Author: Jill McCauslin (Page 23 of 23)

Berries and Cream

December 18, 2017 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

This is a super easy dessert. You can modify it by changing the fruit or using a different cream.

½ cup frozen berries

¼ cup heavy whipping cream or full-fat coconut milk

Pour the cream over the berries and serve.

You can also throw the berries and cream in a blender and make a sorbet-type dessert.

I used a pretty glass and made it like a parfait. Very yummy.

You could probably make this with lower fat milks and could use nut milks. The higher fat, though, makes this taste very rich. Cashew cream might be a real treat.

I used mixed berries but any kind of frozen berries would work.

If you try this, take a picture and let us know what you used.

Losing Weight

December 15, 2017 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

The most I weighed in my life was around 215 pounds. I remember that I had to go buy clothes and I couldn’t find clothes that fit in the Misses Department and had to go to the Women’s Department and start into the larger sizes. It was super depressing.

2008 Photo of Jill

Around this time, a picture of me in profile was posted on the website for the company where I was working. It was a Christmas party and we were eating at a restaurant. I was horrified when I saw that picture. I looked bloated.

Those two things motivated me to begin to lose weight.

I’ve done a variety of things over the years to lose weight and to maintain weight. I thought I’d share some of the different things I’ve done.

I used to belong to a local YMCA and they had a program that I joined. I met with a nutritionist regularly and then a personal trainer gave me different exercises to do. That worked well and I lost some weight.

We moved and so I let my membership at the Y lapse. I gained a good amount of that weight back.

Then I joined a gym and read You: On a Diet by Drs. Oz and Roizen. I participated in a forum on the RealAge website. That was enough that I lost probably about 30 pounds.

My husband got sick and spent a lot of time in the hospital. I finally gave up on trying to eat healthy because it was easier to run through a drive through on my way to the hospital. I gained that weight back.

In 2011 I joined a new gym. I started working out regularly. At some point, I decided to buy personal training sessions for both me and my son. I used mine and when I realized that my son was’t going to use his, I took them. I worked out with a young, very strong woman who just assumed that I’d be able to get stronger.

I also joined Weight Watchers where I worked. It was good for a while. I lost some weight. It was a great way to get started with healthy eating and to watch what I ate. I found the weigh-ins to be motivational and I liked most of the people who attended the sessions. I lost some weight.

The company-sponsored sessions ended eventually and I was on my own for figuring out what to do to lose weight. I was still working out and getting more fit.

A friend of mine told me about a program called Trim Life at the Wellness Center at the Cleveland Clinic. I signed up for that. It’s a program that focuses on the reasons why we overeat. It’s a shared medical appointment with both a physician and a hypnotherapist facilitating the sessions. It was fantastic. I learned a lot and the hypnosis was fantastic. I lost more weight from that. I also modified my diet considerably after participating in this.

I got to a great weight for me, around 150 pounds. Then I started dating and going out to eat and drinking beer. I’ve gained about 15 pounds back and am now in the process of trying to lose it again. I’m trying to use macros to lose weight. I’ve upped my protein and fat and lowered my carbs and that seems to be working. I have to watch because I’m running long distances (well, relatively speaking) and that requires food. In particular, it requires some carbs. I use an app to track my food.

No matter what I do, if I’m losing weight, I lose it very slowly. I’m lucky if I can lose a half pound a week. That works out to about two pounds a month. As you can probably guess, I can gain weight at a faster rate than I can lose it.

So, why am I sharing all of this? It’s because I want to make the point that whatever you do to lose weight or to maintain weight loss may not be the thing that you do forever. You might change what you eat or don’t eat. You might find an organization like Weight Watchers to be helpful. What works at first may not work later so just try something new.

2017 Ultimate Fitness Challenge

Becoming an Athlete

December 10, 2017 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

I never did much athletically in my life. I hated gym class in school and was happy to spend my leisure time reading a book. My favorite activity was dodge ball (yes, we played dodge ball back then) because I could run up towards the line, get hit with the ball and be out. I got to go sit on the bench and watch.

I still enjoy reading but I now have to consider myself an athlete. It took me a long time to get here, that’s for sure.

When I was in my late 40’s, I realized that I was overweight and out of shape. I’ll look for a photo from that time to share but until I dig one up, trust me. I was out of shape and at least 60 pounds overweight.

I began to look around for things to do. I signed up for a water aerobics class through the local rec department and went twice a week to an evening class. I was probably a good decade younger than everyone else in the class but I was in no better shape. It was a great way to get started with exercise.

The good thing about water exercise is that it’s easy on your joints. I got in a pretty good workout. I think it was a bit of a cardio challenge and some strength work. The negative side of the class was that I had to put on a bathing suit. I enjoyed the class but didn’t continue with it for very long.

Next, I decided to try a different class that was available through the rec department. I signed up for a class that met twice a week and did a full body workout and included cardio. We brought our own five-pound dumbbells to class. I bought small hand weights at Target. That class was killer. I know I actually got stronger doing that class.

So, because I liked the strength training, my husband and I decided to join a gym. I used the weight machines and treadmill but I didn’t run then. I just did fast walking. I also didn’t use personal training but I got the trainers on staff to give me workout routines to do. The gym also offered classes so I took a yoga class every Sunday. I really liked that.

Eventually, I moved to using free weights and working out. I also at some point decided to take up running and followed a Couch to 5K program. I had to modify it because I couldn’t progress as quickly as it went but I did eventually run for 20 minutes straight.

Given time, I became stronger and developed much greater aerobic capacity. So now I can run. I’ve been training with Chris to run a half marathon. We’ll update you on that since we’re running it in less than a week. I also am much stronger than I used to be. I still have to remember that I’m strong enough to open jars but it’s a thrill when I do.

I’ll share more about my life as an athlete in future posts.

Five Ways to Improve on the Half Marathon

October 6, 2017 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

My last post covered our running of the half marathon in the Akron Marathon. I’m still so excited that we did it! Wow, it was fun. I think races might be more fun once they’re over.

We did a lot of things right but now what we’ve run the race, I can see some things I’d do differently or just start to add to my training regime.

What we could improve:

We figured out how we needed to eat and drink when running long distances. We’d both only run shorter distances and so eating and drinking really hadn’t been a problem. Once you start running over an hour, you need to know how you’re going to get water and possibly some food. Once you’re running over two hours, food becomes essential.Chris introduced me to carrying orange slices. Wow, they’re like pure energy. You eat an orange slice and that sugar goes right to your blood stream and whamo, you’re energized.During the race, it was hot. A number of people were taken to the hospital for being dehydrated and having electrolytes out of whack. I didn’t drink the PowerAde available a the fluid stations. Chris did—she mixed it with her water to dilute the flavor—and she felt better at the end of the race than I did. I felt light-headed. Fortunately I had a packet of electrolyte stuff that you mix in with your water. I poured it into my water bottle and drank it down. I also ate some food and between all of that, I felt better.I need to do some research on the best way to fuel my body during a race.
Chris and I collapsed on the field.
I know all of the training plans we looked at said you don’t have to run the full distance to train but if I were to do it again, I’d get in a couple more long runs and I’d run the full 13 miles or even go up to 14 or 15. I think psychologically speaking, it would be easier to know that Id already run that distance or that I’d run further.
Personally, I’d like’ to lose about 10 pounds before next year’s running season. It’s a lot easier to run without carrying extra weight. I gained weight this past year—too much eating at restaurants and drinking beer—and now I’d like to lose it.
I’d like to get some more people to run with. I think we need a smallish running club with women around our age. It would be nice to have the ability to contact people and say, “I’m going to run tomorrow and I want to run 5 miles around a 11 to 12 minute mile.”
Now that I have this running base in place, I want to be sure to continue to run over the winter. I’m thinking that we need to register for a race in the spring to keep us motivated.

The end result is that we registered for the half marathon, not knowing if we could do it but believing that we could. We trained like crazy, ran some additional races as part of our training, and then achieved our goal. Wow! I’m still amazed at it.

I guess the big lesson here is that I’m planning on running another race!

Running the Akron Half Marathon

October 6, 2017 / Jill McCauslin / 1 Comment

Woo hoo! We made it! Chris and I ran the half marathon last Saturday in the 2017 Akron Marathon this past weekend. We both ran around the times we had hoped for. Chris finished under three hours (way to go Chris!) and I finished around two hours and 35 minutes.

Chris and I at the Race Expo

I’m so proud of us for achieving this goal. The race was tremendous fun though harder than I was expecting.

Think about a place that is about ten miles from your house. Now, add three more miles to that. That’s how far we ran.

It was hot!!! We knew that the forecast was for a hot day and received multiple cautionary emails from the race organizers. Fortunately the race started at 7:00 AM so it was pleasant enough when we started but it had warmed up into the 80s by the time we finished. The heat drains your strength when running.

Here’s a few thoughts on what we did right and what we could improve. Well, at least I can.

What we did right:

We created a plan early on. The race was at the end of September. We started researching training plans and discussed what we were going to do starting in January. We knew what we had run in the previous year so we weren’t complete newbies but we knew that this was going to require more from us than what we had done in the past. We planned our training and discussed some possible races we wanted to do over the summer.
Chris has a history of some injuries. In particular, her Achilles tendon has caused her problems in the past. She performed lots of stretching and physical therapy exercises to keep her Achilles healthy. We both continued to use weights at the gym so we did our cross training. I think that helps a lot.
We ran races with increasing length over the summer which forced us to train for longer distances. We ran a 5K early on and then bumped up to a 10K in July. We wanted to run a 10 mile race in August but couldn’t find one that worked for us. There aren’t many 10 mile races in the area. So, we planned our own 10 mile run.
We also knew that we wanted to run a local 5K over Labor Day weekend, so only a few weeks before the race. It wasn’t part of our plan, distance wise, so we said, “we’ll run it for speed.”
We stayed in touch on how we were doing. We logged our time on Strava and participated in challenges on Fitbit. As we began to do longer runs, we began to run together more often.
We thought about shoes, clothes, and supplies. Chris replaced her shoes late in the summer but made sure to do so in time to break them in before the race. I showed her the water belt I had received last Christmas.
We did our research. We talked to runners and trainers. We read websites. We listened to running podcasts. We shared what we learned with each other. This doesn’t help you actually run but it gave us good ideas on how to train and to think about timing and recovery.

So, we spent a long time preparing for this race and we did it. It’s really amazing to me. When I start thinking about how long 13 miles is, I’m amazed. My next post will be what I want to do differently going forwards.

Chris and I waiting for the start of the race.