Latest Fitness and Training Update

So I started a fitness challenge called “6 Weeks to Your Skinny Jeans” 4 weeks ago. In the first 3 weeks, we pretty much stuck to a low carb Atkins-type diet. In week 4 we were able to bring certain fruits and whole grains back into our diet, and we get to keep those items in for the final 2 weeks of the challenge. The biggest things I’ve had to give up are baked chips, the occasional light beer, candy, and most of the snacks I kept at work. I have to say that after the first few days, I’ve done pretty well without the crap I was eating before. My lunches would usually be a frozen Lean Cuisine or Smart Ones meal. Sure it is really cheap to eat those meals for lunch each day (about $2.00 per day), but I was having all sorts of stomach issues and nothing I was taking was making it better. Imagine my surprise when I switched over to eating no frozen meals and all fresh food, my stomach issues almost completely went away. I still have some problems, but nothing like I was having before I changed my diet. I’ve also been on Weight Watchers since mid-August of last year. In that time, I lost a good bit of weight. In the last 4 weeks, I’ve lost 10 pounds. That’s right 10 POUNDS!!! Granted I’m probably eating fewer calories and I know I’m exercising more, but I haven’t lost weight like that since right after I joined Weight Watchers. I actually canceled my Weight Watchers membership this week and plan on continuing calorie counting and fat gram counting until I reach my actual goal weight. I'm still really limiting myself to the number of fruits and whole grains I'm eating each day, but don't feel like I'm cheating anymore if I want fruit or a whole wheat bagel thin.

I’m so happy with my progress to date. I went shopping yesterday to find a couple of pair of dress pants for work and a pair of jeans. None of my jeans have fit for a while, but it hasn’t been cool enough to worry about it until just recently. I went to the Goodwill store in Franklin. It seems crazy to go to the mall to buy clothes at every size, so I’ve tried to save a little money by going to Goodwill until I hit my goal weight. I’m also bagging up clothes as I go along and donating them to Goodwill. I never really know what size to look for, since the majority of the clothes have been worn and you never know if they have maintained their original size. However, I found a pair of jeans that still had the store tags on them and they were at least 1 size down from the ones I wore last year. Bigger bonus, they were from a regular clothing store, not the women’s stores I was shopping in last year. No, I’m not in my skinny jeans yet, but I’m at least one size closer to being in the size I want. I also found 2 pairs of really great dress pants for work, which were also down a size from ones I bought about 2 weeks ago. No more clown pants at work…I know my co-workers will be happy.

Part of the weight loss progress can be attributed to the amount of jogging I’m doing each week. I started training for my first half marathon on Saturday. Last week, I managed to jog 15 miles total for the week. That is the most I’ve run in a week ever! I jogged 6 miles on Saturday. All half marathon trainees were given the choice to run either 4 or 6 miles. I chose to run the 6 miles because I might run in the Nashville half marathon in November rather than the half marathon I was originally looking at. That race is 3 weeks earlier, so I need to make sure I’m ready to jog/walk 13.1 miles by November 20. I actually kept a pretty good pace the entire run and jogged with one person the entire run. I didn’t run 1 whole mile without stopping, but was very happy with my time. I know I can complete a half marathon, and also know I won’t set any records when I do it. I’m just excited to work towards this goal. At this time, I’m hoping to run 1 half marathon before the end of the year and then run the Country Music Half Marathon in April. That would give me 2 half marathons run before I turn 40 and would make me very happy.