Ups and Downs with some Fun in Between

I needed to get back on track before posting again. I had a great weekend in Kona with my friend Bonnie and her daughter, Dawn. We know each other since Dawn and my kids were in preschool together. Whenever I go there Bonnie plays tour guide. It's really fun to be driven all over, looking at places and things I haven't seen for so many years. Friday we drove up the Kohala coast and stopped here for a few minutes. Hmm...can't get the pics to post under this text and don't have time to keep messing around with it. Anyway, I wore my pedometer everywhere we went and managed to walk 1.5-2 miles every day. Not a lot, but something.

On Sunday before coming home we went down to The City of Refuge. It was so different than it was the last time I was there more than 20 years ago. Much more crowded, but still so beautiful. You just can't beat the blue Hawaiian ocean. I might go back this weekend and bring my snorkel stuff. The water was clear, the reef alive with fish. Bonnie said she's seen lots of turtles there. I would love to swim with dolphins, so maybe that will happen one of these times. Anyways, here's a pic of City of Refuge. That's lava in the foreground. The other thing i like about this "beach" is that there is shade. Gotta have shade. Oh shoots! That one posted at the top! Anyways.....

Yesterday I had planned to go to the gym..lol..almost said beach. You know that's on my mind. But, once again my sleep was all messed up. I woke up at 4 am and went back to sleep between 7 and 8, didn't get up until 11. All groggy. Couldn't get myself to go. I did do some office cleaning for about an hour, including moving furniture around, so that burned a few calories I am guessing.

Today, although I didn't want to, I made myself put those shoes on and get to the gym. BTW, my feet have totally gotten used to wearing shoes!!! Amazing!!! I thought it was going to be super hard because I hadn't gone since last week, but I did good. I added an extra minute on the elliptical (10/20 difficulty, the TFH should be happy about that, but she would probably just grin and move it up to 15). Up to 6 minutes now..lol...and burned 30 calories. Then on to the bike. I couldn't adjust the first one's difficulty level, so did 6 minutes on that one and burned 36 calories, then switched to another one. I set it for random hills and difficulty level 12/20. After a few minutes of what seemed like too easy, I increased it to 15. I was cruising right along at about 4-5 milesper hour when I hit the first hill. My pace kept slowing down until the machine would pause because my rpm's were going below 40. I kept thinking of Michelle's friend Kate's advice...just keep it slow and steady. After it paused 3-4 times, I set the difficulty level down to 12, then to 10. I was thinking that is kind of like shifting into lower gears..or higher ones..whichever makes it easier to go up hills. I managed to get through the whole rest of the course without it pausing. I rode for 17 minutes. 15 minutes then 2 minute cool down, burning another 107 calories. Grand total for the day = 173! I know that doesn't sound like much, but it's a big increase from last week. And, I'm happy I could do some hills. My heart rate varied from 120s to 150s.

I'm still waiting for the paperwork to come from my insurance company so I can get started on WeightWatchers. I'm hoping it will be in the mail today so I can go tomorrow morning.