Good Progress

Yesterday I had 3 miles on the schedule.  However, when the alarm went off, I just wasn’t feeling it.  I didn’t feel like running 3 days in a row right now…not so early in me getting back into running on a regular basis.  Sure, that means that I didn’t get in my 3 days of running or my 4 workouts for the week that I like to get.  But, as I’ve said before, I don’t want to feel “forced” when I do my workouts.  If I feel forced, I’m not going to enjoy the workout which means I’m going to start dreading them.  So, even though I didn’t get in 3 runs/4 workouts, I did get in 2 runs with a total of 3 workouts last week.  I’m good with that.  Really, my goal is to do 3-4 workouts each week and I just “hope” to get in 3 runs.  So, really, my running goal is 2-3 runs each week and I met that.

I had to really work to stretch out my food yesterday since I worked the double (16 hr) shift yesterday.  Usually, it’s not a problem but yesterday’s menu there was one less snack than usual.  What I ended up doing was splitting my 1^st meal (aka: breakfast) into 2 parts.  The first part I ate right after getting to work at 2pm…that was the low fat flavored Greek yogurt.  The second half I ate around 4pm…that was 2 small oranges.  Then, I also split up the 2^nd meal.  I had the lemon water and chicken lunchmeat sandwich around 7:30pm and the salad at about 9pm.  It all seemed to work out pretty good for me.  I guess it was a good thing that I didn’t go run yesterday morning because otherwise I would have had to eat something before I left for work and space things out even more.  But, even though for the first couple hours I kept getting hungry to the point of a growling stomach, everything settled down about halfway through the day’s food when the meals were no longer split up and were the size they were supposed to be.

So, today, when I woke up, I weighed in and took my starting pictures for the fitness challenge that starts on Wednesday.  My weight is 182...that's 2.6 lbs down since last Sunday!!!  I decided I’m going to start taking pictures of the scale when I weigh in each week, so here you go:

So I will add all that to the “official” forms for the competition.  Well…not the picture of the scale, but the other pictures I will. Keith (the guy running the competition) is requiring the front and rear pictures, I wanted to go the "extra mile" and do a side picture too.

Last night at work, I took the time (a few hours) to type up the entire 6 weeks (42 days) of daily menu schedules for the Shred Diet so that when I rotate back to week 1 day 1 on Friday, everything is all ready for me.  I just need to write in my choices for each meal.  I’ll work week by week because, obviously, I’ll need to go grocery shopping the day before (maybe earlier than that, depending on the food item and what I have to do with it to prep for the week). 

I’ve decided roughly what I’m going to do for exercise this week.  Now, if it ends up not working out as planned, that’s fine.  Today was a 5 mile run.  I did my usual 4 mile route with a 1 mile detour to make it 5.

As you can see, I was able to keep all my splits within 25 seconds between the slowest mile time and the "fastest" mile time.  I just refrain from looking at my Garmin while I and run by feel and it seems to work pretty good for keeping a fairly steady pace.  Overall, I really enjoyed today's run.  I really liked the 1.5-ish miles through the neighborhood and through a small park that was completely new to my running routes.

Tomorrow is my workout with Samy.  Tuesday I have to pay bills and go grocery shopping, so it’s a rest day.  Wednesday I’d like to run 3 miles.  Thursday, I’d like to run 2 miles.  No workout Friday morning because I’m working a double shift Thursday night.  Then, Saturday, I’d like to do my 3.3 mile loop.  I think next week I need to try to get in a regular gym workout (aka a “Paige workout”).  I don’t think I’ve stepped foot in my gym in over 2 months.  Oops.

I am happy to report that today will be day 12 of being 100% “on diet.”  I feel great and my clothes are fitting so much better.  My gun belt feels like it’s being held up by my hips instead of being held up by my fat (squeezed so tightly around my waist area that it’s not going to budge one bit).  I like that feeling.  I’ll be even more happy when I don’t have a little stomach sticking over the top of my gun belt.  But, thank goodness my shirt isn’t super tight over my stomach anymore.