In January,
I made some goals for the year. I was able to reach four of them: run a 5K every month, exercise 4 times a week, read one book every month, and lose weight. I also started to take a class as a requirement to get into Physical Therapy School which I kept quiet. After a few months of studying, reading, and experimenting, I realized physical therapy was not for me. I’m a creative at heart, always have been and always will be!

In February,
I got my skin checked out and the doctor removed a small cancerous growth on my nose. It healed well and you can barely see the scar. No more visits to the doctor since, but I plan on making it a yearly thing, so I’ll go back in a few months.

In March,
I thought about getting braces again to fix my top teeth. I decided to push that off until next year because the timing wasn’t right.

In April,
I got a spin bike, which I used almost every day until we started construction on the house. Unfortunately, it’s still packed away but I hope to get it out soon.

In May
I attended and spoke at FitBloggin, which was so much fun and I hope to attend again next year!

In June,
We started construction on our house. It was an extremely long month because we were living between two houses and my commute was longer than it had been in over a year. The outcome though was definitely worth the wait! We’re still working on painting and finishing the rooms, so I hope to have a post or two next year about what we did. I also deferred my entry for the Baltimore Ten Miler, so I’ll be running it next June!

In July,
We lived at our old house while we patiently waited for construction to end. I didn’t post at all that month so that showed how busy we were. I also started Boot Camp classes, which have been the motivation I’ve been looking for over the past year to get healthier.

In August,
I celebrated my 27th birthday!

In September,
I got tested for allergies because I was having some asthma attacks in the middle of the night. Now I have an inhaler on my nightstand just in case. It was also the last time I blogged.

October and November were probably the most surprising and craziest months out of the year.

In October,
I was let go from my job of five years. It was a complete surprise and I was upset, but I knew it was time to move on. I wasn’t planning on staying there forever, so I considered this my final push to find a new job that would be fun, challenging, and made my creative brain design some great things.

In November,
Todd and I traveled to England with a day trip to Paris. I won’t go into details, but it was absolutely amazing. We definitely want to go back in the future!

I was also extremely lucky to find a new job that I absolutely love. More design, more work, more challenges, and more fulfilling that I ever thought it would be.

In December,
I realized I had been maintaining my weight loss for two months, but I’m only halfway done. So I’ll be continuing my efforts and making some changes so I reach my goal weight in the spring. I also got an entry in the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile run in April, so I guess I’ll need to start running again!

2011 was a year of many changes for me, and it turned out a lot better than I originally thought it would. I can only hope that the new year will bring about more great things.

Wishing you all a happy 2012!

The next day, I was incredibly sore. I was actually more sore that day than the day after my first (and only) marathon. Who knew 20 minutes of exercise could do that to your body?

But, I wanted to improve. I wanted to lift the heavier weights, do more push-ups, and run faster. Unfortunately there were also a few things holding me back. The first was money. I was already a member at a local gym for about $30 a month. One month of CrossFit was 5X that.

I’m the kind of person that always wants to make sure that I get the most out of my money, and based on the fact that I would only be going to CrossFit three or four times a week, it equalled to about $10 per class. That’s not too bad considering many drop in yoga classes are $12-$15, and a drop in CrossFit class was $20. But when you factor in that many of the classes only last around 10 minutes, it’s pretty pricey.

Another thing I had problems with was being sore all of the time. I remember I couldn’t go for a short run the day after because my legs just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t really able to do anything besides CrossFit. Although they were great workouts, 10-15 minutes 3-4 days a week just wasn’t enough physical activity to lose weight.

There was also the minor problem that since you work your body to great extremes in such a short amount of time, sometimes your stomach just couldn’t take it. I don’t think there wasn’t one class that I went to where someone didn’t get sick because of how much they pushed themselves.

Pushing yourself it great! But when you make yourself sick? Well, I think that’s going a little too far.

I remember the few times I sprinted towards the finish line at the end of the race and felt sick afterward. Ick. It’s just not a good feeling!

When I used up all my classes, I never went back. Maybe someday I would return, but back then, I knew I needed to find a form of exercise that I enjoyed doing, not dreading.

Two years later, I think I found the exercise that works for me… (to be continued)

However, earlier this year I started having problems breathing at night. I figured it was all the dog hair that had been left on our comforter and I was breathing it in. But it turned out to be the really old mattress we had been sleeping on while we were working on the house. We eventually replaced it, but the damage had already been done.

I would go to sleep fine, but a few hours later I would jump out of bed, barely able to breathe. Usually a walk outside or some hot tea would help, but I was never able to get back to bed until a few hours later. So, I would only get maybe 3-4 hours of decent sleep.

This happened about twice a week. After we got the new mattress, it only happened about once every two weeks. But, it was still happening. The bed frame and other furniture in the room was extremely old so that probably didn’t help my breathing either.

Around mid-July I had had enough. I had taken Zyrtec whenever I felt the breathing problem start at night, but it was a pain because it would take at least an hour or two for it work. I didn’t want to wait this long to go to bed.

This, plus the fact that my allergies in the spring had gone crazy, made me decide it was time to go to an allergist.

I knew I was allergic to a few foods (crab and cantaloupe) but I also wanted to see what else I was allergic to so I could avoid it as best as I could, and possibly get an inhaler for those nights when I have trouble breathing.

The closest appointment they had was the beginning of September. I got checked out, was given some prescriptions for my allergies and asthma, and was asked to come back for an allergy skin test to find out what I was allergic to.

The test wasn’t bad at all, they poke your arm with about two dozen dots representing different allergens. If they swell up, you’re allergic. Remember how I said I never really had a problem with allergies? Well, I guess I developed these all in the last year, or my body has done one heck of a job putting up with them.

Both of my arms looked like a couple dozen mosquitoes had gotten to them!

According to the test I’m allergic to:

Tree Pollen: Ash, Birch, Maple, Elm, Hickory, Oak, Cottonwood, and WIllow
Grass Pollen: Bermuda, and Timothy
Weed Pollen: Ragweed, Lambsquarters, and Pigweed
Mold Spores: Aspergillus
Dust Mites
Animal Dander: Cat, Dog, and Mouse
Cockroaches

That is quite the list! Luckily I really have never had any problems with Kahlua, so I consider us lucky that we found a dog we’re not really allergic to.

I’ve used my inhaler a few times already and it works almost immediately. Sure, it has a funny taste to it, but it feels wonderful to breathe normally again after an attack.

According to my doctor, I am also a candidate for allergy shots, but I really don’t want to do that. I’m not a fan of shots (who is?) and I feel that most of my allergies are under control. If they continue to get worse, I’ll think about it more.

So here’s hoping for better breathing and less sneezing this time around!

It feels like I have not stopped at all during these past few weeks. There is always something to do, or something that needs to be done.

Most importantly, I have a routine schedule again and I’ve been sticking to it since the end of July. With the construction of our house being done, we have spent almost every spare second fixing little things, and getting ready to prime and paint the walls. When we’re done with that we hope to get our final inspection on the house and we’ll be able to move in permanently.

But of course, that’s only after we finish putting the hardwood flooring down in our new bedroom and have a place to put our furniture. We hope to be settled in by the end of October. It has been a long, crazy summer with many trips to Home Depot and Lowes but things are finally settling down and I can’t wait to use my design eye to make the house come together.

Todd has been a great help through everything, most of the interior work, like lighting, electrical, and dry wall has been him. I’ve been doing the exterior work, painting and staining, and seeing where things will go. There have been some compromises, but we have both been happy with how everything has turned out so far.

Hurricane Irene really put a damper on our weekend when we realized we had leaks on the new side of the house. It’s because we didn’t have siding up (it’s should be up next week!) and the rain came through the spaces around the windows. We also lost power for three days. You never realize how much you depend on electricity until it’s gone.

Then came Tropical Storm Lee, where it didn’t stop raining for four, almost five days straight. When it finally stopped, the sun came out and thought it would be fun to blind me while I was driving. After almost a week of depressing clouds it was so bright!

And the earthquake? Yeah, that was weird (and a little scary). But enough about the crazy happenings in the Mid-Atlantic region, I wanted to update you on my “heathliness journey” as well.

Health:

At the end of July I had a decision to make, use a deal I had gotten awhile back for a month of boot camp classes, or let it expire. I wanted to give it a shot, but having taken a boot camp class before, I knew it would be hard. I also knew I wouldn’t have the energy in the evening, so there was only one thing I could do, become a morning exerciser (again).

Every week since the beginning of August I have gotten my butt out of bed (before the birds wake up) five times a week to go to these classes.

There was only one reason for this: after the second week, I was hooked.

I say the second week, because the first week was nothing but pain and crying (on the inside). After the second week it didn’t hurt as much and I already felt my body improving.

In addition to boot camp I have been doing a few miles here and there of walking. No running on a regular basis yet, but I have been doing my one 5K every month.

I have been eating much better than I used to, and track my food on my old myfitnesspal.com account. (If you’re a member, feel free to add me!)

The best part is, it’s working (except for a minor glitch this week where I actually gained half a pound back?!).

My heaviest weight was about a week before I overhauled my routine and lifestyle. 169lbs. Gah, I can’t believe I just typed that out. But I really don’t care anymore because I’m not there and I will never be there again. I’ve lost about 11 pounds and several inches around my body since then.

I’m still struggling some with my emotional eating and have had a few mishaps, but I don’t let it hang on me like it used to.

Just make the next choice a better choice and continue on your way.

Next up, a trip to the allergist…

1. I got my hair cut two weeks ago and got bangs. Something I haven’t had since the 6th grade.
2. I’m incredibly shy in social situations and tend to ramble on and get excited about weird things.
3. I’ve been getting up at 5:30am, 5 days a week, for the past 3 weeks to exercise at a local bootcamp.
4. I probably won’t be running the 5K on Sunday morning because I’m running one Sunday evening at a winery.
5. I’m turning 27 next week. Yikes!

And here’s what I look like,

Hope to see you there!

P.S. – I know I’ve abandoned the blog for awhile, but sometimes, working on life is a little more important.

—

Part 1: Tour Our First Home

The first home that Todd and I lived in together was not your typical house. It was a town home, built in the mid-19th century, and was completely gutted. When we spoke about it we just said it was a “giant hole in the wall.”

We dove head first into it and were extremely excited that we could change anything we wanted. Unfortunately, like many old homes, we found a major problem.

Mold.

Not exactly something we wanted to deal with because that meant we had to replace every wall (something we thought we didn’t have to do when we originally looked at the place). It was not a fun project. Hours of cleaning, breaking, and ripping. Followed by hours of cutting, hanging, and nailing.

Although most of the work was done by Todd and his friends, I helped out when I could (I got really good with a hammer) and did other things that didn’t require me holding heavy drywall over my head while they nailed it to the ceiling. It was so dusty that the face masks we wore while working became gray by the end of the day!

This was all before we were married too, talk about a relationship tester!

After we were married, we had to stay in one of the smaller bedrooms because the “major project,” our master bedroom, was not finished yet.

The room was a good size, but when you put in a queen size bed, two desks, and tons of boxes with our things in them it became quite cramped. We lived in that room until the end of January, about four months.

I remember the day that we finished our master bedroom. It was a Sunday, and we had gone out with friends the night before. I was feeling a little bit “off,” but continued to put the finishing touches on our skylight. We moved all of our furniture upstairs, and happily enjoyed the rest of the day and our first night in the room that we had worked so hard on.

Until… I woke up in the middle of the night shivering and proceeded to hug the toilet for the next few hours. Yep, I had a stomach bug that lasted a few days.

I laugh at it now because what were the odds of getting incredibly sick the first night in our new bedroom? At least I had a nice room to recover in.

We finished the majority of the house over the next few months, and the master bedroom was done in October. In total, we spent about two years working on the house. I know it was an incredibly long time, but remember that we both had full-time jobs, so I think we did pretty good!

I really didn’t think we had many “before” pictures, but luckily, I found a few that Todd had taken right after the house was purchased. These don’t show every room from every angle, but you can get a good idea of how much work and love we put into the place.

Living Room

Please ignore the mess! No ceiling before and we built some walls around the fireplace to make a closet. We also built around the original window and painted it a light tan color. The floor was a mess so we put in new hardwood floors ourselves. The door has been also stained since this picture was taken.

Dining Room

As you can see, there was no ceiling again in the dining room, and the beautiful brick around the fireplace was covered up. We built new walls again, put down hardwood floors, and clean up the fireplace as best as we could.

Fireplace (in Dining Room)

Kitchen

The kitchen was probably our biggest project, we rebuilt the entire room, kept the beams in the ceiling viewable (we liked how they looked), and kept the fireplace. We use the space in the fireplace for our chest freezer and had custom blinds made to cover the fireplace area when we don’t use it. See? It works great!

Spare Bedroom (Above Kitchen)

Again, no walls or ceiling. The floors were in okay shape, so we just painted them a dark brown color. The stairs in the back of the room are still usable and go down into the kitchen. That chimney goes to the fireplace in the kitchen as well. There was work being done in the room, hence the hose coming down from the ceiling.

Office

This was the first room that we finished, and the room that we stayed in while we were working on our master bedroom.

Master Bedroom

The previous owner had built walls for a bathroom where I bed is. We didn’t want the bathroom there so we torn them down. And yes, the walls are two different colors, the tan color (on the right) is an accent color.

Master Bathroom

We built a wall in this corner for our bathroom. The window in the first picture is in the bathroom.

One of the most unique things I like though about our house was the very small landing on the side of our staircase leading up to the bedroom. At first we didn’t know what to do with it and thought it would end up being wasted space.

The white “fence” is now where our wall is for the bedroom. We thought of a few options. Extra storage? A bookshelf? Widen the staircase? And then we had an idea. We needed a place to store our kayaks.

It worked out pretty well. Although it is a pain to hang them up, it’s incredibly easy to get them out of the house. Mine’s the blue one.

That concludes the tour of our first home. I may later go into detail with each room about what we did, but I personally love the before and after pictures and just seeing what we accomplished.

Hope you are having a great Friday!

We have talked for awhile now about getting a second dog and buddy for Kahlua. But that will have to wait until we are more settled in and have one particular thing. A fence!

Since we now have a big backyard we can’t wait to get a fence up and let Kahlua run her little heart out.

But more on that later. In case you missed it, here’s my first post about Kahlua.

What made me want to write this post? I picked up a pair of flip flops to put on this afternoon and had a flashback on what she did with other pairs only a few weeks after we adopted her.

I had two pairs of flip flops, one black and one green. I guess she was bored one day and I came home to discover that she had completely chewed through the strap of the left black and the left green one. Nope, she couldn’t just ruin one pair, she ruined two. Luckily they were cheap Old Navy flip flops, so I found it more humorous. I guess she also has a thing for left shoes.

She was already a year old when we adopted her so we thought the chewing stage had ended. But, that wasn’t the case. I guess she didn’t like any of the 10 or so toys we got her because she spent one afternoon chewing on the bottom stair, and another evening chewing on a chair leg.

Todd said he started calling the little quirky things she does “Kahluaisms.”

Here’s the list we have so far:

• She hates it when you blow on her. When you do she sings for you, which is absolutely adorable, but you can tell she doesn’t like it much.

• She attempts to dislocate your shoulder when you’re taking her on a walk and she spots a squirrel.
• She is the best “sitter” ever! Seriously.
• Unfortunately, she’s not a big fan of the camera. She turns her head away whenever I point it at her. She’s gotten a lot better though!

• Here’s a big one: She HATES balls! She is scared of them for some reason. Anything that’s round and rolls? Yup, she’s outta here! I’m guessing her previous owners did something to her with a ball, or maybe she just never played with them before.

• Even though she only weighs about 25lbs, she is all dead weight when you try to push her out of bed. Instead, it’s like pushing a 100lb dog!

• She used to get carsick. We seemed to have kicked this by not feeding her in the morning before we drive somewhere (she gets several snacks throughout the day instead) and driving with her in the front seat, not back seat. If the car ride lasts more than an hour, we stop at a rest stop and walk her around for a few minutes.

We decided that we’ll be waiting until next year to look for another dog, since things will be crazy over the coming months. Until then, we’ll continue to spoil her and drive her crazy, because we are extremely lucky to have her. And thankfully, she is out of her “chewing” stage.

Hope everyone is enjoying the first day of summer!

Why the change?

I have been using the name FitBlogr since 2008 back when I started to track what I ate on Blogger. Then, when I got a ticket to go to the first Healthy Living Summit in 2009, I took the plunge, bought the .com, and made it official because I felt I would stick with the FitBlogr name for awhile. So in July of 2009, I registered fitblogr.com and over the past two years the focus has changed a few times.

It first started out as a food blog where I would take pictures of almost every meal I ate and then I decided it wasn’t for me. Then it focused more on running and training for different races until I completed the marathon last year.

Back in January, I knew my blog was about to shift its focus again. But I wasn’t sure where. I knew I wanted to talk more about my struggles to lose weight, but also wanted to talk more about life and some new projects in the making. So I started coming up with a few new names and one really kept sticking in my brain.

Another reason I wanted to change the name because anything with “fit” and “blog” together has become popular over the past year. I know I had been using FitBlogr for almost three years, but I felt I didn’t stand out anymore.

Until now, it’s been at the back of my mind until last week when I knew I needed to make the change. Why? Because I have been making a lot of changes over the past few weeks and feel myself becoming a better, healthier person.

Whole: I’ve been eating healthier, more whole foods. I’ve also been trying to get a grip on my emotional eating.
Fit: My fitness has increased, and I’ve been sticking to my workouts and strength training programs.
Life: I’m working on being more social, and enjoy doing more things. Plus I hope to document more on our life after moving back to Maryland.

So, there you have it. I’m trying to make the transition as smooth as possible. Fitblogr.com expires at the end of July so I’ll have it redirect here until then. But please, remember to update your google readers!

My twitter name is now @wholefitlife and my email is wholefitlife@gmail.com

Thank you for following me over the past two years, and I hope you like the change as much as Kahlua and I do.

Maybe

I’ve always liked Bel Air. The downtown area is nice, plus it’s where I went to high school, and the local mall was always where I hung out on the weekends.

I knew I wasn’t going to finish faster than the last time I did this race which was back in 2009, however I had a new goal. Run the entire race without stopping to walk.

After the 5K at FitBloggin, I knew it was possible if I just slowed my pace a little I would be able to keep on chugging along without having to walk. So I kept to the middle/back of the pack.

One thing I didn’t realize beforehand was that Roni was running the race too! I was actually driving behind her on my way back home. Too bad we didn’t know each other would be there, it would have been nice to have someone to talk to before the race began. The funny thing is, I found this picture of me during the race, and look who is right next to me!

Hi Roni! Sorry I didn’t see you, I was in the zone and trying not to die.

I know that whenever I forget my hat that it will rain, and on the way to the race I actually drove though a bad storm. Thankfully, the rain held off.

The race takes through a little bit of downtown and mostly neighborhoods. Which is great because you get a lot of people cheering for you.

Even Homer Simpson came out! Haha, he’s angry at me because I wasn’t running fast enough.

After the two mile mark, I had walked through the water station to chug some water, which was only about 10 steps. But I had been running/jogging the entire thing! Yay!

There was one woman who kept switching places with me and had passed me once more after the 3 mile mark. I told myself I needed to sprint because I wanted to beat her. And so I did. Although I felt like I was going to get sick and pass out when I crossed the finish line!

Since I had been training with the run/walk method for over a year, I’m very proud of myself that I ran the whole thing, even if it was a slower time that my usual 5Ks. I finished in 37:11. Still, I consider it a victory!

… And you may be wondering about my hair. Well, on Labor Day weekend I had this wonderful idea to bleach it. It worked, but was too “bleachy” so the next day I dyed it with a light brown color to make it look semi-normal. It took me about a week to get used to it, but I’ll be dying it back to brown in a few weeks when the roots start to show a lot. Now I remember why I haven’t bleached my hair since college.

You can be honest, I know it doesn’t look that great on me, but I like to change it up every year or so.

Five Things I Learned at FitBloggin’

1. I’m still incredibly nervous when I have to speak in front of a group of people. On Saturday morning before my presentation (download it here), I was trying to think of when I last publicly spoke in front of people. It was 2006 for my theater class and we had to do verses out loud and be evaluated by our teacher. I absolutely love everything theater and I have always regretted not being part of a play or musical in my high school and college years. I still casually look around for local theater auditions in case something ever pops up that interests me.
2. I still know how to push myself. During the 5K on Friday morning, I did not stop once to walk until the halfway point. I honestly forget the last time I went 1.5 miles without stopping before.
3. It really is amazing how close the blogging community is and how much we have in common.
4. That I have worked in Baltimore for almost 5 years and I had no idea how nice Canton was.
5. I really need to blog more/take more pictures.

This weekend I’m running/walking yet another 5K, the Bel Air Town Run. The heat has been incredible lately, and since I’d rather stay inside in the nice air conditioning instead of chugging a gallon of water every 15 minutes when I run I haven’t trained as much. But that’s okay. I’ve gotten to the point where I can just do the 5K and have fun with it.

This heat wave has really been affecting another race I signed up for, the Baltimore 10 Miler, which is on June 18. Since I’m not a member of a gym right now, I had been planning on running around the neighborhood to train. But for some reason, Maryland decided it wanted to have extremely hot/humid weather for two weeks and I lost all motivation to get outside.

I already know that I don’t do well in heat, and I felt that if I did this race it would be a slow death march instead of an enjoyable one. So for these reasons I sent in my deferment form yesterday. I had to pay a small fee, but I will be put on a list for next year’s race instead.

I’m really not happy I had to do this, but with the unpredictable weather plus my lack of training, I really don’t want to hurt myself. There will be other races, and I’m still completing my 5K a month challenge I started at the beginning of the year. I really can’t wait for the one I’m doing in August!

If you’ve been affected by the heat lately, have your workouts changed? What keeps you motivated to get outside in warmer weather?

P.S. – Changed my layout again. If you don’t see any changes or the font is weird, clear your cache and it should fix everything!