New Goal

Alright, so I finally hit the 150 mark. I was getting a little lazy, allowing myself to kind of hang out there. Now I am setting a new goal of 140 for the wedding. I think I can lose 2 pounds in the next two weeks.
Goal: 148 by March 17.
I got some pictures of the Aloha Run from Denby. To the left is us walking from the bus to the start line. On the right is "Devon and his Track Bitches." Basically, we are just feeling really good and looking really sexy after finishing. Every one of us was able to run the whole thing and I think we all felt pretty good for the whole race. After last week's yoga, I went for a run on Monday and my Achilles tendon started to hurt. I slowed down to a slow crawl and then rested my feet and legs for the next couple of days, so I basically did nothing. I went for another run on Thursday and it seems like resting paid off because the tendon didn't hurt this time. The last thing I need is to hurt myself so that I can't run or workout for weeks. Not right now. Today I woke up to meet Myia, Denby and Devon at yoga and then afterwards Myia suggested that we lift weights since we pay the daily rate for the class, we might as well use the gym as much as possible. So against my better judgment I used the leg machines. Right now I feel okay, but I have a feeling that tomorrow I am going to be quite sore. We may go hiking tomorrow morning, depending on whether or not Josh makes Myia go to church.
This week I plan on Sunday- hike, Monday- run or Power Yoga, Tuesday- rest, Wednesday- run, Thursday- rest, Friday- run with Titus, Saturday- yoga/weights.
I have continued to eat well, and actually am not really missing out on anything. My basic strategy has been to replace all the bad-for-me things that I've been eating with an extra serving of vegetables. I think I still eat too many calories per day, but I've made the switch to higher fiber, more vitamins and minerals types of food. It's kind of a low-carb diet. What they say is true, once you stop eating carbs all the time, you really stop craving them as much. Plus, my breakfast of eggs and vegetables or lunch meat has really kept me full all the way until lunch time and past on the days that I don't have time to eat on my regular schedule. There's been two days that I had to skip lunch totally, but didn't actually get too hungry. When I eat cereal or a bagel or waffles, I always end up getting hungry before it's time to eat lunch. I'm sure there's something to say about the munching on food all day long/smaller meals way of living. Myia's looking awesome by going that route. I just haven't been planning ahead enough for that kind of way of living. I am feeling really good about planning ahead for lunch at this point. I've also been buying those frozen lunches and keep a few in the freezer at work for those days that I didn't plan ahead to make lunch. It's a hell of a lot less expensive than eating at Jack in the Box or McDonald's and a lot better for me. There's a lot of sodium, but I can live with that since I don't eat them all the time.
Score for me! Nate offered to get me chocolate ice cream last night and I said, No Thankyou. I watched him eat his ice cream, and didn't actually feel like I wanted any. Nate's been great. I don't think he's really noticed that I am not feeding either of us nearly as many carbs as we used to eat. And I think he has really enjoyed the last few meals we've made together. I like to put him in charge of seasoning whatever meat or protein we're having and when we have salad, he's in charge of cutting vegetables. We've had some delicious salads recently cause he's actually a really good cook. He really enjoys making rubs and marinades and throws in Cumin and all sorts of spices that I don't know anything about.

150!!!!!!!

Yeeha! Well, it's been quite some time, so lots to write about. First off, I have weighed in at 150 for three days straight. For me that's pretty fantastic. I've lost about 25 pounds since I first got to Hawaii. I can't believe I actually weighed in at 175 at one point. I told myself I would never let myself get out of the "healthy weight" bracket. It's amazing how easy it is to just let the weight slowly add up. Anyway, I have been working hard.
I've been running pretty often training for the Great Aloha Run. Nate had to go to Syracuse for a week and a half to spend time with his mother who just had a liver transplant, his sister the liver donor, and the rest of his family who has been taking care of them. I figured I would take that time to focus on exercising a lot, and eating really well. I cut down on most of the carbs I eat, packed lunch every day, and ran or walked every day of the week. I actually woke up really early a couple of times and took Titus running before work to watch the sunrise at the beach.
On Sunday the 18th Myia and I went on a dead-head voyage on the SSV Makani Olu, the sailboat that our company uses to take the boys on voyages to the other islands. It was rough! We left the pier and it started to get really wavy once we started heading out past Diamond Head. You would get up to the top of a wave, ride it down and then smash into a wave coming from the other direction. It was really crazy. Myia didn't quite get sick, but slept near the wheel for most of the trip. I was enjoying myself for a while, but it got old holding on for dear life. Halfway through the trip Myia went down and slept on one of the cots for a few hours. I hung out with the Captain and some of the crew. We saw a whale jumping out of the water near Makapu`u Lighthouse. I wish I could have gotten a picture. I thought the trip was supposed to take about 8 hours, but we didn't end up getting in until 8:00pm, which made it a 10-11 hour trip. The last 2 hours were the most painful. lighthouse, then Rabbit Island, then the Mokes. Then we had to go all the way up to We seemed like we were pretty close, we passed the Chinaman's Hat before we could enter Kaneohe Bay. I didn't realize that you can't just go straight in because of the sand bars. So I was sadly surprised when we didn't just turn in, but kept going. I was so miserable at the very end, and tired.
out to 11:34 minute miles. That'sMonday was the Aloha Run. 8.15 miles. I got my race time back, I ran it in 1:34 and averaged great for me. Ananda and I ran it together and she kept me going all the way until the end. There was definitely some points when I just wanted to walk. It's very different running on a new course where you don't know when you'll see the next mile marker. I've been training on a loop, it's about 2.5 miles long, and I know it so well that I always know exactly how far I've run and how far I have to go. Running the race you're always looking for the next mile marker to see how far you've made it. It was pretty awesome, there were about 12,000 people running. 20,000 people signed up, but apparently people don't always follow through. There were about 1,000 people running the race in Iraq, they do it on the same day and set a course for 8.15 miles for all of the soldiers from Hawaii.
After the race I felt pretty tired and sore, and didn't run for the rest of the week. Nate came home on Tuesday, and I vowed to keep eating well. I actually have been able to continue to eat well and on Friday I stepped on the scale and it read 150. It stayed at 150 for the next two days despite having a Snickers Ice Cream cone.
This morning I woke up incredibly sore from doing Yoga yesterday. I had a wake-up call about how little I have been cross-training or stretching recently. My arms are killing me today. I feel a little better after going on a hike this morning to the Likeke trail to the waterfall. We checked out the geocache that we found on my first hike and made Josh and Denby find the microcache "no more mister nice guy." I am an idiot and forgot that I said that I was going to bring Titus on the hike. Everybody else had their dogs.
I'm setting my next long-term goal as 140, hopefully by the half-marathon in June. My short term goal is just to break 150, so 149. That should take one or two weeks.
The plan is to run on Mondays and Thursdays, Yoga on Saturday mornings and hike on Sundays.
You should check out Myia's blog on how she's gotten so thin:
click here.

Resolution Check-up

So, so far so good for the new year. Of course, it's only the 4th, but that's okay, a little pat on the back can't hurt. So far this week I've been pretty active. Went walking with Myia on Tuesday for lunch, we actually walked pretty far. Yesterday I went for a run with Myia and Ananda, three miles. It hurt pretty bad, actually, but we all made it and Myia ran off at the end ahead of us. After that I took Titus for a quick run because he was crazy and full of energy, so we did sprints up the road. I'm sure we looked pretty funny, cause I was running as fast as I could. Today I'm gonna walk at lunch again. I've been semi-good with the eating better. Nate and I cooked a pork roast on Monday and Nate spiced the hell out of it. It's pretty good and better for me than most of the food I eat. So we've got a ton of leftovers and I've been working on those all week. I even ate just a taste of hamburger helper last night and substituted more vegetables and some pork. I really need to hit the grocery store for some healthier snacks- I'm thinking Almonds, mozzarella sticks, and some carrot sticks. I'm not as into the vegetable snacks as Myia is.
My plan is to walk again at lunch today and then tomorrow I'll have to do something on my own. Either the TV workout with Gilad or I'll run with Titus. Probably will also hike this weekend, but I'm not totally sure. On Monday I plan to hike with the boys, and then hopefully walk at lunch on Tuesday. I probably won't have a lot of time to do anything on Wednesday, since I've gotta get all my work done and then my flight for Boston leaves that evening. I'll plan on doing some airport walking in between flights. I'm gonna have to plan ahead for some healthy snacks on the flight as well, because usually I bring combos or some other completely delicious, but unhealthy snack. Arin and Anna and Angela are gonna have to be ready to do some walking or running out on the East Coast even though it may be cold and there's not a lot of daylight to take advantage of.
Training for the Great Aloha Run is still my main focus right now, so I'm planning on building up my mileage again and it's gonna have to be soon. The race is on President's day- Feb. 19th. Obviously we can do it, since we managed to finish the half-marathon, although my body needed some major healing afterwards. Myia said that I actually ran 8 miles of the half-marathon, but I don't recall going that far before I started walking. I would like to actually run the whole thing, which would be a huge improvement from last year. Then next year, maybe I'll have a time to beat. I don't even know what my time was from last year, I was so glad to be done I forgot to look.