Week 5 - And I'm Still Alive!

Alright! So, due to my LOVE of organization, I'm going to break things down a little easier in this blog by separating the DIET portion of the discussion, from my EXERCISE portion. I can't explain why, but it makes me feel better.

DIET

So far the oatmeal for breakfast is still the best! It holds me over well and it fits great with my calorie and fat portions for the day. It also forces me to sit and take my time to eat while I'm watching the news in the morning which helps me keep at ease throughout the rest of the day. It's also one less thing to try and do in the car. I made Fiber One muffins this weekend which are really not bad. No side effects take hold until around dinner time, so I can eat them before work and things balance nicely. They taste fantastic. I got the banana nut ones, but there are other flavors and there are plenty of coupons for them at coupons.com.

I'm starting to get burnt out on the same microwave lunches with yogurt and weight watcher cake. SO, I'm looking for alternatives. The yogurt I'm ok with keeping, but the dinners are getting really really old. I'm trying to come up with some dinners that I can heat back up when I get to work and eat there. Nothing sounds fantastic, though. Wednesday I heated some soup and made a fat-free pimento cheese sandwich to go with it. The progresso chicken gumbo (less sodium) was fairly good! I plan to buy more groceries next week and will draw up a plan then. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

Dinners this week have been challenging. Monday night was a salad, but by Tuesday I was in the mood to stuff my face with monkey bread or anything sweet I could find. Not sure what the deal was, but it's still killing me! So I splurged a little and on Tuesday night I made some chicken fried rice with balsamic vinagrette and a little olive oil. The secret is, lots o' chicken, li'l bit o' rice. Which is hard, because I think the rice is the best part. But this way you can save yourself some extra empty calories. Then top it off with a fiber one muffin. That lasted me Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.

Next week, I'm trying polenta! Thanks for the advice, Rachel!


EXERCISE

Sunday I went on my first real run! It was a beautiful day, but FRIGGIN' COLD! I think that cut me short fairly quick. I measured later and I ran about a mile out and then back to the apartment, so 2 miles total and it was about 30 minutes. I need to get batteries in one of my plastic digital watches so I can keep better track of my time. It is important to be able to meet the requirements for the half-marathon.

Monday night I got stood up by my new friend from the cycling/spin class. She told me the step class they have on Monday nights use free weights and are like that BodyPump class at Gold's Gym. I went, and she was right, but she wasn't there. It's ok. I bonded with all the other people in the group through our pure agony over doing pushups half up the step and half on the ground. OUCH! It was good. I couldn't even pick up a gallon of milk later that night. Good stuff.

Found out my sister did 8 miles on Monday with an average of about 12 minutes a mile! Shazzam! I thought that was inspirational, so I decided on Tuesday that I would run as well since my legs were the only part of my body that wasn't sore. However, Tuesday was rainy and dark, so I had to do it at the gym on the treadmill (aka. bane of my existence). I was afraid of doing something like this. It wasn't as bad as I thought, though it still didn't work very well. Trying to do the Galloway method of running and walking ratios doesn't complement the constant adjusting of the treadmill speed. It was a good run, though. I lasted about an hour and averaged a 15 minute mile. And if I wasn't sore on Tuesday, I was RIDICULOUSLY sore on Wednesday. Good time to take a day off, though I did go swim for a little bit just to move around some. For whatever reason, it seems to help with the soreness. The hot tub felt fantastic as well.

Then on to Cycling on Thursday. With the rain and wind, it didn't happen. The same feeling that I used to have about going to class on days when the weather was like this kicked in and I reverted to skipping. So basically I stood up my new friend after she stood me up on Monday. Haha. My plan is to wake up tomorrow (Friday) morning and go running before work.

Next week, I will continue running more since it's down to the count. Less than a month before the half-marathon!


On a side note, work has been exercising my eyes fairly well. Imagine if you will, 600 political buttons in just 1 of 10 drawers to be counted, organized, and inventoried. Sweet Jesus.

Hope everyone is doing well! Any suggestions as to how to survive a 13 mile run will be greatly appreciated! So would some advice on what to wear when running. This is all really new to me. I'm looking for those little utility belts that hold water and your cell phone and keys and all of that while you run, too. NO fanny packs, though!

Woohoo!