Week 8 - It's Almost Too Late!!

Almost too late to get ready for the Disney Princess Half-Marathon! It has been a long week, but exciting to be back on the diet and a workout schedule! It also feels great to feel good again after a couple of weeks of disease and disaster. Yay for that! However, I'm only a little over a week away from the 5K and Half-Marathon and with 2 blurry weeks right close to the end, I'm really nervous about being ready for it...

DIET

I don't think I'm behind too bad off from slacking some the previous couple of weeks, but this past week I tightened it back up (with 1 or 2 slip ups). I guess in a moment of weakness back in January I ordered a couple of boxes of Girl Scout cookies and now I'm paying for it. I've been staring down a couple of boxes of tagalongs all week and stored the thin mints in the freezer - out of sight out of mind. I decided I'm going to bring the cookies with me to Disney and will crack into them as a reward. Looking forward to it!

Got a few awesome buys at the grocery store last weekend. With some turkey sausage, fat free sour cream, reduced fat cream cheese and rotel, Scott and I made some White Trash Cheese dip that was delicious! We also learned that pickled jalepenos on top of the cheese dip on a low fat cracker (we got triscuits).

One night for dinner we baked some chicken and potatoes. I dont' know about y'all, but one of the best meals ever is some good barbeque on a baked potato with some sour cream, cheese, and BBQ sauce. YUM! So we cut up the chicken, put it on the potato with a dollop of fat free sour cream, pinch of fat free cheddar cheese, and a small bit of BBQ sauce. DELICIOUS! With a side of brussel sprouts for a little green in the meal.

We also made the devil's food cake with pumpkin and split it for the week. It really came in handy the day I was craving a reese's pie of some sort. Just spooned some peanut butter with the piece of cake and dipped it in some sugar free smuckers fudge and was set for the evening.

And I'm so excited because I hit jackpot on the granola bar aisle. My friend, Carla, at work has been telling me for forever to try these Cinnabon cereal bars, but everytime I went to look for them, they were completely sold out. Well, this time I happened to be there while they were stocking the aisles. So I bought 3 boxes while I was there. They are about 130 calories and 3 or so grams of fat. They taste fantastic and really satisfy the occasional sugar craving, but as a breakfast, it doesn't really stick with you for the whole day. I got hungry a lot quicker than if I had oatmeal. But this is definitely a worthy snack.

I'm also going to sing some praise for the Wanchai Ferry meals. Not a diet food, but for one serving (half the bag) you can have a delicious dose of orange chicken with stir fried veggies and rice in a little over 600 calories. Not the best meal diet-wise, but if you stick with just eating that, it's not too bad. Veggies help. The taste is absolutely delicious, though!

Confessions:
half a box of tagalongs, most of 1 sleeve of thin mints (I shared a lot of them at work, though), 1 can of root beer (could have been worse!), and of course the peanut butter discussed earlier.


EXERCISE

I also got my butt back to the gym because in just 1 week from today my mom, sister and me are going to Disney World for the Princess Half-Marathon and 5K! At first this week I felt really behind because it's been so long since I've done any exercise, but Monday's run went well. I had some wardrobe malfunctions, but pulled it together long enough to get in 2.75 miles without getting winded really. I did sweat like a pig, though.

Since then I've planned to go back to the gym everyday this week. However, I've had a couple of things get in my way. I've been working late all week to make sure I have time saved for my time off next week, putting me getting home around 7:00. This creates a time management problem because my other major project this week has been to get my paper for school finished. I have to get this in so I can get the revisions done on it so I can move on to my written exams and my oral exams which all have to be in by April 23 so I can graduate in May and have this godforsaken degree behind me. Well, it's moving a lot slower than I thought and I've sat at home trying to work on my paper every night since Monday trying to wrap it up only to find it's going to go into the weekend. However, I will absolutely be finishing it this weekend so I can get my last minute runs in next week before the big weekend!!!


MOTIVATION

Ok, so I've gotten lots of comments on facebook about motivation and people needing some to get into shape. Of course, we all know that everyone has their own source of motivation and only certain things will work on certain people. I figure the best I can do to help is to share what mine are and if any of it helps anyone, then AWESOME!

The first motivation for me was when my sister suggested signing up for the half-marathon. That was some time last summer, I think. Plenty of time to get ready, right? Well, we signed up and it's hung over my head for a while without much of a push to hurry and get in shape with classes going on and other stressors in my life at the time. But now that it's this close to time, it has been a major push for me simply because I dont' want to embarrass myself during the race, and by God I want to finish so I can get the goodies at the end.

During that time these stressors added up and I took comfort in more food and not caring about what I ate thinking that I'll take care of my weight eventually, no big deal. Then health problems started adding up. Especially when I started having a heart flutter spell thing that started freaking me out. I think THAT motivated me more than the New Year. Plus the new stretchmarks I was getting on my hips and around my belly button. I mean, good GOD, stretch marks?! I hadn't had those since my last growth spurt back in 1998!

There comes a time when eventually you look at yourself in the mirror and see your body as a grotesquely marshmallowed teletubby and you realize, if this continues it will only get uglier and become harder and harder to fix. You might even grow a geometric antenna out of the top of your head. Kidding, but seriously, it would continue to get worse.

So I kissed my sweet, high-calorie diet goodbye over Christmas and New Year's saw the beginning of a new life with a weight capping at 230 lbs. (give or take) and a pant size of 16. I will never be that weight or size again. In fact, as I go down in weight, it will be a series of weights and sizes I will never be again.

The final motivation was when I joined a gym around mid-January. Something about paying money for resources motivates me to use them more. Though the past couple of weeks were rough, that motivation hasn't passed because just the other day I had to pay more membership fees. A sweet, constant reminder of commitment.

Quick Break Down of Motivation:
1. Half-Marathon (don't want to be embarrassed!)
2. Utter Self-Disgust/Loathing (in a semi-healthy way)
3. Spending Good Money (on fees that cover classes, equipment, and facilities that I am therefore DETERMINED to use)

Hopefully that will encourage someone or at least offer ideas as to ways to get started. I will say, it becomes a lot easier once you start seeing results. Then it becomes addicting!

I haven't weighed in for a while, but last time I checked I'm still hovering around 220 and that was a couple of weeks ago. I promise I'll buy a scale soon to keep better track. As well as a tape measure for keeping up with inches. On a progressive note, I did actually put on a size 14 pair of pants this morning which were tight, but not distasteful, meaning 8 weeks and I've gone down a size! Yay! It will still be a while before the same can be said about shirt size, though there is progress.

I will be posting pictures soon! I'll be sure to show a difference in pants! After that, you won't hear from me until after the Princess Half-Marathon! Just got a call from mom this evening saying our tutu's for the 5K came in! Can't wait!