My last post was my 100th post! Wow I can’t believe it! I have also hit my goal this year of having 50 blog followers!!
Thank you to every single person that reads my blog! It means the world to me to be able to share my experiences with you!!!
Running This Week and Review-The Skinny Rules
Running this week has been completely non existent and I absolutely hated it! My body and mind have just been so so tired! This week has been hectic working late almost every day. I started the week with really bad feeling quads so I wanted to rest them up, and ended up just going to the gym. The rest of the week became too hectic and I was super tired. But! I did make it to the gym most days, so I got my sweat on at least.. which is one thing I am proud of! Tomorrow I have 4 miles on the calendar for tomorrow, and I hope to be back to running fully next week! I miss it!
Just an update on how my life with Bob Harper’s skinny rules are going. Things are going pretty well in the month I’ve been following them. I’ve lost 3 pounds by following these rules and exercising! I probably could be losing more if I follow each of them to a T, but some of them are just really really hard to break my habits for (although I’m working hard to!). I’ve followed most rules, but the ones that I am really struggling through are:
Rule 6: Eat berries and apples every day..This is something that I’ve been much better about. I have tried to bring an apple with every lunch and tried to eat berries with every breakfast. I am successful with most days, but not every single day like Bob says.
Rule 7: No carbs after lunch..This is absolutely the hardest rule to follow for me. I love having some sort of carbs with my dinner. It is hard for me just to have protein with vegetables. I think this is the one rule that I may not able to follow, I will try hard to make it happen sometimes but man oh man this one is tough!
Rule 15: Make your own food and eat at least 10 meals at home a week..With this rule, I’ve been better with. I’m making more and more of my own lunches and dinners. But with this rule I need to work hard on..It definitely will help me and I’ve seen so with what I have cooked my own meals, but I need to cook more!
With the rest of the rules I’ve done good with incorporating them into my every day life. Especially with the drinking more water, and not drinking my calories. I’ve banished soda from my diet and I am cutting most alcoholic beverages as well (meaning I’ll have an occasional drink..but not more than one at a time). These have really helped me get on the road to a healthy lifestyle.
Overall the book was great, especially to learn what I needed to do to make a healthy change in my life. It has helped me be more aware of my healthful actions, and has really helped me create a base to try to stick to. I will always keep these rules in mind going forward to help me live a healthful life. I am going to be working on getting better about the rules I have difficulties with above, and keep living by these rules in general.
Weekly Workout Recap (5/13-5/19) and Blogging More
This week was awesome for my workouts! I got a workout in every day this week minus Friday! I hope to keep this up for weeks to come.
Monday: 3 mile run
Tuesday: Cardio workout and did weights. I brought my tablet and watched hulu plus..it definitely went by faster!
Wednesday: We did our first 30 minute tempo run. The heat and the tempo kicked my butt..I’m hoping to get faster and more used to it.
Thursday: This was another 3 miler
Friday: This was my rest day for the week
Saturday: 5 mile run. This was the first long run since my vacation gave me a break from running, it was tough. I was also alone for this one so mentally it was a little tough as well but I made it. We had a 6 miler on the calendar but I only did 5 but I was okay with it. I love the trail I run on..check out some scenes from my run!
Sunday: Today was a nice and easy cardio session and weights
Blogging: Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet up with some local bloggers from VAis4bloggers. I’m the NOVA rep so I picked out Bayou Bakery in Arlington. This was only the second meeting I went to but it was super fun! It was great to meet bloggers from the area and talk blogging. It definitely got me thinking about my blogging and even my presence on social media. TAKE AWAY: I need to be better at it and put more time in! An example of this…I’m the rep and forgot to tweet about it until the day before! So bad of me! I really need to find my groove and learn how to balance it with work. Blogging is something I really enjoy..and I want it to become better!
Weekly Workout Roudup 5/6-5/12
One of the blogs I follow regularly is Meghan’s blog Little Girl in the Big World. She does a weekly roundup with another blogger. I read it this morning and decided I want to start participating…so here is my first weekly roundup. P.S. need to get back to tracking my mileage with DailyMile!
Monday-
Started out great waking up early and meeting Liz for a 3 mile run. First run after my two 5ks. We talked the whole time to catch up. I was super impressed with myself.
Tuesday-
I went to the gym and did my first workout with NROL along with some time on the ellipitcal.
Wednesday-
This was our first day of speed work ever! It was exciting! Since it was only about a 1.25 miles with walking in between I decided to wear my heart rate monitor to track my calories.
Thursday-Sunday-
After busy nights at work I decided to take a break from running Thursday and Friday. I have no excuse for not running this weekend, just too many activities to find the time. Next weekend though! Plus I finally got a SpiBelt for running with my phone/music which I’m excited to try out!
It’s All In The Details
When I posted about my new “start fresh” plan, I didn’t really go into the details of what it is all about. So I wanted to let you know what my plans are all about.
My 20K training plan: The running group and I all wanted to do a summer race before our next half in October. Liz actually found a 20K that she wanted to run with her brother. When she told us about it, it was the perfect tim7ng..and a 20K is 1 mile less than a half marathon! We also wanted to do something a little different after 2 years of running with basically the same running plan. So I looked up Hal Higdon’s training plan since I’ve heard such great things about it. We went for the intermediate plan since we know how to run halfs by now. The main new thing for us here is the speed workouts which we haven’t done before…I’m pretty excited because I hope this will help improve our running even more. I ended up doubling a bit of the plan because we have more weeks than there was on the original plan.
New Rules of Lifting for Women: I read this book about a month ago, and because of time hadn’t actually had a chance to try it out. The great thing about this book is that it lays it all out for you, from giving you what you should do in each workout, to pictures and directions for each exercise. They also have a template for you to fill out for each workout. I’ve only done one day of it, but man am I sore! I’ll keep you updated on my progress!
Lose It: I’ve been using Lose It for a month or two, but off an on. But that was mostly due me traveling for half of April. One thing I love about Lose It is that it has goals and challenges you can be a part of. I started to track my intakes for the month of May and I’ve actually done it every day..I’m in first place! (tied with all others who are also on track). This definitely motivates me. This week with starting exercising daily again I’ve been under my calorie goal every day. Hopefully I can keep this up!
Bob Harper’s Skinny Rules: I really enjoyed this book and so far following the rules, I definitely see how it is helping. The major take aways I’ve been doing is: Eating less carbs after lunch, drinking water before every meal and as soon as I wake up, eating berries and apples every day, eating a real breakfast, and NO processed foods. It actually hasn’t been as hard as I thought to make these changes. I definitely can see these rules being part of my every day life moving forward.
What I’ve been eating lately: Breakfast: Plain greek yogurt with berries and toast with nut butter; White egg omelet with spinach on toast and berries Lunch: Tuna on toast and green salad with chicken and both with cucumbers and hummus
