April Showers

Hello friends, a very happy Monday to you all.

So I don't know about anyone else, but I did a whole lot of nothing this weekend, with the exception to Randi's class on Saturday of course. For the rest of the weekend though I found myself sleeping, napping, reading, working on taxes, and just kind of laying around. And it was glorious. I think part of it was not getting enough sleep on Friday night into Saturday and the fact that it was grey, cold, and rainy all weekend.

Friday night Paul and I stayed up late trying our chances at the Mega Millions lottery for 640 million! I put in 2 dollars and knew that we had a better chance of being struck by lightening 5 times each but I figured in the off chance we did win 640 million for a 2 dollar in put was well worth it. So we waited up till 11 and as I'm sure you can guess, we didn't win. Oh well. Then we stayed up chatting, watching TV, and just hanging out and before we knew it it was almost midnight. That's not such a problem since it was a Friday night except we had to be up by 5am to drive Paul's family to the airport. I felt TERRIBLE when I got up. I am definitely the type that needs a full 7 to 8 hours and I was miserable for the first 45 minutes after waking up. That being said I slowly started to wake up and after we dropped off Paul's family we decided to go to a diner that we hadn't been to since we first started dating and was actually on the way back from the airport. It's kind of a local treasure because the diner is super small but has been around since the 70's and they have delicious breakfast. Last time we were there the line was out the door to get in. It was only 6:30am this time when we went so we had no problem getting a table. :0) After breakfast we went back home and Paul went back to sleep for a while I mustered all my strength to stay awake and get changed and drag myself to Randi's class and boy am I glad I did.

I left the house early to get to class because I was teetering on the fence of "I'm so tired I' don't want to go," and "I really should go, I'll be happy once I'm there." So instead of testing my will power, I didn't give myself  the option not to go and I left the house 15 minutes early. I was really really tired and yawning during the first 5 minutes but once we started my tiredness left and I was wide awake and ready to take on the class. Our class this time was a circuit routine and it was killer. We did lashing, which I'd seen on the biggest looser where you pump your arms up and down to move these long heavy ropes, and I LOVED IT! I was actually surprised how much I liked it but you feel the burn right away and I guess I just liked the movement and challenging myself.

We also had circuits on the treadmill, front flys with a stretch band, heel clicks on the ball, a cardio burst on a bosu, rows, plunges on a step, and push ups. The first time through it all it was 30 seconds per station and then we upped it to 1 minute per station for the 2nd and 3rd time through. I thought everyone was going to kill me because I suggested that we finish the 3rd set even though we were out of time. I'm pretty sure next time Neha and Cathy will key my car for that but it was great to finish a full 3 sets. It was a killer workout. I was happy with my overall effort during the class but I was getting frustrated with my push ups again. That being said Randi was giving us great advice on tightening up everything and trying to get down lower and not focusing it all in the shoulders. I still think they are hard but I'm getting better and that advice helped.

After class I headed home, had a snack of cut strawberries and took a shower and got ready for the day. Paul and I ended up not doing a whole lot. We ran some errands, I had to get a birthday present for my nephew, I worked on taxes, ran to target and home depot....the usual little things. Then we went home and just kind of vegged out. I watched a chick flick and he was working on school/applying stuff. We then decided neither one of us had the energy to really do much for dinner so we made a pizza and started watching a new documentary on birds. I fell asleep at 9:30 and missed some of it but I got caught up last night.

Sunday we did a lot of the same. I got up first and read for a while. I finished the last Uhtred book and can't wait for the author to write more of them. They're fantastic! I also started a new book by the same author called Agincourt

I woke up this morning feeling pretty refreshed and excited for the week. I had a filling breakfast and with the sun shining I'm in a pretty good mood this morning. I've also installed a new ap on my ipad that I'm excited about. I have been a member of myfitnesspal.com for a while, which I use their tracker tool, (you can see it at the top of my blog) but I never had thought to put the ap on my ipad until this morning so I downloaded it for free and am going to use it as a way to track my calories. The best part is I can track my calories and exercise throughout the day without an Internet connection so even when I'm at work I can track my calories to keep myself in line. I used to keep a food journal and look up calories in my calorie king book but I think I'll be more responsible this way since our lives, and mine especially, are spent almost all day on the computer. I've set my goal calories for the day at 1200 which is low but I have a VERY SLOW metabolism so I can't really have it much higher so we'll see how I manage. I have been on 13-1400 calorie count in the past and done OK so we'll see how I do with this plan. I think that the ap will actually be helpful in keeping me honest since I carry my ipad EVERYWHERE. Hopefully as long as I'm truthful about what I'm eating, which I always am even when I talk about pizza and Bluetines fries, I'll see some results. The program is great too because you can just type in a food like pizza and it lists endless amounts of brands or homemade that you can select and then choose the serving size etc. You can also enter your own meals that you make at home and save them in the ap and use it later on. I haven't tried that yet but I'm excited to give it a go. I'm constantly on my ipad so we'll see how I do.

In results news, I had my April weigh-in yesterday and while I'm not super excited with it I feel OK. I haven't been good about my diet lately so the fact that I didn't go up or down, I'm content with that. While I was hoping to drop some weight this month maintaining where I am is a good place to be as well.

Well I have Randi's class on the docket tonight and a run tomorrow morning I'm looking forward to a new schedule that I've created because my double sessions weren't working so here it is:

Mon - Randi's class PM
Tues - AM Run
Wed - AM Run
Thurs - Randi's class PM
Fri - Randi's class PM
Sat - AM Run + Randi's class
Sun - OFF

I have done this schedule before so we'll see how I manage. I'm looking forward to dropping some weight before my birthday and hopefully even more by this summer for when Paul and I tackle Mt. Washington again. It's going to be amazing! My new goal is to be below 200 for my birthday. Wish me luck! April's going to be a great month!