Phew it was a busy week! This week will be about the same, and I'm really not complaining.

Work - love my new job. I'm now getting into the soy of it (I don't eat meat... ok, lame joke). I just hope I can keep it. Next round of layoffs by end of Q2. Hate my workplace sometimes.

But now for the fun stuff! Last week was run 6 walk 1 repeats - each run I found my pace increasing. I didn't feel I was pushing it any more than normal, it never once felt easy, but never once did it feel too hard to continue. Yesterday marked the beginning of 8/1. And it was awesome! The weather was in the 20's (Celcius) all week, and yesterday no different. The wind wasn't too bad, there were loads of people out, it was just so nice! The 8's never felt overly hard, except for one repeat (3rd last I think) where my heart rate got a little high (ok, considering I'm on meds to keep me from going into SVT, I shouldn't be seeing 180's!) and I knew it was happening before I looked at the watch, because I could feel my pace slow dramatically, and effort increase at the same time. It righted itself after my next walk break, and it felt great again. I was almost at the end, and there were two women running behind me chatting away, who never overtook me, and I wasn't about to stop to walk at 8 mins when I only had about 2 mins left, so I ran through it to 10 mins. I know I'll be able to do 10/1 next week. I'm BACK! :D Oh, and I passed several people. That hasn't happened in years!

On Friday we went for a ride along the Rockliffe Parkway. I realized I never got there last year once. How sad is that. They paved it last year, and they paved a little shoulder! There's one part that was redone a few years ago, and isn't that great (and my speed dropped accordingly). My bike fit was so worth it. My speed increased on average by 7 - 10 km/hr. It was really windy and a little cool (the storm hit just as we finished) so in perfect conditions I should be about 15km/hr faster. That's crazy talk! I loved it. And my flat repair held :D This Sunday is the Tour Nortel. We're doing the 35k and hoping for no rain!

So got all my runs and bikes in, but for the third week in a row, forgot to do strength training. I have a serious mental block there! I even asked Steve to remind me and he said he did, however we were in the car at the time.

Weight loss down 2.8 lbs. But the week before I was up. Taking the last two weeks into the equation, I'm down 0.3 lbs. LOL. But my body is changing rapidly. My post-surgery skinny legs are getting muscle tone back, and my hip bones and ribs are starting to be feelable again. :D I still have my big belly, but it's shrinking. The city - the daffodils came up on Tuesday and are in full bloom everywhere. Saturday Steve had to get a run in, and I came along to the Canal and went for a 40 min walk. I saw my first tulips of the season - most beds are still green, but the two that weren't are a beautiful shocking red. It was so gorgeous out!

I'd better get to work. Not sure if I'll run today or not, I have three more to get in this week, but I'm feeling a little piriformis since last night, which is normal for me after an increase in pace/distance the day before. A slow treadmill run usually works it out.

The Weight Battle

The positive side of that little rotten organ is losing 35 lbs. I'm really perplexed at how the weight came off, after so many years of working hard to lose. This time I sat on my butt and did nothing exercise-wise for 5 months. I cut all fat I could out of my diet, and ate slightly less than normal.

As per my usual pattern, since I've started exercising again my weight has started to climb. I'm up between 3 and 4 lbs now, though I've been stable the past week. Yes, I've brought a little bit of fat back in my diet, but overall my diet is excellent. I've also been taking a beta blocker for the past 4 weeks, and it was a beta blocker that helped me put on those 60 lbs in 6 months 5 years ago. Those 60 lbs that 5 years later I'm still trying to budge. I see the cardiologist on the 2nd, and will bring this up!

So I'm trying something new. Steve has an old palm pilot that he hasn't been using for a few years and I found a little weight loss program that I really like called FitnessPlus. What I really like about it is you enter your current weight, your goal weight and target date, and it calculates the number of calories that you should aim for to reach your goal. You log your calorie intake and exercise and the calories adjust accordingly. I've been tracking since March 19th, and each day that I don't lose brings me closer to my goal date, so each day it takes away a tiny bit more calories to try to reach that goal. I've known for a long time that the magic 3500 weekly calorie deficit to lose a pound doesn't work for me. This program will keep adjusting and doing the calculations for me, and eventually MY weight loss numbers will show themselves, whatever they may be. I've done a rough calculation of my intake when I was sick and not exercising or even moving, and it averages 800-1000.

The best part of it is, I find I'm not stressing over numbers or intake, I just log and look at the number at the bottom of the screen. If I'm hungry and have some to spare I'll eat something. If I'm not hungry and have a lot to spare, I will drink something to top up. I'm thinking that my problem over the years was under eating. Being vegetarian and a low fat eater to begin with, I always struggled to get even 1200 calories in me per day.

In other news, I got my work bonus yesterday, which after taxes worked out to about 45% of gross. Better than a kick in the butt I guess!

Yesterday's schedule called for a run, and my legs were a tiny bit tired from Thursday's ride, but not sore as I'd expected. I had a great run, the last of my 2/1. My naughty bits are still sore though. Should have worn my bike shorts under my pants.

This morning Steve and I hit up MEC and lo and behold they had my running shoes, trail variety, on clearance! I've never bought them before because I couldn't justify the purchase of a trail shoe unless I was going to really spend a lot of time on the trails. I couldn't pass them up, and can't wait to try them. I'm always turning out my ankles on the trails and feel the rocks and twigs more than I'd like with my regular running shoes. I think I will buy some gaiters too, as I'm always picking up stones and debris, but I don't like my shoes very tight!

We also bought the SPD pedals for the mountain bikes, and a couple of clip on fenders, for the really messy days. I'm not a fan of a lot of mud in my hair!

Well, I'd better get off this thing and get the cleaning under way. No running on the schedule today, just a 30 min walk and a 20 min strength training session. I hate strength training, and never found it something I could get into the habit of, so I figure I'll start with 20 mins. I can do 20 mins!

Could it be working?

Could I really have lost 2.6 lbs last week? I never lose weight. My body loves its jigglies. Hmmm. What I can say is I am loving the P90X program. At least the parts I'm able to do.

Yesterday I noticed there were little blobs of something on the tv. Ewwww, it's flying sweat stains from the KenpoX dvd (kickboxing). Yesterday was Shoulders & Arms (57 mins... no problems here, actually need a heavier weight), and AbRipperX (15 mins). I could hardly do any AbRipperX. My body just doesn't do those things. Might be because I'm really heavy and it's asking waaaaaaaay too much of my core to haul an extra 60 lbs. Or maybe it's my gut in the way. Pretty sight non?

No great soreness today, though it hasn't been 24 hours yet. Today calls for a very short run, and Yoga. I did the yoga DVD last week. It's 90 mins. I think I was only able to do 60 or 70. Or maybe 50. I don't remember! What I do remember is way too many downward dogs and planks. Since my downward dog injury a few years ago (bursitis in both shoulders... couldn't do my bra up for weeks!), I'm really careful.

Better get to work!

My week so far

Boy it's been busy around here! I got tired of facing the 4 hour house clean on Saturdays (in addition to the 'maintenance during the week) that I've decided to try breaking it out. Not sure I like it though, because I'm a big fan of the Saturday sparkle! This new system has the house always ready for company, save a last minute run through. But it's not sparkling.

So Monday's I give the kitchen a super scrub, including shining up the stainless appliances (love them, but they get fingerprinty/cat nosey very fast!), Tuesday's is vaccuming and washing the floors (took an hour and fifteen minutes yesterday), Wednesday's is polishing the furniture (dusting doesn't cut it after a few days) and cleaning the powder room, and Thursday's is the ensuite. On average, an hour per day.

I'm also spending 15 minutes a day on my office. It's still not finished, still boxes here and there, but with Steve's son moving to Montreal from Toronto he's taken my futon which I had all this junk sitting on, so now I can't stand all the junk on the floor. I'm getting there! My goal with all this is to leave Saturday's as days where I can get some of the finishing touches on the house done, read/paint/play in my garden when the time comes, go shopping, meet a friend for lunch, etc.

I have been getting in my 40 minutes of exercise per day, whether it be my scheduled runs, walks, strength training, crunches, etc. Here we are on the cusp of Feb and I'm even more committed than I was at the beginning. It just feels 'right' somehow. Unfortunately, the scale still won't budge. I've started logging in a software called 'Diet Organizer' (free 10 day trial). It's much more user friendly than fitday.com (I find it so slow) and I think I might buy it when the trial is done. Anyway, it's showing my calories consumed during the day hovering around 1500 calories. And that's really forcing myself to eat. This tool wants me to eat 1700 a day to lose 1 lb per week (if I run, it wants me to eat MORE). I dunno, maybe it's because of the vegetarian thing, but I find it really hard to get calories in. I've been told so many times by doctors, nutritionists and trainers that I'm not losing weight because I'm not eating enough. Then why am I stuffed? Sigh.