Exercising Away

Well, I'm still around and I'm really kicking myself for not keeping up with my blogging about stuff like I want to. But, better late than never, so here I am!
I did what I said I was going to do last time I blogged, and went hardcore for a few weeks of being "perfect" - it actually started to work quite well - and I'm starting to feel thinner and better, which is great.
A couple of weeks ago, I started training for a 10K run that is happening here on June 19th. I'm sure most of you already know about it from facebook, but I haven't mentioned it here yet. The training program that we're following is something that my friend Amy and her husband found, and Amy and I have been doing it together for a couple of weeks now - well 2 weeks and 3 days, to be exact.
Before we started it, the longest I'd ever run was about 20 minutes (about 1.5 or so miles at the most, I think), and that had been a stinking miracle for me. The last time I had done that was over a year ago, and I had since really fallen off of the jogging bandwagon. oops. So, now that we have started really training, it has been kind of a crazy learning curve - the first jog we had to do, for example, was 2 miles - and we really wanted to do it all at once - no walking and jogging mixed. ACK! Well, we did fairly well - ended up walking the last bit of it (because of me). But since then, we haven't walked at all and we've been doing longer ones as well - 2.5 miles, and 3 miles so far. This coming Sunday, we're up to 3.5 miles. (ACK).
What is awesome about all of this is seeing what I'm capable of. I NEVER would have thought I could even do what we've been doing so far (let alone what is coming up soon...). Amy is such a great friend - she has been very good about encouraging (and forcing) me to get out and do my best (which turns out to be better than I'd thought). She's patient and fun and I'm really glad to have her for my training partner!!
What is not so good, is that all of this exercise makes a person hungry, and I have started to fall of the counting-my-points bandwagon. I'm still doing fairly well, but not perfectly, which will probably just mean I'll end up staying the same and not losing weight. And I'd really like to lose a tiny bit more so that my clothes start to fit comfortably again.
SO, I really need to get back at it. I tend to want to dwell on the fact that I've screwed up - that I screwed up my 50 days of perfection, for example. I know I really need to focus instead on what I'm doing well (EXERCISE!) and that I've also counted points really well for the most part. I need to not get discouraged by slow weight loss. Its all about perserverance and life change, not perfection or losing weight super quickly. I just need to make life habits and I can stick with. I know all that in my head, but I need to know it in my heart too. So, I will work on that.
In the mean time, I really want to go comfort myself with food right now, cuz my sister left for Europe today, which makes her unavailable to talk on the phone our usual 6 times per day. And also, we got a bit of bad-ish news about another family member's health - which I'll tell you more about later... and all I want is a brownie sundae. ((SIGH))
Anyway, that's what I"m thinking about today. Just thought I'd share.

WW Success Story

I really liked this success story that I read today and thought I'd share it with you:
http://www.weightwatchers.ca/success/art/index.aspx?SuccessStoryId=7121&sc=17

I think the main reason I loved it is that this lady lost 115 pounds (!!!) and it took her 3 years to do it. She said most of her losses were about 1/2 pound per week, and that the important thing is to not give up. I needed to hear that, because it can be frustrating for me a lot of times when other people I know can lose like 2 pounds per week as soon as they put their minds to it. I'm a slower loser, and that can be frustrating, so it was nice to hear this lady's story.

To keep you posted, I'm on Day 36 today. I realized that it was becoming a little too "optional" for me to try to be perfect for these 50 consecutive days, and the way I was going, it could've ended up taking 365 days to do my 50 days of perfection! :o) So, Trevor and I agreed that if I could do the last 37 days actual in a row - then I will buy myself a new pair of jeans at the end as a reward. So, I'm on it - I did the last 2 days right, which was tough! We decided this at 4:00 on Saturday, and I had only 6 and a 1/2 points left for the day and was having a friend over to watch a movie that evening too!! But I pulled it off and managed through yesterday too.

I'll be going to WW tomorrow and weighing in - and hopefully staying for the meeting too. I'm realizing more and more that the meetings are a huge part of my success... so I'll do my best to go - even if I have 2 crazy kids in tow, I guess!

but, the kids are up to something, so i'd better run... Bye! :o)

38 Days to Go...

Well, I finally moved on to Day 38 today. That means that I finally wrote down everything I ate yesterday - right till bedtime, and I did some exercise. Phew, I was on Day 39 for way too long there. :o)
On the up side, after putting in this effort, I'm starting to notice some results. I lost 0.4 when I weighed in this week, which is better than nothing! And I'm starting to see it when I look in the mirror, and even just that will help to motivate me to keep going. When I feel successful, I'm more successful, and that is what these 50 days are all about.
So, here we go with Day 38 - the countdown continues.