You can lose while on vacation!

The title is pretty self explanatory, the bottom line is you can acheive your goals while on vacation- whether it is to lose, maintain, or simply minimize your gain.

My goal....it's always to lose (at least until I hit my goal weight).  Vacation is awesome, because I am NOT on a diet.  I have changed my entire life style which means I eat as clean and healthy as possible all the time because I my body feels so much better when I do.  I allow myself to enjoy the things that I love- in moderation.   While on vacation I am going to naturally indulge a little more than normal, but I make sure to get extra activity in to counter balance it.

I have gotten 2 runs in so far- both in Prospect Park in Brooklyn.  First I ran with Jen H on Sunday morning, which was great! I love running with friends and the run felt effortless and fun with great weather and a ton of other runners, walkers, and bikers out.  There is something about working out around lots of other people that just pushes you on.

Speaking of which....I returned to Prospect Park on Monday morning by myself and had a blast! I was planning on an easy 3 mile run because it took me forever to leave.... and then I got there and the combination of beautiful weather and tons of fitness enthusiasts out enjoying it spurred me on.   I ended up running a solid fartlek because I was feeling DARN good!



Minus #2

 For those that are saying- what's a fartlek?! here is a good definition, from cool running: "Fartlek is a form of road running or cross country running in which the runner, usually solo, varies the pace significantly during the run. It is usually regarded as an advanced training technique, for the experienced runner who has been using interval training to develop speed and to raise the anaerobic threshold. However, the 'average' runner can also benefit from a simplified form of Fartlek training, to develop self-awareness and to introduce variety into the training program.  There is no predetermined schedule to follow, but instead the athlete will set her/his own interval lengths and pace in response to their own feeling of the workload. An advantage of Fartlek is that the athlete can concentrate on feeling the pace and their physical response to it, thereby developing self awareness and pace judgement skills. Also the athlete is free to experiment with pace and endurance, and to experience changes of pace."

Here are my splits: (total 3.34 miles)
mile 1: 10:59 min/mile - good warm up mile
mile 2: 9:06 min/mile ----> Fastest mile EVER!!! The speed work is finally paying off! I felt so good throughout and was shocked every time I looked at my garmin because it didn't feel as impossibly fast as that number is to me on a typical day- so I just kept going.
mile 3: 10:53 min/mile - good solid mile, almost entirely up hill
last .34 mile: 11:58 min/mile ---> cooldown, purposefully slower and all up hill

And of course we walked a TON while in NYC and even rented bikes on Governor's Island and had a blast with some of Jen's friends.  One of my favorite things we did was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge- very cool and obviously good exercise. ;)  We walked ourselves into complete exhaustion by the time we got to the Yankees game and were all grateful for some seated time.  We also did some walking (duh) while with George and Kyle at Six Flags, New England. 

So, tonight I went to a weight watchers meeting right by our hotel and I lost 0.8 lbs!!  The leader found out my weight loss by pressuring me after I answered a question....and it became a Colleen show where I answered a ton of questions, people cried (including me) and it was pretty amazing and inspirational.   I had members approach me afterwards, even as I was pulling out of the parking lot, just to thank me for coming and sharing my story.  I got hugs and congratulations and tears all over the place over my weight loss.  The thing that everyone kept coming to was that I was there on vacation- that blew them away.  The leader said that she would be telling my story for months to come and felt honored that I came to her meeting.....wow.