Weigh In Day! Officially 50 lbs down!

Good afternoon,

Today's weigh in marked an important mile-stone for me: I have officially lost 50lbs.  This week was a total of 1.4. Together, Jon and I have lost 102 lbs. This is important to me for multiple reasons:

1. Every time I have lost 50lbs, I have gotten pregnant, thus gaining the weight back. No pregnancy for me this time (permanent prevention will ensure this!).

2. This is the lowest weight I have been since I got pregnant with Hailey (7 years ago).
3. I bought a pair of shorts in the same size I bought my freshman year of college (and I cried a little in the dressing room!).

Here's the unfortunate part of this milestone (for right now). I lost part of my weight before joining weight watchers so they only consider the 30lbs I have lost with them. I have missed the last several meetings and have been meeting hopping. I wanted to celebrate the important milestones with my leader (on Sundays) so I have not gotten my 10% key ring yet even though I earned it a while ago.  I really would like a 50lb charm from them...but I suppose I am 20 pounds away from that, according to WW! Anyway, since I officially hit the 50lb mark, I am putting up a new progress pic. I will add this pic to the progress pic page.

On another note, for our 10th wedding anniversary (last month), I gave Jon a bundle of envelopes with 12 pre-planned dates (1 per month). He opens the envelope on the last day of the month before, we read the date, and mark it on the calendar immediately. This month was Putt-Putt golf, just like we used to do! We took a few pictures and Jon commented: "wow, we're a good looking couple!" I thought it was pretty cute of him to say. We had a lot of fun; we always have fun together but I am loving our new healthy, energetic relationship. We have gone through so much together in the last 10 years of marriage, and nearly 14 years of being a couple, that this road to health has been quite a "fun" adventure. I love seeing us revert to the youthful couple we were when we first started dating.

Not much of an insightful post tonight; I just really wanted to update on progress since it was a weigh in day!

Working our way to fit as a family,

Kati

Family Fitness spreads...

Good morning,
Yesterday was my rest day, and I thoroughly enjoyed a night off running! I still did Emma's mile with her though. Since we set out to do a mile a day; she has not missed one. Yesterday, I drove Emma up to Kentucky where we met my mom and aunt. Emma is spending the week with my family. Because of the drive, Emma had to run in the morning yesterday. I took Abbi out to Jon's car to put her in her car seat and give her some loving. When I came back in the house, I couldn't find Emma. She had taken it upon herself to go change her clothes and get ready for her run. She had to wait on me to get ready; I am so happy she is taking the initiative on her own!

With Emma spending the week in Ohio, we had to make sure everyone was on board with her exercise plan. Aunt Jess will be running with her and mammaw and pappaw will be walking with her as well! Its a multi-generational plan for Emma :)

I received a message from a reader asking about what happens if Jon and I are not on the same page with diet/exercise. I think this is a common problem. Right now, Jon and I are totally on plan together but there are times when we aren't. Its much more difficult to be successful, but its not impossible.

If I look back over the last several months of Weight Loss, I can tell you exactly when Jon and I were not on the same page. In November, Jon gained the entire month and I lost the entire month. I was clearly on plan; Jon was not. Through out the last couple of months there have been weeks where I was frustrated and wanted to give up or just got tired of counting points (those weeks were either gains or no losses). It is much more difficult to stay on plan when your significant other is enjoying a greasy cheeseburger or a large ice cream. However, keeping your goal insight is key. Ultimately, this journey is an individual journey. Is it better to have someone working with you--absolutely--but you can't let your partners choices deter your goal. I am so grateful that Jon and I are both dedicated at this point. When one of us is having a crisis (not wanting to exercise, eating a gallon of ice cream) we can talk to each other about it and know that the other person can talk us off that ledge. Prior to our journey, if I wanted ice cream, Jon would go to Kroger and buy it. If Jon wanted ice cream, I'd yell "get me some too" as he headed out the door!

Communication is key in this situation. I have asked Jon to support my goals and he has asked the same as me. If I am about to binge, he will ask in a non-threatening, non-mean tone :"how many points is that?" There was a time when I would have been angry at him ("you're saying I'm fat and can't eat this???") but now I appreciate the support. I know he is only doing what I have asked. My advice for the person that is struggling to stay on plan because your partner is not dedicated to being healthy is to communicate your goals and ask for support, but keep your individual focus. Ultimately, you will feel better and perhaps your healthy eating and exercise will be contagious and your partner will join you!
Best of luck and thank you for the message!!!
Working our way to fit as a family,
Kati

ABBI-MONSTER strikes again...

This morning, I planned to do a 45 minute workout before the girls got up. They have their well visit appointments today so I wanted to get my workout in before our day began. Abbi had different plans for us.

Abbi earned the nick-name Abbi-Monster when she was kicked out of the nursery her first night after she was born because she was waking up all the other babies. When we call her Abbi-Monster, we mean it with affection and she giggles and "roars" at us. Last night, not a lot of giggling happening in my house! Abbi COULD NOT sleep from 3-6. She was up at 9:30 when we went to check on her (we put her down to sleep at 8:00. She must have dozed off sometime after 9:30, but then at about 11:00 came begging to sleep in our room. We built her a pallet on the floor because she is very difficult to sleep with. She tosses and turns and moans cries. Its quite insane. Anyway, at about 3:00 she asked me if bed time was over, I told her to go back to sleep and she began flipping and flopping and spinning in circles on the floor "trying to get comfortable" . Unfortunately, this is a relatively common occurrence for Abbi. She doesn't sleep all the way through the night very often. She typically wakes up several times at night. I am going to speak to the doctor about this today because after 3 year of this, I would like some solid sleep (and I am POSITIVE Jon feels the same way!) ETA: Her pediatrician reccomended we try melatonin with her... started 1/2 dose tonight.

When our alarm went off this morning, Jon slowly sat up on the side of the bed (we were both exhausted from Abbi). I said, "ugh, this is the type of morning that will tempt you in to an evening workout." He sat there for a second and asked if I wanted to work out this evening instead. I replied some sleepy sort of yes, so we went back to sleep and actually got a solid hour of sleep from 5-6 until Abbi woke up for good. Don't 3-years-olds need more sleep that a few non-consecutive hours? I konw for a fact that 32 year-olds do!

For the last few days, I have been trying out a new ap called "Moves."

A friend introduced it to me and I LOVE IT. Its like a pedometer but it tracks all your movement (running, wiking, biking) it can distinguish when you are traveling in a car and it goes in to batter saver mode when you are inactive. The first day I downloaded it, I cleaned the house for several hours. My phone sat on the charger, or on the counter, or on the dresser. I earned 139 steps... I realized I needed to make a point to keep my phone on me! Saturday, I earned 2,960 steps (again, most of the time at home, I didnt keep my phone on me.).  Sunday back to 192 steps ( a whole day at home, a whole day phoneless!). Yesterday I made a point to keep my phone on me with a goal of 10, 000 steps. I hit 10, 249 walking steps which, according to the ap is 1 hour 36 minuties of walking or 4.4 miles. I did not realize it would track running separately so most of my workout yesterday my phone sat on the treadmill. I picked it up to see if it would count my steps, so i actually earned 0.5 miles running (984 steps in additiona to my 10, 249).

The ap is cool because it shows you how much time you spent each place all day long. The only problem I have with  (aside from my problem of leaving my phone laying around) is it does tend to drain the battery quickly. It is supposed to last all day on one charge, but I guess I am using some other battery hogging aps as well. I find that whenever I am not moving, I need to plug my phone in! Not a huge deal, but just need to charge a little more often than I used to.

And for an update on Emma's "marathon" training. Today she ran a mile with me in 14:40. She shaved 4 minutes of her time and did not complain about running once. It was cooler today and I think the idea of running for a long time scared her. I told her day two would be easier and it was. She said tommorow she was going to run her mile in 5 minutes. If she does, this mamma won't be able to keep up with her!!!

As always, working my way to fit,
Kati

Family Fitness and cleaning things up:

Good morning blog family,
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I had a great time celebrating Father's Day with wonderful husband. He really is the best dad; my girls are truly lucky to have a dad like him.

I too, have a wonderful dad, and even though I did not get to spend the day with him yesterday I thought of him often. He sent me a picture of himself holding the gift we mailed him (a gift card for new clothes since he has lost so much weight!). I don't have his permission to publish the picture so I will have to ask him if I can add him to a future blog post! He just looks so fantastic; the 40+ pounds he lost took about 10 years off of him; he looks like a baby! I am proud of you dad and I am proud to be your daughter! Hope your Father's Day was fantastic.

One thing I have discovered on this fitness journey is that the goal to get healthy begins to expand beyond just weight. Both Jon and I have different attitudes; we've realized that negative factors in our life just aren't worth the negative energy. It's been really refreshing to just have a more positive mindset and to enjoy life more. Part of that enjoyment of life has been coming up with ways to manage our time better.

When we cleaned up our budget (Thanks Dave Ramsey!), and cleaned up our diet/exercise, we realize that the patterns we are setting are life long lessons for our girls. This week, we initiated a new "chore chart".  We each have one that will hang in the kitchen. Each one is a fun color and there are spots for stickers for completed tasks. The end of the week will earn the girls extra money in their commission jars. We started implementing the new chore chart on Friday of last week (after I had worked hard to do a deep clean of the house.) So far, it has been great and we didn't spend our entire weekend cleaning. It feels great to be in control.

I think before we really began to focus on our fitness there was a certain level of apathy in our lives. We didn't always clean up the dinner dishes at night, or sweep the floor, or make the kids pick up their toys. But then, on the weekend, it would take us a long time to clean up the mess from the week. I've realized that if we stay on top of things, we had a lot more freedom on the weekend. It's only been a few days, but I think this new routine will be one that stays for the long haul. 

 The last new development is that Emma has decided that she wants to run a "marathon." (Really, I will sign her up for a kids fun run 1 miler and work her way up from there! But any race she says is a "marathon.") She is very in to art and doesn't really put a lot of effort in to playing/exercise. When we are outside, while Abbi is running around like a crazy person, Emma would much rather get her sidewalk chalk and draw. This has bothered me for awhile, not that she loves art, but that she does seem to want to be active. Her interested in running a "marathon" was my chance to get her in to running and exercise and build a little mother/daughter time in as well. I took her on several walks last week while waiting for my teeth to heal (and they are feeling much better!) but I didn't really stress the running part. Today, we went for our first "run." There were a few tears because it was hot and muggy (Emma HATES hot weather) but overall she did great. We did a full mile (she ran parts of it). Her pace is an 18 minute mile right now. I think, had we gone earlier in the morning before the full sun was blasting on us, she would have run more and not gotten upset about the heat! Tomorrow morning, we will go much earlier. Anyway, our goal is a mile a day until she runs the whole thing. We will still do our bike rides and fun play time, but this little running venture gets Emma some alone time with me and also helps her build up some endurance. She wants to play soccer again in the fall, so the extra running is just all in all beneficial. Plus, I get an extra mile in (I did a 5k at 6 this am at Planet Fitness so the extra mile outside was welcome!). Here is a pic of Emma post-workout. She immediately took her shoes off because she hates sweaty feet!

I hope you all have a happy Monday!

Working our way to fit (as a family!)

Kati

Umm, excuse me? Come again? Did you say a GAIN???

Hello friends!
Today, I was driving to my WW meeting envisioning a post that I had been waiting to write. There is a benchmark that I want to hit, and I am was 1.6 away from hitting it. It was one of those days when I could not wait to get to my weigh in so I could text Jon and some friends/family that I always update to share my excitement about this milestone. So, what happens??? I GAINED 0.6. WTF??? A Gain??? Seriously? My goal this week was to lose two, but I pep-talked myself that if I lost 1.6 I would be excited and not disappointed. When the lovely receptionist said, "you're up, but only 0.6. Not a problem at all; you'll have that off next week," I literally wanted to cry. Yes, 0.6 is a small gain but I had goals to not gain for this entire 16 week cycle. I also was on a streak of several weeks in a row with no gain. I also did not expect the gain. Am I over reacting? Probably. Will acknowledging that I am over reacting change my reaction? Definitely not!  And, if I am going to have a gain, I want to be able to eat some crappy food, dang it, and earn that gain!!!

Okay, to focus on some positive things. I have a couple of non-scale victories to share. First of all, this week my girls and I worked hard to give Jon a very clean house for Father's day. We still have a couple of things to do, but overall the house looks great. I was carrying cleaning supplies up the stairs, and my "house-cleaning-shorts-that-shall-not-be-seen-in-public" started falling down. Emma grabbed my shorts and held them up and we walked up the stairs together giggling the whole way. She said, "mom, if you are going to keep getting healthy we might want to buy you some new house cleaning shorts!" It was a cute moment and those shorts are ones from my college days; one of two pairs of WC shorts that I still have! I don't want to let them go (but I am feeling pretty proud that my college shorts are too big!!!)

Today we went to a yard sale of a friend of mine. I bought a 3 piece suit (skirt w/jacket and undershirt),

a dressy tank top, a cute date-night dress, and several workout tanks all in a smaller size than I have worn in years!!! The suite is too tight right now, but I will get into it! The other items fit great. I also scored some brand new Kate Spade sun glasses! (See pic!) My jaw line is still pretty swollen (thank you dry socket!) so ignore my chipmunk cheeks!!! It was a successful trip, and really the first new (or new to me)clothes I have bought myself since I started losing weight!

My final non-scale victory is all the love and support I have. Today, before 7 am, I heard from two friends/family members that are also working on getting and maintaining fitness levels. I am so proud of them and to hear from them so early in relation to working out made me smile (thanks to my girls, I was awake!) During the later morning, I also heard from another friend who hit a great personal mile-stone with her running level. I have gotten several pinterest hits, facebook messages, emails, etc. from other friends and family. For the first time in many weight loss attempts, I feel like this is the time that I am not stopping. I've gone public with my goals and with all of our circles of communication, you all are not going to let me forget it!!!

All in all, I feel pretty good about today and pretty good about this week. I am definitely disappointed in my weight in, but weight watchers posted this picture on FB today  and I feel like it hit home.  Really, in the grand scheme of my weight loss, this small gain this week does not deter from the progress I have made. In thinking of my week, I definitely did not get the fresh fruit and veggies in that I usually get. I had more carbs than usual (I ate toast, rice, chicken noodle soup. Popsicles, fudge bars, and smoothies) in order to accommodate my very sore mouth. Though I counted points, my body is used to much more protein and no so many carbs. I also got in less high intensity miles than I am used to this week. I will chalk this up to a focus on non-scale victories and be ready to celebrate on the scale next week.

As a side note, I bought some Peanut Butter & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter. I learned about this from another blogger and I found it delicious! (I get no endorsements or anything for blogging about this product). I just wanted to share this with my Weight loss friends because this fudge like PB is only 5 points plus per serving (our regular PB is 6) and it has enough chocolate in it that it will curve a sweet craving for me. Now to see if I can control myself with this in the house...chocolate and PB lovers should give this a try!!! I think it will be great with apple slices. I am excited to give it a try on toast this week.

Holy Hills and Humidity

You know I was all revved up to go run yesterday; I had my mental muscle ready to fight my own negativity. I was ready to tell my self to shut-the-eff-up, I had running to do. Well, in all my insight I decided to run (dramatic pause) OUTSIDE (dramatic pause) because I wanted to prove my own progress. Running outside isn't really a big deal; I love to run outside. However, I chose to run outside for the first time since I had my wisdom teeth taken out (and my pain problem was/is a dry socket), in 100% humidity, in 88 degree weather, and through my exceptionally hilly neighborhood. There was a whole lot of genius happening when I made those plans.

So, the run was not as terrible as I make it sound, though I was not pleased with my time on my mile splits:

My overall time was 44:41 for 3.14 miles. That's not entirely accurate since I stopped to stretch and did not turn off the GPS--so my real time was like 42:00 or so.  I learned a few things about myself and running with this trip. First off, Running in the air conditioned Planet Fitness with a steady treadmill (even at an incline) is a lot easier that the heat and humidity and hills. However, I like running outside so I plan on mixing my treadmill and outside running.

I also learned that last year when I started running, I had little mental milestones that I hoped to hit (I hope I can run to the end of this street before I walk). I was "running a 14 minute mile and walking a 17 minute mile). Last night, I found myself hoping to hit the same length benchmarks in my intervals; however, I had trouble pacing myself. I found myself looking at my running ap and realizing I was running at a 9 min/mile. So those distances were reachable, but they were more challenging than I anticipated. My most consistent pace right now is between a 10:30 and 11 min/mile. I need to practice running outside more and get myself use to pacing what I know feels good. Obviously, I was pushing to fast and then not able to keep up the endurance to go beyond my little benchmarks.

I can say that I broke through some of my mental barrios using some of the techniques in Runner's World, but in all fairness I need a trip to Planet Fitness where I can pace myself more accurately and beat my own mental roadblocks that I have stopping me. I think on less humid days, I will do my running outside, it was a nice change. I also have some new baseline times to beat--you know me, I am all about competition with myself ;)

Until next time,
Working my way to fit,
Kati

Mental Muscle: Now I get it

One of my favorite magazines has become Runner's World. This months issue has a lot of dedication to Boston, which I very much appreciate. However, tucked in between there is an article entitled Mental Muscle. It was literally like this article was written directly to me.

As positive as I try to be, I am the WORST at negative self-talk during a run. I start telling myself its okay to walk, I negotiate my goals, I remind myself of my progress (which could be positive, but I use it as a crutch). There is no earth shattering advice in this article; in fact, most of it is common sense that once I read I though 'Duh, I DO that!" It is the simple matter of bringing the problem to the forefront of my mind and addressing it.

Reading this article has me inspired for tonight's run. I am going to employ a few of their techniques to get over my own mental road blocks and just make it through my goals. I am pretty excited about it actually. All it took was someone calling me out on something that I do quite frequently, and now I know to watch for it.

Have you ever had something like that?  A road block that was seemingly simple, yet it just took someone calling you out to make you confront the issue?

Wish me luck tonight on my run; I am going to beat my mental negativity.

Working my way to fit,

Kati