Just a short run

I have been feeling so good lately. It’s like with the return of caring about my health and wellness and pushing myself comes happiness. Go figure.  According to MyFitness Pal, I have logged in for 18 days in a row now. Has it REALLY been that long already? It seriously doesn’t feel like it, which is further proof that time has a way of going by so quickly no matter what you are doing, so you might as well make it healthy and happy. I still feel like it was yesterday I was deciding that I was going to do this 10 in 10 thing and I guess I’m 18 days in already. That actually seems like a significant amount of time in all honesty.

I realize by my efforts the past couple days that I really had been cheating myself and slacking the last couple months. It is okay, we are all entitled to periods of time where it doesn’t matter as much or we don’t want to put out as much effort so I’m not mad at myself. But it is nice to find some of my missing motivation again. Every day that goes by, I find a little bit more of the motivation. It’s such a process that the farther down the rabbit hole you go, the more you want to keep going.

Honestly I think the biggest thing that has helped was getting a new heart rate monitor finally. It really was showing me how little I had actually been working previously. Seeing the lack of calories burned became motivating to push myself again. I’m starting to warm up my workouts with a 15-25 minute run and honestly that is helping with the calorie burning and feeling good. It’s like, despite running on the weekends, I had forgotten how rewarding it was just to run every day or two for my own health and wellness. It doesn’t have to be crazy 6-13 mile runs, just a simple 2 mile run can be effective. That is a nice feeling. I’m really loving this run 2 miles or so and then go do strength training. The best of both worlds.

Last night before class I decided I should start out with some treadmill time, and low and behold it actually became enjoyable and therapeutic. I only had enough time to get in 2.25 miles before class started but that was more than enough to keep me feeling great. After that I did 30 minutes of Butts and Guts class and then I did an hour of Iron Power. I swear I felt better and worked harder in both classes because of my warm up run. Whenever possible I am going to try and go with this tactic in the future. As a result of my efforts in almost 2 hours I burned 900 calories last night. This was really impressive to me. I mean, I did work really hard for it, and therefore it felt really rewarding.

My plan tonight is to hit a 20-30 minute run and then I am going to do leg strength training. Legs are not my favorite thing to work, but I am hoping by doing them tonight this means that I can avoid having to do them in personal training tomorrow night. It’s purely strategic you see. I am running a half marathon on Saturday morning and I’d really rather get legs over and done with tonight in hopes that I will be recovered and not sore by then.  I am hoping this strategy is going to work for me, but we will see.

Basically, in a nutshell, I just feel proud of my efforts as of late and especially of my ability to not cave into peer pressures or food choices that I am certain a month ago would have gotten the better of me. I feel like I am solidly back on the road that I want to be going down, which is a pretty nice feeling considering where I was at a month or so ago. It’s all about progress in the right direction, not utter perfection by any means. At this point I know I am going to hit my goal by October 5, or at least the 10 pound goal mark I had set or myself. I just believe it in my heart and that is kind of the key to keeping on track sometimes. Simply believing in your goals and yourself enough to follow thru.

I am feeling that happy positive energy around me again and genuine excitement for what I’m doing and where I am heading. Life is not perfect and you are not promised a single thing or a single day please by all means make the most of what you’ve got. I have lived some pretty rough times and I have had some really happy moments as well, it is always worth fighting for the good ones.

Enjoy the moment and enjoy today!