Thanks Pinterest!

I'm a Pinterest addict, how about you?

I saw an idea recently about putting times onto your water bottles and knew it would work for me. Here's the water bottle I set up last night.



I decided that I'd make it from 7 am - 7pm. I wake up before that and I go to bed after that, but those are generally the hours that I'm drinking water. I'm just not in too much of a mood before that and I have milk usually with my breakfast and of course if I drink much later than 7 pm I end up with extra trips to the restroom during the night.

This is pretty simple, but in case anyone has questions I'll elaborate on how I set it up. This bottle actually holds more than 64 ounces, so I used my scale to determine where 64 ounces was at, that's my 7 am line. I just fill it to there. Then I divided 64 ounces by 12 hours and realized I should be drinking about 5.33 ounces each hour. This is about 21.3 ounces I should have every 4 hours. Again, I used my scale to get the lines in the correct place. At first, I only put lines at 7 am, 11 am, 3 pm and 7 pm, but I decided I didn't like the big gap between 11 am and 3 pm (due to my bottle's size), so I went ahead and added 1 pm too.

The idea on pinterest was on a 32 oz bottle. I think the user had the times on two opposite sides of the bottle, but s/he may have had two different bottles. The picture showed two bottles, but I just couldn't tell if the pic had been edited to show both sides or if indeed it was two bottles.

Hope this helps someone!

Downtown Dog Dash

On Saturday my husband and I and our two dogs did a 5K. That was the first time that all 4 of us had done a race together and the first time that the Black Lab had ever done a race. My husband ran with our energetic, young and in shape Black Lab. I ran with our energetic, aging and out of shape Golden Retriever. I've ran with him before. He doesn't know how to pace himself so he goes all out at the beginning and pulls me, which helps me, but I can't keep up with him, so I make him slow down. We alternated walking and jogging, because I still haven't worked myself back up to jogging a full 5K. The last quarter mile or so he was pretty tuckered out and was trailing behind me while I jogged. We didn't place or anything, like that, but it was SUPER fun to be out and about with so many people and their dogs! Our time was 45:06.68.

My husband, on the other hand, did place. THAT is why he runs with the other dog. We run with the dogs that match how in shape we are. LOL! His time wasn't stellar, but it was good enough of a second place medal for his age division. He's only done 3 races (since we've been married anyway) and medaled in all of them.

We all got shirts, even the dogs. They have never had shirts before. Here is a pic of them back at home, wearing their shirts. They say "sit happens". They both have the largest size shirt, but you can tell that one of them could have used an even larger size!



The other great thing about the race was that the dogs got microchipped there! Woo hoo, I've been meaning to do that for a LONG time!

Weight Loss Fads/Diets

Ok, so is anyone else always tempted by the latest and "greatest" way to lose weight?

I KNOW that it's all about calories in vs. calories out, but desperation can make you try out anything and everything that your friends, family, co-workers, etc. are raving about.

The past couple of weeks I've heard numerous times about shakes from Body by Vi and yep, I definitely looked them up. I know one co-worker using them and another co-worker has ordered them and should be starting any day and then I have another friend doing them too and she's been posting about her success on facebook. The friend that should be starting soon said she'd let me try one. I don't know that I'll order them, but I will definitely try one. Its main concept is to replace two meals a day with the "great-tasting" shakes and then have one healthy meal. It reminds me of Slimfast, but I guess it tastes better. I really enjoy the sensation of chewing/eating and I think that I'd miss that. I've heard over and over that people should eat their calories, not drink them. The times I've tried to just have a protein shake for a meal turned into me having the shake AND then deciding I was hungry and wanted food too, so I had more calories than I normal would have had. I'm curious how filling people are finding these shakes. I think there was another shake craze out there called Shakeology, but I haven't heard anyone recently talk about it.

Have you tried anything due to others boasting about it? I knew people doing HCG too and I did a lot of research on that one and was really against it, but others seem to love it.

On the plus side, the warm weather has sparked something within me and I've been getting in some great exercise and making healthy choices the past few days - now to keep it up!

The Scale

Well today's weigh-in was not good. I gained 1.4 pounds. And THIS is now my highest weight ever. Ok... starting over again. I will not let this ruin my day/week/self-worth.

Sunday's weigh-in and races

Ok, so I'm a bit late. Sunday I was down .2 pounds. I'm going to be happy with any loss.

Tomorrow I'll weigh again. I don't really know what to expect. I was pretty active, at least 30 minutes a day of exercise, but I dealt all week with a leg injury and that held me back some. However, I didn't track my calories and I did have some binges on Ritz crackers and PB. I bought the crackers for a recipe, but went a little crazy with them.

My Feb. 5K was a race up and down and up and down and up and down a parking garage. I'll post some pics from that.

I was running with Joyce, we met in person that day, but had corresponded previously online.

This is me finishing, even though from this angle you see the word "start".

My March 5K was today. My husband joined in too and won first place for his age. I had a REALLY REALLY slow time, my worst ever. I knew I would b/c I walked a lot and I was dealing with all kinds of leg issues/injuries and didn't want to push myself too much.

This is me pre-race

Spinning Out of Control

I stepped on the scale today for my weekly weigh-in and I've gained 1.6 pounds. HOLY COW! I was more active this week than last. I could have done more, but I did walk some on my lunch breaks and I did go on a hike. My real problem is my eating, I had some trouble with binge eating this week. I'm going to have to start tracking my calories again so that I keep myself in check. I'm so disappointed, sad, disgusted, etc. I have NEVER weighed this much or felt this badly about myself.

I painted that plate a few years ago. I do want to be beautiful both inside and out - they both need work right now. I also put a couple of jars out and filled one with marbles. Each marble represents each half pound I need to lose in order to be at a healthy BMI, instead of an obese one. There is another jar, currently empty, to place the marbles into as I lose weight. I'm so impatient. I wish weight loss was as easy as dumping marbles from one jar to another or as easy as putting on all of this weight was!

Welcome Readers

Wow, a blog about my weight journey. S-C-A-R-Y!

I still need to learn more about how to use blogger because it came to my attention that when I comment on someone's blog they are able to find my blogs. I'm ok with strangers knowing about my journey and some of my friends/acquaintances reading these posts, but definitely would rather family and most friends/acquaintances just not even have a clue that this exists.

While the main purpose of this blog will be to journal my weight journey, I may throw in some other and completely off topic random posts from time to time.

Where do you fall on the BMI chart? Currently, I'm in the obese category. UGH! I need to lose about 45 pounds to be healthy. That sounds like soooooo much to me! I'm at a record high with my weight and wearing the biggest size of clothes that I've ever worn (and not liking how I look in them!).

I have gained and lost the same 30 lbs. several times. I know how to lose weight - exercise and healthy eating, no big secrets. I have GOT to figure out how to stop yo-yo-ing between a healthy and unhealthy lifestyle. I also need to figure out how to be OK again with counting calories. In the past I've felt like it can consume me and make me a bit neurotic.

A couple years ago I was also a bit neurotic with exercise as I trained to do a triathlon. That is one of my proudest accomplishments, but again I need to figure out how to have a healthy balance with exercise and other areas of my life. I did 11 races in 2010 and ZERO in 2011 and gained LOTS of weight. So... I'm back to promising myself to do one race a month. I did one a few weeks ago and while my time wasn't the best, I was glad I did it. I'll be doing another one in a couple of weeks. Races are good for me b/c they make me do some training before the race and show me where I'm at physically.

I also need to figure out how often I'll post on this blog. I think once a week would be a good commitment.

See you later, lighter and lovelier.