I wanted to thank everyone for your comments about my decision to not run the half marathon in October. I honestly feel like it was the best thing for me. And I still feel like in the future, I will run it. Just not this year. I am still going to run the 5K in November. I have people counting on me. After all, my boss told me if I ran my half in March, he would run the 5K. And I have to be there to see that. I told him I would run with him. And another coworker, who has run several marathons (including NYC and Boston) is going to run with us, too. That is going to be fun.
It doesn't make me less of a person because I enjoy running on the treadmill over running outside. I'm still a runner.
Now that I'm not running so much (although I want to get up to at least 20 miles a week) I feel like I can lose weight again. Does that make sense? Last week I mentioned I gained (3.8 pounds) and this week I lost that. But I didn't feel like I had to work out EVERY SINGLE DAY in order to lose weight. I ran Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. I only managed to get in one day of weight lifting which was on Monday. I need to get that in more often. I want to do at least 3-4 days of that. I am a treadmill snob and like my own treadmill at home. So I figure I can either (A) run at home and head over to the gym right after (it's 30 seconds from my house) or (B) run, go to work and go to the gym for weights after work. Which I did Monday. But I was tired and as you all know (if you read my blog often) I am not person who likes to workout at night. Or after work. I really would like to tone up a little bit. It would really help. Although this extra skin is not going to go away.
Now I'm off to catch up on your blogs and do some housework. Thursday I came home from work totally stressed and wanted to dive into some cake or ice cream. But instead I vacuumed. It totally worked. Who knew?!
5 comments:
You have to do it for yourself. Whatever you feel at the finish line is fleeting, it's the day in and day out of staying fit that matters. It's a shame we don't get medals for that too because that's what really counts. There will always be races when you want to do them. Do what you love! :)
Good for you, thats a tough decision but you know whats best for you. Have a great week.
Good plan! You are making a sound decision. Keep up the great work and interesting blog posts - I enjoy them!!
You might also want to think about doing bodyweight exercises that don't require going to the gym. I do all of my lifting from home. Core work is especially important.
Running for weight loss is completely different than running for marathon training. You're not trying to build an endurance base, increase your speed or VO2 max, build a regimen to cover certain miles.... Running for weight loss is about getting a specific calorie output that's not too high or too low to balance the calorie input for the day. It's also most effective IMHO when balanced with some cross training like the stationary bike. The magic numbers that worked for me included working out only 5 days a week, running 3 or 4 of those days, burning 400 - 550 calories on the machine and limiting my input to only 1800 calories a day. It took a few weeks for me to find the magic formula - but it was really effective when I figured it out.
oh and btw most people (including me and my wife) will typically gain a few pounds once we go into marathon training. The longer runs burn more calories and have to be refueled with more input, putting me over the 1800 cal limit for weight loss.
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