Posts Tagged ‘Awesome by August’

I feel like I have been very fortunate this year to have so many things going right with my running. After what felt like so much up and down in the past two years, my confidence may be at an all-time high.

* With tonight’s 4.1-mile run, I now have more running miles than all of last year. I continue to be amazed at that number. Seven months into the year and I have passed my 2009 total. Now I’m just 35 miles away from my 2008 total. It will be a while before I hit my all-time high of 960 miles from 2007, but of course my main goal is that 1,000-mile mark.

* Awesome by August has been a great challenge to get me focused on eating better and doing something other than just running. At this point with starting to add more miles for training, I know that weight loss will be harder and harder. But I am happy to report this week that my weight is 184.2, the first time I have been on the other side of the 180s (under 185) in probably three years. So for the challenge, I’ve lost 3.4 pounds, or 1.8 percent in three weeks; this year I’m down a total of 13 pounds, or 6.6 percent; and I’m down 35.8 pounds, or 16.3 percent from my all-time high.

So during Awesome by August, I have restarted the 100 push-ups program and am now in the second week of it, and I have added sit-ups to my routine. It’s a nice addition to just running. I hope that I can do even more in the coming months.

* I have revamped my About Me page to detail my journey of weight loss and becoming a runner. As I have written before, I often shy away from discussing my weight, but if I had never lost weight, I never would have become a runner; I would not have become a runner if I didn’t need to lose weight. So in a roundabout way, this site is just as much about weight struggles as it is with what I do with running. I’ll continue to write about running more than anything else, but it’s crucial I keep reminding myself of what I don’t want to go back to.

* I have started the 100 push-ups program AGAIN. Two days into it, I’m full of regret having not done hardly any upper body workouts in the past couple of months.

* Awesome by August is going OK. I went from 187.6 to 186 in the first week to then maintaining this week. Maintenance is a victory, but a loss would have been better. My biggest issue is what I eat on the weekends. If I could move beyond just a few bad choices, I’ll see another loss. That means no Dairy Queen this weekend. My eating during the week has been pretty good.

* My long run this week was 11 miles. That’s the longest non-racing run since a run of 11 miles this past winter. Pretty soon I’ll be hitting distances I haven’t seen in three years. I’m both nervous and excited about that.

* Unless something bizarre happens in the next week, I will hit 90 miles for the month and 600 miles for the year by July 31. I’m keeping right on pace to be above 1,000 miles for the year, with even higher mileage coming. I’ve said this before, but if I train like I should for the marathon and barring any injuries, I should hit 1,000 miles sometime in November.

* Want to win a pair of sunglasses? Check out a contest at iRunnerBlog to enter a chance to win a pair of Ryders Cirrus sunglasses. The deadline to enter is noon (ET) July 30.

Some of the greatest ideas I’ve seen in the past year have come up because of Twitter. This week a new challenge popped up because of a few different people struggling with eating, working out, etc. So Steve at 265 and Falling, Kat at Katdoesdiets and Brook at Not on a Diet came up with “Awesome by August.”

Simply put, it’s a challenge to get people’s butts in gear, lose some weight, eat better, etc. It’s a four-week challenge for people to better themselves. While there is an emphasis on losing weight, the overall goal is to have a lot of people making better lifestyle changes.

So … why am I writing about this? Well, when it comes to weight loss and eating better, I’m tired of this being a mediocre year for me. As of last week, my weight loss for the year was at 11 pounds, but this morning I was back up to just over 187. I’m not in this challenge to win anything except some self control. I run enough to maintain and I have moments of getting things turned around with my diet, but I eat too much bad food and it’s time to have four solid weeks of improvement. Four weeks can lead to two months, which leads to many more months, which leads to getting back to my lifestyle change I made many years ago.

I often dance around the subject of what I want to weigh, but the truth is, I really want to get under 180 and stay there. While I feel good about myself these days and know that my weight doesn’t define me, losing just 4 percent of my weight goes a long way toward making everything else in my life all the more better. With running, I know my possibilities are endless. With three PRs this year, I can only imagine how much faster I’d be if I get a few more pounds off me.

So, if you’re interested in this challenge, check out the official rules and get in on the fun.

As for my first weigh-in, I have a pretty funny first photo. I used my Nikon D40 camera, which was actually throwing my weight off more than I wanted it to be — it is on an honor system, so I’m not going to add weight in my first weigh in to make me look better — and I was I having a hard time getting a photo. So after about three attempts I got a photo with my weight in it and the paper with the date on it … but only one foot. I promise I have two feet!

My scale does some quick reading. After it captures the weight it does a body fat reading, so I had to be fast with getting a photo with the weight in it. I have a smaller camera I might use next time, but I still have the speed issue to deal with. I got a good laugh at myself trying to get this photo taken today.

So as you can see, my weight now is 187.6, so overall for the year I’m now down 9.6. I also like to keep it in perspective that I’m 32.4 pounds lighter than my all-time high at the beginning of 2004. I am, however, highly disappointed in myself for acting like the Fourth of July weekend was Christmas when I came to eating. I’m really looking forward to this challenge and seeing what happens. If I want to call this a success, I certainly can’t keep doing what I’m doing.