Back on Track and The Best Dinner EVER!

This morning I woke up and hopped on the scale to assess the damage I've done recently, and it was definitely as bad if not worse than I thought it would be. I gained 9 (yes, nine) pounds! Normally I would cut myself a little slack and chalk it up to being on vacation, but lets face it ... I was only on vacation for 4 days. There is no way I should have ever let 9 pound slip back on in 4 days! I think the bigger problem is that I temporarily lost my motivation as I discussed here.

The good news is that I had time to reflect on what was going on, and made a recommitment to myself. Sometimes I think that its necessary to backslide in order to ultimately keep moving in the right direction and not lose focus. Sometimes you just need a break! Whether it be from counting points, exercise, weighing and measuring food ... whatever the case may be. I came back from this hiatus with a brand new attitude and an excitement that I haven't had in a while.

The excitement came at a good time because I decided that today I would make up for my long run that I missed on Sunday. 7 miles! I've done 7 miles (and even 8) before, but its been a while and I wasn't sure how I'd do after such an off track week. I did really well though, I'm not saying it was easy but it was a good feeling to get back out there. My iPod died during my 2nd mile and that was a bummer, but after a little while I got used to listening to myself breathe and got caught up in my thoughts. It actually turned out kinda nice to not have the music. I compared my run time today to my previous 7 mile run and was very surprised to see that I beat my time by a full 6 minutes!

My splits for today were:

Mile 1 - 8:46
Mile 2 - 8:49
Mile 3 - 9:00
Mile 4 - 8:56
Mile 5 - 8:57
Mile 6 - 9:01
Mile 7 - 8:52

After our run we ate lunch at Roly Poly. I ordered a small Ultimate Veggie wrap with hummus instead of ranch dressing and a bag of Baked Lays. It was yummalish and very low in points!

Tim and I decided to let the little man spend the night at his grandma's house tonight so that we could have a little break and some time together at home alone. I wanted to cook something special tonight that I haven't made before. I browsed the internet for a while looking for something that seemed right, and then I remember the Eggplant Spinach Stacks that my fellow blogger Allison from Balance in Bites post a few days ago. I've been salivating over these since the day she posted them, so I thought this might be the perfect opportunity.

I went to the grocery store and got all the ingredients, plus stuff to make roasted fingerling potatoes and Proscuitto Wrapped Asparagus. I must say this was the best dinner I've made in a very long time if not ever.

I used goat cheese on both the Eggplant stacks and in the asparagus instead of the feta and cream cheese that was suggested. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for goat cheese and I'll fit it in wherever I can get it. The eggplant was the clear winner, but I have to say that the asparagus bundles were quite divine as well!

My husband would probably divorce me if I didn't show the picture of the eggplant that he picked out. Lets just say, it was happy to see us. My husband especially found it quite amusing.

And on that note, I think I'll say goodnight!

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.

Last Weigh-In Day Post

I have decided that after today I'm not going to post my weight every week. I feel like the scale doesn't always reflect the work that I've done and I don't want anyone (including myself) to get discouraged by that. I've been bouncing up and down alot lately, and rather than focus on the ups and downs of the scale I would rather focus on my nutrition and activity.

The bottom line is that I have lost 100 pounds! Whether I gain a pound this week, or lose 3 pounds next week really doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. The important thing is that I'm active and healthy and that the scale continues to ultimately go in a downward direction. I have about 15-20 more pounds to lose and that might take me 6 weeks or 6 months. Who knows? I'll definitely let you know when I hit my goal weight though. I will also continue to update my weight tracker at the top of the page.

So ... for my final weigh-in post, I gained 0.4 lbs this week. I'm not surprised at all by this, if anything I'm surprised it wasn't more than that. I did ok on my activity this week, but I had a couple of rough days with my eating.

I've been thinking about training for a half-marathon. A friend of mine gave me this article out of a magazine that she found. The only problem I have with this training program is that it seems pretty strict. Because of my odd work schedule I won't always be able to do everything as its posted here. I think I could probably use this as a basis for creating my own custom training program though that would fit my work schedule better.

What do you think of this plan? Do you know of any other training programs that might be better? Would it be reasonable for me to change this around to comply with my work schedule better?

I Cheated.

This morning I woke up at about 6:15 for my morning run. When I was changing clothes I decided to hop on the scale. I really try to only weigh myself once a week, but I was feeling particularly light this morning so I decided to cheat.

The scale read: 158.2!!!

That means I have unofficially lost 101.8 pounds. Of course we won't know the official results until Monday, but I'm so excited! Lets hope it sticks!

I had a decent 5 mile run this morning. My iPod stopped working right at the halfway point, and I happened to be right beside my car at the time. It would have been easy to just stop right then, but I forced myself to keep going. Its hard for me to run without music.... I just feel heavier, slower, and I concentrate too much on my fast breathing and my pounding heart when I don't have my music. Also my shorts kept slipping down. I guess thats what I get for running in clothes that are 2 sizes too big.

I'm getting ready to head to Birmingham (2 hour drive) to visit my BFF that I haven't seen since March (and 58 pounds ago). This should be interesting!