Yesterday we had our third 3 mile session out on the road with Dog and I was definitely feeling the fatigue from Tuesdays walk. The hills were a little harder to push up today for some reason, even the dog wanted to be carried most of the way.

When I get home from the walk I have the same feeling that I do when I've had a hard workout. I've always downplayed walking as a "noneffective exercise", which is silly of me, especially when you have three heart rate climbing, sweat inducing hills to walk up. You don't hit them until the way home, so you have no choice if you really want to get home and lay on the couch.

That bit about walking being noneffective if a huge obstacle for me, I get in the "all or nothing" mentality with exercise (er most things) and feel like I have to do this huge amount of cardio to be effective which of course only burns me out in a very short amount of time. I'm learning that exercise doesn't always have to be this huge chunk of time or cardio that makes me look like a contestant on the biggest loser.

I'm reminding myself that even though it's not in the gym, it still counts and three miles is definantly a good workout for me.

I made a mental list of the food I ate yesterday and here it is, if you're interested.

Breakfast/lunch: quorn chik'n patty on a bun with honey mustard. This was really random, I was hungry and wanted something quick.

Later on I had a Sobe lifewater (100 calories for the bottle)

After cleaning I found some of the pecan pralines left over from the wedding and ate a handful of those.

Dinner was oven fried fish (2 fillets) and a salad with shaved Parmesan, green and yellow peppers and ranch spritz.

After the walk I was feeling hungry so I made some oats: whole oats, cinnamon, brown sugar, walnuts and water. I made this too sweet by not measuring out the brown sugar, I will do that next time.

I'm putting a lunch together for work this morning and will take a picture of it when I get there. We plan to walk another three miles tonight.

I was hoping things would slow down a little when we got back from vacation, but that hasn't been the case. What do I mean?

This weekend we had two Father's day things to do. Neither involving my actual dad (hi dad!), going to the first Floyd County Jubilee, and acquiring a dog. We think he was abandoned by the dumpster and wondered over to the nearby church to find a new home. The same church we got married in. Being animal lovers we decided to keep him until he finds a good home.

He is really cute:

We don't know what kind of dog he is, part Maltese and...? We haven't named him, which kind of puts you in the category of dog owner so we just call him "dog" . Check out those paws! Huge for a dog that weights considerably less than our cats. Speaking of our cats, they are deeply scared and upset about his taking of residence in their home.

Things have felt chaotic around here. New dog, new job, and oh the pool that took too many hours to set up and too much money is leaking water. We're down to about a foot of water. New job? Well, not specifically new, but I've gone from working 7 hours a week to 32 doing marketing and graphic design. Two things that I really like doing and learning about so the experience is helpful and the company is nice too. I also get health insurance and Wednesday's off to work on my internet interests, so it's a pretty good situation for me right now.

Oh! 5k! At the town jubilee we spotted a booth handing out fliers for the upcoming run/walk in late August. We picked up two applications on Saturday and have started training for it. By training, I mean, walking 3 miles on our (very) hilly road once on Sunday and again last night. Right now it takes us (me) an hour and a half to walk it. I figure if the road was flat it would take less than an hour. We took Dog with us on our walk last night and he did really well, pooping outside for the first time and not acting like a freak when cars or giant dogs passed by. A pretty good walking buddy.

My goal is to be physically able to jog for at least one of the three miles without stopping. That is a big goal considering that I cannot jog for more than a minute without feeling like my butt fat is going to detach. At 273.5 lbs. (as of this morning) jogging is not easy. It makes me think things like "what if I needed to run away from something?" I couldn't do it.

That said, I've heard there is another 5k in chicago during the blogher weekend that I will be participating in. Two 5k's in one summer? madness.

I'm breaking my weight loss into smaller 10 lb. at a time goals. My start weight is 274 and my goal is 264. Today, I weigh 273.5 and aiming to get to my first goal by July 13th just to give me a place to reach towards. I like to write my next goal weight on a small note card and place it in a visual place as a reminder.

One thing that I've been looking forward to post wedding and travel is getting rid of the pressure to lose xyz pounds by xyz date. That isn't to say I want to rid myself of goals, but just this rush of feeling that I need to be thin overnight. It never works for me, and I dare say anyone else.

In my head, I have a vision of how the healthier me behaves, not looks. I read blogs like fitnessista, Kath eats real food, and threshold of greatness and know that their consistency and dedication to eating good foods and exercise is the reason why they are healthy, not to mention stunning women.

I know that if I spent any amount of time behaving like any of them, I wouldn't weigh 274 lbs. It isn't about a gimmick for them, a diet plan, failure, an infomercial exercise plan, they just do it because it makes them feel good. They energize me and get me excited about eating real food.

I want my health to be my new hobby, my dedication, what I get excited about. The pay back is more energy, self-confidence and hopefully a longer and healthier life. Not for my next event, but for my life.

Today I weigh 274. I do not feel good, healthy, attractive, or energetic at this weight. I'm not Debbie Downer on myself about it, I just want to be more realistic about how I feel and the actions that brought me here.

I know that to be consistent, I need a flexible plan of action. Starting right now. I'll be back...

We're back! I realized that I pretty much stopped blogging the week before the wedding (which was a bit crazy) the days of the wedding, the days after the wedding and the entire time I was in Europe. It was a nice long break of wedding and traveling and I'm ready to get back into the the swing of things. I've missed writing here, I've had a lot of ideas for future posts while I was away too.

So the wedding! I really could not have asked for a better day. I've known Josh for almost eight years and I'd be lying if I hadn't pictured this day at least a few times. It's strange to say, but I always knew somehow we would end up here and I'm really glad we did.

Everyone was right, the day flew by and I find myself wondering back through the memories of the day and feeling giddy all over again. When planning a wedding you never know what the atmosphere will be like and how it will all come together aesthetically, but it was even better than planned.

I wanted it to be pretty, whimsical, laid-back, memorable and a lot of fun. I could not have asked for better company to spend my day with, a lot of old friends and new ones (Krissie and Fat Bridesmaid!) traveled just for our wedding. Everything went together in a way that doesn't always happen at weddings with new groups of people mingling. I am very lucky.

Here are some photos I pulled off of facebook, I don't have official ones yet, but will post them as soon as they come in, in about three weeks. I loved our photographer, she is someone I met in college and always admired and knew I wanted to keep contact with her somehow in the future. It was nice to have someone I connect with to photograph our memories.

Here is my dress! I decided on these earrings two nights before the wedding. I debated necklaces and then decided that with the jacket and earrings, they were enough. I'm really pleased with that decision and truly felt beautiful on my wedding day. There is a lace slip the peaks through the bottom of the dress, not totally visible here, it was one of my favorite parts.

Here we are in the getaway car! Josh's mom set up "All you need is love" by the beatles for playing while we posed for pictures. It was a lot of fun.

Here are some photos of Europe, there are a tonnn of these.

We took about 582 photos between the two of us, so yeah I'll try to update those as I get them editted. We spent three days in London and another three in Dublin, with a couple of travel days in between. Europe has a lot of differences that we did not expect, money being one of them. On average it seemed like everything was double the expense for us because of the weak dollar. A buger a fries? about $32 for both of us. A pint of guiness? $9.  Fish and chips meal in a pub? $17 (for the cheapest we could find) whew!

Another difference? Free health care. I saw a lot of National Health Service buildings and felt jealous that we do not have the same here. So many people in Europe can work from home and freelance without the worry of health care. That is a luxury.

The culture and history was rich and all I wanted to do was stand around and absorb it all. The buildings and structures are architecturally beautiful and made to last over time. These buildings have been cared for and preserved, linking us to our past. This is something we don't really have over here. A building from the 1700 or 1800's is really old to us, but they go wayyy back in Europe. The buildings here just are not made beautifully and we don't seem to be asking today "will this hold up over time, will this structure link the future to the past?" everything is disposable here.

That really is what I loved the most about Europe the feeling of a real connection to the lives the existed before us. That there was another time and way of thinking. Buildings weren't just put up to cut costs, but to be beautiful and to last.

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So we're both happy to be home now, there really is no place like home sometimes. Your own bed and cats to follow you around. I'm ready to get back on track with weight loss and work on my summer goals!

I've got blogher coming up in July, a trip I debated even going on. The expense of Europe was unexpected and I feel indulgent going on another trip so soon. I already bought my attendance ticket and knew that I would regret not going. This really is a convention that for me, validates in some way what I've been doing for over two years. It shows that I'm not the only one who is dedicated to blogging on some level and is a way to connect with other women who do the same. A good lot of them I really admire and look forward to meeting .

I pushed myself to buy my plane ticket last night which dropped about $200 dollars since I started pricing tickets in February. I need to push myself harder to monetarily validate the trip. I've been slacking a lot on work-stuff with the wedding planning and feel a need to get on top of work again.

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Weight.

For my wedding day I weighed 268, which is a bit more than I had planned, hoping I would be around the 240's, but it was a loss that I feel good about. I didn't feel on my wedding day "I wish I was smaller" and after looking at the photos, I see a beautiful and happy woman. I don't regret anything.

However, I want to continue. Something about our trip overseas has made me evaluate my health and appearance in a way that I never have before. I want to be a responsible adult, someone who takes care of their health and happiness. Being this weight is difficult, and truly made me feel like an outsider among women who do take care of themselves. That is who I want to be, that is the person I want to be in my marriage and in my life.