Weigh In Week 0

Current Weight: 164.4

Goal for Next Week: 162

Source

I need to start becoming more accountable and track how my weight progresses from week to week. I am pretty good at maintaining for the most part, but actually losing not so much. If I do not have goals, then I have no direction and there is high probability that I will never lose the weight.

I just need to control my eating.

Running has been going great! Today, I had my long run and after sleeping in a little (I usually have to get up at 3:30 a.m. for my summer job, so sleeping in is a relative thing), I got out and ran 7 miles! Now for many 7 miles may just be a walk in the park, but for me it ties my longest run ever. So it was quite an accomplishment for me.

My eating, however, is what is killing me. Or maybe not actually killing me but not allowing myself to reach my goals. So my goals for this week eating wise are:

1.      Drink at least 16 oz. of water with every meal. I only eat 3 meals a day and have a hard time drinking water. I know that sometimes I eat too much because actually I am just thirsty.

2.      No cake. I love cake (and chips) they are my favorite foods and I always over eat. So this week I am planning on staying away from the cake. It is only one week and one food, I can do it. It is easy, right?

Alternative Workout to Running

If only, some days, I was this fast!

6 days a week you will find me running. I love it and I find it peaceful and relaxing. However, with that said, I know a lot of people are not fond of it. Yes, it is hard and yes, it can be frustrating at times. Right now, I am trying to increase my mileage and get in proper aerobic conditioning by utilizing my heart rate. Personally, I should be aiming for 147 beats per minute. As a 23 year old female, this works out to be roughly 75% of my max heart rate. Unfortunately, sometimes I feel like I could walk faster and sometimes feel like running is not the proper term one should use to describe my efforts.

 

But, Fridays are a rest day for me.

For me, I went to the gym and walked on the treadmill at an incline and lifted weights. I really find that lifting weights (particularly for my legs) helps tremendously with injury prevention.

Afterwards, I went and took my dog, Carmen, for a walk. It was a little overcast but overall, nice outside. Here are some pictures of our adventure.

"I am so happy to be on a walk!"

 

"Failure is Simply the Opportunity to Begin Again...."

No one likes to read something when someone continually fails or never makes any progress. I know I would not. Granted, I have read many blogs where that is the exact case and well, to be honest, you get bored reading them. Sure they are nice people and I understand all about failure; however, it is not inspiring, it is not engaging, it is discouraging to read that person not able to overcome the problem of eating too much, exercising too little over and over again for months.

But that is me.

I start and am motivated and then struggle. 6 months later or more and I am in the exact same spot. Weight the same. Look the same. Run the same.

Change is here though.

I have already lost about 4 pounds. Not much, but enough to see that I might actually stick with it. I also am tracking my food on a daily basis, taking a multivitamin everyday as well as change how I approach my main form of exercise: running.

I am now running according to my heart rate. As of today, it is VERY slow and can be annoying to be feeling good, breathing great only to see that your heart rate has now jumped up above your target heart rate. But, even though I have been at it for about three weeks now, I am starting to see some progress. I am running much more and my times are slowly, slowly creeping down. Huge emphasis on the slow though.

In a year, I want to be able to have some sort of a flat stomach, some sort of abs (yes, we all have abs everyone does even the 600 pound people, but they are not showing through our fat), and develop connections with others in this journey.