Marathon Monday (on a Tuesday) - 4th Edition

I think this dog enjoys mocking me sometimes. I mean...I am supposed to be shaming him and he acts all bored and yawns. 

He's all like 'whatevs Mom. I'll vomit all over your favorite yoga pants and then proceed to rub it into the mattress because I do what I want.'

Well besides cleaning up puppy vomit, I spent the day doing chores because we have been little piggies lately and this place needs a deep cleaning. I was *almost* half way done and then that little guy set me back a few hours with his added mess (by the way...that mound of laundry in the background was what was on the bed that I washed today and was trying to put away).

Have I talked about vomit enough for you yet? Yeah? Good. Let's move on. 

I haven't done any sort of marathon training update in a bit, so I thought that I would fill you in on where I am at with my training, how it is going and whether or not I have pooped myself yet on a long run (hint: I haven't). 

Last week was an 'easy' week meaning that I had four runs total and they were 4, 7, 3.5 and 11 miles in length. Every few weeks is considered an 'easy' week on our plan. Basically the long run for that week is a few miles less than the previous weeks so your body can do a little bit of recovery. In other words, three weeks ago my long run was 13 miles, two weeks ago it was 15 miles, last week it was 11 miles and this upcoming week's long run is 16 miles.

This week is week 8 of the 17 week training plan. I have only missed one run (I think) that I didn't make up the next day so on that front, I am doing WAY better than the last marathon training plan. I think only running four days a week is perfect for me. Giving myself three non-running days a week really makes me happy and seems to push me to actually get out and run. Knowing that once I run I get the next off is a lovely and motivating thought. 

My running time is getting a bit better thanks to the cooler temperatures. I had a few long runs a month ago where I ended up at a 13:00 minute mile pace due to lots of walking and water drinking, but with my 8 mile and 11 mile long run last week where it was 70 degrees out when I ran, I averaged a 10:30 mile. I am curious to see how the 16 mile long run goes this week. I don't expect a 10:30 pace, but am shooting for an 11:30. 

On the weight loss front, I have been hovering between 149 and 150 lbs still. I've been around this for about three weeks now and haven't really noticed any changes in my body. I did get into a bad habit of eating way too much for about two weeks when I was PMSing, so this week I am working on fueling my body, but trying to not overeat. I have set a goal of trying to get to 145 pounds by September 26th (our 4 year wedding anniversary). Hopefully with eating better and this increased mileage, I can get through this weight loss plateau with a healthy 1 pound a week loss.

Also, something that I need to work on is drinking a lot more water. I did great for a few weeks and was consuming over 100 ounces a day, but with the poor eating habits came poor water consumption. I didn't drink enough water yesterday on my 11 mile run and got so insanely dehydrated afterwards. I had to work at one of the boutiques I sell at and actually ended up vomiting (a green smoothie no less!) while working because I had such a bad dehydration headache/nausea. Drink your water kids!!

And that's the last time I talk about vomit in this blog post. Promise!!

I am getting back on track though and am right around 70 ounces for the day. I have to chug some water soon to help me reach my daily quota!

Can I just interject and say that I am so happy that I work from home because when you drink so much water, I love just being able to walk 10 feet to pee. How do you office workers do it? Does everyone just think you have a bladder infection or something? I would be so self-conscious about it and imagine that I would always talk about how much water I drink to my co-workers so they didn't think I was ill or something. 

Back to running...

This week I am running 4 miles on Wednesday, 7 miles on Thursday, 4 miles on Friday, resting on Saturday with my long run of 16 miles being on Sunday. My long runs are usually on Saturday but I didn't do last week's long run until yesterday due to traveling so I am slowly moving my schedule around to get back to Saturday runs.

Along with that running schedule, I plan on adding strength training to my schedule twice this week on my 4 mile run days. I love the Jillian Michaels DVD, 'No More Trouble Zones' and will be doing that 45 minute DVD both days. I am hoping to get a little bit of muscle definition going and if I can handle the two times a week strength training sessions, I am going to add a third one in on one of my rest days. 

So .... that's about it! I was thinking about doing a blog post in a week or two about what I am eating during this training period as a vegan. Just in case you were interested in how the heck I get my calories.

By the way, sorry for the lack of photos in this post. I look pretty bad whenever I am done running, so those sorts of photographs don't happen often, but here is a random photo of me in running clothes with my husband and mother-in-law at the end of June. 

 Kind of related to the post right? 

Have a great night everyone!

~ With Love, Ashlee ~

I'm Hungry

So one of the things that happens when you run a race is that they have professional photographers all over the course taking your photo.

They have nice cameras which really show a lot of details. 

Too much details. 

We got an email from the race photographer on Monday evening with all the photos that we were in. There were a few dozen and we each went to our separate computer and looked at our individual photos.

Our photos were bad. Real bad. Mine were really really bad. So bad that I cried. 

We both came to the hard conclusion that we could stand to lose a few pounds. It really took the wind out of my sails. I mean 36 hours prior I had finished a marathon, but after seeing those photos, I got really bummed out. 

It also just so happened that Monday night when we received the race photos, we were in the middle of watching the documentary 'Forks Over Knives' on Netflix. 

In case you don't know, this movie highlights the importance of having a plant based diet (veganism) using scientific arguments on the health benefits that occur once you remove dairy and meat from your diet. I won't get into the details at all because I am not an expert but I definitely recommend that you watch the movie to learn more about it. 

It is powerful but not 'in your face.'

When I was in fourth grade I became a vegetarian and did so for about five years (minus the occasional bacon indulgence here and there. I had a weakness!). In tenth grade I started eating meat again. Once I hit college, I went vegetarian for about a year and then turned to veganism. I was a vegan for about a year, ate meat for a year, became vegan again for about two years, went vegetarian for two years, then ate meat for the last 1.5 years. 

To say that my relationship with animal products is off/on again is an understatement. 

After watching the movie 'Forks over Knives' with my husband though on Monday, we both came to the conclusion together that we needed to adopt more of a plant based diet. We need to get healthy, lose weight and get control of our future.

We are doing it together and I am excited about that.

We are slowly easing into this. We have some dairy in the house we need to eat still and some meat in the freezer we need to cook. We are planning on doing one meal a week with the meat until we use it all up and basically limit our dairy intake by a lot as we slowly get rid of our cheese/eggs/butter. I am most likely going to go full-on vegan once we use up all the dairy and meat, while my husband will be fairly plant based, but still enjoy the occasional burger :)

We will see how this goes and we are really excited about doing this together (probably me more than him though. He just got a new grill for his birthday two weeks ago and grilling vegetables on it isn't quite the same as grilling meat).

So expect some vegan recipes to come your way during the next few months. I actually did a guest post on Kate's blog last week, Scathingly Brillant, about one of my favorite vegan dishes to make (total coinecende). 

Check out Scathingly Brillant (here) to see how I make a yummy Pakistani Dahl.

All in all, I definitely want to eat some bacon right now.

Only a 1 lb gain!

When it is Thanksgiving weekend and you love gorging as much as I do, I will take any victory. 

This morning when I hopped on the scale after binging all weekend on pie, butter, gravy, butter and high fructose corn syrup, I was delighted to find out that the scale was only showing a 1 lb gain. Hooray!

If I stick to my exercise plan again this week, I should be able to negate my gain and maybe....just maybe drop another lb. 

Maybe.

Today I did all the things that I am supposed to do to be healthy. 

* Woke up and drank some water.

* Had a cup of warm water with lemon. 

* Had oatmeal for breakfast instead of pie (eating pie for breakfast is a wonderful thing and only allowed during the holidays).

* I had some vegetables not covered in cream of mushroom soup or gravy. I even stuck to my allocated calories for the day (as of 8:00pm EST).

* Went to the gym with a million other people to burn off some stuffing calories.

This is a photo of me from Thanksgiving six years ago with the best damn pecan pie I have ever tasted.

Last week I did pretty good exercise wise (it's already been established that I ate a whole bunch of nonsense). I created a running and work-out plan that will hopefully get me to where I need to be to finish the Atlanta Marathon in March. 

For this week, I needed to weight lift five days and ran a total of 14 miles over four days (3/3/3/5 miles). I ended up running three days only because on Friday the day slipped away from me and it got too dark out before I realized I needed to run still.

What I did last week:

Monday - Legs

Tuesday - Arms/Abs plus a three mile run

Wednesday - Chest/Back plus a three mile run

Thursday - Legs

Friday - Shoulders/Abs

Saturday - Rest

Sunday - Five mile long run.

This week is pretty much the same, but with that missed day of running three miles thrown in as well as upping my long run to seven miles. Also, I am going to start counting calories again, so I can actually be sure to shed fat, not just gain muscle.

All in all, I am hoping to get enough of a deficit in my weight over the next few weeks so I can eat as much cake/cookies/frosting/butter as I want over the Christmas week.

111 days until the Atlanta Marathon! Here I come!

 

I Don't Like Pants With Zippers & Buttons

So...something interesting has happened all of a sudden. I seemed to have gained some weight. 

I guess it wasn't really all of a sudden, but you know....kinda, sorta, not really paying attention, so some doughnuts attached themselves to my outer thighs, all of a sudden.

Right around Thanksgiving I was around 145 lbs, the lowest that I had been in about five years. Since Thanksgiving, I have gained about 15 pounds. 

Gasp. Gag. Shudder. 

Unfortunately, at 145 pounds, I wasn't one of those people who walked past you and you thought to yourself, 'She needs to eat a ham sandwich.' You thought....she looks good, but might need to lose a couple of pounds. 

So at 160 pounds, you can see the kind of predicament that I am in. I went from needing to drop a couple of pounds to needing to lose 25 pounds.

Total bummer right? I will admit, these last few months were kind of awesome. I stopped being a vegan and went full-on meat eater. I went from one extreme to the other. Instead of beans, I have been eating McDonalds. Instead of fruit, I am eating fried eggs. 

Well...today I realized that I need to lose some weight. Since I work from home, I have the pleasure of wearing yoga pants all day/everyday. No tight waistband, no constricting materials. It's awesome.

I just started a new part-time job today though (more on that later) and need to wear jeans to work. 

O.M.G. 

My Old Navy jeans and I had one hell of a battle this morning and I was actually almost late for work as I had to do about three dozen deep squats to activate the 'stretch' in my jeans. When I got home from work, I ripped my pants off immediately and actually had the jean side seams imprinted on my outer thighs. 

Am I painting you a sexy enough picture yet? 

So yeah...I need to get back in shape. I know what I need to do, how to work out correctly, how to eat right, I just don't do it. I get a bit lazy. So I am hoping that by posting updates on my weight loss each week, maybe you all will keep me accountable and help me lose my saddlebags (I'm keeping the booty though). 

So....as if my jeans experience wasn't bad enough, I took a few photos of me in a bathing suit today, thinking that I would post a 'before' picture on the blog with this post and then show you photos in a few weeks of how I look after getting my fitness on. 

Um....well after reviewing the photos, I have decided that no way am I posting photos right now. I have realized that 1) I have an ill fitting bathing suit, 2) I am deathly pale and 3) I don't want any creepers looking at my photos online. Who knows though....maybe when I get all fit, you guys can see some photos then. 

Maybe. 

So since you guys aren't getting any photos, here are some of my starting stats. I didn't measure myself because I feel like it is too inaccurate for me. I always seem to measure myself in different places, so I get all amazed at a 3 inch loss per thigh after a week.

So no measuring tape, just my scale and calorieking.com (to track my food intake/calories burned). All of this information is as of this morning.

Weight:  160.6 lbs

Body Fat: 45.5 lbs

Body Fat %: 28.4 %

BMI: 25.1

Ugh. So there you have it. All my info is out in the interwebs. Be kind.