January 7, 2010

Seven days into the new year and all is good! I've been able to stay focused this week, have been getting almost 7 hours sleep each night, and have been writing down all my workouts and everything that goes into my mouth. I'm pretty happy because I've already obtained my weight loss goal for the week.

Am I still talking about the Ten in 10 Challenge? Yes.  Am I going to talk about it every day? Probably.

Just kidding. Once I get through this initial week of organizing my schedule and getting myself on track in all aspects of this challenge, I'll get back to talking about other jibber jabber. I'll try to post at least one healthy recipe a week and I'll also post about my progress once a week. I'll probably do that on Saturdays since my official weigh in day is going to be on Fridays and a lot of the other participants have mentioned posting their progress on Saturdays.

I think that to get past a plateau, which is what I'm trying to do, you've got to change things up a bit. I've found a great new bike at the Y that really kicks my fanny, but I don't want to be in the gym every day. I want to be outside on cardio days when I don't also have weight training scheduled.

Since I was in the gym Monday and Tuesday mornings and since yesterday was so gorgeous, I decided to do my walk from the Harbor down to the beach to walk the pier and do some stair climbing. This is one of my favorite routes.  I do this particular walk when I can manage to squeeze in an extra half hour that day.

I don't normally take my camera with me, but I thought it might be fun to snap some shots along the way. Let's go for a walk.

This is where I start. This is also where we spend most of our spare time when not working or doing chores at home.

When the water is not quite so cold, this is where I like to kayak.

I know it's hard to make out what this is in the water, but they're seals sun bathing. These are just their fins sticking up out of the water while they're floating on their backs.

This is HayHay's favorite spot to surf. On any given day at 6:30 in the morning, this spot is full of local surfers.

When we first moved here, this is where I always dropped the kids off with their boogie boards. I still love the view from this spot.

Now, on my way to the Historic Oceanside Pier.

Next, I do a couple of jaunts up and down the ramp to the Pier. A lot of local firemen are normally here doing their workouts. Bummer, no eye candy today!

This big guy is rumored to be the infamous “Charlie the Pelican”. Charlie just made our local news a few days ago because he apparently just returned to Oceanside Pier after being missing since February.

It doesn't look like Charlie is real crazy about having his picture taken. The bait shop owner on the Pier put up the old sign next to Charlie that says “We bite stupid people”! I'll think I'll take a step back now!

A view of the shore from the end of the Pier. Oceanside Pier is one of the longest wooden piers on the entire West Coast. It's over 1950 feet long.

After coming down the ramp from the Pier, this is the first set of stairs that I attack.

And then, I go up and down these a few times.

But, these wooden stairs are my favorite. Once at the top of these, I'm done with stairs for the day.

Now that I'm over 3 miles away from where I started, I normally turn around here and head back towards the Harbor. This is the “Top Gun” house. Don't you just love the old VW Van on the side of the road? Classic!

Last year there was talk that Tom Cruise was buying this house and moving it somewhere else. I don't know what ever happened to that or what's planned for the house but they've cleared this entire lot and left the house standing.

Almost back to the Harbor, this Pink Hibiscus caught my eye as I walked past it so I turned back around to snap a quick shot of it.

After over seven miles round trip, I'm back to the Harbor. I always feel so good when I finish this walk. I don't have the opportunity to do this that often, but when I need to clear my head, this is where I go.  I hope your 2010 is off to a great start!

~LilSis