Headed to the Beach!

The picture above is similar to our view from the condo. If you look straight across, you can see the balcony of the condo we'll be staying in. We leave for North Carolina tomorrow and we'll be gone for a week.

In lieu of dropping, Paul and I will be frolicking on the beach with the family. Don't be too jealous! Hehehehe! It will be hard leaving eastern North Carolina and going back to Arkansas, that's for sure! What do I want to be when I grow up? A beach bum!

We will spend four days at the beach condo and the remainder of the time, we'll be hanging out at Paul's Mom's house in Rocky Mount and trying not to eat too much Eastern North Carolina barbecue at her restaurant, The Hunter Hill Cafe'!

By the way, I'm up to 90 seconds jogging! WOO HOO!!!

Thanks for reading!






Related Post:

Counting Down The Days Until Our Beach Vacation!

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© 2008 Thanks for taking the time to read A Junk-Foodaholic's Journey to a Healthy Lifestyle. Please feel free to peruse my blog for more great content.

My Other Websites: The Experts Agree On Something. Finally. | Are Your Vitamins Safe? | Affiliate Link

You Have To Walk Before You Can Run

Last week, I ran on Wednesday and Friday. For this week, I ran Monday and again this morning. I didn't run Wednesday morning due to a work conflict. Unfortunately, my job sometimes requires me to log on from home at odd hours of the night. So as it turned out, I had to do some work at 2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. Since I need more than four hours of sleep to function properly, I decided to wait until this morning to run.

I am always amazed at how quickly the human body adapts to exercise. When I first started running (June 1), I could only run for 45 seconds at a time and as I went on, my running time kept decreasing! The first time I ran was 45 seconds, the second time I made it to 40 seconds, then eventually it dropped to 35 seconds! A couple days later, I was able to run for 45 seconds each time. Last Friday, I was able to run for 60 seconds a couple of times, then it decreased to 45 seconds. Monday and this morning, I was able to run for 60 seconds each time I ran! Pretty cool, huh? Another interesting thing was that, for the first time since I started running, it seemed like the 20 minutes flew by - instead of me saying, "Ugh! When is the 20 minutes ever going to be up?!"

I am following Coolrunning.com's "Couch to 5K Running Program". You can take a peek at Weeks 1-3 to the right. As I mentioned in my previous post, my daughter - Rachael, is doing this with me.

Well, I guess Rachael and I are considered "Pre-Couch" (LOL!) because we can't quite keep up with the plan as it is laid out. So instead, we are using it as a guide to measure our progress. You have to crawl before you can walk, right? Well, you have to walk before you can run too!

Although we're on Week 2, we are only doing a 20-min. workout of 60 sec. run/90 sec. walk. So our next goal is to be able to do a 20-min. workout of 90 sec. run/2 min. walk -- however long it takes us to get there.

Instead of jumping from 60 seconds to 90 seconds of running, we are going to inch our way there. For example, when we run on Saturday, we will run 70 seconds. Then on Monday, we will try to run for 80 seconds. Hopefully, by Wednesday, we'll be running for 90 seconds at a time!

While googling last week, I read that beginner runners should sign up for a race as soon as possible - to help solidify their goal by having a date on their calendar.

So I signed up to participate in Soaring Wings Half Marathon, here in Conway on October 24^th. Rachael is also planning on signing up to run in the race. I'm so excited!

If you runners out there have any tips for Rachael and I, please let us know!

Thanks for reading!






Related Post:

Running: From Thinking About It To Actually Doing It!

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© 2008 Thanks for taking the time to read A Junk-Foodaholic's Journey to a Healthy Lifestyle. Please feel free to peruse my blog for more great content.

My Other Websites: The Experts Agree On Something. Finally. | Are Your Vitamins Safe? | Affiliate Link

Running: From Thinking About It To Actually Doing It!

Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about running.

My background in running involved a very short stint as a long-distance runner on the track team. I dropped out due to my hatred of long-distance running. I wanted to run the 100- 200- and 400-meter dashes. But alas, I didn't make the cut.

I kept thinking about how much running all the contestants on The Biggest Loser do. Though they work out with weights and do body-weight exercises - for the most part, they do a lot of running. In fact, the moment their fat-butts hit the ground of The Biggest Loser campus, they are running. Seeing them run always inspires me because it takes away all of my excuses.

And I've been thinking about my dad, who is a runner. He's been running for about 15 years - and guess what? Ever since he started running, he's never had a weight problem. Amazing, huh? Come to think of it... how many overweight runners do you know? I sure don't know of any. If they are overweight, they won't be for long!

Speaking of which - a coworker of mine quit the company last year and he was obese at the time. He was recently hired back on with the company, looking slim and trim. In fact, everyone did double-takes wondering if it was the same guy! I asked him what he did to lose the weight and guess what he said? He started running! He said he runs 3 days per week. I don't remember the number of miles he said he runs each week, but I do remember how good he looked. After seeing him and being inspired by him, I kept thinking about starting a running program of my own.

Unfortunately, even though my 'want to' was there, my plantar fasciitis was holding me back. While at the Ideal Feet store, last Monday, the foot specialist told me that with their arch supports, I could start running whenever I wanted to. I was shocked (but thrilled) to hear that because I thought I'd have to wait until my plantar fascitiis went away.

Excitedly, I decided to get started. I called my dad this morning (he's currently at the Kerrville Folk Festival chillin' out with fellow singer/songwriters) to get his advice about how to start a running program.

Dad gave me lots of good pointers such as:

• Run at the McGee Center. They have a padded track, which he said would help my feet. Also, since it's an indoor facility, weather can never be used as an excuse not to run.
  
  
• Do some basic stretching before starting.
  
  
• Run 3 days per week (he said that's all he's ever done). He said if I want to, I can do 30-minute walks on my 'off' days.
  
  
• Start out slow and easy. Walk a little, jog a little, until you reach 30 minutes. He told me to run at a slow and relaxed pace... easy does it. He said the last thing you want to do is get injured because then your running program is over before it has started. Keep track of how long/far you run so you can measure your progress from day-to-day. Eventually, you'll be running the entire 30 minutes.
  

After I hung up with Dad, I googled "beginner running programs" to see if there were other tips that would help me get started and I landed on Cool Running's site. I clicked on their Couch-to-5K Running Plan and got a good idea of how many minutes I should try to jog/walk. Their plan recommends starting out by first doing a 5-minute warm-up walk, then alternate 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking, until you reach 20 minutes total.

So, after I got home from work, I changed my clothes and the whole family headed out to the McGee Center. My daughter, Rachael, and I ran/walked together while my husband-Paul, my son-Dylan, and toddler-Brady, played basketball.

The funny part is that I got confused and thought I was supposed to alternate 60 seconds of walking with 90 seconds of jogging. Anyway, turns out it didn't matter because neither of us could run for 60 seconds - much less 90 seconds! Hehehehe! The most we could do was 45 seconds of jogging at a time. I know... pretty lame. But before you know it, I'll be saying, "I can run for 30 minutes without stopping!"

I can't tell you how good it felt to be able to walk - much less run - without heel pain. These Ideal Feet arch supports are great!

While googling, I found out that today was also the first annual National Running Day. Pretty cool, huh?

Thanks for reading!






Related Posts:

3 Things I Learned About Heel Pain

Biggest Loser Final 4 (Running a Marathon)

Cathy Skell Is Not The Biggest Loser (Running a Half-Marathon)

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© 2008 Thanks for taking the time to read A Junk-Foodaholic's Journey to a Healthy Lifestyle. Please feel free to peruse my blog for more great content.

My Other Websites: The Experts Agree On Something. Finally. | Are Your Vitamins Safe? | Affiliate Link

3 Things I Learned About Heel Pain

My Personal Hell Heel Experience

As some of you know, I've been experiencing intense heel pain for over a year. I injured my feet last spring, running high school bleachers with my kids, Rachael and Dylan. The following day I could barely walk - my heels were throbbing!

Before this injury, I had never experienced foot pain. So I thought my feet would eventually heal on their own. Even though the pain subsided from a '10' to about a '6', it was still enough pain to make me thoroughly miserable. My heel pain was most intense upon getting out of bed in the morning and again at the end of the day, but also flared up after walking around for more than 30 minutes at a time.

Nine Months Later

It was around Christmas time when I began to worry that my feet weren't getting any better and I wondered whether I would have heel pain for the rest of my life. I was fearful of going to the podiatrist because I thought he might recommend surgery. Crazy, huh? Anyway, I stewed on it for another month and finally made an appointment.

I remembered at our family Christmas party, my brother, Jeff, showed me some exercises I could do to help my feet but I couldn't remember the exercises he showed me. So I decided to google "heel pain" to see if I could find some illustrations of the exercises Jeff showed me and perhaps find some other exercises for heel pain.

Heal My Heels!

I stumbled upon a website by orthopaedic surgeon, Dr. James Amis (who advocates a natural solution to treat heel pain). Since Dr. Amis has been in practice for over 20 years and the video cost only $17.99 to download (and had a money-back guarantee), I decided it was definitely worth the investment. So after downloading the video, I decided to cancel my doctor appointment. I figured if Dr. Amis' treatment didn't work, I could always make another appointment.

What I learned in the video made a lot of sense to me, so I started the treatment right away. I continued the program for 4 months and was amazed and thrilled to discover that I no longer had heel pain in my right foot! However, there was no change whatsoever in my left foot. This caused me to worry that I had done something irreversible to my left foot that Dr. Amis' treatment couldn't fix.

So I reluctantly made an appointment with a podiatrist. I went to see Dr. McClendon a couple of weeks ago. After the $115 doctor visit, he told me I had plantar fasciitis and all I needed to do was trot down to Wilkinson's and buy 'total support' sole inserts. It's times like this when I feel like a complete idiot.

I did learn something while at the doctor's office. Dr. McClendon told me that if I wear Birkenstocks, I don't have to wear sole inserts, because Birkenstocks already have excellent arch support. So I plan on buying a pair soon for me to wear to work.

The doctor told me that although my plantar fascia was torn, he said by wearing the arch supports, my feet would eventually heal (though it may take up to 6 months). Dr. McClendon said he wanted me to wear the arch supports at all times (except for sleeping and showering) until my feet are healed. I was bummed about this because I normally 'live' in my Crocs flip flops but couldn't wear them because the inserts fall out!

Dr. McClendon said he didn't expect to see me again but if I failed to see a noticeable improvement after wearing the sole inserts for awhile, to come back and he would fit me with custom-made arch supports. After leaving the doctor's office, I went to Wilkinson's and bought the $30 sole inserts the doctor recommended. I noticed some relief to my heel pain right away but after wearing them for several days, I felt like I needed more arch support.

WOW... No More Heel Pain!

Last week, I happened to catch an 'Ideal Feet' commercial which showed many happy customers testifying how their 'Ideal Feet' arch supports had completely healed their feet. Then while leaving Wild River Country Saturday evening, a lady overheard me complaining of my foot pain. She said that she had terrible foot pain (due to a car accident) but that she went to the Ideal Feet store and that the arch supports completely changed her life and how she never wanted to be without them. She was so thrilled with the results that she offered to do a radio commercial for them for free to testify about how pleased she was with the results. Well, listening to her testimony did it for me. I decided to go to the Ideal Feet store in Little Rock yesterday to buy the arch supports. I'm amazed already at how great my feet feel! I have no heel pain when I wear the sole inserts.

I bought the whole package which consists of the trainer sole inserts (these have much more arch support) and maintenance sole inserts (these inserts have great arch support - plus - you can wear them in flip flops, sandals, high heels etc. Total cost? $400.00! Thankfully, I had the money in my HSA so I just paid for the inserts out of that account. I figured having pain-free feet was definitely worth it. It would have cost me half that if I'd only bought the maintenance inserts but I decided to get the trainer inserts as well to make sure my feet heal completely. He said it should take me about 2 weeks for my feet to be healed and back to normal. 2 weeks! Can you believe it? And here I've been suffering with foot pain for over a year!

He said once my feet get used to the trainer inserts (I only wore them for an hour yesterday, 2 hours today etc.), I will wear them all day. After my feet are healed (2 weeks!), I will wear the trainer inserts as a preventive measure. I wear the maintenance inserts around the house since I'm always in flip flops at home. I can't believe how good my feet already feel wearing them! It's a wonderful thing to not have foot pain.

What Did I Learn From This Experience?

Doing Dr. Amis' heel pain treatment three times daily can heal plantar fasciitis. And doing the treatment twice daily can prevent plantar fasciitis, thus keeping you from ever experiencing heel pain. I also learned having proper arch support makes all the difference in the world!

Thanks for reading!

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© 2008 Thanks for taking the time to read A Junk-Foodaholic's Journey to a Healthy Lifestyle. Please feel free to peruse my blog for more great content.

My Other Websites: The Experts Agree On Something. Finally. Are Your Vitamins Safe? Affiliate Link