Interesting Article for Beginning Runners

New York Time: For Beginning Runners, Advice Can Be a Hurdle (click here!!)

The Best Cracker!!

I found the best cracker!  Blue Diamond Nut Thins!  They come in several different flavors and are super yummy.  They are made out of nuts and are very low calorie and you get a lot of crackers per serving. 

~Heather

Water

I've been having a harder time lately getting my water in.  So, I decided to buy a gallon size jug of water.  My goal is to drink one of these a day.  I am a very visual person so it will let me know how much I have left to drink through out the day.  Hope everyone is having a great Cyber Monday and finding great deals!! :)

~Heather

Recipes

I found a great website with a ton of healthy recipes!  Check it out! Skinny Taste

Importance of Rest Days



My new goal weight! lol


After speaking to a friend (who will remain nameless :)) today I decided to do a little research on the importance of giving your body a break every once in a while.  I fully believe that your body needs time every once in a while to recover.  I also fully believe that your mind needs a break.

My reasons are:

• You don't want to burn out.
• Your body will get used to the work out and plateau.
• You can hurt yourself.

Now, those are just the reasons I came up with, with no evidence to indicate one way or the other.  So, after searching the good ole' world wide web, I came across this article.

Runners World Article

Their reasons are:

• Prevents overuse injuries
• Restores glycogen stores
• Prevents mental burnout

I know for me personally, I sometimes feel that if I'm not doing things 100% then I'm failing but that's not true.  Last year I was having a lot of hip pain caused from my back.  I was currently working out and doing a lot of the elliptical machine.  That is extremely low impact but it was still causing my pain to flare up.  After talking to my surgeon, he encouraged me to continue to keep working out but the second I felt just the slightest twinge of pain to stop.  He said even if it was only 5 minutes to stop.  5 minutes was better than nothing but 10 minutes certainly wasn't worth hurting myself more.

 

So, my personal opinion, I think you will ultimately do yourself more harm than good if you don't give your body a break.  You have to take care of yourself, first and foremost, otherwise you might just miss a months worth of workouts vs 1 workout a week.

Family Picture

We had our family pictures taken last week while John's family was in town from San Diego.  We do it every year and it is fun to see how much the kids change from year to year.  While I'm not a fan of chain picture places, I decided to go ahead and get them to snap a few pics of my family since we haven't had them done lately. 

Well, this one particular picture would be so super cute if I didn't look so freakin' huge! lol  So, I'm using this as my motivation and a "before" picture.

From left to right: Preston (3), Me, Carter (5), John, and Liam (2)

This is the picture that I'm going to get printed .  Probably in black and white to hide even more of me.  Sounds really pathetic when I say that out loud.

And this is one of my favorite pictures of my boys! Love them!

Preston, Carter, and Liam

~Heather

When you don't give up..You cannot fail