Viva Las Vegas

Okay, so I wrote this post 2 days ago and then had computer trouble and it didn't save and so I lost the whole thing. I'm going to try to remember everything I had to say, but I'm sure I'll forget something. First and foremost, I'm safely in Vegas. I arrived on Christmas Eve from Albuquerque, NM which was a lovely place that I've been to about once or twice before. Little city, but beautiful during the holidays.

I only exercised once during my 9 day trip - I jog/walked through my uncle's neighborhood in Mississippi one afternoon. It was nice and made me realize I was ready for Week 4 of Couch-to-5k training. I had done Week 3 training one week before I moved to my sister's in Virginia, but I kept doing it once in a while during my journey - like at my uncle's. I started Week 4 a few days ago in Vegas. It was great. I can't believe I actually ran for 6 minutes straight! (It was only supposed to be 5 minutes, but I forgot to look at the clock on my iPod.) I did the whole workout once and then did half of it a few days later. I am going to do it again on Monday. I might stay doing Week 4 for two full weeks since it is so tough. (It transitions from mostly walking to mostly running from Week 3.) But, I need to look at Week 5 to see if that gives a more gradual increase, or another shock :)

I enjoyed food immensely during my road trip. Everything from a frosty at Wendy's somewhere in the south to pistachio encrusted salmon and a local wine in Marfa, TX. I made a few disappointing choices - the shrimp creole in Mississippi just wasn't that great. But, all in all I enjoyed myself and tried to make smart choices. Now that I am at my parents' it is a whole new set of challenges. They eat differently and at different times than I do, so I am faced with a whole heck of a lot more temptation than I was when I had my own place. But, I'm managing. I haven't used all my flex points yet for this week. (Granted, my week started on Thursday :) I'm just taking it one day, one morning, one afternoon at a time and trying to have faith in myself that I'll make more healthy choices than bad ones. And I am trying to exercise more. I'm going to walk to Target this afternoon, which is about a mile each way.

I went to my first new WW meeting on Thursday morning. I am back under my goal weight and I have only one week left until Lifetime! :) But, I am staying with eTools on the WW site because I know I MUST continue to track points for foreseeable future. The meeting leader wasn't on my wavelength, but he obviously cares about the people in his meeting and tries to give them good information. (He has this thing he does every week where he shows packages of food from various grocery stores and gives their portion points values. Everyone was expecting this and there were a lot of pens and notepads being pulled out when he started this segment of the meeting.) But ... he isn't Melvin my meeting leader from Maryland. I don't think I will go back to that meeting, but I do think I will go to a meeting each week. It was good to feel grounded like that and not just get weighed and leave like I usually do when I visit my parents in Vegas. And the familiar process was nice since everything feels different right now. I'll let you all know what the meeting leader and meeting is like next week.

Okay, I think I covered everything. I hope you are all well. I'm still trying to get through the last couple of weeks on all your blogs, so expect comments from me in the next day or so :)