Running With Dreams

Posted on August 7, 2012 by flamidwyfe

“A runner must run with dreams in his heart.”
– Emil Zatopek

I run with dreams in my heart. My first goal in running was to run more than 45 SECONDS without falling and/or crying. It took me a week of calling the “Voice of C25K” every name in the book, to be able to do that… that was back in January. 8 months ago. I had been walking, in fact FAST walking, but I hadn’t run. And I truly couldn’t run 45 seconds without gasping for air. Some of the things I said to myself then:

I’m never, EVER going to be able to do this
EVER
This sucks
I hate you C25K lady… you’re a liar!
It’s been MORE than 45 seconds, dammit!!!

And then I got on with it. Because I’m not a quitter. And I set my next dream, which was to finish Couch to 5K (C25K). And then I signed up for my first 5K in March… scheduled for June 9th in Ocala, while I was home.

I completed Week 8 Day 3 of C25K on April 22nd, just one day after meeting my True Weight goal! Triumphant! Crying HAPPY, HAPPY tears. There were 24 different runs in C25K leading up to the completion. I ran 22 of them in the rain and most of them in the rain and under 50 degrees Fahrenheit! Oh, in the hot summer, do I long for those days now… 😀 This was me after completing a run in the rain:

Lots of emotion finishing a run!

Then on May 9th I had my liposuction surgery done and couldn’t run for 2 weeks. I didn’t feel like running, either! I did walk… every single day, because that’s what you do to keep the weight off!

On May 24 I ran for the first time in 2 weeks and couldn’t take in enough air. Just didn’t seem like I could get a full breath in! Ack! I was running a 5K in a couple of weeks!! But run I did… and I kept running, even though I wasn’t able to run more than 10 minutes w/o slowing my pace to a walk.

June 9, I ran and walked my way through my first 5K! I didn’t do as well as I wanted. I just couldn’t catch my breath and took off from the start too fast. I HAD A BLAST! I met a lady in her 50’s doing her first 5K and we chatted while we ran a few minutes/walked a few minutes. We then ended up walking and picking up trash… LOL. My time was 48 minutes. I had been averaging 44 minutes before my surgery.

Well, last night I did this…

Yes…. a 5K in 37 flippin’ minutes!!! WOOT, WOOT!!!

Here it is in miles… LOL

A record for me 🙂 And the RunKeeper reevaluated and gave me more calories burned!

I actually walked for about 5 minutes to cool down after reaching 5K, but I stopped my RunKeeper on purpose to preserve this moment 🙂

This is what I wrote to Anna this morning:

I bawled my eyes out when I realized I hit 37 minutes 🙂 My Chinese neighbors must think I’m nuts… LOL. Although the security guards have watched me transform over the past year and always say encouraging things while doing a thumbs up (I presume they are encouraging me… lol). Running is super emotional for me, for some reason. When the C25K lady says “walk now” at the end of the long runs I get very teary… last night was a bit different… I KNEW I was WAY ahead of my norm… and I wasn’t winded. I knew it because I take the same boring route every night and was getting way past the usual 5 minute updates from RunKeeper. I actually did 5.3 kms, but purposefully stopped it right as it rolled onto 5K to see how I did… I then let out a series of woots and then cried, with a huge smile plastered on my face. 😀

I find running very emotional. Not sure why. But it’s an awesome emotional, not a bad one! These are things I say to myself now, when I’m running:

It’s only 40 minutes
Just get your shoes on and walk out the door
You can stop whenever you want (I never do!)
Yes, Yes, Yes!!! You’re doing it girl
You’ve got this
You totally rock
WOOOOOOOOOO! I DID IT!!!!!!

You get the picture. I say these out loud. They are affirming. They are gifts to myself. They push me to the next level. They, apparently, are working 😀

My new goal/dream… running a triathlon with Anna, Sandra and Cindy in August 2013. What a great way to celebrate the year I turn 50! I am so looking forward to seeing this dream come to fruition!

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 86 – Sunday Runday

Posted on August 7, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Sunday was an awesome day… food wise, Dukan wise and exercise wise!

Daily weight: 148 lbs/67.2 kgs
Goal weight: 155 lbs/70.5 kgs

I started my morning early with a half hour of yoga and some housework. Then at 0900 out for a walk/run. It was HOT! Here’s how hot…

Feels like 101F… bring it on!

So I did this route… which the GPS is off a bit… I walked along the little river, across the bridge and back… so just move my route (in your head) down a bit… LOL

And these are the scenes along my walk…

The path leaving my complex going towards the river.

The construction site has taken over 1/2 the Buddhist Temple and torn it down… they moved the Big incense burners across the walking path to the river side.

The construction site hasn’t taken the temple half… yet… I sure hope they don’t!

A real working lock!

Guarding the lock.

I could smell a funky smell, like manure, and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from!

This lovely lady was fertilizing the lush greenery along the river walk… Thank you! You make my walk much more beautiful!!!

Continuing on…

I then crossed over the river to come back on the other side.

Incoming barge… an old way of transport with all new construction in the background!

Close up of the wake from the barge.

As I crossed over the bridge once more, I got wolf whistled at… LOL. That made me feel good and gave me the energy in the melting heat to finish…

Out of the 1:20 I only ran 35 minutes. It was just too darn hot… but it gave me the chance to slow down and enjoy the scenery!

Food:
Brekkies: 2 tea eggs… good protein fuel to get started!
Snack when back from walk/run: 2 ounces of an amazingly good aged cheddar that crumbles when you bite it… Mmmmmm and some Jerky… thanks, Suzanne for bringing that!
Dinner at 430 p.m. at Surbhi and Andy’s… OH MY GOD!!! My very favorite Indian dish, Palak Paneer, made just for me! Yummy, authentic Indian food. I am SO grateful for the people I have met on my 4 years of living abroad! I also had a little bit of rice, dal and aloo! Of course this was a celebration meal 😀

When I got home from my 1 hour 20 minute bus ride… standing (now that must have burned some calories) and dancing to my own tune (Rocking out to Rock of Ages soundtrack in the bus… smiling and dancing, sure makes the locals give me a little space) I opened my email to this picture…

Yummy, juicy, delectable Helena… who is almost 5 months! I am SO lucky that I get to be there when these little cutie patooties are born! Can’t wait to make a trip to Boston to cuddle you!

And before bed a pot of 2% Greek Yogurt with Splenda and flax seed meal. Yum!

Awesome day all around… How did your weekend go?

Ciao!

Ten Tips for Running Safely

Posted on August 7, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Excellent running advise! Anyone want to be my Find My Friend buddy??

Run Far Girl

I feel like I’ve read more tragic stories in the past few months about cyclists and runners being struck and killed during their workouts than I ever have before. Just yesterday a cyclist was killed just outside the Olympic park, when he was struck by a bus. I tend to avoid the news because I often feel like it doesn’t add value to my life and only makes me fearful, anxious and slightly paranoid. But stories that are relevant to running (and other aspects of my life) often find their way to me, like these tragic stories, and I feel compelled to respond. Instead of railing against the drivers, or lack of safety laws I feel as if the only thing I can do is reflect on the way that I run and ask: How Can I be Safe?

1) Be Defensive: Consider every driver a distracted driver: they could…

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Random Acts of Kindness

Posted on August 6, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I love getting email notification from Marc & Angel… one of the things they talk about on their post from a few days ago is:

Perform one selfless act. – In life, you get what you put in. When you make a positive impact in someone else’s life, you also make a positive impact in your own life. Do something that’s greater than you, something that helps someone else be happy or suffer less. I promise, it will be an extremely rewarding experience. One you’ll likely remember forever.

We should give selfishly and without looking for something in return. I want to share a few things I’ve done in the past month that have made my life more enriched and gave others, perhaps, a better day…

1. There is a lady in Guangzhou, I believe maybe around my age (late 40’s), who lives on the overpass that I use to go to the Arabic restaurant that I love. She camps out there with who I believe to be her granddaughter. A girl around 8 or so. I don’t know their story, if communication weren’t an issue, I’d ask. But each time I see them, I give her 100 RMB, that’s about $13 US, it’s the least I can do. She usually looks down, but the last time I gave it to her she smiled brightly and said, “thank you” in her best English. It was sweet.

2. I always, always smile at the Ayi’s and thank them. The Ayi’s are the housekeepers here at the hospital and people tend to ignore them. The place wouldn’t run without them! Saturday I was washing my hands at the sink when the Ayi from my department (she is also my cleaning lady at my flat) came up to the sink. I gave her a big smile and thanked her in Mandarin as she handed me a towel to dry my hands. And she walked behind me and gave me a huge hug! THAT was her random act of kindness… and it MADE MY DAY!

3. It was pouring down the rain while I was riding the bus to Surbhi and Andy’s house for dinner yesterday afternoon. There was a mom with a little baby in a carrier distressed about getting off the bus because of the rain. I gave her my umbrella and her smile was dazzling. I ducked, ran and sought shelter as much as possible after I got off the bus, but I felt good knowing that the mom and baby were dry 🙂 What’s a little rain?

These things don’t make me special… AT ALL. They make me human. I’m not pointing them out to get credit or a pat on the back… I’m pointing them out to show how giving to other’s rewards us back, tenfold! I get as much pleasure in giving as the recipients get in receiving. We should all try to do nice things for others.

What have you done in the past few weeks? Think about it… I bet you do random acts of kindness every single day without realizing it… share with me 🙂

Ciao!

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.
~Dalai Lama

Breathe.Give.Love

Some Bloggy Love ♥

Posted on August 5, 2012 by flamidwyfe

You see how amazing my bloggy friends are 🙂

Anna has an amazing garden in NY and has really had a positive affect on my daily life with her enthusiasm and amazing outlook! Check out this post and then get a cup of coffee and check out her interesting blog ♥

Dukan – A Year Goes By in the Blink of an Eye!

Posted on August 4, 2012 by flamidwyfe

One year ago this weekend was my 30th class reunion. A turning point for me.

One year ago yesterday, on Friday, August 5, 2011… I met with a fellow high school alum, John Geraghty to chat about steps to take to change my life. John is a life coach… to me, a life saver. The tools that John gave me that day were stored in my iPad memo section. Books to read, ideas that he gave me… sage advise. I admitted to John that I weighed 255 pounds. No one else knew. You can read more about starting my Dukan journey here and how I felt about my meeting with John.

The following night, Saturday, was the night of our big dinner. My dear friend Denise’s daughter Aleisha was our official photographer and took this picture that seriously changed my life…

Yes… that’s me in the purple.

When I saw this picture the following day, well I can’t even begin to tell you the myriad of emotions that it brought up… and still brings up.

And so my journey on Dukan begin… not quite a year ago, that anniversary is August 20th, but this weekend… exactly one year ago, changed my life.

With Terri and Michele August 2011

With Leslie – February 2012 – 50 pounds lighter! Half way there!

With Teri at my first 5K – June 2012 – 100 pounds gone!

With Denise, Bernadette, Jennifer and Kevin – June 2012

I consider myself very blessed to have the wonderful and amazing friends and family that I have! You all have made this journey much more fun! See you all in September!

And to all of you who follow this blog… THANK YOU… your support has been awesome! I love how supportive our community is 🙂

Ciao!

Dukan – Consolidation Day 85 – Aussie Football Rocks

Posted on August 4, 2012 by flamidwyfe

Wow… 85 days on Consolidation! And you know what… I’m sticking to the plan and my weight is stabilized… I will be in Consolidation for a total of 500 days so I’ve got 415 to go!
Since starting in Consolidation I went from 155 down to a low of 144. I have consistently been between 144 and 148 for nearly 2 months now. Awesome! This morning 146.

Breakfast: Cream cheese pancakes ** without syrup, not able to find sugar free here! Ate them in bed with a cup of coffee before getting ready for work.
This is Titters, my cat, wishing I’d share some of that pancakey goodness with him…

He put his back to me because I wouldn’t share!

Lunch: A yummy salad with red cabbage, cukes, tomatoes and bacon and edam cheese!

Before I carnivored it up 🙂

Afternoon Snack: 2 tea eggs
Dinner: Philly cheese steak without the bread and a small side salad.

Exercise:
Walked to and from work twice as I walked home for lunch.
Ran 5K in record time the night before… loving that I can breathe again. It’s been 12 weeks since my surgery and I’ve only been able to take full breaths for the last 2 weeks… general anesthesia is the culprit, me thinks.

After work I went with Vivien to an Aussie friends house to watch Australian Rules Footie… I am totally into it and the commentary during the game from those watching is great fun and instead of running 10 feet and having a time out, they just keep going and going and going… it’s going to be hard to go home to the States and enjoy the NFL… lol! The end of this game was AMAZING!!! Tom Hawkins (Tomahawk) #26, kicked the winning 6 point goal with 0 seconds left on the clock!!! Bringing them to their 9th victory in a row… I guess Cats really do have 9 lives! So, Rory, my partner in fun for the guest running blog I wrote a few weeks ago, presented me with my official fan Geelong Cats T-shirt! I totally feel like part of the gang now 😀 Thanks, Rory!

I AM A FAN!!

The Tomahawk

At the end of the night my local daughter, Vivien, walked me downstairs and I talked her into a self pic… lol… I’m going to miss this girl when I move home!

ViviMokaLaka – August 2012

I look a little different than I did a little more than a year ago when I took this pic…

ViviMokaLaka – April 2011

Ciao

**I bought the amazing cookbook from this blogger. Her recipes are awesome and easy to follow! I highly recommend the book and can’t wait to get in a REAL kitchen with a REAL oven and make more of the stuff in the book!

Recipe – Dukan – Pan-Fried Moroccan Pork

Posted on August 2, 2012 by flamidwyfe

This recipe is for Consolidation Phase. You could make this with chicken or beef, as well.
To make this cruise compliant leave out the orange… it’s that simple 🙂
It is also Paleo, Whole30 and Atkins compliant.

PAN-FRIED MOROCCAN PORK
Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 chilli, seeded and diced
1 tsp chilli powder (I used medium heat)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp lemon or lime juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 TBS olive oil
1 TBS coconut oil
1 lb. pork, cut into strips
1 orange, 1/2 sliced, 1/2 for juice
4 Tbs fresh parsley, chopped

In a large bowl place the olive oil, chilli, chilli powder, garlic, limon juice, cinnamon and cumin. Mix well.
Place the strips of pork in the rub mix and put lid on and shake, shake, shake to coat. Put in the fridge to marinate for 30 minutes.
Heat the coconut oil in a large frying pan and cook the pork on medium heat for 3 minutes.
Flip the pork strips over, squeeze the juice of 1/2 the orange on top of the meat and add the slices from the other half. Cook 3-4 more minutes, until the pork is done.
Stir in the chopped parsley and serve.
Enjoy!

August Commitments, Goals, and Promises

Posted on August 2, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I love the SMART steps outlined in this post for setting goals. Great idea! Constance lost more weight than me on Dukan! She is now working on fitness. She is an inspiration!

An Ongoing Transformation:

Goal setting, so very important. I have touched on this before but whether you are making goals for yourself subconsciously or taking the time to think and write them out for yourself… they are there, they are what pushes you forward and make you successful at achieving your dreams.

Short-term goals, long-term goals, promises to yourself and commitments, they are key to getting healthier, and to staying or becoming FIT.

I see it all over other blogs, mini goals, you might not have thought to yourself that you are really ‘goal setting’ or gone through, consciously, the steps to creating a solid goal, but you did. Setting goals for weight loss is very easy because all the components to weight loss are easily tracked and can be calculated.

You want to drop inches and see that scale drop. You want to drop body fat and visually see yourself get thinner…

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Running, blog stats and random stuff

Posted on August 1, 2012 by flamidwyfe

I’ve had a pretty exciting week from a personal perspective. I set two personal records running in the past 3 days. The first was my fastest run at 8:26 avg. min/km or 13:34 avg. min/mile. This is a full 1 minute per mile LESS than before I had my surgery in May! The second was that I ran more miles in July than any previous month! Below is my RunKeeper stats…

The brick color is walking, the green is running and the purple is hiking.

I’ve either walked, ran or hiked 544 kilometers since March. That’s 338 miles 🙂 Woot!

Another awesome thing that happened this week is that at some point I reached 50,000 hits on my blog! And I’ve logged nearly 3500 comments! It makes me so happy that so many people have stopped by. I started regularly writing this blog in August to share my journey with family and friends and it has become so much more and that makes my heart swell with happiness!

And that leads to the awesomest things that have happened this week. Actually it happened today… 4 people that I personally know, all of us on 4 different continents, contacted me today (yesterday for some of you) to tell me they are starting the Dukan because they want to be healthier and they’ve seen my success. All 4 have read my blog and I only knew that one of them was. I wish all 4 of you luck!!! I know you will succeed because I know all of you put your mind to something and accomplish it! 4 amazing women… starting on this journey… Good luck and remember that I’m here if you need anything!

I’ll finish by saying that August brings in the last month of summer. It also signals that I have 51 days left in China. I can’t believe I’ve been here nearly a year already! I get one more trip to Guangzhou where I get to hang with my Int’l crew down there, Rose, Jenny, Liza and Dianna. And get to mentor a friend from the Middle East, Aisha! And then back to Hangzhou to finish out my contract… I’m going to miss my ViviMokaLaka so much! She’s the one that brought me here in the first place. I’m going to try to take as many photos as possible in the next 7 weeks.

But I miss home and my kids and my grandkids and my mom and my family and my friends and the beautiful sunrise over the Roosevelt Bridge first thing in the morning. And there’s no place like home. I’ve had a fun 4 years living abroad 🙂 But on to new projects and fixing up my AirStream!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday!

Ciao!