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mission accomplished!

Melissa 17 Comments

For the last 2 months, I been sharing about how I joined Weight Watchers Online. My first month I lost 4 pounds. Go me! Month two, I lost 3 and was halfway to my goal of running a 5K. Now its month three. THE month. The month my name was down to actually run 5K. Which, if you don’t know, is pretty stinking far.

See, I don’t run. This is me:

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Oh And this is me, too:

running out of wine

 

So this whole couch to 5K was a challenge for me. I was taking baby steps, but I was slowly building up and running for longer and longer. Every milestone was a big deal – for someone who could barely run 2 minutes when I started, hitting one mile without stopping, then two was reason to celebrate.

Then yesterday, we did it! My daughter and I ran our first 5K!

GOTRri

I could barely keep up with Eliza – she runs like a cheetah! But we finished.

5K

So I did it. I reached my goals in just three months: I ran a 5K AND I lost 10 pounds in the process.

Most importantly, I FEEL different. I feel stronger. I feel great. My ‘skinny’ jeans are back in the rotation. And I didn’t do anything really drastic to my diet or have to give up favorite foods. I just exercised 3 times a week and stuck to my points goal.  I even could enjoy a glass of wine or dessert when I wanted to. I have found Weight Watchers very easy to stick to – without disrupting my families eating or costing a fortune for special food. I don’t have time to cook two meals a night, so I need a diet where I can eat what my family eats. This was perfect!

But now comes the real challenge… the holidays. Do you have any tips for not gaining weight over the holidays you’d like to share?

disclosure: i have received a complimentary membership to weight watchers online. unfortunately, they don’t lose the weight for me, so i have to do the work and share my progress myself ;-) people following the Weight Watchers plan can expect to lose 1-2 pounds per week.”

well, hello there, march!

Melissa

March? I swear that yesterday it was December.

We spent most of the weekend out of the house…. because we had 10 showings!! Woo-Hoo! That was super encouraging, as we were worried we would list the house and hear crickets chirping. That would have sucked. Meanwhile, we’re spending time around the town. Both because we can’t go home because of showings and because the house stays quite a bit cleaner when we are not in it. We’ve been hitting up the library and gym and coffee shop and barber shop and all those things we’ve been too busy for lately. After being SO focused on the house for several weeks, its actually really nice to get out of it for a bit and get some fresh air!

Our poor kitty cats are totally traumatized by having the house on the market. Not only are they seeing a lot more of their archenemy – the vacuum cleaner – but so many strangers trompsing though the house seems to be freaking them out a bit. When we get home, they’re either hiding under a bed or following us around like a shadow. Poor things!  I bet they are so confused! Wait until we actually move – they’re going to FREAK!

 

 

no name calling week

Melissa

Did you know that January 21-25, 2013 is No Name-Calling Week, an annual week created by GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network ) to promote educational activities aimed at ending name-calling of all kinds and provide schools with the tools and inspiration to launch an on-going dialogue about ways to eliminate name-calling in their communities.

A recent GLSEN study found that in the course of a single school year, two-thirds of teens reported being verbally or physically harassed because of their perceived or actual appearance, gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, race/ethnicity, disability or religion with most teens also reporting that they heard students making negative or offensive remarks related to these characteristics in their schools.  In an effort to reduce the use of anti-gay language among teens, GLSEN joined the Ad Council to launch the ThinkB4YouSpeak public service campaign nationwide.

Regardless of how you feel about someone’s life choices, there is never a need to call someone degrading names and certainly no need to cause them harm. I’ve been haunted by the articles I have read about teens committing suicide due to bullying and IT HAS TO STOP. It is time to teach our children that words can hurt – just as much as a physical blow. Maybe even more. Its time – as a society – to stop the culture of hate and the cycle of violence. If it can start here – with this baby step of teaching our kids to respect others – then I am all for it.

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You can learn more about No Name-Calling week at http://www.nonamecallingweek.org/cgi-bin/iowa/home.html.  You can also follow the conversation on Twitter via #wordscanhurt and on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/nonamecallingweek.