One hundred and seventy-eight and a half pounds!
Roly-poly macaroni!
To be honest, I had my doubts that I would ever get this far; this all seemed like such a distant goal. I was so used to being over two hundred pounds that I simply couldn’t imagine myself ever being in this great of shape. And, in retrospect, I haven’t really had to deprive myself of very much. The Atkins diet made the first month or two easy (and, over Christmas vacation (in sunny Puerta Vallarta) I even cheated quite a bit! The hotel had gooooooooooooood desserts…), and after I reached a plateau on Atkins, I was worried because of the horror stories I had heard about “going back” on carbs — tales of people gaining all their weight back in a short time after reintroducing bread into their diet.
But I switched to counting calories, and, lo and behold, I’m still losing weight. There’s no magic to the Atkins diet, I’m convinced; it’s just another way to limit calories. Think about it; when someone sits down and binges on food, it’s always carbs; chips, bread, candy. There’s simply no way to “binge” on pounds and pounds of steak, for example. You get the “I’m full, stop eating” signal long before you’ve taken in too many calories. Carbs don’t seem to have that effect, or have it so slow that it’s a simple matter to go overboard in a short time.
Exercise-wise, I’ve been taking the past couple of days off from formal exercise. I strained a hamstring last week, and it was still sore during the race, so “coach” says to take a few days off from running. I’m still walking a lot (had a side job last night and walked the couple of miles from there to home, for example) and taking the stairs at work (up and down the stairs in two buildings of seven and eight stories), but I’m itching to get back into the gym or onto the streets.
I’m going to take the money I made last night at my side job ($80) and use it to buy some new running shoes. I’m planning on doing one run per month through the end of summer, aiming for an 8K or 10K by the end of summer. There’s the Bridge-to-Bridge in April, the Cinco de Mayo 5K, and the Mt. Tabor Challenge in June. Which is where one of my friends did his initial training, explaining a lot of his speed! Well, that and his long legs. Nothing like training on the slopes of a volcano to help your legs get strong…