Friday 5

This girl is ready for the weekend!

Nick and I finally have a weekend with zero plans, and I couldn't be happier about that!  I am going to do some Spring cleaning around the house, work on wedding decorations, start some of my garden seeds, read a lot, drink a lot of coffee, and just relax.

Here are 5 other things I am excited about/am thinking about.

{ONE}
Heat wave coming through!!
It hasn't been over 20 degrees in Wisconsin in about a month.
I think I will dump the treadmill next week so I can start running outside!

{TWO}
Speaking of running, my tired legs are happy to have the weekend off.

This workout on Wednesday killed, in a good way, but my sore exhausted legs made it tough to get through my run today.

Definitely didn't even come close to 3 miles in 30 this week.  Today, I ended with only 2.57, my shortest distance for the week.  My legs were so tired that I had to hover around 6.0mph for my run intervals.  The previous runs were between 6.5-7.5.

{THREE}
Resisting temptation.

As part of the #4weeksfit link-up, I am not having any candy this month.

One of my student workers gave me two pieces of her Dove dark chocolate (YUM!) candy bar on Tuesday.  She just came in my office, set them on my desk, and walked out.  I felt weird giving them back to her, so I set them aside, and will enjoy them sometime in April :)

April chocolate stash.

{FOUR}
Staff & Faculty Appreciation Fridays

I work at a college, and now on Fridays, faculty and staff get $2.00 coffee and a pastry in the morning, and half off of the salad bar at lunch time.

I was partaking in the coffee & pastries, but have been avoiding that lately because it was causing a slippery slop of poor eating for the entire weekend.

For lunches, Nick and I usually just have left overs from our dinner the previous night.  Last night we ended up not having leftovers so I had no lunch packed.  I cashed in on the half price salad bar instead, and it was awesome!

This beauty cost less than $4.00!

{FIVE}

Anemia.

Definitely not excited about this one, but after some research, I've come to the conclusion that I'm anemic (not getting enough iron).

I've been absolutely exhausted lately, but have been sleeping just fine.  I wake up feeling great, but after just a few hours, I'm ready for a nap.  By the time I get home from work, I am ready for bed and have difficulty staying awake until 8pm or later.

Since I've been eating well and working out for about the last month, I think I should have MORE energy.  Not less.

I decided to Google "tired all the time", such a bad idea lol, but after everything the internet told me, I share the most symptoms with anemia.  

I had issues in the past with getting very nauseous after taking vitamins with high iron concentrations so I'm not ready to start taking any supplements at the moment.  I am going to start by adding more iron rich foods to my diet, and see where that takes me.  

If the diet tweaks don't help, I'll talk with my doctor about recommended supplements.

Does anyone else suffer from anemia?  Any tips?

Have a wonderfully joyous weekend!

WIW

Let's get right to it.

Finally, a loss!!

The past few weeks, the scale has not been my friend.

2/18 - 182.2

2/25 - 184.2

After a frustrating 2lb gain last week, I am SO happy to see a 3.2lb loss.  I have high hopes to saying sayonara to the 80's and seeing the 70's next week.

On Monday, I participated in the #4weeksfit linkup hosted by Love, Fun and Football and 

Mama & Mou and set some monthly goals for March.  

One goal is to drop 6lbs.  Since today is my first weigh-in of March, I will be using 181 as my starting weight.  This means that I hope to be down to 175 by the end of the month.

Monday, I had also mentioned that I had hopes of getting my 30 minute running mileage up to 3 miles.  After yesterday's run, I don't think I'm going to make it.

Maybe yesterday was just a bad day for running, but hot damn, my run was tough!  

I normally get really sweaty when I workout, but usually the sweat doesn't start pouring out until about halfway through the run.  Yesterday, I felt really hot and flushed after about 2 minutes.  I was completely drenched in sweat by the the time 30 minutes wrapped up.  About 2 hours after my run, I was still quite red in the face.

A couple times, when I finished my run intervals, I felt dizzy.  My last run interval, I was SO tempted to just walk.  Somehow, I stuck it out and finished strong.  

I am very glad I have a day off from running today!

I mixed up my strength training days, and did upper yesterday instead of lower so today I'm doing this beast

Repeat 2-3 times?! Ummm, I'm going to be lucky if I make it through once!

I started this morning before work, and so far I've completed 100 squats, 90 walking lunges, and 80 mountain climbers.  My legs felt very noodley after that!  I will finish the rest of the list after work.

Happy Wednesday!

Weekly Schedule & March Goals

I was bad again over the weekend.

I promised I wouldn't be, but I was.

I didn't do any of my workouts Friday-Sunday, and I didn't eat the greatest.  Nutrition was not as awful as last weekend, but still not as good as it should have been.

All chores where completed though, so at least that'a a win!

 Here's my schedule for this week.  I decided to change up some of my strength workouts.  I am still doing everything on the same days, but I found other videos/moves to do because I was getting bored with the ones I had been doing the past 3 weeks.

Running is still going really well.  I am so happy that I actually look forward to my runs now!

Last week, this is how my distance panned out.  I'm super stoked that I've been able to push myself and beat my distance each day.

Monday - 2.39 miles

Tuesday - 2.47 miles

Thursday - 2.55 miles

And on Friday I was bad and skipped my run... The C25K program actually has a person running 3 times a week, I added the 4th day myself.  So "technically" there was no skipped run :)

I already completed my run for today, and got in 2.65 miles in 30 minutes.  That 30 minutes does include a 5 minute warm up walk and 3.5 minute cool-down walk.  I have high hopes to hit 3 miles in 30 minutes by the end of this week.  It's a lofty goal since I do have walking breaks, but I think I can do it!  I will just have to bump up my interval speeds.

I stumbled across a new blog today that I am really excited to check out!

 Love, Fun and Football has been around for a couple of years, but I just discovered Erin's part of the blogsphere today. She is hosting a #4weeksfit link-up for March goals, and I'm jumping on board.

My weekly schedule has been great for keeping me accountable, but I think it's good to set some larger goals too.

#1 - No candy.  None.

I will allow myself some treats such as ice cream or cake that will be at a friend's baby shower on the 21st, in moderation, but absolutely NO candy for the month of March.

#2 - Drop 6lbs.

That's 1.5lbs a week, which is a bit much, but still doable.  The scale hasn't been my friend the last two weigh-ins so this one will be tough.

#3 - Complete ALL weekly schedules.

Link up to share you March goals!

The Progression of a Workout

Last night, I completed 3 reps of this little beaut for my cardio workout.

Seems simple enough, right?

NOT.

It was NOT easy.  At least not for me.

It probably didn't help that I did this workout after doing 20 minutes of lower body strength moves...

I have done this workout before, and I remembered that it was brutal, but the fact that I am so out of shape made the brutality 10X worse.

It was a great workout though that got me sweaty and the ol' ticker a pumpin'.

Now, for your enjoyment, a pictoral progressions of the above workout.

Wall Sit #1. 

Hey, this isn't so bad!  I could wall sit for daaayyzzz!

Wall Sit #2

Oh. My. God.  My legs feel like jelly!!! How the hell am I going to last a minute?!?!

After Wall Sit #3.

Holy. Hell.

WIW

I REALLY HATE THE SCALE!

Right when I think I'm doing really well (see my post from yesterday, I was flying high!), the scale bitch slaps me back to reality.

Granted, I didn't eat the greatest over the weekend, but I'm still surprised to see a 2lb gain!

I have busted ass the past two days, and have drank a ton of water, per usual, so I thought for sure my poor weekend choices would have been amended.

I didn't necessarily expect a great loss, but I was hoping to at least maintain.

Ugggghhh.

I am frustrated, and disappointed, but still, I am not going to let the scale get me down!

Next week will be better.  I know it.

This weekend, I will be much more careful, and will not let myself get off track as much.

I promise myself.