Monday Sept 7th, 2016   One Month Back Home..... dragging my heels a bit!

Well it's been a trying month!  I ended up with a very bad chest cold and it has SLOWED me down... but I've been doing OK!  Working on the All or northing spectrum and I have to say that I am pretty close to the nothing side and that's OK, but it's time to set some goals and get working a bit harder. 

I have kept off all the weight that is got rid of in Utah and have  lost another 5 lbs and found it a bit and lost it a bit.  It's great to know that if you are pretty good with your food that you don't have to work off the extra with exercise!

We have been trying to get more active as a family.  Getting out biking, walking, kayaking together. 

We went out Camping with our extended family for our reunion and had the opportunity to do some great hiking.  I went up "TUFF PUFF" a 3,106.96 FT climb!  It was tough.  But 1 step at a time, 1 break at a time, we got to the top.  It was a great mother / son bonding day!

Our entire family went out across from the Columbia Icefields and we climbed another 1266 feet to get to a beautiful meadow where we enjoyed a picnic lunch and headed back down.

It was a great weekend camping with our family.  Enjoyed a few drinks, a few smores, a few healthier smokies and with all the calories burned, SHOULD not have seen a change on the scale and I came home and............ 7 lbs up.............. yes  7 lbs! How on earth is this possible>??  Mathematically it is not!  Sure enough, after 5 days at home , the water gain was balanced out and all was back to normal!  Glad I didn't get upset, I just let it slide and it balanced itself out.  It is just a number! Use it as a basic guideline but don't get too caught up about the number. 

THE STEWART CLAN 2016

A HEALTHY WEIGHT IS A WEIGHT THAT YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT!

Over the last 2 summers I have not been able to waterski and it was devastating!  I did not even try last year and that felt horrible and I just went back to the campstall and ate another 5 smores!

This year I was excited to jump in the water and give it my ALL! I got up on the first try and did AWESOME!  My butt fit on the seat and I was able to do the seatbelt up, my upper body was strong enough to get the job done!  To me - this is the indicator of a Healthy Weight! A weight that I can do whatever I want to do without my weight standing in the way. 

I had signed up for the Banff Grand Fondo Bike race last year and made a bunch of excuses and transferred it to this year and there was no way I was ready to do 150 km's as I didn't have the time put in on my bike seat and had not trained for the hills, but am fit, so I decided to do the 90 km version of the race rather than QUITTING again.  I had a really bad chest cold and after the race was pretty close to having pneumonia -but it was great!   I placed 5 / 47 in my age category   16/192 in women ....
. HOLY COW!!!!

I placed 74/ 373 in the entire race! There is still a devil in my brain, i'm not good enough, i'm not fast enough.  I just don't feel like an athlete - I looked at the majority of the other bikers ( most of them were behind me or I passed) and they all LOOK like athletes.  I had quite a few people make comments to me as a few passed me - they were all good comments, but I could tell that they were surprised by my pace / endurance as  I  have a good 70 lbs on the majority of the other riders.  There were a few heavier riders, but we were definitely the minority.    So I have to work on my positive self talk.

I have another bike race this Saturday, it is 100 km and I have been sick for 3 weeks with a chest cold and now have an abscess  in a bad area for biking - so could easily duck out again, but I will do my best and enjoy the ride and exercise.

So the goal for the next week is to get FOCUSED AGAIN .  I feel like i'm slipping back into a few old bad habits, feeling comfortable in body and this is the place that I usually start sliding the other way.  So practicing the all or nothing spectrum, I will take one day at a time, work on progress not perfection! 

I have booked a vacation to my favorite place on earth and I get to go with my MOM!  We are going to spend a week at the Akumal Bay Resort and I bought a bikini top that I look forward to wearing while I'm there, so time to get back into routine, I really wish my fitness classes were starting already!   A few weeks to go, so I still have time to get prepped and work on my fitness level some more - I feel that it has really gone downhill in the last month. 

Until next time!