Jun 14 2013

Summer Walk Challenge – Check-In #3

Posted on 14 June, 2013 by TheDailyMel

Hey there, Summer Walk Challengers! Here we are again for another weekly check-in already! This is week 3, so that means we’re at the halfway point of the challenge. Crazy, right?!!

Don’t forget, you’ll need to check in and meet the goal every week during the challenge to be eligible for the prize drawing at the end of the challenge. If you have any questions, you can either check out the challenge FAQs or just leave a comment here and I’ll be happy to answer them.

As a reminder, this check-in is for last Friday (June 7) through yesterday (June 13). Please report for that time period ONLY.

We had well over 50 people originally sign up for the challenge. We had 28 people check in for the first week, and only 22 for last week. C’mon, challengers! Let’s hang in there today and keep the momentum going through July 4th! For those of you who have checked in every week so far, your odds for winning the random prize drawing at the end of the challenge just keep getting better.

Speaking of the random prize drawing, I have selected what the winner will receive! Based upon a recommendation from Gail over at Shrinking Sisters, I recently picked up a couple of new DVDs from in-home walking guru, Leslie Sansone. These are from the new-ish series (came out last year) from Leslie called Just Walk. I’m really enjoying both of them a lot! In fact, I’ve been enjoying them so much that I went out and bought another copy of one of them for the prize at the end of the challenge. So, here’s what the lucky winner will receive:

I *love* this DVD! Not only does it include five different walking workouts, but it contains five quick toning workouts as well. There is a pre-programmed “walk diet” that can be followed, or one can mix and match the walking workouts in any order they want to go anything from 1 mile all the way up to 5 miles. I just love how many different ways you can mix things up with just a single DVD!

Here’s the outline of the pre-programmed “walk diet plan.” You can tell from this what the five included toning workouts are as well.

Monday (50:05 total workout)
3 mile walk (46:04)
Abs session (4:01)

Tuesday (1:02.24 total workout)
4 mile walk (59:01)
Arms session (3:23)

Wednesday (24:44 total workout)
1 mile walk (21:27)
Legs session (3:17)

Thursday (37:12 total workout)
2 mile walk (34:19)
Chest and back session (2:53)

Friday (1:14.18 total workout)
5 mile walk (1:10.45)
Full body stretch (3:33)

If you want even more of an idea of what this DVD is like, here’s a preview video:

As a reminder, all you have to do to check-in for the Summer Walk Challenge is leave a comment below and share with us whether you met the goal for the week. You should have a total of at least 7 miles to meet the challenge goal for this. If you have more than that, that’s great! Just check in with how many actual miles you completed. To be eligible for the prize drawing at the end, you need to check in by no later than 11:59pm on Monday, June 17.

Please keep checking in daily on my Facebook page, on my Twitter feed using our hashtag #walkwithmel, on Instagram, and on Dailymile. It’s so encouraging knowing others are out there still plugging away at this with me.

As for me, I got in a total of 19.1 miles this week! Woo Hoo!!! Part of the reason my mileage was so high was due to completing both a 5k and a progressive half marathon this week. I did the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans Foxy 5k on Saturday. I also used that 3.1 miles toward my Dr. Who 50th Anniversary Half Marathon mileage requirement. I followed that up by getting in 5 miles each on both Saturday and Sunday which enabled me to meet my goal of finishing the 13.1 mile half marathon distance in three days.

Sadly, the Watermelon Run that I was scheduled to do next Thursday was cancelled. I guess that means no new race bling for me next week after all.

Well, that’s how my week went. What about you? Check-in and let us know!

Until next time … keep on walking!

Jun 7 2013

Summer Walk Challenge – Check-In #2

Posted on 7 June, 2013 by TheDailyMel

Hey there, Summer Walk Challengers! Can you believe it’s already time for our second weekly check-in?! That means we’re also one-third of the way through the challenge already!

As a reminder, this check-in is for last Friday (May 31) through yesterday (June 6). Please report for that time period ONLY. If you forgot to check in for the first week, you can go back and do that here.

We had well over 50 people originally sign up for the challenge, but only 28 people checked in for the first week. C’mon, challengers! Let’s hang in there today and keep the momentum going through July 4th! For those of you who did check in for last week, your odds for winning the random prize drawing at the end of the challenge just got a lot better.

All you have to do to check-in for the Summer Walk Challenge is leave a comment below and share with us whether you met the goal for the week. You should have a total of at least 7 miles to meet the challenge goal for this. If you have more than that, that’s great! Just check in with how many actual miles you completed. To be eligible for the prize drawing at the end, you need to check in by no later than 11:59pm on Monday, June 10.

I’ve really been enjoying interacting with those of you who have been checking in daily on my Facebook page, on my Twitter feed using our hashtag #walkwithmel, and on Instagram. I know a lot of you have been tracking you mileage on Dailymile and have been leaving me notes of encouragement on my tracker there, so I just wanted to say thanks!! It’s definitely been helping me stay motivated to stick with it knowing so many of you are out there doing it, too. It’s also been amazing seeing so many of you posting photos of your walking paths on Instagram, too! Living in a large metropolitan area, I’m so jealous of some of the amazing nature walks and greenway paths that many of you have access to use for your walks!! Check out a fewof these examples:

From Suz (@natesmom89)
From Karena (@Karena_O) – one of our international walkers!
Another from Karena – Seriously, I totally want to move to Belgium now!
From Jen (@mendingjen) and another from Jen
From Dawn (@Scarydawn99)

I also want to send out a big shout-out to Carleen (@craftycarleen). On Wednesday, she posted on Twitter that she really pushed herself on her walk that day and shaved a FULL MINUTE off her mile time! WTG Carleen!!!!

As for me, I got in a total of 13.5 miles this week! Woo Hoo!!! On top of that, I also got in two Les Mills Pump workouts and plan to hit a Zumba class at the gym this afternoon.

So, that’s how my week went. What about you? Check-in and let us know!

Until next time … keep on walking!

Jun 3 2013

Weekly Weigh-In: Week 3

Posted on 3 June, 2013 by TheDailyMel

Hey gang! It’s time for another weekly weigh-in update on my weight loss efforts. Things have actually been going really well. I’m highly motivated not only for eating properly, but with getting in activity, too.

I’m trying to be smart about it though and avoid doing too much too quickly and end up injuring myself. I’ve gone down that road before and definitely don’t want to repeat that. Injury usually just leads me down a spiral of feeling sorry for myself which leads to lots of comfort eating. Naturally, that leads to weight gain which then leads to more feeling sorry for myself, and so it. It just become a very vicious cycle, so one can easily see why I’m trying to ramp back up into my activity slowly.

As for last week, things went remarkably well. I splurged a bit on a couple of nice meals, but only after making sure I could work them into my daily and weekly PointsPlus targets for Weight Watchers. On Tuesday, I some wonderful Brazilian BBQ of tequila lime chicken (skin removed), feijoada (black bean stew), and maduros (sweet fried plantains). The meal cost me 16 PointsPlus, but was totally worth it! On Thursday, I had my own little mini spring Thanksgiving dinner with roasted turkey breast (no skin), stuffing, and steamed veggies. That meal was 11 PointsPlus and was really tasty, but I think I would skip the stuffing the next time. It was just OK, so wasn’t really worth the points it cost me. A couple of other favorite meals for the week included some baked salmon with pan-roasted vegetables and a Berry Almond Salad from Wendy’s.

So, after eating all of that yummy food, what was the result on the scale? Well, here’s the outcome:

Woo Hoo … another two pounds gone! That puts me down a total of 5.6 pounds since I started over again on May 12. I’m really happy with how things are going. Per the weight tracker in my Plan Manager in eTools, I’m losing an average of 1.9 pounds per week right now. Of course, I know that I likely won’t keep up that awesome pace, but I’m enjoying it while it lasts. Here’s my weekly recap view from eTools (click for a larger view):

As you can see from my Healthy Checks section, I definitely need to work on getting in my healthy oils. It’s really the only healthy check item that I struggle with on a consistent basis. Since I only met the goal completely one day out of last week, my goal for this week is to meet the goal at least three days. I figure rather than trying to just start doing it perfectly every day, I’ll just work on gradually increasing that as well just like I’m doing with my activity.

Here’s a copy of my updated weight tracker as well. Again, you can click the image for a larger view.

As you can see, it shows that since my restart on May 12, I’m averaging 37 PointsPlus per day and 14.5 Activity Points per week. I missed four or five days of earning any APs a couple of weeks ago because my back was bothering me, so I’m sure that’s why my average is lower. My first goal will be to get that average up to 21 APs per week or 3 APs per day. Once I meet that goal, then I’ll shoot for increasing it to 28 APs average per week or 4 APs per day.

Speaking of activity, if you are participating in my Summer Walk Challenge and haven’t checked in for the first week yet, please remember to do so before 11:59pm PT tonight. Only those who check in each week by the Monday night deadline will be eligible for the random drawing at the end of the challenge. Thanks!

Well, that’s it from me for this update. How is everyone else going? Chime in by leaving a comment and let me know how you’re doing.

Until next time …

Jun 1 2013

Monthly Goals for June & a Fit Party Recap

Posted on 1 June, 2013 by TheDailyMel

Wow, I can’t believe it’s June already! This year is flying by at an alarming pace, at least for me. I have a feeling the next seven months, including June, will ALL be flying by for me as I’m making the final big push toward finishing my degree in December. Once that’s done, I’m definitely looking forward to the six month break I’ll have before starting graduate school next July, that’s for sure.

Given today is the start of a new month, I thought I would outline a few goals for myself that I want to work toward during June. I haven’t done this in a while and it definitely shows given I haven’t been as productive as I would like in certain areas of my life. I just always seem to get more accomplished when I have outlined goals to work toward, so it’s time to get back to that habit again! With that in mind, here are my goals for June:

Lose 4 pounds – My normal monthly goal is 5 pounds, but I already know I’ll miss my final weekly weigh-in for June because I’ll be on the road at FitBloggin‘. I figured it’s smart to adjust my goal rather than keeping it the same and going into knowing I might not be able to meet it. It’s all about setting myself up for success in meeting my goals!
Workout 12 times – This is on top of my minimum one mile walk I’ll be doing each day for the Summer Walk Challenge. My goal is to get in other types of cross-training at least three times per week on top of my normal walking. I want to try and have at least two of those three weekly cross-training workouts be strength training, too, but I’m not making that a mandatory requirement of the goal.
Finish 3 races – I’m currently signed up for three events in June — The Foxy 5k (virtual race), the Summer Solstice Watermelon 3k (local race), and the Dr. Who 50th Anniversary Half Marathon (virtual race). The Dr. Who race can be completed as either a traditional half marathon of 13.1 miles covered in a single occurrence, or it can be completed as a progressive half marathon with the mileage split up over a few days. I’m planning to do the latter.

So, those are my goals for this month. Of course, on top of all of those I’ll have to deal with working full time, finish this term of school, and then pack and head out on vacation at the end of the month to go to FitBloggin’ and then spend several days visiting Tracy.

As I’m sure many of my fellow Weight Watchers members probably already knew, today was the big Live Life Active Celebration and Open House at Weight Watchers meeting centers around the country. Everything actually kicked off very early this morning (for those of us on the west coast) at 7am PT with an online Fit Party. There were several exercise demonstrations that looked really cool. In fact, I’ve decided I definitely want to check out the Bollywood-inspired Doonya DVD series. It looked like a really fun workout! Who knows, it might be the next Zumba (which, btw, was also demonstrated during the Fit Party)! If you happened to miss seeing it this morning, you can still catch the Fit Party replay online. I’m not sure how long it will be available, but it’s still there as of now.

Later in the afternoon, I headed over to my Weight Watchers center to check out the local Open House. The staff there had a really nice set-up with lots of things going on like members sharing their stories, a demo of eTools and the Recipe Builder, etc. There were some yummy treats and giveaways going on, too. I actually won a nifty set of their new measuring bowls. They have little markings inside the bowl for things like 1/2 cup, 2/3 cup, 1 cup, etc. The only real downside I can think of is that they aren’t microwavable, so you can’t use them to reheat soups or anything like that. Here are a couple of pics of the measuring bowls. As always, you can click each image for a larger view.

Here are a few more random photos from the events today. The recipe card was a bonus they were giving out at each center to the first 50 people who checked in at that center on Facebook. Fortunately, I was one of those people at my local center.

Until next time …

May 31 2013

Fitness Friday: Color Me Rad 5k

Posted on 31 May, 2013 by TheDailyMel

Hey gang! I’m still trying to figure out a workable schedule for getting back to blogging on a more consistent schedule. Between work, school, and trying to focus on my weight loss efforts, it’s often difficult to find time to sit down and actually blog. I hate when that happens because I really enjoy blogging and interacting with all of you on a regular basis. Thanks for bearing with me as I figure out how to make it work!

For today’s Friday Fitness post, I wanted to talk a few minutes about one of the latest popular trends in 5k races. There are been other trends in the past like mud runs, trail runs, etc. that are still popular, but the latest trend involves lots of COLOR.

One of these races is the Color Me Rad 5k race series. The folks over at the Color Me Rad event for Los Angeles were nice enough to provide me with a couple of complimentary entries to the race here.

This series debuted last year and has quickly become very popular. As a result, they have LOTS of locations where the series will be taking place over the next year and they tend to sell out which shows just how popular they are with participants.

For my local readers, the Los Angeles area Color Me Rad 5k will take place on Saturday, June 22. It’s happening at the Home Depot Center in Carson which is easily accessible from the 405, 91, or 110 freeways as well as via bus and/or rail service from the Los Angeles MTA. It’s not sold out … yet, so there’s still time to register. If you register TODAY (May 31), you can beat the $5 price increase that kicks in tomorrow.

Now, I’m sure a lot of you may be wondering exactly what is that colored powder and is it safe? It absolutely is! It’s just colored corn starch. It should easy wash right off when you take a shower/bath. Organizers did mention in their FAQs that it might take a couple of shampoos to get it all out of your hair, so just bear that in mind.

This race isn’t about setting PRs, winning your age division, etc. In fact, it’s not even timed. The event is all about just getting out there with friends and family and having a good time. It’s open to all ages (sorry, no pets), so bring the kids along because you know they’ll have a blast getting pelted with colored powder. This event is for EVERYONE from all walks of life regardless of age, weight, runner, walker, etc.

Have you ever done a color race like Color Me Rad? If so, what did you think of it? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Until next time …

Disclaimer: Color Me Rad provided me with two complimentary race entries for this promotional post.

May 31 2013

Summer Walk Challenge – Check-In #1

Posted on 31 May, 2013 by TheDailyMel

Hey there, Summer Walk Challengers! I know we just kicked things off on Monday, but I figured Friday is a good check-in day for us, so here we are already with our first weekly check-in. Don’t forget, you’ll need to check in and meet the goal every week during the challenge to be eligible for the prize drawing at the end of the challenge. If you haven’t done so already, don’t forget to check out the challenge FAQs.

Now, on to the business of the check-in! Since our check-in day will be on Friday, you will normally be checking in for the period of the previous Friday through Thursday. Since this is a short week due to just getting started, today’s check in will be for Monday through Thursday of this week.

All you have to do in order to check-in for the Summer Walk Challenge is leave a comment below by no later than 11:59pm on Monday, June 3 and share with us whether you met the goal for the week. Since this is a short week, you should have a minimum total of 4 miles. If you have more than that, that’s great! Just check in with how many miles you completed.

We have well over 50 people participating in the challenge. I can’t wait to see how you’ve all done so far! I know a lot of you have been checking in daily on both my Facebook page and on Twitter using our hashtag #walkwithmel. That’s awesome because it lets us encourage each other during the rest of the week, but you’ll still need to check in here each Friday as well to make it easier for me to keep track of who is eligible for the prize drawing. Thanks!

As for me, I got in a total of 6.4 miles walked for this week. On top of that, I also got in a Les Mills Pump workout and have another planned for tonight. I’m really working to try and start incorporating strength training in addition to the cardio in my plan. Pump is a nice way for me to accomplish that without having to worry about getting to the gym. I actually ordered my set from Amazon. Since I’m an Amazon Prime member, I was able to get it quicker and didn’t have any shipping charges which saved me quite a bit due to the weight.

Until next time … keep on walking!