Wednesday update

This week hasn't been as forgiving as previous weeks. I started off good, eating right and following my running plan. Then the weekend hit. I will admit it I guess, I didn't exercise once over the weekend. I was busy and I got lazy. To add insult to injury(or in this case laziness) I ate very poorly over the weekend. Between large dinner portions and snacking it's no wonder the scale wasn't my friend this morning. Another problem which I hope to have cured now was the visit of easter candy to my house. I am an absolute sucker for those little malted milk eggs that are everywhere now. We bought some at the grocery store which was a big mistake. We will not be buying anymore. Good thing I was thinking ahead and limiting the damage they could do when I ate all of them quickly. So with that I will report that I did not lose any weight this week. But with the poor diet I had, I am feeling lucky to not have gained any weight either. Hopefully this week and weekend will be better. But it's my birthday this weekend, so we'll see how that goes.

On a brighter note, we had two days of 70+ degree days already this week. I layed a solid base down on Monday running 4 miles and then walking the dogs for 4 miles. I continued Tuesday with a quick bike ride at lunch, followed by riding home from work. So for the day I ended up close to 40 miles. Pretty good to me. I plan on building on that by running today and Friday and maybe getting some bike miles in on Thursday. The warm and sunny days make it easy to get outside for some workout time. It's such a novelty this time of year to be able to be outside in short sleeves.

Saturday is the first trail work day of the year for CITA. We will be out at Summerset State Park. Stop by and help us build and maintain some trail. Then hopefully take a lap on your hard work before chowing down on a Chipotle burrito. Check out the CITA link on the right and make some time for tail work.

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.

Welcome to Wednesday

My weekly Gauntlet update goes like this. Last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday. That means no meat for us religious folks. It is the start of Lent, so no more meat on Fridays. It's not hard to eat healthy when you can't eat meat. With that I had a pretty good week, and am down 1.5lbs to 219.5. Here's to things continuing to go as planned. (Drink)

That's it for today, short and sweet.