Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Move More, Eat Less

I began training for the Music City Half Marathon around the second week of January of this year. That race was in late April, but I continued to run every Tuesday, Thursday, & Saturday after that. I would run about 3 miles on Tuesday and Thursday and anywhere from 3 to 6 miles on Saturday. We began training for the Middle Half around the first week of July. My number of runs didn't change, but the mileage per week began to move up and I added a midweek swim or bike ride. That race was about almost 8 weeks ago, which brings us to today. November 25 and 8 pounds heavier.

I know, 8 pounds, who cares, right? I care. About 6 years ago I was 50 pounds heavier than I am right now. I felt bad all of the time and each time I ate I would feel sick to my stomach. I was miserably overweight and didn't do much about it. During the holidays, 5 years ago, someone said to me, "Wow, you've really gained some weight since you moved to Knoxville." I sort of shrugged it off, thinking "Yeah, I gained a little bit, but it's no big deal." A few months later I stepped on the scale and realized that I weighed 60 pounds more than I did my senior year in high school. On that day I decided to make a change. Over the following 2 months I dropped 40 pounds and I have never looked back.

During training for the half marathon I was eating more, but I was burning a lot of calories. Since the race my training has waned, but my calories have not. The last few weeks have been busy; Allison's been busy at work, I've been busy with Cooper, we were busy with celebrating his birthday, so I sort acted as though I didn't care about getting out to run or going to the gym. I didn't go to the gym as much, but I certainly ate as much. The scale told me this morning that I haven't moved as much recently, but I have continued to eat the same amount.

I am still leaner right now than I have been in years. Probably as lean as I was as sophomore in high school. People that have known me that long, but don't often see me have said asked what I did to lose weight. Most of the time use the phrase my good friend Jeff told me once when I asked him what I needed to do. I tell them "Move more and eat less." I think it's time that I started living that out again.

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