100th Post!

I just realized today that I had written 99 posts so far, so this makes number 100!

We finally made it home from Gatlinburg. We left at 9:30 am and arrived home at 9:10 pm. I packed a big picnic lunch before we left the cabin this morning so we wouldn't have to spend any extra money eating out on the way home. We started getting really hungry about 11:45 and decided to stop at the next rest area to eat. When we finally saw a rest area sign it said CLOSED. There was nowhere else in close proximity to stop so we ended up eating our picnic lunch on the side off the hood of my car on the side of the road.

We decided to stop in Birmingham and visit for a while with my best friend, Vanessa, and give Lincoln a chance to play and stretch his legs. Vanessa has a son that is only 6 weeks older than Lincoln. We all ate dinner at my most favorite restaurant ever, Surin West. I had decided this morning that I was back on track 100% with my eating plan, but that went out the window as soon as I decided on Surin West for dinner. I could have definitely stayed on track, but as I mentioned before it is my most favorite restaurant of all time. I only get to eat there maybe once or twice a year. I ordered Surin baskets for an appetizer and Chicken Masaman with Avacado for my entree. It was divine as usual.

I was planning on going straight to bed as soon as we got home tonight (I actually fell asleep in the car). But when we finally got home I remembered that I had recorded the NY Marathon yesterday and I've been dying to watch it. It was absolutely inspiring! I don't know that I could ever be a marathoner, but I would have never thought I would have been able to run as far as I can now or that I would have ever lost over 100 pounds, so who knows?! Maybe one day!

I was so happy for the American that won for the first time in over 20 years. It was amazing to watch! I felt so bad for the British woman who was the favorite to win because she had some kind of hamstring injury and ended up finishing 4th. As soon as she crossed the finish line she grabbed her left leg and started crying. You could tell that something was wrong because she was so far behind the leader, but you couldn't tell from watching her run that her leg was hurting as bad as it was. I can't imagine running through that kind of pain. She never gave up though.

Anyway ... I'm headed to bed. Tomorrow is "get back on track" day. For real this time. LOL
Have a good night!

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?

Callaway Gardens Trip

We got up early yesterday morning to drive to Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia to spend the day. It was about a 2 hour drive, but it went by really fast. I haven't been to Callaway since I was a small kid so I really didn't remember anything about it, but I saw on the website that they had a 10 mile bike trail that I wanted to try.

It was almost lunch time by the time we got to Callaway, so we decided to eat at one of their restaurants in the gardens. I was really hoping it would be a nice little deli type place, but they only had just a very few items on the menu. Hamburgers, hotdogs, paninis, french fries ... things like that. They did have veggie burgers and veggie hotdogs, but I didn't know what kind they would be. So I ordered what I thought was probably the healthiest thing there.

After lunch we got our bikes all set up and cruised around the park for a while. We never could find the beginning of the bike trail, but we managed to get on it somewhere in the middle and just rode around to the different attractions.

We ended up riding just under 13 miles for the day. It was great! Lincoln was really good riding in his trailer behind my bike and he slept alot of the time. We stopped at the Butterfly Gardens and the Vegetable Gardens. I wanted to go see the chapel, but every time we rode by Lincoln was asleep. My favorite thing was the sundial, I was suprised at how accurate it was.

We left Callaway when they closed and headed back home. I was starving after riding so much on the bike, so we stopped for dinner at Mimi's Cafe. I went in planning to eat something light and healthy, but somewhere along the line one thing turned into another and I ended up with: a steak, potato, salad, bread, 2 beers, and dessert. For dessert I had the sampler thingy with bread pudding, a brownie and apple crisp.

I literally felt sick. I haven't felt that bad after I've eaten in a really long time. I can't believe I used to do that to myself pretty much every single day. And why I chose to do it the night before weigh-in is beyond me. Thankfully I was still down this morning when I weighed in, but not as much as I was the other day when I cheated. I weighed in at 159.8, putting me at 100.2 lbs lost!

My Trip

After my run this morning I got ready and headed to Birmingham (my hometown) to see my best friend, Vanessa and her son, Jackson. Its about a 2 hour drive from where we live now. The weather was really nice and Lincoln slept almost the entire way, so it was a peaceful trip.

We hung around at her house for a couple of hours and let the boys play together. They played very sweetly and had a great time. Then we decided they both really needed haircuts and I wanted an excuse to buy a new purse so we headed out to go shopping.

Lincoln did really good for his haircut and afterwards he got a Dum-dum.

After haircuts and shopping we went back to Vanessa's house to pack up and take a few pictures before heading home.

Lincoln fell asleep in the car and slept about half of the way home, and then the gates of hell broke open and he screamed the rest of the way home. But it was all ok, because when I walked in the door my sweet hubby had this lovely dinner waiting on me.

Melissa D'Arabian's North African Meatballs, Couscous with chopped dates and steamed baby carrots. I've been promising to make this dinner for weeks now, but he knew it would be really late when I got home so he made it for me. Wasn't that sweet? I really liked the meatballs, but I'm not sure about the couscous. I've never eaten it before, and although it tasted good ... it had a strange texture that I didn't much care for.

Tomorrow morning we are getting up early to go to Callaway Gardens. I've never been there before but they have a 10 mile bike trail that I would love to ride. Hopefully I'll get some great pictures of all the flowers and the butterfly garden.

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!