Week four complete and…

4 pounds lighter! Woo Hoo!! I was going to post this tomorrow, but I just couldn’t wait. When I started this program, I honestly wasn’t sure if I’d be able to run 5k (roughly 3 miles) when it was all over. But I knew I needed to do something. The first two weeks were brutal and my scale almost died a horrible death because the numbers were going up, instead of down. So I quickly became friends with my tape measure. I knew I needed to give it time, the numbers weren’t going to magically go down over night.

So I just kept going, I’ve been exercising six days a week for the last four weeks and I am happy to say that I finally am seeing some results. I started at 234 pounds and four weeks later I am now 230 pounds. Four pounds down, I still have thirty pounds to go. I know once people start losing weight, they will start off strong and gradually their body will taper off, so I am praying that I don’t lose my momentum and get discouraged. I have also lost 2 inches on my waist – I was 40″, now I’m 38″ and an inch on my hips – I was 47″ now they are 46″. That makes me happy, I definitely still have a way to go. My goal at this point is to get to 200 pounds. I don’t know what my goal weight should be once I hit 200, but for now I want my scale to say 199. I’m eager to see what next month brings me.

Starting Monday, I will be doing week 5 and I will be running 5 minutes, walking 3 minutes, running 5 minutes, walking 3 minutes and finally running again for 5 minutes.

ODAAT – 27 of 366

I went off prompt today, had to go back to the courthouse again today to renew the tags on our van. This statue is outside the courthouse, so I opted to take its picture. I’ve always been fascinated with old brick buildings, guess the red just draws me in.

I went by that same holly bush from the last time I was at the courthouse and all the berries were gone. Glad I got my picture when I did.

ODAAT – 26 of 366

Today was yet another dreary rainy winter day here in south central Kentucky. I wanted to try something different to see if I could achieve this effect using just my iPhone. I wanted my focus to be solely on the raindrops on the window and the background to be out of focus.

Well as you see, I achieved my goal, but it took a little bit to get there. Using just my iPhone’s camera app, I wasn’t able to achieve it. It kept auto focusing on the background and causing the raindrops to be out of focus. So I went through my numerous camera apps and started to play around to see what I could come up with. I have an app called Camera Genius, it has various settings to play with namely a stabilizer. Namely it didn’t have an auto focus, so I was able to just snap at the window and it kept the rain drops in focus.

I love being able to experiment with the various cameras on my phone, it makes for really neat pictures.

4 weeks in

It has been exactly four weeks since I made the decision to do something about my health. In the past four weeks I have worked out for a total of twenty four days, I rest one day a week. So far I only workout for thirty minutes at a time, sometimes more depending on the activity. A month ago I wouldn’t have been able to run for a total of 3 minutes straight (five is still tricky for me), but I am making good progress.

I decided today that I was going to use Jorja’s room to run in, especially today since it was 39º and raining all day. The length of her room is much longer than mine, so I actually felt like I could get a good running pace in her room. In fact, I had a friend ask me how exactly I was running inside, since I don’t own a treadmill. Well you know those suicide drills kids do in the gym – running at full speed from one side of the court to the other? Well similar to that, but I am not running at full speed. I just run from one side of the room to the other and turn around and do it over and over again for the length of time during my workout. I can always tell how I am doing at the end because I am having to push myself harder to keep going. I have always been a long distance style runner, I used to love running when I was a kid. I never had the courage to actually try out for track in school, so I gave up running till I got into the Air Force. Even then, I wasn’t thrilled about running because then I was forced to run under a certain amount of time.

Weird, how now that I am older, I am now starting to enjoy something I never thought I would do. I am by no means in running shape, definitely do not have a runner’s body, but I am starting to see the results. On Saturday, I plan to post some before and after shots – as well as more good news about some of the numbers I am now seeing. If this is what four weeks gets me, I am excited to see what I will look like after eight weeks.

ODAAT – 25 of 366

The prompt a few days ago was “Up Too Late” – well this is something I do all the time, being a night owl, I never get to bed at a reasonable hour.

However, my cat on the other hand, she insists I go to bed when she is tired. She makes sure I know it’s time for bed, by pacing the halls and racing me to the bedroom. Normally, when I get into bed, I check my phone and get all my “With Friends” games caught up. So she proceeded to climb into my lap long enough for me to take her picture, then she kept climbing on top of me and attempting to knead my hair. Guess it is her subtle way of telling me it’s time for bed.

ODAAT – 24 of 366

All this week during school we are learning how to play chess. The prompt for today was “duplicate” – I thought the chess pieces were a good representation of the prompt.

Today we played with just the pawns, king and queen. Cauner and Jorja played one game. Sadly, the game ended in tears as do most games when Jorja doesn’t win. *sigh* Trying to work on her sportsmanship has never been an easy task. But she seemed to grasp the game pretty quickly, she just didn’t like that Cauner took her queen so quickly.

ODAAT – 23 of 366

Yesterday’s prompt was “What’s for Breakfast” – well I had already had my breakfast before I realized what the prompt was.

So today, I decided that would be my picture. So breakfast was a bowl of Kellog’s Fiberplus Berry Yogurt Crunch cereal, with dried cranberries on top. I am also using up the last bit of Rice Milk from when Quisha came to visit.

Wow, who knew a picture of a bowl of cereal could look so tasty? LOL!

Sore, but worth it

This week will mark 4 weeks since I have started to take control of my life, namely my health. On any given day, I have a new muscle that is screaming at me and painful to move. I’m literally constantly sore, but know that all this pain will be worth it. I started doing week 4 of the couch to 5k running program. I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, I thought three minutes was hard, there was going to be no way I’d be able to run for five minutes straight – but guess what? I DID IT!! It hurt, I felt like I was dying, but I kept pushing myself to keep going till it was time to walk again. I kept having to tell myself Come on Christy, just a little further! You can do it! Guess I make a pretty good cheerleader, because I kept pressing on even when my legs were telling me to stop.

I’ve been dealing with a mild sinus infection, well maybe it’s not so mild because I keep running a low grade fever. But I am determined that unless I am literally physically unable to do it, I will get my workout in each day. I worked out yesterday at Dana’s house. It ended up just being me that showed up, so I had my own boxing session. So we worked on a whole cardio boxing time, then we worked on doing push ups correctly. My arms are killing me today, just like I knew they would. LOL! But again, this will so be worth it. I am starting to see small changes in my shape and that is encouraging. I am forgoing using my scale right now, just going to focus on working out and getting my body used to this new idea of moving when and where I want it. Some days coordination and working out just don’t go together.

ODAAT – 22 of 366

Today’s picture is a bit random. This particular corridor in our church is decorated like this. I believe it is leftover from when the church was decorated at Christmas time. So it appears they just haven’t gotten around to taking these down, which is fine with me, it makes for an interesting photo.

Edited to add: The ladies in our church are quite ingenious, I now know the reasoning behind the decoration. It’s to hide the wall, till they are able to fix it.

HBD – 21 of 366

*cue annoying music* Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday dear MEeeeeee, Happy Birthday to me!!

Yup, I am the picture of the day!! Today is my 38th birthday. I spent most of the day in my PJs – cause that’s how I roll! Made a cake and now hubby and I are heading out to dinner. All in all, it’s been a pretty good day.