I can definitely see how vacations can be a killer for weightloss and fitness efforts. This was my hardest week; ending vacation and transitioning to home. Once getting home, I had to get a little more assertive with myself to get back in the saddle.
Since leaving Pennsylvania, I had the privilege of getting to visit with 2 of my greatest friends, and though they are both eating pretty healthy in their own homes, I got to experiment with their local restaurants and the amazing "birthday cake on top" ice cream cone. Also, it was hard to get in all the walking I am determined to do in these new environments.
At the first friend's house (Suzanne), I was lucky in that Suzanne wanted to walk with me. Both days I was at her house, we walked 2 miles around her subdivision. (She will tell you that she had to jog to keep up with my "mean stride".) I didn't get in all of my steps, but again, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Just the fact that I got out and walked is still worth a celebration to me. After all, I WAS on vacation!
Friday, 8925 steps
Saturday, walk with Suzanne, 2031 steps
Sunday, walk with Suzanne, 6013 steps
At the next friend's house (Tracie), I dove into making good use of her treadmill. I actually was on it so long the first day, I have no idea how far I went! I intended to go on it until a certain time, but after quite a long while on there, I realized the clock I was basing my time on hadn't moved! I looked at my phone and saw that I had been on there about 15 minutes longer than I had intended to...which was about a total of 75 minutes! Whew, I had to get off of there and get a shower; we were supposed to leave for the movies at 11:30.
Monday, Tracie's treadmill, 8549 steps
Tuesday Tracy's treadmill, 11,367 steps
Before the movies, I gotta tell ya, we went to a restaurant that is so far only in the Columbus area. If you see THIS restaurant come into your area, go check it out, it was great. It's called Piada. Very much yummy.
On Wednesday, I left my friend's house and headed home to TX. My stop for the night was in Jackson, TN. I was looking forward to it because I was staying at the Howard Johnson hotel where I had stayed on the way up to Pennsylvania, and I already knew they had a great fitness room. So, here I am pretty much driving all day and looking forward to spending time on a treadmill. Me! Can you believe that?
I got to the hotel, very tired, and decided to rest for an hour before going on the treadmill. My plan was to go on the treadmill for a whole hour. Every bit of accomplishment like this is still huge for me, I was excited that I knew that I could even handle a whole hour on the treadmill. And then get this! I set it up for a "rolling hills" program that made me jog at 4.5-5.0 miles per hour at an incline of 6.0.
I was so excited that I had my daughter come down and talk a video. After being a person who has said to all kinds of folks "I can't run" (because I have had historically bad knees), I was just as excited as a little kid who's figured out how to ride a bike.
Wednesday, hotel treadmill, steps 12,367, lots of jogging, incline 6.0, video
The next two days were a wash. Thursday was my hardest day of driving. My daughter and I left Jackson early that morning and were like a horse going back to the barn heading to Houston. We only stopped a couple of times. I forced myself to stop for a whole hour for lunch. By the time I got home, I was done for. That day I only walked about 1200 steps.
Friday, too. Recuperation. I did walk a little over 3,000 steps, but that was just incidental walking.
I did think of going to the gym on Friday, but I was able to say to myself "I need a day to recover" and actually let that voice win.
The problem is, on Saturday I tried to tell myself the same thing. How about this: "I'll just take the weekend to recover and go back on Monday." Luckily, that's one little conversation with myself where I didn't listen to that voice. I slept late, much later than I wanted to, and when I woke up I had that short little argument with myself and then got dressed and headed off to the gym.
The gym was great. It was the first time I had been in there for a month, and my coach was glad to see me. I had been keeping up with her via text messages, but it was nice to show up in person and show that I had not backslid while on vacation. She updated my measurements, and they were all still great! I'm still getting slim and trim! I weighed in at 138.2 pounds.
I'm officially over 20 pounds down now. I thought I was, but I'm only going by the scales at that gym for my official numbers. While at the gym I took notice of the 20 pound bag of rice that they keep there as a visual and decided it would make a good photo op, so I asked my coach to take a picture of me with the rice. That bag was heavy! It's so unbelievable that I used to carry that around....no wonder my knees used to hurt! Feeling this great, I'm really determined to make this lifestyle change stick.
So, Monday, it....is....ON!!! My next update next week will show that I went to the gym at least 4 times AND will have accomplished my walks. They won't be as interesting as the Pennsylvania walks, but I'll see what I can do.
Stay tuned!
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