Hello to any followers I still have left!
It’s been a long while since I’ve posted, about two and a half years.
To recap some of the last parts of this blog, in 2014 I got really sick following sinus surgery. I think I ran only a few times that year. The rest of the time I was driving the porcelain bus or going in and out of the hospital. Then I got on gastroparesis meds and quit the pill and voila! All better!
Except not really. I lost about 35 lbs when I was sick. I tried to start running again in 2015 and did not succeed. My last post here was on Day 3 of C25K. Then I pretty much stopped. Still down about 30 lbs but soft.
Then the weight started to come back on. I gained back most of it. Got laid off from my job of twelve and a half years. Got hired at the first place I applied. That was the beginning of 2016.
New job is great, I really like the people and the culture, but there tends to be a lot of food around. Like Bagel Thursdays. Found myself at 190 in August 2016.
Lost about ten pounds by “dieting” but got stalled. Then At the end of February 2017, something changed. I don’t know what, or why, but a switch flipped. I found myself asking, if not now, when?
I thought I wasn’t losing any weight because I was eating too few calories so I started logging my food into My Fitness Pal. Which I hate. The logging, not the app. But I made myself stick with it for three weeks.
I definitely was not eating too few calories.
I used the app to set a calorie goal to lose one pound per week and then worked on sticking to that calorie limit. I didn’t change what I was eating. I actually ate a lot of spaghetti o’s and grilled ham and cheese. I started losing weight. I kept on logging.
Some time in I think May, I decided to start walking 30 minutes twice a week during my lunch hour. I quickly bumped that up to three times a week and almost immediately knew I needed to start eating quality foods. No more spaghetti o’s. I figured out a breakfast, lunch, and dinner, still within that calorie limit.
Then it got damn hot in Oregon and I went back to the gym. At the end of July I started C25K again. Took one week off due to illness and picked it right back up. The program is eight weeks but because I’d taken that one week off I still hadn’t finished by the time I ran a turkey day 5k. At a PR of 0:36:03. And I’d ran the whole thing, something I’ve only done once before in a 5k.
In 2016 my rent had gone up about 15% and in the fall of 2017 I got notice it would be raised almost that much again. I had some tough decisions facing me, finally let a friend know about it and we decided to bump up out timetable of being roommates to now. The moral of the story is I took a month off from the gym and thanks to the stress of looking for a place and moving and living on coffee and Starbucks snowman cookies, I gained about five pounds over the holidays.
Oh, forgot to mention I’d hit my first weight loss goal in the meantime. Was about 180.5 when I started in February. Hit 154, this number I’d had in my head to get back to for twenty years, sometime in November.
We moved and the week before Christmas I went back to the gym. Went back and repeated a week in C25K and finally finished the program two weeks ago. Came in the following day to the gym and ran a 5K for fun. On a Saturday. I don’t even recognize myself anymore! Who runs a 5K at the gym on a weekend for fun?
Me, I guess.
So, here I am. When I hit that first weight loss goal, I set a second one of 15 more pounds, if my body will do it. I’m down to a size 8 pants and medium shirts. Yes, I finally got some smaller ta tas. I’m probably the only woman who wanted smaller boobs. Even I don’t lose weight I want to lose fat and gain muscle back, tone up my body composition. I’m two weeks in to the 10K training program, which picks up where C25K ends. Last week I added a fourth day of running in preparation for running Shamrock 15K and then a half marathon at the end of March.
I’m still sticking to making one achievable goal at a time -logging my food, holding to a calorie limit, exercising three days a week - and letting that take hold for three to four weeks before moving on to another goal. At one point this fall I was going to the gym five days a week, running, elliptical, and weights. In two or three more weeks I’ll add cross training back in. One day at first, then two. Weights and elliptical.
Slow and steady and achievable above all.
If you’re still reading, thanks! It’s good to be back.
Cheers,
The CilleyGirl
