Just a Suggestion - Gardening

When it comes to gardening I can work all day and not complain. I can talk about it for hours and I'm happy to give you advice for your garden (when you ask.) A few weeks ago Five Season's Club asked for my advice. I'm happy to say they were pleased with the input and will be looking to update along the lines of some of my suggestions. 

What do you think?

CURRENT WEST ENTRYWAY:

Current Five Seasons West Entryway - Spring 2015

POTENTIAL REPLANTING:

One potential design - shade garden

I put forward planting concepts for several areas. A bit of a longer term plan. Can't help it - sometimes I just see possibilities :)  Sort of like the club did with me! 

As far as my week went - let's just say I was INERT! 10K on Sunday, workout on Monday, then  after taking Tuesday as my day off, I proceeded to injure myself on Wednesday and have not exercised since. Still some pain and restricted movement. I'm sure MTM will push through that with me tonight. None-the-less, still lost two pounds for no good logical reason.

Have a great day - and if you like to garden, check out my garden Blog (link to the right) Teresa's Garden Song. 

Have a great day - time to get over to the club!

Indoor Skydiving!

Horseshoe Canyon Sunset - 2014

My daughter is a daredevil and a great inspiration for me.  Last year we went hiking in Arizona where we went to the edge of Horseshoe Canyon - the photo on the right. I was so nervous and scared; I hate heights. Just seeing her sit with her feet dangling over the side made me nauseous. 

What my daughter really wanted to do on this vacation was go horseback riding and/or skydiving. Neither of which would ever be on my bucket list. I could always fall back on the reason being that I did not meet the weight requirements set by the service providers. 

Well, having lose over 50 pounds - I can't use that logic anymore.  Hence - Mom took the leap of faith to have an adventure. This past week we went indoor skydiving in Chicago! 

Teresa Marie - Flying!

Indoor Skydiving - ifly Chicago

Can I use this to cross skydiving off my daughters bucket-list? Not sure, but my trainer says that when I'm ready to really jump out of a plane - he'll be there with me. I'll need that support!

Have a great day!

Teresa Marie

Beautiful Day for a 10K !

Today was an exciting day - on the one hand because I did my first 10K, on the other hand because I reaffirmed my commitment to turning over a new leaf. 

The 10K was at the Morton Arboretum which is about 50 minutes from my house. The projections for the day included chilly temperatures and lots of rain. The thought of now going passed through my head many times - especially as everyone that was going with me backed out one by one.  Then it occurred to me that my desire to do this 10K was my choice, me decision, my goal, my journey. So I got up at dawn and got out to the site. I arrived early enough to eat my tofu/yogurt in the car :) I watched many people eagerly stretch out and prep for their run! Young, old, tall, short, lean, fat, and me - obese. Really what was I doing here - there was no way I was going to "run", all I wanted to do was finish. 

I started out walking as fast as I could, then something amazing happened. I decided to jog. Yes, jog as much as I could.  Why the H### not? I've lost weight, I've been training, I'm capable! I was jogging! The people along the pathway cheering were motivational. The other people who were alternating between fast walking and jogging were inspirational too. 

Busy Day - Cleaning is Great Exercise! Week 14 Summary

Since I've turned over a new leaf I'm getting spoiled - every week this year (so far) has resulted in some weight loss. Thanks to Five Season's Be A Loser Program - making good choices is having results for me!

Yesterday the weather was so nice it spurred me into action - spring cleaning. When I went to bed on Friday night I made a list of all the things I wanted to get done on Saturday - one of them was exercise. However, I never did take a break to "exercise" as I decided that all the running around, lifting laundry, bending to clean under things, etc. was a workout! I was moving continuously from 7:30AM until I sat down for dinner at 5PM.  My busiest day ever!

The more blue the more action
- over 10 hours Active!

New today in steps-
without taking a walk!

Shaking my Chronic Aches and Pains

Today is a good day because I feel like I am finally shaking all my weight-induced aches and pains! Also I woke up this morning thinking how nice it is to be pain-free (OK maybe pain light) from my lingering Plantar fasciitis and bad hip. It makes me laugh that each workout I have with my trainer, he starts by saying something like "what hurts today?"

Have you ever mapped your aches and pains and assigned a potential cause? Below is my chart - I'm noticing now that I've left left knee off the list... sad little sign post of what carrying extra weight and being inert can impact. 

Down is Good - Week 13

The word for this week was WORK - subtext juggling. 

Not unlike many people, I have weeks where it becomes incredibly challenging to achieve work-life balance.  My life tends to go in ebbs and flows of focus - two weeks life, three weeks work, two weeks life, 4 weeks work, etc.  So overall there is balance - but not necessarily at a given point in time.  The next few months will be WORK time - so I need to be even more diligent and mindful about my food choices. Also thinking about how to be more efficient in my workouts. 

This was not the week to say how great I was at making those choices, rather a week that reinforces that I need to double down with my program. 

Time to repurpose this tossed out tire

This week was the first time that I did my cardio outside - I love to go for long walks.  Great tunes - and it gets my heart going. Now that I have a heart rate monitor, I noticed that perhaps my pace outside is not on par with that on the treadmill. I'll need to monitor that going forward to make sure that I get the most out of my workout time. 

On a positive note, I did see this tire in the ditch and am going back to pick it up today (with my car :)  ) It will either become part of my/my girlfriends home gym, or a neighbors children's sandbox, or a planter.