Rate My Week! April 19-25 and Enough With the Oreos and 100 Pushups!

How's that for a super long, yet meaningless blog post title?!?!

First, Rate My Week - last week wasn't super duper as far as exercise and eating went. But (and this is BIG!), I went to Ohio to meet up with some of the PSF's (I had never met any of them in person - just online)!

I got in two good runs. Matt and I got up at o'dark thirty (okay, not that early) and ran on Thursday morning. Who doesn't love a 5:00 a.m. run?!? It was so nice to get back out in the morning. Running in the early a.m. is great for us because we can get our runs in and not have to worry about trying to schedule it later in the day. Also, on Saturday, Laura and I (I LOVE Laura - she is just AWESOME!) went for a great walk/run in the park near Pam's house. It was a really, really nice park and I had a great chat with Laura.

As far as eating went, I did okay - did fine on my veggies and kept the Oreos to a minimum, so that was good.

I'm rating my week of April 19 to 25 as an 8.

Next, Enough with the damn Oreos already! I have quit eating chocolate (chocolate candy: little morsels of heaven wrapped in foil). I stopped eating candy about a month and a half ago. But, in its place, I've taken a serious liking to Golden Oreos with Chocolate Cream Filling. Yum! I try to keep that dirty little habit in check, but sometimes . . . I have never looked at the calorie count for those little devils. Frankly, I didn't want to know. But, yesterday I looked! I shouldn't have. It was not good. 3 of those little cookies = 170 calories. As Alie would say "What a rip off!" or "That's cheap!". She'd definitely be right in this case.

So, I will hence begin rationing the Oreos. I'm going to buy some (no, I cannot go cold turkey) and put 3 cookies in a zip bag as my DOA (that's Daily Oreo Allowance, hopefully not Dead on Arrival). I am also thinking (but, I'll have to do this when Matt isn't around - he'd think I'm even more of a loon than he thinks I am already) about cutting each cookie into quarters.

Lastly, 100 Pushups!

I found this site: www.hundredpushups.com and decided to take up the challenge. It's only 6 weeks! I thought it would be fun for me and Matt to try it together, but I think he's gonna bail, so I'm in it alone. That's okay. I can certainly use some upper body strength and this is not a time consuming challenge. I'll take the baseline test this weekend and hit the floor on Monday!

Hoping to report good progress on the DOA and the 100 Pushups next week!

Rate My Weeks - April 5 - 11 and April 12 - 18

I've been so busy this month! April is a busy month for me at work (quarter-end reports, tax time and extra quarter-end work to be done), it's Alie's birthday month and to add to all of the "regular" April busyness, I've been up to my neck in soccer paperwork and preparations for the Spring season.

Needless to say, I'm behind on rating my weeks. So, for the week of April 5-11, I'm rating my week a 7. I did have three runs, but two of them were a struggle. I'm finding that my weekend runs are just better than weekday runs. I think because I can go early in the morning on weekends and I'm not as pressed for time as I am during the week. I didn't lose any weight, but I didn't gain, either.

For the week of April 12 - 18, I'm rating my week a 7.5. I ran 4 times last week, but only one run was more than 40 minutes (Saturday, 4/18 I ran for 50 minutes - a good run!). No weight loss last week, either, but no gain, so I'm as happy as I could be.

The first soccer game is now behind us - Colby's team won and Alie's team did as well. So, I'm now seeing the fruits of my paperwork labor.

I'm off to visit Pam and the other PSF's at the end of this week, and I'm sooo looking forward to it! It's going to be tough covering my mom duties while I'm gone (I'll miss the kids' soccer games on Sunday and a soccer fundraiser event on Saturday), but Matt will muddle through. Really, I'll work out logistics before I'm gone and have other moms help me out a bit with transporting the kids for me.

My goals for the weeks ahead as far as exercise and health goes are:

1) Continue with the health eating. I'm getting 4-5 fruits and veggies everyday and I'm so happy about that. Other than a few oreos, I'm not eating chocolate or much junk food at all. Also happy about that.

2) Find a way to get more exercise. I've been watching some fitness shows and really reading my fitness mags and I'm just not getting enough exercise to really blast fat and calories. I need to double (at least) my weekly exercise minutes. I'm hoping that when the weather gets warmer (maybe as soon as the beginning of May), Matt and I will be able to start running in the morning again. But, I can't let that be an excuse for me to not increase my exercise minutes right now.

Hoping this week is good for me - the kids are on vacation this week and I've got to get my stuff ready for my girls' weekend at Pam's!

Rate my Week! March 29 - April 4

It's Monday. Time to check in and see how I did last week.

Drum roll please . . . I'm giving last week an 8.

I didn't run as frequently as I would have liked - only three runs and a speedwork session with Colby. But, if you're a 7 year-old, you don't call it speedwork, you call it racing mom! We raced, it was fun. He beat me in every heat.

But, when I did my regular runs this week, I did reach a milestone - a pretty lofty one for me that suddenly became easily attainable. Hard to explain, but I reached my goal of doing a five mile run. I had set that goal for the end of April and I reached it in the first week of the month. Yay! So, all of my runs from now on should be at least 5 miles (my run yesterday was).

Oh, and I lost 1 pound this week! And, I still ate all of the golden oreos with chocolate creme filling that I wanted to ;)

This week, I'm hoping to get in at least 3 (hopefully 4) good runs and we may start soccer practices for Alie's team as well. That should be good exercise for all of us!

Dawn's Color Challenge - #2

I missed participating in Dawn's first color challenge, but here's my card for her second color challenge.

Here it is. I'm not thrilled with it, but here it is anyway.

Supplies: Cardstock - PaperTrey Ink Spring Moss, Dark Chocolate and White, SU! Taken with Teal. Punches - Martha Stewart border and butterfly. Cuttlebug Embossing folder and border embossing folder. Stamps - flowers: Inkadinkadoo; sentiment (I can't remember). Ribbon - PapterTrey Ink Spring Moss. Bling - Amuse.

YOU Help Keep Me Motivated!!

You do! Your words of encouragement help more than you know. Really.

I'm not an attention-getter type of girl. I like being bland, blending in, not being in the spotlight and not being memorable. So, when I'm running, I try to "zone out" and not really pay attention to what's going on around me. The less I look at the cars going by, the happier I am. I get a lot of comments from people like "I saw you out running!" Yeah, I bet you did. But I didn't see you. I try not to see anyone.

Lastnight, I think everyone I knew was out. SIL drove by and beeped the horn, several neighbors were on their way home from work when I was out, and another neighbor's son was litterally hanging out of the truck window when they drove by me - laying on the horn, yelling words of encouragement to me. I gotta admit, it made me smile. And, pick up my pace a little. Who wants to look like their dying when the neighbors drive by?!?

Which gets me back to all of you. Your comments here, via e-mail and on SCS make me smile. Your words mean so much to me and I'm thankful and grateful for you all.

Thank you for your kind words. They mean so much and they definitely keep me going.

Oh, and I am defintely going to post my card for Dawn's color challenge. I just can't seem to get it photographed. I'll get there - eventually.

Rate My Week! March 22-28

It's Sunday! A new week, so time to Rate my Week for last week. It was a good one! I got in 4 good runs (yesterday's was almost 5 miles!) plus another session on the elliptical (total butt kicking - in a good way). Three of my runs were just plain great - even the hills didn't seem so bad. Only one run felt like more of a struggle - mostly because I struggled with my route. Oh, and I dropped 2 pounds! I did have a migraine, but I was able to keep it at bay so it wasn't so bad.

All in all, it was a very good week! I'm givin' it an 8.5!!

Next week, my goals are to continue with good food choices - more veggies - and add upper body workouts on my non running days. I'm pretty sure I can get to 5 miles in a run in the next week or so, but I won't push that one. It'll happen when it happens.

Also, I made a card for Dawn's color challenge. Maybe I'll even get that posted today. We'll see.

Rate My Week! March 15-21 and Advice from the Wolfe Brothers

In an effort to improve my all-around health, at the beginning of each week I've decided to stop and take stock of how I've done the previous week. I'll use a scale of 1-10 to rate how healthy I think my week was.

It's Monday March 23, so I'm going to rate my week for March 15-21. I'll give last week a 7.5 (I couldn't go with an 8 - wouldn't leave me much room for improvement - and my week was better than a 7. How's that for reasoning? ;)

I did get in 4 good runs, I tried to increase my intake of veggies, and I had very little chocolate. I did consume too many Golden Oreos with Chocolate Cream Filling, but I did need to indulge somehow.

The scale slid just a bit - a good thing. Any decline is good for me.

Okay, so March 15-21 is a 7.5 on the Healthy Scale.

Now, some advice from my Brothers-in-law. Two very different conversations on two very diverse topics: running and religion.

First, the condensed version of my conversation with Brother Doug - who came up with a simplified view of mankind some 15 years ago during an evening of induldging in some spirits with friends. Doug's view revolves around being a "LCHB": Loving, Caring Human Being. Doug's views are that if everyone simply acted as a Loving, Caring Human Being, the world would be a better place in general. I agree. Enough said. (Sorry, I'm not going to go into how this came up during our conversation about organized religion. I don't want to debate religion, defend my views - or lack thereof - or attack anyone else's views on the subject).

On to Brother Steve's advice about running. First, a bit of background on Steve. He's a runner. Has been for many, many years. If it involves running, he's done it: Boston Marathon (more than once), Ultra Marathons, Ultra Relays, Triathalons, snowshoe racing, you get the idea.

Well, during a chat this weekend, it came up in conversation how much I'm running. Not how far, but for how long. Steve told me and Matt that if we're not running for at least 30 minutes (and that's the bottom of the barrel minimum), it's not worth our time to even go out. I agree, in theory, so long as it's not 15 degrees with snow, ice and wind. In good weather, I agree whole-heartedly.

So, I've taken Steve's advice as a personal challenge - no more 28 minute runs for me! Steve told me that 40-45 is good for me. I'll go with that. It'll be at least 40 minutes for me from now on. Thanks, Steve!

Okay, back to eating my baby carrots. Shooting for an "8" this week! ;)