In which I describe my dream mornings

In my ideal life, I wake up before the sun rises fully refreshed. I make myself a cup of coffee or tea, and sit outside and watch the sun rise and contemplate life. Then I go for a run in the cool morning air, or do yoga in my back yard. Or maybe I take care of my garden, weeding, watering, and harvesting. And then I sit down with my journal or laptop, and write. Either creatively, journaling, or both.

Sounds lovely, right? So why aren't I doing it? My mornings right now generally involve waking up just after the sun rises feeling like a zombie until after I've had caffiene. Telling myself I will exercise or write right after I finish playing online. 3 hours later, I have to rush to get ready to go to work and I haven't accomplished anything.

So! The sun is supposed to rise at 7:03am tomorrow. I will have my alarm set for 6:30, and we will do this!

I've neglected you.

My poor little blog, I've been neglecting you. I keep meaning to write, to update you all on how my goals are going(slowly or not at all) but then I get distracted by...everything else in the world.

So, deal time!

I promise to post something once a week. And you (any of you) will read this and hopefully be inspired. And maybe, comment once in a while?

I hereby commit myself to posting at least on Fridays.

Losing weight

Do you need to lose weight? No really, do you actually need to lose weight for the sake of your own health? Or are you trying to lose weight because you don't like your arms, your butt, your stomach, etc? What if you lose the 10, 15, or 20lbs you feel like you have to lose to be pretty?

What if you still don't feel pretty after you lost the weight?

What if you could feel pretty, exactly as you are now? What if more then feeling "pretty" you felt strong, capable, worthy of respect, and beautiful?

I realized recently that the only time I feel like I need to lose weight is when I'm having a bad day because of something else. And then I'm downright mean to myself. (Mentally calling myself a "fat fuck", a "slob", etc. and I have no idea where these thoughts came from.) Then, I start trying to punish myself (I start wanting to exercise not because I know I will feel great afterwards, but because I don't deserve to do anything else).

And I've decided it needs to stop. So I'm getting rid of my scale, and giving it to a good friend who needs to lose weight for health reasons, so she can keep track of her progress. I'm going to make sure I eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and exercise most days then I don't. (Which means I really need to start doing that again, because it's been a while since I've exercised.) And when I exercise, I'm going to do whatever feels like fun at that moment.

I'm going to stop saying things like "I hate my stomach", and start saying things like "I should do more core exercises to protect my back", because that's true.

If I lose weight while exercising and eating healthy, then fine. If I don't, then fine.

I know that there are some people out there who probably think I need to lose weight. But if they're not thinking that out of a place of concern for my well being, then they can fuck off. I also know that I have a few friends who are trying to lose weight for health reasons, and I wish them fruitful rewards for all of their hard work, and offer my moral and practical support. For everyone else...think about what I said, ok?

I'm still working out!

Here's the work out I just did:
10 forward lunges
10 squat jumps
10 push ups (3 regular, 7 on knees)
10 bend and thrusts (5 jumping, 5 stepping back)
10 plie squats
10 jumping jacks
3 3-second t stabilizations
10 seated rotations
2 sunrise salutations.
Yesterday I did my first outside run. Running outside is a lot harder then running on the treadmill, even with the resistance increased to one. I seem to be able to run for about 4 minutes before I have to stop and walk. I planned yesterday on being out for a half an hour. Mainly because a running friend of mine wrote me a 5k training plan, and that's what yesterday's instructions were. So, in that half an hour I managed to walk/run 1.15 miles, and back. So...2.30miles. Of course, the way back I had to walk almost the entire way, because I didn't warm up and stretch enough so I had major leg cramps. Next time, longer warm up, more stretching.

In which I return

Well hi everyone! Fancy meeting you here....at this place I said I would be days...(weeks?) ago. Sorry to keep you waiting. I've been awfully lax on working out. I'll work out one or two days a week, take a week off, rinse and repeat. Bad, I know. You would think that wanting to do something as awesome as run a marathon would be enough to get me training, wouldn't you? Add to that that it's an instant mood booster, and you should have to try to get me from going to the gym, instead of trying to get me to go to the gym. But no, no dice. I seem to need tangible rewards, not intrinsic rewards. So I have chosen chocolate. Yes, chocolate. I crave it multiple times a day. I can force myself through sheer force of will to not have any for a couple weeks maximum, and then I binge. So, I have decided that I will not be able to have any sweets, until after I exercise. And it's been three days in a row! Go me! I'm especially proud of myself for my workout today, it's a new personal record.

I ran a mile and a half on the treadmill with the resistance set at 1 (I had read that doing so mimics running outdoors) and didn't have to slow down to walk at all! I even sped up at the end! (I'm in the habit of increasing my speed from 4 to 4.5 for the last little bit.)

So proud of myself. :)

Change of plans

I realized something the other day when I was looking at a calendar. I told you guys I'm planning my wedding, right? Well in case I haven't, I"m planning my wedding! Eeek! And we're looking at the end of September, beginning of October for our wedding date, and then going right to our honeymoon. The Chicago Marathon, is usually the 1st week of October, this year it's October 9th. This presents me with a problem. I don't want to be sore from the marathon on my wedding, and I don't want the hecticness (that's totally a word, right?) of wedding planning to interfere with my training. And, all the training guides say that I should be doing an average of 10 miles give or take a week for 1 year before I start training. I just ran my first mile a few weeks ago. I don't want to get injured because I pushed myself too quickly. So, I have decided to train for the 2013 marathon. Don't worry, I will still have this blog (for all 4 of you who follow me. :)) For one thing, I have allll those other goals on my list, and more that I keep thinking of. For example, this is probably the best year for me to compete in NaNoWriMo. And, I will still be running.

So there will be a slight shift in the focus of this blog. :)

Two new milestones

Lately I have been awful at training. I have a this thing where I take a day off, and it magically turns into a week. Who knew, right? So I have a new work out schedule, which is:

Monday: Short run, Pilates
Tuesday: Weights, Yoga
Wednesday: Medium run, Pilates
Thursday: Weights, Yoga
Friday: Long run, Pilates
Saturday: Weights, Yoga
Sunday: Hot tub/walk on treadmill/aka rest day.

My theory behind this, is that if I get myself used to going to the gym every single day even if I'm not exercising there (see: hot tub) then I won't fall out of the habit of going again. My short runs are a mile. The medium runs are a mile and a half, and the long runs will either be 3 miles, or a 5k (3.10miles) I haven't decided yet.

So, my second mile stone is that I ran a mile and a half today, and I only had to walk for one minute! So excited. It took me 22 minutes and 58 seconds. I did not enjoy myself while I was doing it for the most part, although there were a few minutes when I got into a groove and enjoyed myself. I did feel really good (and tired and sweaty) when I was done though! And then when I got home from work, I did Pilates. Monday I had forgotten to do so, although I did do a quick couple sun salutations after weights on Tuesday.

My first mile stone is that I knocked some time off of my mile! I am now at a 14 minute and 30 second mile. I think the first one I did was about 15 minutes and 30 seconds! Go me!

Tomorrow: Weights and Yoga. Trying to decide if I want to be at the gym at 7 to do weights so I can go to the yoga class at 8...Also trying to decide if I want to join my sister for Zumba tomorrow night.