New challenges

If you've been following my blog for long, you'll realize that it has been telling my tale of a weight loss challenge lately. What I am really trying to do is create change in my life. Change from old bad habits of laziness and overeating, to exercise and a healthy lifestyle. This is not an easy change. Old habits are hard to break. For me the most difficult thing is to get motivated. This is why in my latest bout with lifestyle change I had to challenge a friend to kick start my motivation. It seems to be working as I am losing weight and working out more. To add to the motivation I have added some events on my calendar this summer and fall that will require I maintain my fitness and healthy living throughout the year. With any luck(and continued motivation) 2009 will be a banner year for me in the fitness and weight loss department.

I started out the year thinking my first big fitness challenge was going to be the Dam to Dam run in May. I started a running training plan that I created at runnersworld.com. It has been going well, I am up to running 12-15 miles a week with more miles to come in the coming weeks. Recently though I have joined up with my band of mountain biking friends for a mountain biking trip to the Womble trail in the Ouchita Mountains in Arkansas. We will be leaving for this trip on the 27th of March. Which makes me a last minute addition to the group and needing some last minute changes to my workout routine. I'm hoping all the running I've done over the winter will help me with my base fitness. I'll be adding an bike interval training day to my regular routine and trying to get out for longer rides as often as possible in the coming weeks to build some on-the-bike endurance as well. Hopefully I won't be left behind when the trail starts to point up. Looks like I'll have my first big fitness test sooner than I thought. I would also like to add that this trip looks like it's going to be a fantastic time. It's going to be great to get some much needed trail time this early in the season.

Bring it on:

As for my gauntlet update I am down 1.5 pounds again this week to 218. Only 8 more pounds to go to hit my target weight of 210. I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing to lose this weight. I don't think I've been working hard enough at watching what I eat to be losing 1.5 pounds a week. Perhaps the training plan I'm following(really following) has something to do with it. Whatever it is, I'm going to try to keep it up.