Seond Unexpected Dismount of the Year

Yep, I fell off again (2nd time this year). Pulling the kids again. This time on dirt/grass in a greenspace. Nice soft landing and no scrapes. It was kind of hard work rolling along on the grass so I thought, what the heck, I'll try to keep my wheels in that single tract dirt. Um ya, I got to fiddling with my gears, got stuck in a too high gear, could not get my right shoe unclipped and Sideways! The 5 year old says "You are wasting time" (as I lie in the grass). The Chariot definately contributes to me falling off because I can't recover with 100 pounds attached to my rear wheel.

This little bike trip was one I would normally do in the car. I went from my house to my mom's house. I must have saved at least a Litre of gas. Go me! hahaha.


According to my HRM I burned 457 calories in 47 minutes.

Me Too!!

Sauchagirl posted today talking about how she is changing from doing her Body For Life training to training for a half marathon. It reminded me that I am training for a half marathon too. How could I forget? Well, I am just pre-training right now. My 'official' 16 week plan does not start until the 23rd of June but that is coming up fast.

Yesterday I journaled my food in my book and online. I ended off the day at 1628 calories. Not too bad. I'll be happy with anything from 1500 to 1800 depending on how much excercise I do any particular day. If I were to join WWs they would want me to eat 24 points which is about 1200 calories. I am just not willing to do that.

So yesterday out of curiosity I joined SparkPeople to see how the food journalling compared to Fitday. First off the bat it suggested a weight goal of 150 by February 2009. That made me think a little bit. Right now I am 186. Apparently a website thinks I have 36 pounds to lose and maybe they are right.

Does anyone belong to Weight Watchers online? How do you like that food journalling? I like Fitday because I have had it so long I have pretty much all my food entered in there. I only wish it would count points for me :) I would kind of like to take a peek at their member website but don't want to give them my credit card to do so.

Journaling Streak: Kept a food journal since May 29th: 2 days
Calorie Streak: Day 1 of 8 planned of being under 1900. Next 'rest' day Sat. June 7th.
(my Fitday Journal is here)

Streaks are kind of cool. When they get long enough you really don't want to break them. My husband used to have a running streak. However, that meant he did some 20 minutes runs in some pretty small circles on canoe in campsites in summertime. Hahaha.

Friday Workout

So my friend 'borrowed' the 3 year old for a few hours and the 5 year old was at preschool so Trainer and I went to some evil stairs for my workout (usually we work out at my house while 3 year old plays or watches TV). I am sure it was an awesome workout but man, that was a lot of suffering! 568 calories in 45 minutes. Running up the stairs, or walking every second one or running up hills. Thankfully no hopping up the stairs. (seriously, I have seen people do that). We were at the stairs at the GC Club.

Ironically I was wearing my husband's workout shirt which Trainer was wearing a duplicate of. We looked like we were dressed like twins. Trainer bumped into another trainer and the other guy said "what? your making your clients dress like you now?" Great. All of other trainers little bootcamp girls were dressed in tight LuLuLemon (yoga) tops. I was dressed like a guy. Hahaha! Tomboys forever! I didn't know we were going out until he showed up on my doorstep.

Now for my next trick I will mow the lawn before the elderly lady across the street has a stroke from having to look at it. (seriously, she has complained to another neighbor about how we don't keep the yard as nice as the previous owners). I will wear my HRM just for giggles to see how many calories that will burn.

35 Hundred What?

Dear lord. OK. I journaled today. On paper. Not listing calories. Then once I got home I journaled it into Fitday , with calories. I am not kidding you my total is 3540 calories. Disaster!

What did I do?

Well I had a salad for lunch but it had cashews on them. I counted them out. There were 24 whole ones which I estimate at half a cup, 393 calories. Hope that is not underestimating. It also had a small chicken breast which might have had the skin on it. I couldn't decide if it was skin or just a really dry outside. Since I was having a salad I thought I could have a bun with it, but I didn't have a bun I had a cheese tea biscuit. Did I mention that I had an egg mcmuffin type contraption for breakfast? And dinner I thought I had plenty of calories left for 2 cheeseburgers at McDonalds. Once home I was stared down by 2 birthday cupcakes and they won. This is all very funny really. Insane! That must be like 70 points or something!

So many places to improve for tomorrow! :) No wonder I have gained weight these past 3 weeks...

I must resist the Nest of Doom and make a date with the Elliptical tonight. I won't do anything crazy like try to do 2000 calories to bring me back into balance... but maybe 800.

Tomorrow, journalling with a computer!!!

Update: 11:49pm. Made it 45 minutes on the Elliptical. 542 calories. Forgot to mention that I ran earlier for 30 minutes hilly. Tomorrow will be a better day on the food front.

Tuesday, Wednesday

Tuesday: Pesky child would not go to sleep. Did not get trapped in the Nest of Doom but did not escape it until 9:30pm. Instead of hopping onto the Elliptical I hopped into my bed and watched BSG. Thanks to a little lesson in Internet'ing from my sister I am now caught up completely with all the BSG episodes including the one that will be airing on Space on Friday. Next I am going to start watching Biggest Loser Season 3. I have been *obsessed* with BSG over the last 3 weeks. I was constantly watching it. Picture the kids watching Treehouse and me with one ear bud in, watching it on a portable DVD player. Bad Mommy! No excercise.

Wednesday: Did succumb to the Nest of Doom. No excercise. Work days are a pain in the a$$. Today (Thursday) I have a plan though... I brought my running clothes to work and am going to change into them for the ride home and run for half an hour near the daycare before picking up my units.

Food Journalling. Can we say Zero! *sigh*. I am staring at a notebook right now and a variety of pens. Will today be the day? I 'll start by writing down my breakfast and go from there. Could work right? I have been gaining for the past 3 weeks. I seriously think it co-incides with my BSG obsession. Hopefully watching BL will have the opposite effect. Weather is nice. I should take the kids out in the bike trailer this week.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday

Saturday: 3 year olds Bday party. Eating included: tray buns from Safeway + deli meat, small piece of cake. Then we drove 3 hours north so that husband could pre-ride his bike race. We got to our hotel at 7pm and ordered food in. No excercise for me.

Sunday: Bad, Bad, Bad. Next time we go to an overnight race trip we must plan ahead and bring safe food. At least I got my run in. Ran 10 & 1s for 56 minutes.

Monday: Trainer workout. Much unhappiness as I was made to go up to 8% grade on the bike and then do some intervals. I think I called my trainer a b*stard I really need to do some extra cardio later. I can feel my middle puffing out in an unhappy tire-like manner. These past 2 weeks have not been good on the eating front.

Challenge to journal my food for 7 days: Well, tomorrow will be day 2 again (should be 4). Saturday, Sunday I did not journal away from home. I guess I have never heard of that new invention called the pen and paper... I have been eating very badly today. Blah!!!

Thursday, Friday

Thursday I was supposed to run 'hilly' but I was a big baby because it was raining. I did 45 minutes easy on the Elliptical instead (400 calories).

Friday I ran 'hilly' with Trainer for 35 minutes (535 calories) then did some core/strength.

Scale Challenge: I challenged myself to stay off for 10 days but that did not go so hot. Instead of being afraid of the scale, I had no self correcting mechanism/fear of gaining and in the end I was up 3 pounds. Thats right, 3 pounds. Did not help that the last 2 weeks I did less excercise than 'usual'. Anyways... I have given myself a new challenge that will contribute to my success.

I hereby challenge myself to journal my food and obey a calorie budget for 7 days. I know, stupid that I have not been doing that already.

I used this link to figure out what my calories should be. I am aiming for 1900 on days I excercise and 1400 on days that I don't.

Here is a link to my Fiday Journal if you want to check up on me and see if I am actually journalling.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Monday - Planned rest day.

Tuesday - unplanned rest day. Could have done something but chose to slack off. Slacker!!! :)

Wednesday - Personal Trainer shows up and announces that I will be hurting after this workout. Many complaints during workout about the fact that I am sweating (I don't appreciate sweat running down my forehead).

I chat with trainer about the plot Battle Star Gallactica. I was amused by the fact that I had just watched a few episodes of season 3 where they had made up the hot guy to look fat because he had gone 'soft'. I was very relieved when they took the fat suit off him after a few episodes and he was hot again (I am not trying to slag being fat, I just thought it was funny that they used extra weight as a plot device and they did it really badly because that character just looked puffy instead of double chin-y). Anyways, half the point of watching that show is to enjoy the scenery, isn't it? Maybe I should not admit to such things :) (boy if Trboh reads this he is going to think bad things about me. hahaha). Sherree, are you out there? What is your stand on eye candy on TV??

After personal training I had time to get a run in but did I do it? (I skipped yesterdays 'easy' run, and now I'm afraid of attempting 'hilly' run tomorrow given trainer's prediction about impeding 'hurt'). Anyways, now I have run out of time, so no I didn't do it. I have to shower and get dressed for work and retrieve the boy unit from preschool. Fun times.

Maybe I will get something in after work? (after boy's soccer, husband is out, likelihood of this happening: 17.5%).

Still eating randomly and not journalling it. (I can see Fatinah rolling her eyes from here). Stupid Stupid. Alright... procrastination over! Time stress commencing.

P.S. Number of days without stepping on scale: 8. I wonder how long I can go? Original goal was to make it to my next g2c weigh in day which is this coming Saturday. Maybe I should go longer?

Sunday Run and Summer Challenge Update

First... for the Summer Challenge I challenged myself to lose 6 pounds by the first day of summer. I am not sure how I am doing on the one because last week I challenged myself to stay off the scale like NewSarahSundae is doing. My stay-off-the-scale goal goes to this coming Saturday. So far so good except for the part where I am supposed to eat according to some sort of calorie reducing plan. The weekend was bad food wise. Very bad. Oh well.

Did a long run on Sunday. It was about 8K with Dino and Hazel and another gal. It took us an hour and 4 minutes I think (don't have my watch handy). HRM said I burned 800 calories. It was nice to run with friends.

I took Monday off for excercise. My legs have been really tired. We went for a short bike ride pulling the kids last night and my legs were still not happy customers.

Excercise schedule today calls for a run. Not sure if I will tack something on to that. I probably should given that I was on the see-food-eat-food diet this weekend.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Thursday: 20 minutes 'hilly' in FC. Some guy on a bike congratulated me from running up a big hill. That was cool. Legs were still kind of owie from Monday (personal training and bike riding)

Friday - Personal Training. 10K bike 'time trial'. Legs started screaming WTF at 3.5K. It was not pretty. I was 1 minute slower than previous testing. To be fair my legs had quite the workout this week so I'll forgive myself

Saturday - 8am to Hazel's house. Rode to Bragg Creek. 1 hour 5 minutes. 689 cals. HRM must have been screwing up because it said my max HR 228 (not bloodly likely). Average HR 143. Stopped for Eggs and Bacon (thats right, eggs and bacon!). Ride back 52 minutes. 573 calories. Max HR 166. Average HR 146.

On tap for tomorrow: Long run. Should be interesting since my lower body is hurting in all sorts of different ways :) Going running with friends though so that is exciting in itself.

Challenge to stay off the scale - Still doing it though I was *this* close to getting on the scales since this is my normal G2C weigh in day.

Summer Challenge Update - End of Week 2

Goal: Lose 6 pounds.
Start weight: 184
Last weigh in: 183.4

Only down .6 in 2 weeks. *eeks* Is that yet another weight challenge that I am going to screw up?

Currently trying to stay off the scale for 10(ish) days. Going to weigh myself next on May 24th.

To be 'on track' with this challenge I will have to be 181 on that day. I am hoping that by not looking at the scale I will try harder to lose so that I have something to report. Of course it could go the complete opposite way...

Wednesday

Today was supposed to be my rest day but since I rested yesterday I did yesterday's run today.

Did a 20 minute 'easy' run. 218 calories. Max heart rate 166. Avg heart rate 154. After that I wanted to watch an episode of BSG so I hoped on the Elliptical. I did not get the full 45 minutes in though... had to retrieve boy-unit from preschool. 27 minutes. 297 calories.

As I write this it is 9pm and I am still working on getting the girl-unit to sleep. I have come to the kitchen under orders of bringing her some milk. Ha! She has not come to retrieve me yet. I could do some more Ellipticalling or biking but I think I will just sit still. It is OK to only do 500 calories of excercise in one day :)

Wisdom from other Bloggers:

“You can’t out-train a bad diet”
from kettlebellguy by trboh
(http://kettlebellguy.com/blog/?p=384)

"I am ready for a new start. During my talk with Dave this weekend he said “You can’t out-train a bad diet”. For some reason those words have hit me in the face. I simply must get a handle on my eating and it starts now. "

So true. I try to do this all the time. Just burn more calories excercising and stick my head in the sand with respect ot how many calories I am eating and hope for the best...

NewSarahSundae is choosing not to step on the scale for a month.

http://newsarahsundae.blogspot.com/2008/05/operation-no-scale.html

"Operation No Scale

That is what I’m going to call it. Operation No Scale. For the next month I am getting rid of my scale and I am not going to weigh myself. Why? Because it only seems to bring me heartache when I step on it. Like this morning. It said I was up 2 pounds which really upset me because I’ve been working really hard for the past few days. "

What a good idea. I am going to aim for 10 days. Stay off the scale from tomorrow (I looked this morning) until Saturday May 24th. That might even scare me enough to make some progress.

Monday Cross Training

Hard workout with trainer. 491 cals.

Bike ride outside with Hazel. 1 hour 10 minutes. 636 calories.

Sunday Run

I took Saturday as a rest day. What the heck? Two rest days in one week? We went to the big city to the north so that husband could do a bike race. Thats right, a bike race on Mother's Day. He asked me to go about 6 times so I knew he really wanted to go. We actually had fun and the hotel that we stayed at was mostly empty so we got to change our room to a suite for half the normal price of a suite. The kids slept on the pull out couch in the living room and hubby and I watched a 'still in theatre' movie in our separate bedroom. That is the life! (we don't get much time away from our kids, can you tell?)

Sunday I did my run after the race. (I tried to get out of it but hubby made me). Run started out at the bottom of the valley by the river and I ran straight up hill for about 7 minutes and the run continued to be uphill for a total of 20 minutes. Yowzers! I was going slow but I was moving. I felt very strong. All in all I ran 45 minutes straight. 483 calories, Max HR 196 (I think that must be a mistake), Avg HR 153 (yep, I must have been running slow).

On tap for today: Personal Training and extra cardio.

YouTube Video

Some photos and a Weigh In in here.

Friday Cross Training

Trainer workout. Cardio: Bike. 2 minute warmup, incline to 1, cadence to 90+ for 1 minute. 1 minute rest. One gear harder, repeat etc. 15 minutes total. Then boxing and running up and down the stairs, weights, abs. 557 calories.

Workout 2: Elliptical. Level 6, regular cadence. 45 minutes. 518 calories.

Thats enough working out for today. Journaling my food. I set a goal on my Youtube channel to be 183 tomorrow (was 185 on Monday and 184 previous Monday), Touch and go whether I will make it. Darn scale goals!

Thursday

Activity for today:

Walked home from the dentist. Probably 3K I'm guessing. 45 minutes.

Ran 'hilly' for 20 minutes as per my running schedule. Just as I stepped out the door it started snowing like crazy. I was only wearing a t shirt under my running jacket and my running jacket is no longer waterproof. Cold forearms! Brrrr. But I did it. 258 calories. Avg. HR 183. Max HR 178.

Did 45 minutes on the bike trainer. 419 calories. Avg. HR 142. Max HR 160.

Journaled my food today complete with points. Ate 31.5 points but earned 11.5 activity points.

Personal training tomorrow.

Hey Fatinah. I talked to the trainer from X weighted on a radio call in. I asked him about doing Elliptical. Pretty funny eh! He said that he would rather see people do things involving using their body weight and core muscles and things that would make them stronger in their normal life. I asked him If I do that twice a week, and run, if it was a good idea to just hop on the Elliptical to burn calories while watching TV. He seemed OK with that... I had never called in to a radio show before so my voice was all quivery. :)

Wednesday - Rest day

So I am not doing any vigorous excercise today. It kind of feels weird but no doubt it is good for me. I did walk for 52 minutes at lunch. My HRM said I burned 359 calories which is better than just sitting at my desk surfing the net right?

I am seriously toying with the idea of rejoining WWs. If I do I *must* make myself journal and stick to my points like the rest of you bloggers do. I have joined so many times I am not sure if I have any WW mojo left in me.

I was reading the comments on Deborah's blog and Fatinah suggested that if you dont' eat half your activity points you could put your body into 'retention mode'. I wonder if maybe that is what is happening to me because lord knows I am whipping up a lot of activity points. I feel like I am eating to many calories but maybe I am not. How would I know if I don't journal? However, I really struggle to journal my food. My journalling never seems to make it past 4pm (when all the trouble happens)

My problem in the past was also that I did not really know how to count my activity points so I would generally just ignore them. What to do, what to do...

Tuesday - Cross Training

First: Sorry I am behind in my reading and commenting. Yesterday (Tuesday) I worked and then went straight to my moms house to help her with stuff. She is selling her house and it boggles my brain how *not* ready to sell it is.

Did not get home until 8:30 last night, did not get the littlest one to sleep until 9:30. Did not want to go outside to run at 10pm so instead I 'ran' on the Elliptical for 20 minutes (my scheduled run was 20 minutes easy). I watched one episode of BSG with a bit of hopping on and off so it turned into 50 minutes of Ellipticalling instead of the normal 45 minutes per BSG episode. Total calories burned 581. The 20 minutes 'fast' at the beginning really resulted in more calories burned. If I just do easy I usually do 400 calories in 45 minutes. I guess I should be happy that I started my excercise at 10pm instead of just crawling into bed like I wanted to.

Eating was A+ until I got to my mom's house then it became a F. Crap! I am trying to make my Monday's (like 2 days ago Monday) target of 183 by Saturday. I think I am screwed. Monday I was 185. This morning I was 185.8. Seems impossible to get to 183 by Saturday. I know I go up a pound on work days compared to at-home days even though I eat better while I am at work. I think it is because I drink more water and get dehydrated on the weekend and that makes me appear lighter on Mondays (weigh in day). How I loathe you Mr. Scale! I am regretting making that goal on Youtube (Saturday makeup test) . I am also regretting making the 8 week challenge goal of losing 6 pounds. I have yet to be successful at a scale challenge. Why do I do this to myself? Wah wah wah.

Anyways the rest of this post will be whining free! One of my co-workers wants to start power walking at lunch so that is pretty cool. I even brought my chest strap for my HRM so I can see how many calories I burn. I am such a nerd. We are supposed to go today but if it is pouring rain I might not be to into it since my coat is not waterproof. We'll see how hardcare I am.

Thanks for all you comments. It really makes blogging fun.

Monday Cross Training

1 hour workout with personal trainer. Cardio 20 minutes on bike. Weights and Core.

1.5 hour workout on VR bike trainer. 623 calories.

Feet are still not 100%. Trying to wear shoes as much as possible.

Tomorrow is a run day but only scheduled to do 20 minutes easy.

Summer Challenge Update - Week 1

Faceplant!!!

Ya, thats what i'm calling it. The scale is not my friend today. It is up 1.2 from yesterday and 1 from last week. Surely this is a temporary gain due to eating off plan yesterday. However, it still is pretty crappy when I am supposed to be challenging myself here.

If you have been reading this blog you know that I have been doing lots of excercise. Its the eating dammit! Its always the eating though.

I'm changing my weigh in day to Saturdays. That way I can do 6 on plan days and enjoy a little off plan on Saturdays.

Goal for this week. 183 by Saturday.

Challenge Summary:

Goal: Lose 6 pounds by 'summer' June 21st
Start weight: 184
Current weight: 185
Total: 1 pound gain *bleh*

Sunday Running

Awesome run this morning. Went running with A + N in our old stomping grounds. Ran to the garbage can and back straight for 6k. 564 calories. Max heart rate: 181. Average heart rate: 165. Time: 45:29. Today I did not mind that I am slow. I was really happy to be running with friends. We met at 7am. The pathway was empty, the sun was shining. It was great! We are probably going to do that again instead of running the Mothers day 5K race like planned. It has literally been years since we ran together.

Hubby has written out a running plan for me. I am going to run 4 days a week and cross train on other days. When I used to run I would do 5 days a week but I also suffered from injuries (stress fracture to the foot, pulled hip flexor, pain on inner knee thigh muscle) and I am hoping that by taking out 1 day of running that will not happen. I am also hoping that doing the personal training with weights and core strengthening will help keep me injury free.

Here is my half running plan from now until Thanksgiving. Hopefully I will get to do lots of Sunday runs with A and N. How about you Hazel? Do you want to get up early on Sundays and meet up with us? --->Running Plan<---

Saturday Cross Training

Saturday I did not have a lot of free time. I got a 45 minute bike in on the trainer. (wished I could have gone outside it was a beautiful day). It was only 343 calories.

Went to a 5 year old birthday party at a Bowling Alley. Mayhem! I got tired just watching it (boys running around like crazy all over the place. eeks!)

Evening my eating went really badly. I just kept eating even though I was not hungry. Grrrr.

I challenged myself to lose 1 pound this week. Weigh in (on my scale) is Monday. I am not sure that I will make it. I have had 3 or 4 days this week when I have eaten more than I should have. Find out tomorrow I guess.

Awoke at 3am in the Nest of doom wearing my clothes. Ug!

Friday Cross Training

No running today. Had 2 playdates and eating was *bleh* due to sparse-ness of groceries and general lack of will power.

Took the kids out in the Chariot after supper. Did not wear my heart rate monitor so I don't know the calories but I pulled them for an hour 10 and then probably had 10 minutes without them (got the husband to pull them up the big hill home). Man, I tell you I felt light once they were passed over to husband :)

9:45pm got on the Elliptical for 90 minutes. Watched PVR'd Lost. Then I stayed on to watch an episode of BSG. 968 calories at Level 6. Boo yah! If that doesn't help me lose a pound this week I'm in trouble.

Not sure what to do on the running front this weekend. I have a running date for 7am on Sunday (want to come Hazel?) Ya, I said 7am. *eeps* and the trainer wants me to run with him on Monday soooooooo.... I probably should not run tomorrow. 3 days in a row might be asking for trouble. My main goal in running is to not get hurt. I have hurt myself running *way* too many times in the past.

Fatinah: I think you are right. I am going to go buy new shoes. I always make that mistake and don't notice my shoes need replacing though husband just looked at them and thinks they are fine. Who knows? Can't hurt to try and swap them out. My mountain bike shoes are also too small so I need to replace those too.

Hazel: I will try to wear my shoes all the time. My kitchen tiles and hardwood in the livingroom are not feet friendly.

I did notice my feet were feeling slightly 'throbby' after the 90 minutes on the Elliptical.

Thursday

So, I planned a day off today but I don't really want to take it off (I think mostly because I want to watch a DVD episode of BSG). My feet are starting to be sore just walking around. This scares the crap out of me because the main reason I did not get back into shape after my second child was because I had major foot pain. Eeeeeks! *panic*. OK, no panicking, just need to wear my shoes indoors and I will be OK right?

Have not planned what to do excercise wise tomorrow. I guess it will be a surprise!!! :) Maybe I will go for a run when husband gets home from work. Have at least one playdate tomorrow and maybe two. It is not looking good for buying groceries. Lack of groceries has landed us at restaurants 2 nights in a row. Bad Bad Bad.