Woot! 5K achieved!

5K Complete! My official time of 44:56 completely blew away my expectations! It's not a good time by any stretch of the imagination, but it's good for me! So, that being said- I think I am going to take a break from running for a while. It seems I am hurt more often than I'm not. I need to drop some more pounds before I start pounding the road again. Believe it or not, brisk walking is more of a fat burning exercise than running. So far I am down about 20 pounds, but I need to be down some more to make it easier on my joints. Pete is doing so well with his running! When he goes running, I go walking and it works well for us. We did it this morning and the weather has been so beautiful!

Eating well is going pretty smoothly. Of course we are enjoying some delicious bad stuff every now and again, but still being mostly good. We took a road trip to Okarche, OK and had some delicious Fried Chicken at Eichen's. Today we are going to roast a turkey breast and have a good old-fashioned holiday meal. :)

Back on Track!

This is me- trying to keep up my blog. Originally this was supposed to be a fitness blog. This was going to keep me accountable and on track. It may have evolved into something a little different. I'm running, still- and it's been so freaking hot! Every other day we go. I still end up doing intervals of running and walking, but I'm getting there on distance. Two weeks until the 5K! Regardless of how busy "real life" has been and will be over the next few weeks, we are making time every other night to go run.

I must find all this running talk boring, because I don't really find the need to write about it. What I really enjoy writing about is food and cooking!
We have not purchased bread yet! I've been baking more every week. From my previous posts, I was working really hard on a 100% whole wheat bread. It's awesome. One weekend, I made some marble rye after we found a great deal on some rye berries at Dodson's. For a change up, I've made potato bread the past 2 weeks. It's really soft and delicious! Not quite as nutritionally dense as the whole wheat, but it's still natural and doesn't have any unpronounceable ingredients or unnatural preservatives.I love milling my own flour! I made some coffee cake this weekend. Not healthy at all! I'm testing out a cupcake recipe I might try for something. We ended up taking cake over to some family, just so we have a lot less of it in the house. Everything in moderation!

Took a break

I guess I took an unintentional break from blog posting. We have still be running and training for the 5K at the end of August. It's still HOT. I've been baking bread like crazy! We haven't bought any bread at all. I made some potato bread this weekend and it's delicious!

The 5K is getting so close! Hopefully, I'll be able to run the entire thing...but if I can't, I'll run as much as I can and walk the rest. We've been going to the park every other day. Pete's been improving by leaps and bounds. My progress is a little slower. Hey! Progress is progress, right? I have not much to report. I haven't been eating great, but I've still lost a little bit of weight the past two weeks.
There's a ton of stressful stuff going on right now, which makes it extra important to keep up our routine and exercise. I wish I had more to share, especially since I haven't blogged in a few weeks. We've been keeping very busy, but still making time to run. I hope this heat breaks soon! I really think the nasty hot weather is hindering my progress!

Here's a video of my first attempt at 100% Whole wheat bread I milled myself.

Happy Birthday to me

Add another 2 pounds to the loss column! We are back on track and keeping our running schedule! We have 7 weeks until our 5k and I'm starting to get excited and apprehensive! I'm not quite to the point of running for 30 minutes straight yet, but I'm working on it. Hopefully, it was get easier and easier. I can tell that I am getting in better shape, but I keep asking myself "Is it good enough?"

We are still watching what we eat, for the most part. I'm not quite as militant as I was in the beginning, but we are 12 weeks in! Our plan to try a lot of different activities hasn't exactly panned out, yet. We've tried a few, but our regular exercise still comes from going to the track at the local park. Today was our recovery day, so we went and walked 2 miles. It was so humid and a thunderstorm rolled in just about as soon as we finished.

I'm getting a Kitchenaid Grain Mill attachment for my birthday! Hopefully, onces it comes in, I'll post pictures and maybe some video if making my own fresh flour! I'm a dork, but I am so excited!

A Rolling Stone...

In some ways I have been busy busy! This last week was one of my busiest at work, with the beginning of our new fiscal year. I've been running 2-3 times a week, where it really should be 3-4. I'm starting to feel it.
When it comes to heat, I am the biggest whiner ever. So, since Summer has officially landed in Oklahoma, I have been trying to run on the cooler days of the week, or run late at night. That just doesn't work for keeping up our training schedule. I am just going to have to buck up and go! For now, it's just 30-35 minutes and as long as we stay out of the hottest part of the day, I'll live.

I've been doing decent on the food part (I don't like calling it a "diet"). We have had a few treats, but I lost 2.2 pounds this week, so I don't feel guilty about enjoying my favorite treats. I am on Week 3 of making our own bread. Each loaf gets better and better! We took a trip to the health food store so I could get some dough conditioners. While we were there, I got some wheatberries. So, this loaf is a Honey Wheatberry loaf. Yum! I'm working on getting it "store-bought" fluffy and each time it's poofier. The main thing I enjoy is the heartiness of the bread and the healthiness. It's not low-cal, but it's made from all ingredients I can pronounce and find in the grocery/health food store. No corn syrup, no weird preservatives, just delicious Wheat bread. Right now I am 2/3 wheat and 1/3 white. I started at a 50/50 mix. The main reason is trying to get the bread fluffy. Once I can figure that out I'll go to 100% whole wheat. My goal right now is to get a grain mill, so I can make my own fresh flour. I would also love to experiment with other types of flour.I would also like to go out on a limb and make some other bread, like sandwich buns, but we have to be careful about the amount of bread we eat. We are still trying to drop the pounds. :)

Both of us are pretty good about only bringing "good" food into the house. We don't buy tempting things and we try to keep a lot of healthy snacks and easy dinners on hand. We buy plenty of delicious, healthy foods to take for lunch everday. This morning we ran some errands and stopped by Subway on the way back to the house. It's sitting in the fridge, waiting for lunch. I am pumped for one of my favorite dinners (healthy or not) Fajitas! Pete will grill and we will add some veggies and enjoy an awesome flavorful dinner tonight. Yum!

Run for your lives!!!

Weigh-in day was slightly disappointing. I gained almost half a pound. That's not terrible, but I've really been on a roll lately and I was hoping for another 2 pound loss. I shouldn't have expected it, because I really ate like crap 3 out of 7 days last week.

Running went really well. I am finally getting into it and enjoying it! The last run of week 5 was a 20 minute run, with no walking. It was tough and I did walk a little bit, but only after the 10 minute mark (which is longer than I've ever run in a single stretch). I think I made it tougher on my legs by trying to hold back and go slow. It isn't my natural stride and cadence, so it felt unnatural and my calves tightened up quickly and without relief. Next time, I just need to go at my natural stride and it should be better on the legs.

Besides just counting calories, I am trying to pay attention to what I am eating. After watching a slew of food documentaries like "Food Inc", "King Corn" and "Killer at Large", we decided to pay closer attention to what is IN the food we eat. We have been to the Health Food Store, but it was pretty overwhelming if you don't know what you are looking for. They carry vegan, gluten-free, diabetic, grass-fed, non-dairy, whole wheat, low carb, organic...you name it. Mainly, we are looking for locally grown food with all natural ingredients.
We took a trip to OSU-OKC Farmers Market Saturday morning. It was great! Produce was aplenty and they even had local chicken, beef, lamb, eggs, milk (and milk products like yogurt)! We only purchased some grass-fed beef short ribs and some local raw honey. We will definitely return.

The next best way to know what we are eating is to make it ourselves. So, with some encouragement and advice from a co-worker, I set out to make some delicious wheat sandwich bread. I found a wonderful recipe that I tweaked a little. I substituted some Flax meal for some oil and added some rolled oats and sesame seeds. It came out pretty good, if I say so. There are no unpronounceable ingredients or secret sweeteners, just good old-fashioned bread. It costs about $.50 a loaf, so even if some of it goes bad, it is really cost effective. My next try will be making some sandwich rolls for our turkey burgers. Yum!

High Flying Day

We had a high flying day! We went to Rocktown Climbing Gym in Bricktown and had a blast! I am so glad many of our oldest and best friends were there to share in the fun! Everyone was encouraging and supportive. I hope to do it again, soon. Okay, maybe in the fall when it's not as hot. :)
 It was hard work, but completely fun. You don't even realize how much work it is, until you're done. I posted a bunch of pictures on facebook.One friend took some video, so hopefully I can post one before long.

Today was weigh in day. I lost 2 more pounds this week. That's the best pace I can shoot for. Fast enough that I feel like I am making progress, slow enough that it's not like a fad that I will just bounce back from it if I stop being diligent.

After Rock Climbing, we went to Louie's for some post climbing food. I think there are four of us who may try to run a 5K- just for the heck of it!  I'm excited. I think it will be a blast!

Progress is slow but steady and I'm happy with that. Thanks again to all my friends and family who are all super-supportive! It helps so much!