Munky's Journey in Progress (Still at it...)

[Munkers]

Nervous--getting ready to move up and traveling

I was supposed to run on Sunday, but I've been feeling bad off and on--my energy's just been in the toilet. I put off my run until yesterday (Tuesday) and waited until late to do it so there was no air conditioning again. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry when my iPod started playing "Heat of the Moment."

Father's Day was really nice. My brother, sister-in-law, and their kiddos came over to my dad's house so we had the little kids and my younger sisters all in the pool. I didn't realize how much just playing around in the water can take out of you until I got home and was just whacked. My dad grilled ribs and I brought over a cookie cake so I was definitely not within my daily point range. But even as full of food as I was, I was only up by 0.2 pounds come Monday morning.

I ran two nights in a row for the first time today. I felt fine beforehand, but once I started running, I noticed a definite difference in my recovery from not having an off-day. I'm thinking about running every day until my husband's birthday. We'll be having a big dinner and party for him and the next day I'll be headed out of town for a little over a week to visit family. I'm excited about seeing everyone, but apprehensive over the food issue again. Part of me feels like if I work my butt off now, I can head off any potential gains on my trip.

I'm ready to move up to my next running level, but I'm kind of nervous about it. I've honestly been arguing with myself over it and looking for excuses not to do it. Like right now with my trip, I'd only have time to do one, maybe two runs before I take a week off which makes it kind of easy to say that I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and step-up after. But I'm going to lose my conditioning while I'm gone and have to work back to it again.

Ugh...

I guess I won't actually lose that much in a week's time. I was able to undo like a month or more of laziness with just a few runs so a week shouldn't be too big a deal. Still just feeling kind of angsty over the whole thing though.  

[Munkers]

On Vacation

I'm currently lounging about in southern Indiana visiting my crazy huge extended family. We've had practical jokes, karaoke, tons of reminiscing, and LOTS of grilling. I'm not going to lie. Just like with the camping trip, I've been seriously angsting about the food issue since I'm away from home for about a week and a half this time and my father has kind of been my enabler for awhile now when it comes to gorging myself.

A few weeks ago he noticed that I was thinner and asked if it was intentional. I told him about my weight loss, working on the Couch to 5k program, and how much I'd lost so far. He was impressed. For awhile he continued the same routine of "there's still food on the table, someone has to eat it!" and then dumping stuff on my plate despite my protests on how full I was. But after a few more get-togethers and a few days of being up here and pretty much eating every meal together, I think he's coming around. The first night he grilled burgers he offered to wrap mine in lettuce instead of giving me the bun. Tonight he made his world famous ribs and wasn't pressuring me to eat. Even the teasing about how he's been blowing my diet has settled down a bit.

At first I wasn't planning to do much food tracking because I didn't think I'd have the time or be able to do it without being super obvious. The first day (our driving day) I just wrote everything down, but didn't number crunch. But after that I started finding pockets of downtime and was able to input my stuff on SparkPeople. (Totally forgot to load my snazzy Weight Watchers spreadsheet on my laptop before I left.)

Prior to leaving, I had braced myself for a weight gain upon my return. Then I hashed out a bit of a plan for trying to just maintain for this week. But now that I'm actually looking at my daily calorie intakes compared to what I usually eat, I'm honestly not doing as horribly as I thought. And that includes my lunch the other day which consisted of four White Castle sliders and entire order of fries. Huzzah! (I mean the rest of the day was good and made up for lunch, not that that lunch choice is better than my usual choices. xd ) I'm feeling good about my chances of maintenance and maybe I can eek out half a pound of weight loss!

And I've officially broken past 150. My last weigh-in was 149.6.) When I get home, I'll be down to 21 points a day. I was so excited about it that I actually changed all my spreadsheets before I left.  

[Stars in my Pocket]

Congratulations about breaking 150! What an accomplishment!

Where are you on the C25K program? I just started, I'm on week1 day2. I'm doing it daily (or aiming for daily), and could definitely use some encouragement about how week 2, 3, etc... aren't going to kill me. Ha ha! Congrats about the decent eating while on vacation and weight loss, though! That's something to be proud of!

And you're overcoming the familial-downfall of most diets. I'm really glad your father isn't being aggressive with the "you don't eat enough!" like so many families do. (: Best of luck for the rest of your vacation!  

[Munkers]

Home Again, Home Again

I guess I jinxed myself a little after that last entry. A few days after I last posted, we started getting our major influx of relatives and people bringing over wonderful homemade food. There was so much food that both refrigerators were full and anything that could survive at room temperature was out on the counter. To say that the whole situation was triggering is a huge understatement.

The one upside is that I did track my calories for one of the days that I thought I had absolutely, positively blown it, but the results were no where near as bad as I had expected. Maybe I'm learning to eat a bit more intuitively. I don't know.

I got home on Tuesday evening and weighed in the next morning. Up by three and a half pounds, just like when I came home from camping over Memorial Day weekend. I guess that's just the magic number for me when it comes to bloating and food/water weight. But this time it happened over the span of about ten days instead of just a weekend so I guess I can be proud of that. As of this morning, half a pound of that is gone.

I ran yesterday and meant to do some cycling today, but Kent and I went out to celebrate our six month wedding anniversary (already?!) and my shoes rubbed an awful blister on my right foot so sneakers just weren't in the cards. I'm trying to let it air out and heal up so that I can run again tomorrow without too much issue.

Speaking of running, I'm repeating Week 3 again. But I WILL move forward this time. I'm not traveling again anytime soon and my friend arrives tomorrow so we can support each other. And Stars in my Pocket posted about DJ Beatsmith's mixes for the C25k program so now I'm feeling a little more pumped to tackle Week 4. One of the things that's been holding me back is how to effectively time the longer intervals and now I have a solution. Thanks again, Stars!  

[Munkers]

Little Bit of Chaos

Still having some ups and downs. I haven't weighed myself the past few days because my eating has just been kind of crap and there didn't seem to be much reason to weigh in. neutral We went to a pizza buffet yesterday and I just even try. *sigh* Tomorrow's my usual day to weigh in though so we'll see what happens. I ran yesterday, went walking today, and didn't eat myself silly so maybe it will be less awful. Tomorrow's my final day of Week 3 and then I'll start using the Podrunner tracks. And if the weather holds I might even start running on the local track.

I kind of want to get one of those little clicker things that people would use to count tickets. I could hold on to it and give it a click each time I finish a lap. Then I could keep track of my mileage AND not have to think about anything. biggrin

Edit: They're called hand tally counters! Ha! Now maybe I can track one down.  

[vanilla_bean_frappichino]

Your story is truely touching, and it is amazing that you have so much motivation, I know you can do it!  

[Euthanasia Phase]

Congrats on the anniversary! And good luck with weighing in - usually one bad day shouldn't cause much, if any lasting damage, and all the running you've been doing really helps to counterbalance it. Also, congrats on breaking 150 - it's always really exciting to see the tens digit decrease! Also, it's nice that your dad is becoming more supportive about your diet - sounds like you're a great inspiration to everyone else to improve their overall health and lifestyle.  

[Munkers]

Thanks everyone. whee Your comments/responses are always great for helping me stay motivated and keep things in perspective. heart

Things are still settling down a bit. I've started weighing in most days again with a focus this time on understanding how and why my body weight fluctuates. I'm realizing now that if I don't drink enough water, I WILL be bloated the next day. I really, really have to get in at least 6 glasses and with summer here, there have been quite a few days that I've downed 10-12 glasses.

I'm down to 148.0 as of this morning which is a pretty significant loss considering that two days ago I was 149.4 and that was my low weight at the time. Maybe I was holding on to more water weight than I thought from my trip and such.

Other big news: I finished Week 4 of Couch to 5k! And it felt really good! Now it's on to Week 5. Maybe I really can run a 5k without stopping. :3  

[A Touch of Evil]

Wow that's amazing! Good job! Reading that last post was really motivating, I would LOVE to get down the 148 lbs.....I still have a LONG way to go. sweatdrop  

[Munkers]

Onward!

Like I mentioned before, I finished Week 4 of C25k and yesterday I did my first run for Week 5. When I glanced at the interval breakdown prior to my run, I somehow got it into my head that Day 1 of Week 5 was the same workout as Week 4 so I decided that it would be a good time to up my speed. I've been wanting to go a little faster since my current speed wasn't going to allow me to cover the full 5k distance during the 30 minute workout time.

Previously I was running at 5mph (12 minutes/mile) and walking between 3mph and 3.5mph. I want to get up to 6mph (10 minutes/mile) so I decided I'd split the difference and run at 5.5mph. The first interval went pretty well. Second interval started out pretty good, but about halfway through I was starting to really lose steam and bumped it back to 5.3. When I got to my third interval, I was REALLY feeling it. I started out strong, but then it just kept going. I couldn't understand why my short interval was just dragging on and on. Finally my iPod started to chime and there was a minor celebratory rave in my head that I could walk again. But the chime kept going which meant I was headed into cooldown. I was confused and checked my iPod and, lo and behold, only two minutes left on the track. I was done.

When I double-checked the interval breakdown later, I realized that it was three intervals of five instead of alternating short and long ones. So yay for me! I'm going to repeat Day 1 one more time with a focus on making it through all of the running at 5.5mph (I backed it down to 5.3mph part of the way through the second and third running blocks.) and then go from there. I think I might go through the entire week and then repeat it again, but up my speed to 6mph. I guess we'll just see how everything goes.

My weight is a little high this morning (148.6), but I did wake up sore from my run (so proud!) and dinner last night was a trip out to Golden Corral. I'm also still feeling kind of uncomfortable and bloated and I can't figure out why. I've been drinking my water and getting plenty of fiber, but my body just isn't cooperating. xp  

[Stars in my Pocket]

I'm on Week 4 session 2 today.
Seeing you just a little bit ahead is giving me motivation. You're on week 5! That means it probably WON'T kill me like I've got stuck in my head. xD

I'm working on getting the time done and then working on speed - 5.0-5.5 mph running, 3.5-3.7 walking. I'll get up to 6.0 eventually... eventually... e__e; haha

Congrats on making it through week 5! I know the "wait wait why am I still running I shouldn't be running so long!" feeling waiting for that chime. Haha. (:  

[Munkers]

In all honesty, seeing you catching up to me so quickly has been making me think "No! Can't slack off!" xd

Seriously though, if I can up my speed in the same workout that I also move up to a harder workout, I think your transition from one week to the next will be just fine. I was definitely feeling it by the end of my workout, but I lived to tell the tale. 3nodding  

[Munkers]

Blah

So my run just wasn't happening tonight. My plan was to repeat Day 1 of Week 5, but to make it through everything at 5.5 speed. I made it through the first two intervals, but when I started the third, things just felt wrong and I had no idea why. I wasn't in any pain--discomfort yes, pain no, but I just couldn't get my head into it. I was spent and it didn't seem like something I could push through so I walked the rest of what should have been a run interval and then stretched like usual.

I guess that maybe it could have been a combination of my not eating much today and I was definitely dehydrated--maybe more than I initially realized. I think I'm going to just stick to my original schedule and try my run again on Wednesday. Hopefully this is just a passing thing and I'll be able to knock it out after some rest.  

[Munkers]

One Hell of a Development

I woke up early this morning after only a few hours of sleep because I was incredibly nauseated. Eventually I threw up and spent most of the rest of today feeling awful and nursing a glass of 7-Up. I just now managed to get a real meal into myself, but I'm still not 100%. Guess that explains the issues with my run yesterday. Not sure at this point whether I'll be back at it tomorrow or not.


On the non-diet front, I just received an email from my sister that our Mom's money will be gone come October 1st. My mom has Alzheimer's and lives in an assisted living facility. We've been trying to sell her house (the home I grew up in) to generate some money for her care, but after twenty showings, no one is interested. My sister just lowered the asking price, but there's no telling if it'll sell in time. She has a history of late payments/delinquent accounts from the past two years (a result of her disease) and is therefore ineligible for any sort of home equity loan or anything like that.

I'm at a loss. I can't just pull something out of thin air and neither my sister nor my brother have the disposable income to just pick up the slack until something can be figured out.  

[Stars in my Pocket]

Oh dear, that's rough. I'm very sorry to hear about this misfortune; it's hard enough caring for a parent like that, and when money also becomes an issue it can be a living hell. I will keep you in my thoughts, and if you need any moral support I will do my best. ;_; <33

I hope you feel better, too. Just take it easy and focus your efforts on recovering rather than worrying about exercise. Lots of fluids if you can. <3 Be safe.