Quick and Dirty

Oh, hello there. Do you feel neglected? I'm just stopping in for a quick blog equivalent of a drive by. Here's what's been going on lately....

Look how my tomatoes are growing!!!! It's very exciting to water them every day and see them changing colors and growing bit by bit.

I've also made some progress on my paper goals....remember those? Here's where we started:

Here's where we are now (also compare between real camera and crappy iphone pics):

And here's how many have been torn off:

YAY! PROGRESS!!!!

Also, since January 1st I've lost one of these.....

No, he hasn't gone missing, but I've lost the equivalent of one wiener dog on the scale!!! I wasn't brave enough to weigh myself holding the heavier one, maybe I'll lose her by next week. I look at Wilbur and think, he's a little dog, but not that little. Where was I storing this dog sized mass? Gross. And to think I could stand to lose much bigger dogs than him.

I started the year on Weight Watchers. The program works, when you stick to it. I was good for about 6 weeks, lost about 10 lbs, then was bored. So I stopped counting points. I didn't gain it all back, just a couple of the pounds. I had been gaining and losing the same 5 lbs after that for a while when I was half assing the WW program. I decided something needed to change and I wanted to kick start the losses again.

I started the Paleo diet last week after seeing a couple other girls loving it, here and here. The gist of it is, if a caveman couldn't have picked it or killed it, can't eat it. This means fruits, veggies, nuts, and proteins. This also means no carbs (ouch), no dairy (ouch), and no sugar (boo). I was intimidated, but hit Trader Joes last week ready to do this. I was encouraged that every day the scale showed a loss, it makes it so much easier to stick to it when I can see quick results. I stuck to it Mon-Fri except for a few blips of wine. I'm only human. Saturday, was more of "diet? what diet?". But I woke up this morning, had my almond milk and fruit smoothie and was back on track. Hopefully yesterday didn't do too much damage, but even so, the break was enough to get me motivated again.

I've also been doing the Couch 2 5K running app on my phone. I've tried this 3-4 times before, but give up around week 4 or 5. I'm currently in week 7 where the intervals are over and it's just straight runs with no walk breaks. I'm not so into it anymore. I like my walk breaks, they make me feel like I can run harder/longer during those intervals. I may just keep repeating the week 5 intervals of five and eight minute run intervals. I felt strong doing those runs and felt like I could really push it the entire workout and leave it all on the run.

With vacation coming up next month, I have to stick to both diet and exercise to make sure I'm bathing suit ready.

In the meantime, I have been hopping into my suit for Friday Surreptitious Happy Hours at the Pool. What is better than sneaking out of work an hour early (shh don't tell) and coming home to relax with a book, some friends and wine by the pool? Coincidence that my water bottle holds exactly one bottle of wine? I think not.

Alrighty then, with that, I'm out. I just needed a break from the top to bottom cleaning of the condo that I've been doing today. Back to work for me. I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend and is looking forward to a great week!!!!