This Blog Has Moved

Hi everyone - I have successfully migrated my blog to its new home at Wordpress - please bookmark the new site:

www.shrinkingjill.com

The blogspot address will still be active for awhile, but I won't be posting anything new here - it's all going to the new site.  Check it out!

The Beck Diet Newsletter

Still on the road!  My team and I are staying at this amazing hotel on the lower coast of New Hampshire - normally my employer wouldn't pay for resort-style accomodations but because this isn't tourist season in New England the rates are dirt cheap - so we are travelling in style this week!  Had a great walk yesterday morning before work, enjoying the cool ocean air and looking at all the gorgeous flowers popping up.  Last night's dinner was, unfortunately, too much food.  Sigh.  I felt icky this morning when I got up. 

When I checked my email last night I found the latest Beck Diet Newsletter.  It's almost like they knew I was on the road and needed some inspiration!  I can't say enough good things about this book - when every other diet book on the planet is telling you that you can eat what you want and still lose weight (yeah, right), the Beck Diet tells it straight and provides real tools to help change long-standing habits and behaviors.  I hope you get as much out of the latest newsletter as I did!  Check it out HERE.

FRUSTRATED!

This weekend I decided to switch to a Wordpress blog, and use a hosting service to allow me more freedom to customize.  Unfortunately I am way undereducated on webhosting and transferring domain names!  Although I've been researching how to make this happen without too much stress I've been unsuccessful.  Many apologies if you've tried to reach my blog and gotten a 404 page (or if this happens over the next few days)!  Hopefully by next weekend I'll be up and running properly on Wordpress...

In other news I am traveling this week on business - have resolved to eat well and exercise - so far so good!  No Wednesday weigh-in this week, though.  But I promise to weigh in next Wednesday and post some progress pics!

Goal Shirt

For the past few months I've been trolling through my bins of too-small clothes, trying to find a goal outfit - something that I really look forward to wearing after I've lost more weight.  I have lots of cute clothes all the way down to size 10 and briefly considered a pair of Jordache jeans from high school, but then I found a t-shirt that I bought in 1995 when I weighed 162 pounds (for about 5 minutes).  The front looks like this:

Cute, right?  Well, the best part of the shirt is the back - a play on the Nike slogan 'Run Like Hell':

Once I found this shirt, my search for a goal outfit was over. 

Out & Back Party Run!

The Out and Back Party Run for ALS was a BLAST!  Our friends, Elizabeth and Doug, rocked the 4-mile run, with Doug setting a PR for himself!  Woohoo!  Ken was kind enough to accompany me on the 2-mile walk, which I treated as an interval run.  My hip was feeling good and I managed nine minutes of jogging (spread out over five intervals).  It felt great to be running in a group, at sunset, with Boathouse Row as a backdrop.  After the run we headed over to the fabulous Lemon Hill Mansion for the par-tay.  There was great beer, lots of food and a rockin band, along with about 1500 people.  Definitely a fun time and I plan to sign up for next year's run.  However, next year I will do the 4-mile run and I'd like to finish in under 40 minutes.

Sadly, when I woke up on Saturday morning my hip was on FIRE.  It feels better today, but I definitely overdid it on Friday night and have decided to give in and call a doctor, in hopes that she can tell me what the problem is and give me some suggestions.  Stretching and rest just doesn't seem to be working and it's very hard to ice that area since it's, um, well-padded.

Today I was planning to ride my bike to the pool, but it is raining cats and dogs so I'll just drive to the pool instead.  I'm aiming for a 1500-yard swim today!

Back in the Game?

After a 2-week hiatus, I hopped on the treadmill this morning to try out my new running shoes and see how my hip, knee and ankle would hold up.  Although there was a bit of moaning from my various joints everything held up pretty well!  I made it through a few tentative intervals and decided that I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new Brooks Adrenaline GTS10 running shoes!  I purchased them at Fleet Feet a couple weeks back.  Fleet Feet is an amazing store - especially the staff.  After asking me some questions about my running style and any issues I was having (of course I had a long list) they spent a good half-hour helping me find the perfect shoes.  They measured each foot (both sitting and standing), watched me walk barefoot, and brought several different options to try.  They even let me run outside in each pair to see how they felt!  Then they hooked me up with some inserts to help support my high instep and absorb impact when I run.  The shoes felt great this morning - very springy and supportive.  Yay!

Tomorrow Ken and I are participating in an out-and-back party run for ALS in downtown Philly with some friends.  I actually signed us up for the walking portion (only 2 miles) because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to run at all.  My plan is to run some intervals and see how things feel on pavement before I make my final assessment of how well my injuries have healed.  But I have high hopes.

After the run there's a party in the park with good food and beer - can't wait for that!

Wednesday Weigh In!

Wow.  The scale read 236.2 this morning - a 1.2 pound drop from last week.  I don't know how it happened, but I will gratefully accept it!

This week's loss brings me past the 25-pound mark, woohoo!