Friday, July 31, 2015

Expectations


I've not been very good at keeping this updated. Part of the problem has been that I haven't been very good at doing things that are worth updating.

I haven't been in the gym since February.

My eating was out of control.

The only thing I'd been doing well with was not drinking soda and hitting 10,000 steps 4 or 5 days a week.

Another issue that's been plaguing me has been my feet. Mostly my left foot. It's been hurting a lot over the past 8 - 9 months. I went to a doctor and had some medication and a couple of cortisone shots, and the pain has been relieved for the most part. Most days, I don't feel any pain and can walk normally. But it doesn't take much to set off pain, and the last couple of days have been intense since I had a near run-in with a nest of wasps living behind the circuit breaker outside my home. The sudden break into a sprint to get away to a safe distance really torqued my feet and my calves, so it's been pain from just below the knees on down for a few days. They feel much better today.

I'm starting to eat low-carb as of this week. My main goal is to try to stay around/below 50g of carbs a day, but not feel too bad about it if I get close to 100g - from some of the research I've done, 100g-150g is typical "maintain weight" amounts. Below 50g can help with faster weight loss.

Looking back over my diet over the past few months, although I'd cut out sugar sodas, I still piled on the carbs at an alarming rate. Potatoes, bread (sandwiches / fast food / bagels), pasta. A lot of pasta really, and that was negating other efforts I was making in portions.

I'm also going back to the gym this Sunday (my "Monday" at work) morning and getting in some time on either the elliptical or treadmill with some light weight work (and build up as I go). 

I need to revamp how I shop, what foods I prepare for dinner. I don't plan on making the whole family go "low-carb" but rather find alternative ways to prepare my portion of the meal. Some meals will be easy because I can prepare the main dish (the meat) the same way for everybody, but instead of having potatoes or pasta as one of the sides, I can have a salad, or a variety of veggies. Meat and veggies for me. :)

I'm participating in my first 5k ever in three weeks. At this point I'm probably going to be walking it.

So. Here's to better eating, and starting on the road to being great!

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Updates and such

Things have been... eventful ... as of late.

I've tackled a couple of goals on my 2015 list, which is good. None of them directly relate to weight loss, but a couple indirectly do.

I'm signed up for The Color Run in Salt Lake City on August 22nd. 4 months and 10 days from now.

I've also been to a couple of doctors. One for a typical physical. Good news there, I'm still alive and doing pretty good.

Last week I also needed to see a foot/ankle specialist because of persistent pain in my left heel that just wasn't going away. I didn't have a shot because the doctor thought the ligaments were healing on their own, but gave me a prescription of an anti-inflammatory (naproxen) to help it along.

The main caveat to this, though, was that I needed to keep my walking to a minimum for the next four weeks until I go back to see him again.


Sigh.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Commit. Drive. Shin splints?

This weekend I took a big step (well, figuratively) toward some of the goals I've posted about recently. One of the top goals was to enter a 5k. On Friday I registered for the 2015 Salt Lake City Color Run.


Might as well be messy... this year's Color Run features GLITTER. My shower drain won't know what hit it.

So, to revisit my goals:

  • Hit the gym on work days
  • Walk a minimum 10,000 steps (15,000 if I didn't go to the gym - like today)
  • Stationary bike on non-work days - 1 mile minimum in March. Increase one mile per month.
The Color Run happens on August 22, 2015. Time to get going. Not only should I be able to finish it, but with six months to get ready, I should able to jog/run the full distance.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Motivation

Motivation is a fickle monster. Getting up at 3:10 AM to go out into the cold (it wasn't that bad this morning), drive to work and get there at least an hour before I'm scheduled to work and go instead to the gym in the small building to go and do physical movements to break a sweat. All of that contributes to that little voice in the back of your head to say, "Eh. Stay in bed, get another hour of sleep. You were up late last night. You're tired."


So. I've been very bad on my goals this last week. Today was actually the first day I got into the gym since the beginning of the year. Guess I was waiting on the other resolutionaries to give up. You know, the zero other people that go in at 4 AM.

I don't know what it was that kept holding me back. I didn't stay up exceptionally late during the last week or so. I might have talked myself out of it because of my physical coming up on Friday. Which seems kind of dumb, but in any case I got out of bed this morning, and was on my way by 3:35 to hit the gym.

It's only 8:15 (as I'm typing this portion) and I've already rolled past the half-way point of my step goal for the day. Hit the elliptical machine for 33 minutes, so I've hit my 30 active min goal as well (all of this is programmed into my fitbit).

The week is off to a good start. I'm probably going to work on updating this once a week (sort of a summary instead of play-by-play) because it's getting tougher to come up with clever titles. :)

See ya next week.