Weekly Recap

• Saturday: the original plan for this day was to run 8-10 miles, but 1) I didn’t really feel like running and 2) figured what I was planning to eat on Sunday would warrant a long-ish run more than what I was planning to eat on this day.  So, instead of running, I did my home workout that I haven’t done since probably last fall.  It’s a bunch of kettlebell and body weight exercises with 2 trips up and down the 2 flights of stairs outside the front door of my apartment between each round.  And I do 4 rounds.  Takes just under an hour to complete everything. 

• Sunday: was meeting my friend David before work for lunch at a local place called Chi'lantro.  It’s a fusion between Korean and Tex-Mex and it’s amazing.  My favorite thing they serve is the Kimchi Fries.  Soooo good.  Anyway, I postponed Saturday’s run to this day to make sure I had enough in my burned calories bank to cover that little food indulgence.  So, that run from Saturday I didn’t do?  Yep, got it done.  8 super humid miles.  I actually felt pretty good for the majority of the run despite the humidity.  I was completely surprised by my overall pace of 11:07 per mile.  I was expecting an 11:30 or slower average.

• Monday: had another follow up with my doctor about my new medication on this day.  After my appointment, I went straight to the gym to knock out 65 minutes on the elliptical and then hit the strength training.  I did reverse flyes (???  You pull the cable across your body starting with, for example, your right arm crossed over your body to the left, and then pull so your right arm is fully extended out to your right side…does that make sense?), cable bicep curls, slow/fast calf raises, and then the inner/outer thigh machines.

• Tuesday: I was originally going to go for a 7 mile run around Ladybird lake after my doctor’s appointment, HOWEVER, my appointment was almost an hour after I was thinking it was, so I changed plans.  Also, we’re having a going away party for 2 coworkers at work on Wednesday, so I think running would be more appropriate before something like that.  So, no run on this day.  Instead, I went to the gym and did my 65 minutes on the elliptical.  Then, I randomly decided that I wanted to do 2000 meters on the row machine.  We do that for our physical readiness testing at my job and I have to row for work next month, so I guess I just wanted to see where I stand.  Well, I did decent.  Not a PR, but semi-close to one.  I also decided that I will do 2000 meters on the rower at the end of each of my gym workouts from now on (unless I somehow don’t have time).

• Wednesday: ran 7 miles at Ladybird lake on this morning.  The humidity wasn’t too bad as I was running between 8:45 and 10:15, but the temp was on the rise.  It was pushing 90° by the time I got done.  Eeesh.  I stopped twice to get rocks out of my shoes.  The first time I stopped is when I took my selfies, the second time I stopped, I allowed myself to rest a little before starting back up with the run.  Overall, I felt really good during this run, but I did run slow…11:51 average pace.  Not concerned about it, though.  It’s summer in Texas, my paces will be slower…much slower.  Mostly, at this time of the year, I’m just logging miles and keeping a good base built up.

• Thursday: went to the gym and wanted to mix things up a smidge.  One of the girls at work gave me this 30 minute treadmill hill workout, so I’ve been meaning to try it out and I finally did.  It was a pretty awesome sweat session and I think that from now on, instead of 65 on the elliptical, I’ll do this 30 minute hill workout, then 35 on the elliptical to make sure I hit my 10K for the day.  This will be my gym standard from now on.  Then I did core/abs strength training.  I used that ab machine where you load plates onto, put your knees on a padded base and then you tuck your abs to pull your lower body up.  I also did free weight back extensions with a 25# plate held to my chest.  Then, I finished the workout with 2000 meters fast-as-I-can on the row machine, which wasn’t very fast at all.  I did it in 9:48 minutes (almost a minute slower than I did it the other day).  My core was trashed for this one so I couldn’t be as enthusiastic about my pulls as I would have liked to have been.

• Friday: went for my run over to the track for some speed work and did 8 laps with sprints around the track, 1 recovery lap (and to make sure I’d hit my mileage for the day), and then ran back home for a total of 5 miles.  This was a great workout that I feel I put forth a solid effort and did better than expected on the sprints.  My sprints (100m) were at about a 7 min pace and my recoveries (300m) were at about a 12 min pace.

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I’d like to take a minute and toot my horn.  I have been super diligent about being as honest as possible when tracking my food since the beginning of May.  Sure I made the goal on January 1^st to be honest with my tracking, but it didn’t happen for more than a week, maybe 2, at a time.  This time, I’ve been 100% as honest as I can be (some foods you just have to guess because there’s no nutrition info available for what you actually ate…but I do try to find a recipe for whatever it was and calculate the info myself if I can) for 7 weeks now.  SEVEN!  That’s the most honest I’ve ever been with food tracking in my entire life.  I’ve always lied to myself about what I’ve eaten.  I truly love the view on food the new me has.  If you’re interested in what I eat, you can friend me on My Fitness Pal, my username is, of course, “sararunsthisweigh.”  My food diary is open to view by anyone on my friends list. 

I ate out twice last weekend.  I also ate at Chi’lantro on Sunday with my friend David.  I got the kimchi fries to eat in the restaurant and then got their Chi’lantro bulgogi (Korean BBQ) burger.  I got both with the pork bulgogi as that’s my favorite meat for bulgogi.  I ate nothing else except a piece of sugar free candy around 9pm when I got a little hungry and that nipped my hunger (which was most likely a false hunger) in the bud.

When I went out for the Indian food with my friends on Saturday, I surprised myself when I was full after my first plate of food.  I had a little saag paneer, a little chicken tikka masala, a little semiya upma (which is a little funny because it’s actually a breakfast food), a few mysore bonda balls and, of course, a couple wedges of naan.  After my first plate, when I realized I’d had enough food, I returned strictly to get dessert, a lovely bread pudding that is the perfect mix of soft and crispy with sweetened condensed milk…mmmm.  And then I was truly done.  Not overstuffed or uncomfortable at all, I just felt done and satisfied.  I was really proud of myself that I didn’t force myself to eat more just because the food is delicious.  When I was full, I was done.  The only other thing I ate the rest of the day (aside from breakfast mid-morning) was one of the Sargento cheese, dried fruit & nut snack packs for dinner post-workout.

Another food victory this week was Wednesday.  We had a potluck spread at work to wish good luck and say goodbye to a couple coworkers that are moving on.  I had small, reasonable portions of the food and was well within my calorie goals for the day.  But I didn’t deprive myself or restrict myself in any way except sticking to portion control and making sure I tracked everything I put in my mouth.  Something I discovered this week, when I have just “a taste” of a food and I try to track it, it’s a little difficult.  I have to guess about half the time what fraction of a serving what I ate was.  I do my best, though, and prefer to overestimate what I ate than to underestimate it.

Usually, or at least the last month or so, the first part of the week, I show a slight gain of 1-2.5 pounds and then the latter part of the week, I lose that plus some more.  Since this has become my norm, that slight gain the first part of the week doesn’t bother me one bit.  This week, I only had a .8 pound gain and then I leveled out.  I realize that as each week goes by and I get closer and closer to my goal weight that there is a really good chance that I will eventually plateau.  I’m hoping it doesn’t happen just yet.  I’m hoping I don’t plateau until I hit my goal weight.  Then I can just work on holding steady there.

Not going to lie about this.  I’m a little frustrated that the scale didn’t really move downward for most of this week.  However, my weight didn’t drop much, my body fat percentage did!  And it’s noticeable in the mirror too.  I still have extra skin (that will be dealt with next year or the year after…can’t afford the solution time wise or financially right now), but my stomach area is starting to lean out and you can start to see some shadowy outlines of my ab muscles.

I wish I had an “abs before” pic to compare this to.

I have a little more good news.  I wore my new, much smaller uniforms this week!!!  And they look so much better.  So much.  They were ever so slightly snug, but they were not tight.  I can deal with snug, especially knowing that I will continue to drop weight over the next month-ish and they will fit even better as that happens.  So, I’d like to take a moment and show you the difference between my old uniforms and the new ones.  I do wish I had taken a picture of me in the old uniforms at the beginning of May when they were snug.  But, let me suffice to say that the old uniforms are a 15.5 neck men’s shirt and 35 inch waist men’s slacks.  The new ones are a 14.5 neck and 31 inch waist.    The smallest waist I’ve ever had was a 28 inch and that was when I was 22.  Sure, it’d be super awesome to get back down to a 28 inch waist, but if I can get to 30, I’ll be super happy.

so there's no confusion, these pics were taken a few minutes

 apart

Weekly Recap

• Saturday: there was no exercise beyond hitting 10K+ steps for the day.  I worked overtime on the night shift Friday night and then overtime on my own shift Saturday afternoon/evening.

• Sunday: long run time!  I set out for a 10 mile run, even mapped it out on MapMyRun and headed out the door.  I got to mile 5 and was feeling pretty good, so at 5.3, I kept going straight instead of turning right and ran around this neighborhood there, adding 3 miles to my run.  So, you remember a couple weeks ago I was going to run 13.1 but could only finish 10 because of the temp + humidity.  Today, I redeemed myself and instead of the 10 I set out to do, I did 13.1!!!  The sorta bad news is that shortly after mile 11, I tripped over a buckle in the sidewalk and down I went.  Scraped up my knees and it hurt.  Oh did it hurt.  I almost cried.  I did cuss.  But I pulled it together and finished the run.  It’s not the first time I’ve fallen, but it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve fallen and also the first time I’ve ran while wearing a skirt instead of capris, so my knees actually got scraped.

 • Monday: it’s Monday, so it’s time to Cize it up!  Did the 4^th Cize workout called “In The Pocket.”  It’s not a favorite.  Also, I started feeling rather ill about 2/3 of the way through the workout but managed to finish after taking some migraine medicine.

Then, I had my therapy appointment at 11, so I did my standard pre- and post-therapy walking.

• Tuesday: was going to 1) wait until Wednesday to run but didn’t know if they might need me for overtime last minute Tuesday evening, so I decided to go ahead and run and then 2) I was only going to run 4-5 miles, but then my packet for the Runder the Sea virtual race arrived in the mail on Monday and that was a 6 mile race, so I decided on doing 6 miles.  Then I decided it would be fun to throw in some track work.  Hey, track work is fun to me!  I easy ran the 1.35 miles to the track, then did 10 laps with 100m sprints followed by 2 easy laps, then easy ran the 1.35 miles back home for a total of 6 miles.  the track is apparently not a ¼ mile track.  It’s closer to a 1/3 mile track.

• Wednesday: since I went ahead and ran Tuesday, that made Wednesday a gym day.  So I went to the gym and did my 65 minutes on the elliptical followed up by 2 upper and 2 lower body strength training exercises.  For those exercises, I did what I’m calling reverse cable squats (go to a cable machine, load your weigh, then squat while pulling down) and kettlebell swings.  Then I wanted to do some TRX exercises but there was just too many people in that area.  Good thing I have my own TRX-type straps at home!  So I went home and did bicep curls and supine rows with my straps.

• Thursday: went for a 4 mile run.  Just ran easy, no time or pace concerns/goals.  I ran hard Tuesday morning, so this was basically a recovery run to stretch my legs.

• Friday: I rode my bicycle to and from the gym, 6 miles round trip.  While at the gym, I did my standard 65 minutes on the elliptical and then moved onto my 4 strength training exercises.  This session, I did woodchoppers and low flyes on the cable machine, then I did the leg press and ended with resistance band side steps.  I’m super happy with this workout.  I was thinking I might do a 20-30 minute swim while at the gym, but I decided not to shortly before I headed out.  I also nixed extra cycling around after I got done with the gym portion of this excursion.

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I started off the week with absolutely no overtime scheduled and by the end of the week, I ended the week with no overtime picked up.  Oh well, I got my minimum that I like to get when I maxed out my overtime hours last week, so I was okay with not getting any overtime this week, but I still hoped to pick up 1 or 2 shifts.  Sometimes, I just get a week off from the overtime grind.

Last week, I had a pretty awesome weight loss week, losing 4.2 pounds.  Then, come Sunday morning, I had regained a pound.  Now, I’m not saying this because I was worried, because I wasn’t.  I usually go up a little bit on Sundays.  And not because I over indulged or anything like that on Saturday, it just seems that after I lose a good number, that my body needs to bounce back up a little bit for a day or two, but then usually it starts going back down again. 

I forgot to mention it last week, but I started having little urges in the back of my mind, especially when I was bored or time was dragging…always at work.  At home, I’m good.  Urges…urges to just eat, stuff my face.  But the good news is, these are now easily ignored and pushed aside!  Woohoo!  On Sunday, when I ran the 13.1 miles, I was thinking I could get some of that caramel frozen yogurt I love and that I would be 100% okay with having just the serving amount, but immediately decided that I didn’t actually want that, that it was just an urge, and that I wasn’t even hungry.  These are great little victories for me. 

While I was out and about for my run on Sunday, one of the new bands I ordered for my FitBit Blaze arrived and was waiting for me on my doorstep.  I love it!  I’m calling the design like a tattoo style design.  It’s very fitting to me, I think.  The other 2 bands I ordered are coming from China because they won’t be here until the middle of next month.  The other thing that arrived with the new band on Sunday was the extra chargers and screen protectors set I bought.  It came with 2 chargers, one with a standard cord and one with a shorter cord.  So I put the short cord one in the car and the longer cord one in the bedroom.  I messed up with the first screen protector I tried to put on, but nailed it with the second one, so now my blaze has a screen protector!  Then, Wednesday, the bands that were coming from China actually arrived (a month before I was expecting them)!

As you’ll recall, I lost an amazing 4.2 pounds last week.  That’s not from the Saturday previous, however.  I usually bump back up about a pound on Sundays, so I’ve been starting my weight loss week with Sunday’s weigh in.  Of course, I didn’t even realize I was doing that until now.  I’ve been screenshotting my FitBit daily weigh ins and it didn’t even dawn on me that I wasn’t doing my pounds lost from one Saturday to the next like I was before.  So, this week I’ve remedied that and I’ll be telling what I’ve lost since last Saturday, not since Sunday, because I did, in fact, bump up a pound between Saturday and Sunday last weekend.  So, with that, I was at 170.3 pounds last Saturday.  And, without further ado, here are this week’s weigh ins:

Another 2.9 pounds lost?!?!?!  Damn.  I keep expecting things to slow down, but they haven’t.  Since May 1^st, I have lost 19.1 pounds.  The breakdown of what I’ve lost each week is:

1^st week: 1.9#

2^nd week: 5.3#

3^rd week: 1.5#

4^th week: 3.3#

5^th week: 3.2# (even though I mistakenly put last week that it was 4.2)

6^th week: 2.9#

I seriously could not be happier with these numbers.  I am confident that I will reach the maintenance phase of this journey that I started 6 years ago and that I will reach it soon.  Just 7.4 pounds to go until I hit that goal weight of 160.  If things keep going the way they’ve been, then I wholeheartedly believe I will be at goal within the next 4 weeks.  Definitely by the end of July.

Running Favorites

1. favorite pre-run/pre-race food: I like a bagel pre-race or pre-long run.

2. favorite race: I have to say the Austin Marathon is my favorite race of all time. 

3. favorite running song: anything techno/dubstep/dance.  I also love some good alt rock like 5 Finger Death Punch, In This Moment, Volbeat, etc.  I also love me some Olly Murs.

4. favorite running gear: INKnBURN.  I love it.  It’s so pretty and comfortable and I just love everything about it.  Plus I’m an ambassador for them!

5. favorite race distance: the marathon.  It is a challenge and it involves a lot of strategy.  I am always nervous before a marathon because, well, it’s 26.2 miles.  A LOT can go wrong in that distance.

6. favorite running mantra: “if it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.”  also, while not exactly a running quote, I like the paraphrased JFK quote “we do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard.”  If you can’t figure it out, I don’t like the easy route.  I prefer a good challenge.

7. favorite post-race food: a burger or pizza

8. favorite running joke: I’m not sure I know any running jokes.  If I do, they’re not coming to mind at the moment.  Wah wah.

9. favorite place to run out of town: trails!  In the woods, preferably.  But, really, I’ll run any trail, I just want to be out in nature, experiencing the things that central Texas doesn’t have on their trails.

10. favorite thing to do when not running: hmmm…shopping, I think…mostly for running gear.  HA!