I've neglected this blog for a while, but never fear! That's actually a good thing. I've been thinking less about being healthy and just living it, so I've slipped out of the mentality of thinking about week goals and anxiously awaiting the scale. My focus has changed. That doesn't mean I'm out of the goal making business, it just means my goals are different.
I currently weigh 145.2 That brings the weight loss total to 4.8 pounds. I was actually 145 last week, so this .2 pounds could be a fluctuation. I guess we'll see in the weeks to come. Being at the five pound mark is nice, it also makes me realize how much harder it is to shed pounds now. I'm very healthy at this point, so much so that eating healthy and working out isn't even a challenge for me anymore, yet I didn't lose any weight last week. This means I'm plateauing, and I've got to step it up.
So, although i am still focused on weight, I'm more focused on performance. My knee is completely healed (hooray!) and I've been hiking recently, and I love the challenge of being physically capable during a hike, so that hikes are fun, and not as strenuous. This resulted in a thought process of how to get myself to run faster, and longer. This spurred the thought of what I could do to motivate myself to really push hard and go for results rather than calories. It's the same with swimming. Joe gave me the PRT swim quals for women in the navy, and I aim to work my way to an outstanding.
I've decided to make my reward system results based. The first one is a camelbak, something I've wanted for a while, partially because I think they're cool, they're useful, I'm solving more than one problem at once (something to put my mp3 player in) and you know, Aron Ralston has one (yes I'm nerding out a little, but in my defense, seeing his camelbak just reminded me that I've wanted one for a while, it didn't make me want one.) Actually, you'd think that movie would turn me OFF of camelbaks considering he drinks his pee from it. Oh well, I'd still like to have one. Actually my long term goal is to get enough gear to do adventure races and much longer trails (the longest I've found here is 20 miles, although there are lots of 10+ mile trails.) But I can't just go out and buy a camelbak and never use it. So my goal is to run 5 miles without stopping for a break outside. I can jog or go slowly if I want, and of course I'll have water and music and whatever I need, but I have to keep jogging or running for the entire 5 miles. It's the longest distance I'll have run at one time, but I have run 4 miles without stopping before. If I can accomplish it, I'll buy myself a camelbak. The second one is buying a music device for the pool. I really want one of these, and they're not cheap, and possibly unreliable. They make ear buds that work relatively well but sometimes break down, so I may need to replace them. It's a risky purchase. To justify this, I'd like to swim the PRT test and get an eccelent low, which means swimming 500 yards in 10 minutes. No easy feat for me. I generally swim 100 yards in four minutes, meaning I swim 500 yards in 20. I have to cut that time in half, but if I do, I'll treat myself to those headphones, which would make swimming way more fun.
Anyway I'm starting to work towards gear because it makes a huge difference in how much fun you can have exercising. Running just isn't the same without music and I haven't even experienced swimming with music. It'll be interesting to see what gear I want next, repel rope, a tent and bike? I look forward to exploring everything this island has to offer. I love living somewhere I can hike again, and I'm so thankful to have the use of my left leg again!
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