Month: December 2023

Goodbye 2023, Hello 2024

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, Holidays, kids, life, running, training, Uncategorized

And somehow another year is coming to an end. So many great memories:

My little girl turned 1
Lots of training runs with my babies
Fun beach trip
First half Marathon since marriage and babies
Disneyland!

I ran 351.6 miles this year, my highest mileage ever. I am very proud of that. Marathon/half Marathon training was a BIG contributor to that so as much as I would love to say I want to strive for even more in 2024 I don’t know that that is realistic. We shall see. We will call that a thought to keep in my head rather than a goal.

Unfortunately with all that running I did not lose a single pound. I will take a saying from a podcast I have been listening to called ‘Homeschool Together’ when they talked about their fitness and weight loss journey is “you cannot outrun your fork” And I literally did not outrun my fork.

I have two major problems that are probably tied for first place. 1) portion size 2) eating out.

My biggest not resolution or even necessarily goal, but lifestyle change for 2024 and onward is to really tackle those two issues. My portion control and to stop eating out, especially fast food.

My 3-year-old has discovered he loves fried rice from Panda Express and both my kids like most children love nuggets and fries from McDonald’s. So they are constantly asking for this. Well, my three-year-old is constantly asking for this. I say no a lot but even once a week adds up very fast. There is hardly a week where we don’t drive through someplace at least once.

My two big tools to help with these changes are my daily step goal and calorie tracking.

It is amazing how many days I don’t get over three or four thousand steps a day even chasing after two kids. So it’s time for me to start being really intentional with my steps and my movement. I started this about a week ago and I missed one day which was yesterday when I felt like death. Because yes we are all sick AGAIN. And both kids have ear infections AGAIN!

I’m not sure anybody enjoys calorie counting. It can be tedious, but honestly calories in calories out is how you lose weight especially in the beginning. As my weight goes down, I may focus a little more on macros and the amount of protein I take in and things like that, but it’s time to just put on my big girl panties and countless calories. I’m not going to be incredibly tedious about counting my calories. Like every single bite that goes in my mouth will probably not be tracked perfectly. But big picture tracking is what I’m going for so that it’s sustainable and honest.

I do have fitness goals like most people. It’s not so much about the new year’s resolution, it’s just the next phase in my life. Currently I have Beachbody on demand. I’m going to be canceling that before it renews I think in April because it’s just not working for me right now. 30 minute workout videos are difficult for me to get through with the kids. They are running around jumping on me which is fun and funny but makes it difficult to get a true workout in and 30 minutes is a long time to ask them to let me be at this age unless I get up before them. But at least one of my kids is usually up by 6:30 in the morning so getting a workout in and showering before they get up is probably not sustainable. I am going to try and look for like a 15 minute weight workout that I can do. I think that’s a much more realistic time frame for me. And I’m going to continue running with kids and without them. My current goal is going to be to get my mile time down and then increase the amount of miles that I can do at that time frame.

Because my running has been so stop and start since the half marathon between coming home and resting a little bit and ALL the sickness that we have had my current mile time with the double stroller, because I’m doing run walk intervals, is 17 minutes and without the double stroller the last time I clocked a mile I think I was around 12:40. I would love to get down to at least a 10 minute mile and be able to sustain that for about 3 miles and then eventually continue to decrease that. If I can get down to like a 9 minute mile that would be freaking amazing but I have to be realistic with myself too and see how it goes.

I will NOT be staying up until midnight tonight to watch the ball drop so HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

I was a selfish idiot

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, kids, life, running, training

It has taken some time and reflection to realize how selfish it was for me to sign up for a marathon at this point in my life without fully thinking through the repercussions for my family.

I am not saying running races is selfish, or being a wife and running marathons is selfish or even being a mom and running marathons is selfish. Simply that for me, at this time in my life, it was.

I didn’t really discuss it with my husband before I signed up….oops, I’ve been married for 5 years and sometimes still forget I’m in a partnership now.

Running a marathon is a HUGE time commitment and can be a large financial one as well. Both of these were/are true for me. Currently I am a slow runner so my long runs took a LONG time. Meaning, we lost most of our Saturdays (during my training) to my long run, especially when you add in that my youngest (and sometimes my oldest) still needs to nap. This means we had no opportunities to camp or do any overnight trips this last summer.

Financially it was a big commitment as well since I chose a marathon in another state (my home state). I did use this as an opportunity/excuse to spend time with my family there but this meant plane tickets, days of extra food costs, and all those miscellaneous costs that come with traveling.

I am not saying I regret doing it. My husband was pretty gracious about it all. My kids got to see family and we as a family got to do an awesome Disneyland trip and make lots of memories.

Also, doing something for me is not selfish (that is not what I am saying) but doing something that impacted my whole family for a big part of the year…….was pretty selfish…..in MY case.

I love to run and will keep running, I love doing races too, but this isn’t my time for racing. That time will come again. For me and my family, this is the time for healthy fitness for me…..and lots of family fun together.

This coming year I look forward to lots of family camping and fun family weekend trips.

What are you looking forward to in 2024?

Weekly Workouts

by Ariana Peters, posted in life, training

The best laid plans..as they say.

I ran 3 miles on Tuesday and walked an additional 1.5 while the kids napped.

I was hoping to keep increasing my workouts and getting back to normal and guess what? Now I have an ear infection. It took 2 weeks of off and on pain getting worse for me to make a Dr appt. With 2 littles I just don’t have time to make superfluous Dr appointments, you know?

But when I couldn’t ignore the pain anymore I caved and yep! There’s an infection in my ear. So now after the colds we all had a few weeks ago, 3 out of the 4 in my little family have gotten ear infections, tell me they are not contagious again? Actually I am thinking whatever strain that cold was must really open you up to an ear infection. I’ve been on antibiotics for 48 hours and am just now starting to feel a reduction in ear pain. We will see how I feel come Monday for workouts. I’m also super tired though, don’t know if it’s the infection or the antibiotics or both.

Here’s to next week!!

How have your workouts been?

Book review: Hunt, Gather, Parent

by Ariana Peters, posted in books, kids

I thought this book was so interesting. The author spent a significant amount of time with three different cultures in three different parts of the world and really looked at how they parented day to day, week to week, and month to month and how it affected their children. And the differences between what they do and what western societies do. It was very eye-opening and made so much sense. We as a western society have come up with all of these rules and guidelines just in the last 100 plus years as opposed to other societies that have been raising kids the same way for thousands of years.

I don’t want to give away too much about the book in case you want to read it, but I love that it wasn’t dry. She talked about her own experiences with her daughter Rosie, who she describes as a wild child.

She’s very candid about how much her and her daughter buttheads and how much they end their days in tears and yelling and the fighting. So she really was coming at this not just as an author or a journalist or reporter but as a mother looking for better solutions for her family.

All in all, I highly recommend this book.

Weekly Workouts

by Ariana Peters, posted in healthy lifestyle, life, training

I’m back!!!!

Ugh it feels like we had the cold that never ended. The kids got slight colds coming back from California, no surprise. They were starting to get better so we went out to some indoor play places, like those indoor playgrounds and we ALL got sick, worse this time. And then once the colds started to clear both kids got double ear infections. Yep, double ear infections.

Then for about a week after I stopped coughing up enough stuff that I would have been comfortable working out. I was still so exhausted from recovering from being sick and taking care of two little kids while being sick that I just had no energy to work out. My goal this week was three workouts and I hit it.

Tuesday – upper body burn from mbf on beachbody

Thursday – full body burn from mbf on beachbody

Friday – Lower body burn from mbf on beachbody

It looks like next week should be mostly dry for us so my goal will be 3 strength workouts and 1 run.