Week 1- Living the "American Dream"

Dear C,
The girls and I have been here for 6 busy days already. Life is filled with the cousins, and my mom and sisters. All while L is struggling in the pouring rain and huge rocks in our back yard in Sweden.
I´d say the key word to life here is Accessiblilty. If it´s not the drive-thru bank machine, or starbucks, it all seems like an idea can become your´s in an instant. I guess that is why they call it the American Dream. Life seems quite easy but doesn´t it always when you are on vacation?
I´ve put quite some thought into these next 100 days. Somehow for me it has to be different because it is so hard to keep starting again and again. I had a long chat with a friend here about my goals for working out. It made me think of how to approach becoming fit a little differently.
First, what is the feeling you get about training, what sets up the failure, is it the expectation? Perhaps my goals are always a bit lofty, and then it´s easier to fail. A bit of an all or nothing attitude. Instead of working at the things that are realistic, and most important for my whole life. Does the half-marathon give me a burning desire to train? In some ways it does, but it also can become a little overwhelming too. So instead of an "all or nothing" approach I am working on strenghening my body but also my mind in order to succeed.
I had a slow start last Thursday as it was my summer work party-it definately involved too much wine! Then it was basically a race to get ready for our trip...but now since I have been here it has been fantastic! I have joined a gym here and have built a program which has 3 days of strength training, and cardio on the other days with a day off on the weekend.
It is hard to say why strength training always seems so daunting but with most things you just need to get over the hump. The cardio is a cybex machine, running, and some walking too. My sister lives in an incredibly hilly area so I am taking the first 2 weeks with some caution as not to aggravate my piriformis muscle.
I have measured, and weighed in and am aiming to drop 10 lbs. It is easy here to eat really well if you want to there are so many lovely fresh summer things. I am ramping up on the protein as I think my muscles are taking a beating, and going low on the starches. Lots of water, wine in moderation, and really enjoying that I have the time to think about it and get out there!
We will have some great adventures in the next weeks. Signing off from Boston now until next week.
Lots of xo´s to you all. Happy Birthday to you!!
XOG

What is a failure?

Dear readers,

We didn't succeed with that 100 Days A New Spring Club. At all. At least not here on the blog.

I think G might have done better, but I had lots of asthma and didn't run as much as I wanted, but I did run. On food & wine: wasn't perfect.

But now motivation is high. And what is a failure but chance for a restart?

16th June – 24th September we're doing The 100 Days of Summer 2011 Club – as successful, or even more, as the one we did Summer 2009.

The new rules are: …

What are the new rules? I think that except for running (+ other cardio) we will focus on gaining strength and stretching, turning into strong runners.

The old 5 hours of workout rule will be replaced by:

3 hours of cardio (running, biking, F&S, swimming etc)

3 hours of strength

2 hour of stretching

Too little, too much? What did we really say?

And about food and drinks:

Only well tasting, quite LCHF inspired food.

eh … Wine every … only … ehh … not too often?

Help me out, G!

Or how about this: you'll decide the workout rules and I'll decide the food & drink rules?

My experience is that we've had better results when rules were very precise, didn't we?

Will tell you about my first 7 days tomorrow,

X, C