4 Week Physio-Graphs and Gratitude

Attitude of Gratitude. Today, I am feeling really grateful for being in this challenge. In a little while, we will be having our four week Physio-Graphs. It is very exciting to see how my body has been changing and to get a chance to look at it on paper.
Better than anything, is the way I feel. I have so much energy - too much for some (Spencer). I can stand up. I used to take the kids to the playground and just standing or taking slow steps was so hard, I just wanted to sit down, or better yet, go home.
This week, I was swinging and pumping my legs, like for 20 minutes and nothing hurt. My butt fit on the swing, I could pump, I could cross my legs and pump. So easy. For fun, I did superman flys with my stomach on the swing.

I stood on a skateboard while it moved. Note, I didn't say ride a skateboard, don't think it counted as riding. I had some balance and had the wheels moving on some flat surfaces at the skate park. It's been like at least 20 years since I have been on a skateboard. 

All of the training I have done in and out of the gym have made a huge difference in my health. I am so thankful to Sweat Life Fitness and Giggle Magazine for choosing me to be part of this awesome trip. I am even more thankful for all the trainers, GroupFit class members, and everyone that has encourage me to keep going, or even to start. Dan and Kyle have been so great and really kept me going with everything, workouts, reps, running, nutrition, making me want to push myself much further than I would have imagined. 

I definitely want to help others feel this healthy. If you are one of those people that have asked, how do you do it, I want your plan, I wish I could..... ask me, I am happy to share with you. Email me, call me, ask me to meet you for a workout. I know how hard it is with kids, windows of time are short, everyone is so busy. I am not at my personal goal, but I know how to start. I can help you start too, ask me. I will encourage you, I will meet you to workout. 

Peace,
Denise

    

My library book came

Game on. Smashing the weight. I ❤ SPRINTS! I call, I'm the winner. Daniel Griffin? Sweat Life Fitness, Inc. Giggle Magazine Great workout with my girls Amanda Johnson Moore Taryn Rivera Buckley Kimberly Worob Depue Jennifer Wine Kozakoff Melanie Bottger Ostovic and then my inter library loan book was here, time to get my study on

Christian's Journey

This is Christian. He loves Power Rangers and the Red Ranger. I have been telling him we are training, like the rangers, this has finally made it of interest to him. 
Power Rangers don't eat at McDonalds. They train on walks, train their bikes, run a little. Don't eat junk food. They eat their veggies and fruit. We are trying to make out stomachs smaller, like the rangers.

His plan is walking home from school, although, it requires so much patience. It takes over an hour to walk all the way home and he stops so many times. I have changed it to us getting dropped off at the front of the neighborhood and walking to help him build up. He is training his bike, not so far yet. He is swimming two days a week.
Then, the really hard thing for Mommy is to just make time and do this for him. Yes, yes, it is so much easier to stay home, take the car to pick up, do everything else that needs to be done in the day for the family. 

We have been going to the playground, skatepark, walking home, etc. It's hard but I have to do this for him. Snacks are a big one. He did his first outing at the 5 Points of Life with his school. I started having doubts the couple of days before. Sometimes, getting out with so many people is super hard and he gets overwhelmed and does things like walk off. It was hard, but with Spencer's help, we did it and got him to the race. 

He started the last mile of his marathon that he has been tracking. The kids were all running and he ran about 6-10 steps and then decided, no , he didn't want to do this. He found a friend in a wheelchair and he pushed him to the finish - the back , short way and we watched the runners come through. After a little bit, he decided he wanted to run and he did, in fact, run through the finish line and get his medal. That was it, then he sat down and we went head to head for the next 30 minutes while we waited to see about awards for the school. Yay, his school was the winner with the most kids? they got $1000. I am so glad he was able to be part of this even if he didn't do his last mile at that time. He is still training and we are looking for some good health from him. 

Pictures of his progress. He said I could post his pictures. The first ones are of his first day walk home, and it was hot, so he took off his shirt.

gross green smoothie he didn't like

 5 Points of Life yesterday

 First day walking home

 another walk home

 eating his second dinner with family

 wanted McDonalds, got clemtines and he loved them, ate two

 his turkey burger snack after school

 another walk home

 skate park getting active

 5 points morning

 smoothie he made with blueberries, parsley, almond milk unsweet

 5 years leukemia free, thank you for everyone's blood donations

 skate park

 5 points school winners

 i thought it was funny how he lined up his peels on the car window

 starting the decline of behavior yesterday

 December 7th, 2012

 December

 Dec 7

 June 2012
      

First 5K and Med Ball Run

This is me. This is now. I think this is the first picture in about 20 years I've been ok with. The dark colors are helpful, but also that big white number on my stomach, covering any rolls.

 This is the jeans picture. Story on this is the lbs were not moving so fast, so I did some clothes trying on for inspiration. I am really liking the 14's right now, they are comfy, have some room, etc. This is my facebook update from Feb 14th when I decided to rock out the 13's for the tour of UF. Yep, it's college touring time. I'm so not that old.
Today I will be touring UF in my cute mommy clothes, jeans size 13. I know that's still "fat girls" size but it's down from a 24. Still have a way to go to my goal size 10's. This is the feeling that has me completely not interested in candy, chocolate, sweets or carbs today. I am totally on plan and going to reach all of my fitness goals. I think you can reach yours as well.
One of my personal goals is to help others get healthy and feel better. So, it's like, I can do it, you can certainly do it as well. 

I did my FIRST 5K. It was a run/walk type of thing. I was excited about my time, it was three minutes faster than I though would be my fast time. When I passed the timer I saw 42:06. I will have to see what my official time was since I was at the back of the pack. They had the timing chips. It was very low key for me, a learning experience. How things went, how they started, how much I could run, etc.
I had been doing the couch to 5K program, but have stopped at about week 3. Jonell, my fast running/walking neighbor with long legs has me running walking around the block. I am so thankful for her encouragement, because I would not be pushing myself and I need her. Love you girl. 

I ran a little till I was out of breath, would walk some. I haven't done my 5K playlist yet on my phone, so I just did my 1 mile x3. I really have to have the fast beats and listen to it really loud, makes me walk faster too. There were some people doing about my same time and level. They would run past me, then walk and I would run past them. I had been trying to come up with some plan as to how to run the race, should I turn on the C25K program and follow that? use nothing? turn on the runkeeper to at least know where I was?  I decided I needed to know how far I had gone and also what my per mile average was, so I could go faster, no need to go slower, right. Kinda just did the first 3/4 mile, then was thinking about things I had read the night before about intense cardio training, stuff I agree with. So, I ran up the hills and down some too. No walking when there was a hill, gotta run to the top, like I can make it to the top of the mountain. 

We had training class with Dan Sweat Life after the race. Med Ball Run. I knew that was gonna suck as soon as we took those balls outside. It was so hard, my hardest workout in the challenge yet. 10lb ball and 8lb ball when some of the girls took pity on me and traded. If I remember, Taryn took it several times, weighed less than baby X and Amanda too. Melanie was not there, had her big 10K coming up. Jen was there. I'm  pretty sure Kim just gave me some Eat Sh*t looks when I offered to share. I love me some Kimmie. She keeps me in line as well. 
Workout was
run 2 minutes with ball however you can -  mine was all arm to arm, it was freakin' heavy. I wanted to put it in my bra but I didn't really get a response to that from Dan, so I just carried it.  
Squats with ball 4ever, maybe 20 or so
Run 1 min with ball - a minute doesn't sound long but carry the ball and you move much slower
Squats again
Run 2 minutes
Lunges with ball , again 4ever, 20 or so
Run 1 minute
Lunges with ball
Run 2 minutes with ball over head, was hard, but ok
Pushups, i think like 15, getting hard
Run 1 minute with ball over head, about impossible for me at this time after the first one and the pushups
Pushups, again, ouch
Run 2 minutes with this stupid ass ball
20 mountain climbers - I think this was our first full mountain climber day
Run 1 minute
20 mountain climbers
I think we then had to run to the pond, 

these could be off a bit, it was just run, run, run with the STUPID ASS BALL, squat, lunge, pushups, mountain climbers, put the ball overhead, ouch, ouch, ouch. 
I think it took us about 30 minutes, and was 1.5 mile??? 

Today, I'm going on a hike with a friend and John Paulie. He is getting inspired by Mom and has done some running work on his own.