Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2014: The Year of Kristin

I have decided that 2014 will be my year.  My year to focus on me, and my little family of 4.  My year to make me happy, and healthy.  I will focus on what makes me happy, and make an effort to be happy every day.  I will focus on what's important in my life, and make those things a bigger part of my daily life.  I will simplify my life and teach myself and my children that we don't need things to be happy. 

I'm done with excuses from myself and others.  I'm done with people and things that drag me down.  I'm the only one that can control my attitude and outlook on life.  I've learned that I can't rely on others for my own happiness.  I'm done wasting time and energy on others that repeatedly bring me down.  I need positive energy in my life.

I'm ready to feel good about myself again, to feel happy, to be a better wife, mother, and friend.  I'm ready for a brighter, fuller life.

2014 will be my year. 

#TheYearOfKristin

Saturday, March 23, 2013

So Many Victories!

If you've come here to find updates on the girls, it's not happening in this post.  This one's all about me, and there's lots of pictures. It's been a long time in between blog posts, but I've had a whirlwind of victories lately, so I decided it's time for a post!  

First up, I realized that I have lost 100 pounds since I first started trying to lose weight back in 2008! 100 pounds!!  A few months after Kara was born I reached my highest weight ever, I was miserable, and decided it was time for a change.  I lost about 80 pounds, and maintained that until I got pregnant with Macy.  While I was pregnant with Macy I gained 51 pounds, and felt like I was starting the weight loss journey all over again after she was born.  I only lost 18 pounds between the time Macy was born and when she was 6 weeks old - I've since lost all 51 pounds that I had gained with her, along with another 30 pounds!  All together, I'm down over 100 pounds since 2008 - that's pretty incredible if you ask me - more pics of my whole journey at the end of this post!


Next victory, I ran my first half marathon!!!  Yes, I ran a half marathon.  After I had Macy I started running again in March of 2012.  It was a very slow start after taking almost a year off to get back into running!  I ran about 5 5ks in the past year, and was wanting to challenge myself a bit more, thought I'd go for a 10k, but got talked into running a half marathon.  I tried following a half marathon training plan, but I didn't really stick to it too much, I got sick in January and took 3 weeks off from running!  I was trying to run a few times during the week and then do a long run on the weekends, my long runs varied from 5 miles to 9.5 miles, and I was really starting to enjoy them - yes, even with the freeeeeeeeeezing cold temps, ice, freezing rain, snow, puddles, I was really enjoying my running time on the weekend. As the date of the half marathon started to get closer, I started freaking out, I'd get super nauseous  just thinking about running 13.1 miles. I was starting to dread it!  My last few training runs were at an average pace of about 11:30/mile, when I had been down to about 10:30/mile, so I was scared that it was going to take me forever.  I had decided that I wanted to finish under 2 hours and 30 mins, but wasn't sure if that was going to be an attainable goal with my crappy training runs I had been having.

Here I am waiting in line for the port-a-potty before the race :)  It was cold!

I had decided that I was going to run the half solo.  I seemed to do better on my training runs when I was by myself - I could go my own pace, I could get lost in my music and just focus on the running, so that's what I did.  I honestly don't remember most of the details of the half marathon.  I remember seeing all the mile markers, and as I would approach each one I'd think "ok, you've got to at least run to mile X" I'd get past the mile marker, feel good, and keep on going.  The course was out and back, so around 6.6 miles we turned around - at that point I was still running without any walk breaks (other than water stops), my time was about 1 hour and 8 minutes, so I knew I could make my 2 hour and 30 min goal if I kept up my pace.  The course sucked cause it seemed like there were constant hills - I managed them all up until about mile 7, at that point, I'd run up as much of the hills as I could, and then stop to take walk breaks as needed.  Most walk breaks were under a minute, as every time that I stopped I realized that it hurt so much more to walk than it did to run, so I just kept on going.  I think it was around mile 9 or 9.5 that I realized how bad my body hurt - my hips were killing me, my knees were killing me, but I just pushed through it and kept on going, because, really, I had no other choice but to keep on going.  Mile 10-11 was the hardest for me.  I was at a breaking point and I wanted to be done so bad.  Once I got to mile 11 I just kept telling myself "only 2 more miles, only 2 more miles" and I was trying to imagine 2 miles of the route that I run at work all the time and tried to convince myself that 2 more miles was nothing.  Once I hit the 13 mile marker I just about burst into tears - I'm not sure if it was cause I was so proud of myself for being so close to finishing my first half marathon, cause my body hurt so bad, or cause I was on the verge of death.  At the same time I also got this huge burst of energy and hauled ass for the last 10th of a mile - there were 3 people ahead of me and I decided that I had to cross the finish line ahead of them, and I did. 

My official time for my first half marathon was 2 hours, 20 minutes, and 5 seconds - 10 minutes faster than I had hoped to finish, and an average pace of 10:42/mile!!  The fact that I was able to maintain that pace for 13.1 miles totally blows my mind, but the fact that I can say that I'm a half marathoner blows my mind even more!!!!  The girl, who at one point, had well over 100 pounds to lose had finished a half marathon. Totally blows my mind.  I'm SO proud of myself and my friends that ran it too - there were quite a few of us who did this as our first half marathon - way to go, friends! 

Done!


Runkeeper Report:




Here's Kathy and I after the race!


Ya gotta stretch....


My medal and race bib that I will cherish forever!


Other things to note:  I joined a diet bet online - it's basically an online weight loss game to lose weight - you throw in $20 (or whatever the bet is) and you have 4 weeks to lose 4% of your body weight.  I was kind of reluctant to join cause I've basically been on a plateau since November, and I didn't want to lose my $20 bet!  But then I thought that it might be just the motivation that I needed to get back on track, and start shedding the pounds again, and the fact that I could potentially be at my goal weight by the time I turn 30, so I decided to accept the challenge!  I'm just over 3 weeks into the challenge and I have lost about 10#, which is over my 4%, so now I need to make sure to keep it off until the 28th so I can get some of that money that's on the line! 

With the weight that I have lost on the diet bet, I am now at a "normal" weight on the BMI charts, NORMAL? ME? Yes!!! I have never, ever, in my entire life been considered a normal weight!  I really don't care for the BMI charts since they don't take body fat % into account, but one of my goals that I had set for myself was to have a normal BMI, and I honestly never thought I'd get there. I'm going to be 30 in 2 weeks, and I am at the lowest weight I have been at since about 15.

Another non-scale victory - I had to get my driver's license renewed in April of last year.  I did what most (all) women do and put the weight that I had hoped to be at on my license instead of my actual weight - I mean, everyone does that, right?  So, the weight that I put on there was probably about 40# less than I really weighed at that time, but you also have to remember that I had just had a baby, so I was still carrying lots of the baby weight ;) Anyway, I am now 35 pounds LESS than the weight listed on my driver's license - I'm tempted to go get it updated, otherwise I have to wait another 3 years for the next renewal.

I've been sporadically taking measurements over the last year.  I happened to come across  my measurements I had recorded in March of 2012, it was only a hip and waist  measurement, but I compared those two numbers to my current numbers.... I've lost over 10 inches from my hips and over 8 from my waist! Now is one of those moments that I had wished I would have taken all my measurements back in March of 2012.

One of my favorites - I bought a new dress.  The sizing of the dress was not S-M-L, but actual sizes, so I grabbed a 10 and a 12 to try on, tried on the 10 first and it was too big, ended up buying a size 8!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the horrible, blurry pic in my dirty mirror... 


Here's where this post gets very pic heavy - pictures from my whole journey.  This is where I am going to come now when I'm having a bad day, or feel fat.  It's really hard for me to look at some of these pics, and to try to figure out how I ever let myself get so out of control.  All I can say is that I'm happy I finally decided to improve my life and live healthier! I'm still not comfortable with my current weight - I think cause it's still new to me.  I honestly had more self esteem after I lost weight after I had Kara, and the lowest weight I ever got was about 185 - seeing this pics now compared to how I am today, I can really see a difference from then to now - it's never been so apparent to me before!

January 2008 - just a few weeks after I found out I was pregnant with Kara. 


 January 2009 - my highest weight, and my lowest point.


May 2009


About 50# lost after having Kara


October 2009


May 2010 - I felt REALLY good at this point, and this is what I had hoped to get back to after Macy... I've gotten WAY past this now!


June 2010


December 2010



March 2011


August 2011 (pregnant)


October 2011 (pregnant)


December 2011 


April 2012


May 2012


August 2012 


December 2012


March 2013



aaaaaannnnnnndddddd yesterday.... I might have bought a pair of hot pink skinny jeans to celebrate being in the 150's, cause I NEVER EVER thought I'd get there.  My ass looks pretty good in them, huh?


At this point I want to continue running and find a second half marathon to run, but probably not until fall.  I also want to work on toning up a bit for my sister's wedding this summer!