For those of you that are just now finding our blog and don't know what on earth we're talking about, feel free to go back to our first post on September 13th to read the outline for our challenge.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Code Name: TORTOISE MJ Week 23

Doop.....D.....Doop...
D....Doop...Doop....Doop....
Doop...DOOP!


I'm still here. Still moving. Slowly but surely!

$10



xoMJ

Adventures in NOTHING by Jj

Seriously . . my life is so freaking lame right now. About 80% of the time I don't even bother getting ready for the day. I find it pointless. And when I do, I throw on a headband or a hat and grab whatever jeans are at the top of the pile. Other than going to church, I don't recall the last time I put on makeup. But hey, at least I shower every couple of days. Oh, and to top it off, this morning I realized that I'm about 8 weeks from the two year mark in my home which means that if it sells in the next 8 weeks, then I'll be charged capital gain taxes. So, I could wait another month before listing it but if I find a job and have to move then I'm still SOL because I actually have to LIVE in the house for two years to prevent the taxes. Now I'm totally lost and don't know what to do.

But, on a happier note, I've got a lot of time to go to the gym and I've been doing a lot of hard work around my house so I'm burning more. So I've lost the couple extra pounds that I put on in the last couple of weeks and I'm back to where I was (but I've gained a little in inches that aren't gone yet) - which is the same as I weighed at 16 so that deserves a little mini party.

Depositing $9 for this week.

PS This makes it sound like I'm really depressed, but I'm not. I'm just a little lost. I'll figure it all out eventually. Wish me luck.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Maria Week 23 - Totally Bummed!

So the totally cute guy checking me out at the gym is totally not checking me out afterall. I am so bummed!

That's twice now I've been disappointed at the gym. The first time was when some guys started whistling at me and I turned around to discover they are my brother-in-laws buddies. Not that THAT alone makes it disappointing - but clearly they weren't whistling at me cuz they think I'm hot.

Oh, well.....I still have Kyle Whittingham.

Anyway .... depositing max $10 for workouts and fruits and veggies.
Narrowly missed a milestone as I mentioned in my Jordan River Parkway post. Bummed about that too. Darn it!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Jordan River Parkway

Nearly a year ago - I took a walk along the Jordan River Parkway. I started at 12300 South and walked as far as I could stand. I felt like I had walked forever and there was no end to the Parkway. It made me very curious. It had to end eventually and I wanted to know where. But it was clearly too far for me to ever able to find unless I was on a bike. Well....that was last year. This year - I am strong enough to find the end of the Parkway. And it wasn't walking it - it was running it!!!!!!

Only....the thing is....I didn't really find it. I ran into a residential area and thought that was the end. Called it quits, turned around, and ran all the way back to the beginning.

I got onto www.mapmyrun.com to map out how far I had run - the goal was 7 miles. And the beautiful satellite photos of the parkway and my running trail showed me that 1- it was NOT the end of the parkway at all! It continued on after the residential area. And 2 - I had only run about 6.7 miles! DANG IT!

So I missed a milestone this week. Next week is my scheduled 8 mile run so - I should hit that milestone and just bypass the 7 mile one altogether. Oh, well! Whatcha gonna do?

But I am very proud of myself because that was my first time running on the road and not on a treadmill. Holy crap - you use completely different muscles on the road vs a treadmill and I was SORE! It helped build my confidence and that is a good thing. Moab doesn't look quite so scary anymore.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Good Fortune. . . MJ Week 22

Well, look who missed Wednesday! Sorry about that!

It was a pretty good week for me. I'm still not exercising at the capacity I would like to be but I'm getting there. I overdid it a little bit on Tuesday and consequently, I paid for it yesterday. The hard part is taking it slow. I wish I could run!

The highlight of my week was a little slip of paper from a fortune cookie.



I don't like fortune cookies but it's always fun to read the fortune. Once in a while you get a good one! I can't wait to be on vacation! When I read my fortune I immediately thought of you girls! (My kids thought about our upcoming trip to Disneyland.) It really is nice to have a week with the girls in my future! We'll have to get together before the trip to buy big floppy sunhats and coordinating toenail polish!

I tried the bread that Maria suggested and it is great! I have never really paid much attention to what I was eating until I joined this fitness challenge. Now I look at all of the nutrition labels. Eating healthy has been very rewarding. Although, they do have Easter Candy in the stores. It is right next to the discounted Valentine candy! What is a girl to do? I'll tell you what I did this morning...I walked right by and then headed to the produce section and picked out some avocados, carrots and cauliflower!



$10

xoMJ

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Being home all day DOES NOT help my diet... by Jj

So since I got home from Vegas I've been trying to get to the gym more but I've been spending multiple hours online each day job hunting and haven't gotten in as much as I'd like. I've discovered that I've got to be much more careful about my diet and my food journal when I'm just sitting here all day. It's SO hard to remember to record things when it's just sitting there and I forget I even ate it. Ugh. I'm starting over again today and I AM going to do better. I gained a pound and a half and I just can't afford to go backwards right now. Of course, I did weigh myself at 11am instead of 8 like I normally do which I know could make a huge difference too. I'll weigh myself again tomorrow just to check it again. I'll be depositing $7.50 this week.

Oh . . and for my funny story of the week. You should have seen this guy on the treadmill last night! He seriously looked like a young version of Muhammad Ali. He was dancing around on the treadmill like he thought he was at a club. It was so entertaining that I almost fell off the elliptical. Hilarious.

Rachel has offical lost "it"

Well ladies I have lost the proverbial "it". Which I think is my mind. I'm completely lost on which day we are actually living - in other words I posted on Monday completely thinking it was Tuesday or did I? Wait.....what day did I post on this week? Yep, it was Monday. Time has lost meaning! I've forgotten piano lessons and all sorts of things.

How do you re-energize your memory. Maybe I need a dose of sunshine too. I feel so...so...so blond. sorry Jj

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Maria Week 22

My focus is back on running. I have 1 month until my half marathon and I feel like I have really slacked off recently. I have a training coach and that is helping a lot in the motivation department - as well as keeping me on track.
As a result of shifting my focus to only running I have been forced to take some "rest" days - which are primarily days where I work out much lighter and for a shorter amount of time. Because let's face it - I WILL NOT take a real rest day. So I do what I can. And that may equate to smaller deposits each week.
Also, I have been avoiding weighing myself since that is no longer an issue for me - and because I was honestly obsessing about it.
Oh, and I fell of the wagon again with recording my foods. Gotta get back on that! Starting today!
I hit 6 miles again in my running and I am on track to go 7 this week so I should have another milestone week next week! YAY!

Depositing $12.00 - max for workouts and fruits and veggies and $2 for the 6 mile milestone

Monday, February 16, 2009

Rachel's 22nd week

Back in a slump.

Depositing $3 for workouts

Thursday, February 12, 2009

rachel week 21

umm.... not a very good week. only exercised twice! Knee has been hurting me since I fell while ice skating.

$4 :)

ADVENTURES IN FIBER MJ Week 21

Since I've been working on making sure I get enough fiber, I thought it might be fun to do a little product review. I'm sure you've seen the FiberOne products. Maybe you've tried them. How can you resist? So much of your daily fiber in just one granola bar or one bowl of cereal.


Well, I tried the Honey Clusters cereal a couple of months ago and they were pretty good. They weren't as sweet at Honey Bunches of Oats (my favorite breakfast cereal) but I thought the extra fiber made up for it. My kids liked them too, which translates as a thumbs up in my world.




Then I decided to try the Caramel Delight. They weren't quite a delight though. Both thumbs down! They offer about as much interest to the taste buds as a bowl of packing peanuts!

You win some & you lose some.







$10
xoMJ

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plane

But whenever I go on a trip, it stays where ever I am. Maybe I should take a plane to Spain and see what happens. hhmmm . . . Seriously?!? Why is it that EVERYTIME I go on a trip I get rained out? Don't get me wrong, I still had a good time but it made for a very cold weekend.

Sadly, because of the pouring and I really mean POURING (I'm using a lot of caps but that seems to be the only way to get my point across, but I'm open to suggestions) on Saturday. Well, really it was raining just about every day but we'll get to that later. So our hashing even was canceled. Actually, Aeon (Jana's BF) still went but we decided to go shopping instead. Much more useful in my opinion.

We went rock climbing on Sunday (don't judge - I was communing with nature). But it was so freezing cold that I only made it about 3/4 the way up the mountain before I had to come down because my hands were frozen and I couldn't grip the rock anymore. I think I was only about 5 feet from the sunshine and warm rock but I just couldn't handle it anymore. So I went hiking with some other people in our group to warm up instead. So either way, I got in some good exercise. I've got pictures but I haven't transferred them to my computer so I've attached some random photos from First Friday instead. I'll get you rock climbing pictures for next weeks post. (Ignore the guy trying to lick my cheek. That's Jana's BF.)




Unfortunately, the diet journal went out the window. I tried to keep track of some stuff on my iPod but when you're staying with someone else and random people are cooking you dinner you can't really go asking for the recipe so you can calculate the calories and digging for a measuring cup to make sure you only get one serving. Well, I guess you could but if you ever want to be invited back, I would advise otherwise.

Luckily, Jana and Aeon and friends are all pretty healthy eaters. I'm sure I probably went over on carbs more than once, but I think I did pretty good on calories. No milestones to report, but I didn't gain anything either. Maybe I should make that a milestone. I seem to be good at that one. And I know this isn't a milestone, but I'm excited about it so I'm going to report it anyway . . . I've gone down at least a full pant size. Before I was wearing a 10-12 but now I'm a pretty solid 8. I could stand to lose another 3 lbs to make them fit PERFECTLY and that will happen but I needed new jeans because the old ones kept falling off so I decided to just go with it. Whoohoo! Anyway, depositing the max of $10 this week.

And since I've got nothing but time on my hands for a while, I'm going to try to spend a lot more time in the gym for the next few weeks. If I don't find something to entertain me I may just totally lose my mind.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Maria Week 21

I made another attempt at bootcamp. I am happy to report that I burned approximately 400 calories in the 45 minutes I was in class. I am sad to report that I was only in class for 45 minutes instead of the full hour because my toes couldn't take it anymore. I felt the skin rip this time and stopped immediately. Fortunately, it was the old injuries simply reopening and not any new injuries. So I should heal very quicly - in fact, I felt pretty good the very next day.
Huge day for me on Saturday and then again on Monday. I burned more than 1600 calories on both of those days in my workouts alone!
Depositing max $12 for workouts and fruits and veggies (more fruits than veggies I'm afraid) plus a milestone - 1 week of keeping my food journal.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

WAY TOO MUCH time on my hands . . .

and yet, still accomplishing nothing. Sorry I didn't get my post in on Wednesday. I was busy packing and cleaning up my house to go out of town. I'm not on my computer so I don't have all of my records, but I'm pretty sure I've met the max of $10. If not, I'll correct it again next week. I seem to be doing that a lot lately. My bad. I did lose another pound this week which means . . . I OFFICIALLY weigh the same as I did at 16!! Now, just another 5 to go and I'll weigh what my license says I do. Now, if only I could actually still fit in my old uniforms. Oh those were the days.

I should have a much more exciting week to report on next week. Jana and I are going Hashing on Saturday, minus the beer and the four letter words (it's not what you think, follow the link and check it out) and rock climbing Sunday or Monday. So as long as I don't fall off the face of the mountain it should be all good. ohohoh . . and I'm going shopping for new jeans! Gotta get some that fit as everything that I own now is falling off. Sad - but in a good way.

MJ Week 20

I hope you ladies know how much I love you!

$9.00

xoMJ

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Rachel's week 20

I meant to do this last night but here we are doing it on Wednesday night! I love Wednesdays *please note previous comment is dripping with sarcasm!*
I'm waiting to loose 3 more pounds..... plateau?

This week did well with life just found out that our elementary is going to go from year-round to a traditional schedule!! I wonder how this is going to be???????

$10 deposit

Maria Week 20

Gosh....can't think of anything exciting to say. Nothing really out of the ordinary happened this week. Nothing noteworthy or praiseworthy.
I will report, so that I actually have something to say, that I am now the points leader in the Sanders health and fitness challenge. Just need to hang on to that. If you want to check it out .... http://sanderslosers.blogspot.com/
I haven't ran another long distance since my crazy work week and then my injured toes and I'm scared to death to try that again and find that I am horribly out of shape :-( Oh, my toes are all healed - that's something, I guess.
Going to try and log my food again - I think I may have gotten a bit off track so I added a new goal with regards to that.

Well, depositing the max $10 for workouts and fruits and veggies.

Thanks ladies for all your love and support! And thanks to any and all of our followers!