Got my number

This is totally NOT me, but lets pretend I look like this running. Or look like this period.

Something cool happened at the gym today. At this little town gym, you say your four digit number and the staff checks you in on the computer. When I walked in today the guy working knew my number and said it before I did.  I think I've been going to the gym often enough! :)

My friend, Heidi, who is an awesome runner recommended keeping track of how far I run and adding it up as a motivational tool.  Today I added up and I have walk/jogged...

81.75 miles 

....in the past six weeks.  (27 runs)

Pretty exciting!

I haven't been updating every day lately, because I'm afraid it is just boring to you. But I have been eating well, and exercising. Today I went my farthest distance yet, 3.86 miles, and burned 590 calories. Then I did weight lifting on my legs and some ab work (45 minutes worth).

Calorie wise, I'm at 1790 calories today. Not too bad.

I have a lot to do before we leave on Friday, so we will be so busy for the next few days.

How YOU doin?

I'm in and I'm out, I'm up and I'm down...

Where is everyone today? Usually Mondays mean a lot of posts, I'm feeling kinda lonely in Win, Lose or Blog land! Anyone out there??

So, my weigh in this week is bad. But also a bit good. Let me explain.

Last weekend we were camping, so I sent in my weight on Saturday (253). When we got back on Monday night I weighed myself and I was up to 257! Seriously!! I'm still a bit baffled by that. I did eat a few s'mores but otherwise ate really well (my husband is baffled too).  Anyhoo, I've worked out and eaten well all week and slowly that number creeped down, until my weigh in yesterday was 253.5.  So while I *show* a weight gain, I did actually lose this week, (let's just forget about that huge gain last weekend, okay? ;) )

So I am frustrated to be back to last weeks weight...really frustrated. All week I willed those down numbers to go down, down, down. Sigh. But I'm going to be fine this week.  It is a crazy busy week at our house and on Friday we leave to drive down to visit my family.  For the rest of Win, Lose or Blog I will be on  vacation!  I'm a teensy bit worried about leaving my gym behind, but feel confident that food wise I will be  good. I am packing my scale. F'real. :O) Although when we FLY to California for the last week I'm not sure if I will be able to pack it. Hmmm.

Hope you had a super great weekend.

Here's to that number going DOWN, DOWN, DOWN!!

Steph

5, 2122

5
Remember my goal of walk/jogging a 5K in 45 minutes? Today I really, really, really, REALLY thought I was going to do it. I was so close, and at 43 minutes was just on the brink of 3.1 miles. at 44:30 I was at 3 miles and realized I was in trouble.  I sped the treadmill up to 6.4 mph and booked it. I ran as fast as my feet could take me and got....so.....darn....close. I hit 3.1 miles at 45:05.  Five seconds away! I was super excited to get so close. I think I have a bit of a runners high. How cool is that??

2122
Also, do you remember how I decided to up my calories? I've had a hard time reaching 2400 calories. It just felt like too much.  When I came home from the gym today, my Shape magazine had arrived and on the cover it said, "How many calories do you really need?" Of course I flipped right to the article and here is a synopsis of what it said:

1. Multiply your goal weight by 100. For me, 144 pounds x 100=1440 calories. (I remember one of you mentioned this in a comment, see how smart you are!)
2. If you have an active job, or are on your feet a lot add another 3 calories per pound of your ideal body weight. I think being a mom means I stay pretty active. No desk job here. :) +432 calories
3. On the days you work out, add half the calories you burn to your allotted intake. I usually burn around 500 calories on the treadmill +250 calories

So my total recommended intake is 2122 ish.

That being said, I'm wayyyyy low today. I just didn't feel hungry very much and I'm at 1515 calories right now.  I've got to do better at this, and snack on good things during the day. I'm going to try and be more like Mindy and plan out my snacks and meals in the morning.  Will you help me? What are your favorite healthy snacks?

Here are my results for the day.
Eating:
1515 calories
Exercise:
Treadmill-60 minutes (573 calories, 3.83 miles, 15:35/mph, 132 calories, 5K at 45:05!) Weight lifting arms 30 minutes.

Rolling with the punches

You know how you wake up and have your day planned out in your head? And then as the day progresses you get further and further away from your vision and suddenly have to regroup and figure out what to do next?  That was my day today.

My husband and I recently opened up a business. He still works full time at another job, and I stay home with the kids while we have an employee run our store. I do work for the business on the side and we had kind of a big exciting meeting today. I knew I had this meeting, and I also knew that a good friend from college was coming over for dessert tonight. So I had my day planned to get groceries, clean the house, prepare for the meeting, have the meeting, workout and have fun. The first part of the day went fine, but after the meeting (when I had planned on cleaning) some things came up and I had to go to our store. I ended up getting home right when I was supposed to go to the gym, and still had a fair amount of cleaning up to do.

A few weeks ago, I would have totally just skipped the gym. "I worked out a lot yesterday," I would have rationalized. Or, "There's no way I can fit in exercise today, I'll just skip it."  But today I stayed strong, I hustled through my cleaning, I rolled with the punches that today threw and got to the gym.  I didn't workout as long as I had planned, but I worked hard and felt good afterwards.

We had a fun visit with our friend and I was glad I made the choices I did.  All in all a great day!

Eating: 
1715 calories

Exercise: Treadmill (39 minutes, 2.45 miles, 371 calories, not sure on the other stats because I had to go to the bathroom in the middle so I got two readings...by the way, I cannot go to the bathroom and wash my hands in 60 seconds. In case you are wondering. The darn treadmill turned off and I had to start over).

Gym Rat

Today we started something new. My kids started evening swim lessons. This is normally when I go to the gym and my husband plays with the kids while I'm gone. When I offered the suggestion of having then go to swimming lessons they were excited to have something cool to do in the super hot summer evenings.  John suggested that they drop me off and pick me up from the gym which sounded great until I realized that would mean I was going to spend 2 HOURS at the gym. TWO HOURS PEOPLE.  I usually do a teensy bit over an hour so I was a little overwhelmed at the idea of doubling that. At the same time, I've been wanting to spend more time lifting weights and this set up means I am forced to exercise longer. So I went for it.

I upped my treadmill jog/walk to 55 minutes (plus a 5 minute cool down).  Then I jumped on an elliptical machine with the plan of doing 30 minutes but only lasted 100 calories worth (about 9 minutes). It was the machine I didn't like. After that I did 30 minutes of weights working on my legs, and 15 minutes of ab work. Then my happy kids and cooled off husband came to pick me up. It was great! I burned 626 calories (not counting the weight lifting) and felt wonderful afterwards.

So for the next two weeks I will be a gym rat. We'll see how doubling my exercise time affects my weight loss.

Here are my results for the day:
Eating: 1860 calories
Exercise: 60 minutes on the treadmill (518 calories, 3.65 miles, 16:24 pace 132 hr). Elliptical (.64 miles, 108 calories) 30 minutes weight lifting legs, 15 minutes ab work.

How was your day?

Halfway done and 15 pounds!

We're back from a restorative weekend of camping, nothing like hanging out in the beautiful outdoors to relax you. It was such fun!

I was also so excited to see I am in first place. Woot woot! When we started this competition I had a goal of being in the top 3 every week, and I it was a thrill to see my name in the top spot for this week.

I've been working hard, and staying consistent and I am down 15 pounds at the halfway mark. I hope to keep going strong through the end of this competition.

Thank you to everyone who is following me, commenting and just supporting me in general. You are great!

I'll be back to the grindstone tomorrow and back with my daily update. Today we did a 2 mile hike, but I didn't keep track of my calories, just chose good food. :)

See you tomorrow!

Didja miss me?

My husband noticed I didn't post yesterday...I was getting ready to post when my daughter woke up screaming.

Guess who was at the gym today?  Yep....backpack boy! Besides some crazy awesome moves, he also did a lot of very noisy grunting.  I thought of what his exercising reminded me of today. Phoebe running on "Friends."   Seriously people. He is crazy, and crazy funny. I have to try really hard not to laugh while watching him. When I run I know I'm not super graceful or anything, but this guy is quite a sight to see. I have to give him props because he works really hard, but I wish I had a super spy camera so you all could see his awesomeness.

Today I did cross training again and tried the bike. Not a fan! It hurt my butt, and my pants kept riding up. I didn't last the 15 minutes I was shooting for. Maybe I'll try the recumbent bike next time?

Yesterday:
Eating: 1900 calories
Exercise: 55 minutes on treadmill (494 calories, 3.32 miles, 3.62 mph, 16:33, 127 hr)

Today:
Eating: 1780 calories
Exercise: 43:02 (367, 2.56 miles, 3.57 mph, 16:48, 128 hr) Bike- 8 minutes, 2+ miles, 50 calories

This weekend we are going camping, I'll be doing some hiking which will be fun and different from the usual! I'll send in my Friday weight again and check in with you on Monday. Have a great weekend!!

Girls gone wild?

Dear sir,
I see you at the gym every day wearing the SAME cut off shirt that says, "Security-Girls gone wild." I think I speak for *most* women when I say if you are trying to attract a lady friend, you may want to try a different shirt...especially if you only have one and are wearing it to the gym every day.

Signed,

A concerned fellow gym go-er

I had a good day at the gym, it felt good to be back on track. I tried to mix it up a little and did 40 minutes on the treadmill and an additional 1.1 miles on the elliptical trainer.  I think I might try to "cross train" every other day so my body doesn't get in a rut.

Eating is not going fabulous...I ate well, but didn't get in my 2400 calories.  I don't want to eat just for the sake of eating, so I'm calling it good but I'm going to try and have five small meals tomorrow.

Here are my stats for day 24...

Eating: 
1899 calories

Exercise: 
40 minutes on treadmill (365 calories, 2.48 miles, 3.69 mph, 16:14 miles, 135 heart rate)
Elliptical-1.1 miles, 110 calories

Today

Today we had fun! I definitely hit my calorie number, not sure exactly how many calories I ate because I ate the following: Movie popcorn, clam chowder, a little less than half of a slice of key lime pie. And, NO EXERCISE. I saw the movie "Knight and Day, " and got to go on a date with my husband, sister, and brother-in-law.

AAAUGGGHHH.

But it sure was fun to hang out with my sister and her family. Tomorrow we'll be back to the grindstone, and I will be consoling two sad kids who aren't being spoiled by their older cousins. :)

Hope your day was fun too. :)

Eating more, losing more??

Here we are starting week 4, the half-way point. I've lost 11 pound total now (7 first week, 2 the following two weeks).   I've been pretty good at keeping close to my calorie goal, and really good about getting to the gym. But last week, after returning from my weekend away (on Monday) I weighed myself and had lost 2 pounds since my Friday weigh-in. Then through the rest of the week I stayed at that weight.  Kind of strange!

One of my followers, Chrissy, has mentioned that she thinks some of the contestants calorie intakes are too low, so I started researching calorie intake.  When I started this contest, I looked up "how many calories to lose weight" and found the bottom limit for weight loss for women to be 1200. More accurately, women should not go below 1200 calories a day.  Since I am always trying to be the hare in the race of course I decided to do the 1200 calorie limit which has been pretty doable. But after Chrissy's concerned comments, a lot of research AND my weight loss stall of last week, I've decided to do something a little counter intuitive (to me!) and raise my calorie intake.  I tried a few different online calculators and have decided to go up to 2400 calories.  That is DOUBLE my previous intake.  Some of the calorie calculators recommended I go up to 2900 calories, but I'm not sure about that big of an increase. I'm not going to eat cupcakes and doritos to double my calories though...I'm going to try to add in more fruits and vegetables and protein.  We'll see how this week's weight loss goes.

That being said, I didn't do great today at doubling those calories. I mentioned that my sister and her family are in town so today we were out and about all day and I just didn't get all those calories in.  I'm somewhere around 1800 calories right now and not feeling super hungry (plus it is late!). Rats. Tomorrow is a new day, I will work harder on getting those calories in (man that sound weird!).

Here are my stats for the day. Wish me luck on this little experiment!

Oh, and I shaved 10 seconds off my 5K time today at the gym....47:00 even! Woohoo!

Eating: 
1800 calories

Exercise: 
51:33
529 calories
3.4 miles
3.96 mph
15:08 pace
141 heart rate.

Day 20 Crazy day!

When will I learn? Yesterday I thought that I only had a *few* things to do to get ready for our guests (my sister, her husband and their four kids).  HA! After some morning errands we spent from 12:30 until 6:30 CLEANING cleaning cleaning! We got done right before they got here, so that was good, but man alive I have got to plan better.

So the bad part is that I 1) didn't go to the gym and 2) didn't eat enough calories.  I had a piece of string cheese for lunch and was so busy the rest of the day I didn't snack or anything.
I did make yummy, yummy kebabs for dinner, so that was delicious but I was really low on the calories today which isn't good.

I know you burn calories cleaning, but I sure missed my workout today! I'll start up fresh on Monday. :)

Happy weekend everyone!

Eating:
910 calories

Exercise:
6 hours of cleaning? ;) (at 200 an hour supposedly.)

Getting in shape??!? Could it be?

Something CrAzy happened at the gym this afternoon!  The treadmills I work out on have a heart rate monitor on the handlebars.  There is a target heart range posted on the machine that I've try to keep my heart rate at, and it usually isn't too much of a problem...until today.

I started off with my usual 5 minute warm up and tested my heart rate to make sure it was at the low end of the zone. Nope, way too low. "Strange," I thought and started doing  my interval jogging.  Right before I run and right after I test my heart rate (I don't like keeping my hands on the monitor the whole time) and my heart rate was much lower than it has been in the past.  Usually I have to slow myself down after a few jogging intervals because my heart rate is out of the target zone, but not today! I had to speed myself up a few times to stay on target.  Am I getting more in shape? Is that what could be going on? I hope so!  My body has gotten nearly 3 weeks of consistent exercise, so maybe!

Here are my results of the day:
Eating: 
1761 calories (Costco chicken bake did me in!)
Exercise: 
54 minutes on the treadmill (494 calories, 3.33 miles, 3.7 pace, 16:12, 135 av. heart rate)

My sister and her family are coming into town for a few days tomorrow. So I will be busy cleaning and getting ready for some fun guests. Have a great weekend!

Day 18 Results

Exercise:
55 minutes on the treadmill (477 calories, 3.26 miles, 3.55 mph, 16:52 Pace, 142 HR)

Eating: 
1361 Calories

Day 17

Today was kind of a "meh" day. Not super, not horrible. My workout definitely reflected that. I finished my 5K distance, but not until 50:30.  My knee was bothering me a bit during the last 1/3 of the workout so I stopped jogging.

Hoping my "get up and go" will be back in the morning. :)

Eating:
1557 calories

Exercise:
55 minutes on the treadmill (484 calories, 3.27 miles, 16:47 pace, 136 heart rate)
15 minutes abs

Results Day Sixteen-Channeling my inner Jillian

I'm finding it hard to believe it has already been 16 days since I started Win, Lose or Blog.  It has been a great experience for me so far.

One of the questions we were asked in the application process was, "Why is this time going to be different?" It was a hard question to answer, because when you try to lose weight over and over again you start to doubt yourself, your self confidence (at least in the weight loss area) takes a huge hit every time you fail: "Why can't I do this? What is wrong with me?"

So why is this time going to be different?

First, I have an accountability that I've never had before. Every day I'm expected to report on how I ate and exercised.

Second, I'm focusing more on meeting an athletic goal than on how many calories I'm burning. Seriously, this is making such a huge difference for me! I've always admired runners, I love seeing them cross the finish line, I'm impressed by their drive to keep going and accomplish a goal. THIS time, I'm working on a 5K distance, with the goal of jog/walking one in 45 minutes.  When I'm on the treadmill, I'm watching my time, I'm checking out my pace, I'm trying to step it up and finish a little faster each time.  Before Win, Lose or Blog when I was on a treadmill I'd be constantly checking out "how much time do I have left? Have I burned enough calories yet?" And that made my exercise miserable! I'm finding it amazing that I don't even notice the time left, I'm not worried about the calories. That feels great!

I'm going to visit my family in Utah in August and I'm trying to find a 5K I can run while I'm there. It would be wonderful to finish it in a time FASTER than 45 minutes.  I'm thinking of moving my goal to 38 minutes. Kind of a random number, but it sounds good doesn't it?

Third, I'm pushing myself.  I absolutely LOVE the show "Losing it with Jillian," and how hard the people on the show are pushed by Jillian.  She tests them to show them how capable they are of doing hard things.  When I'm on the treadmill and the time comes to jog, I think about what Jillian would say to ME and I push myself to run longer and faster each interval.

So why is this time different for you?

Eating: 
1331 Calories

Exercise: 
Treadmill: 55 minutes (476 calories, 3.23 miles, 3.52 mph, 17:00 pace, 120 Heart rate)
Weights: 15 minutes arms (dumbbells, kettle balls)

Woohoo!

I went to the gym tonight and finished my 5K at 47:10...I'm thisclose to hitting my 45 minute goal. Woohoo! I was on track for the first two miles (finished each at a 15 minute pace) but I got super tired at the end and just didn't have it in me to run anymore.

That's all.

I'm just excited about it. :)

Helloooo!

Hi everyone!
I've been out of town without internet access (AAAuuuuggggh the horror!) all weekend. We had a great time, and I did pretty good! I found a way to exercise every day (although probably not to the normal intensity I've been used to) and did good on my eating.
I'm totally excited to be back and am getting my shoes on to hit the gym as soon as I'm done with this quick update.

I was a little sad that our results didn't get updated on the main page because some people didn't weigh-in.  I sent my weight in on Friday (down two pounds) since I knew I'd be away from the computer. I'm hoping my fellow contestants send in their weight soon so we can see where we're at.

I'm hoping for a bigger loss this week, I need it to reach my Win, Lose or Blog weight loss goal!

How was your fourth? Hope it was a good one!

Full Disclosure

Did you know, that it only takes 11 Doritos chips to equal 150 calories? Also, did you know, if you eat some you might very well be outed by your 2 year old when she says, "You have Cheetos fingers mommy!"

I told you in the beginning there would be full disclosure. And this afternoon I screwed up. At the risk of too much disclosure...I am about to start my period and get INTENSE salt cravings right about now. The Doritos tasted really, REALLY yummy. Yummy enough that I ate (gulp) TWO servings of them.  So today wasn't great calorie wise. But the good news is I *mindfully* ate the chips (counting as I went) and didn't just give up my whole eating healthy because of one slip up.  I also went to the gym afterwards and did a hard workout.  Just trying to look on the bright size.

Tomorrow we leave to go out of town for the weekend. I'm worried because I'm not sure how I will exercise. Any tips about what to do at a friends weekend condo? No gym, not sure if there is a close by running path.  I am bringing some of my own food and will be watching calories as usual, but it is a bit scary! Wish me luck!

So here are my results for the day:
Calories:  1480
Exercise:
Treadmill: 55 minutes (520 calories, 3.36 miles, 3.67 average mph, 16:19 mile, heartrate 128)

Wanna know something cool? I shaved 30 seconds off my 5K time today, I finished a 5k at 48:30. Woohoo!