Couch to 5K

Well so far blog has been a bust.  My daughter lives with me and she decided she wanted to learn to cook so I gladly moved over and let her.  Then I volunteered for a tour in Afghanistan and haven't posted in over a year.  Oh well, it is time to jump back on the wagon and give it a go.

I have signed up to go on a Disney cruise with my kids in September and I wanted to lose 30 lbs.  Of course I haven't done anything to make that happen so far. We started a food plan but slowly gave up and I have put on 5 lbs.  Wrong way.  My eating is not that bad really.  Yeah right, you say.  I would be okay if I would exercise and I think that would be the better place to start for me.  Soooo!  I have selected to run the Zombie Run in Indianapolis on Oct 6th.  That means I have to get into shape.

I have selected the couch to 5K program to get into shape for the run.  It is a great starting place and their are several podcasts to listen to help.  I have selected the nhs.uk C25K podcasts found on iTunes.  The narrator has a great English accent and the music is good.

Week 1 workout 1 - walk 5 minutes - 7 cycles of run 60 seconds/walk 90 seconds - run 60 seconds - walk 5 minutes.  30 minutes later you have one pooped puppy with a sore left thigh and I have puffed like a train several times.  I started out walking at 3 mph and running at 4.2 mph.

Well that is enough for today and we workout again Wednesday.  Have a great day!

Crazy Woman on the Run!!

Down another pound for a total of 9.4 lbs loss.

I have started my exercise today.  I walked for 30 minutes at 3.5 miles per hour.  I am going to do a half marathon this year.  What a challenge!  My friend Rohan is a marathoner and he is going to help me come up with a training schedule.  I find "couch potato" to 5K but no "couch potato" to half marathon.  Am I crazy?  Okay even I heard the resounding YESES out there.  It is something on my bucket list and as I am going to be 50 this year it is a good thing to do.  What is even crazier is I find it kind of exciting to think of running a half marathon.  Of course I am going to miss the May date but I want to run the Indy 500 mini marathon.  What person could resist a race where you get to run a lap on the raceway?  Okay it doesn't appeal to everyone but it does to me.

I said last week we were going to make a meal plan for the week and I never posted it.  Heather, dd, does most of the cooking and she had a plan.  I am going to have to get more involved.  Can I claim ignorance?  Not if I want to lose weight.

Well I am signing off.  By the way, all you Trekkies, did you know they have discovered liquid Aluminium?  Here is one link to it:  http://www.stenaaluminium.se/en/About-aluminium/Liquid-aluminium/

French Bread and Tomato Basil Soup

Tried simple French Bread and Tomato Basil Soup from Recipe Shoebox tonight.  The bread was a little flat; probably because I used one yeast packet and then only did the second rise for about a half hour.  The important thing is it still tasted great. Of course, when does yeast bread taste bad when it is hot from the oven?  For the soup, I only used one can of crushed tomatoes and 1% milk instead of cream (didn't feel like dragging the 2 yr old DGD out into the snow for groceries.) I liked the soup with the one can of tomatoes but I think I would have liked it with cream better and the cream is one WWPP difference per serving.

Daughter just got home from drill so hopefully we can sit down and get a menu plan for the week worked out.  I didn't get to far with it today; I started reading blogs and that is all she wrote.

One pound down this week

Found another blog Org Junkie who has ideas for Menu Planning and many links to weekly menus.  I am going to try this.  I know if I want to lose weight, I have to plan for it and stick to it; A big problem for me.  Let's try this and see how it goes.  I also need to plan my exercise this week.  I am thinking Zumba will be fun.  I will post my plan and then track how it goes.

Fluffy Biscuits

So my daughter has surpassed me in making homemade biscuits.  I found a hint in a Thanksgiving cookbook I picked up to skim at a friends house.  The author talks about how the flour in the south is "softer" and he recommended to mix half cake flour with half all-purpose flour to get great biscuits.  It worked!!.  They were twice as tall and so light and fluffy.  Now she has biscuits and gravy down.  Look out guys, she is single.

Of course, biscuits and gravy should be eaten in moderation to help with your weight loss.  Down 4 pounds this week.  I cut back on portions size and tried not to eat to many homemade cookies or cinnamon rolls. Why is it when you want to lose weight, you feel the urge to bake homemade goodies?

Well, let me know how you are doing or if you have any good biscuit tricks.

Introduction

Welcome to my weight loss and cooking journey.  I am hoping that by sharing my ups and downs: I can lose weight, learn to cook and create a "family" of encouragement along the way.  I would like to lose at least 90 pounds to bring me down to a livable size.  So before I get long winded, let's get started.