Thanksgiving Success!

Lots of catch-up today.

1) Weigh-in. I weighed myself yesterday, and while in Colorado for Thanksgiving week, I lost 1 pound!  Here’s my updated chart:

I managed to lose my 150th pound, and during a holiday week!  I credit myself, for working hard to eat well (even though I broke both my Thanksgiving rules a little bit), having great workouts 4 of the 5 days I was there, and having an amazingly supportive family that makes it all easier.  All four of those workouts, actually, were with one or both of my sisters – which made them more fun and more rewarding.

I’m now 252 pounds, and within striking distance of my next goal, which is to weigh an even 250 pounds.

2) Exercise. I’ve had three great workouts in the past three days.  On Saturday, my last day in Colorado, my sister Sarah and I did Richard Simmons’ Sweatin’ to the Oldies 5 DVD in her family room (you can check it out and buy it here).  I haven’t done it in at least 6 or 8 months, but it was easy for me to pack, so I took it along on my trip.  It’s about 50 minutes of cardio dance aerobics, and it’s very colorful, and Richard is, well… in full Richard mode.

Today I went to the gym and did 45 minutes of cardio and then about 10 minutes of some basic toning exercises with some free weights.  And yesterday, I went for a run!  It was on the cold side (for Los Angeles), and very windy, but I went for 46 minutes without stopping, and ran 4.2 miles.  Here’s my route:

I started at ‘A’ (heading east), and ended at ‘E’ – both are 4-5 blocks from my house, so I got a nice walking warm-up and cool-down in there too.  Time to update my chart:

• 9/21/10: Distance: 3.1 miles.  Time: 41 minutes.  MPH: 4.53
• 9/27/10: Distance: 3.3 miles.  Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 4.4
• 10/5/10: Distance: 3.2 miles.  Time: 40 minutes.  MPH: 4.8
• 10/12/10: Distance: 3.8 miles.  Forgot to note time and MPH
• 10/16/10: Distance: 2.9 miles.  Forgot to note time and MPH
• 11/1/10: Distance: 3.1 miles.  Time: 36 minutes.  MPH: 5.16
• 11/6/10: Distance: 5.1 miles. Time: 60 minutes.  MPH: 5.1
• 11/14/10: Distance: 3.9 miles. Time: 45 minutes.  MPH: 5.2
• 11/28/10: Distance: 4.2 miles. Time: 46 minutes.  MPH: 5.47

I’m getting faster!

3) Bed-Sharing Update. A follow up on a post from last week, in which I shared my fear of death by futon (basically, that the futon would break, sending me tumbling over a balcony and to my death 10 feet below), and my deciision to avoid the risk by sleeping instead with my 5-year-old nephew in his double bed.

I ended up spending 4 nights in my nephew’s bed, and it was a much better alternative.  He’s a sound sleeper, so he never woke up when I came in for bed after he was already long sound asleep.  He also moves a lot in his sleep, so I got kicked a few times, and once, he slowly migrated over and rested his little head on my shoulder, which I thought was really cute until he started snoring in my ear.  That didn’t last long, because I repositioned him.

4) Old Produce. I blogged before going to Colorado about the fresh produce that I hoped would keep for the 5 days I was gone.  Well, it was all fine when I got back, and I ate most of it (the carrots, celery, apple, and half of the frozen grapes) yesterday.  Which means my house was almost completely produce-free.  Which brings me to…

5) New Produce. Here was my produce bowl after lunch on Sunday:

That’s one lonely sweet potato.

So I headed to the grocery store.  I had been running errands, and didn’t have tons of time, so I gave myself 10 minutes to go in to Superior Grocers (I’ve been there once before, read about it here), get some produce, yogurt, and some sort of fish as another protein source to have on hand (I have other groceries to buy, but wanted to make a list, which I didn’t do yesterday – I’ll try to do it today).

Here’s the bowl when I got home:

That’s 1 bag of broccoli slaw, green onions, a 12-ounce bag of carrots, a cucumber, 1 pound of green beans, 1 green pepper, 4 bananas, 4 apples, 3 tomatoes, 5 oranges, and the orange thing in the back is called a Table Queen Squash, which I’ve never bought before (or heard of), so I’ll be trying that this week and will tell you all about it.

And the grand total?  $6.16! They had some amazing prices yesterday: navel oranges were 17 cents a pound (my 5 were 25 cents), cucumbers were 20 cents apiece, and that squash was only 27 cents (it was priced at 14 cents a pound).  Add in 4 Yoplait Lights (60 cents a piece, on sale) and almost 1 pound of imitation crab meat (on sale for $1.99 a pound at the fish counter, I bought $1.69 worth) and my whole grocery bill was $10.25!

Keep it up, David!