EEK

Sooooooo....... Am I allowed to "start over"? Haha! OMG I don't even want to talk about the sins I have committed the past two weeks. And by sins, I mean almost no exercise and lots of eating. Sigh. Like... It was bad. And to make me feel even better, I went to the doctor Wednesday and the scale said 128.8 lbs. Last September I had gotten down to 119. Meh. Granted, that was before my thyroid surgery and I knew I had been gaining weight on and off because of that, but it's still a bummer. I have a small frame so even a two lb gain is noticeable on me. But good news. I got a refill for my thyroid medication and will pick that up next week. The doctor didn't bump up my dose which is super annoying, but I think he will once I annoy the crap out of him about it. Yesterday was my birthday and manlover got me lots of amazing goodies, including am Oreo ice cream cake. WHAT! We demolished it. But we made a promise to ourselves... From here until the wedding we will be the biggest health freaks alive so we can be in great shape. It's only about a month away, but I think I can definitely lose at least 5 lbs before then so I can fit comfortably in my wedding dress haha. So today I ran a mile to get my heart rate up (8:45 min time!) and did about 40 mins of weights. Tomorrow morning at 6am I am flying home for the weekend for my bridal shower and it should be super fun. I'm going to try and eat just my favorite foods, and only small portions and not inhale everything. I'm really excited to see my friends that I haven't seen since May! Alrighty, well I haven't showered yet and I need to get ready for work. I'll write more this weekend!

Week Two Training

Wow. Okaaaay. So the end of last week did not end so smoothly. Let's just say I did a run on Friday that kinda kicked my butt (3.03 mil - 38 min) and after that it went downhill. Saturday my manlover took treated me with a wonderful adventure day in Syracuse, and that involved A LOT of unhealthy, but delicious food. We went to Dinosaur Bar-b-q which was on an episode of Diners, Dive-Ins, & Dives, so of course we had to check it out. So worth it. I'm from NC (which I like to boast about having some of the best bar-b-q around), and that was definitely the best bar-b-q I've EVER had. Then we adventured to the huge mall they have and had a great time getting lost in a mirror maze, shopping, eating funfetti cupcakes, and topping it off with drinks and apps at Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill. Needless to say it was lots of fun, but it was my demise. I don't even want to talk about the lack of exercising and food I consumed for 3 days. It was not pretty.

Monday - 8.5.13
I managed to run/walk 3.64 miles in 40:34 mins. My average pace was 11:08 mins/mile. I didn't eat all that great, but Adam and I went and finally stocked up on healthy groceries since we both had the day off. Yay! Adam was also sweet enough to surprise me with a new Kinect game, Dance Central 3, so I can't wait to try it out as a workout add-on.

Tuesday - 8.7.13 - Rest
I ate really healthy, but didn't get a workout in. I had to work camp from 8am-4:30pm and decided to eat dinner before my workout. Well that never happened. I passed out around 6pm for a "quick" nap and somehow managed to not wake up until 5am on Wednesday haha. WHAT?! I would say camp wore me out, but this sleepiness plus other instances are definitely pointing to my thyroid issues. I really need my medicine bumped up and my August 21st appointment can't come soon enough!

Wednesday - 8.8.13
Did a 6am run, whoo-hoo! I always love early runs. The weather is cooler and I always manage to see turkeys, deer, and a pretty sunrise. I think I might start trying to make my early runs even earlier though because all the soldiers are also driving to PT or work when I start running and the roads can get pretty busy.

Good Morning Bambi!

Thursday - 8.8.13
Today was a great day for my workout. I have been feeling a little pain in my shins, so I decided I need to start training on the gym treadmill more often. I made whole wheat pancakes for manlover this morning before he went to work (I'm such a sweet wife) and ate 3 hard boiled eggs myself. Then I ran and did some upper body weights afterwards.
5 miles - 56:23
25 mins - Upper body weight lifting

Friday - 8.9.13
Rest day. My body is achy. Last night I had horrible cravings for food and gave in :(:(:( I had a small bowl of nachos at work, bagel & cream cheese after work, , a few bites of pound cake, some waffle crunch cereal, and yeah... just unnecessary stuff. Ugh. Oh well. I'm trying to get better.

Week One Training

Tuesday 7.30.13

                
3 mile run today around base. Pretty much ran a loop to the PX and back. Feeling good!! Snacked a little more than I maybe should have this evening, but at least it was healthy snacks ;) Going to bed early to catch a sunrise run!

Wednesday 7.31.13

The schedule called for a 2 mile run, but I felt great running at 6am and decided to push a little more. I'm pretty happy with my time, but I'm definitely feeling a little sore in my left hip today. Off to work I go now!


Thursday 8.1.13
Ugh. I am just absolutely exhausted today, I don't know why. The hubz & I tried watching a movie yesterday after shopping at Walmart & I just couldn't keep my eyes open past 10pm. This morning I'm struggling to stay awake as well, even after getting 8+ hours of sleep. I think my thyroid medicine needs to be bumped up a little, because the past few weeks, I've just felt so pooped even when I shouldn't be. Luckily I have an appt in 3 weeks! My hip is still a little sore too, so I think I will switch up the schedule a little and make this a rest day. I have to take my puppylove to the vet before work as well, so I'm just relaxing this morning til then :)

Officially Started!

Well yesterday was my first "official" day of training for the training schedule I'm doing! You can find it on the training tab up top. I was supposed to do strength & stretching. I did a mile on the treadmill to warm up and then did roughly 40mins of upper body strength training. I like using free weights and my own body weight to do strength training. Sometimes I will use machines, but not very often. Even after adjusting them, they tend to not "feel" right or someone is always hovering over me to use it. We have two big gyms on base and right now the biggest one is getting the floors re-done. Soooooo everybody and their mother was at the other gym today. There's a crossfit gym I like to go to as well, but I saw the parking lot slammed as I drove by so I said no sir. I went to the other one and luckily there were a few treadmills open and the weight room wasn't too bad. Didn't really wake up sore, so that's a good thing I suppose. But I'm one of those people that likes to wake up sore because then I know I had a good workout the day before, haha! I feel it in my triceps though, yay :) Later today I plan on running 3 miles.

Well I have to pop over to work now. We are taking the camp kids to the beach today, whoop whoop! Too bad these beach trips are making me have like 7 different shades of skin color. Oh well, can't really complain about hanging out at the beach for work haha. (And by beach I really mean Lake Ontario).

Let's Do This

So yesterday I decided I'm really going to stay committed to my new training routine I have planned. I managed to run 3 miles without stopping, but the last mile was touch and go. The sun was pretty brutal and the hills got the best of me. But I'm proud that I managed to run 3 miles! A few years ago I couldn't even run 300 feet, much less a few miles. Anywho, I'm off today so I've just been kind of laying around until I get the energy to take a longer run today. My hubby boothang manfriend (my husband - I have many nicknames for him) just asked me to bring him something to work. I was about to hop in my car and drive over to the fire station , buuuuuut... I have the crazy notion to run/walk it over to him.

But it's a 9.3 mile trek there & back.

And 1000% hot humid air.

And it literally just started raining.

Hmm.

I guess this is a good time to test my commitment huh? Haha. I could easily just drive to the gym and run on the treadmill there, but it's SO BORING. I'm dreading when winter comes here and there's 3 feet of snow and I can't do a darn tootin thing outside. Some of you may say "Hey, I run in the snow!" But this southern, flip flop wearing, warm weather lover does NOT do unnecessary snow adventures. I've only experienced 3 ft snow about twice in my life. I was not happy. But I digress...

So I think I'm going to get dressed, get my pre workout snack on, and see where my lovely sneakers take me. To the car or the road. I'll let you know how it goes...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Well I'm back. And pooped. But I feel very accomplished! I definitely would not say that was my best workout ever, but I'm happy with the distance. I started out just playing Dance Central on fitness mode on our Kinect, but it started clearing up outside so I quickly turned it off and headed out the door.

Mile 1 - Whoohoo! I'm walking, I'm walking, Zipadeedooda, I'm a walking machine! I even skipped a little. Don't judge me.
Mile 2 - Horrific foot cramp. Seriously? I can walk for days, what gives? I pushed through it and it subsided about 80% the rest of the workout.
Mile 5 - By this point I had been rained on, stepped in mud puddles, passed by 2 dead skunks and 1 dead porcupine goblin hybrid creature, and walked uphill against the wind most of the way; but Hallelujah I was there! Now after giving Adam his stuff, it was time to... dum dum DUM - not walk, but RUN back!

I probably ran about 4 miles total, but halfway back I was gassing out pretty bad and popped in a gas station to grab a Powerade. I totally spaced out and maybe kind of sorta drank the whole thing in about .5 seconds flat. Stomach cramp now - oy vey. This run was never going to end. But after 9.3 miles, I made it back and the last 3 miles were in beautiful weather. And some awesome songs came on to pump me up til the finish!

About Me!

     So a little about me! A lot of y'all may be friends or family who already know too much about me, but for those of you who are curious about who I am and what I'm about - here ya go! I grew up in a Disney family and have visited WDW more times than I can remember. We always vacationed in Myrtle Beach, SC or Disney, even though we could have vacationed in a thousand other places - that's just where we loved to go! I ended up doing the College Program Internship my sophomore year in college and afterwards became a Disney Campus Rep until I graduated. I don't get to visit like I used to, but I recently decided to train & run the various marathons they hold! I would love to do the half marathon in Jan 2014, but I don't think I'll have the time off or money to go until Jan 2015. Sad day. But that's ok, I WILL be going in 2015 (hopefully for the full marathon)!!! As of right now, I plan on my first Disney race being Disney's Wine & Dine 1/2 marathon in November 2014.

     As far as running goes... I hated it. And when I say I hated it, I mean I hated it more than bananas, humidity, yogurt, spiders, raisin cookies, and sunburns combined (all things I'm not particularly fond of). But in college, and especially my semester at Disney, I gained weight (surprise surprise) & became very unhappy with my body. About 25-30 lbs. That's a lot in about 7 months. I had always tried to exercise when I could, but considered myself a pretty casual exerciser. After years of ups & downs, I managed to work off 95% of the weight I gained and I'm currently working on being a health freak. It became more difficult after I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and eventually had to have 60% of my thyroid removed as well, but I'm here to prove that hypothyroidism is no excuse to become complacent. I will not let it hold me back from becoming what I plan to achieve in my fitness goals. I've recently fallen in love with running and I'm working on my goal of completing my first half marathon and eventually a marathon. For those of you who aren't super weird, crazy Disney fans, they offer many races and eventually I would like to do their Dopey Challenge, which consists of running their 5k on day one, half marathon on day two, and a full marathon on day three. I'm insane right? Yes... I probably am haha. I even like yogurt & bananas now (but only in smoothies). 

     But in a nut shell, I started this blog to connect with other crazy people like me and to keep in touch with friends and family back home about the random shenanigans in my life. My husband and I met in college, I fell in love with his crazy, wonderful, silly butt, and now we are married. After graduating college he decided to join the army, so we are currently stationed in Fort Drum NY. (AAAARRGH so far away from FL & warm weather - we are from NC) but so far the summers are good here ;) We ended up having a quick courthouse wedding, but we are having our "formal" wedding with friends & family back home on Oct 5, 2013. I can't wait!

     This blog will be mostly about exercising, running, recipes, etc... but some of my other passions in life are decorating, art, crafts, and DIY projects. Since we both have a limited income, I've had to be creative in decorating our military home. Being an ex-art major, I still have a passion for it and will often post things in that realm. Ok enough with my ramblings! (Expect a lot of that). Hope you enjoy the blog and feel free to message me anytime!

-Michelle

Firetruck Fun!

Me & my boothang!

Disney Internship!

*All photos posted are property of Eat, Sleep, Run, Craft unless otherwise noted in captions.  They are not to be used without credit and a link back to the blog.* 

Thanks!