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! 

Back At It...

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again - I NEED TO START BLOGGING MORE!!

I need to use this as a place to keep you updated on what is going on in Kara and Macy's life.  Ok, I'll be honest - I use it as my scrapbook/baby book/memory log for the girls, so I need to keep it updated so that in 10 years I can remember the first food Macy ate, her first words, when she took her first steps, how Kara's first day of preschool went, when Kara lost her first tooth.  Am I the only parent out there that doesn't have scrapbooks or memory books for my kids? Please say no so that I don't feel like such a horrible parent!! :)

Let's start with the girls - Kara has started going to preschool at Sonshine Preschool at Rose of Sharon Lutheran church.  We are lucky enough that our daycare provider will drive Kara to and from preschool.  If we didn't have that option, Kara wouldn't be going!  I don't know how any working parents can work around preschool and half-day kindergarten schedules, it's ridiculous! Anyway, she is absolutely loving preschool and is learning so much!  Pretty soon she will be smarter than Joe and I combined.  They are starting the year off by learning colors and in the next week or two they will start learning numbers, and then move on to learning letters.  They practice writing their names everyday and Kara can now write her name all by herself, granted the letters aren't in the correct order, but she's getting there! :)

Kara also had a birthday back in August that we haven't talked about yet.  In true Kara fashion, she wanted a Lightning McQueen (the red car from the movie Cars) birthday party, and the only thing she asked for was a Lightning McQueen Power Wheel.  Let's just say that she got what she wanted!

Macy is our happy little chunker!  She started crawling just after 7 months and quickly learned how to pull herself up onto everything.  We have to constantly keep an eye on her to prevent her from eating everything off the floor or hurting herself!  She is quite a handful at times!  She has started waving, blowing kisses, clapping and giving high fives in the last month or so.  I still cannot believe that she will be 1 in just 2 months!!  She says bye-bye, momma, dadda, tries to say clap - I'm still waiting for her first real word, Kara's was pinetree - I'm hoping Macy has a good first word like that!  She has taken a few steps in the last week and I think she will be walking very soon, and then we are really in trouble!  She also has this new obsession with licking things, particularly the floors, but she'll lick pretty much anything.  At her 9 month appt she weighed in at 20 pounds 6 ounces and was 28.5 inches - she's about the same size at 9 months as Kara was at 1 year!  She's got 2 cute lil teeth so far, but with the way she's been acting lately I'm guessing that a few more are working their way through.

Joe and I ran (I'm using the term ran VERY loosely here) Joe's first 5k on July 15th.  We did The Color Run - they throw this powdered color on you at each kilometer and by the end you are covered in color, it was a great time!  The running part was not so great.  It was about 98 degrees out that morning, I felt super dehydrated and just couldn't run.  Every time we reached one of the color stations things came to a complete halt.  Overall I think our time was about 41 minutes, but that's not important, all that matters is that we had fun! 

A shot from afar of one of the color throws that happened every 15 minutes at the finish line.

Do you love the hand print I left on Joe's back?

Most of the crew - Me, Joe, Meghan, Emily and Christina - not pictured Roger, Riana, Megan and Ian

After our first, and hopefully not last, 5k together

Back in June when I last blogged, I was at 38.4 pounds lost - since then I have lost another 17.6 pounds for a total loss of 56 pounds, total of 73 since Macy was born!!  The last 6 weeks or so I have been fluctuating up and down the same 5 pounds.  Which I mostly blame on my beer consumption on the weekends :)  

Here's what 73 pounds lost in less than 10 months looks like - and trust me, if I can do it you can too!

I just finished week 4 of an 8 week group strength training class that is offered through work.  If I go to at least 13 of the 16 classes I get fully reimbursed.  Here is the structure of the class:

First 20-25 minutes is a circuit of 12 exercises.  8 of the exercises are weight machines - chest press, shoulder press, tricep extensions, lat pulldown, leg press, leg curl, bicep curls and calf raises - the other 4 in the circuit are considered 'the line' these are cardio exercises that change up every week, but have included things like burpees, jumping squats, jump onto a bosu, things like that...

The next 15 minutes we do different exercises each week, which include - planks, up and down planks, planks on a bosu, push ups, crunches, squats with shoulder press, supermans, and all sorts of core work, but I don't know what those exercises are called.

Then the last 5 minutes we do stretches and use foam rollers to roll out our tight, sore muscles.

I am really enjoying this class, and I will be so sad when it's over!  Another cool thing about this class is we did a pre-fitness assessment and bod pod assessment and will get to do them again at the end of the 8 weeks to measure our progress.  The fitness assessment includes doing as many push ups and crunches as you can, one time maximum leg press, one time maximum chest press and a flexibility test.  The bod pod uses air displacement to accurately measure muscle mass vs. fat mass - it was pretty cool!  My body fat was measured at 28.6% which is in the 'moderately lean' category - this totally blew me away!!  I for sure thought I would be in the 'excess fat' category!  I'm super excited to do it again at the end of the 8 weeks and see how much progress I have made!

Things I'm happy about with my weight loss:

• I weigh 20 pounds less than I did BEFORE I was pregnant with Macy (and remember that I gained 51 pounds while pregnant and she is not even 10 months old)
• The weight on my driver's license is more than 20 pounds higher than my current weight!!
• I'm 10 pounds less than the lowest weight I ever got after I had Kara (and I was only at that weight for about 1 week!)
• I wear a size smaller pants than I did before I got pregnant with Macy - since February I have gone from a size 20 to a size 11!
• I feel like I am finally making progress with running

Speaking of running - I ran two other 5ks since my last post - the Big Gay Race to support Minnesota United For All Families - VOTE NO!!! - and the MMRF 5k to support Joe's aunt who has Multiple Myleoma.  Both of these 5ks were in the same weekend, and both were PRs for me.  The Big Gay Race I finished in about 35:30 and the MMRF 5k was just over 33 mins!  Wooohoo!!  I track all my running on dailymile and runkeeper - be my friend if you are on either of those sites!

Alright, I must go to bed now.  Thanks for reading, I promise to update more frequently :) 

A Little Bit Of Everything...

Back in February when I started this whole life transformation, I had put weight loss goals on my calendar every 4 weeks.  This Sunday I am coming up to week 21 and my goal for this week was to be down 42 pounds, I am not quite there, but I am at 38.4, pretty damn close!  I am so glad that I am staying on track!  Kara has recently told me that I have wiggly arms and has asked if I'm having another baby cause my tummy is so big... thanks kid!  But, it has encouraged me to work on my wiggly arms and pregnant belly...hopefully soon I will be able to say that I no longer have wiggly arms or look pregnant! 

Here's some pics from along the way:

Hugely Pregnant: 

Right After Macy was Born:

January 2012: 

April 2012:

End of April 2012:

Mother's Day 2012:

June 2012 (back down to pre-pregnancy weight, 6 months post-baby!):

My ultimate goal is to lose about 30 more pounds... we'll see if that changes as I get closer to my goal!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now let's talk about Joe... Joe turned 30 on June 3rd, and of course I planned a fantastic birthday celebration for him!  Joe and I both love beer, so we had a day full of beer.  We started off at 11:00 in the morning and went to Steel Toe Brewing in St. Louis Park - they only sell growlers right now, but they also had samples - we both really liked their beers!  Next stop was Flat Earth Brewing in St. Paul.

Here we are enjoying some samples at Flat Earth:

Next stop was Liftbridge in Stillwater, they have a tap room here, so we hung out for a bit and enjoyed some pints of beer.

Back in the car again (thanks to Jerry and Becky for being out DDs!)

Next we went to Fulton Brewing in Minneapolis, they also have a tap room, we hung out here for quite a while.  Their beers were delicicous!

After Fulton we headed to Republic Bar in Minneapolis.  They have a huge selection of craft beers on tap.  A bunch of our friends also met us at the restaurant to celebrate Joe's birthday.. we had a great time there!

And I of course ordered him a Surly Coffee Bender Cheesecake, it was AMAZING!

After Republic we went to Harriet Brewing, which is also in Minneapolis.  We hung out at Harriet until about 11:30 - they have a tap room and also had a band playing.

I think I did a pretty good job of making Joe's 30th birthday a memorable one.... I turn 30 next April, he better have something amazing planned for me :) 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now let's talk about the girls a bit.  My little Macy-kins is 6 months old!  At her 6 month appt she weight 17 pounds 7 ounces and was 27.5 inches long.. she is a big girl!  She is wearing 9 month clothes and size 3 diapers.  Kara was always a little peanut, so it's kinda fun having a little chunker!  She has finally figured out how to roll over and is sitting almost completely by herself.  She is such a little joy, so cheerful and smiley all the time!  

It's so hard to believe that she has gone from this:

To this:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And last but not least, Kara... at about 7:00 this morning I got a text from Joe with this picture:

And I was laughing hysterically!!  Apparently last night Kara decided she wanted to be Spiderman!  When I was putting her to bed last night she kept looking for her red marker, I said, Kara it's bedtime, go to sleep, we will find your marker in the morning, well, she obviously found it...  haha!  She also said that she didn't want Macy to sleep in her room last night, she obviously had this all planned out!  Never a dull moment in our house :)