What's Your Most Recent NSV

Just graduated from a 5k training plan to a half marathon training plan.

My period symptoms have improved significantly ever since I started walking regularly (at the mall, since the weather has been so terrible, and the mall is nearby). This most recent one almost snuck up on me, when usually I can tell a week in advance that one's coming just from the cravings, back pain, stomach cramps, etc.

200 days of food logging!

Fell off the workout bandwagon in June 2018. Back injury and then a bunch of excuses that followed. This morning I set my alarm for 5:20am, rolled out of bed without hitting snooze and went to the gym to walk on the treadmill before work. Slowly easing back into the running!

TLDR; went to the gym for the first time in 7 months. Didn’t die!

Last night, my personal trainer looked at me, during our session, and said "wow - you've lost weight and are toning up nicely! That's awesome! I'm so proud". He went on saying he wanted to take photos of us together, every 2 months as progress photos. I agreed because a) he has a business to maintain and it's great marketing and b) he asked me!

I am still chuffed about that!

I did a 9am high intensity class, modified (cross trainer as can’t run on injured foot) gym workout for an hour then a 2nd class of core training with a killer instructor! And I didn’t die lol.
I have never been fit enough to work out for 3 hours before, ever!
And earlier in the week I was bummed out as toe injury halted running training, but didn’t want to lose fitness gains until injury better, so changed up the plans and I’m loving it, I love being able to do even the littlest things that I couldn’t do before, our bodies are amazing, and I’m just starting to see what I’m made of lol 😁

I did not have a single sweet or piece of candy on Valentine's Day

I've been working on building endurance on the Stairmaster. When I started, it was a huge challenge to make it 20 floors. I've worked my way up to 85 floors in 30 minutes - there's still room for improvement of course but it feels good to see improvement!

I had 150calories left this evening. I went prowling through the pantry. Said no to the emergency dark chocolate bar and some crystallized ginger, ignored my stash of almonds (for making milk), bypassed the pretzels, pulled out the graham crackers and put them back. I just finished up an apple and a tablespoon of almond butter. For me, that’s an amazing bit of progress, right there, as was the fact that all the other choices I mentioned in the pantry were themselves a darned sight better than the old days of a family sized sack of M&Ms and umpteen bags of Geneva cookies.

My husband and I were in Walgreens and I told him to go ahead and get himself some half-price Valentine's chocolate, it wouldn't bother me. Then I looked at the nutritional info and figured out I could handle the carbs if I only ate a couple pieces at a time (diabetic) and I have the calories to spare right now since I've been running a lot and I'm in maintenance. Ate a piece yesterday. Ate another piece today. No urge whatsoever to eat more than I should.

My husband, knowing carbs weren't a good idea, got me olives from the olive bar for Valentine's Day! What a sweet husband!

Lots of NSVs lately. My trainer has been asking me for “before” photos. I had to go back through several hundred vacation photos from last year and found exactly seven. Didn’t realize I had been so camera shy. You guys are right about keeping up with before and after pics. I haven’t done that. I have had the same mind block that others talk about, not seeing any difference in the mirror, but seeing those six month old pics, I was just flabbergasted. (Hahaha!!!! fat me would have been flubbergasted maybe?!) I was so embarrassed to send them to her, but she’s such a positive person I expect a complete lecture next session about those pictures lol. Wow, talk about seeing a difference!

Today's bike ride took my total mileage on this bike to 11,111 miles.

Well, I thought it was a cool number Shame I have to do another 11,111 miles to get to 22,222 miles. At this rate, it will take me 22 years to get to 99,999 miles Hmmm. I'll be seriously old by that point. Will have to ramp up the mileage!

DH thinks that my bike may be a little worse for wear. He couldn't believe that I've gone that distance.

Anyway . . .

My bike ride today took me into a neighbouring county. I didn't realise that it had so many hills . . . up and down, up and down, up and down until I went down one hill and started going up the next one, only to see a warning sign that it had an 8% incline.

I will admit, I saw that sign and silently (or maybe not so silently) cursed my decision to go that way, especially as the wind was at 15mph . . .

Only one way to go.

UP.

So up I went. It was a massive struggle, I was down to my lowest gear, my HR was up the hill way ahead of me and I was bordering on hyperventilation. Every time I looked up, I just saw more road. The end took a long, long time to be in sight. Or so it seemed. Stopping and walking up the hill was NOT an option, even though I suspect that for a lot of the time I was cycling at a slower pace than my walking speed.

But I made it. Then went down the other side and up yet another hill (not so steep though).

Reached my destination, after yet more hills, turned around and started back for home. Then I realised that, just when I thought that things couldn't get any worse, they did. Because I was heading back directly in to a 15mph head wind. Great. But at least the hills on the return journey were slightly kinder as they were up a longer slope. Still had to use bottom gear a few times due to the headwind. And going down that 8% incline was fun. Briefly.

Got home completely exhausted. I think that's the first time I've been that tired after a bike ride and I've been on some twice as long (this was a mere 26 miles).

Maybe I've become complacent with doing the same routes over and over again. Time to explore further, me thinks, and take in some more varied terrain.

I am considering doing the ride again, but on a slightly less windy day.

Joined a gym and have actually been going! The last time I had a gym membership was over 10 years ago, and I went once in the course of a year probably. I'm shocked, frankly.

Finished C25K a week ago and yesterday ran a new distance PR of 3.63 miles (plus another 0.6 miles walking)

This morning my husband came out with.......you can see you've lost 9lbs