Cara's Weightloss Journal

Well, you will be happy to know that I went biking this morning. I’m back on the horse (again).

Was really hard to get up out of bed, too. I don’t know why I was so tired. Oh, wait, I wasn’t tired, I was lazy. Oh, yeah. :]

I took a new route this morning and I learned that I really need to get a headlight for my bike. I start biking at 6am and it doesn’t get daylight until 6:30 am. I hit a complete black patch. I couldn’t see the sidewalk or anything. I just kept hoping I was staying on the sidewalk and hoping there was nothing in the way that would throw me off my bike. Whew, there wasn’t. A car came up from behind and lit up the sidewalk just in time for me to see a small branch across the sidewalk. It was a little one. Wouldn’t have made me wreck or anything, but it sure would have scared me to death.

The dark patch didn’t last too long. Maybe 30 seconds or so. Then there were street lights again. Things are going to start getting darker and darker earlier and earlier so I’m definitely getting a light for the front of my bike. I saw one at Kmart a few weeks ago that also had a tail light that lit up. That should do the trick.

The new route was challenging, but not horrible. There was only one part where I thought I was going to have to get off and walk. It was a steep uphill. Right in front of the graveyard. Man it was beautiful, though. There was a beautiful rosy sunrise with big red rays coming out of the grayish rosy clouds. Made all of the big oak trees rosy looking too. The sunrise was to my back by the time the sun started to come up, so I missed most of it, but I kept glancing back when I got a chance.

Only burned 717 calories, but I guess that’s better than 600, right? I’m still not sure if my heart rate monitor is set up right. I have never figured out how to enter my age or weight or anything like that. Oh, well.

I had a great weekend. My birthday was last Friday (you remember, right?). But I couldn’t celebrate it proper like with cake or anything, so we went to Logan’s Steakhouse on Saturday I got one of their little mini desserts. They come in tiny little tin peanut buckets. They’re like an inch and a half tall and maybe an inch around. So the desserts are like maybe 2 ounces. I got a nutter butter one. It was yummy and just the perfectly small splurge.

Sunday was so relaxing. After church, I had bad cramps so I laid on the couch and watched movies all afternoon. I saw this really good movie called Max starring John Cusack (one of my favorite actors). Was really a great movie. It was a fictionalized account of the relationship between Max Rothman, a Jewish art dealer, and a young (pre-politics) Adolf Hitler, just after WWI. The thing that made the movie so fascinating was the dynamic between the two of them. Max was coaching Adolf on how to enhance his artistic talents and how to put his passion and emotions onto the canvas. Adolf had not yet decided what he wanted to do with his life and was contemplating that maybe art was his path. Noah Taylor played Adolf. Probably his most famous role to date (and not that huge of a role) was playing Charlie’s father on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He also played the road manager in Almost Famous. But neither of those movies or roles were all that huge. Here’s a good picture of him in character as the young artistic Adolf to the right. John Cusack was amazing in this role. One of his better performances. Here’s a “close-up” video clip of the stars of the movie.

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I’ll update the 18 week challenge tomorrow. :]

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Well, I was hoping for 8 miles this morning, but I only went 5 1/2. But at least I went, right? We got almost halfway and I completely ran out of energy.

Tomorrow morning, I’m eating something ridiculously high in fiber and protein about a half hour before I leave to go biking. I think that was my problem. I think my body was still half asleep and depleted of energy. I had a big scoop of peanut butter and half a bottle of water before I left. But maybe 2 minutes before I left. I don’t think it had time to kick in before I started feeling exhausted.

Another thing was my HR strap wasn’t on right and after 7 or 8 minutes it said my HR was 65. I think that’s close to death for me. My HR never goes below 85 when I’m completely resting. So I stopped and adjusted it and I had it lipping over top of my bra strap a bit. Ugh! So part of my workout didn’t count on the HR watch. So I know these stats aren’t correct:

Total Calories Burned: 402
Minimum HR: 40
Maximum HR: 179
Average HR: 139
Total Time Biking: 45 min
Total Distance: 5.6 miles

So, you Challengers are going to have to give me an update on how you’re doing.

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Challenge Update! – Week Two
“18 Pounds in 18 Weeks“

Bento Box Diet – Lost 2.5 pounds this week. Way to go!!
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Katschi – Weighs in tomorrow.
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MaryFran – I’ve misplaced your blog address again. Sorry I don’t know how you’re doing.
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Karyn – please send your blog address to carashow at gmail dot com or leave it in your comment. Not sure when her WI day is or how she’s doing.
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Donna – Weighed in Yesterday. Lost 3.6 – Way to go, Donna!!!
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Spunkysuzi – not sure how she’s doing right now.

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A good friend from work joined WW today. We drove together to WW during lunch and she signed up as a friend of mine. Because she signed up, we both get this cool “healthy living cooler bag“. It’ll come in the mail. Can’t wait to get it. I can really use it on my bike rides in the mornings. I don’t have a place to put a water bottle on my bike and I get thirsty half way through and have to stop at the water fountains on the trail. Quite a pain! Besides the cool bag, it’s much cooler that my friend joined. Now I’ll have 2 friends from work (and my loving hubby) who go to WW meetings with me on Sat mornings. We’ll be havin’ a WW party come this Sat morning! :D

Had two dizzy spells today. I haven’t had one in maybe 6 months or more. Now two in one day. Not sure what happened. They’re usually just quick little 5 second spinny things. Kinda like when you spin around real fast and when you get done how everything spins and spins and spins. Well, it’ll get like that for just 2-5 seconds at a time. Doesn’t really have to do anything with my eating or my exertion habits. Just happens. But twice in one day is unusual. I think I’m going to go to bed early tonight. Get some good rest. I feel fine right now, just tired.

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I’ve finally broken the 180s at home!!!

Yesterday, I was down to 179.8 and today was 179.4. I hope I can hold onto it until tomorrow morning.

I didn’t go running this morning. Today was our only day to sleep in. Went to bed about 10:30 last night. Boy that was weird. I did that one other day this past week but before that, I can’t remember the last time I went to bed so early. Usually, I’m not in bed until 11 or 11:30 or midnight.

Got up at 8 this morning. Man I felt rested!

Way too rested to get up and go running.

Didn’t have a whole lot planned today. We’re both not feeling the greatest so we just went to go see a movie and came home and ate lunch. I’m about ready for a nap right now.

We went to go see Hancock. If you get the chance to go see it, DO. It was great! I loved it!

I had egg beaters with WW cheese and turkey sausage for breakfast. Then big bowl of fruit with some cheese cubes for lunch. For dinner I’m planning either a bowl of chicken noodle soup or maybe a frozen WW dinner. For snacks, we bought some of those yummy veggie chips, the cheddar-jalapeno ones. Very yummy!

I’m just trying to focus mostly on my dairy, protein, fiber and veggies/fruits as much as possible. Trying to keep it all well balanced. Seems to be working. I haven’t gone over my daily 23 points this week. Mainly because I used up all 35 (and then some) of my flex points last weekend. So I didn’t have any to spare this week.

Will let you know how tomorrow goes.

Happy 4th!!!

Okay, so we got back from our weekend today and I totally made a pig out of myself. I did relatively good while we were away. Maybe that’s why I went overboard today. I had real scrambled eggs (no egg beaters) with real cheese and hash browns with real cheese and a bagel with real cream cheese (is anyone catching the fact that I miss real cheese?). And as if that weren’t bad enough, tonight I had a double cheese burger and fries from Steak N Shake.

Well, I think I’ve gotten it out of my system, though. All I want to do now is go for a run. Get it out of my system. It’s too late tonight, but I’ve definitely going tomorrow morning. Can’t wait!

I don’t even want to attempt at tracking the points I ate today. And I was so good this weekend, too.

We had so much fun, hubby and me. We went to a remote control airplane show a couple of hours away. It was an international competition. People came from UK, Australia and even one guy from Taiwan. Their planes are just awesome. They’re usually 1/5, 1/4 and 1/3 scale planes. They have certain maneuvers they have to accomplish and they’re graded on them by the judges. And at the end, they give awards and trophies. It’s pretty serious stuff.

The “half time” shows (during lunch break) were the best. There were stunt plans doing all kinds of acrobatics and just some really cool looking planes.

Was way too hot, but we still had a blast.

The best part was just getting away with my hubby.

How was your weekend?

So, I played hookie from work this afternoon. Woo Hoo!!!

Actually, it was for a bad reason. My pre-menssie turned into a full blown menssie with raving cramps. (I know, more than you probably wanted to know!)

I should have know. With all the emotions pouring on. I should have known that the horrible pain was sure to follow.

So not very much was going on at work today. Sure I had some things to do, but if they waited until tomorrow, that would be okay. So I to a half personal day and went home and put my feet up on the couch and stayed there the rest of the afternoon.

The good thing was that I had this book that I’ve been so engrossed in for the past week and a half and have had NO time at all to read it. It’s really spell pounding and compelling and I was getting so mad because I could only find 5 minutes a day to read it.

So I had about 4 hours to read it and I almost finished it. I had to quit at 5:30 when hubbie got home. I have only about 40 pages left. Ugh!!

Oh, well, the good thing is, at 5 minutes a day, I should have these last 40 pages read by, say, oh, NEXT WEEK!

Was a great afternoon, though. I opened the windows and let the sun and cool breeze in while propping my feet up and reading. No noises. No distractions. No TV. No nothing. Just me and my awesomely wonderful book.

Was a great afternoon.

How ’bout you guys? How does your day compare to mine?