Indulgence

Like I said yesterday, I've really been looking forward to my runs each morning--but today was an exception. Today is Friday, my long run day. I like running when I have 3-4 miles to do, but I really wasn't looking forward to the 7 miles I had on my schedule today. Seven miles at a 10:24/mi (ish) pace.

I decided I wanted a change of scenery to get me through, so I went to run on the same street that I did my 20-milers on. The last time I ran on it, I remember thinking how much it hurt my knee, because the sidewalk is so uneven.

Before I left, I ate a very indulgent breakfast:

Oatmeal with caramel dip, coconut, and chocolate chips--this was SO good! This combo came from the Hungry Girl cookbook. It was 8 PointsPlus, which is more than I usually spend on breakfast, but lately I've been trying to spread my PointsPlus out during the day a little better.

After the kids got on the bus, I headed out. After I parked, I was even kind of procrastinating in my car, flipping through Runner's World. Finally, I decided I just need to do it. The first mile, I felt great. I covered up my Garmin with my sleeve, so that I could just run by feel instead of looking at my pace, trying to hit 10:24 mile after mile.

Then about a mile and a half in, I was just so tired. I think I need to re-order my runs each week, so that I'm not running a race-pace run on Thursday followed by a long run on Friday. Because by Friday, my body is tired! During mile three, I really tried to slow down to hopefully feel better. I kept imagining that I was running with a beginner runner friend, and I had to run at her pace. That worked for a mile or two, and then I actually did start to feel better.

If I went straight back to my car, it would be exactly six miles, so I had to run a little detour. I am so glad that I did! I ran on streets I never ran on before, and I actually had a couple of hills to run--actually they were bridges, but they inclined like hills :)

I was relieved to get back to the car and be done. I was pretty surprised when I saw my pace--I felt like I was going much slower than I actually was, which is probably why I felt so tired!

On the way home, I had to stop at the post office and then stop at Kroger for bread. While I was in Kroger, I decided to spend some of my weekly PointsPlus on ice cream. I got a pint of Butterfinger ice cream, which conveniently had 640 calories total--and I burned 660 on my run. It was meant to be, I think. So I ate ice cream for lunch :)

Then I spent all afternoon working on the sparkle skirt tutorial, not realizing how long that was going to take.

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Q. I know you are no longer a coffee drinker. How did you switch over to tea? Was it gradual? Also, what are some good teas to try? Do you add anything to your tea?

A. I only became a "tea person" over the past year, after giving up coffee. I gave up the coffee cold turkey, and it was rough, but I felt a million times better after a couple of weeks of being coffee-free. However, I really missed the routine of having a hot cup of coffee in the morning to start my day. So I decided to have tea.

I had a ton of different flavors of tea in my cupboard from the occasional cup I would drink. My favorite coffee replacement became Lipton black tea with 1 Tbsp. half & half and 1/2 tsp. sugar. Ellen, from Fat Girl Wearing Thin, wrote about tea on her blog one day, and it got me very curious about loose leaf tea (tea without a tea bag). I e-mailed her to ask about it, and I was interested enough to give it a try. I bought the Teavana PerfecTea Tea Maker and I absolutely loved it!

I was totally intimidated to use it at first, because it looked so complicated. But it's very simple. Here's how it works:

This is the tea maker--it holds 16 fl. ounces

First, you just scoop the loose tea into the
tea maker (I usually use 1.5 tsp per cup of
water, so 3 tsp. to fill the tea maker)

Then you pour boiling water into it and close
the lid (some teas are supposed to use different
temps of water, but I don't get technical like
that--I just boil it). Let it steep for the
recommended amount of time.

After it steeps, just set the tea maker on top of
your mug or tea cup. This releases a stopper
on the bottom, and the tea pours out of the
bottom and into your cup! The leaves stay
inside, and then you can rinse them out later.

I don't know why it looks so white here,
I know I didn't use THAT much half & half!

See how easy it is? I've been trying different types of tea--and I was in sticker shock at first, because tea is expensive! I've ordered different kinds from Teavana and Tea Guys, but in the mornings, I usually stick to plain old Lipton loose black tea. At nighttime, I usually have a fruity tea--I absolutely love the Teavana Youthberry Wild Orange Blossom and the Blueberry Kona Pop. It's expensive, like I said, but it lasts a long time. If you go to a Teavana store, they have samples for you to try (that's how I got sucked into buy it--one taste, and I was sold!)

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TUTORIAL: How to Sew a Sparkle Running Skirt (super cute, easy, and cheap!)

As promised, here is the running skirt tutorial. I explained it the best I could, so I hope it's clear enough!

This tutorial is written for a skirt to fit my size--my hips (where I wear the skirt) are 35", which equates to 29" unstretched elastic. To make it bigger, add approximately two inches of fabric for every one inch of elastic. (It doesn't have to be exact). The waist band will be very stretchy, so the measurement doesn't have to be perfect.

The finished skirt will be 11 inches long. If you want it longer, just measure down farther from the sparkle line (I measured 12 inches down, but just add however many inches you want to add to the length of the skirt).

Each skirt will only cost roughly $5-10 to make.

Materials:

• 1.5 yards of fabric (you CAN buy 3/4 of a yard and cut it in half, then sew the pieces together--you will have two seams instead of one); 1.5 yards will yield 2 skirts. I will explain this better at the very end of the tutorial.
• 3/4" elastic, 30 inches long
• Thread
• Scissors, straight pins, a safety pin, and a tape measure

This is 1.5 yards of fabric folded in half lengthwise. Just ignore the bottom piece for now. If you want, you can make a second skirt out of it.

The edge of the fabric looks like this (the sparkles start a couple of inches from the raw edge). This will become the waistband of the skirt.

Starting at the sparkle line, measure 12 inches down (vertically). Do that across the entire length of the fabric, and mark it with pins or a fabric marker. (If you want your skirt longer or shorter, you can adjust the length by adding or subtracting from the 12 inches)

I didn't explain that very well on the photo, so here is a drawing. You'll cut along that dotted line where you've measured 12 inches.

Cut across the length of fabric at that line (the first dotted line in the sketch above). Be careful to cut through just one layer of the fabric, so that you can use the bottom layer for another skirt. After cutting, the fabric will be 1.5 yards long and about 14 inches tall (the 12 inches of sparkles plus the raw edge).

Fold the raw edge down toward the inside of the skirt, so that the top of the skirt is where the sparkle line starts. Pin down the raw edge inside of the skirt.

OR--if you want the inside to look nicer, instead of leaving the edge raw, you can tuck the raw edge under by 1/4 to 1/2 inch and pin it that way (see photo below). It'll look neater on the inside, but it's kind of a pain to do it that way and nobody is going to see it anyway! (I was making this skirt for someone else, so I folded it under, but on my own skirts, I just leave it raw)

Now it's time to sew. Sew along the edge you pinned, leaving 3/4 inch from the sparkle line fold. Make sure you leave a couple of inches open at the end, so you can insert the elastic. You will sew it closed later.

Cut your piece of elastic so it's 30 inches long. (If you are making a larger or smaller skirt, add an extra inch or so to the measurement because you will overlap it a little when you sew it together.)

Attach a safety pin to one edge of the elastic. This will help you guide the elastic through the tunnel you just made.

If the elastic fits well, then line up the edges of the elastic like this. Make sure it's not twisted!

Sew the elastic together--I like to sew it in a square, like the photo below, to really reinforce it.

Then tuck it into the skirt and give it a stretch so that it falls into place inside of the tunnel.  When it's inside of the tunnel, sew the gap shut.

Now, the elastic is loose inside of the skirt. Stretch the elastic as far as the fabric will allow (gently, though!) to even out the fabric along the skirt. When you let go of the stretch, the gather of fabric should be nice and even.

This next part is the most difficult to do. Just take your time. You're going to sew through the fabric and the elastic, while stretching the elastic, around the entire skirt.

Line up the edge of the fabric under the needle of the machine to sew it along the top of the skirt. Before you start sewing, use both hands to stretch the elastic while you sew. If you don't hold the stretch while you sew, the elastic won't stretch without breaking the thread when you're done.

The fabric will be pulled taut, because you're stretching the elastic out while you sew. If you don't stretch it out while sewing, the elastic will be sewn in a way that it won't stretch any more without breaking the thread holding it together. You may need to ask someone to give you an extra hand for this part.

The next part is optional. You can leave the bottom edge of the skirt as it is (raw along the cut line)--I actually prefer it this way. Or, for a neater edge, you can sew a hem.

To do that, fold the raw bottom edge up 1/2 inch, and then another 1/2 inch, so it looks like the photo below. Pin it like that around the entire skirt, and then sew.

And there you have it! A cute sparkle skirt :)  (You'll definitely want to wear something under it, haha)

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Now, about buying half the amount of fabric...

I've always bought 1.5 yards of fabric for my skirts (which makes two), but you can also buy half the amount you need. Here is what it looks like when you lay it out, unfolded:

So if you buy less (we'll say 3/4 in this example), here is what it looks like:

Cut along the center fold line, and you will have two identical pieces of fabric. Then you will line up the short edges and sew them with right sides together, like this:

Then just follow the tutorial as if this were one piece of fabric.

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2 month comparison

Believe it or not, I have actually been looking forward to my runs in the mornings! That is VERY unlike me. Usually I have to talk myself into just doing it, and I'm always glad that I do--but it still felt like a chore. But with these 3-4 mile runs on my schedule, I actually look forward to getting some fresh air and starting my day off with a run :)

This morning, it was still a little dark when I left the house, so I threw on my Ragnar reflective vest. Jerry took this picture when I got back so I could show you just how many colors I could possibly wear on one run...

Let's count: bright blue, red, neon yellow, white, pink, black, navy, and burgundy (on the shoes). I'm nothing, if not fashionable.

On the schedule today was three miles at "race pace", which, for the Ragnar, is 9:00/mi. Last week, I did this on the treadmill, so it was easy to just set the pace and run. But today was going to be difficult. I have two speeds--fast and slow (relative to me, of course). Hard and easy. Today was supposed to be somewhere in between, and that's hard for me to do!

I kept looking at my Garmin every quarter mile or so, and adjusting my pace as necessary. I ended up doing the first mile too fast, the second too slow, and the third too fast... but over all, my pace ended up being 8:56/mi, so it was close. But I'd like to get to the point where I can just run a 9:00/mi pace by feel, rather than the fast-slow-fast-slow thing I was doing today.

When I got home, I had Jerry take some pictures--I wanted to show a comparison of now versus August at the Wood Duck Dash race. When Stephanie e-mailed me the pictures from the race, I was horrified. I had no idea that my weight gain was so obvious! I didn't post the photos because I hated them. (Well, I still hate them, but at least my weight is back down now).

So anyway, here is a picture from August (I think I was about 153 ish in that pic) and then today:

Not nearly as big a difference as my before and after photos, but I can certainly see that the weight loss is noticeable. The scary thing is that I didn't see the gain when I looked in the mirror--I could feel it in my clothes, but was in total denial about it, apparently.

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This afternoon, while the kids were at school, Jerry took me on a tour of his work. I toured it once before when we were just married, but I didn't remember anything about it. I don't talk about Jerry's job on the blog (in order to maintain some sort of privacy), so I won't get specific--but he works in a production factory. I had to put on safety glasses while we walked around.

It was SO HOT in there! There were parts of the plant that were 150+ degrees. It felt like walking inside of an oven because of all the furnaces in there. You could actually see the heat in the air (just like when you look at asphalt on a hot day, and  you can see the heat radiating off the surface).

Anyway, it was really interesting to see what he does at work. I asked if I could take pictures, but they don't allow anyone to take pictures inside. I have a whole new respect for Jerry going to work in that heat, though! I could barely stand to be in there for 30 minutes--I don't know how he does it for a whole shift.

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I wrote a post for Fitness.com about running or walking your first race, and what to expect. If you're interested, you can check it out here.

I'll leave you with this 'outtake' photo from this morning--I only wanted to post it because look how skinny it makes my legs look ;)

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Maintenance and Wed. Weigh-in

I will start by saying that I was SO happy with my weigh-in this morning!

At 137, I am officially back in my weight maintenance range. This doesn't mean that I'm going to try and maintain this weight, however. I need a little cushion ;)  I'm going to do my best to get back to 133, which is my goal weight.

This is from the Weight Watchers app

The funny thing is, I've never actually reached my goal weight... in my life. When I first started losing weight, my "happy weight" goal was 185. Well, that came and went, so then I chose 153 (100 lbs lost). Then I kept losing, and decided on 126--half of my starting weight. I eventually reached my lowest weight (December 2010, after my jaw surgery), which was 127.5. Once my jaw healed, I went up to 137 ish and stayed there for a while. My weight has been going up and down between 135 and 155 for a couple of years now.

A while ago, I changed my "official" goal weight to 133 (I felt really good there, and all my clothes fit nicely). About a year ago, after my skin removal surgery, I got as low as 134--just a pound from reaching goal!--and then the battle continued. I reached a very scary high weight a couple of months ago, at which point I started Weight Watchers (out of desperation to get back to goal).

And as of today, I've gotten back to my "happy range", but I still want to know how it feels to reach my goal weight! I know it's stupid to get hung up with numbers, but I've struggled with my weight my entire life, and I always dreamed of the day I'd reach my goal weight. Then I would feel like I was officially in maintenance mode, and no longer trying to lose.

I would like to get down to 133, just to have that feeling of reaching goal. And this time, I am going to have a maintenance plan. Since I never actually reached goal, I never had a maintenance plan. I expect my weight to fluctuate, but the goal is to fluctuate between 133 and 137 rather than 135 and 155. I've found that it's the last five pounds that actually make the biggest difference in how I feel and how I look. I was going through pictures today from just a couple of months ago, and I can see a huge difference from the beginning of September to now. I'll try and get a good comparison picture tomorrow.

So anyway, today was very exciting to actually get back in my maintenance range, and still feel strong going into the last four pounds.

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This afternoon, I worked on making a sparkle skirt. I took a ton of pictures, so I will turn it into a tutorial in case anyone else wants to make one. They're easy to make, and very fun to wear in a race. At the marathon, I got a LOT of compliments on it while I was running. Anyway, I made this for someone else, but I liked the color so much that I had to make one for myself as well:

Now I feel like I've got to find a Christmas-y race so I can wear it :)

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By the way, if you missed it a few days ago, I'm inviting any of my readers/followers who have a home-based crafting business (maybe an Etsy shop, or a website from which you sell your handmade crafts of any type) to advertise yourself on a blog post (for free). Just write up a paragraph or two about you and your craft (whatever you'd like) and include a picture or two, as well as a link to your site/Etsy shop, and I will compile all of them into a single post in a couple of weeks. I (obviously) love handmade items, and would love to help any readers who may want some exposure :)  Just send me an e-mail at SlimKatie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com.

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Jittery

Let me just say, I am so glad that today was election day, if only for the fact that the political phone calls will stop! I have Vonage, and one of the options I use is to have my phone calls ring on both my land line and my cell simultaneously. I can answer the call with either phone. This works great when I'm out and someone calls my land line--but it's not so great when I've gotten at least five political phone calls (recordings) a day!

This morning, I woke up at 4:00 and just couldn't fall back asleep for the life of me, so I finally went out to the kitchen to do dishes and clean up a little. Then I made some tea and sat to read e-mail. At around 6:00, I started feeling sick--my stomach felt gross, and my hands were shaking badly, and I was really jittery and anxious.

These are the exact things that happened to me when I used to drink coffee. I think I've gotten so sensitive to caffeine since giving up the coffee that even the caffeinated tea is affecting me in a bad way. The feeling only lasts for a couple of hours, but it's awful. I'm going to switch to caffeine free tea and see if that helps. Unfortunately, I happen to love black tea, which has a lot of caffeine (as far as tea goes, anyway; it still has much less than coffee).

On my running schedule today was three miles at a 10:24/mi (ish) pace. My dad came over to take the kids to the bus stop this morning (they love to play catch with a football or baseball with him before school), so I headed out for my run right after they left.

I ran the same route that I did yesterday (only this time was an "easy" pace, compared to yesterday's huffing and puffing). I had a sense of deja vu, because I came across a woman walking in the same spot that I saw her walking yesterday; and I saw three guys working on a roof in the same scenario as yesterday. My run was totally uneventful, which is usually a good thing.

When I got back to the house, Phoebe was waiting for me to let her inside. She had darted outside when the boys left for the bus stop, and she must have regretted it, because the temp was in the low-30's. I sat outside on the porch with her for a minute, so I could drink my water and cool off before going inside.

She looks pissed, doesn't she?

Last night before bed, I was having my usual glass of wine and Dove Promise, and I was amused when I saw what my "fortune" was on the chocolate wrapper...

Thank you, Dove. If only that were true ;)

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I've gotten kind of sporadic with the Reader Q&A post that I was doing on Sundays. Instead of doing 2-3 in a single post, I think I'll just include one question now and then on my daily posts. Here's one for today...

Q. You mentioned you drink a lot of water. Do you force yourself to drink it even when you're not thirsty? Sometimes I think to myself, "I should drink water now, but I'm not thirsty at all." 

A. I do drink a lot of water every day; sometimes I'm thirsty, but most of the time, I'm not. When I first started losing weight, I never wanted to drink water. I started making myself drink 16 oz. of water right when I woke up, and after a while, I actually felt like I needed it first thing in the morning.

Now, I tend to drink it on a schedule: If I have to run that day, I will wake up and drink 16 oz. Then I go for my run. When I'm done, I drink a full quart (32 oz). (If I'm not running that day, I drink 32 oz. right when I wake up). I have another full quart right after lunch. And most of the time, I'll have a third quart in the late-afternoon. So that adds up to over 100 oz. of water a day (and that's not including my tea!).

I don't think it's necessary to drink that much water, but I like being well-hydrated all the time. If I don't have enough water, my hands get puffy and I feel bloated. At first, I felt like I was constantly having to pee; but my body got used to the extra water after a couple of weeks, so now I'm not making dozens of trips to the bathroom ;)

One of the biggest things I noticed when I started drinking a lot of water is that my cravings for soda and beer went away. When I was obese, I drank Dr. Pepper and beer, because I craved the carbonation. The same thing happens to me now during races--I know I'm getting dehydrated when I start to think of cold beer ;) But as soon as I rehydrate with water, the craving goes away.

I couldn't find a picture of me drinking water, but I found a few where I was
drinking beer. So just imagine that's water in the frosty mug ;)

Here's a fun fact: When you lose weight, the fat gets broken down in a very complicated process, but eventually gets expelled in your urine, as well as carbon dioxide from your lungs (source). I like to use that fact to play mind games with myself in order to drink water and exercise--when I exercise, I'm expelling a lot of carbon dioxide from breathing more rapidly; and when I drink a lot of water, I have to pee more. Whether it's getting rid of fat or not, it certainly motivates me to do it! ;)

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