The New Me, Month 2

So last month I posted that I had a couple weight loss goals for July 8 – August 8, and promised to update you on my progress. Who knew that an entire month would go by and I wouldn’t post at all on Cootiehog during that time about ANYthing. Sorry about that.

But in my defense, summer was in full swing this past month, which meant the kids going to camp in Asheville for a week, Denis and me hitting the road to see The Monkees play a show in Raleigh (10th row center and they were fabulous), and all kinds of other miscellaneous mischief.

In addition to that, I continued to work on the new me. So let’s catch up on the past month and see how I did, shall we?

Goal #1: Lose 9 pounds between July 8 – August 8. It has been a really great month, and not only did I meet the goal (which, frankly, I did NOT think I’d reach), but I crushed it, losing a total of 12 pounds this past month. Yep, you read that right. Twelve. Pounds. No one was more shocked than me! I figured my weight loss would slow down once my body got used to the new food intake quality and quantity. But no, it continued to be baffled and it was fun watching the scale continue to move in a big way every week this past month.

As such, my total weight lost since June 8 is now 28 pounds. And no, I’m not starving myself in order to lose weight. Trust me when I say I eat my daily number of Weight Watcher points each and every day, and sometimes even eat more than my daily allotment if I’m splurging over the weekends. I chalk up my success thus far to the amount of exercise that I’m doing this time around (which I didn’t do last time I tried to get healthy).

Speaking of exercise…

Goal #2: To be able to comfortably walk 6.2 miles by August 8. I can report that I accomplished this goal on Friday, August 2, and it was strictly by accident. For the two weeks leading up to this walk I had been doing 4 miles, 5 miles – but not actually gone 6.2 miles. I knew I could do it, but just hadn’t yet. Anyway, I went out for a walk that night with the intention of walking 5 miles, but when I got to the 2.5 mile point where I would normally turn and head back home, I decided to continue walking up to the next stoplight on my route. Little did I know that stoplight was another 1/2 mile away! When I reached the intersection, my running app chimed to let me know I was now 3 miles from the house. I knew at that point I had pretty much reached my goal.

But not only that, this walk was different from the rest I had done up to that point because I did walking/jogging intervals the entire time. What that means is that I walked 1/2 a mile, jogged 1/2. Then walked half, jogged half. So not only did I go 6.2 miles, but half of those were walking, the other half were jogging.

I felt good when the walk was done, but boy were my glutes sore in the morning. And the next day. But I still forced myself to to walking on those two days if only to loosen my stiff joints (I only walked ~3 miles on each of those walks).

So it’s now time to look ahead to the next month, and what goals I can set for August 8 – September 8.

Weight loss: 8 pounds. I’m not delusional enough to think that I could lose in the double digits again. But I’d be happy with ~2 pounds a week.

Exercise: My top weekly mileage since June 8 has been 25.75 miles in a week’s time. Another week I did 23+ miles. I’d like to get that up to 25 miles EVERY week from August 8-September 8, and have at least one of those weeks be 30 miles total. Of course, the weather will have to cooperate (we’ve had more rain this past month than I care to comment upon), but that’s what I’m hoping for.

In other news, the fake wedding band I’ve been wearing since I gave birth to Cootieboy in 2004 is now too big, and I’m now wearing a smaller temporary ring until my real one fits again. Knowing how thin I was when I got engaged, it’ll be a while before the old one fits again, but it’s nice to know I’m getting closer.

Also, Denis and I are considering joining a gym so that we have alternatives. Right now he just uses the elliptical we have in our bedroom, and I walk outside. However, I’d like a place to go when it’s rainy, and I’m sure he’d like to do something other than the elliptical every time. I’m in the process now of negotiating a price that we’re willing to pay to join. So with any luck by September 8 I’ll be going to the gym in addition to just walking (the bonus of joining the gym is that I will no longer have to put up with bugs divebombing my face during my walks – I cannot WAIT for non-flying bug winter to arrive)!

So there you have it. See you in September!