Weigh In, Race, Upgrade!

Walking to the 5k

It's been a little over a week since I last updated... that's not too bad, right?:)

On Saturday the 19th, I went out drinking with Charlie, my brothers and sister in-law. We first went to the Looney's in Maple Lawn. I had a crab pretzel when I was there, which is so delicious! Then we went over to the Looney's in College Park. It was a BLAST! I had so much fun! I danced all night and the next day I had bruises on my knees from bumping them on the stage over and over again lol!

The thing that made me happiest from that night was the bouncer at the College Park Looney's. When I showed him my ID, he looked at it and did a double take. He said "There's no way that's you! It doesn't look like you at all!" that definitely brought a smile to my face and made me so proud:) He also said other things like "We could all learn from you! We all need to lose weight!" lol... thanks guy!

I had weighed in that Saturday with no loss or gain. Boo! But for some reason I decided to weigh in the next morning, after going out drinking. I was expecting to see a huge gain from all the food and alcohol, but this is what I got!

Previous Weight - 158.2

Current Weight - 156.4

Weight Lost - 1.8 Pounds

Total Weight Lost - 75 Pounds!!!

Wow! I was shocked I actually had a loss. And I can't believe I only have 6.4 more pounds to go till I reach my goal!!! What!!!!:) Although once I hit 150, I'm still going to keep eating the way I do and exercising. I just might work more on toning, rather than cardio:)

I don't remember which day it was, but we went and ordered our new iPhone's! Charlie decided to come onto my Verizon plan. Even though it's a little more expensive, the service is way better than his AT&T! You get what you pay for! Unfortunately, they were back ordered until December 9th!:( Luckily, mine ended up coming on the 23rd!! Yay! I was so happy. Poor Charlie, his still hasn't come yet! lol:)

So far I love it! It's so much faster!!! Things download really fast and Youtube doesn't skip like it did on my DROID. Finally!:) So much better!

So Thanksgiving morning I had a 5k Turkey Trot! I was super excited because it started on Main Street which is walking distance from my house! The course went on all the streets that I run on anyways! So it was perfect for me:) Since it was a smaller race, in my running area, I decided to try my hardest to go fast and get in the top 100, at least!

I started off strong and fast! It was pretty easy, but there were a few small inclines that made me get outta breath. Luckily there were some downhill parts too! That helped.

I crossed the finish line at 26:40! A new personal record!!! I was so happy:) My pace was 8:36/mile and I placed 171 out of 551 people! Not in the top 100, but close!! I was still happy with those results:)

Another great part about that race was the fact that Charlie came with me! He has never been to any of my races before, so that made me really happy to have his support and to have him see me in action! He said he had a good time and that it was actually pretty cool:) Yay!

I didn't really get a good nights sleep that night, so when I got home I took a short nap. I was exhausted! I had to get up at noon though, to start cooking my Thanksgiving meals! I decided to do a sweet potato casserole and a green bean casserole. I had to do the gluten free version of both, so it was kind of experimental!

We headed over to my parents house at around 3:30. It was just our immediate family, which I like:) There was so much food and it was all amazing!! Unfortunately my green beans didn't cook all the way and they were really hard:( But my sweet potato casserole turned out amazing!! Everyone loved it! It really was delicious!!

I pretty much just had this plate which was turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, gluten free mac n cheese, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, yuca bread, and some meat my brother made lol. I think I got seconds of sweet potato casserole and mac n cheese. I was so full though!!

Right after I ate, I sat down on the couch and passed out lol. I finally woke up when I realized people were starting to get pie! Mmm, my favorite!!

I had 1 piece of apple pie, 2 pieces of pumpkin pie, and a bite of pecan pie. Sooo good!! Pumpkin pie is my favorite of all time!! I love it:) Now I wish I had some more!!:(

Overall it was a very good Thanksgiving and I had a blast. I love spending time with my family. We always have so much fun!!

I was supposed to do another 5k on Saturday morning, but Friday night I started feeling kind of sick. My throat really hurt so when I woke up in the morning and still felt crappy, I decided to just skip it:(
I ended up going back to sleep all day till I had to come into work tonight:( I'm feeling a little bit better at least.

I'm excited for next weekend. It's the Hot Chocolate 15k!!! I'm doing it with a bunch of girls from work, so it should be fun!:) Hopefully it's not freezing cold out!! At least we get hot chocolate and fondue afterwards!:) Yay!! Can't wait!!

Ok, I'm sure there's more I could talk about, but I don't really feel like it. Hopefully my next post will be more interesting!

Bye!

Anna

Catching Up

Hello everyone! Hope you all have been doing great:)

It's been a little crazy around my way this past week, so I haven't been able to update lately. I was too busy with Charlie's surgery and all! He did really well for the procedure. Recovery has been pretty tough for him. Having to go home with a catheter is no fun:( But he's handling it really well and I'm very proud of him. I can't wait for him to be back to his normal self though!:)

In other news, this past Sunday was the Veteran's Day 10k! It was a really great race! Definitely one of the bigger ones I've attended. The weather was great! Nice and cool, with the sun shining down on us. The place we ran at was great; West Potomac Park in Washington DC. It was beautiful. Most of the run was along the Potomac River.

This was my first 10k race, and despite being hungover, I actually did pretty well! Yes, you heard me right... hungover! I did not intend to drink the night before, but things happen! I had went to my parents house for my Dad's birthday, and my sister in-law and I ended up finishing a big bottle of Moscato between the two of us! It sure was yummy.

I was planning to go home after that, but some last minute plans with Alicia popped up and I ended up swinging by her place to pick her up! We went out to Adam's Morgan, which I had never been before! It was a blast! First we went to Madam's Organ which was a really cool, old, creepy building. It was 3 floors I think, with like 5 bars. We went all the way to the top and had a few drinks:)

After that, we went to Sutra which was also pretty cool. It was like a lounge/club type place. It was kind of empty though, so we left and attempted to go to another place, Bravo! Bravo! But, that plan failed because we couldn't find ANY parking! Ugh... lame. Anyways, I didn't end up getting home till 3am! I had to be up for the race at 6am....! Yikes! Bad me... lol

I felt crappy when I woke up, but I took two ibuprofen and chewed a couple of tums and I was good to go! Once I got to the race, I felt pretty decent. I was running a little late, so I even ended up running from where I parked, to the race, which was about 1 mile! lol:)

I started off running with Amy and Jenn, two co-workers from my job, and we were going at a pretty comfortable pace. I really wanted to run a little faster, so I ended up going off on my own:)

I felt really good the whole time! Never got too out of breath and kept a decent pace the whole time. It's nice running a race on a path that you don't know. It keeps you surprised as to how long you've been running! Although they did have a few mile markers!

Towards the end of the race, I noticed that I was at a pretty good time. I decided to kick my pace up a notch! Once I could actually see the clock at the finish time, and noticed that I was still under an hour, I really floored it! I was so excited to be able to finish a 10k in under 1 hour!!!

Gun Time - 59:12
Net Time - 58:17
Pace - 9:23
Place - 474 out of 1139 (Women's Division)
Age Group 20-24 - 95 out of 157

I'm pretty proud of that!:) Running with all those amazing runners really inspires me and motivates me to run more. It really makes me want to run faster too. When I first started running, it was purely for fitness and losing weight. Now... running has become a passion and a hobby of mine. I truly enjoy it. Especially when you add competition to the equation... that really gets me going! Although I doubt I will ever come in top 3 or anything like that, my goal is to at least come in a top 10 of a SMALL 5k lol:)

I was VERY proud of myself the other day. The day before Charlie's surgery, he wanted to go to Outback Steakhouse. Kind of as his "last meal" before surgery lol. I told myself "Screw it... just eat whatever you want and who cares about logging it!"

Well, even when I tell myself that, I still usually end up logging it anyways, just to see how much I went over my limit. Once I did that, I was overcome with guilt! I just couldn't believe I had eaten so many calories during one meal! I promised myself that I WOULD burn all of those calories off that night!

I got on the treadmill with the intent of running until I burned off the amount of calories from that meal. Which was about 1,300... which is A LOT of running! Once I got to around 8 miles and saw that I STILL needed to burn more calories, I decided to just go for 10 miles straight!

I couldn't believe that I ran TEN MILES!! OMG! And on a treadmill?? Wow! It was during that moment that I realized something. I can definitely do a half marathon and I WILL sign up for one! Right now I'm undecided. There's the Ocean City Half Marathon on April 28th and then there's the Iron Girl Columbia Half Marathon on April 29th. I definitely can't do both, but I wish I could! The OC one is $55 and the Columbia one is $85. But I think it'd be easier to do a half around here, rather than driving to Ocean City. I dunno! I'll wait a little bit longer to decide.

I decided I'm going to weigh in every other week now, closer to the end of the week. It all depends on when I work. I don't like to weigh in after a night of working. Especially because I eat at 4:00am, so I feel like I would have extra food in my stomach! lol. I'm going to try and weigh on days that I don't work the night before, and hopefully I'll see something good!

I got my boots!! The ones I showed a picture of in my previous blog. I love them so much!! They are great and go with lots of outfits! So happy I got them:)

Well, I don't have much else to say. Writing this is making me really sleepy, so I'll write again after the next time I weigh in!!

Thanks for reading!!

Anna

1 Month Weigh In

Greetings my dedicated readers! How are you all doing?:)

I'm excited to write this blog for a few reasons. First off, it's my weigh in after going a whole month without weighing myself! Second, I have lots of exciting stuff going on!:) Well... not that much, but anyways. I will start you off with the weigh in!

Previous Weight (10/5) - 161.6

Current Weight (11/5) - 158.2

Weight Lost - 3.4 Pounds

Total Weight Lost - 73.2 Pounds

I did it! Hit my 70 pound mark!:) Who knows how soon I actually hit that mark, considering I was at 69.8 pounds lost on my last weigh in. Probably hit it sometime in October;)

I was kind of hoping for a bigger loss, but I can't complain! That's pretty decent, considering my losses have slowed down a lot since I've gotten closer to my goal weight. I'm really hoping to get to my goal weight of 150 by January 9th, 2012! That's my original start date of the Biggest Loser. I really want to get a new tattoo then!:)

The picture above is me at Bobby and Laura's Halloween party! It was a blast! Charlie and I dressed up as Military Zombie's! I like that picture because I think my legs look so skinny!! It's sweet:)

So since I hit my 70 pound mark, I need a reward! Charlie and I went to Arundel Mills the other day and I found a pair of boots I REALLY wanted, but I was going to get them as a Christmas present. I really don't want to wait that long, so I asked Charlie if that could be my reward and he said yes!:) Yay!

<-- These are the boots. Unity by Carlos Santana "Hayden" I love them!! So cute!:) Now I will have a pair of Gray, Black and Tan boots!:) The good thing about boots is my shoe size won't ever change;) Although the boots I had from last year fit me SO much better around the calves now!! It's great!:) I think I will get these on Monday!

So last night, Friday night, I slept in at the firehouse. It was a relatively quiet night. We got one call. But on the way back we encountered something crazy. I can't say much, but in short... Guy standing in the middle of the road, pants around his ankles, staring at us. Cops were called and he was arrested. lol! Was not expecting that!

Things are going really well with PGFD. I got called on Monday for my Psych Evaluation. I go on Monday the 14th! So that's good... things are moving forward:) I really hope things work out!

In other news... lots of good little things have been happening to me lately. We call them "NSV's" on myfitnesspal, which stands for Non-Scale Victories!

I'm a solid size 11 in jeans. Bought a few pairs at TJMaxx:)
I'm definitely a size Medium, in lots of things!
People keep asking if me and Roch are twins!! I love it!:)
The guys at the firehouse call me Rochelle... sometimes I can't tell if they are serious or joking! Either way:)
I got a long sleeve size SMALL shirt at the firehouse! Granted, it's a men's shirt, but still!!
People at work constantly say I'm so skinny! Even though I don't agree, it's still cool to hear! Never considered myself skinny... ever in my life!!

So yup... good stuff! And... I have so many fun events coming up!!

Thursday... going to spin with Sam and Caitlin and then possibly out? Fat Daddy's?? Who knows!

Sunday the 13th... Veteran's Day 10k in DC!

Monday... my psych eval then JUNK FOOD PARTY at Sam's!! I know, such a bad idea... but genius at the same time! Seriously... we deserve to splurge every once in awhile!! Just think pizza, McDonald's and Popeye's... mmm!!

Thursday - Twilight! Sushi King apparently? I don't know all the details:)

Thursday the 24th... running a 5k on Main Street! My stomping grounds! Then THANKSGIVING! My favorite holiday! Can't wait to stuff my face:)

Saturday the 26th... another 5k in Laurel! Possibly with Jo, my sister in-law? If her foot is healed enough:)

I think that's it?? I dunno. Sam and I have been discussing pretty much our whole next YEAR so I kinda get confused:)

The only thing coming up which isn't so fun is Charlie's surgery. He's having an outpatient surgery on Tuesday at John Hopkins. Nervous for him, but he's so tough:) I know he'll be ok! Please send good thoughts his way!:)

Sooo. It's daylight savings time. Which means I just now get to relive 1am, yet again! Yahoo.... Hey, maybe I should be thankful for getting more time to live. Oh, and 1 extra hour on my paycheck! Yay!:)

Anyways... I guess that's all my news. I know it was such random stuff. Trying to decide when I should do my weigh ins now. I was thinking every other week possibly? Or maybe just back to every week. What do you all think?

Ok, well, time to go back to work! Thanks for reading people:) Happy DST!

Anna