Reset!

Weekly Stats
Current: 203.8
Weekly Gain: 0.0
To Go: 28.8
Total 121.2

I am going with my weigh in from yesterday. I am leveled off which is great except overall the weight gain was alarming! We said goodbye to my daughter Sarah and her husband Mike. We had a great time with them here. It am now also saying goodbye to late nights and not watching my portions. I am also saying goodbye to several unhealthy food choices. I am ready to get back serious at all of this and stay on track.

I did stay true to my workout last week. I think that I mentioned that I am started training for a half marathon last week. I followed the training schedule and had a good workout week. This Saturday will be a good test with a 7 mile run. That will be the longest run I have done since I started back running this year. My next few weeks, I will be posting my training results. Wish me luck in my training! October 30th here we come!

At work, they have a Wellness program where they encourage you to exercise and also one other health goal. This time, besides 30 minutes of exercise, they are giving us the opportunity to set our own goal. They have challenged us to use the SMART method to reach our goal. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Target Date. So my goal is:

I will run a half-marathon on October 30, 2010.

I will do this by following a training schedule. This way my goal will be attainable. I am being realistic because I have been training and a few of my running friends think I am on track to be able to do it. It's definitely measurable with the distance. I guess I better register! :)

Great job to my friends who ran the Hobble Creek Half! That is one I may do next year. See you there I hope! Keep up the great work everyone. You are all an inspiration to me in a lot of different ways. Some by the way they workout. Some how they are struggling like I am to lose weight and get in better shape and a lot of you by encouraging me to keep after it. Thanks to my family who have been so supportive as well. Next week, I will tell you about Ragnar! Hang in there and I will to!

20 miler

Weekly Stats
Current: 203.8
Weekly Gain: 4.4
To Go: 28.8
Total 121.2

First the bad news. Still not understanding this weight gain over the past two weeks. I am up 11 lbs! I haven't backed off of my workouts at all, as a matter of fact, I have really been doing a lot lately. I haven't been perfect on eating, but I know that I haven't consumed enough extra calories to gain 11 lbs in so short a time. I just need to be patient, make sure I am eating right, get good rest and keep up the exercising and it will come back around. Saturday was an endurance hike, maybe the body is all inflamed from the near death experience! Like I said, I just need to be patient and things will come back around.

As I have mentioned before, I am a scoutmaster and we have been working hard on the hiking merit badge. Last month, we completed our set of five, ten mile hikes. Saturday, we were able to all go on the last big hike of 20 miles. We all met at my house at 6am, wiped the sleep from our eyes, and headed off to Vivian Park. We went via Riverwoods, Will's Pit Stop and then doubled back to Provo Canyon. Nine hours later, we had hiked the scouts 20 miles and I gratefully made it back home. I was tired, but the biggest problem for me was blisters. I had four big ones by the time we were done. It's interesting because I had used the same shoes and socks to hike Timp a couple of weeks back and made it 14 miles without a blister, but I guess this hiking was a lot harder on my feet for some reason. Luckily, I recovered enough to get my training in this morning.

Speaking of my training, today started my official training for a half marathon at the end of August. I have been thinking about doing one and as I looked at training schedules, I am right on track with my current weekly mileage to be ready by then. I will have to get registered for it before to long. My daughter Sarah and her husband Mike are in town for the week. Mike went on the run with me this morning. I don't often train with someone else, so it was nice to have someone come with me. My blisters and generally being beat of from Saturday didn't hinder me too much and I was able to train how I wanted for the 3.5 miles this morning.

Shout outs to Bill and Todd who ran the Hobble Creek Half Marathon on Saturday. Great job to all the scouts and Alan T. who did the 20 miler and earned their hiking merit badge. Great job Phil in working out this week! Hillary! Great weight loss! Keep up the good work! Mike and Sarah continue to work out and are keeping in great shape. Hang in there and I will too!

Holy Cow!!!!!!

Weekly Stats
Current: 199.4
Weekly Gain: 6.6
To Go: 24.4
Total 125.6

Let me say this again, HOLY COW!!!! I didn't expect to have a loss this week and wouldn't have been surprised with a slight gain, but 6.6 lbs gained was not expected! Looking back over the week, I can say I had a good workout week. I didn't miss a workout and I felt pretty good all week. I did miss out on a super long hike this week, but I still got a 7 miler in on Friday morning and did a three other 6 mile runs during the week so I put the effort in. From on eating standpoint, I did rather well most of the week except for Friday night and Saturday when we were at a reunion, but I didn't eat 6 lbs extra of calories. Just have to chalk it up to a weird week and hopefully it will come right back off.

Speaking of reunions, one of the benefits of losing weight is the compliments that you get when people haven't seen you for a while. To be honest, I have enjoyed it, but I also realize that the time will come that the praise will stop and I will have to stay motivated for more personal reasons. I need to keep that in mind. I need to enjoy how much better I feel, how much more I am able to do now and to never forget how hard it was when I weighed to much. One of the downfalls of having a weight loss goals is when you reach it, you need to have long term goals and a plan to achieve them. If not, it is too easy to fall back into bad habits. I know one guy who made a deal with his wife that if he last X amount of pounds that he could get an iPad. He now has his iPad and some of his lbs have started creeping back on. I know another who had a heart attack and needed to lose weight, so that scared him into to doing it, he did the HCG diet, lost a bunch of weight and it is now creeping back on. It is one of my biggest fears is that I will let up once I reach my goal. I really do want to stay healthy! I need to face the fact that this will need to be a life long habit of eating right and exercising. I'm going to do it! I've got to do it! Let's keep encouraging each other!

Shout outs to Bill and Andy who ran the Epic relay this weekend from Logan to Jackson Hole! I don't know if Bill and Andy are on the same team, but Bill's team took 2nd overall! Nice job!!!! I talked to Wayne who lives a bit west of me yesterday and found out that he has run 7 marathons!!!! Wow!!!! Phil keeps working out! Way to go Phil! Hang in there and I will too!

Timp!

Weekly Stats
Current: 192.8
Weekly Loss: 0
To Go: 17.8
Total 132.2

After last week great loss, I am grateful to have broken even. It took a lot of work to break even, more than I had even planned on.

Last week, my daughter and here family was in town. We had a great time being with them and it was a good reminder of what is important in life! They had an early flight home on Saturday, so I decided to go on a hike after I dropped them off. Originally I planned on driving down to Boulder and hiking Calf Creek. But as I thought about it, it would take quite a bit of driving to get there and back and I thought I might as well spend the time hiking instead. I thought it would be fun to hike on the Timpanookee trail and see how it was, but by the time I got there at 7am on Saturday, the trail head was already full and people were parking clear up the road. I decided to hike on the Aspen Grove trail instead. I got there about 8 and got the last spot at that trail head. I made it to Emerald Lake about 11 and was hungry enough for lunch so I sat down behind the TERT shack and looked up and saw the shed at the top of Timp. I still felt like I had a lot of energy to make it up in spite of the steep climb up the Aspen Grove trail, so off I headed for the summit. I was still game when I made it to the saddle, so I called home and said I would be later than I thought getting home and up I went. It took me about 5 1/2 hours to make it to the top, but I did it! That makes two of my three summit goals. The only one left now is King's Peak next year. I still plan on hiking up the Timpanookee Trail in September. It will be interesting to see how it compares to the Aspen Grove trail. It is supposed to be easier. We'll see.

The last time I hiked Timp, I was much younger and it seems like it took me about 12 hours to complete. I remember getting cramps in my thighs as I hiked. Not this time! I felt pretty good in spite of it being steep. I made it in about 10 hours so I am happy with the time as well! By coincidence, my neighbor Bill H, ran to the top via the Timpanookee Trail in a little under 2 hours and made it back down in about an hour! Holy cow! I think those days have passed me by. It was all I could do to hike it let alone trail run! Great job Bill!

Great job to the rest of you as well! Hang in there and I will too!

Discouragement

Weekly Stats
Current: 192.8
Weekly Loss: 2.2
To Go: 17.8
Total 132.2

As I listened to the radio this morning, the morning show host were talking about a story by the AP that stated if we keep talking about the dreaded double digit numbers in the economy, that it just might happen. The point being that consumer confidence in the economy in the factor if it does well or not. If we keep hearing that things are bad with the economy and it affects how we spend, then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy! I think the same is true of most everything in life.

I was a bit discouraged this weekend. I have really pushed it hard the past few weeks with scout camp, family in town and the usual ups and downs in life. Even the scale was not giving me good numbers. (Stress plays a part in weight loss.) It would have been easy to give in this weekend and not worried about what I was eating. Two things helped. Even though we were camping as a family on Friday night into Saturday, I still got up early and went on a hike. It was a tough climb up a beautiful trail and I got a great workout. After breakfast, we packed up and got home and I kept busy the rest of the day getting things put away and doing yard work, so by the end of the day, I had done a lot of work. Having things to do helped me not give up. Another thing that helped was Sunday was the first Sunday of the month and if you are LDS you know that means it's Fast Sunday where we don't eat for two meals and donate the money to help those in need. That in and of itself helps you see outside yourself, but another great benefit is to get out of the habit of eating whenever your body tells you to. It takes a bit of discipline to not drink when you get a little thirsty or stick something in your mouth because your body says it's time to eat. It helps me to see food from a different perspective. I find it a great time to pray for help to overcome problems that I have had with food. I still worry about how easy it would be to slip back into old harmful habits. I acknowledge that I have serious problems with food if I am not careful. I need help beyond my own at times and I find prayer is a great means to reach out for help. I have been blessed with His help many times! After a discouraging weekend where I just felt like I had lost ground, I woke up this morning, went on my usual Monday run. When I got back, I got on the scale for my weigh in and saw a weight loss that I haven't seen in quite while. 2.2 lbs for the week! I had to weigh twice before I would believe it! This was another reminder of how important it is to keep pushing through, even when you are discouraged. As the character, Rocky Balboa, told his kid, sometimes life is not how many times you can hit, but how many hits you can take and not give up! Great advice!

I need to be careful about getting enough sleep as well. When I get tired, it is much easier to let down my guard. I have been getting less than my goal of seven hours each night lately. I need to get back into some good sleep habits again. A good night's sleep is imperative to renewing your body and getting things back into balance each day. It is something that is sometimes not given enough attention when it comes to weight loss and overall health.

Great job again this week to my heroes and inspirations. Great job Todd and Bill. I don't know how you can put in such great mileage with such great times! You are both amazing. Keep up the great work! Gordon keeps up on his biking and puts in some great workouts. Troy impressed me with his ability to hike with me on Wednesday! I can tell he has been working out as well! Thanks for the fun time hiking and fishing! Lisa, Chris, Hillary - Thanks for encouraging me every week. I really appreciate the support! It has helped in ways that you will never understand. Lastly, thanks to Barbara for the listening ear! It is good to have someone to lean on as good as you! Hang in there and I will too!