Weight Check

Well here it is the first of the month again. This is as good a time as any for an official weight check. It is not as impressive as previous months. I ran in to a road block about half way through the month. My daughter had a birthday and we had a big party and I had cake and ice cream. Well that started a downward spiral for about a week or so (well more like 10 days). In short it threw off my steady weight loss. I did manage to go from 223 to 220 so that is not too bad it is just not as good as I had been doing. Additionally, with the marathon training I was eating a lot more than I usually do. So down three pounds, after this month I'll take it.

Running update: I went out for a short run this morning and all seems fine with the hip. Well on a short run anyway. 3.65 miles, 10:29 pace I am pretty pleased that the additional rest has paid off. We will see how things hold up on ten miles this weekend. I am officially in taper so I am not trying to push things very much. (Well I will be pushing this weekend but I am scheduled for 12 and I am only doing 10 so I figure I can push a bit.)

Garmin stuff: I just learned about the accuracy guage on my garmin. I put it on my display so that I can guage how accuarate the pacing is. Sometimes the Captain (the name I use for my garmin gps) seems a bit off based on the pace I know I am going. I will let you know how this goes.

Monthly Weight Check/ Miles

I am a day early; however, tomorrow will be my weekly running report so I thought this might be a good day to do this. It was a good month to say the least. The new diet I started near the beginning of the year is still yielding results. I dropped 7 pounds the first two weeks of the month and 4 for the remaining two weeks. There is a slow down but I think that this is a good rate. So in all I dropped 11 pounds during the shortened month. That is not too bad.

The trends on this are good. Weight loss is seldom a straight drop, it is usually (for me anyway) a couple of days down a day up, a couple of days down, a couple of days the same, a day down, two days up and so on. But I look for trends to see if I am keeping on track. The results can't be argued with.

So the end result is that on February 1, I weighed 242 and today I weigh 231. I doubt that I will keep dropping 10 pounds or more a month but if I can do 6 to 8 I would be happy.

Secondly, this was a monthly high in terms of miles. I logged 96.69 miles for the month of February. I am so stoked over this I can't begin to put it into words. Every week I push out another 20+ mile week. It is an amazing feeling to succeed at this goal. It is all good feelings today.

Weight Loss Update

I was going to wait to see how I ended up during the month. But I figured a half month might be interesting.

February 1, 2008 - 242 pounds
February 14, 2008 - 235 pounds

That would be 7 pounds in two weeks. When I said I have the diet figured out I guess I really did know what I was talking about. Since I have started this more disciplined approach to diet I have dropped 17 pounds. Which is really only about 6 weeks worth of time. Not bad, but it does give you an idea of how bad my diet is. Here is an example of what I eat during a day.

Breakfast: yogurt (nonfat), banana, granola bar
Snack: carrots
Lunch: half sandwich, one small microwave supplement (about 150 to 200 calories) (like a pasta cup), cucumber
Snack: apple, celery
Dinner: Kind of an airplane meal sort of thing - 1x fruit, 1x small microwave dinner sort of thing about 250 to 300 calories, cucumber or celery, slice of bread (rye or pumpernickel)

Through the day I drink 8 to 10 cups of water. I have eliminated all caffenine from my diet save that in my gel packs for running and I take my daily supplements of vitamins. That is it. I am never hungry as the water suppresses my appetite and now I am used to smaller portions. That in combination with the exercise = 17 pounds less in 6 weeks.

Not bad.

The First Post

I have been operating the blog of Run to Lose since last March in my efforts to lost weight. But it was always more than that. It was about unleashing my inner athlete. I have earned a black belt and even ran a school for some time. It was patently embarassing to have fallen into the state of physical disrepair that I had. I can see that I am breaking beyond simple weight loss efforts in my exercise. I have dropped more than 50 pounds and with about 50 to go before my ultimate goal I have a long way to go. However, I will also add that I don't have to worry as much about weight as I once did. With a plan regarding diet and exercise, I am on my way to true fitness.

Looking forward, I want to keep a fitness journal beyond my weight loss efforts. My focus was really geared toward losing weight. I can see that this effort will end and I will need some direction once that is done. I need a direction beyond this weight loss goal. I have come up with - I Dare-. Because in fact I do dare, I dare to take on my own irresponsibilites in becoming quite frankly obese, I dare to take control of my life and put it on a track more to my own liking, I dare to construct a life where fitness is a priority. I can go on but I won't now. It is also a reminder ... What will I dare to do today. It is my challenge to myself. In this regard this year I dare to run a marathon. I will dare to do more I know and I may share some of these as time goes on.

For now I dare to start this blog to continue my efforts beyond weight loss, thanks for looking in on me.