Day 61/62: Back in the Saddle (Again)

It's been an interesting weekend. I have been without one of my supplements for some time, and it has been an unrequited disaster for me. I am normally very mellow, having a good day all the time, but today my mood has been all over the place, moody and temperamental and everything! It totally sucked. I went running this morning, and since my fiancé was in the "guest room" where I normally sleep, my phone charger was in there, and my phone had completely crapped out. I had no timer, and not having a timer is like kryptonite to me. I only made it for a little while and felt completely discouraged. The negative self-talk made a guest appearance, and I was just berating myself for not being able to make it as far. I know now that it was a lot warmer and more humid than I was used to running in, and that probably slowed me down. Plus, I have been down for several days due to injury, so the fact that I had a pretty good run was not bad! I just couldn't wrap my head around it that morning. Add it to perpetual problems with my perpetually dishonest bank and I just couldn't handle it. I was emotionally worn down and thought I wouldn't be able to even get my supplements.

My fiancé was a perpetual blessing to me, calming me down and eventually paying for my supplements, which was a godsend. My mood is back to normal, and so is my appetite. Before I was ravenous and craving pretty much anything that was bad for me. Now I have only eaten a light meal this afternoon and have been fine. :-) I will have a protein shake for dinner since I missed it this morning.

I plan on picking up some hummus tomorrow and some veggies of some sort. I love my hummus and veggie combos, they really hit the spot when I'm having a bad day or just need something that tastes good. For those of you that don't know, my name is Shelly (AKA Girl on Fire) and I'm a hummus addict, lol! I had no good words to say to a certain retail chain that replaced the classic hummus and pretzel combos with the red pepper hummus. Thankfully my school stocks all three flavors of hummus and pretzels in the cafeteria, so there is always something yummy and healthy at school. :-) Plus, I notice a huge drop in my weight when I go to school, must be that brain food!

I have to admit, I never knew how much I needed the little buggers until I was unable to get them! I know people hate on supplements, and say you don't need a magic pill and all that, and I get that, but these have put me in a really good place emotionally as well. I have been able to get out and run everyday, I am always in a good mood, and I don't eat bad. Don't knock it til you try it. :-)

I hope everyone has a fantastic day. Be blessed and enjoy the journey!

Day 51: Upping the Ante

I started off my workout this morning with the C25K W6D2. I was expecting all the workouts for the week to be the same, as they usually were for the past five weeks. Imagine my surprise when I look at the workouts and it says to do 2 10-minute blocks of running! I have never done that much running before, except on the treadmill some time ago. I suddenly got nervous and seriously considered doing the W6D1 again. I thought for sure that I would not make it. But I decided to try it anyway. To my surprise, I was able to do both 10-minute blocks without stopping, for a total of 20 minutes of running. I'm not going to lie, I was definitely out of breath and definitely considered stopping a few times. But then I would look at the clock and say, I'm halfway, I've got 3, 2, 1... minutes left, and so on and so forth. That has always gotten me through some difficult runs. Some folks think it's counterintuitive to look at the clock, that you should just enjoy the run. And I do! There are times when I look at the scenery and just love running. Other times I'm so out of breath that it's a struggle to get through it! I find that looking at the clock gives me a goal. :-)

I was definitely sweating after that workout.

 

I decided to up the ante and walk an additional mile for a grand total of 2.55 miles. It got easier as I went on, and I would have gone longer than that except it began to drizzle a little and I was concerned about my cell phone getting completely drenched or at the very least a little moody, so I packed up my gear and headed home. (Much to my dismay, it stopped raining as soon as I left! :-P)

 

I was a little sore after my workout, and I decided to take a little break. I drank my protein shake and did some homework, and texted my fiancé for a few hours. Then I got bored. Mind-numbingly bored. I am low on fuel and have to wait to fill up the tank again, so I've mostly been at home all day. I got the crazy idea to ride on my dad's stationary bike for a little while, since it is in the basement anyway and so am I, most of the time. I thought that I would do a short 10-minute ride and be done with it, but as usual I made bets with myself (as in, I bet I can go longer than 10 minutes!) and ended up doing 9.11 miles in 36 minutes. Not a bad deal, though I have to admit I'm still a bit sore. Sometimes I do two workouts on the bike for a total of 1 hour, but since I have been upping my run time I'm just going to stick with 36 minutes.

 

I hope everyone has a good day. Be blessed, and go outside! :-)

Day 39.5: A Day Out on the Town and More Supplementing Goodness

That may be the longest post title I've ever had, lol. It's reminiscent of "Standing Outside a Broken Telephone Booth With Money In My Hands." I can never remember who sang it, but they sampled BB King, which is always super cool in my book. :-)

Anyhoo, I went to the Big River Running Co shop out in O'Fallon, and realized I had totally passed it twice yesterday. It was a fun place to go, but I didn't see anything I wanted and everything was too expensive, so I went on to a few other places. I went to Sports Authority and got some Nuun tabs. They were not too bad, definitely an acquired taste though since I'm not really used to carbonated drink tabs. It was an early birthday present to myself. :-)

I also took some packages to the UPS shop for my mom, and in return got a fairly large chunk of change to spend. And where do I go? To S2, of course, because my paycheck is irresistibly drawn to the awesomeness. I decided to go all out, I got some protein powder in Chocolate Coconut, and some DHA to replace my almost empty bottle. I also got one of those shaker cups with the S2 logo on it. Thankfully, the guys were nice and decided to let me sample some of the powder, and it was super good! I have had so many issues with protein powder in the past, it made my stomach hurt like a mofo and just looked and tasted disgusting. I tried the Vega powder before and it was absolutely nasty, didn't mix well and made a gritty nasty mix in the bottom of the cup. Tried making a smoothie out of it and that just made it worse. :-( But I tried the ice cream sandwich one the other day and it was... okay, maybe a little too sweet for my liking. :-) But I tried this one and it was much better. Not as overkill sweet as the protein bars either, which I hear are not as good since the protein is denatured and doesn't really work then.

My awesome shaker thingie. Now you know what S2 means.

I also got out my old 5-HTP bottle, since I brought it up with the other guy (I think his name may be Bart, but I'm not sure) and he was saying how it made him in a better mood. I took one and I actually feel quite nice, and relaxed since DHA/EPA always makes me a little bit more relaxed. I think with all the goodness, I have finally found a very comfortable combination of supplements. And needless to say, all my non-WL supplements when the B12 runs out will come from there! :-) They are a lot less expensive than Whole Foods.

I also also (hehe) went to Gold's Gym for my second round of workouts. I figure that if you have a 3-day pass to the place you might as well use it as much as you can. :-) I did a few calf raises and leg extensions (cause apparently today was leg day, lol) and I tried the rower machine. I had never used one before and it felt really good to try one out. I made it to around 22:30 on the rower, which was not bad for a first time, and I burned around 132 calories. It's a pretty good workout and low intensity as well, so its good if you have knee or back problems (or in my case just completed a leg day workout, lol) and want a workout.

I have had so much fun today, and I even ordered some goodies from the Sweat Pink catalog, so if anyone wants some awesome-sauce pink shoelaces, I will give them to you for the price I paid for them ($0). I will probably order the tank top eventually for running, but for now I want to make sure that Bryan and I have enough money to go bowling, lol. :-) I am so geeked out about seeing him this weekend and my best friend on Friday, it will be a super awesome birthday weekend. :-)

I hope everyone has a most excellent day! Me, I will chill and type some chemistry notes, since I need to catch up a bit on the class I missed. (Yes, I totally FORGOT about class. I have never done that before! I was at the gym and I was like, something's missing from my day, I'm not sure what...) Be blessed all, and sleep well! :-)