Weight Loss VII: A year of running

[merlinofchaos]

First update: My food discipline is crap right now. Despite working out pretty regularly I'm actually a bit up from my last post. I need to find discipline but I've not yet managed it. That said, I've run quite a lot (until this week) and so I'm keeping the exercise going.

According to Walkmeter, I did my first Couch 2 5K run on July 12 of last year. I know I did a couple with at least 2 other apps before I realized Walkmeter (an app I had already been USING) had a 5K program built in (and one that was way better than apps that cost money).

So I'm going to say July 9 is probably really darn close to the 1 year anniversary. Close enough. So let's say a year.

So one year ago, I started a process that included running 7 one minute intervals with 90 seconds of walking in between and ended 10 theoretical weeks later by running a continuous 5K. It was more than 10 weeks for me because of a knee injury and a tonsillectomy, but if you've been reading my blog you already know I did eventually complete that.

Today I just finished a run that started with a .75 mile warmup walk, then 4 miles of continuous running, another quarter mile rest walk, a kind of agonizing 1 mile follow up run, and then another third of a mile walking (basically until I got home). I haven't quite managed a full 10K of running in one session yet, but if I keep on the trend I'm on, I'll be able to get there sooner or later. I'm not really concerned with when, honestly if I just keep up what I'm doing right now I'm getting plenty of good work.

While running, mostly I've just put my iPhone music on shuffle, but today I decided to try and focus on music that fills me with energy as a way to help me get through the "I don't wannas" I inevitably start getting in the last couple of miles. The theory being that I can stop thinking about how much I have left to do and try to zone out and listen to the music and get me through it. I'm not sure it really works, but whatever, it's energizing music nonetheless.

Also, I'm kind of old. Everything on here is very much from my generation.

Thunderstruck	AC-DC
Manic Monday	Bangles
Greensleeves	Blackmore's Night
Blister In The Sun	Violent Femmes
Godzilla	Blue Oyster Cult
Rasputin	Boiled In Lead
Tubthumping	Chumbawamba
Alegria	Cirque Du Soleil Alegria
Beautiful World	Colin Hay
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)	They Might Be Giants
Shout	Tears For Fears
Rio	Duran Duran
Invisible Touch	Genesis Invisible Touch
Doctorin' The Tardis	Timelords
Birdhouse In Your Soul	They Might Be Giants
Under Pressure	David Bowie & Queen
Main Title-The Ice Planet Hoth	John Williams
Lola	The Kinks
Lightning Crashes	Live
Kyrie	Mr. Mister
Rock You Like A Hurricane	Scorpions
All for you	Sister Hazel
Storybook Love	Mark Knopfler
Never Gonna Give You Up	Rick Astley YES THIS IS A RICK RUN
True Faith-94	New Order
Bury My Lovely	October Project

I think the Beautiful World doesn't quite work, it's a bit too mellow. And while Storybook Love is mellow it inspires me a lot so will probably stay. And yeah, my taste in music is probably a bit weird. It's also leaving out some obvious stuff for no reason other than this was enough to ensure it covered my runs with a little extra.

I've tried to make sure no artist gets more than 1 track, except for TMBG because their songs are very short so they get two.

Comments

[nineme.livejournal.com]

You are kind of old, but that's okay. Being old is cool, or so those meddling kids and their little dog keep telling me.

We have zero energy songs in common, dude. That's not the case with artists: I currently have the Bangles' "Hazy Shade of Winter", Duran Duran's "None of The Above", TMBG's "Don't Let's Start", and Tears for Fears' "Mothers Talk".

I get you about food discipline. I have been trying very hard to stay on track, but I've been fighting a weight loss plateau for about three months and change. Bizarrely, it broke last week, during Week #1 of my gym break.

I've had to put the gym sessions on hold for three weeks, first thanks to the holiday, now thanks to the Monster's chicken pox, and next week, it'll be because I'll be off on the first multi-day business trip I've taken since 2008. I haven't done a darn thing but keep hydrated (a constant struggle for me) and make sure I eat according to my regular non-gym-going FitBit activity level and boom, I'm down nine pounds since last Tuesday.

If this keeps up through next week and stalls again when I go back to the gym, I'm thinking I need to rethink what FitBit and LoseIt! are telling me about the calorie bonuses I'm earning from working out. Alternatively, I'll need to start running on my off days.

I so don't wanna run, but I may have to start.

Happy Anniversary!

[merlinofchaos]

That's funny about zero songs yet quite a few common artists. Hazy Shade of Winter is a good one and might actually be better than Manic Monday for me, too. Perhaps I'll switch it out. For Duran Duran, there's half a dozen I could easily swap in/out on the list and be just as happy.

I've also decided "Lola" has to go, it's just a tad too mellow for what I"m looking for.

According to the Internets, which are never wrong, FitBit and MyFitnessPal calorie numbers are well known to be inflated, I've seen lots of discussion to that point. The advice that seems consistent is: Ignore them, and don't consider those as extra calories.

That's actually always been my strategy, though: I picked a calorie goal and if one of my exercise apps said I got XX bonus calories, I'd use those as a treat if I really needed one, but for the most part I tried to ignore them or at the very least only eat a small portion of them. Sometimes it's harder; the exercise ups my metabolism which increases my hunger.

And it's clear that I can maintain with exercise alone, but I can't seem to lose if I'm not actively monitoring and keeping my calories down. And I've really let that go lax--honestly I've not truely monitored my calorie intake since my tonsillectomy.

Unsurprisingly, I've only lost a few pounds since the tonsillectomy.

I'm trying...giving it a good try right now in fact...to go back to full time logging and monitoring. I forgot how difficult it was, though. Especially with kids. "OH let's go get ice cream." Crap, I don't have enough room for ice cream. "I want pasta with cream sauce!" Yeah I do too kid.

Oh well, nothing to do but suck it up. At least I've proven I can maintain with exercise so all there is now is to just buckle down and try to do this. I did it last year, I can do it again, right? RIGHT? :)

But last night was a fail, because we ended up going out (unplanned, but the car battery died and we needed to run the engine 30 minutes to charge the battery back up so hey let's go out to dinner since sitting in the car for 30 minutes is going to happen ANYWAY) and that led to ice cream. At least I kept it to a small portion?

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