Weigh in Time

I’ve really slacked lately on this, right? As I get busy I guess some things have to give here and there.  But alas, I do love this little world and writing things out and documenting my life.  Basically because sometimes I will have a memory of something I did or felt from a long time ago and I honestly come right here to this place to check and see if I wrote about it, or where I was at mentally around that time.  It’s actually really cool to have this place to reflect on my life in the past so alas I just keep writing.  I am going to spare you all and myself the trouble of writing out everything that happened the past couple days.  Such a slacker, right?  Instead I’m just going to go with the highlights and move forward. For instance, today is Thursday.

I want to talk a little about this process of weighing myself on Thursdays.  It’s  a love/hate thing.  I set this goal for myself “kind-of” to be around 135 pounds when I went to Maui. I say kind-of because truthfully it wasn’t the biggest most important thing in my life.  I did this back in February when I decided to run the full marathon. I know, because I created a spreadsheet like I do in Excel and thought about tracking, etc.  The very first recorded weight in the spreadsheet was February 12 and it was 154.5.  Yup, I knew I was around 155 pounds when I first decided to run the full. And back in February running was hard for me.  Like hadn’t done it in forever.  But I didn’t hate myself at 155 pounds. I was very happy honestly.  Let’s see if I can track down a photo from February at 155 pounds, who are we kidding, of course I can!

Anyhow.  Me at 155 pounds was just dandy. I was living my life. I was happy. I knew I could stand to lose a little weight of course but nothing that wasn’t manageable.  I told myself that it would be pretty cool if I ran the marathon at 135 pounds. If I could take 20 pounds off it sure would make running 26.2 miles a lot easier. (I was not wrong about that!)  But I also didn’t know if that was reasonable or possible and I didn’t want to kill myself to get there.  I didn’t want to obsess or become fixated on the scale.  I wanted health and nutrition to still remain supreme.  This is a fine balance in my life. Anyhow. The loose goal was 135.  I didn’t know if it could be done but I also knew I had loads of time.  In fact, so much time that I didn’t really even think about it for a very long time.

I was not unhappy at around 155 pounds you see. I looked strong and muscular because I was.  I wasn’t that worried about it.  In fact, in February I never really tried to lose weight honestly.  In fact I went all the way thru to May before I actually decided that it might be time to try.  It was like, holy hell, its May already and when I started to follow my marathon training plan is when I really decided to give it a go.  In fact my chart tells me that on May 21 I weighed 151.3 pounds, the following week 151.1.  Okay, cool.  Weight loss was the byproduct of marathon training.  It was the byproduct of learning how to properly fuel myself for long distance running. And low and behold as I lost weight it got easier and easier.  And somehow the months of June and July went by and somehow in August I found myself around that magical 140 pound mark. 

The scale was never really the motivating factor in my life.  Sure, hitting goals is lovely and fabulous but the scale is messed up and I know it.  But it does prove some value as a tool of measure.  There is no denying the numbers.  And today, I hit another milestone.  I kind of figured. Last week I technically had a 1/10^th of a pound gain.  I didn’t think it was real honestly. I knew it was just my body doing its wonky thing.  So technically this weight today is a reflection of 2 weeks of effort but holy hell.

134.1

Today, 2 weeks away from Maui I weigh 134.1 pounds.  I am not going to lie I don’t anticipate it getting much lower than this.  The next two weeks the goal is simply to not fall apart and maintain my current level of health/fitness and nutrition.  If I could go to Maui anywhere in the 134-135 range then I have met and exceeded every single goal I have set for myself. And that is what I am talking about!  That is my excitement and happiness.  This number doesn’t REALLY matter that much.  But other than to note from when I started this chart back in February and tentatively decided to lose weight for the marathon, this represents a 20.4 pound weight loss or 13.2% of my starting body weight.  And honestly at 154.5 pounds I didn’t hate myself.  I thought I looked pretty good so who knows. 

When I say who knows, I am not sure where I’m going to go from here.  I love my body right now in a way that I haven’t in my entire life.  Because I feel really healthy and strong.  I actually can tell now that at 155 pounds I was fine, but I was carrying around some extra fat that I didn’t really need. My body may be 20 pounds less on the scale but it is far from thin or sickly looking.  It is honestly pretty strong and healthy appearing.  I am in love with it.  With all that said, I don’t want to kill myself to maintain this weight long term.  But on another note, I don’t feel like I have been killing myself really at any point to get here.  I’m not starving myself.  I’m just eating really good healthy things. I am eating clean and eating yummy foods.  So honestly that IS something I should be able to maintain. 

I have no illusion that upon my return from Maui that scale isn’t going to be back up. It will.  I am not denying myself foods in Maui or alcoholic fruity beverages.  This will happen. Probably in abundance. But I also don’t want to make myself sick either. That’s not how I want to spend my vacation. But the scale will be up.  My plan is to just go enjoy myself, not worry about it and then when I return get right back to my every day normal life and eating because honestly I love this life. I love the way I’ve been living and totally think I can keep at it, just as I have been going. 

But this is where I might change things up a bit. I don’t think I will weigh myself every week.  Too much pressure and I don’t like it.  I will finish out these last two weeks because I started this process and I’ll be damned I’m going to finish it.  BUT, it’s too much mental pressure.  I am going to return to my roots of do good healthy things for my body, treat it well, and the progress will be made. It will reward me.  I don’t want to go cold turkey from the scale either.  This does get me in trouble too.  Maybe every 2 weeks? Maybe once a month? I will find the balance that I need.  Ideally I’d love to maintain exactly where I am at.  I feel like overall I’m just in a great place.  I think it’s possible.

And of course that brings me to post Maui, goals and such.  I might take a little break for a few months while I try and figure out the next big thing.  Immediately post Maui it will almost be October. I am going to Vegas in November to run the rock n roll half.  And then I might just chill thru the new year and reassess where I’m at and plans and goals.   But as of today my friends, 15 freaking days to Maui!

INSANE! And happiness and holy hell. 15 days.  That’s about all I want to talk about today.  But for the hell of it I’m throwing up my last couple night’s workouts here. I’ll spare the everyday Instagram pictures, but I’d like documentation of the workouts nonetheless.