Follow Through Friday - Week 2

Week 2 of being back! Yey! Last weekend, I went away for a nice relaxing girls weekend with some friends to Singer Island, Florida. We didn’t do much besides drink and eat and hang by pool/beach and it was perfect. I didn’t go too overboard with the drinking or the eating and was happy to see only a .4 lb. gain when I checked on Monday. I had intentions of running at least once over the weekend, but that ended up not happening but I did swim a little and walked enough to hit 15k steps Friday (despite working half a day and driving 3 hours), 10k steps Saturday and just under 9k Sunday (again with 3 hours of driving), so that’s pretty good considering we only left resort once. After getting home late Sunday afternoon, I was tempted to just relax with G and the girls but I decided to meal prep for the week too so that has helped me be good all week at work and at night for dinner. I did have some treats on Wednesday after I gave blood since they encouraged sugar intake, I definitely probably went a little over board (2 cookies and a Danish) and had to cancel my personal training session for that evening since it’s not recommended to work out right after giving blood. On Thursday, I wasn't very good either though despite running in the morning. We had a birthday at work with some treats which I indulged in and then a going away happy hour for our boss that evening in which I had a few craft beers which wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't come home and eat tater tots and wings for dinner. So it shouldn't be a surprise to me that I didn't lose this week, but I didn't really gain either so I guess that's not as bad as it could have been.

 

Exercise wasn’t that great for me either. I was able to get on the walk station a lot at work too which always makes me happy. I got a relatively slow treadmill run in on Tuesday and then an even slower morning run on Thursday. Thursday’s run sucked. I don’t know if it was the 90% humidity (only 75 degrees at 6am), the fact I gave blood the day before, or that I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, but my body just couldn’t handle it. My legs felt great, but the rest of me kept telling me to stop, so I just did a 2.5 loop around the neighborhood and came home.  I also found a new type of challenge would just help me get back into my running though, its call the StepBet (same company that hosts those DietBets I’m obsessed with). It’s somewhat similar to Diet Bet in the sense that as long as YOU hit YOUR goal, then you split the pot with everyone else who hit their goals as well. So, you wager money (looks like all the challenges are the same with a $40 buy in) that you’ll hit certain step goals each week, for 6 weeks (well really 5 weeks since the 1^st week is practice). The goals are calculated by StepBet (I’m guessing based on your Fitbit – or other tracking device - history) and can’t be changed and you have to hit your active goal 4 times per week and your stretch goal 2 times per week and then have one “free” day without any set goal. I was actually surprised to see how high my goals were (especially since this past month I’ve been slacking on my running which contributes to a lot of steps in my history), which is good since it’s will actually be a REAL challenge to reach them each week. My Active Goal (4x/week) is 13,664 steps and my Stretch Goal (2x/week) is 17,538, which if I hit all of those and did NOTHING on my “free day” (which obviously I’d do more than nothing) I’d have to hit 89,732 and lately my weekly average has been closer to 80-85k steps so this will be challenging.

 

Friday, July 1st, 2016

Weight: 159.2

 

Exercise:

Tuesday – 4.02 miles in 45:00 (11:12 pace)

Thursday – 2.56 miles in 31:01 (12:06 pace)

 

Walk Station – 8.93 miles (multiple days)

 

 

Total Weekly Running Miles: 6.58

Total June Running Miles: 22.93

Follow Through Friday: I'm Back!

I’m back! I wish I could say I was coming back with the news that I’ve hit all my fitness and weight loss goals, but the truth is, I haven’t and I’m hoping by documenting my journey again, I can get back to where I was and continue down the path I was on last year.

 

When I left off last year, it was October and I had gotten my weight down to 149.6 (actually had gotten it down to 148 in September). I was feeling pretty good about myself, although not where I wanted to be, but had been making some steady downward progress. I was running consistently, getting faster. I knew I had a big trip coming up and that, with a 3 week vacation, there was sure to be some gains. And there was. Despite running 7 times on my 3 week vacation (which I so wish I recapped because I ran in some awesome places across the Atlantic!), I still managed to gain. I had weighed 151 on my 10/24/15, the day we left, and 160 on the day we got back 11/15/16. So 9 lbs. I thought for sure the 1^st 5 lbs would melt off as soon as I got back to my routine. Well it didn’t exactly melt off, but I did lose some and then it came back, and for the last 7 or so months the lowest I got back to was around 153 but up to as high as 165 again, but mostly have been staying around 158-160. Through Winter and Spring, I was doing awesome with my running, I even placed a few times in races, set many PRs and was feeling good about that, but was making no real progress on my weight. My clothes were still snug, the few new things I had bought when I hit the 140’s weren’t fitting and I HATED the way I looked in pictures (still do). I know it’s not all about the number on the scale, but the number on the scale DOES correlate to fitting in smaller clothes and looking leaner and I was neither. I’d been pretty consistent about eating pretty well during the week, but was splurging WAY too much on the weekends. We (or just I on some of them, bridal party/wedding related stuff) also snuck in quite a few weekend trips (Vegas, California, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami) and work trips since we’ve been back from our vacation last fall, and I definitely went into vacation mode with my eating on all of those. When you travel that frequently, you can’t do that. Add in the holidays and just pretty much a super busy weekend life, any progress I would make during the week, would be countered by a weekend of “fun” eating. I can tell you now, with how I feel, mentally, it wasn’t worth it. 

 

After looking at everything going on in my life, I decided maybe this blog was what was helping me stay accountable. It is the only thing that I stopped doing that I was consistently doing last year. I did post some race recaps, but even those subsided, despite running a ton of races this year. I have been keeping my Race Log updated though, I like to be able to look back at previous races and see my times. Maybe I'll recap the ones going forward.

 So what’s new in 2016? I signed up for a 2,016 in 2016 challenge, which there is no way I could do that alone if I was ONLY counting my running since I only logged ~500 miles last year (per RunKeeper) – I think that number is a little low though, as I’m not sure I put all my non-RunKeeper runs into RunKeeper last year, but maybe I did? Anyways, with that said, I joined the 2016 challenge with two friends from MRTT, which means I only need to run 672 miles for the year which is approximately 56 miles per month. I gave myself a stretch goal of 700 miles for the year/~58 miles per month. Through May, I was looking good, with a 5 month total of 308.44 mile ran vs. goal of 290. June on the other hand has been an awful running month, with no races longer than a 5k planned for months, I haven’t been doing any long runs (or really any runs period) on the weekends. So for the most part, really only logging around 6-7 miles per week and have only logged 16.3 miles so far and it’s already the 24^th. Going to start meeting up with my MRTT ladies on weekends again as that certainly helps keep me accountable. I know I’ll have some higher mileage months in the fall when my half training starts up as well, so I’m pretty confident I’ll hit my 700 mile goal for the year (Plus my one team member is killing it and pretty much has me and other team member doubled on her individual miles so as a team we will hit the goal without a problem, but I still want to hit my individual goal). I’m also keeping track of all my FitBit miles as well, just whatever my FitBit miles say at end of each day, which accounts for any running/walking and normal daily activity and am trying to hit 2016 miles with that on my own. I know I lose some steps when it’s charging/dead/forgot to put back on, but for the most part it’s a pretty good measure. Through May, I was up to 583.73 of 840 I should be at, so need to keep my daily miles a little higher going forward if I expect to hit my 2016 goal.

 

I also joined a gym a few weeks ago. I know I can do the majority of strength exercises at home, but the reality of it is, I’m not doing them, and paying for the monthly gym membership is holding me accountable. Due to G’s travel, I can only realistically go one day a week (weekdays that is, they are closed Sunday and on Saturdays we always have things going on/I do my long runs) since my in-laws pick the girls up from school one day a week for me. Which worked out perfectly because they have a 4x/month package. And if I do end up being able to go more than that for whatever reason, its only $6 per session which would still be cheaper than their unlimited package. This gym isn’t like any other gym I had been to, it’s somewhat similar to Orange Theory Fitness, but there isn’t one of those close to my house and it’s double the cost for their 4x/month package. It’s called the Hit Fit Gym and it focuses on High Intensity, Interval Training. They have a circuit set up with 10 zones. Each zone has a video playing on repeat showing you how do the exercise plus there is always personal trainer on the floor during the core hours (5:30-9am and 4-8pm, I think) or at least at the front desk during the non-core hours to help you as well. During the core hours, they PT on the floor also encourages you to do extra exercises on your breaks. You do each zone for 30 seconds hard, 15 second break x 4 rounds and then there is a 45 second transition to the next zone. The whole circuit takes about 35 minutes and is a full body workout. They have a continuous timer going so you can show up at any time and the longest you would have to wait to begin is about 3 minutes for the next round to start. I’m sure there are busier times where you may have to wait to start because someone else is there on the first zone, but it hasn’t happened to me yet but either way its still better than trying to get to a gym at a specific time for a class. They also just opened a second location which is double the size so I’m sure that will help too if this location was getting overcrowded.  They also change up the circuit every few days so you don’t get bored. I absolutely love it. They also had an introductory offer for personal training, which I took advantage of and have been meeting with a trainer for the past 2 weeks. Unfortunately, since I can really only make it there once a week, I haven’t been able to do the circuit AND the PT each week. I did manage to do both last week when I went on my off Friday but that’s not the norm, although G is working from home all next week so maybe I’ll have the opportunity to do both next week. I don’t see results yet, but am really enjoying it and hoping to see results soon. Have to get my eating back on par though if I expect that to happen. I'm also still running 2-3 times a week in addition to going to the gym since I can do that at home while G travels, after I put girls to bed.

 

With that said, I’m back to blogging, hopefully weekly with a follow through Friday update and hopefully this is the motivation I need to get to where I want to be. So I guess this is my NEW Starting Point and my weeks will go Friday through Thursday with my weight being Friday morning.

Friday, June 24^th, 2016

Weight:

159.0

 

Exercise:

Friday – Hit Fit Circuit

Monday – 3.00 miles in 30:59 (10:20 pace)

Wednesday – Hit Fit Personal Training Session

Walk Station – 4.96 miles (multiple days)

 

Total Weekly Running Miles: 3.00

Total June Running Miles: 16.3