Hiking with the Yamamotos

On September 21, 2013 we hiked Kuamoʻokāne (Koko Head) with our friends the John and Nicky Yamamoto and their two kids Elise and Jacob.

 The trail is completely paved

and overlooks the Haunama Bay

We started out early and caught the beautiful sunrise.

 

It was short and sweet and we had cinnamon roll pancakes and fried rice afterwards....definitely my kind of hike!

Re-starting ......again....

I just published my post "The Hiking Hoveys" and realized the last time I updated my success blog I had just completed the Thrive Challenge at work. I re-read my post and felt a little nostalgic about the "old" me. After over a year of physical inactivity I'm hoping to eventually get back to where I was, because I was feeling very successful on a physical level for the first time in a LONG time.

After everything I've been through this past year and a half my priorities have changed. I've forgotten some of the things that were so meaningful to me and one of those things was how I began enjoying my walks. While on bed rest and while recovering I yearned to be able to exercise. Now that I can I've made other things more important.  I want to get back on track and am feeling grateful for the few small steps I've made so far. After all even the small wins contribute to big success. I'm happy to report that I'm at least walking once a week  thanks to my friend Jen who walks with me on Fridays and Janeen who walks with me on Sunday mornings. I'm also hiking every Saturday thanks to my beloved Scotty.

It may not be ideal........
                                       it's far from perfect.................
                                                                                          but you gotta re-start from somewhere right?

The Hiking Hoveys

Since June we have hiked EVERY Saturday! Yay for the Hiking Hoveys!!!If you know me, you know I am NOT a very good enthusiastic hiker. I like to complain. I try not to, and I've gotten light years better than I used to be. But without fail I always breakdown just before the summit or end of the trail. No matter the distance of the total hike it seems to be that within a hundred yards of the destination I 'm done and will tell Scotty I'm not going any further. My theory is that I have "trust issues" from previous hikes where people have said it's "just a little further" or "just around the bend" only to realize they mean like 2 miles more. I once was on a hike where I was told it was 4.5 miles. only to learn while on the hike that it was 4.5 miles ONE way!....yeah, so I'm still figuring out the whole happy attitude about hiking thing.

I must say tho, that I've really enjoyed hiking with our little Hoku. Mainly because of the great photo opportunities to "prove" I did something and because she is so cute!She LOVES hiking! After all she IS her father's daughter AND I think I'd probably like hiking too if someone carried me.

Yesterday we hiked Pu'u Pia located in Manoa Valley.

I liked it a lot because it was short (1.5 miles), mostly covered, and had a beautiful view. We are definitely spoiled here in Hawaii because ALL the views are gorgeous. Yesterday's hike felt like we were far away from the city, yet in reality we were about 5 minutes from everything.

I love how quickly the surroundings changed. We went from a residential neighborhood, to a jungle,to the top of the mountain where the Koa trees grew and back again. I always expect the dinosaur from Jurassic Park to jump out from behind the bushes at any moment....you know...the one who looks cute and then gets scary when his flappy ear things come out! FREAKED me out! (I was gonna post a picture of it but I got scared so I didn't).

Anyway walking around in the jungle always reminds me of that.

AND snakes.....

oh AND spiders......

 

hmmm...maybe that's why hiking might not be my favorite thing......

Thankfully Hawaii doesn't have any snakes...although there is the rare story of them finding one on the news every so often.....and they have those invasive species exhibits at the airport with the pickled snake in the jar.

I know Hawaii has  the big cane spiders, and I am lucky enough to NOT have encountered any...hopefully I never will.....

It must be a raised in the desert thing or something....jungles and ocean are a little scary for me.

I prefer the wooded areas with nice open trails.

 And the wide open space at the top....

.  

with the beautiful valley view.  

 Thankfully I have the hubby's and Hoku bear to keep me safe from the scary monsters in my head.I love how Hoku loves to see everything even if it's just peaking out from her napping/snacking spot.

This hike had it all!

And the best part is that we were back home in the pool in no time.

Exercising EVERY day!

Our team won the Thrive Across Hawaii Competition! Well we actually tied for 1st place.... which was a little disappointing since the rules were not that clear. BUT we all won a $100 Visa Gift Card! Yay US!!!

Our team Craig's Angels consisting of Janeen, Gail, Sommer and Craig logged an average of  3360 minutes of exercise over the course of 56 total days . Basically the competition only allowed us to log a maximum of 60 minutes a day and many of the days we went over our minutes but only 60 minutes a day counted for the competition.

As for me, I've actually kept up the exercise EVERY day since January 23rd.Yes, you've read that right! I've continued exercising for a total of 13 days AFTER the competition. As you can tell I'm pretty pleased with myself.

What is interesting to me is that even though I've consistently exercising for 69 days straight, it is STILL HARD. I can tell I've gotten stronger and recover a lot faster but it still takes lots of effort and personal motivation. Getting up at 5 am still sucks and deciding to walk home after a long day at work is still hard.  Every day I want to quit and at the beginning of my exercise I have to remind myself why I'm doing this.

Now that the competition is over, I'm left to ponder Why AM I doing this?.... For me, it's the little things that I'm hoping are going to add up to real results one day. My perspective has changed and for the first time in my life I am exercising for ME.

I want to be stronger, live longer, feel healthier, and feel better about myself. And ultimately I want to look HOT! but obviously being "Hot" hasn't been a big enough motivation. So what are the "little" things keeping me going? Well:

- I have LOTS more energy
- My pants are fitting a little looser
- My body is feeling more firm
- My legs are more toned (I hate how I ALWAYS loose weight in my legs first thanks to my Navajo skinny legs genes but I'll take what ever I get).
- My face has slightly more definition.
- My double chins are a little smaller
- I love how I feel after exercise...after all you NEVER regret exercising!

Most of all I am feeling pretty proud of myself for keeping with it. My main motivation at the moment is to not break my record so far. My next goal is to hit 100 days of exercise- wouldn't that be awesome?!

Some of the challenges  to continue exercising everyday are:
- Not loosing TONS of weight (I've been excercising EVERY day! shouldn't I be skinny by now?! - I know....I also need to not pig out, eat healthy foods etc...)
- Keeping myself motivated in spite of non-weight loss results
- Being more hungry
- Pushing myself to exercise when it's easy for me to make excuses
- Being committed on my most busy days or when I'm not feeling well (especially now the competition is over)
- not knowing what to do next- I'm kind of doing the same things over and over and want to make sure I'm still challenging my body.
- My Achilles tendinitis still flares up and I seem to keep getting shin splints which causes me to slow down...so frustrating!

This week I started implementing light weights and more stretching. What I want to do is complete some sort of cardio exercise for 30 to 45 minutes a day. 15 minutes of strength training and 15-20 minutes of stretching. 1 hour of exercise a day is definitely do-able. The problem is now keeping myself motivated to do other exercises as I tend to think I'm all done when my cardio is done. Eventually I want to work up to jogging, but my Achilles isn't having it at the moment.

Other other change that I need to make is to EAT LESS! ugh since exercising a little more than I did before, I feel like a hungry monster most of the time. But the problem is I am feeding myself a bunch of junk. Why?
- I don't plan out my meals or my "plan of execution"
- I buy fresh fruits and veggies but forget to grab them on my way out the door.
- I don't make a lunch and end up buying yummy but not-good-for-you food downtown where I work
- I'm so sick of salads after doing my weight watchers stint....need to find some new things to change things up.....

Possible solutions:
- Banchan!!! I LOVE Korean food, not only because I start to drool when ever watching my TV friends who live int he kdrama world eat on my shows but because it is SO GOOD! I've started pinning my favorite Korean side dishes (called Banchan) on pinterest, now to get my Korean friends to teach me to make them myself.

- Try new new fruits and veggies- growing up we didn't have a whole lot of variety of fresh fruits and veggies on the Rez, so moving to Hawaii has opened a whole new world for me. I LOVE exploring Chinatown and my favorite Korean Markets for stuff I've never seen before. I need to start learning to make new dishes from my found treasures.

- Plan my meals- whenever I plan my meals I feel so good. I save money and i don't have to worry about what we are gonna be eating. Plus Scotty is great at getting things started (or completely made most of the time) when I work late.

- Look up streches and exercises for strengthing my shins and achillies.

- Stop eating out so much

In the meantime, I'm still taking it ONE DAY AT A TIME....

Great Aloha Run 2012

It's become sort of a tradition for me to walk the Great Aloha Run and this year was my 5th year in a row completing the walk.

Since I've been doing the Thrive Across Hawaii challenge at work where I've committed to my team to exercise at least 1 hour a day, the walk was a piece of cake. Since I've done it for so many years, it's nice to know what to expect and I am so glad for moleskin that I use on my feet as I have a tendency to develop blisters pretty easy.

We got up at 4:30am and headed over to Aloha Stadium to park the car and take the bus back to the start line downtown.

 I couldn't believe the long line to get on the bus! It wrapped half way around the stadium. We ended up getting on the bus around 6:30am and had to rush from where the bus dropped us off on Vineyard Blvd to Ala Moana Blvd and got there just as the run was starting.

 It was my friend Shelly's first time doing the run and the poor thing had to wait all by herself in the crowd of people before I got there. It can be kinda scary but also fun!

This year Scotty went off on his own pace and I walked with my friend Shelly and my co-worker Janeen.

Scotty took most of the pictures since I didn't want to carry anything extra, so my pictures were from my phone. The weather was nice and there was a constant breeze blowing which was awesome. I especially liked all the entertainment at the various mile markers. My favorite has gotta be the Taiko Drummers. They are so fun to see and hear!

Next year I am NOT gonna bring a back pack. They have water stations throughout but I always freak out and end up bringing more stuff than I need. I've noticed though that a small granola bar or banana about half way through really helps amp up my energy.

Above all: my MOST Favorite part is when you see the finish line!

Once again, next year I'd like to possibly run part of the route. Guess I gotta a year to train!

3 weeks X 60 min a day = 1525 mins of exercise!

It's been 3weeks since my team at work started our "Thrive Across Hawaii" challenge. This challenge is similar to the "Thrive Across America" where my workplace American Savings Bank has partnered with  Kaiser Permanente to offer us a challenge specifically for us. We've created teams and are working to build the exercise habit.

I am excited to report that my team "Craig's Angels" has consistently exercised for 1 hour EVERY day for the past 3 weeks. Our goal is win the challenge where we can each get a $200 gift card. We decided at the beginning of the competition that we would commit to 1 hour (the max we can log) of exercise each day.

Last year my workplace did a "Biggest Loser" competition where I didn't do so great. This time I am ENJOYING the challenge as this is the FIRST time that I have actually started an exercise program and have stuck with it. I'm learning alot about myself  through this experience.

Some of my challenges have been:
- I usually konk out about week 2 whenever a start a "new" exercise program.
- I generally seem to konk out because I get board, lazy, tired, or hurt.
- I am not eating the right foods.
- I need more rest.
- Exercise is a COMMITMENT.
- Social support is helping me be successful.
- You HAVE to find an exercise you like.
- You need a good REASON to exercise otherwise you just give yourself excuses to stop.

While I still have a LONG way to go, I'm SLOWLY figuring out ways to over come my challenges. Here are a few rules that I've hashed out so far- I'm sure there will be lots more along the way.

1. Exercise EVERY day.
My number 1 reason for keeping up for the past 3 weeks is that - that I've committed to doing it EVERY day. So no matter what happens, I WILL exercise 1 hour a day...it's starting to become something that is part of my day like brushing my teeth....it's not IF I will do it but rather WHEN will I do it. This change in thinking has made a world of difference.

2. PLAN!
Since I know I will be exercising everyday and my work schedule changes daily, I am having to plan out weekly if not daily when I will get my hour of exercise in. So that means I make sure I get my laundry done so I have a pair of shorts and a clean sports bra to wear. All of this is helping me to get more organized.

3. Being committed is HARD but NOT IMPOSSIBLE.
This past weekend has been a major challenge for me. As I didn't seem to have enough time to for everything I wanted to do. So, I had a very fun but very tiring weekend which went something like this:
8pm-2:30 AM - Drive to Ewa Beach for party and stand in line for release at Target/Walmart
2:30 pm - drive back home
3:30 pm- get into bed
6:30 am- wake up to go to ward clean up (Iended up sleeping in and had to get dropped off at 7 am)
7:45 am- after ward clean up GOT MY WALK IN!!! I decided that since I was up anyway that I would take a long route home and get my walk in. I only wish I didn't take my purse but at least it wasn't too heavy.

 Here I am on my walk home... (I was trying to be "artsy" by capturing myself in the mirror reflection)

9:00 am- got home...yeah....I actually got in an extra 15 minutes! go me! I got ready for my meeting.
10:00 am- my friend picked me up for our training meeting. I had to get creative to keep myself awake which included doodling and picking off my gel nails.
12:00 pm- got home and took a BIG FAT NAP for 3.5 hours. It was WONDERFUL
4:30 pm- ran errands and got my refreshments ready for our BD party. I was a little over zealous and made some Nutella Naples,"wolf pack wieners", strawberry lemonade and hurricane popcorn.... I just couldn't help myself!
7:00 pm- everyone arrived and we chowed down.
7:45 pm we watched BD! So fun!

After everyone left I was still wide awake and ended up getting in an episode of my current KDrama.

On Sunday morning I got up at 6:00am  and went walking with my fellow teammate/coworker/friend Janeen at Ala Moana.

Good choices to continue exercising gave me the momentum to keep it up come Monday morning, where I found myself at the Roosevelt track at 6 am.

(you can see the building I live in ...the bigger one just to the right of my head) 

 

So my point in sharing all of this is that I had an awesome time AND still managed to find an hour in my busy schedule. 3 weeks ago I would've flaked out on my commitments, stopped exercising (for several days)  and probably would've slept the day away. Only to have to start up again when I got around to it. But since I've made it a goal - I'm finding a way to make it all work out....of course not without consequences- thank goodness for days of rest! Sunday was nice and relaxing!

So I'm learning:
- To not konk out, take things slowly and set challenging but achievable goals. I'm focusing on one thing right now- to get the exercise in. Usually I get so caught up in planning all the amazing things I should be doing that I get overwhelmed. Plus I am taking things more slowly which is helping me keep my Achilles tendinitis under control.
- I need to eat better foods....my next goal  is to plan my meals better- as I'm exercising more I am more hungry and probably need more protein.
- I'm starting to try and get more rest (on weeknights at least)...I just gotta stay in control of my KDrama addiction  :o)
- Being accountable to others is a great support. I think of them when I want to quit and I keep going.
- I'm beginning to look forward to my walks and I want to incorporate weights.
- I want to be healthier and am starting to exercise for ME- it's such a new way of thinking for me....

7 mile hike!

On Saturday, Jan 21, 2012 I agreed (for the second Saturday in a row) to go hiking once again with Scotty. This time he assured me that it would be a SHORT hike...no more than 5 miles...which is totally my kind of hike.

Kapalama Loop is located behind Kamehameha Schools main campus in Kalihi and it is NOT 5 miles! By the time we finished the hike the LOOP part ended up being 6.52 miles with a little over a half mile added with the elevation changes.

Surprisingly, this hike was my most favorite that I've been on so far, which is funny because I prefer the Waterfall hikes the most cuz they are usually cooler and have a neat destination at the end.

This one was interesting. Plus Scotty made me a yummy breakfast sandwich AND brought a Lunch so I was much happier and had lots more energy.

We seemed to have navigated between almost every terrain that Hawaii has to offer....

"Regular" forrest that is more like what I'm used to in the mainland.

"Jungle" or "Rain Forrest" - my favorite.... even though I don't like all the bugs and how humid it can be. Plus the idea of all the "animals" living in the underbrush. At least there are no snakes!

I love how lush and green everything with vines everywhere. So different from anywhere else I've ever lived.

The there is the "DRY" Hawaiian desert-y forrest....

All the dead pine needles blanket the forrest floor and it's a little tricky to walk on as they can be super slippery. It really reminded me of playing in the woods at my Grandma's house.

There was the ridge- where you got to see the beautiful views....

There even was a little rock climbing involved too...

At the top as we began our descent, the trail was perfectly "paved" with grass..which was nice on the footsies....



We even got to see some of the beautiful plants and flowers  that ONLY Hawaii has to offer...

All in all it was a great workout!