General Fitness Update

[grandmoffdavid.livejournal.com]

I haven't been updating on my diet/fitness lately largely because there hasn't really been any weight loss to speak of--for which I feel a bit guilty. I've basically been eating a lot of really crappy food, which appears to cancel out any benefits I should be seeing from my running and other exercise. Which means that when I weighed in this morning the scale still read 219.



Now, we have our anniversary trip to Disneyland coming up at the end of October, and I'd dearly love to be under 210 for that trip. It turns out that around 210 I start loosing weight from my face, which is always nice to see and makes pictures far less embarrassing. Unfortunately, that means I'd have to loose just under 2 pounds per week to reach that goal. Which seems unlikely. Even so, I think I'm going to take a run at it (literally, as you'll read below).

I read that to lose 1 pound you need to burn 3500 more calories than you consume. If I go back on the diet, which I technically started today, I should only be eating roughly 1300 calories per day. With minimal activity, at my weight, I should burn around 2300 calories per day. Which means, with only the diet, provided I don't cheat, I'd burn 7000 calories per week, or 2 pounds. Of course, I cheat on the diet. Which I shouldn't, but it makes it bearable. The thing is, I need to keep myself from going overboard on cheat days which has been one of my problems.

In better news, my running has really been ramping up. I've been using a heart rate monitor to help me train more efficiently, and I went from not being able to run a 5k to being able to run a 10k in about a month. This morning I ran for an hour and 20 minutes (although I forgot to start my pedometer, it's roughly 6.5 miles and 1100 calories). It's been cool in that I normally run out of breath and energy before my legs start wearing out. The past few times I've done these longer runs, it's been the other way around which means that I'm finally starting to build up some more muscle. "Cross-training" by riding my bike around has really helped to strengthen up my knees as well.

Which means that I'm feeling all cocky, and so I'm going to state that my goal for the next year is to train up to run a half marathon (13.1 miles). I have one all picked out and since spots in it sell out a few months in advance, I'll need to be able to get close to that distance by, let's say May of next year. If I continue to improve at all like I have been, I should be able to do it.

So, that's about it. I have my short term goal (under 210 by Halloween) and my long term goal (half marathon by next May). Let's get back together in a couple months and have a good laugh over how optimistic I'm being.