What Will You Gain When You Lose?

I look for motivation and inspiration in everything I read and watch.  The picture below is from Fitness Magazine, and it was an ad for the Special K Challenge (a diet where you eat nothing but Special K products, uh, no thank you, but I love the ad).

The headline read: What will you gain when you lose?  I loved it so much, I took a picture and ripped it out so I can post it and see it again later.  It's so true.  When you work hard at your goals and accomplish them, you receive so much more than just the end result.  In my case, yes, I've lost weight  and I'm healthier, but I've also gained confidence and moxie and most of the other things listed below.  

This is the time of year when everyone resolves to be more, do more, etc. It's important to set goals, but I think this ad just reminded me that it is about so much more than the goals themselves.  When you set your New Year's resolutions today, take a minute and try to visualize the outcomes and the many ways they may affect you.  It all helps as you pursue your goals. 

In addition to my normal goals of drinking all my water, exercising regularly, eating within a specific calorie range, etc., my new year's resolution is to perform two 30 second plank exercises a day. Apparently planks are the best way to strengthen your abdominals and can be done anywhere.  Adding a minute to my day seems highly possible right now. Do you set New Year's resolutions? If so, care to share in the comments section below?

Books of 2010

 The Books of 2010

For the first time this year I kept a book log of all of the books I read.  I read 60 books in 2010!

There is a lot of juvenile fiction on this list, but it's actually some of the best stuff on the list :) And too much chick lit crap, but what can I say?

 

Let me know if you have any questions or need a book recommendation!

 

Here they are in chronological order:

1. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
2. A View from Saturday
3. The Battle of the Labyrinth
4. The Last Olympian
5. The Graveyard Book
6. Higher Power of Lucky
7. Empire Grill
8. Running for Mortals
9. Film Club
10. Name of the Wind
11. Huge
12. Curly Girl
13. Nanny Returns
14. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (first time ever finishing it)
15. Water for Elephants
16. Size 12 is Not Fat
17. Size 14 is Not Fat Either
18. Big Boned
19. Queen of Babble
20. Queen of Babble in the Big City
21. Queen of Babble Gets Hitched
22. Last Song
23. The Help (one of the best books on this list!)
24. Eat, Pray, Love
25. Stuff Christians Like
26. The Actor and the Housewife
27. Princess Diaries
28. Boy next Door
29. Boy meets Girl
30. Princess in the Spotlight
31. Princess in Love
32. Princess in Waiting
33. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time
34. Book Thief
35. Princess in Pink
36. Triathloning for Ordinary Mortals
37. Best Friends
38. Been There, Done That
39. Make the Impossible Possible
40. One Day
41. Pope Joan
42. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life
43. Scot Pilgrim vs. the World
44. The Hunger Games (one of my favorites from the year!)
45. Darcy’s Story
46. Catching Fire
47. Mockingjay
48. City of Bones
49. City of Ashes
50. Marathoning for Mortals
51. Red Pyramid
52. Gregor the Overlander
53. City of Ember
54. Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane
55. City of Glass
56. Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods
57. Gregor and the Marks of the Secret
58. The Lost Hero
59. Gregor and the Code of Claw
60. Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

Sickness

It's been a week since Christmas. I wanted to let you know that I am eating fairly normally, but I am still not counting calories and making a big effort.  The main reason has been sickness. I've had a bad cold all week and it has zapped me of strength and a will to try.  I haven't gotten in a work out since last Sunday when I blogged about my run.  That may be the longest stretch I've gone without a workout during this whole 17-month journey, but I'm not really feeling guilty about it.  

My main efforts will begin again this weekend as I make my routine trip to the grocery store and make my meals in preparation for returning to work on Monday. I hope that then I can be healthy and back on track.  I need to get rid of these last few pounds so I can mark this goal off my list!

A Few Looks at the Past Year and a Half

My parents gave me a sweet digital picture frame for Christmas, and one of the crazy things about loading pictures on it has been to see the difference in my body shape through out the last two years.   Here are a few pictures, to give you an idea.

June 2009



July 2009





August 2010



September 2010













October 2009





November 2009



 

December 2009


 

January 2010













February 2010

March 2010



April 2010



May 2010



June 2010





July 2010

 

August 2010





September 2010

October 2010

November 2010

December 2010

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011!

One of my favorite things about this time of year are the year-end lists.  Magazines, web sites, newspapers, count down the top ten movies of the year or the top stories of the year.  I like to read over these and remember little tidbits that I had forgotten.  Like did you remember that 2010 was the year LOST ended and Rue McClanahan died? That's both crazy and sad.

So I thought I do a little year-end wrap up here on the blog as well. A top five healthy living memories list from my life:
2010 was the year that I:
5) Climbed the rock wall at Winthrop.
4) Sweated it out in the Insanity workout program with Shaun T and a bunch of crazy co-workers.
3) Went on a beach vacation with my family and to Las Vegas with friends and enjoyed good food. Then came home and got right back on track with my weight loss. (An amazing feat of strength!)
2) Made it to 90 pounds lost and bought my victory boots.
1) Ran my first 5k, my second 5k and my first 10k.  I guess you could say I caught the racing bug.


The other great thing about the end of the year is that it is no time to rest on your laurels.  It's also a great time to look ahead and set new goals. In 2011, I will:
1) Lose 100 + pounds.
2) Visit England and France and my friend Stephanie Hardy.
3) Run my 2nd 10k (January 22nd!) and hopefully a sprint triathlon. I'm still thinking about a half marathon. Maybe.
4) Visit the doctor for a physical for the first time in two years.
5) Celebrate my parents' 40 years of marriage!
6) Read the entire Bible.


What are you proud of from the past year and what do you hope to accomplish in the next year?  Share in the comments section below! It could be anything, please don't feel your accomplishments need to be limited by feats of strength or healthy eating.

24 to 16

Another edition of Memory Mondays...
I remember someone asked me what size I would like to be when I finished. I think when I told them I needed to lose more than 100 pounds, they felt overwhelmed on my behalf and thought it would be better for me to think in terms of clothing sizes.

You may as well know, I started at a size 24 in pants.  At the time I was asked this question I was a size 22.  I believe my answer was like, "I would LOVE to be a size 16. I haven't been that small since my early high school years.  Being size 14 would be even more amazing, but size 12 is not even on my radar; it's impossible.

I'm now wearing a size 16 in pants and have been since it turned cold outside. When I had this conversation, a 16 seemed too good to wish for.  A size 16 means you can shop at most stores and find clothes that fit.  In the past I've had to shop only in stores or sections for plus-size women.  Shopping has actually become kind of a fun activity for me, instead of something I dread.

A 14 once seemed impossible, but now it is within possibility. I even have a few pairs, donated to me from my friend Kati, washed, ready and waiting for me in my dresser.  I can't wait to get to wear them!

Post-Christmas Round Up

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you all had a great holiday with your families.  I did.  Christmas for me means lots of time with my parents, my siblings and my adorable nieces and nephews.

It was also my first white Christmas that I recall. It started snowing hard mid-morning on Christmas Day and pretty much snowed all day here in Alabama.  It didn't accumulate much, not like it did in Charlotte, but it was beautiful to watch falling softly out the windows.

I know I write a lot about running. I hope it doesn't bore you, but I guess it's such a favored topic because it continues to challenge me, and is easier to be honest about than food.  Anyway, I took two much needed days of rest from exercise on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Before that, I had exercised for 14 straight days, and had doubled up several of those days.  I needed to fit in a long run of 3.5 miles over the weekend, and fully expected to do it, until it started snowing on Christmas.  Somehow, I just wasn't interested in running with snow or ice on the ground.  So, I guess I kind of wrote it off then, but then my sister reminded me today.

So I headed to a park just off of downtown Leeds, because circling my parents' neighborhood could be maddening on a longer run. Although when I got to the park, half of the trails were closed due to construction, which made the available paths even less than what I would've had in the neighborhood.  So I took off running towards downtown and then ran back to the park and circled a few more times.  It was amazing. I don't know if it was the days of rest, the extra fuel I've had lately (delicious Christmas goodies), or the new scenery, but it was a great run.  It was 3.5 miles, and it flew by (even though it was 30 degrees, and with wind chill it felt like 20).  So I think my new thing will be whenever I'm out of town somewhere, I will take my running shoes and get to know the place on my two feet with a run.  There's so much more to see that way.

I'm still continuing not to weigh or count calories.  I will get back to this when life gets back to normal, but for now it has been nice to have a mental vacation from it all. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself there before Christmas, and I don't like it when I'm like that.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!  Care to share what your favorite memory of Christmas 2010?  Mine was probably my niece telling us over and over again "Nice to meet you, I'm Caitkin Rose Sookey" or singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."  My least favorite was definitely the lack of sleep I got from having a baby in the house...I don't know how parents do it. I require too much sleep.