Slow and Steady

That's me in the weight loss and running progress departments. Wednesday weigh in. Another 1+ pound loss. This scale is a funny thing. All week it looked like I wasn’t going to lose anything, even though I’d exercised every day including doing the Maunawili Falls hike again. Then presto chango, this morning it read 164.8. A few of my blogger friends are experiencing scale weirdnesses too. I think we all agree that as long as we keep on eating right and exercising regularly in whatever manner we choose, we’ll keep getting healthier and the weight will eventually come off.

I want to add a big congratulations to Shosh for reaching her WeightWatcher final goal weight this week. Yeah Shosh!!! I haven’t been following her journey that long, but I do know she’s been on this path for a while and has turned into quite the runner. And writes some excellent inspirational posts.

Here’s a pic of the top of the mountains from where I parked near the beginning of the trail to Maunawili Falls.


And here is a pic of the same mountains at the top of the climb. It looks a lot closer, don't you think? After that the trail levels out for a bit, then goes down, down, down till it reaches the stream again.

This time Ann went with me and she needed to rest often. Sound like someone else we know not too long ago? I don’t know if it was the going slower with her, or just that I’m getting in better shape, but this time the hike was so much easier for me. Like no problem at all. That was a wonderful feeling. On the way back we decided to follow the stream instead of tackling that sharp uphill. I’m glad we did because we could keep a steadier pace that way, even though we had to make like Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea at times. Speaking of running, I went to Week 4 of my C25K running plan on Monday, which was 3 min jog/90 sec walk, then 5 min jog/2 ½ min walk, repeated twice. Now to any runners reading this it might not seem like a lot, but to me it was huge. I jogged for 5 minutes! Twice!!!! It wasn’t super easy, but it was certainly doable. I think it helped that I’ve been setting the incline up a bit on the tread each time. For this first Wk4 workout I set it back to zero. Still watching the heart rate. And this time it never went above 140. That is so excellent! Oh! And last week when I went to the doctor for some odd rash and little infection that showed up the day after the Maunawili hike, my blood pressure was 120/60! That is down from 142/90 on May 21 and 136/80 on June 9th. I should have gone for a jog/walk this morning, but I was beat. Woke up at 5:30 a.m. (two mornings in a row now), didn’t get home from my daughter’s until 11:30 last night, and didn’t go to bed until almost 1 a.m. So, I went back to bed, read some, and woke back up at 11. I might go after work, but not sure. If not, I’ll probably go tomorrow before I leave for AZ.


Yeah, AZ! I’m so excited to see my sons and of course, the one and only Carlos Santana. I am so inspired by his and his family's spiritual and life journies, and his music makes me feel so great. You know there will be pictures when I get back. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to fit some exercise in between shopping and cooking. The worst that will happen is that the only exercise I’ll get is walking around stores and dancing at the concert. I’ll be back in time for Happy Hour with Dallas on Tuesday, though. I remembered my camera yesterday, but the battery was dead! Next week I WILL get a pic.

Traveling to the Blues

I’m getting really excited! I’m going to the Portland Waterfront Blues Fest for the Fourth of July weekend. Lots of good music, including zydeco, which is just plain feel good, sexy, get up and dance, music. Since I didn’t go to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest this year, I’ll be able to get my hit of zydeco in Portland. How weird but wonderful is that!?

I’ve looked at the schedule of performancess and mostly the ones I want to hear start in the afternoons, so hopefully I’ll be able to do a little exploring of Portland and surrounds in the mornings. In my vision of the perfect day there I’ll get up, have a smoothie, go for a hike or bike ride for a few hours, shower and get ready for the fest, go there, listen, dance, laugh, smile, meet new folks, and generally have a blast, then go back to where I’m staying, take a nice long shower, have a healthy dinner with some interesting conversation, maybe a glass of wine or two, then fall into bed for a good sleep. Then wake up and do it all again the next two days.

Now, here’s where I’m a bit worried. Other than my usual nervousness about being around new people, I mean, but I’m just ignoring those pesky thoughts. I am. So, this is the first time I’ll be traveling since I started this getting healthy trip. I don’t know how to estimate calories or WW points well enough yet to feel confident about staying within the limits. Anybody have any suggestions of ways to keep eating healthy while traveling and eating at strange places? I know when I quit smoking preparation was the key to traveling successfully without blowing my quit.

I’ve decided I’m going to get my hair cut before I go. Kind of a risky move right before a trip, but I figure I can’t look much worse than I do now, since I always wear my hair up because it is so long. I’m hoping it's long enough that I can send it to Locks of Love, an organization for making hairpieces for kids with illnesses that cause baldness. I just colored it myself last week, but the stylist is going to see if she can maybe color it a little darker.

I used a virtual haircut site where you can upload your own pic to play around with styles and colors. It was fun, but since the choices were all celebrity cuts, they were mostly a little young for me. Some of them looked absolutely hilarious on me. I found a Jessica Alba cut I liked, with some sweepy bangs which I've never had and surprisingly, a light auburn shade looked really good on me. So, we’ll see. I might even get brave and post a pic of me after it’s done. If it looks good enough. Well, it looks like Charlize has beat me to the salon with the idea, but just so you have a general idea of what I'm thinking. I'll probably go just a little bit longer, though, so we don't look like twins.

Oh! Great news on my C25K progress!!!! I promised myself that I’d stay at the same walk and jog paces (2.9/3.8) until my heart rate stayed where it’s supposed to. Well, guess what? Today it only went over my limit twice, and both times went right back down within 20-30 seconds without my reducing the pace. Yippee!!!! So, this weekend I’m going to try 3/3.9 and see what happens. I think I already mentioned that I’m not going to increase the jogging time until I can sustain a 3/4 pace. Slow but steady progress. I keep eyeing the weight machines and think when I get back from Portland I’m going to start with a few of those.

Well, time to start trying on clothes for the trip. Kind of in an in between size. Most of my clothes are getting loose, but my skinnier ones don't fit yet. Lucky it's only for a few days.