Triple Play

Weekly Stats
Current: 212.6
Weekly Loss: 3.2
To Go: 37.6
Total 112.4

Another great week! I was able to pass the three milestones I referred to last week. First, I got another 10 lbs star! I passed from the BMI obese category to overweight! And lastly I am 75% to my weight-loss goal! Yippee!!!!!!

I am really happy with my workout this week as well. This mornings run I went just a bit further and was able to job the 5.3 miles without walking (except for warm-up and cool-down) and I jogged about .2 miles an hour quicker. I also enjoyed my Saturday hike putting in another 14.17 miles. Here are the details if you are interested.

Thanks for all the support! Sarah and Rachel posted another great run this weekend and are both on track for the half marathon in about a month. Great job to both of you! Bill continues to put in his killer miles! He is amazing! Great job to the rest of you and your work-out efforts. Hang in there and I will too!

Makeup Day

Weekly Stats
Current: 215.8
Weekly Loss: 4.6
To Go: 40.8
Total 109.2

This week was a payback week for last week's no loss report. I was afraid that I might be hitting a plateau (and who knows when that might happen). But much to my surprise when I got on the scales this morning, I saw a number which made me do a little fist pump! I am getting close to several milestones. At 215, I get another 10 lbs star. At 214, I drop from the obese classification to over-weight on the BMI charts (BMI is a bit controversial) and at 213, I will be at 75% of my weight loss goal of 175! These are all good and should happen in the next few weeks.

I also had a great workout week. I really enjoyed using my Garmin to chart my progress this week. I did my usual 5+ mile outings last Monday and Wednesday. On Saturday, I was planning on doing 12 miles, but by the time I got home, I had walked 14.2 miles! I was a bit tired, but I wasn't dead tired so that was great! My friend from work, Scott, joined in for 7.25 miles and he was surprised by his progress as well. We did Dry Canyon up to the snow at the Curly Springs trail and then headed back down and hiked from the Bonneville Shoreline trail from Dry Canyon over to Battle Creek. This is where we put in more miles than we expected, but it was a fun trail and we got in a great workout as well. After we got back to Dry Canyon, he headed home and I hiked over to Orem and back home.

Great job Sarah, Mike and Rachel for putting in the miles this last week. I told Sarah that I would complete at least 13.1 miles before they did their half-marathon on May 1st. I ended up accomplishing that a little earlier than I thought! Kudos to the rest of you who are keeping at it. Hang in there and I will too!

Even Steven

Weekly Stats Current: 220.4
Weekly Loss: 0
To Go: 45.4
Total 104.6

It's been since mid November since I haven't reported a loss. I guess I was due for a week like this. I am not as discouraged as I was a couple of weeks ago because I had some great success in the workout area. I was also down 2.2 lbs mid-week, but things came back up for some reason. I think I will see a good loss next week.

Why am I so happy about the workouts? I had several great ones. Thanks to Rachel's comment on the blog last week, I looked into getting a gps tracker. It didn't take long to find that people love the Garmin ForeRunner 305. It isn't the latest model, but it still gets great reviews. After using it for a few workouts I can see why. It has been great to see how far I have gone and to also keep track of my heart rate, speed, elevation and lots of other stuff.

Saturday, Scott, from work, and I went up Dry Canyon as far as we could. I took off from my house and found out that it is three miles from the front door to the mouth of the canyon. Scott met me there and we headed up the canyon. We didn't run into much snow until we hit the Curly Springs trail. Since the visible snow level on Baldy is above the trail, I thought that the trail might be good, but much to our surprise the trail still had at least a couple of feet of snow. We hiked along the trail on top of the snow. Much to our surprise, we didn't break through the snow much due to being considerably lighter. We were going to go all the way across to the Battle Creek lookout, but it was quite slow going so we decided to try again after a couple of weeks warmer weather. We headed back down and it was actually pretty fun walking down the snow trail letting our heels sink in just a bit in the snow. We got down quite quickly. We were both amazed at how much easier it was to hike. I probably could have made it to the Curly Springs trail without stopping, but we stopped a few times just for fun on the way up. I am probably 80 lbs lighter than I was when we last went up.

I told Scott goodbye at the parking lot and then I headed south on the Bonneville Shoreline trail over to the water tower road. I wanted to get in a few more miles, so I headed up the road. Once on top where it flattens out, the road got really muddy. I had a choice to go back down the road, but then I saw Timpanogos Park down below and several bike trails leading down so I headed down there and navigated down to the park and then headed down the Provo River Trail and back home. By the time I was done, I had put in eleven miles. Even though it started raining, I was plenty warm and just happy that I could put in the miles that I wanted to.

This morning, I took my usual Riverwoods loop and I was able to jog most of the way. Looking at my heart rate from last Friday's workout, I could see that I was maxing myself out, so today, I concentrated on slowing it down a little and it helped me to jog longer. As I drop more weight and I get used to the extra jogging time, the speed will come naturally. I went 5.4 miles and was quite happy with the outcome.

A shout out to Rachel, who last week reached her marriage weight after 2 1/2 years of working towards it. WOW!!!!! Great job!!!!!! Bill continues to impress me with his mileage week after week! Keep up the great work everyone! Hang in there and I will too!

Doubling back.

Weekly Stats
Current: 220.4
Weekly Loss: 3.6
To Go: 45.4
Total 104.6

I had a good week this week. I was happy with all of my workouts and I had another good loss this week. I am worried about next weeks weigh in, but I will continue to work hard.

It has turned out well to mix in some jogging with my weekday walks. It has stepped up the intensity in a good way and is helping me get in better shape. Also the weight training has been good as well. The DVD's helped me build up to be able to do both the long walks and also the weights. I usually have enough time after I lift to get on the elliptical as well.

Saturday's walk ended up being between 10 1/2 and 11 miles. I got a little extra mileage in because I dropped my pedometer without realizing it. I was in a bit of a panic because I like to track my progress and the pedometer has been one way of doing it. I debated whether I should double back or try looking for it after I got home and trace my steps. Something told me to go back. I try not to ignore those feelings so I went back. After a quick prayer and scanning both the road and sidewalks, I found it in the middle of a side street that fed into a busy street. I was glad I listened because there was a good chance it would have been in pieces if I had waited to find it later. The Lord helps us in even the small things if we will do our part.

Hope you all have a great week! Special shout outs to Martha who continues to make good progress on her weight loss. Sarah, Mike and Rachel have been training and doing well in spite of the cold weather. Kudos to all of you who are continuing to work out and eat right as well. Hang in there and I will too!

100 reasons to be happy!

Weekly Stats
Current: 224.0
Weekly Loss: 4.6
To Go: 49.0
Total 101.0

As much as last week was discouraging, this week was great!!!!!! I have been looking forward to this milestone for quite a while now! 101 lbs baby! I have lots to celebrate this week. Losing 4.6 for the week is great. I also made my monthly goal by losing 10.8 lbs. Plus I got another 10 lbs star!!! Excellent!!! And the exciting thing is, I am looking forward to losing this last 50 lbs! I am not dreading the exercise, the diet and all the other hard work that goes into losing weight. I really want to do this! I actually want to live this way from here on out! Eating healthy and keeping in shape!

Saturday was a great workout day for me in a couple of ways. I ended up hiking somewhere between 9.5 and 10 miles! I felt great as well. I had an interesting experience as I was heading back down the canyon. I had two runners pass by me quite slowly. One of them was quite heavy, but he was keeping a steady pace. I decided to catch up to them and give him some encouragement as I knew what a struggle he must be having. I told him that I had lost close to a 100 lbs and how much better I felt. I encouraged him to keep up the good work and not give up. He told me that he had lost 50 lbs in a month and was training for a marathon in June!!! I ended up being encouraged by him probably more than he was by me! I didn't ask his name, but I was really impressed that he had the determination to train. Another benefit I got from catching up and talking to him was I had to go at a slow jog to do it. I had already gone about 8 miles by this time and it didn't hurt to do it and I was able to keep up a conversation. It helped me with a change of pace this morning. I decided to see how I would do at a nice slow jog. I ended up jogging about two blocks and then walking for one the whole way. I did that for the whole 5 miles and I felt pretty decent when I got home! I think I have found a way to push myself a little bit harder during the time I have to workout and help me reach my goals!

Congrats to all of you who are working hard! Hang in there and I will too!

Finding time.

Weekly Stats
Current: 228.6
Weekly Loss: .4
To Go: 53.6
Total 96.4

The weight loss this week was quite the disappointment. When I weighed myself on Saturday, I was down 3 lbs for the week and was one lbs away from having lost 100 lbs. I expect the scale to be up a bit on Sunday since I don't work out, but Monday I am usually at least what I was on Saturday if not even more. To top it off, I went out walking in the cold this morning and went about 5 miles. Maybe the sweat froze to my body and weighed me down! Well, I will have to wait a week or two to see the 100 lbs milestone. At least I didn't gain.

I am often asked how I am losing the weight and I have talked a bit about this before. Exercise in and of itself is good for your health, but for weight loss in and of itself, it can be counter productive. The reason being is that working out will often increase your appetite. Often you feel you are justified in eating more since you are working out. However if you don't watch what you eat, it is easy to undo in one unwise food choice what you just spent an hour working out to burn.

On the other hand, just restricting calories can be counter productive as well. You not only lose fat, but in the process you will probably lose muscle as well. If you then resume your former eating habits, when you gain back, you don't gain the corresponding muscle back, but probably a higher percentage of fat. This makes each attempt at losing weight harder. It is really important then to both exercise for health and muscle tone as well as eating healthy and watching the calorie intake so the weight will come off.

This brings me to finding time to exercise. It is important to establish a time that works for you. I have found that getting up at 5 in the morning is best for me. Now as those who know me, I am not a morning person. I cannot get right out of bed. My good wife can get right up out of bed and be ready to exercise in 5 minutes. Me on the other hand, it takes me at least 20 minutes to get ready. I have to establish things like who I am, where I am and what I was going to do. I am only half kidding about this. I have to get a bright light on just to let my body know it is time to get going. So why do I choose this time to get up. It's because I have yet to have someone need my attention at 5am! The kids have never needed my help, the phone doesn't ring, I am free to get done what I need to do. I will even get up at 4am on occasion if I have to be somewhere early. Is it easy? Heck no! But it is easier as I have made it a habit. Some days, I even wake up before the alarm goes off and drag myself out of bed. Also being in better shape and being more healthy has led to better sleep patterns at night. It has also made it easier to go to bed at a decent hour because I am more than ready to go to sleep.

Find a time that works for you, but consider getting up early and making exercising a priority! If I can do it, so can you. Good luck Mike and Sarah as you start your training this week for the half marathon. Everyone else, keep up the good work on your goals to being more healthy! Hang in there and I will too.

A day late, 3 lbs short.

Weekly Stats
Current: 229
Weekly Loss: 3
To Go: 54
Total 96

Sorry I am a day late in reporting. I let things like exercise and having fun with the family get in the way. ;)

I had another good week! The extra work is paying off and I am a little ahead of where I need to be to lose 10 lbs for the month. I have currently lost 6 lbs at the half way point.

Saturday has become my extra mile day. I was able to do about 7 1/2 miles. I am trying to add on a mile each week. This has really helped out on my endurance and will better prepare me for all the hikes I have planned for the better weather. Since I had yesterday off for President's Day, I also did a 6 miler. The weather has been decent enough to get out so I made the most of it. I think it's about time for me to split time between three days of walking long distances and three days of circuit training and elliptical on the other three. I have really enjoyed getting out and about the past few weeks.

Gordon and Martha are still working out and seeing results. Mike and Sarah are training first for a half marathon on May 1st and a full marathon in the fall. I told Sarah I will work up to at least be able to walk a half marathon at the same time. It will help me prepare for my Timp hike in the fall. Great job to the rest of you for working out and taking off the extra weight as well. Hang in there and I will too!