Sober May and Streaking

In an effort to shed the extra pounds that I found lately and to get my body in generally better health I'm going to give up booze for the whole month of May. Hubs and Curly Friend agreed to do this with me! Don't get me wrong, I'm not some raging alcoholic.  I do drink wine slightly more than occasionally, but hey, there are antioxidants in there, right?  Don't judge. I know I get a lot of extra calories this way, which is why I'm going to cut them out.

 Also, I want to work out at least 23 days in the month of May.  Who knows, maybe I'll try to make it a workout streak, we'll see.  The motivational stuff you read says to set measurable goals, 23/31 is measurable.  I don't usually work out on Friday and rarely work out on Saturday or Sunday.  Then there are the days when I have to go to the store after work and the days I need to do a little extra house cleaning and when my husband is home earlier than usual and when... well, you get the point.  I have a lot of excuses to not work out.  Those have to go out with the booze for at least one month.

Last 'rita in the house

Little Sister is forcing wants me to do a zombie run with her on Friday night.  Should be a fun start to my Friday workout routine.  I told her we should sign up for any theme runs and fun-type runs they do in our area to convince them to keep doing them.  She reminded me I said that so I'm signing us up tomorrow.  But hey, I don't mind running as much when someone makes it fun.  

Speaking of making running fun, did I show you my new running shoes?  Please excuse my unmade bed and my purse in the pic.

May Plan:  Punching the bag.  Running the races.  Avoiding the booze.  What do you have planned to ring in the warm weather?

Smacked in the Face

Today it hit me.  Like a ton o' bricks.  I was online looking up diet pills and their reviews.  Diet pills, really?!?  I preach to anyone who will listen (and more often than not, people who don't want to hear it) about putting whole, natural foods into our bodies.  I talk about the benefits of eating a mostly vegetarian diet and avoiding dairy as much as possible.  I shame people into giving up soda and energy drinks, yet today I'm looking at diet pills?!?  That probably ranks pretty high on the things you should NOT put into your body, yet I'm reading reviews to see which one I might purchase.  I felt like the worst hypocrite ever!

January 2012 I was about 17 lbs lighter than I am today because I worked for it then.  I was taking gym classes a few days a week, eating well, not sitting on the couch like a bum watching TV drinking wine.  You could see ab muscles and I didn't have to lay on my bed to button my khaki pants on Thursdays!  This week I think I've finally found a workout I enjoy enough to do at home, now I have to get back to eating well.  I'm going to prepare more meals at home and start making shakes for breakfast again.  I know those things work for me, I just stopped doing them.  Hubs says he'll help keep me accountable as we both have goals we'd like to see before summer.  I'll post my progress along the way and pictures of what I'm eating so you can keep me accountable, too.  I fully expect you, my hundreds of followers, to call me out when you don't see me posting progress.  I can do this.

How do you stay motivated?

Kickin' it Boxer Style

Hubs got me a heavy bag for our anniversary a couple months ago.  I have decided that I would rather do a boxing routine over running any day.  Kickboxing over pretty much any workout right now!

 I have no plan of doing any ultras anyway.  My ultimate running goal is to be a mule for Curly friend when she works up to that point; carry extra water and fuel and keep her company in the lonely miles. I probably only need to be able to do a half to handle that so I've decided I'm going to switch to boxer training!

After I did a little research, I wrote a training routine.  Wanna hear it?  Of course you do!

Round 1:  Jump rope
Round 2: Jab cross
Round 3: Alternating hooks
Round 4:  Squats
Round 5:  Boxer shuffle with alternating jabs
Round 6:  Sumo squats
Round 7:  Right round kick
Round 8:  Left round kick
Round 9: Front kicks
Round 10: Jump rope

I found a round timer app on my phone for FREE!  I set it up for 2 minutes per round and 1 minute rest between.  The rest seemed long so I will probably shorten it to 30 seconds for future workouts.  I'm going to alternate this routine with one I found on YouTube for a while and see how I feel.

Think I'll look like this by summer?

 

Do the Hustle

I was very excited to get to do the first ever 5k in my tiny town.  We had to weave around a few blocks in town just to make it a whole 5k.  Yes, it's that small.  We had 175 people turn out for it and the weather was perfect, just a little chilly if you we just standing, but once we got moving we felt great!  Hubs and sister both beat me, but that is no surprise because I'm REALLY slow.  Hubs finished in 36:56.  That is amazing to me because she has never done a 5k before.  I'm super proud! 

Sister finished this race 4 minutes faster than the color run she did 2 days before.  Very proud of her, too.

One of the things I'm most proud of, though is the fact that we had four generations of women in my family complete the race.  Myself, my mother and my sister did the 5k and Princess and Grandma did the 1 mile fun run. 

Princess will tell you that the fun run wasn't much fun.  She only decided to sign up the evening before.  She doesn't like running AT.ALL.  This worked out well because Grandma isn't up for running either so they got to cross the finish line together. 

When I first started running, the women in this pic told me I was a crazy person.  They never even considered entering a race of any kind.  I'm glad to say that we all finished on Saturday.  None of us got a medal, they didn't announce our names over the speakers, but none of that mattered.  We all crossed the finish line.  Grandma, Mom, Princess and Hubs had never crossed a finish line before.  Now they can say they have finished a race.  These are the things that make me want to be a runner.

Are you signed up for any races yet?