Day 2

I'm too exhausted tonight to write much, but I took some great pictures that I wanted to share. We went to the Smoky Mountain National Park today as I mentioned in an earlier post, these are some shots I got.

Tonight for dinner we decided to stay at the cabin and cook out on the grill. I was pretty nervous after seeing the 4 bears earlier this evening on the back porch but they decided not to join us for dinner thankfully. We made: BBQ chicken breasts, grilled mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and pineapple, creamed corn and leftover rolls from the steak place last night. It was delish! It was just exactly what I wanted and it was much cheaper and more nutritional than going out to eat.

After dinner I was craving something sweet so we drove down the mountain to Downtown Gatlinburg to find something to satisfy my craving. There were all kinds of fudge shops, ice cream shops, candy stores, and bakeries. I almost decided on a funnel cake, but at the last minute I changed my mind and we ended up at Ben & Jerrys. I've been craving pumpkin lately and Ben & Jerrys had Pumpkin Cheesecake Icecream.

It was heavenly! Now if I could just figure out a way to make myself not feel guilty for eating it. I keep going back and forth through my mind between "You are on vacation, relax! You can work it off next week" and "You don't need that and you are not hungry. Have you learned nothing?" I wish I could find a better balance.

I still haven't found any good running spots. I guess I'm gonna be doing some trips up and down the staircase tomorrow to get my cardio in if I don't figure out something quickly. I'd really hate to miss my long run for the week on Sunday, but if I can't find a place that I can safely run with a baby stroller then I'm just gonna have to put it off until I get back home.

But for now ... I'm going to retire to the bedroom with a good book. Goodnight!

Bears!

Hot Tub + Sangria = Heaven.

Seeing 4 bears where you were just relaxing with your Sangria = super scary but super cool.

I had just gotten out of the hot tub and was drying off when I looked up and saw that! A momma bear and her 3 babies. They came really close to the porch and I was able to get a few decent pictures.

We went to The Smoky Mountain National Park today. We were planning on riding our bikes around Cade's Cove, running our 3 miles for our 1/2 Marathon Training and having a picnic in the park. Things didn't work out exactly as I had planned though. Turns out the road around Cade's Cove where bicycles are allowed is very narrow and its also a road shared with cars ... very slow moving cars. There is no way we could have had fun biking around at 2 mph pulling Lincoln in the bike trailer. It also wasn't a very good place to run for the same reason.

We ended up driving through the park and then heading to the picnic area. We ran laps around the picnic area to complete our 3 miles. I have to say that I was very disappointed. I really thought there were going to be lots of great places for biking and running in the park. I felt like everyone was staring at me the entire time I was running and it was really awkward and uncomfortable. I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow when I have another 3 miles to run and then 7 miles on Sunday. We aren't having much luck finding any runner friendly places around here, I'm sure there are some ... I just don't know where to look.

What do you do to find places to run when you are out of town?

Vacation Day 1 - Done!

Tim and I woke up early yesterday morning at 4:30 am to get ready to leave for our Gatlinburg vacation. I wanted to leave home at 6:00 am, but of course nothing is ever on time when you have a baby. We didn't end up leaving until a little after 7:00, but who's counting?

The trip was suppose to take about 6-7 hours driving time, but I knew we would have to make fairly frequent stops to let Lincoln stretch his legs. The last time we tried to travel with him was to Destin, FL (only 4 hours) and he screamed a good portion of the way. I decided this time that no matter what happened I was going to make a conscious effort to be patient with him even if it took us 10 hours to drive.

I could not have been more impressed with the way the trip went. Lincoln slept for the first 2 hours of the trip, then we stopped for snacks and a bathroom break. Luckily we brought our secret weapon that we swore before we were parents we would never have ... a DVD player in the car. With that he was entertained until lunch time.

I really wanted to stop somewhere new and exciting for lunch that I had never been before. But hunger hit me hard and fast and the only thing nearby was Cracker Barrel. I ordered grilled chicken fingers, green beans, whole kernel corn and sweet potato casserole.

Excuse the hair, it was raining.

After lunch Lincoln fell back asleep and slept all the way to Knoxville, only an hour from the cabin. I took some random pictures on the way down out of boredom. Here are a couple shots of the pretty fall colors on the way and our first view of the mountains in the distance.

We finally found the way to the cabin thanks to TomTom our GPS navigation system. I was absolutely in love. I started getting worried on the way up the mountain because there were some pretty shabby looking cabins around, but there were some really nice ones as well. I didn't get any pics of the outside, but here are a few of the inside.

After getting settled in we spent a few minutes in the hot tub, and then got ready and decided on where to go for dinner. We chose The Peddler Steakhouse. It was rated the #1 place to eat in Gatlinburg so we thought we'd give it a try.

Tim and I both ordered the Blackened Tuna with Hollandaise sauce, and I got sauteed mushrooms as my side item. All entrees come with unlimited trips to their enormous salad bar and a basket of yeast rolls. We ordered a bottle of Kendall Jackson Pinot Noir to help us relax after a long day in the car.

I ordered my tuna medium rare and it was more like medium well, but it had good flavor and the salad bar, mushrooms, and wine made up for what the tuna was lacking. I also stole Lincoln's tartar sauce and it was HEAVENLY on the tuna. I've never had tartar sauce that tasted so good!

Unfortunately Tim and I ended up eating most of our meal alone because Lincoln was exhausted and finally had the meltdown I anticipated all day. While one of us ate the other walked him around the restaurant. A waitress (not ours) saw that we were having a really hard time and she came over and offered to walk with him while we enjoyed our dinner. Normally I would never let someone do that, but I was tired, frustrated and hungry and it sounded like a great idea at the time. We were able to finish up our meal and enjoy our wine. We really appreciated her help!

Today we are going to the Smoky Mountain National Park for a picnic, bike riding and my scheduled 3 mile run.

What's Going On?

I don't know what the deal is lately, but I have completely lost my willpower when it comes to eating. Thankfully so far it hasn't caught up with me on the scale yet, but I'm sure my day is coming. Lately I have been eating anything and everything in sight, especially at work. I was doing so good at being strong and resisting temptation but all of a sudden I've been chowing down on cookie cake, Halloween candy, Chex Mix (OMFG the Chex Mix!!), and pretty much anything else I can get my hands on. I wish I knew what the problem was.

I wonder if I'm subconsciously sabotaging myself because I'm so close to my goal. Hmmm ...

Thankfully I've still been doing great on exercising. The 1/2 Marathon training program is going great so far. Today I did another 4 mile Fartlek, actually it was really only about 3 miles of Fartlek and 1 mile of easy running. I cut myself a break on that one though because I feel mentally and physically exhausted from some situations that I have been dealing with the last couple of days and not sleeping well, and I know thats why I tired out in my run so quickly.

The good news is that fall vacation begins NOW! Tomorrow we will be packing and preparing for our trip to the mountains. I couldn't be more excited! I can't wait to relax in the hottub with a glass (or bottle) of wine, picnic in the Smoky Mountain National Park, run in the mountains, grill out, and just spend time with my family without any other worries.

I don't have any food pics today so I'll leave you with this picture of my son and I snoozing in his crib together. Isn't he the cutest thing you ever saw? I love that boy!

Freaked Out About Maintenance.

I cheated and weighed myself this morning even though my weigh-in day isn't until Monday. If what I weighed today sticks around I'm only going to be about 5 or 6 pounds away from my goal weight. You'd think I'd be ridiculously happy about that, and I am in a way, but I'm pretty freaked out and a little scared too.

I've never in my life maintained my weight. I've either been losing weight or gaining weight as long as I can remember. I don't know how to do anything else! I'm curious about how much I'll be able to eat on my maintenance program. I don't want to slack off on my exercise, I'd much rather just eat more!

Most likely it will be a few more weeks until I have to worry about how its all going to work though because next week I'm going on vacation. I'm not planning on being super strict about what I eat while I'm on vacation, but I'm hopefully not going to blow myself out of the water either. I'm planning on staying on track with my half-marathon training while I'm gone also. I hope there will be some great scenic places to run up in the mountains.

So far my eats today have included:

Chobani Strawberry Greek Yogurt with Kashi Crunch cereal.

A ham sandwhich on Arnold's Sandwhich Thins with Laughing Cow cheese, sprouts, onions, lettuce and mustard. Stacy's Simply Naked Bagel chips, and baby carrots.

I also snacked on some Chex Mix (I'm telling you, I'm addicted!), a Gala apple and a Homemade Clif Bar that Tim made (more on that later). Tonight for dinner we are having Pork Tenderloin and some undetermined vegetables.

Getting Excited About Vacation!

I'm starting to get really excited about our Gatlinburg vacation! Only 28 more days to go. I have a countdown calender on my google homepage. We paid the last of our money today for our cabin rental. Here are some pictures of where we will be staying.

I love cozy little cabins. I'm super excited about having our own private hottub also. That will be nice after running up in the mountains. I can't decide if I want to make plans for what I want to do and see each day while we are there or if I want to relax and just do whatever comes up. Knowing me I'll end up planning out every minute of the time that we will be there.

I just finished up my last workday for this week, and now I'm off for 8 glorious days! I love having an 8 day break every 4 weeks. It just hit me that I have a 5K in 3 days. This one is probably going to be a bit different from the last one I did. The course is suppose to have a few pretty steep hills, so I doubt I'll be setting any personal records this time, but you never know. I need to get started on working on my playlist. There are certain songs like I like to listen to when I'm running hills.

What are some of your favorite songs to run to?

Loving my Bike Rack!

I bought a bike rack this week from Amazon, and it came in yesterday. Tim set it up for us this morning. I love it! It seems really sturdy and stable. It will actually hold 4 bikes even though we only have 2 right now. He drove around for a few minutes with our bikes attached and said that the rack didn't move or sway at all.

We are going out of town this weekend to visit my family in south Alabama. It will be my niece's 5th birthday, so we are going to celebrate. My family lives way out in the country on a dirt road and there are great places to hike, bike and run. I'm really excited! Usually when we go to visit I get bored very quickly because I've always been an indoorsy person. I don't know too many fat people that like to get outside and do much. But now I'm really looking forward to exploring new things to do on our trip.

We are also planning on taking our bikes when we go to Gatlinburg in 61 days, 19 hours, and 8 minutes ... give or take. I think we are really going to get alot of use out of the bike rack and the bike trailer that we bought for Lincoln.

I'll post some pictures of our trip when we get home tomorrow night. I'm planning on doing some fishing, grilling out, spending time with my niece and nephew, and of course biking and running.

Vacation!

Daily Activity: Spinning (x2) 7.5 APs

Its official! Tim and I booked our fall vacation today. We are going to Gatlinburg, TN in October for 5 days and 4 nights. I'm very excited to be going on vacation for the second time this year. When I was a kid my family always went on two vacations a year: the beach in the summer for a week and the mountains in the fall or winter. I really want to start similar traditions for our son, Lincoln.

Tim and I have been married for 7 1/2 years and we haven't been on any real vacations at all since our Puerto Rico honeymoon. One of the main reasons for this is because I never wanted to go anywhere because I was so embarassed about my weight and the way I looked. I definitely never wanted to go to the beach and be seen in a swimsuit. We went to Six Flags once and Tim at that time weighed about 350 pounds and couldn't fit on most of the rides, so I rode everything by myself. He was embarassed and I was lonely. It wasn't a good time for either of us.

Now that we have lost a significant amount of weight, I'm feeling alot more energy and desire to go out and live life to the fullest.

I normally don't like to say "I want to lose x amount of weight in y amount of time" because I don't like setting time limits on my weightloss, but I think I might make an exception for our mountain trip to help keep me motivated. I'd like to lose 1.5 pounds per week between now and when we leave for our vacation on October 29th. That would put me at 158 lbs by that date. That seems so small! That would also put me just over 100 pounds of weight lost. I'm going for it!