Feeling Sunsational!

Nice of this elusive guy to make an appearance today!

Miracle of miracles - the sun is shining!!!!!
I never thought I'd see it again! But the clouds have parted,  the rain has moved out to the Atlantic and it's quite possibly one of the most glorious days we've had all season. Nice breeze, birds singing, warm sun....just AAAAAHHHHHHHH.......

After yesterday's soak-fest, it's a welcome sight and it had me super motivated to start the day off right - which means I hauled my ass out of bed at 6:30 to walk with my husband and the dogs this morning - no whining, no hesitating, no kvetching of any kind. Just bounced right out of bed and popped my contacts in and put on a baseball cap to hide the bed head and off we went on a 3.1 mile trek about town. It took us an hour and 15 mins (roughly a 24 minute mile) because you know when you're walking with dogs there's a lot of sniffing and peeing and pooping and general lollygagging - but I'm not complaining because A) it was fun, B) I made my hour of exercise goal for the day BEFORE 8:00 AM and C) I burned 387 calories. Not freaking bad.

I'll most likely do some free weight/floor exercises here at home later to up the ante a bit but in terms of meeting this weeks goal I am now up to 3 hours and 41 mins...I have about the same amount to meet my goal this week which should be no problem. In fact,  I am hoping to beat my 7 hour goal with a little luck and a lot of hustle.

Since this week's challenge is all about moving our butts more, I thought I'd share an article that was on SparkPeople this morning. This article touched upon a few things, for me, that I know I have been guilty of in the past and if you get a minute to read it,  you may see a little of yourself in it too.....
Here is the link:

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/fitness_articles.asp?id=1209

I don't know about you all, but in the past I personally have really been lax about "pushing myself" when it came to exercise. Even now, it takes a lot of inner monologue to get me to push past my comfort zone when I am at the gym. I can make excuses like you wouldn't believe. Things like, "I have a bad wedgie - I better get off the elliptical so I can pick it" or "It feels like there is a stone in my shoe, I have to stop walking" or "my bra is chafing me" or "it's drizzling, and apparently I melt in the rain"....you know - total BULLSHIT.

I wish exercise was easy and I wanted to do it all of the time. The reality is it's not, and I don't. If it was easy and always enjoyable, I wouldn't be 100 pounds overweight. Am I right? The article also talks about sabotaging your efforts when you allow your self extra food or treats simply because you worked out. Doesn't that defeat the purpose? I can see once in a while, but I used to be of the warped mindset that justified dessert each night because I burned some calories during the day....I mean where's the logic in that? No wonder the scale was frozen in place for so long. The long and short of it is that you have to give up in order to get.....I finally understand that now. I guess with age really does come wisdom. Ha! An upside to turning 40!

In other news, Debbi at Debbi Does Dinner sent me info to do the linky so that it will be easy to keep track of who has their challenge posts up on Sunday. I will let the link open for two days so people that don't get to it on Sunday have an extra day or two to share their results. Fingers crossed the link thing will work on Sunday....stay tuned!

That's about it for now....I have a house that is begging to be dusted and vacuumed. Joy of all joys! Ha - NOT.

Have a good day everyone. I hope the sun is shining where ever you are!