The Shred

Well I started the Shred this week and let me just say "uuuugh"

It's not so much the workout, it's actually not bad but the repetitiveness of it and the fact that I'm stuck doing the same workout for 10 days (x3) really annoys me. BUT I know it's working because I am sore so I'm just going to suck it up and power through it.

So I took before pictures and had intentions of posting those pics today but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The more I look at them the more ashamed I got. I hope at the end of the 30 days when my body looks different I will have the courage to post the pics. I will however as a small consolation post my stats 

Day 1

Weight: 165.8 

(yes I've gained weight sense my last weigh-in which proves that just running isn't working for me in the weight loss department)

Waist: 38 1/2''

Chest: 39''

Hips: 41''

Thighs: 23''

Arms: 12''

Very yucky stats there. It just makes me sick.

Come on Jillian don't let me down.....

In other news: I ran tonight with Ashley and Marie again at the Germantown Greenway. Ashley totally tricked me in to running 4.25 tonight too (she's sneaky)! I love running with them. It pushes me farther and faster than my head is telling me I can do.

 I have got to do a better job of running during the week without them though because they are about to bump their "short" runs to 5 miles and if I'm going to continue running with them once a week I'm going to have to up my game.

The Color Run is this Saturday and I am super pumped! Allie and I got together Saturday to make our shirts and I was so excited about how they turned out. I had my shirt sitting on the counter drying and one of the kids knocked over a cup of water on the shirt and the marker I used to trace the letters started to bleed. I freaked out at first and then decided I should just spray the entire shirt with water.

It's not exactly what I was going for but I think it turned out pretty cool. 

Tomorrow is Day 3 of the Shred and I hope to get in a short run Thursday before the Color Run Saturday. 

Good News, Bad News

Last night was the weekly training with Women Run/Walk of Memphis. I was really looking forward to it all day and the weather was looking great.

I got up yesterday morning and worked-out with my Aunt. We did 45 minutes of cardio. I love working out with someone, let me tell you that is by far the best motivation you can get. Knowing that someone is depending on you to get their workout done really motivates you to get out of the bed in the morning.
This morning we did strength training with resistant bands for 30 minutes. I love strength training days.

At the training last night the plan was to do

4 Minute warm up
4 minute run (7x)
2 minute walk (7x)
4 minute cool down

I was very anxious to see how my calves would feel and how I would do running for four minutes. I started off at a little bit of a slower pace just to make sure I didn't burn myself out again. I stayed with Ashlee and the minutes just flew by as we were talking and having a good time. For the first mile Ashlee and I were going about a 14:57 minutes mile on average. The second mile we were at a 14:19 minute mile average pace. The last two runs Ashlee needed to slow down a bit so I went on ahead and my average pace for the last mile was 14:04 minute mile.
I finished at 48:54 minutes and 3.30miles with an overall average pace of 14:50. And I am very pleased to report that I had NO calf pain! I can't even begin to tell you how happy that made me. I have really been craving (for lack of better word) a run that was pain free and actually enjoyable. I knew I had it in me :) So that's my good news
NO CALF PAIN!

The bad news is that I've been running for 6 weeks and now am on my second week of doing extra cardio and strength training and I've been watching my calorie intake for two weeks and still have seen NO change on the scale. Got up this morning to weigh and 162 was still staring me in the face. Now I know what someone of you are going to say "muscle weighs more than fat" "watch the inches not the scale" "Aren't your clothes fitting better?" "Don't you feel better?"
I know all those lines and have used some of them on friends myself and they're all true but that doesn't change the fact that I still have 40 *POUNDS* to lose. I really do need to invest in a tape measure because I'm sure that will help motivate me but I still desperately want to see the numbers going down on that scale

So I leave you with a little Garfield scale humor

C25K Week 1 Complete!

I just completed Week 1! Woo Hoo!

5 min warm up 3.8mph
.30 sec run 5mph
.45 sec walk 3.5mph
.45 sec run 5mph
1 min walk 3.5mph
1 min run 5mph
1 min 30 sec walk 3.5mph
.30 sec run 5mph
.45 sec walk 3.5mph
.45 sec run 5mph
1 min walk 3.5mph
1 min run 5mph
1 min 30 sec walk 3.5mph
.30 sec run 5mph
.45 sec walk 3.5mph
.45 sec run 5mph
1 min walk 3.5mph
1 min run 5mph
1 min 30 sec walk 3.5mph
5 min cool down 3.5mph-3mph

Completed 1.70miles in 26.30 minutes at a 15:35 minute mile

(sorry if this is boring but I'm logging it more for me so I can see how I'm progressing)

So Monday I start the new workout (and you can still plan on joining me). My awesome sister, Margie (you can check out her blog HERE) and dear friend, Candace (you can check out here blog HERE) have agreed to join me in this new workout.
I will check in Monday with Weight, Measurements, and possibly even progress pictures (eek!).
I will weigh in on day 8 and day 15.
My plan is to do this workout and still continue with my C25K training. I may not be able to keep up with both, I mean I do have 3 kids, a husband, and house to manage.
I am not "dieting" due to BFing but I will be watching what I eat (i.e. If I can pick a salad over a hamburger, I will)

So I stepped on the scale this morning to see 161lbs. Ick! I always do this. So more than likely I will weigh in Monday with a weight gain but I hope this will be my last time to do that. Technically this is my first week in the past 6 weeks to not be sick so I guess my body is starting to get back to normal...including a normal appetite (boo)

I'm really looking forward to starting this new workout. If you want to join us let me know! : )

Weigh-In Monday

Monday Weigh-In Week 2


Sorry, bad picture. If you can't read it, it says 158! Yay for the 150's! Looking forward to hitting the 140's!

-3.5lbs

That's pretty amazing considering I wasn't able to work out this week. : )

So today at 1:30 I'm having the 2nd stint removed (Blaine the Drain). I'm hoping this is my last stint...
I want to run tonight but its going to depend on how I'm feeling. I originally thought I was going to have to start the C25K training over but I was looking at the difference between Week 1 and Week 2 this morning at there isn't much difference so I think I'm going to try to do Week 2 Day 1. We will see how that goes.
I'll update tonight if I run.....

Weigh-In

Monday Weigh-In Week 1


-1.5lbs

Not bad for the first week but I am unfortunately back on "bed rest"

Saturday morning I woke up at midnight in severe pain. My first thought was "Oh No! Not again!" I got out of bed, took some tylenol and paced the floor. The pain was in the same spot as last time but it felt totally different.
About 1:30 I was done and knew the pain was not going away on its own. So I woke up Josh and called my Aunt (even at 1:30 she answers the phone with a happy tone, how does she do that?)
We headed to the ER and luckily they were not busy. It wasn't long and I was in an ER room. The pain had gotten a lot worse and I was shaking I was hurting so bad.
They got an IV in and started fluids and gave me some pain medication. 30 seconds after the pain medication I was vomiting (I will not be eating Kraft Macaroni for a while)
For some reason the pain medication was only giving me relief for about 10 to 15 minutes so they were alternating two different pain meds to try to help.
They took me for an X-Ray and confirmed that I did have more stones.
They called my urologist to try to find out what to do next.
The ER doctor decided to go ahead and admit me because it was obvious that I couldn't handle the pain without medication.
I vomited four times while in the ER, and never really got much relief.
I finally got in a room and they started giving me Morphine, finally some relief, but with a price.....
The Morphine was causing my heart rate to drop in to the 40's (resting heart rate should at least be in the 60's) So they had to start giving me the morphine doses in half so I was only getting half the relief now.
My Urologist requested a CT scan so they sent me up to get a CT.
The results came back and the Urologist said I had multiple large stones in my urethra tube (which explains the difference in pain) that I couldn't pass on my own.
He gave me the option to wait and have the surgery done at the clinic sometime this week or go ahead and have the surgery in the hospital, I wanted to be like "Are you freaking kidding me? I can't function without morphine, why would I want to wait?" I decided nice was the way to go if this dude was going to be performing surgery on me so I told him I'd like to have the procedure done now.
So they wheeled me off to surgery (crazy how I went from no surgeries ever! To two in two weeks) They broke up the stones with a laser, removed the larger pieces, left the smaller pieces for me to pass, and placed another stint. (You know there aren't very many "int" names? So after brainstorming with my Sister she came up with "Blaine the Drain")
This go around was a lot less eventful, no ICU stay, no crazy high fever/heart rate. But my heart rate is still running really low (still in the 40's) So it may not have been because of the morphine and I'll have to continue to keep an eye on it this week.

So no running/exercising for me this week :( Which really stinks and it means I'll have to start my C25K over when I'm cleared to exercise again. I don't expect to do any updates this week because there won't be anything to update. I hope to be back at it after "Blaine" is removed.

I'm Back!

Well it's been almost a year since I last blogged and a lot has happened. I will do the readers digest version to catch you up. (If you are new to my blog or just haven't been by in a while please read the disclaimer on the right side of my blog before you begin :-D)

So since April of last year a lot has changed......

April 2011 Josh and I decided we wanted to have another baby. So I had my IUD removed and began "trying"

July 2011 We found out some exciting news and devastating news in the same week. The week of July 17th we found out my Dad had stage 4 colon cancer. He immediately went in to have surgery, and on July 20th two days after his surgery I found out I was pregnant. Over the next 6 months I watched my Dad battle cancer. He fought hard and even with everything he went through he never stopped worrying about me and the effect the stress could be having on me and the baby. Unfortunately even with how hard he fought on January 10th he lost his battle with cancer. I miss him terribly but have joy knowing he is now completely healed and in heaven.

March 2012 On the 9th Eli makes his arrival. It was a long labor (just a few minutes short of 12 hours) but totally worth it.

By the afternoon of the 10th Eli and I were discharged from the hospital. The morning of the 14th I woke up around 4:00am with excruciating pain on my right side and 102.9 fever. I went back to sleep I guess hoping that it would get better only to wake up a couple hours later with the pain worse. I called the on-call nurse at my OBGYN and she said I needed to get to labor and delivery. So I woke Josh up, we got the kids up and over to my Aunts. We kept Eli with us because I was breast feeding and because they were sending me to labor and delivery I thought it'd be safe for Eli to be with us.
We get to labor and delivery only for them to send me to the ER due to the fever. So we called my Aunt to come get Eli. They took me to triage and began all the test. After blood work, urine samples, and a CT the doctor came in to tell me "you have kidney stones, but thats not the worst of it. You have numerous stones, one that is very large. And they are blocking part of your kidney which it keeping your kidney from emptying completely and that has caused an infection."
They put me on a broad spectrum antibiotic to try to start killing the infection while they waited on blood cultures to come back and find out exactly what bacteria I had so they could treat in more specifically. They also told me they would be doing a procedure to empty my kidney. They would insert a tube in my back that went into my kidney and would drain the trapped urine into a bag outside my body (Yup, I was just told I'd have a Pee bag!) They wheeled me away to get the nephrostomy. The procedure was done with local anesthesia so I was awake the entire time. It wasn't too painful but definitely uncomfortable. I believe the procedure took about 15-20 minutes. After they finished they wheeled me up to my room where Josh was waiting. I was only in the room for a couple of minutes before I started to shiver. Josh went to tell the nurse, she insisted it was normal but came to check on me anyway. By the time Josh and the nurse made it back I was shaking uncontrollably. The nurse said "oh, that's not normal". What happened next is a blur . My fever got up to 109. My heart rate was 190. My body was completely numb. I was unable to speak. And I was very scared. There were 3 different doctors, and 4 nurses in room. During the chaos one of the nurses ripped the iv out of my arm (lucky for her i was unable to speak).
Apparently when the nephrostomy was inserted it sent the infection into my bloodstream and that caused my body to react the way it did. They rushed me to the ICU and upped my antibiotics. It seemed like forever and I honestly can't tell you how long it took but my body finally responded to the antibiotics and my heart rate and fever started to go down. I stayed in ICU for a while longer for them to monitor my heart rate and oxygen. I finally got in a room and they got the cultures back and found out the bacteria was e-coli and staph infection. So they changed my antibiotics to fight the infection more directly. I was released from the hospital on Saturday with a few prescriptions and my pee bag, who I had named Frosty, and an appointment for the next Monday to have the stones removed. So I spent the next 8 days hiding out at the house with Frosty. Monday the 26th I went in to have the stones and hopefully Frosty removed. The stones were removed successfully and so was Frosty. But Frosty was replaced with "Clint the Stint". I think Clint was worse than Frosty, because unlike Frosty who was just annoying Clint actually was painful and I had to deal with him for a week. The stint was put in to help drain the kidney while everything was healing from the surgery. Monday the 2nd I went in and had Clint removed and just like i had been told I felt immediate relief. Now all that's left to do is a 24 hour urine collection (sounds like fun huh?) so they can hopefully determine why I got the stones. I'll be doing that in two weeks.

So that brings us up to today......


This is my weigh in this morning.

And thats pretty awesome considering I went into the hospital to have Eli just 3 1/2 weeks ago weighing in at an amazing 191lbs!! Whoa. The weight loss so far is only due to the wonderful ICU/hospital diet. It's amazing what a severe infection and hospital stay will do to your weight.

So now my goals are to get to 125-130lbs in my size 5 jeans again. Today I started the C25K again and plan to do some weight training as well. I will post about all of that at a later time. So that's what has been going on with me the past year (the readers digest version) I hope to do a better job of keeping up with my blog this go around and I hope to have success with my weight loss and running goals.