I have been stalled. I gain a few, I lose a few but the scale won’t budge any lower. The evil plateau. I took measurements on Saturday and in 37 days (because the last time I took measurements was March 20th) I lost 3.4 pounds and technically 4 inches: ½” on my waist, hips and both thighs, ¼” on both calfs and my arms stayed the same. :(  So what about the other 2 inches…my chest. Yep my boobs took the biggest loss…and there wasn’t much there to begin with. So it is discouraging to say the least.

Weekend Home!

I’m so gratefully to have a weekend home. I love traveling and going places but sometimes being home is good too. Friday night we drove down to Mankato to pick up our Gorilla suits for the Gorilla Run this Saturday and we had dinner with Danielle and DJ.

I want a Maple Iced Ring Donut, please…

Saturday I woke up and went for a run. I went to the Minnesota River Bluffs trail again. Big difference from Good Friday, it was packed on Saturday. I took the last parking spot. I was smart this time and brought water on my run. I have to say the collapsible water bottle is dumb and I have to get a better hydration system for the next run! I went 3.3 miles out and surprisingly my first mile was not my fastest! Mile 2 was my fastest. I felt great all the way out to the turnaround point. I drank some water and it definitely helped my feel better. Mile 4 was also good but somewhere on Mile 5 the problems began.  I was running out of water and I was starving. All I could think about was a Maple Iced Donut from the donut shop. When you have another 1.6 miles to go this is bad sign. I saved my last bit of water for the 6 mile mark so I was thirsty too. The last mile or so, I could see downtown Shakopee and all I could think was I want a donut. I really struggled during that mile and my time shows it. I need to buy some mini Pearson’s Salted Nut Rolls and bring them with me on those long runs. I know sporty people would say you should use the gels and bars but to be honest they taste like crap and the Pearson’s Salted Nut Rolls provide the same thing…sweet and salty. So two things I need to buy before my next run, a water fanny pack and a bag of mini Pearson’s Salted Nut Rolls. I should be paid for pushing their product so much! After the run, my fastest 10K by over 3 minutes…by the way…I went straight to the donut shop and scarfed down my maple iced ring. I didn’t even get out of the drive thru lane and it was gone. Delicious! Here are my splits from the run:

Twins Win!

After the run and donuts (yes I had two!) I took a shower and we headed to our second Twins game of the year. It was a bit cold and windy in the stands but when the sun shined it was beautiful. The game didn’t start off too good for us as Detroit put up two quick runs in the 1st inning. Thankfully their starter had to leave the game in the 3rd inning because of a blister on his finger so we got to their bullpen early. In one inning the Twins scored 4 runs and only had one hit. They sure do get walks this year. :) The final score was 5-3. Yay! We crashed at home the rest of the evening…wiped out from being outside all day in the wind.

Back inside

My run on Sunday was back inside. It was pouring and 20+ mph wind. I decided it wasn’t worth it to run outside so I took it to the indoor track. It felt weird to be inside again. It was hot in there. I took the opportunity to do some speed work again. So I ran one lap normal speed, one lap faster. I did that 3 miles and finished in 37 minutes. Not bad for me coming off my long run on Saturday. I was happy. I came home and folded some clothes and took a shower and went out for dinner with friends…a nice weekend home.

Training Update

Miles ran in 2014:  203 miles (only 197 miles left to go)

Weekly Mileage: Swim = 1/2 mile; Bike = 9.6 miles; Run = 15.5 miles; Total = 25.6 miles 

So April hasn’t been too kind with me weight wise. For the last 25 days I have lost a net…wait for it... 0.2 pounds. I have had peaks and valleys. My highest was almost 4 pounds higher than where I am at now; my lowest was 2 pound lower than where I am at now. So that is a 6 pound swing…but I’m stuck at a measly 0.2 pounds lost.  So frustrating! Why has this month been so horrible to me? I’ve increased my running and added biking again.  Why??

Why?

There are two culprits (I think) sodium and weekends away from home. 

Sodium

I am really a sweet tooth, I love sugar. All types of sugar from fruit and sweets. Generally I hate salty foods. However I’ve had a very high sodium month. A lot of eating out which is a big killer. Some meals are 200% of your sodium intake for a day. Yikes! So I did a handy little diagram to show my problem.  I’m a geek, I love numbers, statistics and charts. Here is the last 30 days, the green bars represent my sodium intake, a lot of high bars there don’t you think!?  I figure that I should eat less than 2300 mg a day. I didn’t meet that goal on most days as you can tell. The red line indicates my daily weight fluctuation. The higher the line, the more weight I gained. Isn’t it amazing how sodium and weight gain/loss are so closely related.  I thought about adding total daily calories too but that is just too much data in one tiny chart. It is crazy how close they are aligned.

Home Sweet Home

The other reason for the lack of weight loss this month is we are never home. One weekend in Rapid City, two in Wisconsin means a lot of eating out. Eating out will kill any weight loss plan and as you can tell it killed mine. This weekend we are actually staying home…but we have a Twins game…Sodium Haven. We will see how the rest of this month goes; hopefully I can lose a couple pounds before Wednesday.

Hope everybody had a good Easter. Ours was very nice. We had good food, got some exercise and gained 3 pounds. Yep…doesn’t that suck. I need to become a hermit and never go anywhere on the weekends…weekends are killing my weight loss!  For the month April I have gained almost a pound. I have lost some but always gain it right back on the weekends. I need to stop this! I have lost weight every month since September. Even in November and December with Thanksgiving and Christmas, I managed to lose some during the month. How could April be my undoing?  The weather is nice, I’m putting in extra miles and more workouts but yet I’m gaining…not cool, NOT COOL!

7 Miles!

So let start with Friday. What a glorious day it was...even though it was Good Friday. I had the day off, Eric did not. I made the most of my day. I got up with Eric and went to get the burnt out light fixed on the car. I came home and did some laundry (my never-ending problem) and went for a run. This time I went to the Minnesota River Bluffs trail on the other side of the river in Chaska/Chanhassen/Eden Prairie. I ran 3 miles out to Lake Riley and turned around and ran back. It is a very nice run, straight on the hill with plenty of scenery. I felt pretty good the whole way until about mile 5. I was thirsty and really wish I had some water. I struggled through mile 6 to get to my car and get some water. After a drink I felt I had enough in me to get to mile 7.  Yep, 7 miles and I ran the entire time. My pace was slow but I did 7 miles!  I was very happy with my result!

After my run and shower, I went to Burnsville to buy Mike some new pants…his are too big. I guess after losing 55+ pounds that would happen. He told me to get one size but they were out of that size so I said give me the next size down…good I did because they fit! The size he wanted would have been too big! I filled the car and got some groceries and that was basically my Friday.

Flood Run

Saturday we drove down to Wisconsin and ran into the annual Flood Run…1000+ motorcycles taking control of the road…seriously. They act like they own the road and do their own directing of traffic and everything. So annoying! It was a nice day for it so good for them but they are such a nuisance! We got to George’s Lounge for the Chicken Q. It was delicious but the potato salad was not homemade like usual. That was a bit disappointing. We ventured into Winona with mom and came home with a cat climbing tower.

The Long, Long Mass

We went back to the house and met Melcome…the new cat. Cute cat, very active. He rules the house! We had some pizza and went to the Easter Vigil. The Easter Vigil is such a long Mass. I knew it was going to be a late night. I like standing around the open fire outside of church. That part was cool. It was a bit windy so it was causing some problems. LOL! We light our candles and proceed inside.  They only did 3 of the 7 reading which I was grateful. Father Woody’s homily wasn’t his usually 20 minutes…only 15 and there was 1 baptism, 3 confirmations and 2 first communions…those of course take time. After all was said and done it was two and half hours.  Not the four and half hours at the Vatican. We got back home and went straight to bed.

Easter Sunday

I tried to sleep in but of course I had to pee so that didn’t happen. I got until 7:30am. We had quiche for breakfast and after the rain stopped Mike and I went out exercising. I had mom drop me off at the top of the hill, 3 miles from the house and Mike was dropped off at the bottom of the hill.  I was a lazy runner yesterday. I thought my pace would be awesome but it wasn’t. My first mile was 12 minutes…I’m not sure how that is possible because I was running really fast downhill the whole way but whatever.  Easter Dinner was delicious. Mom had a good spread.  We played Yahtzee Free for All…Eric won of course, he always wins. We had some pie and made our way home. It was a nice drive back on the Minnesota side of the river. We relaxed a bit but it was too nice of a day to sit inside so we went for a 10 mile bike ride it was beautiful.

Training Update

Miles ran in 2014:  187 miles (only 213 miles left to go)

Weekly Mileage: Swim = 1/2 mile; Bike = 0 miles; Run = 13.15 miles; Total = 13.65 miles