Yesterday was weigh in day, but I never had a chance to get back on here. I reached my goal: to lose something every week. :) I lost .6. It may be small, but it is still a loss. I am pleased. That is a total of 6.6 pounds in 5 weeks.

I won't be able to go next week because of a minor surgery I am having. Sometimes when I know I can't go to WW one week, I get lazy the first week which really means I will gain only to work to lose it the next week. So I am praying for diligence even this week.

It will be hard this weekend. My sweet hubby is giving me a birthday dinner party tonight with 7 other couples. He is making my favorite, crab legs, along with shrimp, steak and chicken! Isn't he just the best?! I am spoiled and I know it. This man loves me and I don't deserve him.

And I won't be counting points tonight! Or tomorrow night when my mom cooks dinner for me! I will enjoy every moment of it, then begin again on Sunday.

Tried something a bit different today after reading in a running magazine. Doing the same old thing gets routine and your body gets used to it, the article read. So the writer encouraged changing things up a little.

So today I ran a lap, walked a lap. The lap I ran, I tried to run at a faster pace. When I walked, I walked at a steep incline, at a good pace without touching the rails. It was a good workout. I kept the incline at a 3 while running and ran at a 6.0-6.5 which is good for me. I kept telling myself that if I ran faster I would finish the lap faster. :)

When I walked, I walked at an incline of 7-10 at a pace of 3.8-4.0. It was not as much running, but it was good. I felt it in areas I needed.

27:16/2 mls/313 calories burned

Weigh in day today! Clothes are fitting better, but not sure what the scale will say. I really need to measure.

Slept in today and ran short on time. I did do 1.5 miles in 17:29 (walking very little). Felt harder today for some reason, but just kept going. When I got off the treadmill, I saw that I was on an slight incline (3) because my daughter had been running this morning. :) Pushed myself and didn't even know it.

17:29/1.5 mls/234 calories burned

Good jog today.

I've decided I am a jogger, not a runner.

I did much better today in endurance when I slowed to 5.8 mph. I think that makes me a slow jogger. That's okay. I could go for 10 minutes at a time and that is improvement for me.

Walked 1 minute, jogged for 10, walked 2, jogged for 10, walked for 2.

25:00/2.2 ml/314 calories burned

Stress makes for a good jog. The adrenalin was keeping me going and it helps clear my head as I pray, asking God to take over my thoughts.

The pushing myself in the run is so relevant to how I feel today. I need to persevere. I want to quit, but I want to have a persevering faith.

God, help me. And thanks for a healthy body that can run.

Not sure if it was the 30-Day Shred DVD or the Pei Wei I ate at lunch, but running today was horribly difficult. After spending hours at the gym watching basketball, I was determined to get on the treadmill FIRST or I knew I wouldn't get on at all today.

So the first thing I did when I walked in the door was go get my running clothes on and put my shoes on.

I knew I was sore from the dvd yesterday, but nothing too bad. Just normal soreness after a new workout.

When I began running, my whole upper body was hurt. Every step was felt through my abs, sides, chest, arms. It was a rough first 5 minutes.

That eventually got better. My legs never hurt, but were so sluggish. They felt like lead weights.

I walked 1 minute/ran 2 minutes because I was struggling so hard to run at all. I did that for 30 minutes, so I ran a total of 20 minutes and walked 10 just not all at the same time. I could barely do 2 minutes at a time.

I don't even know if I really feel good afterwards like I normally do. Just weak and tired. How wimpy am I?

I will never be a "real runner" as I call them. I just don't seem cut out for that, but I just want to make some kind of progress. And I just want to be consistent and diligent.

And it would be nice to use running these small runs to help me lose weight and get stronger, too.

Eating is going well. Keeping track of everything and making wise choices. I actually took pears and apples to the gym and found myself munching away on them. I love pears!

Can't wait for my day of rest tomorrow. No exercise. No housework. No responsibilities. AND I get to worship with my church family. Exciting times at our church! Always glad to be there.

30:09 min/2.6 mile/358 calories burned

I can't wait to get into my second week of 30-Day Shred to get this soreness out. I am hoping I can do that dvd AND run. Today was hard, but going to push through the difficulty. I like easy. I need hard.

I found my 30-Day Shred dvd and Leah and I did it today. It is a 20 minute circuit training dvd with little to no resting and it kicked our rear-ends! Wow! Loved it, but I am going to be sore. My weights were too heavy for 2 of the exercises and I didn't want to go back upstairs to get lighter ones, so I did it as long as I could and then just dropped them and did the exercise without weights.

Good workout! I want to complete the three levels. I think it will help with my strength training.

Tracking my eating and pushing the fruits and veggies. We are having family birthday dinner for my youngest tonight, so that will be hard, but I am going to load my plate with salad, broccoli (which he asked for!) and green beans. I might skip the poppyseed chicken.

And trifle????? Who knows. Maybe a taste.

Down another .8 of a pound. I will take it. That puts my total at -6 pounds in 4 weeks. It's slow but it is steady. I'll take it.

Weigh in day. I did get up and get on the treadmill this morning, but only for a mile and a half. Walked 1 minute, ran 4 minutes. Back of my left leg was aching slightly for some reason, but today was a good pushing day. When I got tired in the running segment (last one), I increased my speed a little to push harder. And my playlist worked WELL today! Love Skillet's music.

16:20/1.5 mls/211 calories burned

Today is my Grantmeister's 11th birthday! We are going to celebrate, weigh in at WW, then home before the snow/sleet hits. He is dying for some more snow and it would be so wonderful to have it on his birthday, he thinks. :)

I am taking him to Krispy Kreme for breakfast, but I won't have any. I don't even desire it right now, but that might change when I smell it! But no donuts for me. Less sugar. Less salt. Less junk. Greater health!

I'm looking for my 30-Day Shred DVD for my off days of running. Can't find it. Wondering if I loaned it out........

Feeling good today. Got up early and got on the treadmill after feeding on the Word. My head is killing me and the running made it worse, but hoping it will end soon.

Today I walked 1:30, then ran 5 min. Felt pretty good. Ran at a 6.0 pace and only got tired the last 2 minutes of the last running segment.

I love to run to Skillet's music, but today my playlist didn't work out well for me. My favorite fast songs landed during my 1:30 minutes of walking! Ugh! Not sure how to fix this unless I just put all the fast songs on this particular playlist.

27:25 min/2.4 miles/337 calories burned.

Weigh in is tomorrow. Not feeling good about weigh in, but feeling good about my eating and my running program. Feels good to get back on the treadmill after a little time off.

Also feeding myself lots of fruits and veggies so that, hopefully, I will soon begin to crave them. I have begun to crave more fresh things, but still need more work. I don't even know if I crave healthy things as much as right now I don't like how I feel when I don't eat healthy. Those are two different things! But it's a beginning, right?

Oops! It's been a while. Last week was a rough week for me in many ways, but I let it affect my eating and exercise. I didn't track what I ate and I didn't exercise one time. Not good.

But today is a new day and a new week. I am starting out strong on my to-do list and will hit the treadmill sometime today. I'm sure of it! Please.....let me be sure of it. :)

I'm headed out to lunch with one of my senior girls and I chose where we are going so that I can make wise choices more easily.

My darling handsome hubby lost 4.4 pounds last week! In week 4 of WW, he lost 4.4 pounds! That's huge! He has lost over 11 pounds in 4 weeks. He is doing so well and looking sooooo goooooood! He really motivates me. He even went to WW without me last Thursday. My mom was in the ER with chest pains so he went in long enough to weigh in then joined me in the ER. I'm so proud of him!

I am reading a book on my iPad that is about this journey of health I am on. Something I read Saturday night that rocked my socks was this:

"We crave what we eat." (Made to Crave by ???? I'll have to look up the author)

Okay. Read it again.

I had to.

I had to read it three times!

I just knew that they had typed it wrong!

I can understand: "We eat what we crave," but this?!

I didn't want to understand it because it was too convicting!

But after mulling over it, I know it's true. It is about one of my goals which is to change my taste buds. It is possible. I have done it before. I want to do it again.

If I eat healthy food, I will crave healthy food. If I eat junk, I will continue to crave junk.......and, sadly, continue to be left unsatisfied. So, like Wade told me, all junk has to go. It's has to get out of the house so that it is easier to make wise choices until we DO change our habits and tastes.

It's like that spiritually. We were created to crave which this books also states because it is written by a believer. We WILL crave something. Whatever we crave, we will feed. If we crave God, we will feed on His Word and being with Him.

And when we are weak, we need to remove what will "entangle" us or set us up for failure. We need to protect ourselves from sinful situations and things. We need to recognize how weak we are.

So as I crave junk this week, I am going to feed on His Word which is the real craving of my soul. Somewhere my cravings tell my head that it is hunger when it is not about food at all. It's about yielding, denying myself, wise choices, feeding on what satisfies.

Lord, help.

My blood pressure is running high consistently at night and has been for about the past week. This morning it was high again. It is a huge wake up call for me.

Wade and I have been doing WW for 3 weeks now, but I find that I take 2 days a week and eat whatever I want. It is hurting me. I am still losing weight (although I would lose more if I didn't do this), but that junk food is raising my blood pressure. My family history is big for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Lots of family members are on meds for this. I don't want to have to take medicine. I hope to take care of this with diet and exercise.

But that means no more junking it! Everyday, every meal counts for me. I have to cut down tremendously on the salt and sugar. I have to binge on the raw fruits and veggies.

So this week I am focusing on filling in my marks at the bottom of the tracker. There are 6 markers for liquid; 2 markers for healthy oils, 1 marker for multivitamin; 9 (yes, 9!) markers for fruits and veggies; and 3 markers for non-fat/low-fat milk products. I want to shoot for marking off all of the boxes this week, every single day. That will be a ton, but it should help fill me up on the right kinds of foods.

I also enjoy a glass of red wine 1-2 times a week (a dr had recommended I do that for my heart after my mom's heart trouble). That will have to end. It has a stimulant in it that could raise my blood pressure from what the dr said on Monday.

Half caff. That is now the coffee I am drinking. No more full-caff for me. It is okay with me. Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts have good half caff or decaf.

This also means that certain foods will have to leave the house. Good-bye. Wade and I talked this morning and the kids will just have to get on board. My health is a concern, but we all need to make changes. They will have the same family history one day, so best to train them NOW to eat healthy.

Off to eat some pears!

UPDATE: 3pm

I am on my way! I've had 5 fruits/veggies so far! I have eaten: spinach, banana, 1.5 pears, strawberries in my yogurt, and salsa (w/ lots of tomatoes). Only 4 more to go!

One more thing I have noticed. I am eating less ice! That is huge for me. For the past year I have been eating all ALL DAY LONG. I take it with me when I leave the house. I have a full glass constantly with me and when that is gone, I refill it. My teeth have suffered.

BUT since finding out how anemic I was in December and the dr putting me on two doses a day of iron, I am not craving it. I might eat 1 glass a day, but I am drinking more water. I think I thought I was getting water through eating the ice, but it was so minimal that I probably was really dehydrating myself. Maybe that's why I've had more headaches.

Good changes being made. Love that!

It wasn't on the schedule/plan to run today, but I wanted to. I have to take advantage of any desire right now. Forming habits, right?

I only had time for 1.25 miles, but that was okay. I felt strong and ran faster when I ran. My pace was between 6.3 and 6.5 with a sprint toward the end. I ran more than I walked. Felt good. Just wish I had had more time to see what I could do.

Weigh in day today. Not sure what to expect. I haven't tracked a thing, ate horribly most of the week, but I did run 5 times. We'll see if that helped at all.

Strong day. I like those.

15:30/1.25 mls/178 calories burned

UPDATE: 2:30pm

I lost again this week. I lost .8 pound. One of my goals in this is to just lost SOMETHING every week. I don't want to gain. Yeah! Another week of exercise paid off!

I did not want to run today. I put it off and put it off, but what is it about running that is kind of addictive? I finally made myself get off the couch and go do it. It was sluggish, but I still maintained my running times at a 6.-6.5 pace. It just wasn't pretty.

There are several reasons I didn't want to run:

My blood pressure has been up for the past week or so. It makes me feel funny and I don't want to run when it is up, but after going to the dr yesterday, continued exercise is exactly what I need.

I also had declared today "Lazy Day" at the Arnold household. The two older kids aren't here and the two younger ones have friends over. We all slept in and have been watching movies. I have been working on some cross-stitch projects, too. It has been nice. The only work going on around here has been laundry (which can NEVER stop).

Eating.....yes, I didn't want to exercise because my eating has been horrible. I could feel myself in a slump and knew I needed to get up and do something, but didn't want to because of the way I have eaten the past two day. That is backwards, isn't it?

Oh well, I am thankful that the Lord gave me the motivation to get up and get on the treadmill. I was even able to get some memory verse work in while doing the warm up.

I really want to know how other believers keep diet/exercise in balance with life. I find it a battle to not obsess over exercising, even if it is just thinking about it a lot. I don't want this to be an idol at all, but it is a struggle. Any thoughts? Suggestions? Scripture?

28 min/2.25 mls/309 calories burned

Week 2 of 5K Program:

Realized today that I did the first week WRONG in my "From Couch to 5K" program. I was supposed to walk for 90 seconds and run for 60 seconds, but I did just the opposite. So this week I didn't want to back track by running the same amount of time and walking more (which is what I was suppposed to do IF I had done the first week right).

So I ran for 2 minutes and walked for 1 minute. I also increased my speed from 5-5.5 to 5.5-6.2 today. Felt good. I knew I was working harder.

28 minutes/2.25 mls/315 calories burned

Second day of "From couch to 5K." Since it seemed fairly easy on Thursday, today I increased my pace while running. That helped some. It was still not too hard, but it will be good training for me because I know it will get harder and harder. This training has me running/walking every other day or 3x/week. Feeling good right now. I think this will really help me lose the weight and all-around feel better.

Last night (and the day before that) I think my blood pressure was up. I have only had that one other time in my life (four years ago) during a very stressful time in my life. I don't think I have stress right now. At least, I don't recognize it if I am. Sometimes I can suppress it, but I asked sweet hubby if he could see anything I couldn't. He couldn't. Especially since we have had such a relaxing Christmas holiday season.

High blood pressure runs in my family on my dad's side. Mom told me today who in my family takes meds for high blood pressure. I was surprised at so many of them! I know it runs in the family, but from what I have read diet and exercise can dramatically help this. I plan on taking off the 35 pounds and setting new healthy habits. Praying it will help.

Happy New Year!