New Habits

“I do not need to manufacture strength and determination from scratch. Instead I uncover, rediscover, that which is always within me. At times those traits are lost from my view, dark clouds block my view. But that doesn't mean they are gone, only temporarily hidden. And when the clouds part, I'll dance around in my inner sunshine.” –Michelle

A fellow weight loss/healthy lifestyle blogger “friend” of mine posted this on her blog’s Facebook page recently.  It really resonated with me because of how things have been for me the past couple months.  Just the other day, I decided that I’m completely sick of dieting and trying to lose weight…despite the fact that I almost desperately need to do so.  I’m doing all this running, so I’m fairly fit…however, I’m eating like crap about half of the time…or I’m just eating too much of the stuff that is good for me, which makes it “bad” because I’m overeating.  And, as they say you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. 

I’ve been trying to lessen how much junk I take in.  For instance, the last week and a half I have been going somewhere and buying my breakfast.  The other day I went to Trader Joe’s and found this cereal and it is amazing.

So, the past couple days I have eaten a bowl of that with my favorite plain unsweetened almond milk and then, right before I get ready for work, I scramble 3 eggs and put some sea salt on them.  So, that nixes the buying breakfast habit I had started getting myself into.  And I’ve been trying to not bring too much food with me to work.  I have been bringing a yogurt (Noosa is my favorite) or buffalo jerky, a sandwich and some fruit.  And then I’ll eat them at 2 hour intervals to keep hunger at bay.  Then, when I get home (the past 3 days, anyway) I eat a serving of salmon.  So, not a LOT of food and, for the most part, good food.  My sandwich choices have been either a no-nitrate turkey lunchmeat, slice of tomato, some purple onion rings, and whole grain mustard on sprouted grain bread…or…almond butter and sugar free jelly on sprouted grain bread.

I am off work today and the next 4 days and I have some plans.  There will be eating out, but there will also be a lot of eating at home.  I plan to do some cooking and then portioning it out and freezing it for easy thaw, heat and eat meals that are fairly healthy.  I’ll try to remember to post the recipe (along with my healthier substitutions that I’ll be making) the day I make it in case any of you want to try it.  Something I’ve been thinking about the past week or so that I think would help me get my behind back in the gym and start doing some regular strength training is…drum roll please…joining a second gym.  Yes, you read that right…a SECOND gym.  I have been a member of 24 Hour Fitness since February 2013 and I love it.  They have a lap pool that I love to use and they have all sorts of equipment that I also love to use.  However, their location to me isn’t exactly “convenient” if I just wanted to be quick about going to the gym.  Also, the workout I currently do when/if I go to 24 Hour takes me a minimum of 45 minutes, sometimes longer.  Also, 24 Hour is about 8 miles, 15 minutes, away from where I live.  So there’s nothing quick about going to 24 Hour.  So…what did I do?  Planet Fitness opened up a new location about 1.5 miles away from where I live.  Location: SUPER convenient.

I was originally just going to do the single club, $10/mth, membership.  However…I forgot that there is a start-up fee.  Ugh.  It was going to be $74 to sign up for the cheap membership.  BUT…they are currently running a special on the premium “Black Card” membership (the $20, all-club, all-the-extras).  The current pro-rated monthly rate plus a $10 start-up fee.  So, I paid just $31.59 today instead of $74.  And, now, I have a second gym membership.  It kind of works out, they not only have the hydromassage beds but they also have massage chairs with calf massagers on them…how great would those be after a long run?!?!?!  Oh yea!  The other main reason aside from location convenience that I wanted to join PF is that they have a wonderful circuit training area.  So, this is PERFECT for a true quick trip to the gym.  Tops, a 5 minute drive each way to the gym, then 30 minutes of the circuit training area and boom, quality strength training in the books!  I figure I can get myself to PF 2-3 times a week.  Once it’s become a full-on habit, I can change out one PF day for a 24 Hour day and do my longer workout there.

I am running another 5K this Sunday!  YAY!  It’s the CASA Superhero 5K.  I found and bought a Batgirl shirt with a cape at Wal-Mart the other day, so I’ll be wearing that shirt to run in.  I opted not to be timed by them because that was an extra $5.  So, that’ll be fun!  I have this comic book style washi tape (it’s got the BOOM, POW, etc that they have in comics on it) that I want to use to frame the bib on the scrapbook page for it.

Also, I'm down to 87 days until the Dallas Marathon!!! 

I decided that I wanted to have even MORE fun with this countdown.  Originally, I printed out 2 different versions of each number 0-9.  Well, today I printed out 2 more of each number so now I have 4 different versions of all the numbers to add a little more variety to the countdown!  :)

Another thing I did today was to go ahead and type up my ENTIRE marathon training schedule!  WOW!  If I follow it as I have typed it up, from August 17th through December 12th, I will run 551.35 miles!!!  OMG!  That is epic, just epic.  And I can't tell you how excited I am to do this!  At the start of this year, I had made a goal with myself that I wanted to run at least 900 miles this year.  When I fell off the running wagon this summer, I didn't think that I would be able to reach that goal.  Thanks to marathon training, I believe i will meet that goal, plus a few extra miles.  Oh, and I didn't include the 26.2 miles of the actual marathon in the training mileage...so, that's another 26.2 miles on top of the 551.35!  Then, I'll take 1.5 or 2 weeks completely off from running after the marathon and then start back up again with the plan of running as many half marathons as I can next year!!!