MEXICAN ADVENTURES

The journey continues in Mexico - Oct 23. Naturally I was concerned about my weight on this vacation, but interested to see how my new eating/exercise habits would play out!

I had a 5 lb 'buffer' built in before the trip, so even if I put on a few lbs I would still be below goal.

It was a romantic vacation and wonderful for my confidence. I took 4 bikinis and wore them all!
We had a terrific kitchen so we made many of our own meals, keeping with the Mexican theme. Home made guacamole every evening but with broken up tostadas instead of fatty,salty tortilla chips. Fresh local fish, and Mexican fried rice, but we added black beans for fibre and protein.
Exercise included aqua aerobics at the resort pool and lots of ocean snorkelling, following the amazing sea turtles as they grazed.
The end result?
My Wednesday weigh in showed an increase of 1.4 lbs after we returned! A few weeks at the gym should remedy that! The important thing is that I was able to eat carefully but without depriving myself and have a ball on vacation without gaining a significant amount!! wonderful for my confidence. I took 4 bikinis and wore them all!

We had a terrific kitchen so we made many of our own meals, keeping with the Mexican theme. Home made guacamole every evening but with broken up tostadas instead of fatty,salty tortilla chips. Fresh local fish, and Mexican fried rice, but we added black beans for fibre and protein.

Exercise included aqua aerobics at the resort pool and lots of ocean snorkelling, following the amazing sea turtles as they grazed.

The end result?

My Wednesday weigh in showed an increase of 1.4 lbs after we returned! A few weeks at the gym should remedy that! The important thing is that I was able to eat carefully but without depriving myself and have a ball on vacation without gaining a significant amount!!

Personal Best!

33 min, 10 seconds in the Pinery 5k on Sunday!! My weight is staying steady at around 170, but I'm much fitter! Took 6 minutes off of my Port Stanley time!

This week I'm preparing for our holiday in Mexico. Abs of Steel mat exercises every morning and herbal tea only in the evenings. I'd like a buffer before we go away.

The strategy is to do much of our own cooking (we have a kitchenette!) and try to do some form of exercise every day. There is a gym at the resort, so I'll scope it out right away. Snorkelling and walking will be the main forms of exercise though! The trick will be avoiding margaritas!

Thanksgiving 2009 vs Easter 2009

Can you spot the differences between the Easter picture (first post) and Thanksgiving?

August 29 -Woodstock Haflinger Show

Tight riding breeches do little to enhance a girl's figure and they tell no lies!

I've been cringing at photos for years now and the fact that Naomi is so little just makes the whole effect more comical!

Yesterday was different! I'm still big on her, but at 5' 10" I always will be. The difference this time was that my legs looked shapely and not like giant hams! My rear was a bit sloppy- but hey! Its a 50 year old rear- it's seen some action! lol!

No ribbons on my bridle at this show, but I was wearing a big smile all of the pictures and enjoying myself thoroughly! No scavenging for food on the midway either. We had a cooler of diet pop and fresh fruit with us. Naomi even shared her carrot sticks with me.

Ran the Run!! August 14, 2009

So, one of my 'before I am 50' goals was to run a 5k.

Not to win, just to finish!

'Reach the Beach' in Port Stanley takes place in the early evening, so perhaps not the best for an asthmatic like myself. Thanks to Pauline, my running partner, we were there early enough for me to do lots of stretching. She had warned me about the hill, but nothing had prepared me for this monster! We walked the hill, which saved us plenty of energy to run the rest of the race. We finished a respectable 177 and 179 out of 226. Plenty of room to move up next year, and for a personal best in October! And Victoria Park in London has no hills, so we're good!

.

My second goal was to lose 30 lbs. I'm 3 lbs off that after an unfortunate sodium encounter early this week. I gained 1.8 lbs, but I told it that it had to leave next Wed -and take some friends with it!!! The moral: READ LABELS!! My lovely Japanese tuna dinner had 890 grams of sodium!!!

Pounding back the water now, and walking for 1/2 hour at lunch. This is a habit I gave up when I started running, but both is better, right?

Almost at Goal!

I tried something new last week. Another Weight Watchers member and I restricted our diets to what WW calls 'filling foods'. It's not as grim as it sounds. I can have lean meats, eggs, corn, watermelon, berries-so all of my favourites. If I really want something that is not 'FF', I can still have it, but there is a limit.

When I went to a horse show with my friends on Saturday I was the ultimate WW planner. I took lots of water, celery sticks, yogurt, a small wrap and a tub of blueberries. Good thing, too!

There was only a chipwagon for food, so although the poutine sure looked good and the hamburgers smelled heavenly, I was happy with my wrap and some berries!

I can't run on weekends. As much as I wanted to, we are just too busy and cherish our time together. The only way I could do it is if Brian ran too. So we walked, alot, and so did the dogs.

My weight was down 2.6 lbs at weigh in this morning!!! 1.2 lbs to goal, and I'm finally at a healthy BMI!!!

I ran 4.5 k this morning to ramp up for my 5 k race on Friday!

So hopefully by this time next week I will be at my goal weight and have achieved my other goal of running a 5k race before I am 50!!!

AUGUST 5 2009 -Four More Pounds to Goal !

The last ten pounds really stick! I didn't think I could give up alcohol in the summer, but I realized a week ago that I had to in order to make this happen. Points matter in the long run, but I'm not a patient person and I know I'll lose momentum if I don't keep losing. Alcohol and lack of activity are my enemies.

Funny, Brian's nutritionist pointed out that his diet was unbalanced. He was eating very few carbs and no grains because his diet is in sync with mine. A diabetic diet has to be low in carbs, but no so low that it is out of balance. I've been trying to include a grain serving every day now. I have a wheat sensitivity, but I can eat rice and oatmeal. I've been eating no grains at all, since they are high in points and gluten-free products taste weird and tend to be not worth the calories.

Low and behold- when I balanced my diet, I dropped 2.2 pounds! I have 3.8 to lose now to reach my goal of 173 lbs. That will bring me to the 'healthy' BMI range. I'll hang out there for a while and then lose a bit more as I run more.

Another thing that has really helped is my 'virtual duct tape'. I imagine a piece of duct tape over my mouth at 7:30 pm, and add an 'alcohol inhibitor' on week nights. Not eating or drinking alcohol after 7:30 is really helping and I hope to carry this new habit on for the rest of my life.

We visited with my daughter last weekend and she took me to her studio for a photo shoot. What a treat, to get all 'glammed' up and have professional pictures taken! I felt quite the princess! The bathing suit photos told me that I still need to lose some even after I'm 'healthy'. Brian and I are 'sun-bunnies' and on our holidays I'm rarely out of a swim suit.

But I'm close to being healthy, and isn't that what it's really all about? I'm bracing myself for another plateau, but also determined to run every day, even on weekends. I've been running 3-4 times a week, and not at all when I was sick/injured, so maybe there won't be a plateau this time!

JULY 26, 2009

After a 3 week plateau, I increased my cardio, since my ankle was starting to heal. I bought a really good ankle brace and started increasing from 2 k to 3 over the week. Wednesday I was down 7 lbs to 178!!!!!

The running gods were testing my perserverance though, and I contracted a bronchial infection that laid me out for the next week and zapped my appetite. Not eating, actually caused me to gain back a pound, since my body was in defensive mode and didn't want to let go of any weight!

July 26, I'm back to running and feeling pretty good other than a mildly sore throat.

Back to training for the Aug 14th... 5 k!

July 1, 2009

July 1 Wedding day!!!

Settled on the shorter dress, which hugs my still ample curves a bit too much, but shows off my newly formed runners legs!

I'm a bit embarassed about the photos, but anxious to see myself in the same dress on our one-year anniversary!! That's the spirit- think long term!

I'm still limping, and iced my ankle off and on the whole morning of the wedding.

Forgot all about the pain when I saw my handsome groom. Here's to a lifetime journey into health - together!

Disaster strikes!!!

June 27, 2009
OMG- I blew out an ankle 2 days after the 5 k training run and 4 days before the wedding!!!
I'm icing it like crazy, and taking what is probably too much ibuprofen.
On brother Bruce's advice I made a trip to New Balance to get proper running shoes with ankle support. The problem is, I can't even walk without limping.
My biggest fear is that I'll gain some weight back.

Got to admit I'm feelin' better!

This is me at the end of week 4, June 24. I've lost 18 lbs, and I'm feeling great!

Down to 185 lbs!
I broke through that 190 floor forever!
Two weeks until our wedding.

I'm running my 3k route pretty consistently now, and planning to go on a test run along the route for the 5k race in July.

To think that in May I couldn't make it around the block without nearly collapsing! Everyone is being supportive. Brian has perfeted the art of the 'egg white brocolli omelet', Bruce is cheering me on and his daughter, Karen , is volunteering to pace me on the race!

Progress!

Wednesday May 27 was weigh in day. I knew I had lost some weight, probably mostly water, but I was hoping for at least 5 lbs. I had stayed on program with some difficulty. I love a glass of white wine after dinner, and 4 oz hardly showed up in our huge goblets! The solution was smaller glasses. I was using all of my daily points, but none of my bonus 'activity points'.
The first official weigh in yielded a loss of 7 lbs!! I felt elated, but know the next weigh-ins would be tougher. My body tends to cling to those pounds when I try really hard to lose them. My resolution was to cut out wine during the week and if I wanted a drink, one shot of rye in some diet coke was all I would have.
I also resolved not to snack in the afternoon. By 3 o'clock I am out of stuff to do at work, and getting hungry for supper. If I have a snack, then I can't finish supper which is on the table when I get home at 5:30 (Thank you Brian!) Or worse still, I finish it anyway because Brian is such a great cook!
So several things happened (Non Scale Victories, or NSVs in WW lingo)

I stopped drinking wine during the week. One glass inevitably leads to another..few!
I stopped eating between lunch and supper unless it was a piece of fruit for dessert early in the afternoon.
Brian started to watch my portions. 1 tsp of margarine in the frypan, 1 Tbsp of peanut butter on my toast, half a chicken breast....
And I ramped up my running. Encouraged by Wednesday's weigh in, I ran my first 3 k on Thursday morning.

Week one -the awakening!

DAY ONE - MAY 20, 2009 : THE AWAKENING!

I'm not sure what made me step on the scales. Maybe the realization that none of my summer clothes from last year fit me. Not even close! I was in tears, and Brian bought me two nice outfits that fit, and disguised the rolls.

He had no problem with my weight, in fact he hadn't noticed the nearly 20 lbs I had put on in the last year. I hated to see myself in pictures, and was reluctant to ride my horse. I weighed in at a whopping 203 lbs. The highest weight I have been without being pregnant! So I enrolled in the on-line Weight Watchers Program . The new program is really flexible and rewards activity right from the start. The best part for me was the message board feature. I also ramped up my running. I had been running every day, but only a token amount, never really pushing myself. Now that I was serious about a lifestyle change, I increased the distance and decreased the intermitant walking.