As predicted, my kids' school was canceled yesterday and today. It looks likely it'll be canceled tomorrow, too. This has NEVER happened, for as long as I've been alive, that they've canceled so many days of school due to cold weather. I don't know that they would cancel it just because of the temperature, but the roads have been awful, too. It hasn't gotten warm enough to melt any snow, so it just keeps building up. Then, the super cold temps turn it into ice almost immediately when it does snow.
We are allowed six snow days per school year, and the kids are on day seven right now. So they'll be making up at least one day in June, and it's only January! The kids were actually not very happy that school was canceled today. The snow days have been boring, because it's too cold for them to play outside, the roads are too bad to drive anywhere, and there is only so much to do at home. Yesterday, they had a friend come over, so that kept them busy.
I've always liked cold weather, but I really don't like snow. This winter has just been awful, and it's definitely affecting my mood. It looks SO dreary outside:
It's not that bad if we have some warmer (and by warmer, I just mean mid-30's!) days thrown in the mix, with some sunshine. But it's been dreary and freezing cold every single day lately. I really hope this means we have a perfect summer!
This morning, I had just three miles on the schedule, but I figured I'd run for an entire episode of Flashpoint, about 43 minutes. My easy pace is back to feeling easy, and my heart rate is back down to normal. It occurred to me that the heart rate thing happened right after I got a flu shot; I have no idea if that had anything to do with it, but it's a possibility. My heart rate was really high, and I felt like crap for a couple of weeks (especially while running), but now it's totally back to normal.
Today, I ran at a 9:05-ish pace and my heart rate barely reached Zone 3. I've felt fantastic the past week or so while running, so I think I'm back to normal. Today, I just set the speed on the treadmill and then ran for the whole episode of Flashpoint, which ended up being 4.7 miles total.
After my run, I did strength training on the Wii Fit U. I've been doing well with sticking to my goal of strength training twice per week. Today, I added some more of the strength and yoga exercises to my routine. I like the Wii Fit exercises because they're short, and I think that's why I've actually stuck to doing the routine. I still feel like I get a good strength workout, though.
Carly shared this article about weight loss myths on Facebook today, and I thought it was worth mentioning here. I really love that it discusses the "1200 calories a day" issue. When I first started losing weight, I'd always heard that 1200 calories per day was what I should aim for. And even SparkPeople suggested 1200-1550 per day. I tried that, and felt like I was absolutely starving! There was no way I could stick with that for very long.
I really wanted to be able to find a way of eating that I could live with forever, and still enjoy my life, so I experimented to be able to eat as much as possible and still lose weight. I found that I could lose weight while eating 1800 calories a day, and even more on the days that I ran. Eating 1800 kept me MUCH more satisfied, so that I was much less likely to binge; and I didn't feel hungry all the time. The scale even dropped faster when I was eating more. I really don't believe that there is a one particular "magic number"--we just have to experiment to find out what works for us as individuals.
Just for fun, I used the calorie calculator on the article's website see what number it said I should aim for in weight maintenance. My age just changed to 32, my weight was 139 today, and I exercise 3-5 days per week. It said that to maintain my weight, I should eat 2165 calories per day. If I had to guess how many calories I've been eating lately, I'd say that's pretty accurate! I've probably been eating between 2000-2500 for several weeks, and my weight has stayed very steady. It suggested that to lose weight, I should aim for 1840 calories per day (and the lowest would be 1624). I'm doing really well without counting calories or WW Points, so I don't plan to start counting now, but I thought it would be interesting to see what the calculator suggested.
Anyway, normally, I don't like to read weight loss articles, but when I saw that Carly shared it, I figured it must be decent ;)
By the way, I haven't heard from Carolyn R. from Minneapolis, MN about winning the magazine giveaway. Carolyn, not sure if you saw on the post yesterday, but you won a one-year subscription to Runner's World from me! Just send me an e-mail with your full name and address where you'd like the magazine sent, and I'll get it ordered this week.
We are allowed six snow days per school year, and the kids are on day seven right now. So they'll be making up at least one day in June, and it's only January! The kids were actually not very happy that school was canceled today. The snow days have been boring, because it's too cold for them to play outside, the roads are too bad to drive anywhere, and there is only so much to do at home. Yesterday, they had a friend come over, so that kept them busy.
I've always liked cold weather, but I really don't like snow. This winter has just been awful, and it's definitely affecting my mood. It looks SO dreary outside:
It's not that bad if we have some warmer (and by warmer, I just mean mid-30's!) days thrown in the mix, with some sunshine. But it's been dreary and freezing cold every single day lately. I really hope this means we have a perfect summer!
This morning, I had just three miles on the schedule, but I figured I'd run for an entire episode of Flashpoint, about 43 minutes. My easy pace is back to feeling easy, and my heart rate is back down to normal. It occurred to me that the heart rate thing happened right after I got a flu shot; I have no idea if that had anything to do with it, but it's a possibility. My heart rate was really high, and I felt like crap for a couple of weeks (especially while running), but now it's totally back to normal.
Today, I ran at a 9:05-ish pace and my heart rate barely reached Zone 3. I've felt fantastic the past week or so while running, so I think I'm back to normal. Today, I just set the speed on the treadmill and then ran for the whole episode of Flashpoint, which ended up being 4.7 miles total.
After my run, I did strength training on the Wii Fit U. I've been doing well with sticking to my goal of strength training twice per week. Today, I added some more of the strength and yoga exercises to my routine. I like the Wii Fit exercises because they're short, and I think that's why I've actually stuck to doing the routine. I still feel like I get a good strength workout, though.
Carly shared this article about weight loss myths on Facebook today, and I thought it was worth mentioning here. I really love that it discusses the "1200 calories a day" issue. When I first started losing weight, I'd always heard that 1200 calories per day was what I should aim for. And even SparkPeople suggested 1200-1550 per day. I tried that, and felt like I was absolutely starving! There was no way I could stick with that for very long.
I really wanted to be able to find a way of eating that I could live with forever, and still enjoy my life, so I experimented to be able to eat as much as possible and still lose weight. I found that I could lose weight while eating 1800 calories a day, and even more on the days that I ran. Eating 1800 kept me MUCH more satisfied, so that I was much less likely to binge; and I didn't feel hungry all the time. The scale even dropped faster when I was eating more. I really don't believe that there is a one particular "magic number"--we just have to experiment to find out what works for us as individuals.
Just for fun, I used the calorie calculator on the article's website see what number it said I should aim for in weight maintenance. My age just changed to 32, my weight was 139 today, and I exercise 3-5 days per week. It said that to maintain my weight, I should eat 2165 calories per day. If I had to guess how many calories I've been eating lately, I'd say that's pretty accurate! I've probably been eating between 2000-2500 for several weeks, and my weight has stayed very steady. It suggested that to lose weight, I should aim for 1840 calories per day (and the lowest would be 1624). I'm doing really well without counting calories or WW Points, so I don't plan to start counting now, but I thought it would be interesting to see what the calculator suggested.
Anyway, normally, I don't like to read weight loss articles, but when I saw that Carly shared it, I figured it must be decent ;)
By the way, I haven't heard from Carolyn R. from Minneapolis, MN about winning the magazine giveaway. Carolyn, not sure if you saw on the post yesterday, but you won a one-year subscription to Runner's World from me! Just send me an e-mail with your full name and address where you'd like the magazine sent, and I'll get it ordered this week.
