Aspiring to Inspire

So I sat down at 9pm to write this post - it's now 10:15 and I'm just getting started.  But I have a good excuse.  You remember Mark, the guy that owns my gym and who asked me to be featured in their latest ad campaign. 

Mark and I with my poster

Well I have some super exciting news!  Mark is on his way...he started a journey to lose the weight he's put on in recent years.  He wrote an entire post about how I inspired him to start blogging his weight loss/healthy lifestyle journey - Inspired by the Aspiring.  And, he's already down 10 pounds!  Friggin' men lose weight so fast.  Yay, Mark!  Congratulations on seeing your hard work pay off.  Please pay Mark a visit at Here I Go Now and if you're so inclined, give his new Facebook page a "like".  We all know how hard it is to put yourself out there and Mark is taking that bold step in the direction of his dreams. 

[And Mark, stop weighing yourself every day, you're gonna make yourself crazy.  Ok, fine, keep weighing yourself everyday if you must but if you start to go bonkers, try weekly.  Wink.]

Ok, back to my favorite subject...me :)  Kidding.  Sort of.  Anyway - things are rolling along over here.  I'm continuing to see improvement with my eating.  And more importantly with my thoughts related to the eating.  I'm wrangling all the sabotaging thoughts and focusing my energy on what I've done right and why my goals matter as much as they do.  Still a bit snacky in the evening hours.  I think I had 2.5 oatmeal cookies tonight but I can't remember, which is kind of noteworthy.  I mean if I can't even remember if I ate that second cookie (or not, though I sorta think I did) what does that tell you about how much I enjoyed them?  

Instead of mindful eating it's more like mindless eating.  Not good.  Take note, Michelle.  If you're going to eat multiple cookies in one evening at least sit down and enjoy the damn things!  Ok, I'm talking to myself again.  In any case, the cookies were homemade oatmeal raisin so that's better than super processed grocery store cookies, right?  Still, 2.5 is more than I needed, 1 would have been sufficient.  Especially 1 that I ate mindfully.  Anyway, on to better subjects...

Exercise!  It's going pretty well.  Well, my body is starting to rebel something fierce but my will remains strong.  Wednesday was a day off.  I took the kiddos to the dentist.  Myra was pretty much ordered to give up her nighttime biddies (aka pacifiers).  So we did a little passing of the paci's by taking them to a friend's house with a baby and giving them away, "because you're a big girl now Myra and you don't need them anymore but the baby does."  It was all sweet and cute as she happily handed them off...until bedtime.  Oh boy, she sounded like Regan MacNeil a few times and almost scared me!  I was in and out of her room for a couple hours trying to help her settle.  But eventually she did, and tonight was a bit smoother. 

I had dinner with some mom friends and probably over-ordered and probably overate - but it was yummy and satisfying and this is my preferred way to indulge (a fun meal out as opposed to snacking on a bunch of crap every night of the week).  I had a grilled octopus appetizer that turned out to be slathered in pesto sauce (which was not mentioned on the menu - I should have sent it back), a beet salad (which was slathered in some kind of cream dressing), and linguine with clams (yum!).  And, they had a roasted banana pudding desert that I just had to have.  Fortunately I passed on the alcohol though so there's that calorie savings.

Today was a typical workday with a non-typical super yummy lunch.  But by the time work was over though I was hungry and realized I'd had no afternoon snack.  So I munched on 1/3 of a Clif Bar on my way to the gym and that did the trick.  At the gym I started with a 3 mile run on the treadmill.  I'm starting to get a tad bit of burnout on the running.  I really need to do a triathlon.  I mean really.  So far this year all my events have been running and it's getting old.  My next event is a 1/2 marathon and then I'm planning to do the Tri for Fun in June (though that's sort of up in the air at the moment).  Anyway, I got through my run - 3 miles in 26:42 - and then moved on to legs/shoulders/core.  Despite my legs being a bit sore during my run they were great for strength training. 

But my lower back is not so great.  I'm not sure why it's bothering me again but I've vowed, seriously vowed, to take it a bit easy next week in the hopes that it will help ease things.  Oh dear me I hope I can.  With my eating being a bit wonky I've been hanging on to the exercise as my lifeline to sanity.  It's hard to think about a recovery week but I know my body needs it.  It's just my mind needs to keep pushing.  But I'll figure it out, I know I will.