Fitness – My August RunKeeper Stats

I am really enjoying my walks and runs. That said, I was in Guangzhou for 17 days in August and pretty much unable to run due to the fact that there was nowhere safe to run 😦 The streets are full of people from 6 a.m. to midnight, so in order to safely run you have to get up and be out the door by 5 a.m.!

Needless to say I didn’t pound the pavement as much as I’d have liked this past month, although I got plenty of walking in. Here’s my August stats:

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And here’s my stats since March:

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I’ve nearly walked, run and hiked 700 kilometers/435 miles in 5 months! This is the breakdown:
Walking: 468.2 kms/290 miles
Running: 195.4 kms/122 miles
Hiking: 26 kms/16 miles

Staying active is key to losing weight and keeping it off. Just moving 30 minutes a day, even if it’s just walking, will benefit you in amazing ways!

What was your active movement on Monday?

Ciao!

Running, blog stats and random stuff

I’ve had a pretty exciting week from a personalĀ 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!Ā 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 šŸ™‚ Woot!

Another awesome thing that happened this week is that at some point I reached 50,000 hits on my blog! AndĀ I’veĀ logged nearly 3500 comments! It makes me so happy that so many peopleĀ haveĀ 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 thatĀ haveĀ 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 andĀ they’veĀ seen my success. All 4Ā haveĀ 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 IĀ haveĀ 51 days left in China. I can’tĀ believeĀ I’veĀ 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 myĀ ViviMokaLakaĀ 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 sunriseĀ overĀ theĀ RooseveltĀ Bridge first thing in the morning. And there’s no place like home.Ā I’veĀ had a fun 4 yearsĀ livingĀ abroad šŸ™‚ But on to new projects and fixing up my AirStream!

I hopeĀ everyoneĀ has a wonderful Wednesday!

Ciao!

Dukan – Day 257 & Liebster Award

Tuesday was a PP Day šŸ™‚

Daily Weight Loss: 0.4 lb/0.2 kg
Total Weight Loss: 91.8 lbs/41.71 kgs
**yesterday’s daily weight loss should have been 0.7 lbs, not 1 lb… I must have put transposed the numbers, so if anyone is following that, there has been an adjustment šŸ™‚

Tuesday was May Day… May 1st and it is apparently a public holiday here, so I had the day off… paid. That was nice!

I woke up at 545 a.m. on my day off… UGH! Although I had been sleeping for nearly 8 hours I really, really wanted to see if I could stay asleep… yeah, no. So up I got, jumped in the shower, made a french press carafe of Peet’s Coffee… yum, and laced up my hiking boots with the intention of hiking up the mountain again. Then, while on the bus I decided I wanted to hike around West Lake. The lake is beautiful, it was early morning, shouldn’t be too much foot or bike traffic yet. So I got off the bus and according to my trusty GPS on my iPhone, waited for bus 81. And waited and waited. I finally figured out there was no such thing as Bus 81 😦

So I started walking towards West Lake. I got to a sweet little park and had a couple of tea eggs. I thought I’d need the energy for the 9 mile walk around the lake… while I sat there I got a text from Kira and decided I needed some Soren love, and headed her way, instead!

On the way, I stopped at Pacific Coffee and picked up an iced latte w/skim milk. And took this picture of myself…

Gotta work on that pooch!

I had a fantastic day hanging out with them… ALL DAY! Sat on the couch, cuddled with Soren, pet the cat, chatted with Kira, helped her pack up Soren’s bedroom and watched about 14 episodes (I’m not kidding) of Steven Seagal: Lawman. I actually enjoyed it! Dan brought us iced lattes in the afternoon and then we had Arabic food for dinner…. yum! An all around fun day!

I then walked the 3.41 miles home. That’s 5.48 kms šŸ™‚ Nice walk. Here’s the results…

Nice walk home. The weather has been pretty decent the past few days, temp wise. After I got home I finished reading The Last Lecture and followed up on some emails… chatted with my daughter, Tiffany and off to bed at 10 p.m. I hope everyone is having a good week so far!

Ciao!

LOL… I forgot about the Liebster Award… šŸ˜€ My blogging friend AnnaĀ nominated me for this award andĀ had this to say about it:

FIVE BLOGS THAT ARE ā€˜LIEBSTER’ TO ME… 

1-Flamidwyfe’s BlogĀ https://flamidwyfe.wordpress.com/Ā Ā Sandi blogs about her adventures and spectacular success onĀ the Dukan DietĀ while living in China and being a midwyfe.Ā  She is an awesome example of putting your dreams out there and living FULLY!!Ā  Also, I wouldn’t even be a blogger if it weren’t for Sandi xo

Five facts:

1. Each of my kids thinks that I favor the others over them… and at various times through their life cycles I have favored them. They are all VERY unique individuals. Right now my favorite is my “baby”, Tiffany LeAnn. She is an amazing human being on many levels and I am most proud to be her mom.

2. I consider myself Evangelical AND and from the Christian Left… some think that’s an oxymoron šŸ™‚ I also love the teachings of Buddha!

3. I’ve been divorced for nearly 19 years… he’s a friend on Facebook. He’s the 2nd husband, who wasn’t a jerk and is still alive, thank God!… LOL. It’s important for people who divorce to put their kids FIRST… I think we mostly did that (there will always be a screw up or three along that path!)

4. I miss living in the Middle East more than I ever could have imagined! Everything about it.

5. I’ve done quite well with removing toxic people from my life and keep them out. It makes for a much cleaner living šŸ™‚

5 blogs I nominate:

1.Ā http://inspiringandhealthyrunninginlondon.wordpress.com/Ā … her running all over the world inspires me to lace up my shoes!

2. Mel atĀ http://wwangel.wordpress.com/Ā My first runner’s blog… she ROCKS and is so encouraging to me… thanks Mel!!!

3. Abbi at Lil Monkey’s Mama… today’s post was especially thought provoking!

4.Ā http://lipomachia.wordpress.com/Ā … a woman who has taken control of her diet after being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Not only has she gained control over her blood sugar, but has lost weight to boot! She’s amazing and I’m in awe of her transformation!

5. AndĀ http://notimetow8.com/Ā … his weight loss and his running of his first 5K are spurring me on to keep training for MY 5K… Well done!

IfĀ you have been nominated, here is what you do to keep it rolling:

Each Nominee Should:

  1. ChooseĀ five,Ā up and coming blogs to give the Liebster award to. Ā Blogs must have less than 200 followers.
  2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
  3. Post the award on your blog.
  4. List the bloggers you gave the award to with links to their sites.Ā  Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know they’ve received the award.
  5. Share five random facts about yourself!