First Week of February... A Memoir

Pffffft, yeah right! Like I even have time for a memoir.

First of all, thank you to those who watched and commented on my very first vlog. If you missed it and are like, "What?! Vlog?! When did THAT happen?" it happened here:
www.sparkpeople.com/mypa
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For those that tried and could not get the video to play, I'm sorry and that truly bums me out. :-( Which is why I think it'll be my first and only vlog. It was a lot of fun to make and post, but due to peoples' technical issues, I found the experience to be a little anti-climactic and as a result, disappointing. I was super excited to share my success for the month and it totally bombed. And even though I knew it was no one's fault and that SparkPeople turns into an abandoned, tumbleweed-strewn, post-apocalyptic wasteland/ ghost town on the weekends and I tried not to take it personally, it still resulted in my feeling so very sad about it. I felt like I didn't have anyone to share my excitement with (except Malia, because I email her frequently! :-D Thanks, my friend!) and that I blew my noisemaker and threw my confetti, but I was all alone in a big empty room with only my shiny party hat to celebrate it.

But, in that disappointed sadness, it made me realize how important a dialogue is to me with you, my SparkFriends and supporters. If you aren't able to watch a video of me sharing things (and I thought MY computer was the suck!) and possibly asking for feedback, tips, advice, then how are you supposed to know? Part of my success and part of MANY, MANY folk's success here on Spark is having someone to talk to you and/or with you about this journey. If that means you get information from me in a written (blog) format instead of a video (vlog) format, then I'd rather do that. I value each one of you and your input, advice, been-there-done-that lessons, tips, suggestions, recipes, encouragement, support, etc. It is more important to me to be able to interact with you so that we can be helping each other achieve success than it is to make a video. So, pen to paper (or fingers to keys) it is! :-D

Let me just start out by saying this: the first week of February was ROUGH. My motivation didn't wane. I wasn't struggling to get my ass in gear and get moving. I wasn't even eating terrible. It was rough due [mostly] to other people. For several days during the first week, I had to live on OTHER people's schedule/time. I'm sure you've all had to do that before and have experienced the frustration associated with it. Which of course meant I had to put "my" priorities at the bottom of the totem pole so that other's could meet their needs. I feel like I'm a parent and I don't even have kids. Also, the day after my timed 5k, which sucked, my hips were really, really sore. Probably from having to walk into 17 mph winds... so I didn't get in a workout at all the first weekend of February. Then, on Monday, the first day of not being on my schedule, I didn't get a workout done either. That was 3 days between workouts and I did NOT like it.

Luckily, I was able to pick myself back up, brush myself off, and get on track. I completed my first week of February with 280 fitness minutes. I did mostly cardio on my treadmill. I added 1 each strength workout: arms, core, and legs, at some point during the week. I'm planning on doing the same for week 2. However, week 2 is also 6 weeks of treadmill cardio... I'm wondering if I'll need to change it up somehow so I don't plateau or if the addition of strength workouts will prevent that. Also, Saturday I believe was officially the day I need to increase intensity on my treadmill routine again. It was too easy. Dang. I'll be adding more intervals and increasing the speed on them.

Food was hit or miss most days again. Mostly hit, though. Made sure to get lots of the freggies in my meals and as often as I could for snacks, but I still mostly ended up turning to junk for snacks. I made some delicious breakfasts-on-the-go for school mornings. Soyrizo burritos with eggs, potatoes, green peppers, grape tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms with reduced fat cheese in whole wheat tortillas. And I got some of those sandwich thins thingies (whole grain, of course) and made my own turkey breakfast sausage, egg, and reduced fat cheese breakfast sandwiches (I saw Special K or whoever has something just like it in the freezer aisle at the grocery store and I was all, "Psh! Did that MYSELF, b*tches! I don't need your overpriced food.") Also I made my own turkey breakfast sausage for that so it would be low-sodium. Turned out delicious!

Ah, the dreaded scale... well, I did my weigh-in on Saturday morning like I scheduled myself to. I did not lose any weight. Bummer. But, I didn't gain any, either. Victory! I stayed the same. That's okay. Staying put is better than gaining. And I'll take it. Besides, this week is a chance to get it right. Hopefully on my time.

Some highlights from my weekend: Saturday I went to the teeny tiny town where I sorta grew up for their annual Carrot Festival. It involves a parade and then a marketplace and carnival in the "town square" for the rest of the day. The local chapter of 4H gets a bunch of locally grown fresh produce donated to them and they decorate a float with it. Then, at the end of the parade, they sell all the produce on the float to raise money for their organization. Pretty cool, huh? For $5 you can stuff your bag (they provide it) FULL -but, not overflowing- of whatever they have. This year both my mom and I got a bag. We returned with fresh carrots, orange and green cauliflower, purple and green curly kale, celery, Napa cabbage, red cabbage, iceberg, red leaf, and green leaf lettuces, radishes... It was quite a haul! And, the day before, my grandma had gone on a field tour with a group of other old ladies and she brought back HUGE things of broccoli, beets, Romaine lettuce, green cabbage, and baby carrots (gross). I am inundated with fresh local produce which is a major rarity. The sad reality is the majority- and I mean like 99%- of the produce we grow here is exported. NONE of it stays local. NO farm has a CSA program. You midwesterners, southerners, and east coasters have more of a chance of eating the produce grown in my backyard than I do.

Anyway, the rest of the day for me was "fat kid day" with my cousin. We had tacos de pescado (fish tacos), nachos con bistec ("steak"), limonade con fresa (strawberry lemonade), and Hawaiian Shave Ice. We walked around for a while and just enjoyed the day. Also I got sunburned 'cuz at age 31 that is still a lesson I fail to learn. And probably never will. Even if I get cancer... which is highly likely. I should get to a dermatologist soon, speaking of.


I bought those veg. I will eat the hell out of them.

The dollar is there for scale. Those bags were HEAVY.

I could have beaten someone with that broccoli. It was heavy. Ever get a black eye from produce?

Fat kid food. Worth every calorie.