Today, I am wearing a red, short-sleeved henley that I have owned for a few years and never been able to fit into. I like this shirt, and I like more that I can wear it and feel comfortable.
So I’m not entirely sure what’s happened, but after being stuck for a while, something in my weight loss journey seems to be working again. Maybe just a smidge quick enough for me to keep a close eye on, to be honest. But then, I’ve gotten so used things going so slowly and being so difficult, that I may have lost perspective on what still counts as a healthy weight loss pace. Look, I’m in no risk of wasting away anytime soon, so let’s all calm down, but you know, the heart and liver situation is permanent, so I gotta keep it in mind always. Anyway, I clocked in at 245 lbs today.
There is another big piece of fitness news for me, which is that I’m now fairly confident that I will actually make my 1-mile run goal. Is that the goal I set? I think it was. The goal was to complete one unbroken mile by the end of the year. You know how I said I’d start linking to these things? Well, I just took a few minutes to look through my previous posts and have completely changed my mind on that. Wow, I really need to get better at writing. Also, I’m still not sure if I actually stated this goal, or if I changed it after first making it. I think I might have, at one point, planned to make this goal by the end of the summer, but there is no way that was ever going to happen. My progress and recovery are way slower now than just a few years ago. But to stay on the positive note, they are both considerably improved over where I was from my hospital stay.
Okay, here are the two goals I’m talking about now – get my weight down to a manageable zone and run an unbroken mile.
The top goal on my mind is the mile. I used to run all of the time, and I loved it. It’s great exercise, of course, and I do need that. But more so, when I would get in the zone, I would get both parts of the famed “runner’s high” – the body and the mind. I guess we can include the spirit if we want to round out a third, though I don’t know how to talk about that other than it just kinda feels good. The runner’s body high mostly comes to me in form of some good tinglies. You know, when you get these waves of fuzzy-sparky-tingles across your body and then you feel physically lighter? Yeah, it’s a pretty good time. The mind part is when the run is just right, my head complete empties the fuck out of bullshit and if anything remains, it what I want to have in there with perfect clarity. As a chronic over thinker, this is pure bliss.
So the mile goal is really a placeholder for the idea that I can just run again, and work to being able to run both seriously and casually. I don’t really care about the serious side of it, but I do need to socialize more, and some advice on that subject that I’m really digging is to just start going out to stuff that you already like. So if I can get back into running condition, I think I’ll sign up for a race or something. On the casual side, I want to get back to enough of a fitness level that I can just go for a run if I’m feeling like it. Or if I’m traveling and need some exercise, I can just go for a run or jump on a treadmill and it’s all gravy.
The second goal is on weight, which should really be a specific weight goal, but that’s gotten pretty mushy. I’d love to be under 200, but right now it feels like getting there is an impossible task. Also, some of my anxieties on my current lack of fitness have subsided. Now that I’m in the mid 240s and feeling pretty good about things, I don’t feel so put upon and stressed to make that goal. Not that I’m planning to stop or slow or anything, but I’d started this with the idea that I’d reflect and adjust as I go, so now I’m reflecting. Adjusting? well, I don’t fully remember the previous goal. I think my most recent self-deliberations on the topic resulted in something like hitting the 230s by the end of the year. That seems hard enough that it’s not a throw away goal, but also entirely achievable for me. To be clear, for this goal, just one weight-in under 240 pounds before January 1st counts. So honestly, I’m already pretty close. That’s just 6 pounds, give or take a few ounces. And I have just under three months. Last I read on the subject, you can lose up to two pounds per week and that can be considered healthy. If I actually managed that pace, and let’s not go checking my math here, than that’s like 22 pounds. I’d be most of the way to my longer term weight loss goal. Now, I’m not going to manage that pace, let’s not be crazy. But an average of one pound per week is possible, even with holiday eating, so I could be well into the mid-to-low 230s before the New Year. And wouldn’t that be dope? Yes, it very much would, in fact, be dope.
So the current status is the part that makes me feel pretty good. As previously stated, I’m currently at 245. I’m really quite happy about that progress. I feel like it’s a fluke, I mean, I always do. My lifelong weight struggles have really left me with some serious trauma that I’m sure I’ll need to unpack some day, but.. yeah, that shit can stay packed for now. As for my running goal, I have a saucy little secret. I may have actually already done it. Twice.
I’m still doing the majority of my running on that path behind my home. It’s a pretty good path. It’s green, quiet, and just hilly enough to add some useful challenges. I have a rough estimate of the distances along the path, and the two times in question both started before what I think to be about a full mile out. In one of the runs, I made it all the way back to my starting point without ever stopping or slowing to a walk, so I’m certain that one counts. The other one was today, which started about as far back as the first, but then I got rocked by that penultimate, treacherous hill. Not right away, I did get a few strides past the crest, but I had a little cough and needed to slow to catch my breath. It seems that I went a little too hard the way up and there wasn’t a downhill to ride out back to a chill pace. I’ll have to keep that in mind for future attempts. But that hill is close enough to the end that it might have still been a mile.
All of that is sort of inconsequential, right? I’m not really keeping a score here. I’m not doing this against anyone and my real goal isn’t the exact number. The real win here is just how much progress I’ve made. I think this means I need to revise the end of year goal of “unbroken mile” to something about regular, consistent miles. Or bumping the number up higher, like to a mile and a half? Maybe some of these cardio sessions should start with the running part? I don’t know, I need to think that one over. Either way, I’m pretty happy about it.