Forgot the photo....

I forgot to photograph my weight this morning, but I suppose all is well that I didn't... it went the wrong way. I don't even remember the exact weight, but it was 117 something. Up a lb from last week! I've been trying to get my water in, but things haven't been moving along as they should, so that could contribute to the weight gain. In any event, this is the first week I have not met or exceeded my goal, so I'm not too discouraged. I will just keep at it and hope to see the scale move down again. I'm hoping to jump right past this plateau point, but it doesn't seem to be happening that way!!

Today is hard for calorie counting because we're eating dinner at a friend's house and I don't have a clue what we're having. It's sure to be delicious, but I'm afraid it might be pretty caloric as well, so I'll just have to try to eat moderately and make sure I get plenty of water in so I feel full. Most of what I've eaten today (with the exception of some yogurt for breakfast) is fruit and veggie, so I think I'm doing okay. But we'll see.

I went for a little walk/hike today with the mom and me group (this week it was Tracee and Beth who came with) so that gets a little exercise in. Mostly, though, I am still working on organizing and cleaning the house and that means spending most of my day standing, squatting, or moving around. So I think I'm doing fine on my 200 calories burned a day goal.

A HIKE!

Forgot to weigh this morning, because we were all in a rush to eat breakfast and head out for the day. Oops.

But the good news is that Leif is on vacation starting today and to celebrate we went on a family hike!! We were out the door by 8:30 and we headed up to Lava Lake. Ellie started out walking pretty well, but then before we even reached the Lee Metcalf Wilderness boundary she was in the backpack.

On my back.

She fell asleep in there and didn't wake up until we were a few turns into the switchbacks, at which point I had her get out of the pack and walk again because she is heavy!! And between her walking and my walking carrying her, it took us a long time to get to the top. 3.5 hours! I'm not sure it's ever taken us that long before, but at least I got my exercise carrying a 30 lb pack!! SparkPeople seems to think that carrying a 10-20 lb pack for 3.5 hours should burn over 1000 calories. I think that's an overestimate (they actually say 1400 calories!), but I know I burned more than my requisite 200 for the day!!

On the way down I had Leif carry her and I carried the pack with the water, food, and camera gear. It was still over 10 lbs, but much lighter than she is!

So that was my day. We just got home around 4:30 and it practically took us the whole day to do Lava Lake. 3.5 hours up. 2 hours down. An hour at the top relaxing by the lake. Oh, and we picked a bunch of wild huckleberries on the way down. They were delicious!

Now... what are we having for dinner? I guess I should figure that out...

off on a camping trip...

I'm hoping there will be a hike or two involved in this little overnight adventure, but I don't know that we have one planned. It sort of depends on cranky pants, who decided to take a nap today (early enough that I let her) and woke up in a grumpy, grumpy mood. I'm hoping she gets over it soon, because camping with a grumpster might not be very fun!

Back to recording....

Yesterday we didn't end up swimming in Yellowstone, as all the swimming holes were closed due to high water. But we did get in quite a bit of walking up and down steps at the Mammoth Terraces. I'd never been there before, so it was fun. We always just drive right by it and never stop. Lots of steps, though! We parked at the top and walked down and around to the lower terraces, then all the way back up, down another section, and finally back to the car. Maybe a mile and a half to two miles by the time we were done. My legs were pretty sore from running the night before, so I felt it for sure!!

This morning we "hiked" on the trails around River Rock and Cobblestone subdivision. All told I did a 4 mile walk, since I started from and returned to my house. Not a run (my shin hurts, so I'm going to give it another day before I try to run again - don't want to hurt myself and not be able to go on Saturday!) but it was at least a good walk and I got some exercise in.

Today I've got a ton of things to do in preparation for my parents' arrival tomorrow, but I started recording my food already (recorded yesterday, too) so I'm off to a good start! Recording, exercising... now for the laundry!

Didn't get an official run in yesterday...

But I did get a little running in while we were hiking.

We headed up to Palisade Falls last night to escape the heat, so I thought I could maybe run there. I started running up the trail while Leif and Ellie hiked. I made it about 1/3 of the way up the trail before I felt like my lungs were going to explode! I dropped back to speed-hiking until I caught my breath and then ran a little further, but eventually decided that running uphill 3,000 feet higher than I'm used to isn't such a fun idea. When I hiked to the top, though, I turned around and ran all the way down. Even that got me breathing hard, so I figure it counts for some exercise, even if was downhill, right? When I got to the bottom I turned around and hiked back to the top as fast as I could, then rested a smidge while some thundery clouds rolled in. Leif was taking pictures, so I headed back down with Ellie in the stroller. It looked like it was going to rain any moment, so I ran down with Ellie in the stroller as much as I could without going so fast I thought I was going to lose control! Sure enough, though, we got caught in the rain about half the way down. She was covered with my rain jacket and under the sun shade of the stroller, so she made it without getting wet, but I was soaked!!

The heat has really been throwing me for a loop. It's been hard to run outside with the heat, and we don't have air conditioning, so I haven't wanted to run inside and get all hot and sweaty, either! I really need to, though, because I have a 5K to run in less than 2 weeks!! eek!

So today when Eliana goes down for her nap I'm going to get over it and just run on the treadmill. I might have to take a cold shower afterwards, but I need to run. I've just got to do it.

Going for a hike today...

Nothing big, just a mom and me hike. But I need to go for a run as well, hopefully outside. I'm tempted to do it right now while Leif and Ellie are still sleeping, but I don't know...

I'm going to record my food and exercise today.

And drink my water.

It's been a couple days and I'm ready to jump into this week full force.

DDR and a hike!

Got some exercise in twice today... first I burned 400 calories on DDR. Then we went for a family hike tonight after dinner. We decided to go into town and we walked around the Fish Technology Center for a bit and then decided to hike the M. It's the first time we've hiked the M with Eliana not in a backpack and it went relatively well. We even made it all the way to the M and I didn't feel like dying along the way. That's pretty good for my first trek of the year up the M. It's usually a big wakeup call for how out of shape I am, but this time it was encouragement that I am not so terribly out of shape!!

Didn't record food today, and I'm not sure I wanted to anyway, because I ate horribly! But I'm taking baby steps and perhaps tomorrow will be a day to record. That's my goal at least.

Sweaty Day!

I did a lot of sweating today! It started with an uphill stroller pushing walk with Erika, and then some playtime outside with the girls at the Museum of the Rockies. When we came home and Eliana went down for a nap I ran/walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes, burning 350 calories! Then this evening Leif and I played DDR for about an hour or so. I know that we started with the calorie burning mode and I burned 200 calories, then we switched to a different mode and played for another half hour or so. So... not counting the last bit of DDR or the hike this morning, I burned over 550 calories from exercising today! Hooray!

Now to work on tracking my food again... Maybe that will be tomorrow's challenge.

Yesterday

Took Ellie for a little hike yesterday. I had planned to meet up with some friends for the first "Mom and Me" hike, but most people emailed and said they couldn't make it this week, so I didn't know if anyone else would show up. I waited about 15 minutes and when no one else was there, I started hiking with Ellie on my own. I went for about 15 minutes and decided I wasn't too sure about being on a secluded, wooded trail in town by myself! Probably crazy, I know, but I decided to turn around and just hike Peet's Hill instead. When I got back to Peet's Hill there was a group of women with strollers and as I passed them I happened to catch someone's eye and recognized her! It was Molly Hannan, Leif's boss' wife. We said hi and she said they hike every Monday and yesterday it was Peet's Hill! So I hiked with them and it was a lot of fun! Lots of toddlers and Ellie got to get out of the stroller and hike most of the way! She did get tired and hungry after a while, so I put her back in the stroller and let her eat while I pushed her the rest of the way. All told we ended up walking about an hour and a half. Then I took Ellie over to Bogert Park to play for a bit while I ate some lunch (carrots) and she got to play on the slides! It was a good way to start out the morning and start out the week and the rest of the day went pretty well food-wise. I'm hoping today goes well, too! So far so good as I just had a banana for breakfast. Hoping to head out for a walk with Ellie soon - she's clingy today and driving me crazy!

First Hike!

We went for the first hike of the year today! At Susan Beth's suggestion, we headed up to Madison Buffalo Jump. I stuck Ellie in the pack and we headed down the trail to the top of the cliff. The fwp's website says there's only a mile of trails, but the one we took was definitely longer than a mile! We went up to the cliff you can see from the observatory (we went around the back of the hill and then hiked along the top of it to the cliff) and then headed over to the next cliff, just a little further. I had Ellie in the pack on my back (sheesh! That girl is getting heavy at almost 30 lbs!) for the hike up, but she walked most of the way back on her own. Still, we ended up hiking for an hour and a half, not counting the time we spent at the top taking pictures, about 15 minutes. So it was a good workout, and according to Spark People I burned about 630 calories. Add that to the 70 calories I burned gardening earlier in the day and I end the day exercised 700 calories off! If I remember correctly, that gives me an extra 7 WW points, which is good, because today I need them...

I was doing pretty well until we decided to make a Buffalo Jump Bump night of it and picked up a pizza for dinner and ate it in the car on the way out to the hike. I ate 3 pieces. That alone cost me 17 points. Add that to the other points I had today and I ended with (*gasp!*) 30 points today. But subtract 7 for my exercise and it's only 23 points, and considering I haven't used ANY of my 35 extra points until today, I'm not too worried about those extra 4 I'm using today. I did enjoy the pizza quite a bit, and I did work pretty hard lugging that 30 lb pack to the top of the cliff! I always hate the first hike of the season for that reason. I always feel like I'm going to die and today was no exception. Next time Leif gets to carry the pack.

So that's sort of where I am today. 30 points, 1560 calories, 52 g. fat, 24 g. fiber, and 2 liters water. Definitely over what I eat most days, but I don't feel like it's too excessive for a little splurge on an outing with the family. Just so long as the splurges stay few and far between.