In Sickness and in Health...

Well, this last week was pretty rough because I had a fever on Monday and Tuesday, then caught a tinge of food poisoning yesterday :-/ kind of out a damper on working out for the week! 

I'm feeling better today though, so hopefully I'll be fully recovered tomorrow and can get back into the swing of things! :)

This has been a pretty good week for me though, as far as feeling good about myself. I was eating much better than I have been over the past few weeks, I took some time to have fun by going to UCF FanFest and the Little Black Dress pub crawl.

I started a Coaching program and Challenge on my Nike+ app too! I'll be training for a 5-mile race at UCF called the U Can Finish :) It's great motivation for me and a great start towards training to race in a 10K!

So instead of sharing my food pictures from this week, I'm going to share these instead:

Weekly weigh-in...I've lost 3.5 lbs so far :)

UCF FanFest! I got to meet JJ Worton :) Wide receiver for the Knights!

Little Black Dress Pub Crawl in downtown Orlando! :)

So a new week is beginning, and hopefully I'll be feeling 100% to get back to working out and training for some races! :)

Little victories..

Well, I didn't make it to the gym today, but I ate really well and took care of myself! :)

Doing a quick post today because I've gotta get some sleep!!!

Breakfast: quinoa, egg, spinach, mushroom, cheese scramble

Lunch: pasta salad with rotini pasta, olives, tomatoes, feta cheese, and Greek dressing

Snacks: two clementines and a mozzarella stick, "ants on a log" (peanut butter and celery with raisins on top), white cheddar Cheetos puffs

Dinner: one pot BBQ chicken pasta! 

Dessert: cookie butter and pretzels!

Magazines or Novels!

Well the day has finally come! Andy Grammer's new album, Magazines or Novels, will be released tomorrow and I'm so stoked!!! :) His music is so motivating and catchy and moving...I can't wait for all of these new songs! I've been listening to the album all week on Pandora Premieres!

Anyway, last week I did pretty well keeping up with my goals...but this week is off to a rough start :(
There's always time to turn it around and I think tomorrow will be the perfect day for that!
For starters, I did some meal prepping on Saturday morning that turned out to be fantastic! Definitely enjoying my meals and all of the Pinterest ideas I had the chance to try :) Some turned out perfectly, some turn out...well, they turned out all right I suppose haha but next time I'll have to try some different ideas too!

So I am going to be keeping up on my fitness journey with a group started by one of my childhood best friends who has been such an inspiration to me (Thanks Aubrey)! We've both had our ups and downs on our weight loss journey, and right now we're both going to whip each other back in shape!!! Starting with holding ourselves accountable on the Facebook group Aubrey created almost two years ago :)
Then, I'll be tracking food on MyFitnessPal; it's kinda hard keeping up with it sometimes when you end up doing all of your own meal prep, I've noticed it gets annoying entering all of the items separately, so I'm going to do my best to make some "meals/recipes" for things I commonly make so I don't have to keep inputting every single item every time.
Next, the group exercise classes at the Y...gotta focus more on strength AND cardio instead of one or the other. The plan for this week:
Tuesday: Run @ 0630 (25 min) and Strength-Back, Arms (35 min)
Wednesday: Cardio Cycle @ 0700 (50 min) and Strength-Shoulders, Core (25 min)
Thursday:Yoga @ 0600 (50 min)
Friday: Rest day (Jags vs. Bucs game in Jax!)
Saturday: Jax Tri #3 (GOAL: Under 1:30:00)

Finally, I've been Pinteresting away again for good recipes...and I made some strawberry/lime infused water that has been delicious! Also, put some chocolate syrup in an ice cube tray with strawberries, raspberries, and bananas in it for an easy and healthy way to satisfy my sweet tooth ;)

So I'll take these little victories, and focus on the positive instead of the negative since I haven't been the greatest with that lately...I've been so concerned with not feeling happy with the way that I look, but haven't done anything to try and change it. But I keep SAYING that I'm going to instead of actually DOING something about it...so all that changes now :)

Here's to reminding myself what I looked like when I felt comfortable and confident with my body, and something to get my ass in gear to get feeling that way again ASAP!!!

PS: I also decided to join a Book Club :) I've been pretty good at keeping up with my new year's resolution to read 12 new books this year, but I'm running out of ideas! So I figured a book club is a great way to meet new people while having new books to entertain me too.
Here's the list of what I've read so far this year:
1-Sergeant Rex
2-The Choice
3-The Best of Me
4-A Bend in the Road

I'm only four novels behind for reading one per month of the year, and I have a few on my "to-read" list before I see the movie versions.

While everyone is getting ready for bikini season...

I'M GETTING READY FOR FOOTBALL SEASON!!!

Since getting "fit" by the end of summer is pretty unrealistic, I'm deciding to make it a goal to start feeling back to my old self in time for football season ;)
I want to make sure I look and feel my best during tailgating or watch parties! Since those will be the extent of my social outings, I figured I might as well take advantage of that as motivation to lose the weight I've gained since I moved back.

As far as this week goes, I've done pretty well! I made it to a Cardio Strength class yesterday morning, I took a rest day today (and splurged with cookies and Twistee Treat...so that wasn't great...), and tomorrow I'm planning on going on a short run and then doing spin class before going into work at Typhoon...Thursday my plan is Cardio Cycle at 0930 and Yoga at 1030 before going in to work at SeaWorld, and then Friday I want to do Cardio Strength at 1730; Saturday I'm planning for Run Club or Master's Swim at 0700 or Kickboxing at 0930...so we'll see if I can stick with it this week!

Looking forward to attending many UCF home games, and a few Jags games too!!! :)

I DID IT!

I did it! I made my goal time for Jax Tri #2!!! Under 1:35?? Easy! ;) Made that a new PR!

Here are my split times from the race:
Swim-9:47.1
T1-2:34.4
Bike-52:37.0
T2-0:56.2
Run-24:57.6
Overall-1:31:52.3

Now, my goal for the final race in this series is under 1:30! I want to set a new PR, and challenge myself for this last triathlon :)

BIG shout out to my mom for always being my biggest fan! It's because of her support that I am always so happy to do events like these and know that she's there waiting for me at the finish line :) Love you mama!!!

Jax Tri #2!!!

All right...the night before the second race and I am SO pumped!!!

I haven't been training NEARLY as much as I should have been lately...but I'm hoping to beat my time from the last race! I would really love to get under 1:30:00 this year...but I think that's going to be a little more difficult considering I haven't been training like I wanted to...

Here were my times for 2014 Jax Tri #1:
Swim-9:00.8 (7)
T1-2:14.8
Bike-58:20.9 (10)
T2-1:21.0
Run-26:12.4 (2)
Overall-1:37:09.9 (6)

So this race I just want to try to make it under 1:35:00...and regardless, it's going to be so much fun!
I only made it to one early spin class this week...but over the next week I'm going to start doing two spin classes, one run, and one swim session per week...along with trying to fit in a Cardio Strength, Yoga, and Total Body Conditioning for cross training throughout the week then :)

I took one step in the right direction this week...so it's time to step it up this next week!



FLASHBACK!!!

My race and split times from last year...
Jax Tri #1
Swim-9:15.8
T1-2:18
Bike-59:19.3
T2-1:53.0
Run-24:10.2
Overall-1:36:55

Jax Tri #2
Swim-8:26.5
T1-2:01
Bike-55:11.0
T2-0:46
Run-26:57.2
Overall-1:33:21

Jax Tri #3
Swim-11:02.3
T1-1:28
Bike-54:50.1
T2-0:50
Run-24:40.9
Overall-1:32:50

Road to Revival

Well it has been QUITE some time since I've written a blog post on here, but I think recent events have warranted a call for the return of this blog.

Since I wrote last, there have been so many exciting things happening!
-I moved back to Orlando
-Started my dream job at Shamu stadium as an Associate Trainer!
-Passed the hardest swim test of my animal training career!
-Got a second job as a Dive Tech at Typhoon Lagoon
-Moved into my new apartment with Buddy :)
-Seen my parents SO much since they're only an hour and a half away now!
-Got to spend time with my grandparents while they were in town!
-Spent some times with my good friends from UCF now that I'm back
-Bought my UCF Young Alumni Football Tickets!
-Got my Rescue Diver Certification!
-...and so much more, but those are a few of the highlights :)


But also since I wrote last, I slipped into a slump and have gained almost 15 pounds since the beginning of this year :( I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I haven't been working out nearly as much as I was, my eating habits have also gotten a little slack since moving back, and I've felt fatigued and unmotivated very often.
At first I blamed it on adjusting back to a daytime schedule and getting settled in from my move, but then I kept making excuses and using those excuses as a crutch for slacking off.

The truth is, I got complacent after I was offered my dream job and felt like I didn't have anything to work towards anymore. I know that I was using the swim test to get this job as subtle motivation for always staying in shape, and since I received the position I haven't found anything to replace that.
But now I miss the way I felt confident and comfortable wearing clothes that were more form fitting, when I didn't worry as much about the way my stomach looked...but now I'm getting more self conscious again, my jeans are fitting tighter, I'm not as lean as I was before and I'm noticing more of a muffin top again...and I do NOT like it! :( I've been bothered by it for the past two months and haven't cared enough to want to change it, but now that I've gained almost fifteen pounds and don't feel happy with myself, I know that I NEED to get back to how I was feeling at the beginning of the year.

Of course there are things that have happened that I don't want to share with the online world, but even those occurrences aren't enough to account for my relapse.

I have my second triathlon this weekend and I'm SO excited for it! I wish I would have been training this whole time for it, but I hope I can use this to help me get out of my slump. Being stuck in a funk for this long when nothing is going wrong is hard to shake because there's nothing pinpointing the way that I'm feeling right now, but I'm going to do everything I can to "change for the better."

Hence, why I'm back to this blog: it helped so much on my journey to weight loss last time that I figured it would be good for me to take some time a few nights a week to reevaluate myself and update on my goals and reflect on my successes/failures to improve upon for the next week.


So today was a rest day since I had to have blood work done this morning...but tomorrow I am waking up at 0445, grabbing a banana and water to go, and doing a 0530 spin class in the morning at the Y! That will give me enough time to come back, make myself a nice breakfast, take Buddy out to go play, make my lunch for work, and take some time to unwind in the morning :)

Starting now, I am getting out of this slump and although I know it's going to be an uphill battle for a while, I know it will be worth it when I stick to it and end up seeing the results I want to :)

I'll wrap up this entry with a song from an inspiring man and my musical hero: Andy Grammer
"I will remind you...I will be your memory."