Reflection

I've had a lot of time recently to reflect on my journey thus far. When you run 20 miles, you've got a load of time to get lost in your thoughts. On Friday, my wife and I did our first of three 20 mile runs. During that run, I thought about how far I have come.

In high school, I remember doing Weight Watchers with my mom. Back then, they prescribed 20 minutes of physical activity a day. Yeah. 20 minutes. At the time, I thought it was outrageous. No way could I, at 300lbs, maintain 20 minutes of physical activity a day. And then, everyone started saying that you needed 30 minutes of physical activity a day. NO WAY can I do that! If 20 minutes wasn't hard enough, 30 was impossible.

I spent 6 hours doing cardio over the weekend. Four hours of running, two hours of cycling.

Obviously, I've come a long way.

Progress isn't something that comes easy. It takes a lot of hard work. I believe that's true in all aspects of life, but especially with fitness and weight loss (for me, anyway). When I started running a little over a year ago, I hated it. I learned to enjoy it to a point by setting my goals and working to improve my personal distance and time records.

Ultimately, I set a goal to run a half marathon, which I completed. It hurt worse than anything I'd ever experienced through exercise. My muscles were completely exhausted and my mind was struggling to keep my body going. When I finished, I broke down in tears. Partly from the pain, partly because I was so proud of what I'd done. That 13.1 mile run took me 2:26:33. It was a distance PR, but I'd left myself plenty of room for improvement on time. Right then, I didn't care about the time, I was just happy to have run the distance.

When my wife and I moved to the shore, I signed us up for another half marathon. This one, I was going to train better for. We ran through the winter and we set the goal of finishing under 2 hours. Again, we accomplished our goal. In Atlantic City, we ran 13.1 miles in 1:59:21, besting my previous half marathon time by over 26 minutes.

Next up, Marine Corps Marathon. We're most of the way through our training and things are going well. We had our best long run in a long time and covered more distance than I'd ever thought dreamed I could do. Until recently, 26.2 miles was outside the realm of possibility for me. I'm still a heavy guy, but damn if I didn't just run 20 miles on Friday night. I'm confident that once the weather cools off and the humidity dies down my speed will increase and the distances will be easier to cover. At this point, I feel ready to run a marathon and I'm excited about how far I've come.

So for any of you who think to yourself, "There's no way I can ever make any progress on this exercise stuff." Think about me and what I've done so far. I may still be overweight, but on October 28th, I'm going to run a marathon!

Catching up...

I have a lot of training and experience in the field of psychology. I can help people with a lot of different problems, but I would have to say that I work best in the field of behavior therapy. I started this blog with the idea that human behavior was modifiable through habit change. I still believe this to be true.

That said, I'm really struggling lately to "counsel" myself out of certain behaviors. Is it an issue of willpower? willingness? habits? desire? I'm not sure. I've been trying to work it out in my head for weeks.

When I was working with volunteers to figure out my Wellness Coaching lessons, a common theme for weight loss was willpower. However, I would give them this example for what willpower does for you... Imagine that you took a double dose of x-lax. Do you think that if you had all of the willpower in the world, that you could avoid the inevitable? I doubt it. It needs to be a permanent change.

So far, I've learned to enjoy drinking water. I've learned to eat healthier meals in smaller quantities. I've learned to enjoy a sport (running) that I formerly hated. I'm a more positive person. I'm happier. I'm healthier. However, I continue to struggle with weight loss. 225-230 is a fine weight. Just not for me.

If you ask anyone who knows me very well, they'll tell you that I'm a good talker. I can argue any point to death until I win the argument. Whether I'm right or not. Unfortunately, this "skill," if you will, also allows me to justify pretty much any action that I do as the right thing to do. I also truly believe that I'm right, most of the time. Which makes it really hard to talk myself out of doing something that I shouldn't... you know... since I think it's the right thing to do at the time.

After that long run of 16 miles the other week, I used my rationalized goal to eat extra calories on days when I burn 1500 or more and ate an extra 800-1000 calories. Except I ate junk food. That wasn't the point of the goal. But that didn't matter at the time. I wanted chips and beer and pizza. I said to myself that it was OK because I had the calories and it didn't matter where the calories came from. I was wrong. I gained weight. After a 16 mile run, I gained weight. After running for nearly 3 hours straight, I gained weight. After burning 2500 calories (1000 shy of a full pound), I gained weight.

So what did I do? I had an easy next two weeks for workouts because of an Ultimate Frisbee tournament and a 10 mile beach race yesterday. I took those two weeks off from my goals because I didn't feel like I was working. I had family in town who wanted to take us out for meals, too. But I wanted to go. I wanted to eat those deep fried meals, the french fries, burgers, etc. So I did. I ate and drank whatever I wanted. I did fine when I was at home, mostly... keeping my food in check. But at this point, the damage is done. It's time for damage control.

I'm not going to finish this 56 Day challenge. I need to take some time to reflect. I'll do another challenge down the road, maybe. I had a friend tell me the other day... "don't give up what you want MOST for what you want NOW." I think she hit the nail on the head.

Right now, I need to figure out what I want MOST. I also need to figure out what I'm willing to sacrifice for it. I'm hoping to spend this week figuring that out. A new challenge may be in order to help me stay on track, but for now, I'm putting a halt on this challenge to figure it all out.

Stay tuned. I'm hoping that I can be back on track soon.

Start of Week 3

As many of you know, I am training to run the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. in October. My wife and I have been building a base of miles since January. Originally, it was training for a half-marathon that we finished in a respectable 1:59:21, accomplishing our goal of a sub 2 hour half-marathon. When we finished that, we took a week off and then maintained our base at around 10-12 miles until it was time to start training for MCM.

Now that training is under way, we're already up to 15 mile runs for our long run. We do a long run once a week, usually on Saturday. Our longest long run will be 20 miles, and we're supposed to do that three times before we start to taper off before the race.

This week, we decided that because it's been so hot when we go out for our long runs on Saturday, and we don't want to wake up with the sun, or worse... before the sun, to get the run in, we'd wait for it to go down. Around 7:30 on Friday night, we hooked up some lights... I put one on my camelbak (basically a backpack for water), and one up on my shoulder. My wife put one on the front and back of her fuel belt. Obviously, we didn't get it by a car or anything. We also didn't trip, surprisingly.

Night runs are super fun. I used to do them in college sometimes. People would bust my chops because they'd be going to parties on a Friday night and I'd be heading out for a run. Mind you, my runs were usually around campus which was about a mile. I'd add a little bit here and there, maybe hitting two miles, so Friday's run was nothing like that.

The temperature was so much cooler than running during the day it was insane. I was so much happier, and to be honest, we both felt so much better running in the cooler 70-75 degrees in the dark than the 80-85 degree heat of the day. We'll probably continue Friday night runs through our training.

We also had a bike ride on Monday where we averaged 19.5mph. It was awesome. I didn't want to leave that tidbit out.

As far as my goals go, I did great with the exercise, I only used one high calorie day, and my pushup regimen is going well. I did 21 pushups in two out of five sets in my last workout. My max when I started was 25. I'm sure I could do more than that now.

The weight is the problem. I can't quite figure it out. I think my body is confused. During the week, my lowest weight was 224 (extreme loss, but I figured it was mostly water weight). I had been steady around 226-228, which would put me on target for my goal. After my high calorie day on Saturday, I woke up at 229 on Sunday morning. Fine, since it was after a meal out, probably lots of salt, holding water... no big deal. but this morning, I was 230.5!

I'm not sure what's going on. I'm going to stay the course. I feel good. I know that this process works, and I will continue to work on it. To be perfectly honest... my scale is from my freshman year of college which means it's a solid 8 years old at this point. I might need a new one. It's sticking a little bit and I wonder if that's effecting the read-out.

Start of Week 2

This week was a roller coaster. I lost a bunch of weight really early on in the week. In fact, I had gotten down to 228 at one point. I knew it wasn't real weight, probably water weight. It was so hot here that I've pretty much been swimming in a pool of sweat since the heat wave came in two weeks ago. I woke up this morning at 231.5 again.

Although I'm not shocked, I'm disappointed at the weight. I should be lower. I know exactly what I did wrong, though. While using my 1/3 extra calories from the longer workouts, I pushed a high calorie day back so I could eat more. So on Friday, I went for a bike ride, burned 1800 calories, ate back 1/3 of them, and instead of having pizza that night, we had salads with chicken on them to stay under my new calorie budget. Pizza was eaten Saturday instead, which really messed me up. Not to mention the alcohol. Ugh. Mistakes were made, lessons were learned. I'll fix it this week. I will not be pushing off a high calorie day because of a workout again.

Last week I did something I've never done before in my life. I ran 14 miles. My wife and I got up at 5am to try to beat the heat, and went out running. I used a hydration pack, she brought a water bottle and some cash. We stopped at a Wawa for some calories and water, then got back to running. By the time we got finished with our half marathon (13.1 miles), we were both really struggling. The heat does terrible things to a run. I finished, not strong, but finished. I thought my legs were going to be shot for the rest of the weekend. However, I recovered pretty quickly.

Saturday morning, I was planning on going out for a short bike ride to work the kinks out of my legs. Once I got going, I was pulling 20mph into a slight headwind. It felt awesome! Until I ran over a nail and punctured my tire. Once I got off, pulled the nail out, and threw it in anger, I realized that I didn't have a spare tube with me. I was able to patch the tube, ride to a bike shop, buy a new tube, and get going again at full speed. Unfortunately, my water was pretty much gone and I didn't have the money to go to a store to buy more, so I went home. I ended up being out for a little over an hour and a half and averaged over 18mph.

I also did a baseline test for my pushups this weekend. I completed 25 with good form. I could have probably squeaked out a few more, but I stopped at 25. I really just needed a number to get me started in the program. I also hit my calorie goal 5 times this week, and completed all of my workouts.

Here are some pictures.

Little blurry on the side picture, but you get the point.

Relaunch - 56 Day Challenge

It’s really time for me to get this going again. I’ve strayed too far. I am pleased to say I didn’t gain much weight, though. I like to think that I didn’t gain because I’ve learned how to eat properly and exercise enough to maintain my current weight. The problem? I’m still at least 30lbs overweight.

My motivation for weight loss has changed. When I started this blog, I wanted to lose weight so that I could play Ultimate Frisbee without getting so winded. I wanted to lose weight because I was ashamed of the way I looked. I also really didn’t want to buy yet another size larger of all my clothes.

This time is different. In fact, ironically, the motivation stems from a very similar place as the original post for my blog. A magazine. This time the magazine is Running Times. The article is called “The Skinny: The simple/complex issue of weight and running” by Rachel Toor.

It isn’t another “how you lose 20 pounds in 3 days” kind of article. It’s more about how weight effects your running speed and efficiency. Rachel begins and ends the article talking about Seabiscuit. Yes, the horse. The owner of Seabiscuit had to decide which jockey to use when racing him and when it came down to it, there was a 3 pound difference. This 3 pound difference of the jockey meant a world of difference. But how? Race horses weigh a ton! Literally! If 3 pounds on a 1 ton animal makes a difference, then what does 3 pounds do to me?

I’m also reading a book called “Racing Weight” by Matt Fitzgerald. It’s a similar topic, but much more detail and instruction. Matt talks about the optimal height, weight, and body shape of athletes in different endurance sports based on averages of the elite performers. I’m only a little bit into the book, but I’m very interested.

The theme runs through both articles that a decrease in weight is equal to an increase in performance. Sorry for the pun. I am finding that I enjoy this sport of running. In fact, I’m already eyeballing my second marathon. I’m not registering for it until I get over how much I hate running a marathon when I’m done with Marine Corps in October. I hear it’s inevitable, so I’ll just accept it and look past it.

For me, I feel a need to lose more weight. I don’t care about what I look like nearly as much as I used to. I’m not fit looking, but I can outrun most of my friends and family by far. My cardiovascular system has improved dramatically. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. I want to lose weight to become better. I want to be faster and more efficient. I want to be logging 50 effortless miles a week without being so cared that I’m killing my joints. I want to be able to run 10 miles and have it not feel so much like an event (thanks for the wording, babe!).

Up until this point, the farthest I have ever run is 13.1 miles. I’ve got training runs planned for the rest of the summer that will get me far beyond that. I’ll be running 20 miles three times before my 26.2. Just about every week I will go one mile farther than I had ever done before.

For the next 8 weeks (56 Days), I will be working towards accomplishing a few goals. I’ll tell you them in a minute. Why 8 weeks and 90 days? In exactly 8 weeks, Sunday the 26^th of August, I will run my second official Half Marathon in Wildwood, New Jersey. This will be the last day of the challenge. The next day I turn 27. I can’t see a better end date.

My first goal is to lose 1.5 pounds per week for 8 weeks which means 12 pounds. The rest of my goals will support this goal.

According to my calorie needs calculator, I need to eat between 1840 and 2433 calories per day. I will do this 44 out of 56 days (that’s 12 high calorie days). Exceptions will be made for days where I burn more than 1500 calories in a workout (about 9 mile runs or more). For those days, I will be allowed to eat 1/3 of calories burned back. For instance. If I burn 1500 calories, I can have 500 extra calories that day, OR the day before. Not both. I make this stipulation because I’ll need the calories in at dinner if I have a long run the next day, or calories at lunch if I have a long run at night.

I will run a minimum of 3 days per week for 7 out of the 8 weeks. I will also ride my road bike at least 1 day per week for 7 out of 8 weeks.

My fourth goal is to complete 50 consecutive pushups with good form (nose to the ground).

I slept in late this morning so I missed my wife for pictures. I'll try to remember tomorrow morning. 232.5 this morning.

It's been a while...

I realize that I haven't posted in a while. I want you all to know that I'm still around, but I stopped working on my weight loss. Not formally. I just had lost focus of it. I really honestly thought that my metabolism had kicked in and I didn't need to work as hard anymore.

WRONG.

I have friends coming in this weekend. I'm going to spend some time formulating new goals that align better with what my current priorities. I need a new way of thinking about things and what the purpose of these goals are. I also need to do some new math for caloric needs. With marathon training officially under way, I'm going to need a different amount of calories. Some days I won't need as many as others. I just need to research how to do this without sacrificing my training.

Stay tuned. Monday will come with a new post, new goals, new pictures, and hopefully, new motivation.

See you Monday.

Train.

Start of Week 5

I'm starting to wonder if my body goes through alternating weight loss/muscle building phases.  There are times when I look in the mirror and think that I look like I've lost weight, or I notice certain spots on my body looking slimmer, but the scale hasn't moved much. This morning when I got on the scale, I wasn't sure if it was dehydration, or I really lost a decent amount of weight last week. 226.5 this morning. Maybe it's both. I don't know.

I notice most of the muscle building in my legs. I guess that makes sense since I'm not doing much upper body exercise. The running/cycle combination that I've been doing is pretty nice. I'm finding that I still enjoy cycling more than running at times. At least when there's a tailwind and no mechanical problems. Riding into a headwind is worse than most runs.

My Friday run was an exception. It was possibly the worst run I've ever had. It was supposed to be 10 miles, but some bubble guts and joint pain had me stop at just about 9. It's been a while since I've hit my mark on a long run, but I'm ok with it for now. My wife and I have about 21 weeks left until Marine Corps Marathon, our main race, and are ahead of the game at this point as far as training goes.

I'm a little fearful that we've been too aggressive in our training up to this point. I'm going to be working on a new training schedule this week so we have more rest. I feel like our bike riding is a good break from running because it's less pounding on the joints, but it's still stress on the legs so they don't recover as well. I'm thinking about 5 days a week instead of 6 and doing 3-4 days of running and 1-2 days of cycling depending on what races/rides we've got coming up.

I have to make a confession. I disregarded the goal of not drinking through the end of the month on Saturday. When I wrote the goal, I forgot to take Memorial Day into account. The goal wasn't meant to punish me, but to break the habit of drinking alcohol so frequently. It's done that. I had a few on Saturday and had no desire on Sunday. I feel like I'm in a good place right now. I will be abstaining until at least Friday, though, just to reinforce the goal.

Speaking of Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I had a great time on Saturday. We rode our bikes over to the beach for the morning/afternoon. At night, I grilled some sweet potato fries, carrots, and london broil. We ate outside for the first time in the new place and when dinner was over, we lit our fire pit out back and sat around talking. It was really nice. We spend a lot of time in the living room doing separate things.. I play video games or watch TV. She'll watch TV with me sometimes, or make jewelry. But regardless, we don't talk much in the living room. Being out by the fire was pretty great. Yahtzee liked being outside most of the evening as well.

And a special thank you to all of our past and present service members, especially those who have given their lives to protect ours.