I will NOT feel guilty for giving myself what I want.

I will NOT feel guilty for giving myself what I need.

This is my latest intention. I go to yoga and sweat and stretch and chant it over and over again until my mind is blank. The blankness may only last a few moments at best but those moments are priceless.

Just a month ago I sat here and proclaimed that 2012 would be more running! Look at this big list of races I want to run! Yay running!

And then, I got back in the room. Hey yoga, nice to see you again. I haven’t stopped craving that room since. I have stopped running since though.

Maybe it’s just coincidence, maybe divine intervention… but a beautiful yoga studio just opened a mere 4 minutes from my home. How I didn’t know this was happening is a shock but I found out the day before the first class from Maria on twitter and in that moment I was overjoyed.

Since then I’ve been attending 2-4 classes a week and I couldn’t be both happier and more frustrated. I’m SO happy when I’m in the room. I’m so happy when I leave. I’m so happy when I wake up knowing I have a class later.

I’m frustrated that my desire to run is zero. ZERO.

I have been on the treadmill taking long luxurious walks while watching The Bachelor on my iPad but the thought of cranking the speed past 4 mph is not one in my head.

I was feeling really bad about this. I was feeling guilty. Didn’t I just say I couldn’t wait to run more this year? I’m a fraud!

I was talking to Maria before a great session a few weeks ago about this and she said, “Well maybe this is just what your body needs right now.” You know what, I think she was right. That day during practice my intention was “I will not feel guilty for giving my body and mind what they need.”

Since that day I let go of the guilt and embraced what felt good. Not only for my body but for my mind. I work hard. I parent a 2 year old. I volunteer my time. I try to be on top of things. Why force myself to do something I just don’t want to do right now? Don’t I deserve a few hours a week to do exactly what I want and make myself better because of it? Honestly, I think I do deserve that.

This is by no means me saying I’m not a runner. I love running. I have since I was 12 years old and will continue to for the rest of my life I hope. But who is to say that hanging out the sneakers for a bit (could be a month, could be a year) is wrong? I’m done feeling that it’s wrong.

I will give my myself what I want.

I will give myself what I need.

Namaste.

Just as I did last year I wanted to post my halfway there progress on my 2012 goals.

Sweat!

I said I wanted to run a half marathon since I skipped over that race distance in 2011. CHECK!

Run, Bike and Have Fun! CHECK! I’m definitely not running as much as I did in 2011 but I’m still running here and there, biking, taking spin classes and definitely having a whole lot of fun cruising around town on bikes with the boys, chasing Miles around the back yard and splashing in the pool.

Get down to my goal weight. Not yet! I’m still working on this. It’s a regular struggle and I’m hoping it can all click soon. It’s definitely taking a front seat as my trip to vegas is only 30 odd days away!

Do work!

I said I wanted to work hard and accomplish a lot of things at my job. Well, this isn’t really a check or not a check. I left my beloved job and took another awesome one! Thus far I love it and have a huge list of things to accomplish ahead of me… so I’m marking this one as one I will definitely CHECK by the end of the year.

Miscellaneous

More quality time with the boys… major CHECK!

GOLF GOLF GOLF! Failing thus far. I want to be so badly. Time to turn this one around!

Travel a bit. CHECK! I visited Stef in Utah, took a trip to San Fran for work, and have VEGAS just around the corner.

Better skin care. CHECK! I’m doing pretty well in this arena with a somewhat consistent routine, lots of SPF and moisturizer and weekly masks.

So, in a nutshell I’m feeling pretty good about my goal progress! I have a lot of work ahead of me in the ‘goal weight’ department but am up for the challenge.

How are you doing on your resolutions/goals?

Another two weeks down! I can’t believe the CLE half is just about 2 months away. I’m getting quite excited for it and for Stef to come visit OHIO! I might not let her leave. Well I guess she can leave to go home and pack up her husband and kiddo but then she’ll have to come back.

The past two weeks have been highs and lows. Week 10 was the flu bug at our house which made for a long rough week. Miles, Mike and I all had the flu at different times that week. So much vomit. So much laundry. So that week’s workouts were mostly a bust. I did manage to snag a new 5-mile race PR though!

This week was a little better. I traveled for work for a few days but managed to get in a run while I was away and a few other hours of sweat. Today I did my long run with my good buddy Mason which was fun! And boy, was it humid! Spring has sprung in full force. I’m totally loving the weather but my body needs to get acclimated to the humidity again.

I’m hoping for a good week this week with a few solid weekday runs and a nice long run on Saturday morning before Mike and I are off for a one night getaway.

Here’s to a good week! What fun thing did you do in the nice weather this weekend? We did a lot of grilling out.

Remember why/how I started this blog? It was originally called ‘Size 5 for our 5’ and was centered around my journey to get back to being comfortable in my body by our 5 year wedding anniversary. Obviously now I talk about a lot more than my weekly weight loss and lifestyle change but at the heart I think that’s still what my blog is about, and the journey I’m still on to change my life and my body for the better.

So it’s been a while since I’ve shared my progress.

I’ve been tracking every single calorie I’ve taken in and put out since the beginning of the year using My Fitness Pal (add me, I’m asliceofkiwi). I was definitely doing it before that too but my streak since January 1 has been on point. At times it feel monotonous and depressing like oh wow, I just ate 700 calories worth of cookies and am still hungry. Other times it is empowering to have such a great insight into my diet and exercise.

Here’s today’s breakfast!

Obviously I’m a huge fan of sweat and getting down to business running, cycling and whatever else but at least for me the key to my weight loss (and healthy lifestyle) is food. Dang, I sure wish it wasn’t. I wish I could eat anything I wanted and could just burn it all off but that doesn’t work for me. I have to make better choices, measure my portions and pass on dessert sometimes.

My daily goal of food intake is 1,200 calories. On days I burn calories I try to not to eat those calories but on days where I’m burning more than 400 during a workout I definitely do eat approximately half of them. Or some days all. And some days all and then some. I definitely don’t hit my calorie target daily. I still have days where I eat close to 2,000 calories when I splurge on a meal out or pizza.

Another tool I’m using that I love is our Withings wi-fi scale. It’s no secret that Mike and I are tech junkies and after our old school scale died we made the splurge for this fancy scale. You hop on, it weighs you, measures all the other stats and immediately uploads them to your own password protected site and syncs with the app on my phone. Mike and I are daily weighers so we like it, a lot! The more I step on the scale, the more accountable I am. Not everyone works well that way but to each their own.

My long term goal is to lose 22% of my body weight. I’m happy to report that as of today I have lost 14.96%. Another fun but useless fact is that today I weigh 54.5 lbs less than I did on the day before I gave birth to Miles. Wow knees, you must have been really annoyed back then.

So while I’m feeling good lately I definitely still have some progress to make. I have lbs to lose, muscle to gain and confidence to build. Below are some before and after pictures. The before pictures are from the first week of December so the progress reflects about 3 months. They changes aren’t significant but regardless it’s progress!

I don’t have any huge initiatives in front of me. I just want to keep tracking without being miserable not letting myself have things I enjoy. I’d rather make this slow and steady progress and change than yo-yo.

What have you done for yourself this year to make yourself feed good?

Well, the past two weeks have been very meh and very awesome! Mostly ‘meh’ during the week and ‘awesome’ on the weekends. Basically I’ve succumbed to blowing off workouts during the week in favor of working a little extra and then got it together for my long runs on the weekend. This has gotta stop. I mean I still want to work hard but skipping workouts and letting stress build isn’t going to help me in the long run. I know that working up a sweat is my stress relief so why am I letting myself miss out on these sessions?

The truth is… It’s time to start waking up early during the week. Usually I sleep until Miles wakes up and then get up with him. He usually gets up between 6:45-8 am. Yes, sometimes I sleep right up until 8 am. Not often, but sometimes. It’s time to buck up and start setting the alarm and getting in some workouts in the AM. Or getting other things done in the AM so it’s easier to get in my mid-day sweat session. I know this will get easier with the change of the season but there is no time like the present!

So here’s the last few weeks. Pretty lame, but today’s 8 miler was great. It was cold, windy and flurry-ing but I suited up and headed out around noon and had a great run!

I’m looking forward to this coming weekend, my first race of 2012! St. Malachi’s 5-miler is where running sort of clicked again last year and I really got back into it. So I’m really excited to get out there and hopefully crush my time from last year on the hilly course!

Are you running at St. Malachi? Or do you have a race coming up?