It is almost Christmas

Things have been super busy around here. I cannot believe it has been 11 days since I have posted. I am slowly starting to get better after my awful sickness. I still have a cough but at least I can breath again and I am able to run.

I have been reflecting lately about how different this Christmas will be for me. Last year I had just begun my journey to get healthy and lose weight. I was doing well and actually managed to continue to lose weight over the holidays last year. This year is so different. I have reached my goal weight and I am a runner. Oh my, I can't believe I wrote that. I am a runner!!! If you had told me last year that I would call myself a runner or that others would see me as a fast runner (funny. I am pretty slow) I would have laughed. This year though, leading up to Christmas I am running. I am training for 2 half marathons and oh yeah, I am eating cookies!!! I am at a place now where I can indulge and not gain because of the miles I put in and because my body has settled in here. Now I need to learn how to indulge moderately, I still have a tendency to binge and eat nothing but cookies. It will come I am sure.

Goal weight. All dressed to preform at my Christmas Concert

Onto running. Things have been going so well. I am finding my form much more easily and running has become a joy again. Thanks Tina. I am even getting some more speed. I think that once all of the snow is gone and I can run in fewer layers I may actually be faster than before I switched to minimalist shoes. I am continuing to run in my beach walkers. They feel so good and I am amazed at how waterproof they are. On my run last night it was a mix of slush, puddles, ice, snow, and some dry spots. I ran through at least 2 ankle deep puddles last night and didn't notice any water getting into my shoes. Amazing! 

My last long run was on Saturday. It was good but I was definitely bonking at the end. Run here. I had been indulging in a great number of cookies and chocolates for most of Friday and Saturday, but I have a much smaller stomach now so I didn't eat much else. I guess all that sugar wasn't what my body needed to go out and run for a couple of hours. Overall the run was great. The weather was amazing. 5ºC with a pretty strong westerly wind. I love chinooks!! It made me look forward to spring and running again when there is no snow and ice on the ground and I don't need a bazillion layers to keep me from freezing. The bonking came at the end of my run. By mile 8 I couldn't eat anymore of my fuel. My stomach was uneasy and I couldn't imagine putting anything else in there. I was running in an area that is newish to me. I had run out that way but never back. I had to stop and check my map on my phone because I was disoriented and didn't know where I was going. I did finally get going in the right direction and made it home. I was beat. I guzzled a chocolate milk and a large glass of water. Stretched out my IT bands then fell into the bath. I am not normally tired after a long run and I really wondered how on earth I was going to run a half marathon in 2 weeks.  Pictures from my long run.
 

Fast forward to last night. Run Here.
It was warm again last night and I was feeling great. I ate supper with the family and then quickly put on my gear. The noise and busy-ness of my kids was getting to me so I needed to get out!!! I set out without any set distance or time that I wanted to accomplish. I was going to do at least 4 miles. I ended up doing 7 miles and ran progressively faster as the run went on. It felt amazing to be running fast more quickly than normal. I got home feeling like I could have run for a lot longer. I guess I can do the half next weekend, as long as I eat real food along with my cookies.  I passed this house while running, it was so lit up the whole street seemed to glow.

And just because it is always a nut house here I thought I would share some of the pictures I took yesterday during the day.

First up Joey (2) helping to make scrambled eggs. Surprisingly we only found one shell while we were eating.

Goofy Pictures and a sweet picture of 2 of my girls. We are super excited for Christmas here. It is all sorts of crazy!! 

Being Sick Sucks!

Well this has been a very uneventful week for running. I last ran on Monday but had to cut the run short because my lungs were hurting. I managed to catch a chest cold Sunday and it has had be out all well. 5 of the 7 kids all have it as well and it has been a LONG week. I am hoping to get out tonight to run 5 miles with a friend. I am getting better but not 100% yet. Just hoping that my lungs will cooperate. My body feels stiff from all of the sitting around I have been doing. My plan for the rest of the week is 5 miles today, some weights and maybe a spin on my stationary bike on Saturday and a 9 mile run home from church on Sunday. Here's hoping I'll feel up to it.

I thought I would add some pictures of what our week has been like.

Science Games for School

Monopoly for Math Class

Baking counts as Home Ec, Math and Science

Outdoor Education and Gym Class

A mountain of cookies my by the kids. Even gluten free for Daddy.

This little guys turns 2 tomorrow. He has a great party last Sunday. 

Quickie post.

I wanted to write a quick recap of my day yesterday.  I thought it would be fun to share what goes into a day with 7 kids and training for a race.

6:00 wake up get into workout clothes

6:30 make tea, start strength training, light weights arms, abs and legs

7:00 finished workout, sit down to read, blog and eat breakfast (egg whites with salsa and fruit)

7:45 get GG (our foster baby) up and give her milk, get her dressed and ready to go for a visit

8:00 all the other kids get up and start making noise wanting breakfast, leftover oatmeal with fruit

8:30 GG picked up, kids clear table and we start school work

10:00 snack time, call kids to the table for snack, read aloud to them while we eat

10:30 more school work, help 4yo with piano practice, read with 6yo, tell 7yo to keep working and stop bugging other kids, encourage 9yo to find another place to read where 7yo isn't around

11:15 GG gets back, put her down for short nap

Noon lunch time serve lunch, wraps with PB&J for kids, cucumbers with feta and balsamic vinegar and a sweet potato for me

12:30 scramble to make sure everyone is dressing including, shoes, coats, warm things, wake GG and get her ready to go out

1:00 leave for Costco after about 15min of buckling everyone into carseats

1:20 shop at Costco with 7 kids (this went really well, we even had 5 samples)

2:45 pay and head to van, it is snowing by now and pretty cold, unload groceries while listening to tired kids bicker in van

3:15 finally get home, hand out snack at kitchen table

3:30 send littles kids for a nap, 1yo, 2yo, 3yo, 4yo all go for a nap, olders finish school work or play video games

3:45 bring in box after box of groceries while freezing, watching for Kyle to get home so I can stay inside

4:10 cut up veggies and prepare soup to simmer on stove until super time

4:20 get into 4 layers of running clothes and head out for a run, -4C about -14C with windchill

4:30 run 3miles. 2.5 in my water shoes, .5 in just my socks, I also ran down the alley to try running on the gravel. Very interesting sensation.

5:00 grab soup and head to bath while Kyle feeds kids homemade pizza

6:30 head out to choir practice all by myself

10:30 get home from choir, eat my weight in fruit and more soup 

11:00 finally crash in bed

Anyways that's a look at my day. Normally we don't leave the house but with Kyle and I both training for a race our evening are more busy so I may have to start taking all of the kids to shop with me alone. Normally we wait for Kyle or Kyle goes by himself. Yesterday really was a great day. I was amazed at how much energy I had at choir practice after my run. I am so grateful to feel that high again. This is why I am so into running it makes me feel so good. 

Weight loss journey ... one year later

I've been wanted to do a post about our weight loss journey and how we got to where we are. It seems fitting to do this post today because it has been a year since we started. We were both overweight, tired and too busy with our large family to change anything. Kyle and I have been through a lot and I don't think anyone would fault us if we said we didn't have time to work out or try and eat better. See we've had 6 children in 8 years and have fostered 8 babies along the way. We also homeschool so I don't get much of a break from the kids all day leaving Kyle on full-time daddy duty when he gets home so that I can decompress. So what changed? This time last year I was sick and tired of being overweight. I had plantar facetious, heal spurs, bad knees and many other symptoms from being morbidly obese. I decided that this was it and that I needed to change things. You see Kyle and I had decided that we were going to have any more babies of our own, and I wasn't very happy about it. I decided that if I couldn't be pregnant I might as well be fit.

For me this has been a life change. See Kyle was a healthy weight when we were married but I was already obese. I had been a small child, like tiny, and I didn't put on any weight until grade 11. By the time I graduated high school I was already one of the biggest girls. It didn't stop there. Years of fast food, binge eating and unhealthy food choices pushed me up the scale. When Kyle and I were married I was at 220. We quickly got pregnant and my weight went up and down over the next 8 years and 6 pregnancies. I always took pregnancy as my free pass to eat anything and everything in large amounts. I couldn't tell you how heavy I was pregnant because all of the scales I used stopped at 300 pounds. Fast forward to October 2010 and I was weighing in at 270 pounds and 5'7".  Kyle had done his fair share of eating with me and had gone up to 215 at his highest. So we changed. I have to tell you that when I want to do something I go all in. It is everything or nothing. Once we started there was no going back.

To begin with we changed our diet. We started counting calories and made sure that each meal contained a good amount of protein. We used an app called My Net Diary to track what we ate and how many calories total we ate per day. We stopped eating fast food and really only ate Subway if we had to eat when we were out. It also really helped that we ate every 3 hours. For me I ate 300 calories every 3 hours focusing on getting enough protein so that I would feel full. It worked. Kyle and I started to drop somewhere around 2 pounds per week. In March we started learning to run and now as we continue to work towards losing those last pounds. Now we have to balance eating enough to fuel our running and still maintaining a calorie deficit to lose weight. It has been an amazing ride. There have been bumps in the road and some days and even weeks when it seemed that nothing was going right. I have always lived in fear that  the weight may come back. Running has helped so much. Not so much with weight loss (I am so hungry when I am running a lot of miles), but it has grounded me. I am less stressed and more happy. I don't need to eat to make me feel better I can go out and run. There are still days when too much food and not enough moving happens and I go up in weight. As of right now I have been maintaining a weight between 152-157. I would still like to lose some and I am now getting back into watching what I eat fully. It is helpful too that I have backed off my mileage while learning to barefoot run. I am not so hungry now and find it easier to create a calorie deficit.

Anyways the journey continues and hopefully soon we will both meet our weight loss goals, while we work towards it we are having the time of our lives. It is amazing how good it feels to be fit and healthy. I am so blessed that I was able to change my life and reverse the ill effects I had from being so heavy. I never in a million years thought that I could run and now I enjoy it every chance I get.

Kyle before 215lbs

Kyle after 165lbs

Robbie before 270lbs

Robbie After 153lbs