Four weeks ago, I posted that I was on furlough at work and had decided to dedicate myself to getting back into shape by working out and eating better. I needed to smartly kick-start my metabolism and had found a challenge to run/walk at least 75 miles during the month of May.
It is all finally working! I have been tracking my health, food, and weight on the MyNetDiary app since mid-March. I like it because one can track meals fairly easily and it provides a pie chart of my macros so I can see if I’m balanced or not. Also, by adding my calories burned by exercise, it adds that to my caloric intake goal for the day. There are all kinds of pretty visuals and helpful info. When I logged my weight this morning, I had lost 7.6 pounds since I started, and 5 of those are actually from the last 4 weeks. It wasn’t showing much if any effort before I declared changes were going to happen.
Then this Miles de Mayo challenge turned out to be an amazing boost for me. I was pretty sure I could pull off 75 miles, and kinda hoped I could reach 100. I wasn’t working when I signed up, but went back to work the second week in May. I was afraid that would make me lazy on that front, but I am proud to say it just means I got up extra early, strapped on my pepper spray and reflective and light-up gear, and I ran my neighborhood in the dark. This is Florida, so it’s a relief to not run in the sun anyway. The humidity is stifling at 5 am, but that’s peak time for the deer to be out and about, so that helped. My husband had also signed up for the challenge and we incorporated several evening, after dinner walks. This was great for working in small amounts of miles and burning calories after a meal, but also was a great way to spend time together just talking. Having him in on all this with me certainly helps. The challenge also provided a Facebook group community that has been wonderful. Everyone is at different abilities and paces, but everyone is incredibly encouraging of one another. I made it to 100 miles on Memorial Day and am continuing running in hopes of making up for what I know were walking miles with running miles. They all count, but it’s a little extra challenge for myself.
I’ve been eating healthy, yet still enjoying a few beers and snacks here and there. Tracking it all helps me keep perspective. We even managed to spend a couple days that involved eating out last week in celebration of our 20 year anniversary.
One bad thing happened. The app I have been using to track my running and various other workouts for 10 years has become unreliable, so I had to start all over on another app. This makes it harder to see my true progress, but I know I’m making it because I see and feel the results. When this mile challenge is over, I will continue to run, just maybe not as much. Then I will increase some of the HIIT and strength training I’ve also been doing. This will help my running in the long run as my endurance is getting better, but my speed is still in the sloth range. My muscles are finally beginning to show themselves in places other than my arms and my energy level is up. I have a goal to lose five more pounds and then to maintain. I even have a relay race with some friends in the fall that I need to keep on my training radar. There are a lot of virtual races these days too with all the COVID closings. I’m considering finding a half marathon to sign up for around that same time.
Most importantly, I am feeling encouraged and healthy. As long as I have goals, I see no reason I should go backwards.
caverns of my mind 