Pursuing Balance & Joy

So Close

Friday, May 13th, 2011

Hi, friends!

I feel like life has been such a whirlwind lately. I became a grandma. I ran my first half marathon. I signed up to run another half marathon in the next month. I signed up to climb the Sears Tower again this November. I made a ton of wedding plans.

There’s a lot going on.

The amazing thing is that all the stuff going on is pretty wonderful. Some of it is a little scary. For instance, I’m running the next half marathon by myself. We have Tom’s son that weekend so I’m running on my own. I’m super nervous about that. Tom and I are a great pair in many ways, and that is especially true when we run. One of us is always pushing and encouraging the other. So I’m concerned about how I’ll do on my own, but there’s no way that’s going to stop me from trying.

That isn’t what I set out to write about today though.

What I started out to say is that I’m SO CLOSE to my goal weight again. I was there 2 years ago and maintained it for close to a year but then let it slip away a bit. In February this year, I got serious about getting back to where I feel good. I was 147.2 pounds when I got serious. (YIKES.) Today, I’m at 134.8. That feels so wonderful!

My goal is 130 pounds. Once I’m there, I want to maintain a range between 127 and 132. My weight fluctuates quite a bit day-to-day. (Seriously, I weighed in at 140.6 Monday, 137.6 Tuesday and 134.8 Wednesday this week.) Sodium and over-training are the two things that make me hold on to pounds the most. After eating downtown all weekend and running the half marathon, I wasn’t really surprised to see it take a couple days to get back to my normal weight. (That 140.6 still stung a bit though!)

Anyway, I think in the next month I should be happily into my desired goal weight range. I’m so excited about that! It will be nice to have a little more freedom when it comes to food. Losing weight right now takes serious diligence. I’ve counted every calorie since February 13. I don’t intend to stop counting this time when I hit my goal though. That’s a mistake I made the first time. Maintaining this forever means still counting calories to keep me aware of what I’m eating.

However, my daily net calories right now are under 1301 so I can’t flipping wait to be able to have them around 1600! Those 300 calories might not sound like much, but they’re huge. It’s funny because really I can’t picture me always eating another 300 calories a day. I don’t go hungry right now at all. There are just times I’d like a 180-calorie Starbucks or a 200-calorie bag of chips at Subway, and I choose not to right now because my goal is more important. I’m looking forward to simple things like that being within my goal!

Go make today awesome, peeps!

Posted in Diet, Exercise, Goals | 1 Comment »

Two Big Things

Monday, May 9th, 2011

Hi, friends!

I’ve been REALLY slacking on getting you the big news in my life lately so forgive my tardiness please.

First…

I’M A GRANDMA!!!

Little Claire Diane joined us at 3:36 a.m. Saturday, April 30. She weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces and was 18 inches long. She spent almost a week in the NICU getting a little stronger before she got to come home, but she and her mommy are doing wonderfully now.

I can honestly say that the greatest gift I have ever gotten was to be in the room when my daughter became a mother. I thought I knew what to expect from when my kids were born, but it’s an entirely different experience when you have the honor to hold the hand of someone you love. I am so proud of her and even more amazed by her.

We celebrated Mother’s Day yesterday with Claire’s first outing. We went to lunch then did a little shopping. Since she was 4 weeks early, a lot of her clothes are too big so we got her some more premie clothes. (You knew her first shopping trip had to be for clothes, right?) We also did a little rocking chair shopping.

She is so tiny and adorable.

We had quite the conversation.

Seriously, I could post pictures of her ALL DAY!

But that wouldn’t get me to the next big thing…

Tom and I ran a half marathon!!!

It was so amazing. I still can’t stop smiling. The 500 Festival Mini Marathon in Indianapolis is just an incredible event. About 4,000 people ran the 5K and 35,000 people ran the half marathon. It’s hard to describe what 35,000 people running looks and feels like. I’m not sure I’ll ever do it justice with words.

We started with two goals: finish and hopefully do it in under 3 hours.

We not only finished; we did it in 2:37. I can’t believe how fast it went by. I can’t believe we ran the whole thing except for the water stops and one potty break. I can’t believe the temperature was almost perfect. I can’t believe the rain that started around mile 7 didn’t dampen our spirits.

I think that we were actually running on the Indy 500 track when the rain started helped a lot. I know I didn’t stop smiling once during that whole 2.5 miles. The feeling of running on the track was just incredible. And it happens at the perfect time in the race. You’ve gone far enough to be a little tired but not so far that everything hurts. It’s about mile 5.75-8.25, I think.

I’ll have more details and pictures soon. I didn’t take any pictures, and no one came out to watch us so we’ll have to rely on the official pictures. Let’s hope they caught our good side…if there is one while running. I always seem to have weird expressions when I get race pictures back. Fingers crossed this time.

I can’t wait to do it again.

Posted in Exercise, Family, Goals | Comments Off