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I woke up this morning knowing that I had to go and workout today. Today was another scorcher, well above 90 degrees. But, I thought about how many times have I read emails and comments from you guys saying “You kept on going through the rain, through the cold through the whatever, because you could hear my voice in Week 5 saying “Just get to it, No excuses!” When I got home from work, I said it’s just too hot outside, I’ll go to the gym. But I didn’t want to feel like a hamster running around the track in circles. So, I decided that I would drink plenty of water and brave the weather. My Big Little Sister called and invited me to her neighborhood block party, but I was getting ready to go to the park to run. Then, I had an ingenious idea. Why not walk to my Sister’s house? I jumped on Google maps really quick and saw that it was just a little over 3 and half miles and an estimated 1 hour and 8 minute walk. I can handle that. Right? Maybe? I was so excited about my adventure, I grabbed my fur baby Nyah, and hit the pavement, and told my sister to look out for us. I was probably too excited, because I forgot my Cell Phone
and had to turn back around after a few minutes to get it. By the time I walked back to my door, I was already sweating. This is a good plan right? This will make a good blog post tonight right? We headed out again, this time armed with my cell phone, a towel to catch my sweat, and my iPod 
. I took a self defense class in college that said as a lady you should never run alone with earphones in both ears, so I always have just one in, so I can pay attention to my surroundings while jamming to my podcast. There was so much to see, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
and then the Best thing. I told y’all before I live in the hood/ghetto, but all the scary looking people were scared of Nyah, so it worked out perfectly. About 10 minutes into my walk, I was thinking I’d never make it all the way there; because I’ve never walked to a real destination except my Mom’s house about 7 blocks away. Then I saw “The GOOD”, this church billboard sign that read “Run Till You Finish” with a scripture. I appreciated that little boost and knew right then that I would make it all the way. 
Then came “The BAD.” I had to walk past like 3 cemeteries. That stuff creeps me out, and it made me think about dead people. No fun. 
Then came the “The UGLY.” There was this horrible collapsed building, or what used to be to be building, it reminded me of the Haiti disaster. I kept asking myself what happened? We don’t have earthquakes, or Tsunamis that would do damage like that here in St. Louis. How does the city allow it to stay like that? Why won’t they clean it up? It was just sad really. When you’re driving past, it’s so easy to over look the details. 
Anyway, Me and Nyah, kept pushing, trying to block out the disturbing broken glass and boarded up ghetto images and focus on the main goal, my sister’s house in a good/safe neighborhood. When we were just about 10 minutes away there was a monster hill, and another cemetery. I hadn’t really put steep hills in my brave hood adventure equation. It killed me and Nyah, I was dragging all 65 pounds of her by the time we finally arrived at the block party. I looked at my Nike Tracker
, it read exactly 1 hour and 8 minutes. I was so freaking happy! I did it! And I did it in the suggested amount of time. Finally the there was “The BEST”, my cute little niece at the finish line. Her smiling face and jumbled 2 year old words made it all worthwhile.
Today is my little sister’s Super Sweet 16th birthday. I got up this morning with a to-do list much longer than I would have preferred for it to be. But I guess I’ll back track, for the last week I felt kind of frustrated. That’s why my blog was pretty quite, I guess I just felt stuck. I almost canceled my Weight Watchers membership. I felt like the plan just wasn’t working for me. But the truth of the matter is that I wasn’t working the plan…. My Little Sister asked me to go to vacation bible school and I’m glad I did, because I got a good word that I needed. We talked about the Spiritual Armor of God. Specifically, that day we discussed the Sword of the Spirit. We talked about using God’s word as our offensive weapon (the sword). God gave us all of the tools that we need to fight back. Everyone has their own issue; my issue of course is struggling with the idea that I have to battle weight for the rest of my life. I still haven’t full
y accepted that I have to deal with this forever. But, I left church feeling refreshed and renewed that God will help me fight my battle. So, this morning I got up and went to the gym, I hadn’t been to the gym since last week when I went with my Shopping Cousin. As I walked up the stairs to the indoor track, I got winded and out of breath. Oh crap, I thought to myself, that can’t be a good sign. I did some light stretches and turned on my Week 3 podcast. Even though I didn’t exercise for more than a week, I refuse to go backwards. If Week 3 killed me today, it was just going to kill me. The first 90 second run was easy. After the 3 minute run, it started to get a little tough, but I didn’t care, I kept pushing, as I thought back to the days where, I would look down and couldn’t see my lap over my stomach, or got out of breath bending over putting on my shoes. I can’t go back there, it was just too miserable. I also t
hought about Roni’s post called “Why I Keep Trying.” I pushed all the way through 
the whole running routine with no extra walks. Every time I heard “Carli” say “ready for your next run?” I would say out loud, “Bring it on Baby, I got you, I’m ready!” When I finished, I felt so proud, it was like I never missed a day. Then it was time to get ready for the rest of the day. I invited my new guy friend to the party, you know the guy that I mentioned before, let’s call him Mr. Man. So, Mr. Man rode with me over my parent’s house while I helped my little sister get ready. My Dad opened the door. Oh boy, I thought to myself, this will be interesting. Unfortunately, I had the leave Mr. Man downstairs by himself with Dad while I went up to help my little sister get dressed. I said “Daddy be nice.” To which my Father sternly replied “What does that mean?” I tapped Mr. Man on the shoulder and said “Good Luck!” He survived, even though I fed him to the wolves, LOL. I later found out they talked about football and Lebron and other boy stuff. …Anyway, My little sister did it so big y’all. She showed up fashionably late to her glow in the dark party. She had a grand entrance with an escort and even a balloon drop. Can you believe it?! She looked so fabulous! That girl was rocking some HOT stilettos high heels, but you know they came off before the end of the night after all the dancing she did. My Mama was so awesome to pull off the party of my sister’s dreams. There were tons of overly-energetic teens dancing all night. Even us “old people” had such a great time! After the party, we went to Uncle Bill’s pancake house, a local 24 restaurant, perfect for a late night meal. Me and my Big Little Sister, and Mr. Man chaperoned my little sister and the 16 friends and who joined her after party. I told the hostess table for 20 people at 1 o’clock in the morning, she replied “are you serious?” Yep, I told her we were there for the post-party meal. Everyone had a ton of fun cracking jokes and hanging out, and I didn’t make it to bed until 4 A.M.! My little sister said it was the best birthday ever!
Happy Father’s Day! I know there aren’t too many guys who read my blog, but if you do, and you’re a Dad, Happy Father’s Day to you! …..I’m sick y’all. That’s why I’ve been MIA. I tried to go run Week 2 when I got back home, but I was too sick and had to turn around after just a few minutes. I struggled through the week feeling a little bad, but by Friday, I felt so terrible that I called off work. Once I could get up out of bed, My Big Little Sister took me to Urgent Care. I found out that I have a serious ear infection in both ears, and a sinus infection. When the first doctor looked in my ear, she frowned and said “ugh” and when the 2nd doctor came in he said “wow” and jumped back. You know doctors usually try to control their emotions, but it was obvious that I had a very nasty ear infection. The doctor said that flying on the plane and swimming in the ocean, and being enclosed on a ship with sick people made things worse. They gave me antibiotics and ear drops for the pain…. Yesterday, our church had a Health Fair. We had a chiropractor, nurses, computer techs, a lawyer and more. My Mom was on the committee, and she asked for “Running Into Shape” to be a part of it. I was still not feeling well, but if I make a commitment, I try to stick to it. I had a vendor table with business cards promoting my website and Couch to 5K Podcasts, before Pics of me 50 pounds heavier, and a copy of my ACE Group Fitness Instructor certification. I also gave away a free 7 -Day meal plan. It never ceases to amaze me that people take health advice and don’t laugh at fat girl talking about exercise and weight loss. Everyone who came to the table said, oh I could never run. AndI told them all, look at me, if I can run, so can you! What really amazed me was that 3 different people said they remembered seeing me on TV. That was over a year ago, TV is such a powerful medium. The fair turned out to be a huge success and the computer tech guy said that he would help make my website a little more fancy with flashing pics and stuff….. Well, my Dad just brought me some fruit, and told me to rest. So, I’m going to respond to a few emails and comments and try to rest up for work tomorrow.
This morning started off with an all you can eat Fried Chicken and Waffle breakfast at church. I was so apprehensive about it. I’ve done a really good job of keeping my points these past few days, and I was so scared I might go overboard and eat too much. My Big Little sister was hosting it, otherwise, I would have skipped it all together. I took my time in the buffet line and tried to make good choices. I ate 2 wings, turkey bacon, eggs and one waffle. I skipped the grits, pancakes, sausage, croissants and orange juice. The weight watcher program works if you work it. You can eat everything, just in moderation. It felt so good to feel in control, especially in a setting like that. The rest of the day was super busy and I ate at the closest fast food place, Jack in the Box. I didn’t have time to look up points, so I relied on the menu and the healthy dining symbol. I got the steak teriyaki bowl. I figured anything is better than a burger and fries, right?….. WRONG! When I finally got a chance to look it up, I discovered that it was almost 800 calories!!!! I was so mad. In what world is 800 calories “healthy dining”??? It tasted good but it wasn’t worth all those points. I only had 3 points left for dinner. I drank a lot of water and ate a Healthy Choice frozen meal. Which ironically enough is actually a ”healthy choice” I ended up only using 2 of my weekly overage points. Not so bad considering I was bamboozled by Jack in the Box. Lesson learned, look up the points BEFORE you eat it.
Guess where I am? Yep, Hollywood, Los Angles California. I’m so excited to be here. My job sent me here for a week long computer training class, but I’m staying for the weekend and spending time with my Aunt that’s an actress. Everyone in LA is such a character…. I’m still trying to identify who is a Drag Queen and curiously listening when everyone discusses their “positive energy” or their latest auditions. I’ve had so much fun already. I forgot to bring my camera cord to hook to the computer, so you guys will have to wait until I get back to see pics, but last night I met Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers
! I even took a picture with him. I met him at M Cafe, a really nice vegetarian restaurant. I ate dinner at In & Out Burger, and only sampled the vegan food. That’s backwards, I know. It was so funny, my Aunt said “you know we do have weight watcher points here in Cali, they still count here too”…. After the restaurant we went to hear spiritual motivational speaker Marianne Williamson. This lady was awesome. You know that famous poem about ”Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure…; Marianne wrote that. I always wondered where that awesome quote came from. Anyway, She packed the theater with several hundred people. She said that God made each and everyone one of us completely unique from one another, and that fact alone proves that we are special and can be perfect because God created us just like we are for a purpose. One of the most important things that she talked about was how we often look for earthly solutions to problems, instead of praying about it and relying on spiritual resolutions. I’m not trying to get all preachy on y’all, but I was really moved. If you look back over my posts, its seems like cookies are just such a huge downfall for me, and for about a week, I’ve been struggling with just completely eliminating them from my diet. I felt silly praying about cookies, but last night, I got enough courage to do so. I came back to my hotel room and threw the cookies in the trash!!! Just like the leader at the WW meeting, I actually threw perfectly good, fantastically tasting cookies in the trash. Now, I could lie and say it was liberating and felt good, but it honestly just felt like I threw cookies in the trash. However, when I woke up, I felt good about it. I cut out of my biggest food temptations. Just as I figured, when I went to computer training today, there were free soft chocolate chip cookies. I just shrugged my shoulders and thought, I’m so over cookies ruling me! I didn’t touch not one. 
I woke up this morning to the most wonderful thing ever…..Sunshine! I was so excited. I feel like I live in Seattle with all the rain we’ve had here. I think it rained more than 20 days of last month. I’m sure you’ve heard me rant and rave about how much I hate rain; it’s so gloomy and depressing to me. To wake up and see sunshine after having weeks on end of dreary days was truly refreshing. When I let Nyah out, I saw that we had a few inches of snow, fortunately nothing like “Snow-mageddon” in D.C. I was a little worried that the snow would scare people away from my fitness class. The good part about being the teacher is that I can’t really make up too many excuses not to work out. But one thing I still battle with the question, “Do I really need to take a shower?” I think most people who work out in the morning just go, they don’t take a shower, and then come home and take another shower after the workout. That just seems really redundant. But, I feel like as the teacher, you can’t really teach the class wearing yesterday’s funk. So, I went ahead and showered before class. Mom and I rode together, but about 15 minutes later, no one showed up for class. My Big little sister was working at her salon and my little sister was taking her ACT test, and other participants had already called and canceled. Just when I was about to go back home, 2 people showed up. I told them I passed my Group Fitness Instructor test, and to expect a better class because I’ve learned so much. After the warm up, I told the 3 lucky ladies it was time to hit the stairs! After a few runs up the stairs, I threw in a little kick boxing; it was fun. Class is much better now that I actually have a better understanding of how our body works, instead of just throwing together random exercises. I felt so good after class; I wanted to work out more! Last week was just “ugh” I didn’t have any motivation to work out, so I figured I should milk this “want to work out feeling” for all it was worth. When I got home I put on “The Firm- 500 Calorie workout“ DVD. I thought, I’m pretty much in shape, I can do this. This DVD was Extremely advanced and very fast paced. I almost tripped over my feet on more than one occasion. One move was like step, hop, cross, skip, kick, jump, turn and repeat it. I guess if you’re a tri-athlete and need something more advanced, this is the workout for you. I stopped after 15 minutes, so I probably burned 125 calories. That was enough. After starting off the morning so wonderfully, the rest of the day had no choice but to follow the lead.
I know everyone hates being sick, but I really just hate it! I woke up at like 3AM with snot running and throat hurting, *sniffle* it’s just gross. I took some expired Nyquil and tried to go back to sleep. When I got out of bed this morning I still felt pretty yuck. My friend was nice enough to swing by in the rain to bring me some Dayquil
. I was just praying that I got better because I knew I had to teach the fitness class tonight at church tonight. During the day, I did a little bit of reading and researching and I found some pictures in SELF magazine with this cute little dancer from whatever that celebrity dance show is called. She had some ballet dance moves in there, and I thought how unique, I’ll add them to my church class routine. I like to do moves that are different and fun to keep the people entertained.
With the rain, I wasn’t even sure anyone would show up. But I had 5 students, 3 of which were Mom and both sisters, but nonetheless there were 5 attendees. We had great time. We did some real cardio, we ran laps in the basement, did jumping jacks and of course I incorporated the ballet dance moves, and instructed everyone to be graceful and controlled like a ballerina. It was a good sweaty work out. I guess the prayer and Day-Quil made it all possible.
What Did Carli Eat Today? Nothing to brag about…
B- Beef Stew – too sick to cook, so I just warmed this up.
S- Mixed Nuts
L- Homemade Hamburger and spaghetti
D- T-Bone Steak, salad, and Baked potato and Texas Toast (take-out)
I spent the last 3 days in a Rich Dad, Poor Dad
“Launch Your Business” Seminar. It was so long, every day from 9 a- 7 p. But, I learned a lot about real estate and have some REALY BIG dreams about my own business. I can’t go into too many details because my idea is unique, and I’ve already told too many people. When I presented my idea to the class, they thought it was a great idea and gave me positive information about how to make it better. But, I can tell you that the main idea is that I’ve found a way to help mentor people like me through the process of getting fit and reaching a healthy weight. It’s going to be big y’all. I have to do a whole lot of research and studying so that I make sure I do this right.
Tonight was Week 2 of the church fitness class. It was great! People always ask, how do I know if a certain food is healthy? So I taught the class the 2 tests. The first is test is “Is it a food that God made?” and the other is “Was it here 100 years ago?” If you answer yes to both of theses, chances are that it’s a healthy food in moderation…. Last week after teaching Week 1, I realized that all of my students were ladies, so I spiced up the exercise routine. I added a few hip swirls that I learned from cardio strip fit class and some booty lifting exercises at the end. I guess it wasn’t too sexy for the church ladies, because they were giggling and had fun with it. I also had to step it up a notch, and make them work a little harder, after all it was week 2. We were all sweating by the end of class, and I was even a little sore. When I laughed after class I definitely felt the effects of my ab rountine. At least I know it’s working. It’s so weird to say “Man, I worked myself out” Well I’m off to study, so that one day I’ll actually be certified and not just making stuff up.
What Did Carli Eat Today? – 2 many carbs not enough veggies…
B- Bowl of Cereal
L- Breakfast Casserole I made (special request from my God-brother)
S- Small Salad before class
D- Chicken sandwich and a bowl of Chili
S- Mountain Dew
