<p>Loving this break in the weather! Okay, real runners, look away for this part. I mentioned I had finished Couch to 5K last week, but I’m so slow I’m no where near doing 3.1 miles in 30 minutes. I think I’m actually breaking several laws of motion! Still plugging away at it, though. Did 33 minutes today and both full miles were under 12 minutes–a personal best.</p>
<p>12 minute miles look pretty darn fast to me. My fastest time ever on my measured 2 mile walk is just a tick under 37 minutes, so you are blowin’ me into the weeds. I always thought the tortoise wins the race! My training is geared toward geezering the youngsters on the hills!</p>
<p>I can’t believe I exercised inside today, but I had set a goal of today being the day for an iPod workout milestone and, as tempted as I was to go walking instead, I felt like I had to stick to the plan. Plus, the low humidity gave me a boost on the workout. I did do my step/press exercises on a step out on the deck.</p>
<p>chintzy, that’s great!</p>
<p>My time for today was 54:21 for five miles so that’s just a bit under 11 minutes per mile. I’m taking it pretty slow on speeding up because a lot of weight and high-speed leads to joint injuries. When I run, I compete with my spreadsheet record. I work with a lot of people that have run many marathons - no way can I realistically compete with any of them at my current weight. As long as you’re doing a little bit better, distance or time, over the long run, you’re improving.</p>
<p>chintzy- Nothing wrong with that at all. Congratulations. </p>
<p>Today was a rest day for me after 3 days in a row of “running” while I was in low-humidity, beautiful Denver. I went with some co-workers to walk a mile during lunch around the inside of one of the state office buildings that has a path set up. It’s 11 laps to a mile and pretty lame, actually, but it’s a nice resource in this heat for many people who want a little exercise.</p>
<p>Full disclosure–I’m jogging in the THE FLATTEST PARK IN AMERICA. I keep promising myself I’ll find a route with some hills one of these days…Signed up for my first 5K in September and you guessed it–the route is perfectly flat.</p>
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<p>I was thinking about this over the weekend. I think maybe the hardest thing about a plan to eat less and move more is to not get impatient, to lose weight faster or whatever. I do think that you have to keep challenging yourself on the move more part to make gains, but there seems to be a pace for each of us to move forward. Getting ahead of yourself leads to frustration and negative motivation. Better to be thrilled at losing one pound this week than disappointed that it wasn’t three pounds.</p>
<p>I wasn’t kidding about the tortoise. I really do think slow and steady wins the prize when it comes to losing weight and increasing fitness.</p>
<p>There’s a rule of thumb that says that you shouldn’t increase mileage by more than 10% a week. There are studies that suggest injury rates are much lower for those that don’t increase by more than 5% per week. The cardiovascular system can generally increase capacity quite a bit faster than the joints can so we may feel that we can increase distance (or speed) while building up damage to joints. I have the feeling that there are a fair number of competitive people on this board and that there’s a natural inclination to do more.</p>
<p>Injuries really do stink. They can effectively make it very hard to exercise. They can knock you off your program for a month or two. I’ve had two of the big five running injuries - they are no fun. The addictive nature of running can have you running right up to the point where you can no longer walk. The slow and steady approach has benefits. When the mileage gets higher, then things like shoes and muscles may become bigger issues.</p>
<p>My form of rationing is wine and beer only on weekends. At parties I alternate plain seltzer with liquor. I hardly ever cook potatoes, pasta or rice. I love mashed potatoes so I do cook them about once a month, but eat smaller portions. My husband cooks waffles on Saturday mornings and I occasionally have English muffins or toast for breakfast. I had to give up cookies because I can’t eat just one, but I am perfectly capable of eating only one piece of chocolate or one spoonful of ice cream, so they can be in the house. (Chocolate often is, ice cream almost never is.) I find Livestrong’s food tracking great. I don’t feel guilty about the fact that I always go over my daily calorie goal on the weekend, I just try to get it to even out over the week. I have it set up for me to lose a pound every two weeks. I’ve actually manage to lose 17 pounds in 28 weeks, so I’m actually doing a little better than I expected to. My plan is to be tapering down to some diet that I can maintain forever. Probably about the same number of calories I’m eating now will maintain me when I lose the other 20 or so pounds I’d like to lose.</p>
<p>I was really good about walking in the winter and early spring, but this heat wave is killing me.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I love mashed potatoes, too. Sometimes i make mashed cauliflower instead. if you like cauliflower, try it. You steam a head of cauliflower pieces, drain them and mash them with a tiny pat of butter, a bit of parmesan cheese and salt and pepper. It is satisfying without the milk, butter and starch that is in the mashed potatoes.</p>
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<p>That’s fantastic! Just think how much two 8 pound dumbells weigh. Pick up a pair next time you are at a store or the gym. It’s like you used to carry two of them all day everyday compared to now. </p>
<p>I hear ya on the heat. I always figured that winter would be the hard season for exercise, but this summer is enough to make me want to join a gym, just for the air conditioning.</p>
<p>Starting day three of my new way of thinking about health and diet. I feel good!</p>
<p>You guys are doing great.</p>
<p>I am struggling. Thursday I have my EMG (stick needles in my back) test. I “ran” 4 miles this morning in horrific humidity. I got through 3 miles with just a couple of brief “catch my breath and let my HR come down below race level” stops, but had to do a fair amount of walking in the 4th mile. I shouldn’t have been dehydrated, but my high HR and how I felt would say otherwise. My weight was really low (not complaining about that part) especially considering I ate and drank my way across Denver with WildChild this past weekend. </p>
<p>I got some Newton shoes (don’t tell Brooks) in Denver. My PT wants me on my mid/forefeet, which I pretty much do anyway except for the weak, injured left leg right now. I had success with Newtons in 2007 coming back from my ski injury/surgery so I decided to bite the (very expensive) bullet and get some. [Newton</a> Running - The Science of Motion](<a href=“http://www.newtonrunning.com/]Newton”>http://www.newtonrunning.com/) They are considered to be either the greatest things on earth of a bunch of cr%p. I actually think they help the hamstring because they nicely put you right down on that midfoot/forefoot. I got the Lady Isaacs, which are the transition shoe and have a carbon rubber sole so I won’t go through it as fast with the sliding left foot. They really feel good. If I could get some conditioning back… I don’t know why I do better out of town. Well, I DO know. It is flatter and less humid.</p>
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<p>I agree that it can be frustrating to not be able to quickly get to your goal once you have identified it. But on the other hand, one of the things I find very satisfying about fitness in general is not how slowly it progresses but how quickly. There is a lot of positive reinforcement. </p>
<p>Think about it. If you set out to lose X pounds and get in shape enough to run say a 10K race, if you follow a sensible plan in 6 months you will have made real, noticeable, measurable progress. Your weight will be signficantly down and your mileage will be significantly up. Compared to most other self-improvement efforts that’s pretty quick. For example if you decide to learn to speak Italian, after 6 months of dilliigent study you will be nowhere close to able to converse in Italian. It’s going to take years to make good progress. For health and fitness the rewards come much sooner. So keep up the good work.</p>
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<p>Once you are underway and have a little hindsight, absolutely. I look back over the last five an half months and my jaw drops to look at the scale or the mirror or that pair of biggest jeans I’m saving. My daughter is coming to visit this weekend. I haven’t seen her since Christmas. She knows I’ve been exercising and stuff, but she going to be shocked.</p>
<p>I was talking about those very early days of someone trying to transition from eating more to eating less and moving less to moving more. Honestly, that first day ust about killed me. I was breathing hard during the easy five minute warmup on the rickety old yard sale exercise bike. The first day I went for a walk, my calves felt like they were on fire. It was very hard to picture 44 pounds of weight loss or walking fast up and down hills for an hour and a half. Thinking about how far I had to go would be demoralizing, maybe even impossible. I just had to have patience and set realistic goals which I wrote down as follows:</p>
<p>1) Lose 12 pounds to get started
2) Walk a mile without getting winded
3) Enjoy exericising three days a week</p>
<p>I think it’s the transition from “this is so hard” to “wow, this really works” that is the crux of the climb. Once you start seeing the results, I agree. It’s huge positive motivation.</p>
<p>Hope you have some before and after pictures.</p>
<p>I have one from a family reunion from a few years ago with me around my maximum weight. It’s on my homepage so I see it quite often.</p>
<p>I also saved one pair of fat jeans. Everything else went to a plus size consignment shop. I am amazed at how forgiving my body has been and at how much I’ve accomplished. That said, now that the weight loss has slowed, I do get a little impatient sometimes. I have to remember that in February I sat out a campus tour with my son because the campus was large and hilly. Yesterday I was jogging and today I was doing burpees and box jumps and juggling flaming chain saws on the bosu ball.</p>
<p>You guys have motivated me. I haven’t exercised for about a year and a half (since I started back to work). I’ve been reading along here, trying to get myself back into the mindset of working out. So yesterday, I finally went out and got some new running shoes and this morning I went for a walk. My plan was to walk a 5k, but a certain piece of music shuffled onto my ipod, and I felt the need to run, lol. I’m hoping I didn’t overdo, as I’m going to see Adam Lambert tomorrow, and I need to be in top form for some serious dancing.</p>
<p>I get a little impatient, too. I’m still losing weight at the same average rate, but for the last couple months, it’s been a couple of days of big drops followed by a week to ten days of treading water followed by another drop. I have to be patient during the plateau weeks. Plus, up 'til now, I’ve just been enjoying the journey. Now, I can actually start to see the finish line and it’s a little harder to not get ahead of myself. There’s nothing to be gained by taking my focus off the next five pound goal and looking a month or two down the road.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my fitness has improved so much that I can actually do a lot of the stuff that was simply impossible a few months ago, so that makes working out a lot more satisfying. Not mention concrete changes like lower blood pressure.</p>
<p>Burpees, huh? That is hard core! If you keep that up, you are going to wearing compression tee fitness shirts to show off your abs!</p>
<p>Congratulations, blankmind. I remember the day I made the decision that I simply had to do something about eating too much and moving too little. It’s been an enjoyable journey since then.</p>
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<p>My wife and I have tickets for a New Hampshire show. His tour tickets have been really hard to get. I had pretty much given up as the shows in and around Boston were all selling out the day they went on sale.</p>
<p>Standing room only. It’s been years since I could stand for three or four hours without my legs aching. I bet that will be another benefit of this whole eat less, move more thing.</p>