So here we are on day 4–still going strong! I took an intentional day of rest considering I had worked out for 5 days in a row without a rest day. Plus I started lifting weights again and after two days of that I’m SO sore.

I figured out that I need to make the decision about rest days the night before. If I’m allowed to make it the day of my lazy tendencies allow me to take too many days off.

Eating was pretty spot on. I’m like 60 calories over my goal today but I got in way more fruits and veggies so I feel okay about that. Tomorrow I’m going to have to do a morning work out because I’m meeting the BF for a baseball game after work. Should be fun!

Today has been going pretty well. I’m a little more tired than I would expect at this point in the day, but I’ll chalk that up to a big workout yesterday and eating less food than I have been in the last few weeks.

Breakfast and Lunch was a duplicate from yesterday with my snack being a cup of grapes and 2 pieces of flat bread with 2 tbsp of dark chocolate peanut butter (yum!). I’m not sure what I’m going to do with dinner. I’ve got two small pieces of cheese pizza left. I might eat that for dinner.

I’ll certainly have the calories for it because I’m going to go kick boxing tonight! I love kick boxing. Then I walk a mile home to my house so there’s an extra 100 calories or so burned. Doing well so far!

I went down to the gym with the plan to run a mile warm up and then do my lower body weight lifting. I got on the treadmill and set the speed at 5.5. If I’m going to run for distance I’d generally do 5 or 5.2 but for just a mile I figured I could do it a bit faster. I put on my headphones and started. I felt good. By the time I thought to look down at the display I’d already done 2 miles! So I figured I’d keep going and try for three. Now keep in mind I haven’t run three on a treadmill in months. Yes, I do a 5 mile run home from work, but I stop and wall when I feel I need it so i’ve never been sure what my actual longest uninteruppted run has been. But today I did it! Three miles in 33 minutes! It was an amazing feeling.

I then did my lower body weights and I increased my weights on most of the machines. Those kickboxing classes must be really good.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Another Day 1 you say? I say yes! I love the beginnings of weeks, the beginnings of months–so many possibilities. Who knows where I’ll be 30 days from now!

I also love day 1 of challenges! I know I know–I’ve been missing for most of May and therefore haven’t been talking much about the weight loss challenge that Amy and I are currently involved in. I’ve added our weekly leader board to the right and as you can see Amy is winning and I’ve put on weight.

But today–this first day of the month and the first day of another new challenge all that changes. I joined Biz’s 101 Days of Summer. Basically we just needed to come up with goals and steps we’d take to complete those goals over the next 30 days. My goals are as follows:

• Lose 10 pounds
• Keep up my twice a week kickboxing classes
• Run twice a week
• Log my calories every day

That’s it! The last 3 are really steps to get to the first one, but they’re something I can aspire to and measure as well.

Day one maybe wasn’t the best day one ever. I spent Memorial Day weekend at my parent’s beach house so there wasn’t much choice in food. I definitely could have made better choices over all, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I started the day with Oatmeal Square cereal, 1% milk and a banana. Then I played a round of golf with my parent’s and boyfriend (with carts not walking) and that took about 4 hours. I only put 2 hours in my Lose It app though–I couldn’t tell if they assumed walking or riding a cart and the calories seemed high. Although I did just find a site that separates them out and it says riding the cart you burn 411 calories per 9 holes. I played 18 over 4 hours. Hmm…I guess that does make some sense. It’s basically burning 205 calories per hour. Well, either way I guesstimated 500 calories burned total.

Lunch though–we ate out and I just ordered what I felt like, without thought to calories. I had a strawberry basil mojito (delish!) and a shrimp po’boy with a side of fries. Also yummy. But that’s roughly a 1000 calorie lunch which negates all the calories burned during golf x 2! And then dinner I grabbed a couple cheese pizza slices from a pizza my BF ordered. I was only a little hungry so I probably should have just had a snack, but it was there and it was easy.

Today though I’ve done much better, breakfast was Kashi cereal with milk (I meant to have some fruit/veggie juice with it, but totally forgot). Lunch I actually brought in to work even though I just grabbed a can of black beans, and some instant rice. (I mix them together and drop a dollop of sour cream on top. :9 ) And I’m going to have some grapes and low fat cheese for a snack. Because of my absolute lack of veggies I think dinner will be a salad with some shrimp for protein.

I also need to do a lower body weight routine tonight. I know I don’t have weights in my goals, but I’m trying to get back into a steady routine just an upper/lower body split 2 days a week.

Good luck to everyone in the challenge!

My old running shoes were at the end of their life span (I bought them early last year to train for the Army 10 Miler with) and after hiking in Bryce and the Grand Canyon they were trashed. Tonight, before my kick boxing class, I’m going to the running store and getting another pair of running shoes, plus a pair of cross trainers. I’ve been using my running shoes to kick box in, but there’s a lot of lateral movement in kick boxing and my feet were starting to ache using the wrong shoes.

Now that I’ll have new shoes and NO huge commitments unlike basically all of May I want to jump back into this fitness thing. In about a year and a half I’ll be 30. (Gulp!) And I want to have gotten back to my best fitness level for me, which is about 15 pounds from here, and several hundred miles.

The first thing to fix is going to have to be eating. I got way out of control with my eating during May because I was gone all the time. I’ve got to get to the grocery store and start eating regular breakfasts, bring good snacks AND lunch to work, and start making my dinners again.

Then I’m going to have to work on cardio and weight lifting again. Cardio is pretty good with kick boxing twice a week, but I need to burn more calories to lose weight, and I need to start lifting weights again.

I’ll update with a plan soon!

Grr….darn it. I’ve absolutely picked the wrong time to start a weight loss challenge.

Friday was the bridal shower for one of my close friends, Saturday was dinner out for a friend’s birthday, and Sunday was my friend’s wedding.

Tonight, I’m going to the company going away dinner for my co-worker/friend at a fantastic steak place. (Mmm…) and I leave this Friday for London for a long overdue girl’s weekend with my college best friends that I haven’t seen in YEARS. Next Saturday is yet another wedding, and then the week after that my friend/co-worker who is leaving (for a job in San Fransisco)  invited me to drive with him and our other friend across the country to drop him off. I can’t do the full trip, so instead I’m going to meet them in Salt Lake City on Tuesday night and drive the rest of the way, stopping at several National Parks, the Grand Canyon, Vegas, etc. Should be fun! The week after that is my BF’s graduation from his MBA program, and his family is coming into town.

And while these are all amazing fun things there is going to be little time for working out, and lots of time for eating. I’m going to have to be really careful with my calories and squeeze in exercise whenever I can. Even if I can only maintain for a couple weeks that’ll be okay. I’ll make up by pushing really hard in the last 10 weeks.

A shameless motivation post for myself! I’ve stuck with this longer than I have in a long time and I feel like I can keep this up. I’m feeling really good and I just want to bottle this feeling up and haul it out on those grey days. I want to remember this feeling of accomplishment and hope. This feeling of health and happiness.

Just gotta keep logging and working out and believing.

Okay, I’m terrible at keeping a journal–I only do it really to keep myself accountable, but what’s the point when I wander off for a week at a time?

Rest assured though–things haven’t been going so badly that I don’t want to post. Things have been going pretty well actually. I’ve definitely kicked it up about 5,000 notches when it comes to exercise. I’ve been doing about an hour of intense exercise 4 days a week. Not bad at all I think. 2 of those hours are running and 2 are kickboxing. I also walk about a mile to and from kickboxing once a week (the other day I take the metro from work, and just walk the one mile home).

Food is kind of a different story. I’ve been very hot and cold on both quantity and quality of food. I love love love that spring is finally here (I think the winter made me a little depressed especially after SO much snow…) but the warm weather definitely has kicked up my social engagements and I’ve been out to eat more times than I can count in the last month and next month is going to be even worse.

So in response I’m trying to make sure I’m at least logging my calories in the Lose It! App. I find that the times I don’t log my calories (even if I would have had to have logged a really high day) are the worst–at least if I have a high day and I log it I’m aware and I make fixes immediately the next day. If I let things go for a day or two or three or five that’s when I end up putting on weight. So a mini goal: Log all my calories this week and post them here on Sunday night.

See you guys Sunday!

Hey scratch that! from Jan 1st I’ve actually lost 9 pounds! So if I keep up this pace I could be at my happy weight range by July 1st! And back at my all time low by October! Not shabby at all!

Eep! More than a week since I posted! But you’ll all be glad to know that I’ve been busy during this week, and I haven’t gained weight or dropped my good habits in the mean time.

In fact as of today I’ve lost 5 pounds since the start of the year! And yes it took me 3 months to lose those 5 pounds. But I keep in mind that if I follow this slow and steady pace I should hit my comfortable weight range by the end of September. That’s really not that bad at all and it’s better than never hitting it! Today will be a little on the difficult side. I started off with a free bagel w/ cream cheese and I have a happy hour later so I’m really going to have to watch my calories. But yesterday was VERY low (I never got hungry and then I burned 500 cals during an hour of kickboxing.) so I’m not going to freak out if I go over.

Have a great week guys!