Weekend report

It's the last day of my long weekend and as always it still feels like I could use another. It was a pretty eventful weekend though.

Friday and Saturday we went up to see our parents. Dustin's mom was having surgery and so we spent all day (12 noon to 9 pm) at the hospital from pre-op to post op with her. She's fine and the surgery went well, but with many hours on end with nothing to do, I came to a couple of interesting thoughts happened. 1). I was bored and anxious and boy did I want to chow down on some junk food. But with the help of my fabulous husband, I stuck it out and only had the snacks we packed and then a moderate dinner in the hospital cafeteria (a wrap and some macaroni salad, then I splurged on some baked doritos and vanilla pudding). I don't think I wanted to eat out of boredom, but more out of the anxiousness. 2). The doctor repeatedly told my mother-in-law, who is in fantastic shape for a nearly 60 year old (she weighs less than I do), how great it was to work on a thin, healthy patient and that her insides were much younger than her age. This served as a great motivator for me to get my butt in gear and be healthier.

Saturday morning I went with my mom to yoga class and totally got my butt kicked. It was a reminder of how far I have yet to go on being stronger and more flexible. I felt pretty great afterward and it also prodded me that soon I should start going to yoga again, because I really do love how much energy I have afterward and how great it feels to have flexible hips. We went out to dinner Saturday night when we got home, and though I splurged for the chicken parm I was very good and had a salad before hand and made sure to only eat half.

Sunday was a bit of a struggle, I've been fighting back the munchie urges including one for humus which I gave into since it's not bad for me. I stuck with my healthy eating all day and turned down the blueberry bake (if only all baked goods came with blueberries, I'd probably never eat them again, I'm not that much of a fan). We had friends over last night so I could make large amounts of food and feed it to someone besides me and Dustin. I baked my own egg rolls, which I thought tasted pretty good, and made a thai-type soup with beef. It was great, healthy and it kept me from eating unhealthy stuff to satisfy my urge for Chinese food. The only bad part was the lime bars one of our guests brought. They were absolutely fabulous. I had 4 :) But, I feel like that was an ok splurge. The point of this is not to give up sugar for good, but to be healthier. 4 teeny lime squares (they were probably each only 1 inch square) is way better than a whole dessert at a restaurant. Plus....

Today I finally got back on the running horse. I really do want to do that 5K on St. Patty's day so I had to see how long it would take me to do 3 miles. Sadly, about 1 hr. I know that's slow, but I made it through the whole hour and I looked like a beet. (It's a constant embarrassment to me that I get bright red and sweat a lot when I do cardio). I can do it. I know I can finish the race now which adds a little bit of confidence, now I just have to keep working up on the amount of time I can run. My recovery times were pretty good until the last 20 minutes or so. I was able to keep my walk pace up higher than it had been. But, the draw back was, I was at 3.8 mph for approximately the last 20 minutes and couldn't get my heart rate below 150.

The frustrating part is I have to remember this is a process. I do generally feel pretty great, my clothes look much better and fit again. This is what I want. I want to feel good in my skin and be healthy. I'm getting there. But I might have to make my own pita chips this week. :)