New Year!!!

Ok, so welcome to 2013!  Today is my 2nd weigh in at Fort Sanders Fitness Center, and the start of our group training with Chris O'Hearn, our personal trainer and Life Coach.  I anticipate having lost another 10 pounds from the last 30 days, putting me to 15 total.  It definitely hasn't been a linear progression, I have fluctuated greatly mainly due to the holidays.  For goodness sakes, I had to go to 5 Christmas meals in 3 days!  So anyway, usually I'd be beating myself up for not leading the pack (there are a couple guys who have lost around 30 punds so far, so I am not doing as well as them). 

But the good part is I am 100% focused now and the holidays are behind me, so I can really look forward to the punds coming off.  I am starting to get a few comments and my belt is a little lose, so I know things are moving in the right direction.  I would love to see a 20+ pound loss in January, so I am really going to be super on point with my diet and running. 

I actually ran 7 miles with the Knoxville Track Club two Saturdays ago.  By no means was I fast, and I walked a few times, but I finished.  That is the longest run I have ever done outdoors (at this point I hardly even consider running on a treadmill as running vs running outside, as they are just so much different). 

The hardest part of this whole thing is the mental part.  When I am running, I have these urges to stop and walk, and I have to literally go through a mental checklist with myself...heart rate is ok, check...legs aren't falling off and not failing, check...breathing is ok, check...ok, I can keep running.  I do this about every 10 minutes once I get past about 3 miles it seems, but it helps me stay focused and keep running.  The mental aspect also is huge with my eating.  I still struggle with late night cravings, but I am winning that battle.  I have learned that there is no middle ground for me there right now in my life, so I avoid all after dinner foods all together.

My goal at this point is still to get under 200 pounds by race day, but it is getting tighter and tighter to make it.  By then I would have lost a total of over 100 pounds since my heaviest and about 75 pounds from here.  I thought it might be interesting to see what 75 pounds looks like, so I googled some images to see.  When I googled, I found some other persons blog, so for the sake of disclosure, these photos are from her blog, which I linked at the end.

I think about it a lot when I am running, how basically I am carrying an extra 4th grader vs someone who is "normal" weight, so I look forward to the day when I can run, unencumbered, by this extra weight.  It's funny, now that I am running so often, I don't really think about the weight from a vainity thing, it is more about a performance thing, which is much more important to me.  Nevertheless, it's alot, and it simultaneously makes me mad that I have that much to lose, yet even more motivated to get it off. 

So here are some examples of 75 pounds...

How about 75lbs of beans?


Perhaps a 75lb boat?


That's a nice fish...


75lbs of fruit too...


I've always wanted to work out with these, this one weighs 75lbs I used to carry it around on my body all the time, wonder if I could pick it up LOL


Then there's this cutie


There's always a scoreboard


This one is creepy I must say


Now THAT'S a squash!


Imagine carrying a table on your back every day? Oh wait apparently I was!

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