker and those plans turned into running errands picking up the coasters we painted last weekend to give our out going director (who is going to a new group). The team was having dinner tonight. We were on the go all day today. I bought a new pair of runners.

So another week with not one workout session. I did hatch a plan though.

You see there is a gym in my office building at site that I have never used. I have always been an after work workout kind of girl and preferred camp because well it's close to my room. However it's not like I can't go from the office gym to camp.

So I'm going to keep a pair of runners and workout clothes in my office so if I work a little late I can go to the office gym which is no where as near as busy as the camp gym. I still want to keep an option in my camp room because my other option is get up earlier in the morning and go to the gym and I don't always have to work later.

They are working on solutions for the camp gym. One I'm kind of looking forward to is putting gym equipment in a sort of bonus room in our camp wings. That would mean a treadmill down the hall from my room.

That's one of the bonuses of working in a camp environment the plethora of gyms.

I did get some grocery shopping done tonight as my friend needed to as well so we hit Walmart after dinner. Now I didn't have my list so I will do a return trip tomorrow after the gym.

Now tomorrow's weigh in will be interesting after going out to dinner tonight, however I'm so looking forward to seeing my regular leader.

Now I have no excuses as I have runners at home, in my camp room and in my office.

No matter what the scale says tomorrow I'm focusing on a killer new week.

Hugs!!!

Confessions

I did not run yesterday. I had awesome intentions though.

I was dressed with Garmin and iPod in hand and then out the door. Moments later I realized I had a Garmin with little power left and a dead iPod. I was only 2 houses down so I turned back to recharge the devices. Wimpy? Perhaps and had the iPod been charged I probably would have kept going. I'm not at the point where I enjoy a run for a runs sake. I need the tunes.

Well by the time the charging was done I was knee deep in reading (ironic that it was on running) and doing laundry. The moment was lost.

I had thought I'd run tonight but there's a reason I don't plan runs on Mondays - I've been up since 3:30am and zonked. I'm showered and in my pjs right now.

I did write out my training plan for the half marathon in November on my wall desk calendar and will do so shortly in my camp room calendar. The training doesn't start till July but as I've said before I'm a planner. The Tinkerbell training totally snuck up on me so this time I'll be ready.

That plan has runs happening on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday so I can get 2 runs outside. I might as well adopt that schedule now. The plan now is to work on intervals by November I'd like to be at least at 4 min run and 1 min walk if not better. On Wednesday it will be starting back at basics to build a stronger foundation.

So those Sunday runs will be sorted the night before from now on and everything will be charged. Also they will happen first thing or else too much of a chance of getting distracted. Not so unlike the days of doing Running Room classes.

I did do a great job food wise today so that's a win.

Well I hope all of you enjoyed your Monday.

Hugs!!!

A sign?

Had some very interesting dreams last night and they all revolved around a trip to Vegas, I'm assuming my upcoming June trip to Vegas.

The first snippet was me at the airport and then on the plane. Well me rocking a pair of J Brand jeans in red, black boots and a funky top. Then on the plane flirting with the cute guy sitting next me.

Next snippet strolling through the casino of Aria (where I'll be staying) rocking a black sexy cocktail dress and wearing blue stilettos (I already own the shoes thanks to my wee addiction to Shoe Dazzle).

Now in these snippets I was not me as I am now, I think this was goal weight me.

Huh, I've never had that type of dream before. Even when I attempted Operation Hottie two years ago for when I was going to Vegas for my friends birthday. Of course the trip coming up in June is for my birthday so perhaps that what makes the difference.

Tomorrow I dust off another thing, this time the running shoes after a two week hiatus. Still not sure if I'll head outside or to the gym, it's supposed to be +2C by noon so that's sort of exciting. Worst case scenario I think its -5C in the morning. I'm going to take it easy and start following the Jeff Galloway plan. After two weeks off I'm pretty much starting from scratch anyway. Not sure what the intervals will be as Galloway strongly believes in the walk break. I don't think I'll need to start from beginner start but according to his strategy the purpose is to not be out of breath during the run intervals.

I also dusted off something that worked for me before. I've had a challenge getting the 2L of water in. Back in the day when I had this challenge I'd flavour a litre of water with a pack of Nestea 5 calorie Ice Tea packet. I did this today and had one litre down in no time. This week my goal is one litre flavoured and one litre unflavoured. The pack is supposed to be used in 500ml of water but I find it fine in a 1L actually I might try half a pack in 1L.

I'm also setting a challenge for myself this week no sweets aka chocolate or cookies, track, 2L of water and follow the workout plan I wrote on my kitchen calendar. If I do that, I can treat myself to a manicure and pedicure on Saturday after weigh in. The danger period for this is Mon - Thurs when I'm at work with the dessert wall in the dining room and pack lunch kitchen. I really do need to take a picture of it so you get what I'm talking about. I'll write the workout schedule on the calendar I have in my camp room as well.

It was funny when we were waiting for the plane on Thursday one of co-workers asked me how I stayed focused on training for the half marathon. I told him I used stickers to note done on the training calendar. Another co-worker laughed as that's how they potty trained their kid. I told him - Hey, if it works use it.

I love using stickers on a calendar.

I had lunch with a friend today and spent the afternoon pottery painting. Then she needed to swing into H&M. I don't know how anyone finds anything in the store. Another rather odd thing I was scoping out shop windows for potential outfits for Vegas...

Wonder what I'll dream tonight.

Hope you all had a great Saturday!

Hugs!!!

Spring Chick Challenge WK6 weigh in

I don't know where my head was this week. I didn't go to the gym once, instead after finishing work I preferred to go to my camp room put on my pajamas and just chill. I've found myself in a bit of a funk..again. Not to worry it's a very minor blip.

So to describe my week in one word would be: off

A very good thing this week was Air Canada had a seat sale so I booked my flight to Fitbloggin 12. So now everything is booked with the exception of San Francisco (waiting on my cousin for more details) and the Disney Wine and Dine registration which opens March 13th.

Tracking wise was so so. I usually made it to lunch time really well but then dinner was entered the day after. Hey at least it was entered. When this has happened before I tend to pitch the tracker and get a new one but not this time. I have to see this through and turn it around.

Even though I've been doing a fly in fly out schedule now for over a year I still find scheduling my weekends somewhat of a challenge.

It's important I buy groceries on Fridays as I do only have 3 days at home I need to make sure I factor in packing a lunch on Monday. Now of course I don't need a lot of groceries but I still need to meal plan for 3 days.

If I leave it to Saturday I'm running out of days at home and then it messes up going to the gym.

Now I do love my Saturday WW meetings at 8:30am as I love the group just as much as the leader. The gym which is across the street from my WW meeting has Zumba at 10:45am and Iron Reps at 12:15pm. Now my WW meeting ends at 9:30am so that leaves a good chunk of time till Zumba and not really enough time to go home and come back again. I also walk to WI which is roughly 12 blocks from my house.

So I've tried picking up all perishable groceries on Friday and use that hour between WW and Zumba to pick up the stuff that doesn't require refrigeration or freezer. When I've left the shopping to Saturday I have picked up the stuff non perishable stuff and stuffed into my backpack, gone to the gym and then back the store afterwards to pick up the fresh stuff - definitely not ideal.

Today was totally sideways as I wanted to weigh in today as I was going out to dinner tonight and I just didn't want to worry about sodium and everything else the night before weigh in. Now I also needed to go to Purolator to pick up a parcel. Purolator is a bit of a hike from my neck of the woods.

I tried a different bus route to get to Purolator (that I thought would better) which had me get off at the totally wrong spot and walk for many many blocks in -22C windchill. I then took the bus I should of home but due to C-Train construction it didn't stop where I thought it would and that caused about a 10 block roundabout to get to the mall. Now my intention was to buy groceries then go to the meeting. Now my timing was totally off as I had about an hour to kill until the meeting. Now this meant I wasn't staying for the meeting as I didn't think my frozen stuff would survive.

So I had a drive by weigh in and was miraculously down 1.2lb. Then I took a bus home as I was in my running shoes and the snow that had been falling was very fluffy and hiding some icy spots. I already tested my balance on a few of those today. I know the meeting topic was tracking so I still have to read the WW weekly but I'm also reading all your blogs on what you thought of this week's meeting.

As I was walking the many blocks I did have time to think about how to make a schedule that really works.

So here's what I came up with.

Friday - This is supposed to be a run day but if the weather is blechy it's the treadmill. So if it's nice go outside after breakfast then grocery shop. If it's treadmill do that then grocery shop.

Saturday- Bring a coffee to weigh in, then in between weigh in and the gym have breakfast (that I usually eat in the meeting) bring the Ipad so I can read.

Sunday - Run day so same rules as Friday without the grocery shopping.

Now dinner is no longer happening as my friend wasn't feeling well so it's lunch instead tomorrow. The plan I've listed above will go into effect next weekend as this one is a little sideways.

So my goals for week 7 are very straight forward:

Track - the whole day on the day preferably
Minimum of 2L of water
Follow my workout schedule (finally) though it might be modified slightly as I've been reading Jeff Galloway's book and it's given me a few things to think about but that's only minor tweaks to what I already created.

I do hope you all had a great week.

Hugs!!!