Harder. Better. Faster. Stronger.

Ok. So I'm not ready to run a marathon. Not even close to running a 5k. But I can tell a difference in my walks. Today I walked around our two neighborhoods. That was about 4.5 miles. I walk every cul-de-sac, dead-ends, every turn and curve. The second part of our neighborhood is so much bigger and so much more torturous that I hate it but suck it up. Thank God for my MP3 player. You've gotta have the right music to keep going and keep up a good speed. I'm trying to push myself so I did a bit more running. I ran up a lot of hills today and pressed on after I reached the top. It wasn't easy and I was breathing hard afterwards, but I did a lot more jogging than I've done before.

When I got home, I used a resistance band to do some arm exercises. Man are those things deceiving! I even managed to squeeze in some ab exercises.

I managed to make it to the gym twice this week. Not fun. Well, the first time I made it I was only 2o minutes into my elliptical run before I was called home for an emergency. Everyone is fine. The second time I made it there I set the timer for 35 minutes. I couldn't do it! I was so so so tired. I cut it down to 20 minutes plus the cool down. I think part of it is that walking outside and walking on a machine are completely different. Each is a challenge in it's own right. The hills in my neighborhood would give a season treadmill runner a run for their money. But I really wouldn't want to run a treadmill.

Anyway, I'm trying to work it out, you know? I try to stay positive and focused, but it can be hard. As much as I say that I don't want to weigh myself, I just can't resist. And the stupid thing says that I gained 4 pounds since I've started this thing! What?! I told my hubby that I want him to hide it from me because all I'm doing is setting myself up for disappointment. I know that I'm making a difference. I know I am. A friend of mine said that there could be many reasons for the suspected weigh gain, including retaining water. I like that idea and that's what I'm sticking with!

I've read that getting enough sleep is very important. I have to agree with that. I stay up too late. When I wake up, I don't feel like doing anything for the whole day! Yesterday I managed to get to bed an hour earlier than normal. Today I woke up ready to take on the world. Getting sleep is key.

I think I'll do my walk again tomorrow and work on some leg exercise and glutes. Wish me well and that my legs don't give out.

Home! This route was about a mile shorter than my walk to home depot yesterday. So i logged about 4 1/2 miles today!

Askd Bart if i should walk or drive to the store to get a newspaper. He said to walk. Whose side is he on anyway?? Got a napsack this time

My Legs!

Because my parents were going out of town, I decided to take the boys over to their house and spend the night so they spend a little time with the grandkids. Since I was at their house and didn't walk around their neighborhood on Friday, I decided to join my mom at the church gym and do the bootcamp that they have at 6 in da morn. I was kind of scared because both my mom and my girl Steph made it sound killer. I won't lie; it was hard. The trainer had us do something called Jenga or something. It reminded me of some Brazilian fighting/dancing. Or you remember Eddie from PlayStation's Tekken? He was always jumping around and kind of break dancing. That's what I felt like. Honestly, it looked easy and the movements weren't too hard on the body, but you were definitely sweating and feeling it.

After that he had us do ab exercises. Yeah, that didn't work for me. My stomach muscles started cramping up. Man that was painful! The instructor told me not to do any more because it would just cramp up again. He was right. After I had stretched it out, I curled into a ball to roll up into a sitting position. That didn't work either. My stomach just cramped up again. So I just stretched it out again and laid there on the floor until class was over.

I felt the exercise for the rest of the day and night. I woke up today planning on resting and not going for a walk. But with some encouragement from Steph and my older sister and after admitting that I ate 3 slices of pizza the night before. So instead of just walking my usual route, I decided at the last minute to go the distance--walking to Home Depot. I needed to go there to get something for the toilet and stop at the bank as well. Well, I made it there and back unharmed, just sore. When I walked into Home Depot, this lady said, with a smile, "I saw you walking!" My sister said that I should have said, "Why didn't you pick me up?" I thought about saying something about how she should have joined me, but she was overweight and that would've sounded mean. When I stopped at the bank, the guy asked if I had walked. Who knows. Maybe I might inspire one person to get moving. My whole trip took a little over 2 hours and a little over 5 miles. I'm proud of myself even though my calves are screaming. I hope No one could smell me in the stores because I smell now!

I tell you one thing: My legs have definitely gotten a workout! I remember when I first started walking earlier this year (it didn't last). When I would walk around the neighborhood and even trying to jog a little, my legs (especially my inner thighs) would start itching like crazy! I would want to rub and scratch them, but I didn't want someone driving by or looking out their window and see me scratching between my legs. What would they have thought?? I looked it up to see what was causing the itching. Turns out that since I had been so inactive for so long, the itching was a result of my nerves and blood vessels that I hadn't used in such a long time trying to work again. How embarrassing is that?? But now that I've been moving and jogging a bit, my legs don't itch anymore. But they are sore.

Now that I'm walking I need to work on other parts, evident by my stomach cramping up after doing some crunches. Hopefully, after church tomorrow, I'll drag myself to the gym and work on some upper body stuff. Wish me well!

Oh, special thanks to my hubby. After working all night and into the morning, he comes home, watches the kids, and lets me take my long walk. Thanks, Honey!

Gotta keep pushing!

Day 3 of walking and I'm trying to push myself. I'm the type of person who quits as soon as the running gets too hard. You've ever watched NBC's show, "The Biggest Loser"? I would drive those trainers crazy because all that yelling and screaming wouldn't get me moving. I have to find it in myself to say, "Ok, Ty, keep running until you reach the next mailbox. Ok, you've reached that. Now keep running until you reach the next bush." And so forth. That's the only way I could keep running. Don't' get me wrong, I didn't run around the whole neighborhood, or even a third of it, but I did run. I even ran up the biggest hill in the neighborhood and a little beyond that. I'm pretty happy with myself.

Yesterday, after talking with my girl, Steph, and watching The Biggest Loser, I decided that I have got to push myself a little bit more. So what I've incorporated into my exercise is to run a type of circuit at home. After I walked around the neighborhood today, I ran up the driveway, did 20 jumping jacks, ran down and back up, did 15 lunges, and ran down and up (barely) and did 20 more jumping jacks. Talk about sweating and breathing heavy! I'm going to try to do that every time I walk and also add some more things like jumping rope, push ups, squats and whatever other form of torture Steph can think of.

I wore my pedometer for the first time today. I got it awhile back but haven't worn it because it was stuck on Kilometers and I don't know how to compute that. Once I found the instructions and got it back to miles, I found out that my walk is just shy of a mile! All of that work, huffing and puffing and I haven't even walked a mile. UGH! So now I've gotta kick it up a notch and go walking in the other part of the neighborhood. But I'm not too upset. A mile is a good place to start. I can't expect to walk 5 miles on the first day. So for my next walk, who knows how far I'll go or where I'll end up. I just don't want to get too far and have to call my hubby and tell him, "Honey, pack up the kids in the van and come and get me!"

I don't always watch The Biggest Loser, but these people are inspiring. They make me want to cry during most of the show. Like the Biggest Loser, I'm thinking of taking some pictures in my sports bra and shorts and publishing them on my blog. Not sure if I want the whole world (whoever does read this blog) to see all my rolls and such. I'll take the pictures before there's any change so at least I'll have them as a reference even if I don't publish them. I've also decided not to get on the scale very often either. I got on it recently and was very disappointed. I shouldn't have been surprised because I hadn't worked out in a week or so, but it still hurt my feelings. I'll just wait until I feel a difference in my clothes, then maybe I'll step on the scale.

Oh well, keep pushing y'all.

Busy busy little bee

Man, have I been busy this past week. I'm so tired from staying up late and waking up early to bake and decorate cakes and rushing around like crazy to get things done. Everything has been finished since Saturday, but I'm still recovering.

I had so many cakes to make. I had to make a cake for class, and a sample cake for a lady, a cake for my uncle's 50th birthday and a cake for my friend's husbands 34th birthday. I don't know if I waited too late to get started or just didn't realize the massive undertaking of the projects. My Aunt G wanted to specific cake. It was a chocolate 12x12 cube with chocolate filling in the center and four layers. That cake was huge and heavy! Then we thought it would be neat to cut the cake into 4x4 pieces and make 9 cubes. How crazy was I to think that would be easy? I had to cover each cake with chocolate buttercream and then lime green fondant. Try doing that 9 times! No regrets because it was a big hit! My parents took it all the way to Virginia for the party. My aunt said that my uncle actually wore his lime green shirt without having ever seen the cake. You know everyone picked on him for matching the cake. The cube has something to do with an architecture lesson that I guess just about every architect has to learn and that my uncle has taught to his students. We realized later that the 9 cubes also had a special meaning because there are 9 siblings. But can you imagine this huge lime green cake with 50 blazing candles on it? I'm waiting for pictures so I can see how it looked.

I finished my uncle's cake at 1am Saturday morning. Then I had to do a specialty cake for a good friend's 34th birthday party at 4pm on Saturday. Talk about trying not to stress out! Thankfully I had already baked the cake, but then I decided that it needed one more layer that morning so I had to bake a whole other cake before breakfast! Thankfully, I had other things to do and get ready while I waited for the cake to bake and cool. This cake came out really awesome. It was a dark blue poker chip with the #34 in the center and and the suits (heart/spade/club/diamond) going around in a circle. It was covered in bark blue fondant and the numbers and suits were made out of white chocolate. I'm surprised that I finished it with time to spare. Everyone loved how the cake turned ou.t And you know I passed out business cards. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home (kicking myself), so I'm waiting for pictures to be sent to me.

I'm happy how things turned out this past week. I had fun and made a little bit of money at the same time. Is baking my future? I don't know, but I'm having fun while I'm at it.

I've been so busy that it's been about a week since I did any exercise. So today I went for a walk around the neighborhood the really long way. I try to walk/jog every street that I come to. We have a lot of cul-de-sacs and I make sure i go in those too. I often see early in the morning (before I'm even thinking about going for a walk) this skinny-minnie jogging. Now good for her, but here's my problem with her: she's running down hill! Our neighborhood is extremely hilly. If you turn right out of my driveway, you'll climb up the steep hills and go down some slopes. If you turn left, then you are going down the big hills and climbing some little slopes. I always turn right even though I'm not in the best of shape, but it makes sense to me to go that way to get the most challenge. And every day there goes skinny-minnie jogging down the big hills. Doesn't make sense to me. I'll just keep dragging myself up the big hills until one day I can run up them and run past her as she jogs down the hill!

That first week that I did stick to exercising I could feel a difference in my clothes and my "baby belly." But it's hard for me to stick with it. After one week I'm not a size 8 yet?! I've gotta work on patience, you think? Can't I have instant gratification and be fine after one week? No? Not fair.

I had 1/2 a sand wrap, 1/2 an apple n sum pretzels. Man am i stuffed!! Gave Dylan the other half of everything and he ate it all and wanted more. This is my attempt at eating healthy. Now I've gotta figure out what to eat for dinner. I need to make a menu for the week to help keep me on track instead of breaking out the Hamburger Helper.