Roxanne - Week 7 Update

Okay, so first off just let me appologise that it has been two weeks since I last wrote an update.
It has been a busy couple of weeks with just starting to get into all the essay writing and reading, plus I have been working part time for the last week aand a half. . . . But at the same time I feel so blessed. Life is so good. I have incredible friends and aquaintances in my life. People who care about me and encourage me. People who cause me to laugh on a daily basis . . . Truthfully I wish everybody could know the people I know.
I wish I could share with all the stories and dreams and character of the people who are a part of my life.
On the work out side of life - my school has started a two week healthy living initiative, when for two weeks you focus and sign off on everyday of those two weeks establishing a new healthy habit. Through this I have obviously been working out more. And I've noticed the last couple days that it's barely even been a thought in my mind. I just put on my work out clothes and my runners without even questioning whether or not I'm going to work out today. IT's just part of my everyday. End of story.
And I can tell.
Running is starting to get easier again . . . even if it is only gaining 5 seconds a spurt a week. Breathing isn't hard, and I can feel that my legs aren't complaining too much either - now I just need to get past my mental road blocks . . . and also that thing with my heart. When it feels out of control. . . that's why I'm only gaining slowly. The last time I tried to push it too far it made my heart feel weird and my body feel really faint and sick, so I'm just going to work up slowly, and hopefully that will give my heart time to adjust to the fact that I'm making it work a little more than it's used to.

Update:
Longest run: 1 min 20 seconds
Time run during a workout: 5 min 20
Distance walked/run this week: 17.11 miles approx.
Total Weight Loss: 16lbs
Last Week's Weight: 221.2
Weight Loss: 1.8 lbs
Current Weight: 219.4
Goal: 200 lbs by May 20th

This Year We Have ONE More Day To: . . . .

Hey Everyone,
So - You may remember that I'm sort of a non-profit-aholic. I LOVE love love (!) hearing the stories of organizations that are making a difference for people who may not be able to help themselves.
I love researching them
I love following them
I love reading their ideas . . .

Mostly I just love that these organizations give the opportunity to ordinary people (such as myself) to be a part of it.
To be a part of their movement.
To be a part of the miracle
The healing,
The difference.
Of making life better for people.

And as you may remember. This blog is about more than running, or losing weight. It's about supporting causes that deserve it and making a difference in the lives of people around us.

One of my favorite organizations is The One Campaign.
I follow them on twitter (@ONEcampaign)
Their mission is to put an end to poverty.
And I'm not meaning the "bummer I can't get every whim that I get in my head" kind.
I mean the "can't eat-can't feed my kids- can't buy shoes, or other needed clothing" kind.
I think that's a movement worth being a part of.

Today they tweeted a ONE act a week challenge. (http://one.org/blog/2012/02/24/one-act-a-week-use-your-extra-day-to-make-a-difference/)
It was their Leap Day challenge.
They put forth an unfinshed sentence and asked you to complete it. It says:

This year, we have ONE more day to ____________.

My answer is going to be: budget, so that I have more money to give away to people who need it, or at least organizations that help the people who need it.

Why don't you take a couple minutes to decide what you're going to do with your ONE extra day to make a difference. Don't be flippant about it . . . . You never know who you could help.

-Roxanne

When Life Sucks - Allysin's New Entry.

Can I just be honest with you guys....

           So yeah I just want to have a moment of honesty. Sometimes Life really just sucks. You know? I mean sometimes it's not because anything really happened, sometimes you just feel... upset.

          This is how I have been feeling for over a week now. Nothing specific happened. I mean I did start a new job and it's taking up a lot of my time, and I'm not really getting all my work done for school right now. But my philosophy is it WILL get done, just it might get done at 3:00 in the morning of the day it's due. I didn't want to do that this semester, but apparently its inevitable in my life. I'll try not to make this blog entry too long or depressing because who wants to listen to that? But I really feel like I need to be honest. Lately my life just feels.... sucky.

            I try to encourage myself by saying, 'it could be a lot worse' I live in one of the most blessed countries in the world. I have two parents who are still married after 25 years. I have completed high school and am now getting a post-secondary education. I have clean drinking water. I have so many things and yet I still feel so down. I think sometimes we just need to be allowed to have a week where life just sucks. So I have taken this week as just that. Truth is I have still been doing all my runs, and that actually might be the high light of my week. Because although I feel like life is kind of crumbling around me I have stayed committed. Not only that but the endorphins released during my runs usually help cheer me up.

           But even with my body filled with endorphins and my brain filled with the knowledge that I am super blessed, at the end of the day sometimes I just want to curl up and cry. Sometimes I feel like I'm still missing something. I mean I have everything I could possibly need, and yet I still feel like my life isn't complete. Does this make sense to you guys? Can you guys relate?

           I feel like I really just need some encouragement lately, which is funny because I'm doing a challenge to encourage people for 21 days. And yet I find I'm the one who is needing the encouragement.

            But you know what? Happiness is a choice and I'm choosing to be happy and content with my life. (However if you wanted to send me a note of encouragement I would greatly appreciate that, I could really use it) Alright the sob story is over. I just wanted to get that out there, that sometimes its okay to say that life isn't going great.

          Drop me a comment if maybe your life isn't going that great. Or drop me a line of encouragement either one would be great. It would be awesome to here that maybe I'm not the only one that is have a tough time with life right now.

Keep running though everybody! Your goals and dreams are NOT impossible.
infinite x's and o's
Allysin

Dreaming - Allysin's New Entry

Yeah I know it's been a little while....


                   I told you guys, I'm not very good at staying committed to things. But hey I'm trying my best. (Well maybe not my bestest, but I'm working up to that)

                 Anyways that fact I haven't written in a couple weeks is not the point of this blog. Because although continuously writing is not my strong point adding distance and time to my runs has become my strong point. This week I ran my first full 5 km's on the treadmill. THATS RIGHT! I DID IT! I mean I'm nowhere close to being done all my running, but hey it's a big step! I ran 5 km, in 40 minutes making my longest run time 30 minutes with a 5 minute warm up and cool down.
 
                 Everything I read said it should take AT LEAST 8 weeks to be able to run 5k. But I successfully did it in four weeks. And not only did I run 5k one time, I've ran it twice! And this week coming I will be running it more. (I kind of took a few days off this past week, probably not the best idea I've had) But starting tomorrow I will be doing daily runs again. (Except on sundays, I figure it God can take a day of rest so can I)

                  Once the warmer weather comes I'll be switching to outside, just the thought already makes me cringe. I feel like it will be a lot less motivational not having the clock and distance right in front of me, but then maybe the scenery will help motivate me.

                   So I hope you guys haven't given up on your goals. Look I KNOW it can be tough! I know you do not always feel like working for something. I know you want to find an easy way to get there. I know you have a million 'reasons' (which I like to call excuses) of why you're putting it off. I know because I have been there. BUT JUST STOP IT! No reason you can come up with right now will be good enough to convince me that you should stop pushing yourself towards your goals. We don't saying we're 'pushing ourselves towards our goals' because it's easy. That would 'we're rolling ourselves towards our goals'. You have to work to push! You have to use your energy and PUSH yourself. It's not always fun. Ten minutes into my run I normally think, 'this is boring, I don't want to do this anymore' but thinking like that did not help me accomplish running 5km's for the first time this week.

                If your goal is to have a healthy lifestyle so you can live a longer life with your wife/husband, children AND grandchildren then start practicing it now! Because eating that bag of potato chips and watching a movie with your kids might seem like fun now. But guaranteed your kids would rather that you had spent time outside playing a sport with them while eating carrot sticks, and still be able to have you around to see their kids. So you can make every excuse you want. But when you are in the hospital saying your goodbyes to your kids at age 45, because of high blood pressure or diabetes you're going to regret making those excuses now! You will wish you could go back years earlier and start making those healthy decision. Stop wasting your life. Because before you know it, your whole life will be gone and you'll be left with a lot of regret.

               Your dreams might seem big. Maybe you want to be the first person in your family to graduate university. Maybe you want to lose over a hundred pounds. Maybe you want to become a doctor and discover the cure to cancer. Your dreams might seem so out of reach, but it doesn't mean you should stop reaching for them. I know there is stuff in my life that I want, and I want to look back and say I did everything I possibly could have to reach my dreams. I know this blog entry is getting long, I'm sorry I'll try to end it soon.

               I want to share with you guys some of my dreams. I don't normally share my dreams with people. For a couple reasons, the first, I'm terrified that people are going to judge me and think that my dreams are stupid. The second, I have changed my mind so many times in my life about what I want that when i share what I really want people don't believe me anymore, so I just stopped sharing it. But I think in a step to overcome my fear and actually going for my dreams I want to share what my dreams are.

First off I want a family. I want a husband, and I want children, I even want some form of a pet (even if it's just a fish). I say that I don't really need these things and that I would be fine if I just committed myself to my work. It's not true, I desire to have a family of my own. And I desire to have a family where my husband and I choose to love each other everyday and to never give up on us even when things are tough. I want my children and I to have an open relationship where they can talk to me about everything that goes on in their lives because they KNOW I will ALWAYS love them. And I want my parents to be healthy enough to play with my children. I want my dad to walk me down the aisle. I want to see them both live long and healthy lives.

Secondly is career centered. I want to start an organization that reaches out to many people who feel hopeless. I want to start a cafe that inspires young people to reach for their dreams in every form of art. I want to do seminars in high schools where we talk to the students about self worth, I want the students to KNOW that THEY ARE WORTH SOMETHING! I want to start a retreat/camp for troubled teens. Where they would have a chance to build HEALTHY relationships. I want to start a wedding planning business that not only finds ways to fit a couples budget and give them the wedding of their dreams, but that also offers premarital counseling to give the couple the MARRIAGE of their dreams. And lastly I want to fight against sex trafficking in not only third world countries where everyone knows this is going on. But in North America where it goes on unnoticed. I want to offer each one of these groups of people hope. I want people to know that they are here on earth for a reason. That no matter how bad life seems there is ALWAYS A REASON TO KEEP GOING!

              I have a lot of other dreams but these are my biggest. Sometimes they seem too big. They seem to far off, and impossible. But I know that these dreams are in me for a reason. And I don't know if I will ever accomplish all of these. But I do know that when it comes time for me to die, I sure want to be able to say that I did everything possible to see my dreams come to pass. I hope you do too!

Infinite x's and o's
Allysin

Roxanne - Week 5 Update

Hi Everyone.
So, this is going to be just a quick update due to me being superduper busy today and tomorrow . . .

Update:
Longest run: 2 min. 10 sec.
Time run during a workout: 8 min. 20 sec.
Distance walked/run this week: 3.18 miles approx.
Total Weight Loss: 14lbs
Last week's weight: 222.8 lbs
Weight loss: 1.8 lbs
Current weight: 221.0
Goal: 200 lbs by May 20th, 2012

Thanks so much everyone for the support. I haven't weighed this little in almost 4 years, so definitely making progress. Now I just need to start cracking down on the running a bit more.
Hope all is well.
Feel free to update us on your lives and goals as well. We would love to hear from you!
-Roxanne <3

Roxanne - When Quiting Comes Close.

I have never felt more like quiting than I do today.
Life's tough.
And it seems like whenever it throws something at you - it sure does like to throw an avalanche.
In one day I have been told that I am not wired to do the job I'm in school for
- I couldn't make it through my run because I was struggling to breathe
- I gained a pound and a half
- and I found out that my best friend and I weren't as good of friends as I thought.
It's been a long time since I've felt this lonely . . .
A long time since I have felt like this much of a failure. . .
What happens if I can't do this?
What happens if I don't succeed?
What happens if I can teach myself to run 5k?
Or lose 100 pounds?
What happens if I can never look in the mirror and be proud of myself?
What happens if I can't conquer?
Win?


I don't know.
But I can't give up.
I can't.

If I find out the answers to these questions.
It's not going to be because I quit!

I'm no quiter.

I may be a failure - but I'm no quiter.
I can't give up.

I'm fighting for this inch . . .

NOTE: This video swears once.