Week 11

Week 11 was good weight-wise. I lost almost 3 pounds, which is awesome. However, my eating wasn’t the best. I think I ate less then I should have, but didn’t keep track so am not sure. I didn’t make it back to WW like I planned. One of my readers suggested that I try a free site called “The Daily Plate" which I’ll take a look at today. Maybe that’ll help with keeping track. I think it’ll be important in the long run for me to compare my weight-loss to the way I ate over that particular week, especially when I’m in the middle of real plateaus.

My hiking was the real story this week. I spent a total of 8.5 hours hiking around Pleasanton Ridge this week. Monday I just wasn’t feeling the hike. I was winded early and often. Thank goodness for my hiking buddy Alicia. I was ready to give up and turn around, right around mile 2. So Alicia says to me, “Well, do you want to try this one last hill here, and then turn around?” I really didn’t want to but said yes anyway because it felt too wimpy to say no. I took a picture (below) at the top of what turned out to be the steepest freaken hill yet. The view was great, and being at the top of that mountain gave me that second wind to continue on and finish the rest of our normal 5 mile hike (2 hours).

On Tuesday I was on my own and only made it to the half-way point (1 hour). I just couldn’t manage to get my butt moving on Wednesday (0 hours). Come to think of it, maybe the reason I was doing so badly during my hikes had to do with the fact that I wasn’t eating much. Hmmmm

Thursday was the biggie. I was out on my own again and feeling better. I was about half a mile from the bottom (4.5 miles total) when I ran into Alicia, out hiking with another of her buddies on their way up. We talked for a few minutes then A asked me if I wanted to join them. Now, I had been coming down for about 2 miles at this point and was feeling okay, so I said, “Why not!” Ughhh! I ended up hiking for about 9 miles (3.5 hours) that day.

Then Friday I had my previously planned hike with Alicia so… (2 hours)

The view that gave me my second wind on Monday

I'm Back

I’ve been absent from my blog forever but I haven’t fallen back into my old habits. I was having computer problems for about 2-3 weeks and then when that was taken care of I had to do my taxes and other things. So, the blog got put on the back burner. Then there was so much to write about it became daunting and now I don’t know quite where to start.

I guess I should start by saying that although I did have a week with no loss, (tough to handle so early in this process) I’m definitely still working on my weight-loss. As of today I’m down a total of 18.6 pounds. Another 1.4 pounds (will make 20) and I’ll reward myself with a day of beauty (facial, mani & pedi). Maybe next week…

As for my food intake, well I sort of fell off the Weight Watchers wagon during my computer issues and haven’t been back. That’s not to say that I’ve been pigging out, just not keeping very close track. Truthfully however, not keeping track has probably led to me eating more then I should, so I’m going back to WW.

As for my exercise, I would never have thought it possible before going to Utah (I was never an outdoorsy person) but my current exercise of choice is hiking. As soon as I got home from Utah, a friend of mine introduced me to a great place to hike only 15 minutes from my house (pictures below). The trail is a long one (the brochure says over 7 miles) and goes up to an elevation of around 1,500 feet. I have no idea how high up I’ve been hiking but I know I’m hiking about 5 miles round trip. My monitor says I’m getting my heart rate up, and I’m burning as many calories as I did on the Stop Sign Hike. The first time I did this hike it took me about 2 hours 20 minutes, and now I’m down to around 2 hours. When I feel fitter (and therefore faster) I’ll add more distance so I can keep my exercise to around 2 hours.

There are a lot more things that I want to write about, but now that I’m back will have plenty of time to do so later.

Here’s a picture of me starting to work up a sweat about ¼ of the way up Pleasanton Ridge (my new favorite hike). As you can see, it’s very different from Utah. This time of year everything is green and gorgeous.

One of the fun things about hiking around here is all the cows. Check out these two young cows playing.

Here’s another pretty picture along my hike.