Day 555

Well, it's officially day 555. That's right, it's been 555 days since I decided to get happy about my looks, performance, and health. Seems like a long time, but to be honest, after the first few months it became a lifestyle and things get a little bit easier then.

Anyway, I've been wanting to update my blog a bit with my changing goals and outlook. I'm no longer in a weight loss mode, nor have I been for almost a year. Sure, I'll probably put some weight on,then try to lose it. But my overall focus in life isn't weight loss. It's challenging myself physically and attempting to further realize potential from my mind and body. Hence the new semi cheesy title and blog layout. I hope to get some decent "action" pics soon and maintain a current Day XXX picture in the right column.

I don't want to forget what I used to be, where I came from, and how I got to where I am now. Much of the point of this blog for me is to track my physical changes over time in order to ensure they're headed in the right direction. I hope to keep this log and blog around for a long time.

You may also notice that I've deleted some links to people's blogs. Please don't take this personally, but I've decided that I can't support peoples blogs that are never updated. That's kinda the point of keeping a blog. If any of these blogs become active again I'll by all means be available for support and add them back to my page, but until then I don't see the point in keeping old stale content linked on my page.


In other news, training for the half is going well, eating is going well. Baby planning is going well as well. If anything, right now I just can't wait for the winter to people over so I can start being outside more. For now though, I'll make due and keep trudging along. Hope everyone else is doing well.

Doin' It

Been running this week lots. After my first outside run last Saturday I had some really sore calfs. I attributed this to the fact that I don't think I was stretching enough. Is not at all enough? Probably not.

So when by Tuesday I was still pretty sore, I got a hot bath, and really started stretching at various times during the day. This helped a lot, and I made it through my Wednesday and Thursday 4 and 3 miles runs respectively.

This weekend I'll be doing my annual "Winter Campin'" trip with the guys, so I had to move my Saturday long outside run up to today. I just got back from it a bit ago. Aside from my gps watch running out of power after only .6 miles, it wasn't too bad. I had to wing it as far as distance, but I did pretty well. I mapped my route when I got home and I'd run 5.2 miles. Not bad guestimatin'! I'm not really sure of my time because I didn't pay attention to when I left, but I believe it to be around 50 minutes. I felt strong for most of the run and I know I'm getting stronger, and more used to running outdoors.

Next time I'll make sure the battery is all charged up on my watch though.

So, like I said, this weekend I'm off for some snow camping fun, then Monday I'll be back on the treadmill, Tuesday lifting the weights, Wednesday and Thursday on the treadmill, Friday resting and next Saturday running 6 miles this time, outside of course.

And so it goes...

Soon enough I'll be able to call myself a (Half)Marathon Runner. I've got it clearly in my sights and intend to see it through.

Double U Tee Eff

Weigh-In: 218.2 lbs!!!

218 pounds today. That's right, that's now over 10 pounds more than the weight I was maintaining for the last year. I know some of it has to be water weight. I've run 17 miles in the last 7 days, lifted weights twice. I beat the hell out of my legs running last Saturday outside and my calves are still pretty sore. My shoulders are sore because I've been doing my chest routine for a few weeks right now, mostly lifting to fail once a week. I think I've packed on some muscle in the past few months too because I can see it in my shoulders and chest.

My clothes still fit fine.

Other than being sore I feel great.


That said, some of that 10 pounds has got to be fat and I'm annoyed. As I've mentioned I've been working out a lot lately, but with that my hunger levels have been through the roof and the quality of the food I've been eating has not always been the best. I'm also drinking way too much coffee.

There is also supposedly the possibility I'm putting on weight because I have a kid on the way. I've heard of men eating more when their wives start eating more in pregnancy. Come to think of it, I don't think I've told any of my blog readers I have a baby on the way. Due July 19th! We don't know the sex yet.

Back to my weight, to make matters worse, some people's reaction when I tell them I put 10 pounds on is "great!". Yes, I still have certain friends and family who think I was too thin.

Meanwhile, I still have flab around the middle that I want gone.

My point is that it's hard to stay motivated to be in a weight loss mode when people are cheering you on for gaining weight, you're hungry all the time because you're working out so much, it's winter time, my dog died, the alignment of the sun is off..

Anyway, I just wanted to post to get some stuff off my mind, express my dissatisfaction and internal conflict with being 10 pounds heavier than a year ago (for whatever reason), and to come clean with what's going on. For anyone who thinks life is great once you loose a hundred pounds and you're below your goal weight, think again. This is a life long struggle!

I guess I probably need to do pictures again soon too..

Talk to you soon.


P.S. For anyone still out there, please stop on by Garth's page and help support him on his journey to get in shape.

Support Yourself and your Brother

I just read my first two posts to this blog from about a year and a half ago. First of all, wow, I almost forgot what person I was. How I felt about what I looked like and how much I weighed. Some days I forget not only the importance, but the breadth of what I've actually done. I mean, I transformed myself. I lost over 100 lbs and I've kept it off for over a year. I can't allow myself to forget that.

That said, the point of this post isn't to pat myself on the back or brag about my accomplishments. Those accomplishments I speak of? They owe so much to this blog and to the people who read it, commented on it, and helped me in so many ways. Even if it was just being there and letting me know other people were suffering through the same things I was, and DOING SOMETHING about it. I didn't really need experts, I just needed to know I wasn't alone. That played a huge part in my success.

I know things don't go on forever and life is constantly changing, but some things shouldn't. Excuse my french, but WHERE THE FUCK IS EVERYONE?

People need our support.

If you're not posting because you're not completely happy with yourself and you no longer need a blog, fine. I kinda doubt that's the case with most people, but if it is, great.

If not, you not only owe it to yourself, but to everyone else to keep talking. Keep posting about yourself, keep supporting the people that helped motivate you to meet your goals.

The most important thing is that everyone is still working to better themselves while helping friends and even strangers do the same. Maybe most people aren't blogging anymore, but I hope they're at least happy, since that really is what this is all about.

Later

Half Marathon Training Begins

So today I officially started my half marathon training. In case anyone is interested, here is how the schedule pans out, with the last Saturday being the actual race.

10 Week Half Maraton Training Schedule

My plan is to do the weekday runs on the treadmill as I've been doing, with the Saturday runs outside. For those outside runs, arriving today is my new toy, a Garmin Forerunner® 305.



For anyone interested in getting one, check out Amazon. I got mine for less than half of the price listed on the Garmin site.

It's basically a watch that has a heart rate monitor, a gps, and all of the normal watch type functions. It means I can track my pace, time, and distance while running outside. Not more plotting out routes or guessing to figure out what you're really doing. I means you get everything the treadmill gives you except you get to be outside. What could be better? I'll do a more depth report on it once I get some experience using it.

One additional comment for today...GO EAGLES!!!!

-Brian

Half-Marathon Training and starting again

So, I've been kinda floating for a while. Trying to maintain, but mainly half-assing a half thought out work-out routine in order to be able to eat what I want and stay relatively in shape. Things got harder and fell off even more when it got cold enough outside that I wasn't comfortable riding my bike to work every day. The past few weeks I've been running maybe 8-10 miles a week and lifting 1-2 days, but that's basically been it.

We all know that exercise and good eating habits are all part of staying in shape and being healthy. I need to better align myself with that again. Like many of you, the holidays could have gone better, and over the past two months my weight has slowly crept up to around 214. That is still not a bad weight for me at 6'3", and right in the range my doctor recommended for me a year ago. However, my lowest average weight was about 204, so as far as I see it, I've gained 10 pounds. Ironically, one year ago today I weighed exactly the same as I do today.

My body can still perform like it did at 204, in fact, just today I ran a 5k on the treadmill without really pushing TOO hard. After checking my numbers it was my 4th or 5th best time ever. That's not too bad really, especially for not really trying to hard. I can also bench the same amount today that I could 6 months ago.

Anyway, since I'm really trying not to ramble, let me just get to my points:

- I feel like I've lost a bit of my drive to stay in shape and eat right. Blame it on the time of year, circumstances with my commute to work, being basically comfortable with my weight, the direction the wind is blowing, whatever. I'm going to change things in order to give myself back that drive.

- I'm running a Half Marathon, the Sun Trust National Marathon in Washington DC on March 21. I'm starting a regimented 10 week training schedule for that event this Monday. I really want to be able to mark down on my list of accomplishments a half marathon, so no time like now to get started on that. Two of my co workers are doing it with me, so that really helps too :

- I'm going to pay better attention to what's going in my body. You see, losing 100 pounds was easy. I cut out almost all saturated fats, kept my calories around 2500 a day, ate breakfast every day, and exercised my ass off any way I could. 6 months later the weight was gone. Building muscle and maintaining weight for the rest of your life, well, that's the hard part.

- I hope to start posting more to hold myself accountable for what's going on. My posts fell off when I didnt have much to say. Normally when you don't hear from me its because things are going well. I'm not breaking any personal records, but I'm not doing bad either. I'm posting now because I don't want to be one of the many who fall off the life long wagon. My blog is how I keep myself in check.


That's all I'm going to say for now. I have more to say, but I'll save it for the next post.

Ran Run Ran

I ran 5.7 miles total on the treadmill tonight. Yes, on a Sunday night after lounging around all day watching football and eating. I just felt rather slobbish so I went and ran some of it off. Not my fastest time, but I feel like I ran 10 miles. I'm still getting back into the running groove.

Tomorrow I go back to work and have to work 5 days straight for the first time in 3 months. I'm not looking forward to it.

Life goes on.

Hope everyone is getting and staying in shape.

Talk to you soon.

New 5 Mile Time

I ran another 5 miler on the treadmill this morning. This may be the first time I've actually tried to better my 5 mile time, but nonetheless I beat my best time by close to 2 minutes. I'm really still not in that great of running shape yet, so I think I can still knock a few miles off of my 5 mile time.

It's something to shoot for anyway. Perhaps I'll start running 10k's though instead, since 5 miles seems like a rather arbitrary number in the running world. We'll see.