Running/Weight Loss

As the one year anniversary of my daughter's birth quickly approaches, I have come to the conclusion that the excuse for my excessive weight, "I just had a baby", is no longer a viable one. She "mostly" sleeps through the night and even when she doesn't, I am blessed with a wonderful husband who takes his fair share of turns in the wee hours of the night, therefore "sleep deprivation" is no longer viable either. I want my size 4 body back because quite frankly, I am too cheap to go buy new clothes when I have a closet full of perfectly good ones awaiting my return.

June 1 saw the beginning of my journey to rectify my fatness. With roughly 50 pounds to lose, I set out to walk or weight train daily. Walking quickly advanced to jogging (trotting really) and I was beginning to feel good! My weight training is rather stale, but the good news is that I am capable of lifting what I was prior to becoming pregnant. My strength is there, and my reps are within 5 or so from my pre-pregnancy range (indicating that my endurance isn't far behind). All of that beautiful muscle is covered in layers of FAT. Knowing this has encouraged me to minimize the weight training for now, and really focus on melting away the 50 pounds of lard that remains from pregnancy. (Trainer's note... Weight training is ESSENTIAL to effective weight loss... muscle burns fat!!!) As much as I know this, I have put more focus on runs than weights. Daily training is really more like 5 or 6 days a week, but I was making that time a priority. Then along came a nasty sinus infection that promptly halted all attempts at being fit. Walking up a flight of stairs was causing me to become light headed and winded!

So I made a trip to the doctor's office for some antibiotics... hooray for modern medicine! While there, the nurse took my blood pressure... 117/63 and heart rate 64bpm. She asked me 3 times if I was "sure" that I was not taking any type of high blood pressure medication, because surely someone as fat as I could not possess such great blood pressure... ;) Ok, so she didn't say fat, but it was definitely implied!! On my way to recovery...

Today, being Monday was the perfect day to "start again" after a 5 day sabbatical. Good news is what I had built has not been lost. I was able to jog 4.5 miles in 58 minutes while pushing approximately 45# of baby/stroller. Not too bad. I can't wait to see how I do tomorrow sans baby/stroller. Should be able to get in at least another .5...

Next blog... running with a jogging stroller... the obstacles, challenges and just plain lunacy of the whole idea!