Our family has been dealing with some stress and big changes lately. Jake started a new job last week, working as the Executive Director and Staff Attorney for a non-profit organization that fights to protect Utah's forests and wetlands. He is excited about this change but it has taken a lot of time, prayer and faith to get us to this point. He's taking a huge pay cut and we have had to re-evaluate our lives and figure out what is most important, deciding the difference between genuine needs and just plain wants. We are trying to adjust and make this change work and it's going to be hard. Jake and I have put a lot of thought and prayer into the decisions we are making for our family and we feel, so far we are on the right track. We also know that a lot can change very quickly and so we are just trying to live in the moment, and having hope that no matter what happens in the next week, month, or year from now, we will be okay and it will all be for the best.
So... amidst all the chaos in our lives this past month, my exercise and diet got put on the back burner and guess what... I GAINED 5 lbs! Yes, I'm actually announcing this to the world. I need to be held accountable for my actions and so I'm using this post to re-dedicate myself to working out and eating 1500 calories a day. I sort of jumped back on the wagon last week and went to the gym twice and ran over 5.25 miles on Saturday. My butt-kicking officially started today, though. I ran 2 miles on the treadmill and then did speed interval training for another 2 miles. (As a side note, I love speed intervals! You burn more calories when you switch it up, instead of running the same pace for miles on end. When I say 'speed intervals' I mean I run 1 minute at 7.5 mph, then slow it down for 1 minute, then crank it to 8.0, then fast walk 1 minute, then 8.5, then fast walk, etc. I get up to 9.9, the highest you can go on a treadmill, then I bring it back down. I'm amazed my legs can run that fast without me losing my footing, falling off the treadmill and smacking my face on the floor (yes, I've thought about this!) Anyway, try the intervals. My friend Shana loves them too and says she has got down to her goal weight and toned herself by doing a lot them, so benefits all the way around!) Anyway, back to my workout. Then I did the cross country course on the elliptical for 20 minutes. Then I worked on strength training for 40 minutes and felt pretty good about what I did. I want to focus more on strengthening my adductors and abductors, something I feel will help me stay away from another IT band injury. After my workout I came home and opened my daily plate calorie counter on livestrong.com (highly recommend this website!) I made myself a fruit smoothie for breakfast (1 pear, 1/2 banana, 70 cals of strawberry yogurt, and about 10 ice cubes.) It was pretty good. Usually I throw in some apple juice too, but ran out a few days ago. So my smoothie was 241 calories, so 1259 calories left for the day. I'm jumping right back in full throttle and am pretty dang motivated to get these 5 lbs. off me (and maybe another couple more!) With the holidays coming up, I feel I need this attitude to keep the lbs. off. Anyone else want to join me?!
(PS The pic above is the most recent fam pic I have of all of us, taken about a month ago. We were hanging out with some of our best friends, Shawn and Amei, the night before they left for Toronto. Shawn started his post-doc there last month.)
8 comments:
Wow Jamie, I had no idea. Sounds like we are in similar boats. I think going with the "no matter what happens things will be okay" mantra is good... keep it up. I wish I lived by you so you could help kick my rear on a frequent basis. I need it. I'm sure you'll do great at reaching your goals!
Why does stress make us gain weight? AUGH! (I gained over 20 lbs the year that Allie had 4 surgeries. YIKES!!!) I hope that things go ULTRA smooth with Jake's new job and so on.
I am with you! I need my butt kicked right now too. Way to go on the speed intervals- I haven't done those in awhile, and I am going to tonight- thanks for the inspiration! :) Keep up the good work!!!!!Bye Bye 5 lbs!!! :)
I know you think that I don't need to lose weight, but I definitely need to be working out. I've gotten all soft and smooshy and I've noticed over the past few months with my stress going up and up and up that I now have a nice pooch that won't go away. I want to feel good about my body again, but I've been so busy with other things and struggling with my stress that I just can't seem to get there. I've VERY casually thrown around the idea of doing the marathon with you. At least, trying to force myself to train for it and then seeing where I get. You'll lose the 5 lbs. easily, especially now that you've got a bunch of muscle to help you out. You make me sick.
9.9? Wow Jamie, I get up to 9.5, and I too am always amazed that I can stay on my feet! I know how you feel about back-tracking with your weight, don't you feel awful? But you can ALWAYS get back into your training, and yes, this is the time to be rededicating yourself with the holidays ahead. I'm with you! Wish Jake good luck with his new job!
Sounds like the new job will be really neat and bring some great experiences with it! Good for you guys.
It's amazing how hard it is to get in a habit (like exercising) and how totally easy it is to get out of it! Why oh why can't it be the opposite! :)
Wow!!! I understand the "Be happy where ever you are in life" mantra! I don't however, know how you find the time to work out so much. I am now in YW, teaching one night a week and Russ is still in Elder's Quorum, so I have let working out slide. It was getting too stressful to have one more thing on my plate that I had to do - even if it was my favorite thing.
Kudos to you!!
That's great that Jake got a new job but that sucks that he had to take a pay cut. We went through the job loss thing back in April and it was scary there for a little bit. We were fortunate that Darren only went 1 week without work but it sure puts things into perspective and scares the crap out of you though.
I can see how working out kind of took the back burner with other things you had going on but it's awesome that you're so motivated to get back into it. I'll have to try the interval training. I've heard a lot of people talk about how great it is for getting your endurance up and also increasing your speed for races but I've just never tried it since I've never ran for a race so I didn't care about speed. But if it can help tone me I'm all over that. I've been running with a friend and we want to change things up since we find ourselves being able to talk all the way through our 3-5+ mile runs which lets us know we are getting too comfortable with where we're at. You're so hardcore with your workouts and eating that I'm sure those 5 pounds are going to melt right off
you go girl! Keep it up and you are such a great mom! I love ya!
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