Today's Stats 11/1/2011

I ran 1.96 miles in 24 minutes! *Squee* *Double Glittercannon*

Longest distance since I started this blog. Almost 2/3rd's of the way to a 5k. 

On the downside, my boobs hurt. Like really bad. Ouch. :(

Fell Off the Wagon

My weekend eating was pretty terrible. My lovely future stepdaughter came down and we ate our way from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and back twice.

I am now aware of another potential pitfall for me. When people come to visit South Louisiana, they want to eat, and they should! However, that doesn't mean that I, as the host, should "vacation eat" too. Let the guest enjoy all the wonderful foods Louisiana has to offer while I enjoy a salad and just have a bite of bread pudding, not the whole thing. :)

In the beginning...

This is what I look like today...no makeup, no spanx :), right after running.

As you can see, all the junk is in the trunk.  If I could just reshape my body from about three inches below my belly button to about 4 inches above my knee, I would be perfectly happy with the way I look, besides for a little upper arm flab.  But, alas, we all know that's not how it works.

I don't think I look awful.  I just think I could look a whole lot better.  I definitely don't want to get any bigger, and that is exactly where I am headed if I don't do something.

I'm not sure exactly how much weight I would like to lose total, so I'm going to start with a modest 10 pounds, and then go from there.

Today's Stats 10/26/2011

1 mile 13:50

I don't know why I was so much slower today.

I didn't drink enough water yesterday and it was much hotter and more humid today than Monday.

Oh well. Another mile down.

I also did some quick upper body weights pre-run.

It was pretty pitiful, but I have to start somewhere!

Run Jam of the Day

My Chemical Romance - Na Na Na

Today's Stats

1 mile 13:15

I often wonder if I'll ever be able to consistently run more than a mile without feeling like I'm going to die. :)

Today's Stats

1 mile in 13:35...I got a lot of work to do...

Run jam for the day: Linkin Park - Bleed it Out

Inspiration

Like a lot of other chicks that start blogs about fitness and weight loss, I am getting married.  There's nothing like the thought of being the subject of photographs that will be looked at by everyone you know and viewed throughout the years to motivate you. 

Then there is this...

My fiance' loves this dress.  It made his eyes turn to rainbows.   I tried to show him more sensible dressed with cute flutter sleeves and nice a-line shapes, but he kept going back to this one. The truth is I love it too. However, I look NOTHING like the model in this photograph. But if I did, I would so rock this dress down the aisle.

The amount of weight I would have to lose to make this work would be significant.  The number of tricep extensions I would have to do boggles the mind.  Growing about six inches wouldn't hurt either, but that's even less likely.

So do I want to settle for the sensible flutter sleeves or do I want to make his jaw hit the floor?  Am I willing to do what it takes to get to option B?  Would it even be possible?

Got some thinking to do.... :)

I Shall Overcome

So why would I start out a blog listing all the reasons it's hard for me to run? Because hopefully, this blog will be about overcoming all that, and doing it anyway. When you set new goals or make a change in your life, there are always a hundred things that stand in your way. If it were easy, you would probably already be doing it. 

This isn't going to be easy. It doesn't come naturally.  I am going to have to fight and struggle every step of the way. But so what? Every once in a while, we all have to step outside our box and find the strength to do what we think we can't. Hopefully, I will succeed in doing just that.

Another Running and Fitness Challenge - Louisiana

I am a born and raised Louisianian, and I am a Louisiana girl through and through.  I love my state, but Louisiana is not exactly the fitness capital of the United States. An argument could be made however, for Louisiana to be the food capital of the United States.  This is both a blessing and a curse.

Non-Louisianians...we really eat that stuff... a lot...and it is SO good.

I love to cook. I love to socialize, and I LOVE to eat.  However, as I've stated before, I would like to stay cute and not die.

Of all the obstacles I have to overcome to stay on track with running and fitness, this is the biggest one. I am confident it can be done. Like everything else in life, I just have to find the right balance.

Run Jam

My run jam for the day and one of my theme songs.

 

Better

On the advice of a friend, I ran today in traditional running shoes.  I think I am going to switch back for a while until my legs and feet get stronger, then try the Vibrams again.

I ran one mile. I don't know how long it took me, because I forgot to start my timer. :p

Losing the battle

Life has started to overwhelm me.  I am completely swamped and every kid-free moment must be spent working.  The only possible run time I have is in the evening and I am exhausted by then. I am tired. I am eating junk. My weight is going up. Every time I even try to walk my heel hurts.  My boobs hurt.  I am becoming more and more discouraged.

There has to be a way to find better balanced.  Going to keep looking, but right now I am tired, and I have a long night of work ahead of me...

Back on the Wagon

Forced myself to run a mile.  Went with the Vibrams.  No body parts fell off. :)

Also overcame another running obstacle.  I ran in front of my significant other.  I had been very self conscious about doing that, but just like everything else, time to get over it.

CRISIS!!!!

I have not ran in a week.  I am trying to pep talk myself into running again and reassuring myself it's going to be ok. Why the avoidance?  I had an unfortunate incident with my toenail that I don't even want to discuss. 

I get weekly pedicures.  I put great thought into what color I choose based on the season, my mood, where I'm going that week.  I wear flip flops ALL the time. I own a jillion pairs of strappy sandals.  This is NOT ok.

I promised myself that nothing was going to stop me.  Not laziness, less than ideal body type, flat feet, exercise-induced asthma, three kids, NOTHING was going to keep me from running.  But nobody said anything about toenails FALLING OFF!!! 

I am currently researching what I can do to prevent this in the future and working up my courage to hit the track again.

The Next Running Challenge

I have almost flat feet. I never knew that until I went to Varsity Sports in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to be fitted for some running shoes. The first thing out of the salesperson's mouth after watching me walk two steps was, "You have REALLY low arches." I guess I couldn't have been drafted into the army.

Anyway, that explained why I had always been plagued by shin splints. I got a good Saucony shoe with arch stability, but still had lingering shin splint problems until I tried these.

The love it or hate it Vibram Five Finger shoe.

There are complicated reasons involving where your foot hits the running surface as to why they help, but they virtually eliminate my shin splints. I will let you google that for a much better explanation than I can give.

I am not ready to throw all my running shoes in the garbage quite yet though.  You have to develop calves of steel to be able to run in these for any significant distance and the loss of cushion can be really jarring, especially if you have a lot to jar, as I do. And I don't know, I just have some kind of attachment to traditional running shoes that I can't really explain.  I just feel like I NEED to run in them at least sometimes.  Plus my oldest son has banned me from wearing Vibrams in public when I'm with him because they "look weird."

Also, Varsity Sports, mentioned earlier in the article is 100% awesome and a must-go if you are in the Baton Rouge or Mandeville area and thinking about starting to run.

My First Running Challenge

There is no other way to say this...I have larger than average boobs. If I don't have on some sort of heavy duty, industrial strength sports bra that looks like those things your grandma ordered out of the JCPenney catalog back in the day, they HURT when I run. I also live in constant fear that my boobs are going to sag if I run, and if they ever do, that will be THE END of my running, so I put a lot of time into researching the latest in sports bra technology. So far, I have found nothing that works better than the Enell Sports Bra. Not the most fashionable or comfortable thing in the world, maybe a little pricey, but your stuff doesn't move.  You will praise the Lord in heaven when you take the thing off, but again, very effective at what it is designed to do.

The inspiration for the blog title

Pulitzer Prize winning writer Rick Bragg wrote this feature for Gourmet Live and I immediately identified with it.

http://live.gourmet.com/2010/11/app-exclusive-the-guiltless-pleasure/

According to the story, there are two types of people in the world, mayo people and mustard people.  Through a complex combination of nature and nurture, I am at my core, a mayo person.  Healthy eating and living does not come naturally for me.  If I could eat a Raising Cane's chicken finger box every single day and sit in a  recliner and watch sports all the time and still feel and look great, I probably would.  However, I like to look cute and I would prefer not to die of a heart attack before I see my grandchildren, so I need to embrace the mustard lifestyle as much as I can.

The fact that the first link I posted on a running and fitness blog is to a feature on Gourmet Live pretty much sums it all up.