This was Week 4, D1 of the Bridge to 10K program which called for 8 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking x 4.  At first I thought it was x 5 and I was dreading it because that would’ve been a pretty big jump from 5 + 1 x 5.  This was still tough though. Between the 2nd and 3rd and 3rd and 4th intervals I walked for 2 minutes instead of one.

I tried to use the lap button to record the avg. pace for each interval and each walking break, but I think I got confused at the end about whether I had pressed it or not.

Here’s what I’ve got:

• Interval 1: 11:16
• Interval 2: 11:23
• Interval 3: 11:19
• Interval 4: 11:09

Yay! I had a negative split!   While I may have lost a lot of my speed, at least I’m consistent.  I’ve got 2 months until the race, so hopefully the more I train the better my speed will get.  I don’t really plan on doing speed workouts right now.  I think that would be a recipe for injury on top of the weekly increases in time/distance.

Question: How does your body feel after a run when you’re increasing mileage?  I am SO tired after runs!  And I’m only doing like 2.5 -3 miles right now.   MY whole body aches, especially my legs.  I stretched really well afterwards, soaked in a hot bath when I got home and had Josh use The Stick on me.  I had to sleep with a pillow between my legs because they were so achy. Is this normal?

I got up this morning hoping the weather would be bad enough to have an excuse to work from home, but it was a no-go.  It was pretty windy, but barely raining.  In fact, it’s supposed to be sunny and in the 90′s by this afternoon.

I started off the morning with a Green Monster.  This is basically my healthier remake of Starbuck’s Chocolate Chip frappucino.

• 1/2 c. skim milk (or non dairy substitute)
• 1 scoop of Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Spirutein protein powder
• 1 tsp Maca Powder
• 1/4 c. 0% plain Greek yogurt
• 1 TBS of Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter
• NEW! 1/2 serving of semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Ice
• Lots of spinach

I used yesterday’s Powerade bottle for my smoothie.  Now THAT’S a recovery drink!

Back to work!

Talk to you later.

It’s time for me to hit the hay so I’ll leave you with this…

Miso Soup

One piece of Josh’s KDH roll

My dinner box with steamed rice, tempura vegetables, 3 pieces of California roll, fried tofu (yum!), and a salad with ginger dressing.

Click to enlarge

Assuming Earl doesn’t do much of anything, I’ll be back tomorrow with my run recap. 

This morning I had a breakfast of two organic WW flax waffles and one egg cooked in the microwave.

Mid-morning I had a few organic gummy bears.  I was in a super big hurry this morning (I needed to get to work early because I have a 3PM dentist appointment) so I didn’t bring lunch.  As usual, I went to Panera.  I got the black bean soup, a baguette, and a Greek salad.

The soup was too salty so I ended up only eating 2/3 of it.  I asked for tuna on my Greek salad because I had heard someone else order it once.  Unfortunately, when I got back to the office I realized they had put tuna SALAD on my salad.   No thanks.  I scooped it off.

Dessert was another Ritz cookie.  I can’t believe there are still some left, but they’re so rich you can really only eat one.  Today was a P for Progress.

This afternoon will consist of the dentist, a run, some strength training and then a little more work.  Tonight, now that I finally have an evening free (we’re hoping expecting the kickball scrimmage to be rained out by Hurricane Earl), I plan on finally getting back in the kitchen to cook a good meal.  I’m also working on a recipe for the Nature’s Pride Foodbuzz contest.  I would LOVE to win a trip to the Foodbuzz festival in San Fransisco! Wish me luck!!

Good evening!  I hope you all had a great hump day.  Mine was a little out of the ordinary, which made for a nice change.

I started with a breakfast of organic WW flax waffles topped with 0% plain Greek yogurt and fresh fruit.

I was a busy bee all morning because I had to go off-site later in the day and still had a lot to get done. 

For lunch I had a Cedarlane beans and rice burrito with a side of carrots and tortilla chips for hummus dipping.

Dessert was a cookie leftover from last night.  Everything else (chips, dip, and cookies) went into the office with me today so my co-workers could share and I wouldn’t have it around the house.

Jen made these for me and they said “Happy Birthday Carolyn.”  I don’t know if this is an “i” or and “l,” but I do know it was delicious.  Two Ritz crackers with PB in between dipped in Nutella. Yum!

After my off-site meeting I didn’t want to drive the 45 minutes back to the office since I was doing a 4:30 yoga class out by my meeting, so I set up camp at Starbucks for a couple of hours.

While there I drank about half of this Grande Unsweet Passion Ice Tea.

At 4:00, I packed up and headed to Studio Bamboo for my first ever yoga class at an actual yoga studio.  I bought a 10 class Groupon last month.

After hearing all about Hot Yoga, I decided to ease myself into it by trying Warm Vinyasa.  The room was heated to 80 degrees vice the 95 in Hot Yoga.

It was quite intimidating at first and most of the people there were a lot more advanced than me.  But, the teacher made sure to show various levels and to compliment me when I did something well.

The studio is a hike from my house or work, so I doubt I’ll continue going there after the Groupon is done, but at least I can try some different classes and check around closer to my house for studios.

I plan on going back on Friday for their 5:30 PM “Happy Hour” class.

After yoga I stopped into TJ Maxx and among other things, I picked up these organic gummy bears.

I was skeptical because I’m picky about my gummy bears, but these tasted a lot like the Haribo ones (that’s a compliment!).  I had one serving.

Straight from TJ Maxx I met up with some friends at the next to last home game of the year.  Actually, it could be the last game if Hurricane Earl has anything to say about it.

I “saved up” calories all day for this.  I don’t mean I starved myself (obviously), but I ate wholesome foods that would fill me up and keep from starving before the game.

At the game I had a Hot Sausage dog with ketchup and mustard.  It was pretty good, but a little overdone.

After the third inning, the guys went downstairs for a little baseball throwing competition.

I tried to get pictures of them throwing, but all I got were blurs.

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Wheby (first on the left) came out the winner by a hair. 

Whitney and I cheered the men on.

I also had a bag of popcorn which I encouraged everyone else to share so I wouldn’t eat the whole bag. Mmmm….popcorn.

Of course, I can only guesstimate the calories, but this is what I came up with.  Woohoo! Definite improvement over the last two days.

Tomorrow is weigh-in day and I can’t say I have high hopes.  I didn’t re-commit until Monday and went a LOT over my calories Mon. and Tues., plus ate a ton of sodium today.

No worries, though.  I’m just going to keep on tracking and trying to make improvements.

Have a great night!

Good evening!  I’ll try to make this short because I’m ready to relax in front of the TV.  This morning I got up at 6:45 and completed Week 3, Day 3 of the Bridge to 10K program.

Before my run I had half an Arnold sandwich thin with Dark Chocolate Dreams and 1/4 of a banana.

This calls for 5 intervals of 5 minutes running and 1 minute walking.  Here are the interval stats (including the walking).

Interval 1: 11:31 avg. pace

Interval 2: 11:35 avg. pace

Interval 3: 11:37 avg. pace

Interval 4: 11:32 avg. pace

Interval 5: 11:21 avg. pace

Breakfast was a smoothie with skim milk, chocolate peanut butter swirl protein powder, maca powder, 0% plain Greek yogurt, ice and a tiny bit of spinach (most of it had gone bad).

Lunch was a smoked turkey breast sandwich on whole grain bread with chicken noodle soup, chips and a Diet Coke.

Of course I immediately wanted sugar and had half a 3 Musketeers.  Later I had a mini watermelon and… …some cous cous.  I know. Weird combination.Tonight was Bunko night so there was lots of chips and dip, plus we ordered pizza because no one brought anything substantial.  Between the wine and dip and pizza I managed to go WAY over my calories again.

Honestly, I’m not too worried about it.  I’m proud that I tracked everything today and that I got up and worked out early.

Since I tracked everything the last two days I can look back on my mistakes and try not to make them again.

See you tomorrow!! 

Good evening!!  Thank you for your comments about my last post.  I felt so much better after getting that off my chest.

I started the week off right this morning with two organic, WW flax waffles topped with Fage 0% Greek yogurt and fresh strawberries and blueberries.

Around 10:30 I snacked on Veggie Chips with dip left over from the party we had Saturday night.  I have no idea what is in the dip, I just assumed this was made with full fat sour cream when estimating the calories. 

  Lunch was Tasty Bite Madras Lentils with a whole wheat pita for dipping.

After lunch I had 1/4 of a HUGE cupcake from Costco.  I bought these for our party, too, as well as for church on Sunday.  Let me tell you, they are DELICIOUS!! 

Later in the afternoon I had a Chai tea…

…and then 2% cottage cheese with a peach.

I had big plans for Quinoa salad for dinner.  I went to the grocery store, but they didn’t have quinoa..

I used cous cous, instead.  While the cous cous was cooking, I sautéed the veggies (okra, zucchini, eggplant, onion, tomato, corn…cooked in that order) in a little EVOO and vegetable broth.  I just mixed it all together and chowed down.

Success!  This was really good.

We had to eat pretty quickly (and early) because Josh wanted to go to an auction.  After and hour and a half I left him there with instructions to call me when he was ready. 

While I was writing this post, he called, so Goliath and I went to pick him up and then we got frozen yogurt.

FF chocolate with banana and almonds. I got a small serving and didn’t eat it all.  The banana with the chocolate was just too sweet for me tonight.

Goliath seemed to like his, though. Hopefully it doesn’t mess up his stomach.

I ate today, with the plan of going for a run this evening when it cooled down.  But then the auction happened and now I’m too tired to go run.

Soo…what would have been this…

is now this…

Le  sigh.

Our lack of a routine and tendency to do things spontaneously is one of a million reasons I should work out in the mornings.  Unfortunately, I am NOT a morning person.  All of my attempts to be a morning work out person have failed miserably with isolated exceptions.

This is a frustrating day.  If I had cut out the frozen yogurt and 1/4 cupcake, I would have done alright calorie-wise.  But hunger…I’m actually a bit hungry right now.  If I had cut 400-500 calories out, I’d be starving.  And everything but those two things was pretty sensible.

Any tips?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my blogging has gotten more and more erratic.  In fact, it’s now been four days since my last post, which I think is the longest ever.

Over the past four days, I’ve given some thought as to why I am posting less. 

Basically, as a blogger I’ve tried to be someone I wasn’t and in the process used that as en excuse not to do what needed to be done.

It’s pretty obvious from the title of this blog, Lovin’ Losing, that this is supposed to be a weight loss blog.  But if you’re a regular reader, then you know that I haven’t posted a weight loss progress update since June 11th.  Over two months ago. Until today.

On June 11th, I weighed in at 160.6 lbs.  Last Thursday, August 26th I weighed in at 166.  I’ve gained a little over 5 pounds in two months.  Obviously this fluctuates day to day, but it just illustrates that I haven’t been doing what needs to be done.

You see, I was reading all these blogs where you see just a snapshot of someone’s life and I think, “Well, they control their weight just by eating right and exercising without counting calories or points.  I should be able to do that.” Surprise!  I’m not them.

Also, lately it seems like in the “healthy living” blog world there’s a taboo about mentioning counting calories or losing weight.  Yes, we’re all beautiful.  But some of us DO need to lose weight.  Including me.  My pants are tight, some clothes don’t fit at all, and I just don’t feel great about myself the last couple of months.

If I were one of those people who could just cut a few things out here and there I wouldn’t have fought my weight my whole life.

The most successful I’ve ever been with long-term weight loss was when I was on Weight Watchers.  I’m not saying I’m going back on WW.  In fact, I’m reluctant to declare any sort of plan because in the short 11 or so months since I started this blog you’ve heard me announce numerous plans.  Weight Watchers, counting calories, etc.  But, since as I just said, I really need structure, I’ll either be going back to Weight Watchers or counting calories online.  The thing that makes me reluctant to go back to WW is the prevalence of pre-packaged foods and 100 calories packs recommended by members during the meetings.  We’ll see what the future holds in that direction.

What I do know is that I got caught up in other people’s blogs and started trying to be about them, not about myself.  I know that whole foods are best and candy, soda, and fast food are bad for my body.  But unlike some bloggers out there, I have yet to be able to give those things up entirely.  I mean I limit them, but I still have them.  I effing LOVE McDonald’s French fries! And can we say jalapeno poppers?!

Don’t get me wrong, I still want to try and cut those things out of my diet as much as possible.  Obviously or I’ll never reach my goal weight.  But I honestly do believe in “everything in moderation.”

I read where someone said “everything in moderation” was a joke.  They illustrated this by saying they justified taking multiple handfuls of their child’s snack food over the course of a day by saying “everything in moderation.” 

Well, I say that wasn’t in moderation.  Moderation would have been one handful of the snack.  And, of course, that would have been fine.

What’s the point, you say?

1. This is a weight loss blog.  When I reach goal weight it will be about maintaining my weight.

2. This is also a healthy living blog, but it will be about MY version of health.  Meaning I will have soda, and McDonald’s French fries, and candy in moderation while also trying new foods and recipes and striving towards wholesome foods 85% of the time.

I feel so much better.  I felt like a fraud because I hadn’t weighed myself in so long because I was embarrassed to say I wasn’t doing well.  It’s time for me to focus on MY journey to health!!!  Stay tuned!

P.S. I don’t really like salads unless they have egg and ham and cheese and thick creamy dressing.  When I bring salads to work I always get depressed and want to go out and get something else.  

Okay, confession is over.

Okay, so I’m a little behind. But, since I know you’ve been holding your breath, here’s my birthday dinner recap.

I told Josh a few days before my birthday that I wanted to go to The Melting Pot for my birthday.  It threw him for a bit of a loop because he had planned on taking me to Bodega (one of my favorite restaurants).  I hadn’t been to The Melting Pot since my 18th birthday, so I was just looking forward to something different.

Luckily, my sweet husband came through! I apologize in advance for the picture quality.  BAD lighting!

Doesn’t he look good!  He’s lost like 20 lbs. in the last couple of months.

I started off with a berry mojito, which I nursed all night.

We ordered the Dinner for Two, which consisted of cheese, salad, meat (entree), and dessert.  I was concerned that this was too much food, but who can pass up cheese?!

The cheese course came with Bleu Cheese because the husband is a BIG  fan of Bleu Cheese.  Me? Not so much.  But that’s okay because I knew if I ate much I’d be done before I started.

I had a couple of veggies, some apples (perfect for cutting the Bleu Cheese taste) and some bread.  After cheese came the salad.  It was VERY tasty and a good size.  I felt myself getting full, so I didn’t finish it.

For our entree we went with the pot of broth.  They put mushrooms, broccoli, and potatoes in it.

On the meat platter was shrimp, sirloin, ahi tuna, vegetable dumplings, chicken, and pork.  They all had various seasonings on them.  There were also a bunch of dippers. I think both us felt the tuna was the best!!  Especially with a spicy dipper on top.I got full pretty fast and I think only had one or two pieces of everything plus some of the veggies.   I tried to pace myself, but I just couldn’t hang

Until dessert, that is…

We ordered the S’mores spread with chocolate (of course) with graham crackers crumbled in it and then it was flambéed so you could roast marshmallows.

The dippers were strawberries, brownies, bananas, graham crackers, pound cake, marshmallows, and cheese cake.   Of course, I had a bite of everything.   SO good!!During dinner, Josh had me open my gift and card (from the furbabies).  What do YOU think came in the gift bag?? It was this!!!

The Garmin 310XT!!! Josh bought it at a local running store called Running, Etc.  It’s designed for triathletes so you can swim with it and it also wirelessly uploads.

The funny thing is I reminded him what I wanted last week and when he asked me how much it was I said, “$140 on Amazon.”  Now I know he was screaming in his head, because he paid $310 for this one!!

The price I was quoting was for the Garmin 305.  After a little research and because of the price difference we decided to return this one and order the 305 on Amazon.

The reviews were better for the 305, plus most people said the GPS didn’t really work in the water anyway.  My 305 arrives today and we’re going to the store to return the 310 and get me some new running shoes with the $$ from my mom.  Then I’m heading out for a run so I can get back on my 10K training plan.

Josh also got me another present:

A triathlete sticker for my car!! I LOVED it!  Too funny.   Maybe not the most professional thing to have in the parking lot at work, but who cares.

I’ve got to get back to work now, but I’ll be back soon with a recap of Saturday spent at a friend’s house on the James River.  How amazing does this look!?

Chewy Chocolate Cookies

• 1 1/4 cups margarine, softened
• 2 cups white sugar (I did 1 c. white, 1 c. brown)
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• 1/4 cup mint chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

In a large bowl, cream together margarine and sugar until smooth.

Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.

Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.

Stir dry mix into the creamed mixture until just blended.

Mix in walnuts.

Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven.

Cool for a couple of minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

They spread a lot and are a little cake-like in texture, but mmmm….they are goooood!

Just a quick post because I need to get out of here! I have a present waiting for me!

I ate a lunch late (for me) around 1PM.  Since I was in a hurry this morning and we don’t have much in the way of groceries, anyway, I hit up Panera.  I got their Greek salad (no onions) with mac and cheese.  I’ve never had their mac and cheese, and it was delicious!  Definitely a birthday indulgence (along with the Diet Pepsi and brownie below), but very tasty!

OMG!  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  Panera has AMAZING brownies!  IF ONLY I could figure out how to just eat half. I mean…look at this!!   If you had Smell-O-Vision (Smell-O-Net?) you’d be booking it to your closest Panera.

In other news…I want to thank all my friends who sent me birthday wishes today..Check it out…this is only maybe a third of the people who took the time to make me feel special!!!

Now, I’m outta here to go enjoy my evening!  I’m excited for the weekend, too!  We’re going out of town (a little) to celebrate a friend’s birthday and I’m really looking forward to a little relaxation because Sunday will be spent working on our rental house and showing it!

What are your weekend plans?  Please share in the comments below!!

Happy Friday!!