A little of everything

This first part of the post is super weird and maybe confusing, so I'm editing to make it read a little better.   

Running Routes:

At the end of 2014 we lost our home.  We bought our house in 2007 just before the economy tanked, actually, it was probably at the same time, but we didn't feel it right away.  (Wikipedia says it started late 2007, right when we bought our house.) Anyway, our house ended up being foreclosed in 2014 because we couldn't make the payments and got so far behind and the banks wouldn't work with us.  You can read about it here.

Anyway, the house we moved into we were only there for 6 months, which was really sad because we loved that house.  In my old posts, I talked initially about how much I loved the new area to run in, but then I found a post only 4 months after moving that talked about running in Burlington and how already sick of it.  Our current house was bought 3 years ago, and is about a mile and a half from where we used to live (which is now giant, low quality apartments, unlike the lovely old farmhouse we lived in).  

The "new trail" I found in 2015 is the dike along the river, and I have run it so many times now.  The roads I ran and were so new to me, are now part of my weekly running.  I can't seem to find a route that I love, that I don't dread doing when I go out.  I ran the same routes, or similar variations of them, for about 10 years in Mt. Vernon.  I loved those routes, I loved the houses, I loved running by them every season to see the changes.  In fact, I love them so much, now that I work in Mt. Vernon, only about a mile from my old house, I am back to running those routes when I can during lunch or after work.  

I truly think not liking where I run in Burlington is one of the biggest reasons I have been unmotivated to go run now.  My fitness has tanked so much.  It did start while I still lived in Mt. Vernon, in March of 2022 I only ran 33 miles (I moved in August), but it definitely hasn't helped me get in a groove again with my running.  

I realize that it may be hard to visualize how close Burlington and Mt. Vernon are, so I took a screenshot of the map and labeled them.  The only dividing factor between the two is the river.

Struggle bus:

I really struggle with motivation, although I'm not that crazy about that word.  I've written about motivation vs. determination, but I can't see to find the post, the first time I thought about it was in reading Runs for Cookies post about it.  I am not motivated, and I am definitely not determined right now.  It was a really nice day yesterday, it is supposed to rain the rest of the week.  I had time to go for a run.  I did not go.  I did run 4 miles on Sunday, which was a nice run, I did not run on Saturday.  I don't know if not liking my routes in Burlington is the reason I don't want to run. I was going to run in Mt. Vernon, which is where I enjoy my routes, but I still didn't go.

My last post talked about my stalling weight loss.  Well, not long after that post, I lost a little.  I am officially out of the 170s (again), although, just barely.  I am happy about that, I do wish it was faster.  The weight loss pills are supposed to be the magic pill, right?  I'm supposed to be at goal already. Afterall, I started them 2 months ago.  

The thing is, I've noticed, the pills are not the magic solution.  I still have to work on it.  I still have to be mindful of what I'm eating when I eat.  I still have to be active.  I am definitely eating better.  I am definitely not hungry hardly ever.  I am getting lots of protein, but I should work on vegetables, I am not eating many carbs, at least not like I was.  I have definitely cut back on snacking in the evenings.  I had gotten pretty bad about the chips in the evening.  For now, this combination of eating, the pills, and my sporadic exercise is doing good-ish.

Speaking of exercise, my sister works for the US government, and has I'm sure you know, they are currently shutdown and she is on furlough.  I have really enjoyed her being on furlough, because it means we can do pilates later in the morning.  I am not forcing myself out of bed at 6am to do it (which I was pretty unsuccessful at over the summer).  Now I am doing it at 8am.  I do it in my office at work because I take Maddox to school (can you believe he's in high school????) at 730, and I am at my office right before 8, but don't actually start work until 830.  So if we can avoid talking too much, we can get a workout in before 830.  We often go over, but it is not a big deal for me to start a few min late, my job is very flexible with the hours, although they really want us working when the doors are open.  

She is expecting to be back at work next week (I don't talk about politics here, but I am very unhappy with that, and not because of pilates).  (I don't know why I don't talk about politics, I guess I figure this is "supposed" to be about running and weight loss, so I don't.  I am very anti-Trump and all that he stands for. If you don't like it, that's fine.)  Anyway, I don't know how I will do with pilates at 6am again.  I was really, really struggling over the summer with it. (I know the gov't has only been shutdown for 40 something days, but Nancy was in Hawaii for a couple weeks before that, and I think Mexico before that.)  Her going back to work means I will have to get out of bed "on time" to do pilates with her.  I was really, really struggling with that.  Randomly pulling up a month, July, I only did 3 days of yoga or pilates for the entire month.  That's worse than my running.  I really need to figure out the waking up part of it.

Just a comparison of Maddox from start of this blog to now.

If we're doing comparisons . . . here's Damian

Weirdly, Damian's "before" picture is the same age as Maddox's "after" picture.  I've been blogging (and running) for almost 14 years, almost Maddox's entire life.

We've been doing these pictures since Maddox was born, maybe 2012 (the first picture below) was the first because he was only 4 months old in 2011. 

Well, this post ended up going all over the place.