1st Ride of the Season

We're finally getting into Spring in Utah, which means it's hiking & biking season, yeah! Yesterday Adam fixed our bikes so we could start riding again. Our plan was to take the Jordan River Trail as far North as it goes, but we really had no idea how far North the trail went. We were going to go early in the day, but it was raining most of the day and riding in the rain is not our idea of fun.

Luckily by 5:30pm it stopped raining so we loaded up our bikes and headed to the trail at 6pm. We didn't make it to the end of the Northern trail, but we did ride our bikes 16 miles! I think if it was earlier and warmer we would have kept going, but still, 16 miles is still quite the accomplishment for our first ride of the season.

I have to admit, I was very proud of myself. Last year I was so weak I could hardly go up hills, and some I couldn't go up at all. There is no way I could have rode 16 miles last year. Plus, there's no way I could have kept up with Adam last year! And one of the best things, I am not even sore today. Quite the opposite, I feel like I want to go do it again. :)

I am so excited that Adam and I are now at about the same physical fitness level! That will make this an awesome spring/summer! We already have hikes on the calendar and now we're going to be adding some good bike rides. We both just want to get into a little better shape so we can up our difficulty level for our family vacations coming up.

Anyone know of some good biking trails within an hour drive of West Jordan, UT? We'll be needing some more good ones for this spring/summer season.

Good "Practice" Run

On Tuesday my sister-in-law Julie was kind enough to do my 100,000 mile maintenance on my car, so I was lucky enough to babysit her two kids for the day (I do sincerely mean that, she has great kids!). Being that Adam and I now have like 40 nieces and nephews (I lost count since it grows every year) I have definitely done my fair share of babysitting. In fact, I've even watch kids for days and weeks at a time, so I was pretty sure I knew what I was doing. The one thing I failed to take into account, is that previously, I never tried babysitting kids and working from home at the same time.

I only had the kids (a 4yr old and 6 month old) for about 6 hours. I thought that it would be easy to work from home at the same time. Well, I'm sure any mom right now is just laughing at me. After trying it, I realized working from home is going to be a little harder than I originally thought. Luckily Julie has really good kids. The baby just sat in my lap and played with toys and the dogs (and sometimes my computer) when she wasn't taking a nap, eating, or enticing me to stop working and play. She only cried when she was hungry or needed her diaper changed. The 4yr old mostly entertained himself, with a little help from me and the dogs. Still, even with that, I only got about half the amount of work done in those 6 hours that I normally get done.

Good thing for me I actually got up at 3:30 that morning and started working (I couldn't sleep) so by they time they got their at 9am, I had already been working for 5 and a half hours. So, once you add in the equivalent 3 hours of work I got done in 6 hours, I really did get a full days work in, it just took me a lot longer.

This did teach me that I have a lot more preparing I need to do before I'm ready to work from home with a child of my own. I need to get used to starting earlier or working later to get the same amount of work done. So, my hat is off to all of you moms out there that currently work from home! Someday (hopefully sooner rather than later) I'll be asking you for tips!

Happy Easter and Happy Birthday

This has been a busy week for both the Dalton Family and the Stockdale Family. On the Dalton side it was Adam's Dad's birthday, and it was the big 6-0. We had a surprise party for him on Friday night, although I felt bad because I totally didn't realize it was supposed to be a surprise party (maybe I should read my entire email when related to family parties). I even called Adam's mom while she was with dad and asked her questions about the party. Good thing he wasn't paying attention.

Also on Friday was my mom's birthday, but my sister April and I took her out to lunch for her birthday on Thursday. My mom says it may be the best meat she has ever had. We went to this great Brazilian restaurant in Jordan Landing. I can't remember it's name, but it's one of those places where they walk around with different meats and you get to sample all different kinds of yummy food.

Then of course, today was Easter! My parents came early this morning so we could go to church together and they hung out at my house all day. My sister Kelly came later in the day and our friends Megan and Dan came over too. We had a great Easter dinner together and then played the fun dice game Farkel (a.k.a 5,000 or 10,000).

As you can probably guess, with two birthdays and Easter, our calorie intake was WAY overboard this weekend. Adam and I are looking forward to our 9:15 Cycle and Core class in the morning, then I'm going to throw in a yoga class and add another cycle class or combo class at night. That'll be about enough to burn off one of my three bad food days.

Anyone want to go running with me on Tuesday morning to help burn off another one of those bad days?

Dreams do come true, even the bad ones...

I (Melissa) started my career in the health industry when I was a freshman in college. I started out working at a natural foods and supplement store, then went to work for the American Cancer Society, then became manager of a different nutrition store, then became an Account Manager for the SilverSneakers Fitness Program, and finally became a manager/part-owner of a great family health club.

Everyone that knows me, knows that I have struggled with my body weight my entire life. Partly due to “fat” genes (the ones that give you a SUPER slow metabolism, low thyroid, and fun hormone imbalances that make you heavy) and partly due to poor lifestyle choices. Lets face it, even though I do have diagnosed medical conditions that make me heavier than the average girl, I also made poor lifestyle choices. I didn't have to eat that fatty food or those delicious sugary deserts, I chose to.

With that said, my biggest fear since I started working in the health industry 9 years ago, and my repeating nightmare (yes, I do have vivid, stupid dreams) was that one day I would be talking to someone in my health store, the gym I was working at, or a health fair/health event, and that person would say to me, “So if you know so much, and work in the health industry, why are you fat?” Lucky for me, most people have a filter; the kind of filter that allows you to THINK those things that may be hurtful to others if said aloud, but not actually SAY those things. I had never met anyone whose filter allowed this kind of comment to get through to me, until the other day.

The last time I was in my club, my sales guy was on lunch and a lovely senior lady came into the club wanting to check the place out and get prices. Being the friendly person that I am, I sat down with her, found out what she was looking for, determined our club would be a good fit for her, and then proceeded to show her around. She had never been in a gym before in her life, so I decided to take a little extra time with her and show her more specifically what each piece of equipment actually did and what muscles it worked. I got to the back machine, which works the lats, and I told her this was one of my favorites because it helps to get rid of the dreaded back fat. She then stopped, looked me up and down and said, “If you work here and understand this stuff, then why are you still fat?”

The bad dream I had been dreading and hoping to avoid for the last 9 years, finally came true. Someone actually ignored their filter and said it. I'm sure she was not the first person to think it, but come on lady, did you really need to SAY it? Who do you think you are, my brother? (since they would probably be the only one to say something like that to me, but at least they'd only be joking around)

What did I do you ask? Without even missing a beat, I smiled sweetly at her and said, “Well actually I just lost 40 pounds. You should have seen me a few months ago. And, I'm still losing about 2 pounds a week, so give it a few months and I won't be fat anymore.” She just looked at me, smiled back, and said, “Oh, wow. That's great.”

Surprisingly, after she left, I just laughed about it. I didn't run away and find a corner to cry in like I might have done 9 years ago, I let it roll off my back. I guess that shows I've grown up a bit. I used to want to lose weight just to look good. I would do anything, even sometimes unhealthy things, just to lose weight. Now I just want to lose weight to be healthier, and hopefully to be able to get pregnant. Sure, I want to look good, but that's not the most important reason. I want to be physically fit enough to go running with my dogs everyday, take hikes, bike rides, and have the energy to run around and play with the kids I hope I'll have some day. I want to avoid health problems related to be heavy, and live with my husband on this earth for at least 60 more years so I'm around to meet the generations of our family tree. If the side effect is that people I come across in my work don't think (or maybe even say) bad things about me anymore, well that's nice, but truth is, I really don't care anymore.

Food Poisoning & Emetophobia

On Wednesday night I got the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had in my life. For normal people food poisoning is awful, but it's especially awful when you have a fun little problem called emetophobia. For those of you who are lucky enough to not be familiar with emetophobia, it is an intense, irrational fear or anxiety pertaining to vomiting (the same type of intense fear those with claustrophobia face).

I actually have not had emetophobia my entire life, I know I didn't have it as a child, but I was lucky enough to pick it up some time as an adult. I didn't even know it was a categorized thing that other people have too, until Adam looked it up on the Internet on Thursday while I was getting through the worst of my sickness. So I'm curious, do you or anyone else you know have this fun little phobia?

If so, here are some tips to help cope with emetophobia while sick (and just good practice if you're sick in general). These are the only things that allowed me to get through two days of horrible sickness.

• Have a spouse (or other loving family member or friend) be there to comfort you
  I know this seems silly, but if I didn't have Adam there telling me it would be okay I would have had a major panic attack (I almost did anyway). Panic attacks and vomiting don't mix well.
• “Prep” your bathroom
  Again seems silly, but it was essential for me. Adam was sweet enough to clean the bathroom for me at 3 in the morning, and especially the toilet, before I spent a good solid 24 hours in there. Then when I was too weak to get up and go back to bed, I had a pillow and blanket nearby where I could just lay on the floor and sleep. Plus, everything was cleared out of the way from around the toilet so I would have no obstacle courses.
• If you have long hair, make sure it is pulled back and out of the way
  The last thing you want is a terrible reminder of your fear getting in your hair.
• A toothbrush and tooth paste
  Get all reminders out of your mouth as soon as possible.
• Water or other drink
  Make sure you have something to drink when that round of fun is said and done. You want that taste out of your mouth, but more importantly, your body needs the fluids. As much as I didn't want to drink anything, Adam was good enough to remind me I had to drink to get better and that was incentive enough to sip liquids all day

Last thing, NEVER EAT CARL'S JR! I'm pretty sure that's what gave me the food poisoning. I guess that's what I get for cheating on my food plan and for eating fast food. I'm definitely cured from that!