Weight Loss VII: Week 20: Run To Win
The scale has moved, the waistband has really moved, my knees are holding up and I'm behind schedule but the schedule isn't the important part.
As if I needed extra motivation, somehow I ended up looking at a photo of myself from 2005.
That was pretty much the peak of my Weight Watchers period, where I managed to go from 275 down to 245 before a combination of life changes ended the plan. From the inside I rarely see what I actually look like, and I'm not fond of cameras so I don't really see a lot of images of myself that aren't the mirror. But I definitely looked way better than (though in part, 10 years younger, right?)
Still, compare to more recent:
Still 5 years ago, but you can see the difference. I would've been probably just under or maybe slightly over 300 pounds at that point. 50ish pounds is quite a difference there. That's going to be a touch smaller than I was when I got on board this train.
I'm not back down to where I was at GenCon yet, that's still 20 pounds away. But I'm a lot closer to that than I am to DrupalCon now, so that's good news.
It's particularly noticeable in my waistband. How noticeable? This week I put away all my size 44 clothing, and organized all of the clothes I had put away by size. I have a stack of size 42s that are now all fitting comfortable that I'm wearing. There's a stack of size 40s sitting in the closet on standby. At the rate I'm losing, maybe I'll be wearing those size 40s around Christmas. In fact, I'd bet I was wearing the size 40 gear in that GenCon photo. So that's a good benchmark of where I want to be.
I still have a small amount of the size 38 clothes I was wearing back when I weighed around 225 (and I think the 38s were pretty baggy on me at that point), but not very much. Still it ought to be enough to keep me from having to actually buy new clothes until I'm pretty close to my target weight. In an ideal world I'll get down to around a size 34, I think. So there's still a long way to go. I still have 84 pounds to my target, which is basically a third of the way there. It's a long trip ahead, but there's also a lot behind and that helps.
Finally, I'm doing really well on the runs. My right knee has given me some warnings, which had me not doing any EXTRA runs but it seems to be holding up okay under the normal runs, and enough so that I've added a couple extra minutes here and there. I'm icing it after runs just to be safe, and it seems to be just a little discomfort on the day of the run, and feeling pretty much back to normal by the next day. So as long as that's all it is I feel pretty confident that I'm not doing any serious damage and am hopefully toughening it up over time. Am continuing to monitor it.
This is currently week 4 of the program, and the intervals go like this: 2m run, 2m walk, 5m run, 2.5m walk, repeat, with a 5m warmup and cooldown walk on either end. I programmed the treadmill to add 1 minute of running to the end just because it ends up being a 7.5m cooldown walk when added together.
I've been looking ahead to next week, and the program shifts to short/medium/long runs for the rest of it starting in week 5. So Monday goes run 3m walk 3m run 5m walk 5m run 8m, Tuesday goes run 5m walk 5m run 12m and Friday goes run 3m walk 3m run 15m.
I've been a bit intimidated by that 15m, so a couple of times I've tried adding some time. Today I added 5 minutes to the interval that was already 6m -- which means 11m of continous running (and the treadmill is at 5.5 mph) so that's a full mile. I did close to that last week, but didn't quite make 11m. That gives me confidence that I can do the 12m coming up next Wednesday, and the total running I did today is still about the same as Fridays, just with a bit more rest in between. I think I can do that, especially with the buildup coming before it. Still, I will continue to be intimidated until I have actually done it.
Charlotte signed up to do the program with me, but she's already fallen behind on her workouts. She's having a bit of a tough time with her emotions right now. I'm trying to find the right middle ground between being an encouraging parent without pushing so hard she resents it, and I can't seem to find the right spot. I don't want to give up on her, but she didn't do the workout she said she would on Monday, nor did she catch up yesterday. She has ortho today so I dunno if she'll be in any shape to want to do it today either, because her mouth will almost certainly be hurting.
We'll see, but I think I'm not going to be able to keep my running partner without some change of heart from her. She has very little interest in buckling down and doing the work. I get that, I certainly had zero interest in that at her age either. I just don't know how to add that to her life without making her resent it. I'll keep trying, though.
As if I needed extra motivation, somehow I ended up looking at a photo of myself from 2005.
That was pretty much the peak of my Weight Watchers period, where I managed to go from 275 down to 245 before a combination of life changes ended the plan. From the inside I rarely see what I actually look like, and I'm not fond of cameras so I don't really see a lot of images of myself that aren't the mirror. But I definitely looked way better than (though in part, 10 years younger, right?)
Still, compare to more recent:
Still 5 years ago, but you can see the difference. I would've been probably just under or maybe slightly over 300 pounds at that point. 50ish pounds is quite a difference there. That's going to be a touch smaller than I was when I got on board this train.
I'm not back down to where I was at GenCon yet, that's still 20 pounds away. But I'm a lot closer to that than I am to DrupalCon now, so that's good news.
It's particularly noticeable in my waistband. How noticeable? This week I put away all my size 44 clothing, and organized all of the clothes I had put away by size. I have a stack of size 42s that are now all fitting comfortable that I'm wearing. There's a stack of size 40s sitting in the closet on standby. At the rate I'm losing, maybe I'll be wearing those size 40s around Christmas. In fact, I'd bet I was wearing the size 40 gear in that GenCon photo. So that's a good benchmark of where I want to be.
I still have a small amount of the size 38 clothes I was wearing back when I weighed around 225 (and I think the 38s were pretty baggy on me at that point), but not very much. Still it ought to be enough to keep me from having to actually buy new clothes until I'm pretty close to my target weight. In an ideal world I'll get down to around a size 34, I think. So there's still a long way to go. I still have 84 pounds to my target, which is basically a third of the way there. It's a long trip ahead, but there's also a lot behind and that helps.
Finally, I'm doing really well on the runs. My right knee has given me some warnings, which had me not doing any EXTRA runs but it seems to be holding up okay under the normal runs, and enough so that I've added a couple extra minutes here and there. I'm icing it after runs just to be safe, and it seems to be just a little discomfort on the day of the run, and feeling pretty much back to normal by the next day. So as long as that's all it is I feel pretty confident that I'm not doing any serious damage and am hopefully toughening it up over time. Am continuing to monitor it.
This is currently week 4 of the program, and the intervals go like this: 2m run, 2m walk, 5m run, 2.5m walk, repeat, with a 5m warmup and cooldown walk on either end. I programmed the treadmill to add 1 minute of running to the end just because it ends up being a 7.5m cooldown walk when added together.
I've been looking ahead to next week, and the program shifts to short/medium/long runs for the rest of it starting in week 5. So Monday goes run 3m walk 3m run 5m walk 5m run 8m, Tuesday goes run 5m walk 5m run 12m and Friday goes run 3m walk 3m run 15m.
I've been a bit intimidated by that 15m, so a couple of times I've tried adding some time. Today I added 5 minutes to the interval that was already 6m -- which means 11m of continous running (and the treadmill is at 5.5 mph) so that's a full mile. I did close to that last week, but didn't quite make 11m. That gives me confidence that I can do the 12m coming up next Wednesday, and the total running I did today is still about the same as Fridays, just with a bit more rest in between. I think I can do that, especially with the buildup coming before it. Still, I will continue to be intimidated until I have actually done it.
Charlotte signed up to do the program with me, but she's already fallen behind on her workouts. She's having a bit of a tough time with her emotions right now. I'm trying to find the right middle ground between being an encouraging parent without pushing so hard she resents it, and I can't seem to find the right spot. I don't want to give up on her, but she didn't do the workout she said she would on Monday, nor did she catch up yesterday. She has ortho today so I dunno if she'll be in any shape to want to do it today either, because her mouth will almost certainly be hurting.
We'll see, but I think I'm not going to be able to keep my running partner without some change of heart from her. She has very little interest in buckling down and doing the work. I get that, I certainly had zero interest in that at her age either. I just don't know how to add that to her life without making her resent it. I'll keep trying, though.