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?

Back to Natural

I preach to everyone I meet about the benefits of a more natural life.  The people who know me best say I'm a hippie, sometimes it's a compliment, sometimes it's a joke and I think sometimes they mean it as an insult.  I'm okay with being a 'hippie'.  I try to make decisions that will help the environment, my family, my health and my pocketbook.  Lately, though, I feel like maybe I'm conforming.  I'm not a conformist, I have pretty much always been 'duifferent' even if it was only slightly.  I'm turning 30 this year.  I have a grown-up, middle management job.  I have a husband, a kid and a couple dogs.  All of this is way to adult for me.  I'd rather be living in a yurt in the middle of a vineyard living off the grid, but I'm in rural America living the American Dream.  Because of all this, I'm a little bit stuck in a very important decision:  Should I let my hair go gray naturally or should I continue to dye it because I don't want to be that grown up?

I want to be natural, right?  So if my natural hair color is fading to gray, shouldn't I let it go?  On the other hand, there are hair dyes out there that claim to be more 'natural'.  I don't believe most of these products are actually natural.  I realize it's a marketing scheme to make us think we are doing something better for ourselves and for the environment.  I have been using baking soda and vinegar to cleanse my hair on and off for a couple years.  The times that I stop using them and start using some kind of shampoo and conditioner again is when I'm coloring my hair.  Baking soda will wash everything, including the color from my hair.  Vinegar is used to set colors when you dye things like clothes, it will do the same for hair color, but the baking soda counters it and the result is a waste of money on hair dye.

All of this is vanity, of course.  A lame attempt to stop the process of growing up.  I'd like to know what I know now and go back in time and do things again.  Not so I can do things differently, the decisions I've made make me who I am today, but so I can enjoy things I took for granted over time.  God is giving me this gray hair, maybe I should just accept it as a gift and be thankful I have the hair I have.  Besides, if I truly want to be more natural, using the baking soda and vinegar are better for my body and for the environment, but that conformist part of me kicks in when I look in the mirror and see a fresh gray root on my head.  I have threatened to just put silver highlights in my hair so that I can go gray on my own terms.  My mother and I have a trip to the beauty supply store planned for tomorrow, I haven't made any decision yet.  I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens...

How are you coping with getting older and the physical things that come along with it?

Stop Quitting

Hi.  My name is April and I'm a quitter.

Oh it's true; ugly, but true.  I don't like being a quitter.  I want to see things to the end, but I quit, a lot.  Once I started the Brazil Butt Lift 30 day challenge and stopped doing the program on day 29.  I finished day 29 and never finished day thirty.  REALLY?!?  How ridiculous is that?  I started C25K and haven't gone to the track consistently in 3 weeks, I was only 4 weeks in. I'm not stopping, but there is always an excuse.  Usually my excuse is that I don't have anyone to go to the track with me, but it is still an excuse.  I'm terrified of being out there all alone.  You never know when a bad guy or Sasquatch may show up.  I don't want my family wondering what happened to me when I get drug away be a serial killer or wild animal.  Thing is, I have a back up plan for when I can't get anyone to go to the track with me.  There is another track in the town I work in with many more people on it on any given day.  I just need to throw a bag in the car and change at work.  Tada!  No more excuses, but I'm still using them.

Trust me.  This isn't any more frustrating to anyone but me.  When I step back and realize what I'm doing to myself I just want to scream at the mirror.  When I finish this blog post, I'm going to pack my gym bag.  I'm going to go put it on top of my purse so there is no excuse of forgetting it tomorrow.  No matter how cold it is out tomorrow night, I'm going to the track.  Hell, I may even head to the track at lunch when there is at least some daylight left.  I don't sweat that much, it's only 30 minutes on the track.  I'll take come DO for my BO and some smell good spray.

I keep thinking that I'd like to start BBL again and actually finish this time.  I've had that thought for over a week now.  I even went to get the DVDs from someone I had loaned them to, they made it to the room I would work out in and landed on a shelf to collect dust.  I had it in my head that I was going to start the program tonight, then Mom invited me and Princess over for dinner.  We had brown beans.  SOOOOOO good, but SOOOOO bad to work out after.  Excuses.  There I go again.  Who cares if I'm the stinky girl working out?  Princess is about to go to bed and hubs is out of town.  It's just me and the flat screen!  I just have to stop quitting before I ever even get started!  Any tips?

So.Busy.

It has been a while since I've posted anything.  It has been crazy busy.  What have I been up to, you ask, well here goes.

Recently I have realized that I have been out in this world for some time now and have never actually set up a home.  My houses have always looked more like bachelor pads; handed down furniture, nothing hanging on the walls, only attempted to paint rooms a few times and those were not successful.  We have lived in this house for over six years.  I have painted all the rooms the colors I want them, but not much more than that.  I'm not the greatest housekeeper, either.  So to remedy all this, I've hung mostly empty picture frames on the wall in an artful way.  I ordered some prints of our recent family photos from Walgreens, but have so far failed to pick them up.  I'll get those tomorrow and hang them this week.  I hung some lovely wine label decor pieces on the wall in the dining.  I've done nothing but clean (or so it feels) for the last couple weeks.  It all feels pretty good though.  I like that my house is finally feeling like a home for my family.  About the time I get every room completed, we will probably have found the next home we want to buy and I'll have to start over, but I will have collected a few things I can use in the next place.

What are your favorite things in your house?


I have barely been to the track in the last couple weeks, but I do have big plans in the new year.  More on that a little later.  I have managed to eat a little better and not add a bazillion pounds in my down time.  I'm actually on track with my weight loss.  I have been hovering around 185 lately, but today I was at 181.  I feel pretty good that next weeks weigh in will be even better even if I don't get to the track like I want to.