And somehow another year is coming to an end. So many great memories:
My little girl turned 1Lots of training runs with my babiesFun 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!!!!
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.
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.
I put on some Nat Geo in the morning while we all relaxed and woke up
I read them a book from the construction unit we are doing from playing preschool
We talked about the date, weather, season, the months of the year and the days of the week
We did some stickers in our math sticker book
And of course we couldn’t leave my 15 month old out of it lol. They played a little in the sink Daddy came out for lunch to play Then he had a meltdown and rage colored lolI actually did my hair (don’t look at the post partum flyaways lol) and put some mascara onWe hit the library and I got way too many books for me hahahaNap walk. This is how I get them both to take a nap currently Did some worksheet pagesAttempted our first teatime……..ummmmm id call it a half success. He had a huge tantrum (he had a hard toddler day) but we did get 3 short sections and 1 longer section read in the preschooler bookGot a Good and the Beautiful lesson done.
Trailing the blonde 