Penchant for powder

My daughter is obsessed with baby powder.  No matter where it is, she finds it and promptly dispenses as much as she can before she is discovered. I think we all remember this post. At least she was courteous enough to wait until I had gone out for the night that time. The funniest part is, she doesn't just pour it out. She will take off her pull-up and "squirt" it at her bum. I have found her standing on the toilet, on the bathroom counter, in her room and once in the van.

You'd think I'd get smart and just get rid of it by now. The problem is, it is summer and we go to the beach. Baby powder is my go-to for getting the sand off the kids. It is pretty much on the top of my list of miracle worker must have products, right below the magic eraser. Which I obviously don't use on the kids.  I suppose I will just have to get better at hiding it...or follow her around with the vacuum.

Stepping up my fitness game

Week 7 of Project 10! The fact that I am sticking with the tracking is honestly my biggest accomplishment. I have been remembering to put all of my food into My Fitness Pal and, even though one day I ate 2000 calories instead of my allotted 1410, I ran 7 miles and burned 800. It all evens out in the wash.
I am stepping things up though. I am a baby steps kind of girl. I need to focus on one aspect of my health at a time so I can form a positive habit and then add to my repertoire. Here are my steps so far.

• I have been running. I am in week 5 of my half marathon training. That has been going well. I saw the Dr. for a pain in my knee and it runs out I have a lateral hamstring strain from doing an exercise incorrectly. Luckily the doctor is a runner so he understands that I don't want to halt my training. He suggested I do some physical therapy, more stretching and avoid hills and interval training until it heals. I can deal with that.
• Food tracking. I have been logging my food for 15 days so far. I think this is the longest I have kept up with a food diary ever! It really helps to see what I am eating all written down. Sometimes I make better choices and other times I know I am going to run so I let myself have that treat or, ahem, pizza. But it's ok! I don't have to deprive myself to make this work! As long as I keep exercising, I can treat myself to the things I love to eat...occasionally.
• I'm tracking my weight weekly and my measurements bi-weekly. I have never been an obsessive daily weigher. That never seemed like a good idea to me, so the weekly frequency is working. I like that I am taking my measurements. As I watch things shrink, even by fractions of inches, it gives me the motivation to stick with it!
• My newest love is kickboxing. I got a Groupon for ILoveKickboxing.com Do not let the website scare you. Ha! It looks like a giant infomercial for weight loss, but I tried a class on Monday night for the first time and I am hooked! It is an awesome mix of kickboxing, core workout, strength training and circuit training since he mixes up the activities. The groupon I got included 10 classes and a pair of gloves for $50, but they have a special on their website for 3 classes and gloves for $19.99. Honestly, it is an amazing workout and I plan to stick with it even after my groupon classes are up. Plus I got super cute pink gloves so that was a fabulous bonus!

Lego Madness

My son turned 5 last month. I guess 5 is the magic age where kids get real and true Lego sets. Truth be told, I think 5 is still too young. My son is practically a genius yet he still can't put these elaborate sets together on his own. Gone are the days of getting a bin of multicolored blocks of various sizes and using nothing but your imagination to build things. Now they come in 200 piece sets with giant booklets of step by step instructions. Let me share something with you. My son has the attention span of a gnat. Even if he didn't, these sets take a LONG time to put together, but I figure it will be some nice mother son bonding time, right? Yeahhhhh.

Enter 2 Transformer Kreo (knock-off Lego) sets that he got for his birthday. We open the first box  and I take one look at all of the pieces, some as small as my son's attention span, and I balk. Unfortunately his eager face tells me I am not getting out of this, so we begin to sort. This is where my OCD comes in. I make him sort all of the pieces by color. I think it is way easier to do it this way and he agrees. Thank God. I have no idea how long we took to build the first one, but it ended up that he had a hard time snapping the pieces together so he would hunt for the pieces and I would help him snap them together. Of course after we finish Optimus Prime, he needs his friend, so we open the next box.

I almost fell over at the discovery of how many pieces this one had. I decided that, for the sake of time and my sanity, Nate could play with Optimus while I put this one together. I'm an adult who can easily follow step by step directions, how long could it possibly take?

50 minutes. That's right folks, it took me 10 minutes shy of an hour to assemble Mr. Prowl and the two little guys that went with him. This kid better never doubt my love for him. I used to think I would throw his long labor that ended with an all natural birth in his face later in life, but honestly I think I will use this instead. Oh, and the first person who tells me the stickers aren't on straight might lose an eye.

Stay tuned for my post in which I find some way to contain the millions of microscopic and other  Lego pieces. I will conquer them...before they cause me to scream any more expletives while walking through my son's room in the dark!

Slow and Steady fitness

Here we are at week 6 of Project 10! I have to say, I am feeling much like the tortoise in the fable at the moment. It seems that slow and steady is helping me win my race. I usually have a terrible time sticking to a diet and fitness routine but have found a few things that are working for me. I really think that is the key. I always wondered how so many different diets and exercise programs could all exist and compete in the market, but now I get it. You need to find the one thing that clicks for you and run with it.

For me running with it is quite literal. I am training for another half marathon in mid September. It is going pretty well, minus the knee problem I have been experiencing. I have a Dr's appointment tomorrow to get that checked out, but hopefully it is something that can be remedied with stretching and not a lot of down time. Running helps me stay on track because I follow a specific program. I have been trying to incorporate more strength training into my workouts so hopefully that will help me with a major goal to get toned again.

I have also been tracking all of my food on My Fitness Pal. I have the app on my phone and the best part about it is the bar code scanner! It is such a pain to have to enter everything, but if you can scan your yogurt, bread for your sandwich and breakfast cereal it makes it so much more doable! It also helps that many of the women doing Project 10 with me are also using it. We are sharing our food diaries so I am less likely to eat something bad for me if I know other people can see it. It looks so much worse written down!  I have logged my food for the last 8 days and only 1 day I went over my calorie goal!

Vacation week got me off track with the biweekly measurements so I took them today to put me back on schedule. I also weighed myself and am down another pound this week! So far I have lost 3.5 pounds and 5.25 inches in the last 6 weeks!

Slow and steady is helping me win my race, what about you?

Learning to run...again

You would think that after running 4 5k races and a half marathon I would have this running thing down. To train for the half I did a 12 week training program to get ready. I ran the 11 mile training run with ease. In fact, I did it with a 9:45 pace, which was good for me for that distance. The day of the half marathon came and my goal was, first and foremost, to finish without walking. In the back of my mind I really had a goal of coming in under a 10 minute mile. My race pace ended up being 10:06/mile. I was a little disappointed, but to be honest, I was so happy to be done. The last 3 miles were hellish. It was hot, the sun was beating down on my face, my legs felt like jello and I took my 2nd energy gel too late and had hit the wall with my stamina. I had completed 13.1 miles but I wanted to do it again...better.

I learned a lot from that first half marathon. I am trying to incorporate everything I learned into my training so I am ready come September 16th when I run my 2nd one. Some of the things I am working on are:

•  My running buddy and I did almost all of our long runs on a very flat course. I mean zero change in elevation. When I hit the hills in the half I tried to power through them and wasted a lot of energy. This time around I am making sure every run has some hills to get my body and mind ready.
• The weather is a huge factor. We did most of our training over NE winter and early spring. It was in the 40s and 50s for a majority of our runs. Race day was 75 degrees in full sun! I didn't realize what an impact the weather can have on you. This time around we are training for a late summer/early fall race so all of our training runs are taking place in the dog days of summer. Heat and humidity are tough to run through, but I am hoping it will all make a positive difference when we run in cooler temperatures.
• I need a hat. This sounds stupid, but it makes a world of difference when the sun isn't shining directly on your face! I hate hats and feel like my head would get too hot so I just ordered a running visor. Hopefully it will work for me!
• Cross and strength training is equally as important as the run training! I think that the other workouts I am doing this time around will contribute to my overall strength and fitness and help me run better.

That being said, let me give an update of where I am at in this 10 week fitness challenge. Overall I am down a total of 4 inches and 2.5 pounds. I am happy with the slow and steady progress. I know as you get closer to your goal weight it is harder to lose, so I am going to step up my cross and strength training in the next 5 weeks and see if that gets me over the hump!

Follow all of our progress at Stephanie's Mommy Brain and link up!

First Day July 2012

We had a BUSY first day to start off July! Strawberry picking, a trip to the mall, the splash pad at the zoo and making fresh strawberry ice cream! I love it when the first day falls on a weekend! If you want to link up visit Journey to... by clicking the link below!