Sunday yet again and time for another weekly weigh-in.
Well, this is it, the last weigh-in post of the calendar year. It's been a really long and involved year for me this year. Graduated from college, had the wedding, had to hunt around for a job there for a little while, the wife had to hunt around for a job for a while longer, and I lost around 27% of my body weight. All told it's been a pretty good year. Sure right here at the end the holidays give me some setbacks in my eating habits, but nothing that can't be ridden out and overcome.
So where do I go from here? What do I have left to do? Well, I've decided, in conjunction with a few friends along the way, on a number of things to do to challenge myself in the next calendar year. After all the running I've been doing, and because it's a cause that is important to me, I've decided that I want to enter both of the Susan G. Komen Races for the Cure that happen in Arizona each year. The Southern Arizona one in April and the Phoenix one in October. Each will be a 5K race, a distance I know I can run in one shot even if I'm unsure of how respectable my time would turn out to be, and most likely a decent time for a great cause. I'm also seriously considering a "fun run" called Warrior Dash going on in late April just because it seems like a good time.
On the less organized front I'm going to make an attempt at completing INSANITY and P90X during 2011, out of a combination of a desire to prove to myself I can and the desire to see what might happen to me if I do. After that, if I still have the time and motivation, I'll probably just try and up my run distance and my utility with bodyweight exercises and some relaxed running. So it looks like it should be a decent year for me whether I live up to all these challenges I've set for myself or not. Because either way, it will be a fun journey to places I've never pushed myself to go before, and really that's what life is about sometimes. Fun times with people you care about.
So, lots of hope for the future but what does the scale have to say about your relationship with the past? 208, up 2 pounds from last week. Not really that bad overall I guess. This was a tough week for me in terms of food, and that amount of fluctuation is actually fairly small, so I'm willing to live with that for now. Onward and downward to something a little more palatable for the long term I think.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 48)
Sunday yet again and time for another weekly weigh-in.
This week was a fairly good week all around I think. Got some Christmas shopping taken care of, made up some salad dressing and packed salads for lunch for the latter half of the week, and finished week 9 of the Couch to 5K plan. All told, that's a pretty good week.
Speaking of said plan, I mentioned that there was some more information to my usage of my ipod while I run than just using it for Runkeeper, and so today I shall share that with you all. Some of you reading this may have thought to yourself in the past that running isn't for you because it's boring. To that I have two things to say, firstly that you should make sure you are running outside in the real world and not on a treadmill if boredom is something you want to counter. Secondly, you might want to consider adding some music into your runs, as it can be a rather interesting thing to help keep you aware of what's going on around you. That said, I will caution you that you should make sure that the music isn't getting in the way of your awareness of your surroundings. You need to make sure you are keeping track of any traffic, your form, the sound of your footfalls, your breathing, and so many other things. But, if you can keep track of all of those things music can be a nice addition to your runs. Especially if it's also functional.
The benefit of the Ct5K plan, is that it uses intervals to help you progressively increase your running time toward a full 5K. The downside, is that you need a way to track either the distances or the times that you are working on for your intervals. The free version of Runkeeper doesn't do that, so I needed another way to track that, enter Podrunner. Podrunner Intervals uses high energy music, timed to the intervals set out in the Ct5K plan, to help keep you moving at a good pace for the times you need to get yourself to where you want to be. They have sets for each week of the plan, and all 3 days in weeks 5 and 6. They also have sets past the 5K program for training your way to 8 or even 10K runs. I very much enjoy these podcasts, and reccomend them highly to anyone looking to try out the Ct5K plan, who wondered how they would manage the timing, or those who didn't as well.
Well, all of the small accomplishments piling up, where does that leave me with the scale? 206.0, down 3.6 pounds since last week. Making steady progress in the direction I want to be going for now. Finally nearing the end of my period of weight loss, and getting to a point where all I have left to do is manage my body fat. See you all next week.
This week was a fairly good week all around I think. Got some Christmas shopping taken care of, made up some salad dressing and packed salads for lunch for the latter half of the week, and finished week 9 of the Couch to 5K plan. All told, that's a pretty good week.
Speaking of said plan, I mentioned that there was some more information to my usage of my ipod while I run than just using it for Runkeeper, and so today I shall share that with you all. Some of you reading this may have thought to yourself in the past that running isn't for you because it's boring. To that I have two things to say, firstly that you should make sure you are running outside in the real world and not on a treadmill if boredom is something you want to counter. Secondly, you might want to consider adding some music into your runs, as it can be a rather interesting thing to help keep you aware of what's going on around you. That said, I will caution you that you should make sure that the music isn't getting in the way of your awareness of your surroundings. You need to make sure you are keeping track of any traffic, your form, the sound of your footfalls, your breathing, and so many other things. But, if you can keep track of all of those things music can be a nice addition to your runs. Especially if it's also functional.
The benefit of the Ct5K plan, is that it uses intervals to help you progressively increase your running time toward a full 5K. The downside, is that you need a way to track either the distances or the times that you are working on for your intervals. The free version of Runkeeper doesn't do that, so I needed another way to track that, enter Podrunner. Podrunner Intervals uses high energy music, timed to the intervals set out in the Ct5K plan, to help keep you moving at a good pace for the times you need to get yourself to where you want to be. They have sets for each week of the plan, and all 3 days in weeks 5 and 6. They also have sets past the 5K program for training your way to 8 or even 10K runs. I very much enjoy these podcasts, and reccomend them highly to anyone looking to try out the Ct5K plan, who wondered how they would manage the timing, or those who didn't as well.
Well, all of the small accomplishments piling up, where does that leave me with the scale? 206.0, down 3.6 pounds since last week. Making steady progress in the direction I want to be going for now. Finally nearing the end of my period of weight loss, and getting to a point where all I have left to do is manage my body fat. See you all next week.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 47)
Sunday yet again and time for another installment of the weekly weigh-in.
Been an interesting week this week. Running has been going rewardingly, starting in on the 9th week of the plan tomorrow, and I feel great for it. Been eating decently, when I've even felt like eating. Hoping to keep up the momentum I've had through the remainder of the year, but with Christmas and New Years both ahead, we'll have to see how things play out.
Today I am going to talk about another of the wonderful tools I use to make my life easier on the path to the new better me. Runkeeper is a free app for the iPhone that I have come to love since I started running. It uses the GPS on the phone to track your location while you run, and then uploads it to the Runkeeper website. They recommend against keeping your phone in your pocket while you run as it might interfere with the GPS readings, but I have found that if it does, it doesn't interfere to a degree that I have taken issue with, so it's not something I worry about.
I just fire up my music, more on that next week, start up the GPS tracking in Runkeeper, lock the phone, and then go on my run. When I get home I unlock the phone, tell it I'm done with my run, enter any notes, and then stop my music. It's as simple as that. It then uploads the information for my route, distance, and pacing to the website where I can access it later. Since my running right now is training for a 5K, I have it track my distance in kilometers, and because I prefer it that way I have it display not only my distance but also my pace. I don't pay any attention to the app while I'm out for my run, so I don't actually know what features it has while it's tracking an activity, but after the fact it gives you access to a map of your route, and a graph of your pace or speed each minute throughout the activity. It also displays overall pace, total distance, and calories burned based on what type of activity you told it you were launching when you started your tracking. It keeps all of the activities you've tracked using the app locally, and they are working on 2-way syncing for upcoming updates so that should allow tracking of activities using the phone for things you entered into the web interface manually.
That brings me to the website. Each activity is uploaded automatically to the website, which tracks your distance over time, the number of activities per month, and various other stats. You can enter things manually instead of through the GPS, or edit a GPS run. I don't yet have a heartrate monitor but if you do you can upload either an average heart rate for the entire activity, or a graph of heart rate over time provided by certain Polar heart rate monitors. The stats guy in me loves this website, because it has so many things for me to look over and play with. The runner in me loves it simply because it tracks what I do, and gives me feedback on how I've improved since the last time I was out. Either way, I enjoy the app and the website very much. Both have paid versions, I have tried neither at this time but I may try them in the future, if so I'll let you know if I find it to be worth the cost.
So, now that I've talked about some more of what I do when I run, let's see what it has done for me on the scale. 209.6, down 2.8 from last week. That leaves me down 73.5 pounds since I started, which is about 25% of my starting body weight. So far it looks like the momentum is working in my favor, just have to keep it that way.
Been an interesting week this week. Running has been going rewardingly, starting in on the 9th week of the plan tomorrow, and I feel great for it. Been eating decently, when I've even felt like eating. Hoping to keep up the momentum I've had through the remainder of the year, but with Christmas and New Years both ahead, we'll have to see how things play out.
Today I am going to talk about another of the wonderful tools I use to make my life easier on the path to the new better me. Runkeeper is a free app for the iPhone that I have come to love since I started running. It uses the GPS on the phone to track your location while you run, and then uploads it to the Runkeeper website. They recommend against keeping your phone in your pocket while you run as it might interfere with the GPS readings, but I have found that if it does, it doesn't interfere to a degree that I have taken issue with, so it's not something I worry about.
I just fire up my music, more on that next week, start up the GPS tracking in Runkeeper, lock the phone, and then go on my run. When I get home I unlock the phone, tell it I'm done with my run, enter any notes, and then stop my music. It's as simple as that. It then uploads the information for my route, distance, and pacing to the website where I can access it later. Since my running right now is training for a 5K, I have it track my distance in kilometers, and because I prefer it that way I have it display not only my distance but also my pace. I don't pay any attention to the app while I'm out for my run, so I don't actually know what features it has while it's tracking an activity, but after the fact it gives you access to a map of your route, and a graph of your pace or speed each minute throughout the activity. It also displays overall pace, total distance, and calories burned based on what type of activity you told it you were launching when you started your tracking. It keeps all of the activities you've tracked using the app locally, and they are working on 2-way syncing for upcoming updates so that should allow tracking of activities using the phone for things you entered into the web interface manually.
That brings me to the website. Each activity is uploaded automatically to the website, which tracks your distance over time, the number of activities per month, and various other stats. You can enter things manually instead of through the GPS, or edit a GPS run. I don't yet have a heartrate monitor but if you do you can upload either an average heart rate for the entire activity, or a graph of heart rate over time provided by certain Polar heart rate monitors. The stats guy in me loves this website, because it has so many things for me to look over and play with. The runner in me loves it simply because it tracks what I do, and gives me feedback on how I've improved since the last time I was out. Either way, I enjoy the app and the website very much. Both have paid versions, I have tried neither at this time but I may try them in the future, if so I'll let you know if I find it to be worth the cost.
So, now that I've talked about some more of what I do when I run, let's see what it has done for me on the scale. 209.6, down 2.8 from last week. That leaves me down 73.5 pounds since I started, which is about 25% of my starting body weight. So far it looks like the momentum is working in my favor, just have to keep it that way.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Weekly Weigh-in (Week 46)
Sunday yet again and time for another installment of the weekly weigh-in.
This week has been a rather interesting week for me. Schedule got thrown into some disorder due to Lara's work schedule changing. Didn't get in the way of my food intake at all, but it's caused some adjustments in my sleep schedule and also my running to a degree. All told it was a good week.
Now, I think it's about time I actually spent a little time talking about my running. This week was week 7 out of 9 of the training program I've been doing. It's called the Couch to 5K running plan. It can be found here. It uses intervals to help you increase the duration for which you can run as opposed to walk. I know when I started I couldn't keep up a run for anywhere near as long as I can today. In the 7 weeks I've been using this plan my up intervals have gone from 1 minute to 25 minutes, and in the next two weeks to 30 minutes.
Intervals have always made sense to me as a workout strategy, and I can say with certainty that it works for increasing your capacity at least, though I can't speak at this time for it's calorie burning properties, the running seems to have done a decent job of that. Look in the next few weeks to see updates on where I am planning on going in my fitness efforts, plus at least one more app review and some thoughts on footwear. For now, suffice to say the Ct5K plan is one I recommend to anyone interested in running for fun, exercise, or competition.
So what does the scale have to say about my weight this week? 212.4 down 2.6 from last week. That pushes me over the 70 pound mark since I started this in January. Almost all of that was during a time I was doing nothing different despite eating less than I was when I started. I'm steadily approaching my initial goal for the one year mark, and it looks like I should be able to make it in the 6 weeks I have remaining. I'll be back next week with further updates, and more insight into my practices and future plans. Until next week.
This week has been a rather interesting week for me. Schedule got thrown into some disorder due to Lara's work schedule changing. Didn't get in the way of my food intake at all, but it's caused some adjustments in my sleep schedule and also my running to a degree. All told it was a good week.
Now, I think it's about time I actually spent a little time talking about my running. This week was week 7 out of 9 of the training program I've been doing. It's called the Couch to 5K running plan. It can be found here. It uses intervals to help you increase the duration for which you can run as opposed to walk. I know when I started I couldn't keep up a run for anywhere near as long as I can today. In the 7 weeks I've been using this plan my up intervals have gone from 1 minute to 25 minutes, and in the next two weeks to 30 minutes.
Intervals have always made sense to me as a workout strategy, and I can say with certainty that it works for increasing your capacity at least, though I can't speak at this time for it's calorie burning properties, the running seems to have done a decent job of that. Look in the next few weeks to see updates on where I am planning on going in my fitness efforts, plus at least one more app review and some thoughts on footwear. For now, suffice to say the Ct5K plan is one I recommend to anyone interested in running for fun, exercise, or competition.
So what does the scale have to say about my weight this week? 212.4 down 2.6 from last week. That pushes me over the 70 pound mark since I started this in January. Almost all of that was during a time I was doing nothing different despite eating less than I was when I started. I'm steadily approaching my initial goal for the one year mark, and it looks like I should be able to make it in the 6 weeks I have remaining. I'll be back next week with further updates, and more insight into my practices and future plans. Until next week.
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