To Run or Not to Run

To run or not to run that is the question. I'm still struggling with the last 15 or so pounds that I want to lose, so I thought  I should add some more jogging into my walks. Who knows it might help speed up the weight loss. 

Well, a month ago I managed to sprain my right ankle which took a long time to heal.  I have no patience.  I couldn't stand just sitting around with my leg up and iced.  I finally thought it was completely healed.  However, after a long day at the zoo and climbing way too many hills, it started to swell and throb.  I wore my brace and propped it up for a day and the pain went away. 

Last week was when I decided to start jogging more and dang it my ankle started to act up again.  I've about had it with this pain in the rear ankle.  I think next time I might try wearing my brace when I leave for my walk and then try some light jogging.  If the brace is on, I might not have the swelling and/or pain afterwards. 

I'm staying in my calorie range of 1200-1500 per day and I think I need to up my exercise routine.  I average around 1500 per day on the weekends and get closer to 1200-1400 during the week.  But I'm just stuck - for a really, really, really long time.  In fact, I think I'm going to go down in the record book for the person that took the longest time to get to her goal weight. 

Any opinions out there about sticking to the same meal for too long?

 I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning during the week: Special K with skim milk.  Think I need to change it up more often?  It is just easier for me to know immediately what I am going to eat. 

NSV: Active Summer

One of the many benefits of losing weight is being able to stay active with my kids.  This summer we have done so much as a family.  In my previous post I discussed our jammed packed summer vacation.  This past week we have stayed just as busy at home.

Last weekend my son's baseball team had their end of the year party.  Someone had the idea to do a mother/son baseball game to celebrate the end of the season.  This very idea would have struck fear into my heart when I was extremely overweight.  I'm positive that I wouldn't have gone.  However, even though I have more weight I want to lose and don't have the "perfect" body, I was up for running the bases in front of everyone.  I'm so happy that I didn't miss out on this experience with my son.  It was so much fun!  I did hit the ball and make a run home :)  On the flip side, I screamed and jumped OVER a ball that was hit towards me at short-stop.  

I also went fishing with my kids on a 100+ degree day with our church youth group.  Again, this is something I wouldn't have done when I was at my heaviest.  I wouldn't have even wanted to go outside at that temperature let alone go fishing all day with 50 kids.

This is a picture of my son's catfish he caught that morning.

We are now enjoying really nice weather.  Today it was only 79 degrees, so I headed out early for a three mile walk.  I'm thinking that I will take the kids on a bike ride after dinner tonight. 

I had already written this post today when I saw this NSV link up on another blog: http://ktjweighingin.com/  I linked up with her page so go check out some other non scale victories :)

Need Another Vacation

Whew! We are back from a hectic week of vacationing and now I need a week of a relaxing vacation to feel relaxed.  You know how some families go on relaxing vacations and just soak up the sun?  Well, not us - not ever.  Even when I was young, my mom always had our vacations jam packed with activities and we always came home exhausted.  I always said when I get to be an adult, my vacations would be relaxing but you know the old saying, "we all eventually turn into our mothers."  Love you mom :) 

My husband was off work for a week and we ended up being at home for one day.  That one day was spent pulling weeds, doing yard work, and washing the cars.  I know just too much fun. 

We went to St. Louis with the kids and caught a Cardinals game.  The kids were able to get autographs of a few of the pitchers, so they thought that was really cool.  Not cool was the weather.  It was 90+ degrees with high humidity that night and I think I sweated off the naughty ballpark nachos that were my dinner.  We also went to the Science Center and enjoyed the latest exhibit with the kids.  Our son loves anything science and so does my husband.

By chance, we ended up at  a local restaurant that has its own TV show.  We didn't know anything about the show when we decided to try it out.  I had searched on my phone for restaurants near the science center with positive reviews and found Sweetie Pie's.  Do not visit their page or check it out  unless you have saved up around a million extra calories!  Seriously.  The soul food is out of this world and so are the calories.  After we left the restaurant, we saw a sign that by entering you agree to be taped for filming purposes.  We then did some research and found out the restaurant has a reality show on OWN.  I had the fried chicken, corn, and mashed potatoes which I split with my husband with plenty left over.  I thought this meal would do me in for weigh-in day. 

We also managed to fit in a trip to the zoo, a party, and a trip to a state park where we live before the week was all over.  We are all exhausted and needing a vacation from our vacation :)  I did manage to get in a lot of walking.  One good thing about a city vacation is all of the walking.  When I weighed on Saturday I was up 4 ounces from the previous week.  Bad news but not terrible news considering all the restaurant meals consumed for the week.  The only thing that saved me was all the walking in the city. 

What To Do With The Candy Bowl

I had never noticed how many candy bowls we had sitting around our house until recently.  We had one in our living room, dining room, and two in our kitchen. Wow!  No one needs that many candy bowls.  As I have been on my weight loss journey, the number of bowls have gone down. First, I got rid of the bowl in the living room.  I made an early rule of no mindless snacking at night while watching television.  That was a major problem of mine early on in my journey.

Next, went the second bowl in the kitchen.  Really, two candy bowls in the kitchen!  I have no words for this or how this even came about in my life.  We do still have a bowl in the kitchen that my kids and husband use for their treats; however, I avoid eye contact with that bowl when I walk by it :)

Just recently, I was wondering what to do with the empty candy bowl from the dining room, so my mom offered to take it to her work.  Then this weekend as we were making fruit salad for a swimming party, we had this idea:

 

The candy bowl was converted into a bowl for a healthy dessert. The fruit salad was a big hit at the swimming party, and the bowl made an excellent presentation.   Kids and adults alike both enjoyed the dessert.

A Week of Celebrations and Healing

I took a week off  from walking to let my ankle heal completely.  It just wasn't getting any better and the pain was slowing me down too much.  The decision to take it easy was difficult to make but necessary.  I did some arm workouts and crunches but that was it.  I'm happy to report this morning that my ankle is feeling 100% better.  Last night, I took a fast, short two mile walk.  It felt amazing to get back at it.  I would have walked farther but the rain was right on my tail :)  We have been getting afternoon rain and storms every day for the last several days and the next few days look to be the same.  The one good thing about the cloudy, rainy weather is the temperatures.  It has been around the high 70s which is very unusual for our area in late June/ early July.  It makes exercising outdoors so much easier. I'm looking forward to hitting the dusty trails out here :) 

I did a bit too much celebrating with friends and family this week.  I traveled with some friends from work to another state for shopping and eating out to our favorite restaurant.  It is a bit too girly for our husbands, so we always eat there when we travel.  I had a salad but it had too many treats in it to be considered healthy. Then I ate out with my sister and caught up with her. She had been in Savannah, GA for nine days,  and we needed to do some visiting.  Yes, I know food doesn't have to be involved in visiting but it was this time.  We had a great time and I loved hearing about her missionary trip with her junior high youth group she directs. 

With a week off from walking and too many meals out at restaurants, I went up .6 of a pound.  I did try to make some healthy choices to balance the meals out.  On the days I had a meal out, my other meal was a healthy salad at home.  I also passed on several baked goods at home and desserts offered at the restaurants.  My friends on the trip ordered double doozy cookies at the mall and I passed on that eating experience.  I did order an ice from dippin' dots instead at the end of the day for a treat.  So I did splurge some last week but tried hard to do some balancing as well.