Follow Through Friday - Big Winner and New Low!

I started off my exercise last week with meeting up with some of the MRTT ladies for a run on Saturday morning. This particular group is working up to their first 5k and is doing great starting out but overall a little slower than I was expecting, but I'll take a slower run with enjoyable conversations over a fast solo run any day! We ended up kind of splitting into three groups as the run progressed and some others had to fall back and some of us went ahead. The group was only doing 2.75 miles as that is where they are in their training plan,  but myself and another girl went and did the full 5k. I love being part of a group of women who love to run and since it's a pretty large MRTT chapter, you can pretty much always find someone to run with when you want to. My other two runs were at home on my treadmill and I'm very happy with my speed. I remembered that we have this programable "module" to our treadmill and decided to try it out after it sitting idle for well over year (I thought you had to have a membership to use it,  and ours expired like 18 months ago but apparently you don't need the membership to program it, only to use their other online features). I programmed it to gradually increase speed with over the 30 minutes to hit 3.1 miles. I had it so it dropped down to 5.5 mph for one minute at the 10 and 20 minute mark, to give me a little break and then gradually work it back up. Overall, it felt great and I think it ended up being a tad bit short b/c it was programmed for 0.0 incline and I ran at 1.0 incline. I never once felt like I was dying, which is a good sign that I should be able to hopefully translate this to the road eventually! 

Now on to the diet... even with my splurge on Saturday (which was only in the evening, not all day, we had some friends over and I drank some beers and ate some foods that were not part of the plan, although technically Saturday is my reward day with carb cycling so I didn't really "cheat" right?), I picked right back up where I left off on Friday and killed it this week. At least, I think a 3 lb loss from last week is pretty great! I'm at a new post-baby low! 

I also finished my 2nd Transformer Diet Bet this week and I was going back through my Diet Bet profile, I decided to pull together my before and after pics from both of my transformer Diet Bets (they overlapped) and my before pics aren't in form fitting clothes or good lighting but you can still definitely see the differences. Between the two Transformers that I've completed, I won $598.67 ($278.67 profit!). I also hit my goal for round 3 of my 3rd Transformer this morning! 

Weight: 153.0 lbs

Exercise: 
     3.13 miles in 42:48 (13:39 pace)
     3.10 miles in 30:33 (9:51 pace)
     3.09 miles in 30:00 (9:43 pace)
Overall Weight Lost since "Starting Point" 10/24/14: 23.6 lbs

Follow Through Friday - A Quick Update

 

Oh look at me, actually updating my blog in a week instead of like three! This will be a super short update compared to last week!  My week started off great! I ran to pick the girls up at daycare on Friday afternoon and unfortunately we got caught in the rain on the walk home so we only made it about half way before I had to call my father in law to come rescue us. Had the weather report been accurate, I would have made it home in time, but of course the storm came 20 minutes early and it came HARD and it came FAST. It took me about 5 minutes to get to some coverage, so by then we had gotten SOAKED and I felt awful for the girls (they were cold and scared because it was thundering and lightning out too). I knew a storm was coming and should have planned better (left earlier) but oh well, at least my FIL was able to rescue us! 

Saturday morning was my 5k race, my first race since March and it went well. You can read all about it here. The rest of the weekend was busy, busy. G was out of town, so I took the girls over to my parents and we stayed the weekend and attended a graduation party and went out on their boat. Of course, I ate horribly there. I always do. There is just something about that house that makes me hungry and have no will power. I had meal prepped on Friday, so at least once I got back to town Sunday night, I was ready to go for the work week. Monday I was good to go with my food although too exhausted in the evening to exercise. Mondays are usually hard for me, but after a busy weekend, it’s almost a given I won’t be exercising. Tuesday I came down with a migraine that lasted 12 agonizing hours and then I still wasn’t feeling great Wednesday so I got zero exercise in but at least stayed within my calories. I didn’t really follow the carb cycling as I wasn’t feeling well and certain things just didn’t taste good to me so I needed to eat what I could handle. Thursday I chose laundry over exercise after the girls went to bed. So needless to say I started off great and ended with a bust in terms of exercise. I can’t really be mad about a slight gain since last week and I’ll be meal prepping this weekend for next week to start back with the carb cycling!

 

Weight: 156.0 lbs

Exercise:

3.10 miles in 35:14 (11:21 pace)

3.10 miles in 33:14 (10:22 pace)

1.46 mile walk

 

Overall Weight Lost since "Starting Point" 10/24/14: 20.6 lbs

Cool Summer Mornings 5k Series - Race #1: The Jungle

(source)

Last Saturday, I ran my first summer 5k. This was the first race of a four race series called “Cool Summer Mornings”. This is a small local race series in Clermont, which is about a 15-20 minute drive from home. The series consists of four 5ks (one a month, throughout the summer) and all come with medals. For less than $100, to get 4 chipped races, 4 medals (actually 5 since they give you a special one if you complete all 4), and 4 tech shirts, that’s a great price and I couldn’t pass it up! They are all in the same location – a nice out and back course alongside Lake Minneola  

Since there is also a triathlon hosted alongside the 5ks, the start time is a little late for a summer race, 8am, but they have to get the tri-athletes started first since they have to start the swim in waves. Normally I would love a 8am start, but it’s normally already getting pretty hot by 7am, so I kind of wish they started a little earlier. Luckily, it stormed pretty bad Friday night, so it was actually really nice and cool on Saturday morning so the start time didn’t end up being a big deal. I was warned by my running group to get there early as parking is bad and fills up quick, especially with two events going on. The tri had a start time of 7:30 so I figured as long as I was there by 7am I should be fine. Well I got there right at 7am (so an hour before the race started, 30 mins before tri started) and I got the 4^th to last parking spot (which wasn’t even a spot, it was up on the grass) in the OVERFLOW lot. Usually with small local races, you can get there like 15 minutes before the race starts and be fine. I’m glad I took the warning from my running group and go there as early as I did. That was probably my only complaint with the race was the parking situation. I feel like if you can’t accommodate with parking, then you need to put a lower capacity on participants. Based on the results there were 400 5k runners and 473 tri-athletes plus of course spectators so it wasn’t as “small” of an event as I thought and it was reflective with the parking situation. Granted, I guess you could pretty much park anywhere and just walk a little further, but I had to hustle it home after the race to get EM to swim lessons (G was out of town) in time so where I parked ended up being perfect as I could easily get out and made it home in time.

 

I also loved that they had their packet pick up at the Sports Authority near my house. Normally I never pick my packets up in advance as I hate driving so far away just to pick something up (most of my races are 30+ mins away usually), but I was already out shopping in Winter Garden Village, so it worked out perfectly and I was able to get my packet on Friday vs. picking it up at the event in the morning.

 

Not much to report about the course itself, it was on the South Lake Trail, alongside Lake Minneola. I love running along the water. Just something peaceful about it. I also loved how they had a drone video recording it. That was pretty cool! I only recall one water stop, which you hit twice with the out and back, which was more than fine (plus I run with my own water anyways). There wasn’t any entertainment, but I wasn’t expecting much since it was more of a low budget race and the scenery was nice!

 

Since there weren’t that many participants in the 5k, the out and back didn’t get too congested with people running both directions. However I was confused when running “back” on the right side of the path (since some 5k runners were still running “out” on their right (my left) it seemed like the tri-runners were starting their run portion and were coming at me and making comments for me to get on the left side. (which would have me running into late start/slower 5k runners) I’m not sure if I was on the “wrong side” of the path, as I entered the turn around on the right side so I assumed you would stay on the right side, right? That was a really confusing sentence but I think you get what I’m saying. Seems like the tri-runners should have also been on the right side but maybe didn’t want to weave between slower runners since they were clearly the head of the pack for the tri-runners getting mixed in with the 5k runners? Regardless, it confused me, and I’m still not sure what is correct. Maybe it’s just a flaw of having two events share a portion of a course. I asked the ladies in my running group and they think the runaround had us go in on the wrong side (and we should have been on the left side both ways), which would explain the confusion, but out of habit I always personally run on the right side, and it think a lot of others do too, so who knows.

 

Apparently there was also some type of mishap with the timing, I still don’t know what it was, but we did finally get our times a few days later. They sent out preliminary results on Monday which were like 2 minutes off of my run keeper so I’m thinking they must have had a start time problem and that was my “clock” time vs my “chip” time. I’m not sure how they fixed it but when they sent out the final results, my time was pretty dang close to my Runkeeper so I’m thinking they figured it out.

 

Regardless, it was a great race, and considering I had only ran once in the two weeks leading up to it, I was very happy with my time. I’m using it as a baseline for the series and hopefully will improve upon it during each race. (Although it will get hotter as the summer goes on, which will make it tougher)

 

My 5k Stats:

Official Chip Time: 33:14 (overall pace of 10:42) 

Place: 160 of 400 Finishers

Place: 85 of the 264 Women Finishers

Place: 7 of 20 in my Women’s Age Division (25-29)

 

My RunKeeper stats:

3.12 miles in 33:17 (overall pace of 10:40) 

Splits:

Mile 1: 10:32

Mile 2: 11:02 

Mile 3: 10:41

.12 mile: 8:21 < - my ending sprint

Follow Through Friday - A Postpartum Comparison and Carb Cycling

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been another 3 weeks since I last updated (btw, I posted the May 15^th post earlier this week and back dated it to May 15^th since I realized I had actually written the post and just forgot to publish it, whoops!)… I mentally write these posts in my mind and then never get around to typing them up. But believe me, my progress is ALWAYS on my mind. Maybe a little too much.

So let’s back track a little bit (warning, long post!)…

I kind of had that NSV that I was talking about way back when.. I didn’t drink at all on that Saturday and didn’t eat too terribly bad but I knew it wasn’t going to be good enough to hit my DietBets, and it wasn’t. I tried not to be disappointed in myself, because I definitely stuck to my no drinking and no completely stuffing my face intent, but it still sucked to not hit my goal. I did end up hitting one of the two Dietbets like two days later, but it was too late for the winnings.

I didn’t hit my mid-month DietBet goals (which were interim rounds of my 6 month Transformer games, so not a HUGE deal as the big payout is at the end of month/round 6), but did hit my end of month goal. I won $46.79 ($16.79 profit for that one). For June, I have 3 weigh ins again: Round 6 of my 2^nd transformer on 6/17 (Goal: 157.9), Round 3 of my 3^rd transformer on 6/18 (Goal: 154), and another 28 Day Kickstarter on 6/26 (Goal: 156.5). I’m well on track to hit all of those! Despite having an incredibly busy month with plans every single weekend, including an all-day kayaking/drinking trip over Memorial Day weekend, I was able to lose and am officially at my lowest weight since before I was pregnant with EMS. (as in, I never got this low after having EM before getting pregnant with AB).

I felt like I was doing so much better with my weight loss this time around (compared to after I had EM) so I decided to graph it. (Yes, I’m a huge nerd, I like to graph and analyze everything). Since I’ve been logging my weight in My Fitness Pal since like 2011, I had my weight logged for most days since I had EM and decided to compare months postpartum (PP) of EM vs. AB. A few things to keep I try to keep in mind, I started out heavier with AB (161) vs EM (153) but weighed less when I delivered AB (200) vs. EM (208) which is pretty reflective on my 1st month PP weigh in.

This is what the chart currently looks like, which I’m comparing through 15 months PP since that is when I got pregnant with AB. I’m a little over 8 months PP and I’m pretty pleased with my results so far. It’s hard to get excited about 1 lb. here and 1 lb. there, but when you actually look at the progress over time, it makes you feel a lot better about the hard work you’ve put in. Don’t get me wrong, I wish I was closer to my ultimate goal, but I’ve made lots of (bad) choices that have stalled my weight loss. Now to keep the momentum on that same downward curve…

 

 On to the Exercise portion of this update: My knee had been hurting me on and off for a few weeks (maybe longer) and seemed to be getting worse and after it bothering me so bad I actually had to take something for it (Motrin 800) I decided it was probably best to get it checked out. So once I made that decision (May 19^th), the soonest I could get into the doctor was May 26^th and I decided to take it easy and not run until I got it checked out. I also clearly used that as an excuse to not exercise at all because well, I didn’t. Even though I wasn’t exercising, I definitely still focused on my diet, which is represented in my weight loss. Turns out there isn’t anything “really” wrong with my knee. I have Patellofemoral pain syndrome aka Runner’s Knee, which pretty much just means my knee cap slightly moves on the side of my femur bone and can cause inflammation and pain. The doctor recommended some physical therapy to learn some good stretches, taking it easy when it bothers me, and ice if it swells. He said it’s more common once women become child bearing age (or have had children) because our hips spread more causing our kneecaps to not be aligned as they once were. I’m glad it’s nothing serious but as I get older and the more issues that arise is so discouraging. Even though I’m overweight still, I’m probably the healthiest I have ever been (even though I weighed less previously, I didn’t do it in a healthy way) and the most active I have ever been, so it sucks to be “falling apart”. I was also diagnosed with a Taylor Bunion but have gotten new shoes to help accommodate that and so far so good. I had to have a bunionectomy n my other foot so hoping to avoid another surgery on this one. I’ve already had four on this foot due to being born with a club foot. It’s actually a wonder I can run pain free (most of the time) at all considering how fused together this foot is. Anyways, I’m feeling good again, just need to get back into the groove. It’s SO easy to be lazy at night and after 2.5 weeks off, it’s SO hard to get back on track.  I plan to run to day care to pick up the girls and then walk them home in their stroller this afternoon (I did this a few weeks ago too!) and have a 5k race tomorrow so that’ll be a good start to this week coming!

Now the Food: After reading about it on and off for a few months now, I decided to finally give Carb Cycling a try. Everyone knows I love watching Extreme Weight Loss with Chris and Heidi Powell (Chris Powell is my celebrity crush, he’s so hot and motivating!) and their contestants use Carb Cycling. It seems pretty “easy” if you meal prep, otherwise I think it would be too hard to follow. So I bought the book (and EM totally pointed to Chris’s picture on it and said Daddy, on multiple occasions, which makes my crush on him even funnier haha) and decided to start on Sunday. The book offers four different cycles to choose from and I of course chose the most aggressive one for quicker results, the Turbo Cycle. The Turbo Cycle is two low carb days (approx. 1200 calories) followed by one high carb day (approx. 1500 calories), repeat that for the next 3 days and then on the 7^th day, you have a reward day. I made a shopping List based on a few recipes and took a few hours out of Sunday to meal prep for the week. I made these egg white and veggie “muffins” and some buffalo turkey burgers. I also portioned out all my breakfast and lunches, including snacks, labels all my Tupperware and baggies and had enough food for Sunday-Thursday prepared (not counting dinner). If only food stayed “good” longer than 5 days then I would have made more.. I guess I could freeze stuff next time. For Dinner I ate my proportioned frozen Mahi from Costco (it’s lightly marinated and super yummy) with a vegetable. I wouldn’t say I’m following the book exactly as I tend to only eat 4 meals vs. the recommended 5 but I’m eating the same amount of food, just some meals are bigger than they would be if they were spread across 5. The first two low-carb days were tough, I definitely didn’t feel like I had the energy that I’m used to and didn’t work out (see above where I hadn’t gotten back into it after my 2.5 weeks off). The caloric intake is about the same as what I’ve been doing but I typically was eating more carbs so I think that affected me. My high carb day was better, energy wise, and I was happy to be able to eat the fresh watermelon and cantaloupe I had bought! I also forced myself to start working out again and went for a run. The next two low carb days were the same as the first two (I did cheat an have pizza one day but still stayed within my calories) and I forced myself to work out for one of them (It was national running day, so I HAD to run!). Overall it was a good 1^st week and I’m happy with the results on the scale! Now the challenge will be this weekend when I’m out of town for Saturday and Sunday and won’t have time to meal prep until Monday after work. I’m off work today so going to try to meal prep as much as I can before I leave tomorrow and maybe just freeze the items for next week. Remember that no plans during June that I mentioned a few posts ago? Well that is no longer the case, all of the weekends have filled up!

Anyways, that is where I stand as of today and the last three weeks in numbers:

Week Ending 5/22:

Weight: 157.6

Exercise:

3.10 miles in 30:03 (9:42 pace)  ß new Post Baby 5k PR

3.14 miles in 35:09 (11:13 pace)

1.22 mile walk

Week Ending 5/29:

Weight: 158.8

Exercise:

1.27 mile walk

Week Ending 6/5:

Weight: 155.4 lbs

Exercise:

3.88 miles in 55:00 (14:11 pace) – mostly walking after the 1^st 15 mins

2.00 miles in 20:44 (10:22 pace)

0.84 mile walk

Overall Weight Lost since "Starting Point" 10/24/14: 21.2 lbs