Weight Watchers Redux - Week 1

Starting Weight: 303.4 lbs

 

That's a little horrifying. The last time I started, I was at 314. Now I'm at 303. Seriously. It's horrifying. I had been down into the 280s.

 

The class I'm doing now is at work. It's a 12 week class...for this one, they gave us all of our books up front and a nice little box with some extra books, a three month tracker and a few other goodies.

 

My point target for the first week is 42 points. That...that's just a lot of points. The one advantage is that can eat a little more than the average person. The disadvantage is...I can eat a little more than the average person. Let's hope I tell myself over and over not to get accustomed to it.

 

The good news is that in order to hit my 10 percent by the end of the 12 week class...I need to lose just 30 pounds. That means I just need to lose just 2.5 pounds per week for the next 12 weeks. It also means I'm going to start completely busting my butt at the gym every night. I also need to get a new scale after I work out tonight so that I can do "unofficial" weigh-ins each morning to make sure that I'm making progress.

 

Here we go again...

Week 3 Redux

It occurred to me late yesterday that I left out a major piece about Thursday night's run - I went to a different Y...and I went again last night.

 

The Cool Springs YMCA is a tiiiiiiny Y. Like tiiiiiiiny. It's in a converted warehouse/business park and only takes up about a third of the building. The wellness center features zero rowing machines and zero recumbent bikes. Aside from all of that, it was a really, really, really awesome treadmill that the other Y does not have. It has a feature on it where I can just punch in a number and it automatically goes to that speed. It makes the converstion from walking to running on the C25K all the easier.

 

I'll be spending my nonrunning (rowing) days at the trusty Franklin Y, but for the running ones, I think I'll be heading to Cool Springs...if for no other reason than their TVs get more channels (read: the ones with Braves games).

 

Last night was Week 3 Day 1. As I mentioned yesterday, it consists of two 90 second runs and two 3 minute runs. While the runs themselves weren't horrible...I will say that the second three minute run did leave me looking at the clock a lot...the treadmill was off center. It wobbled during the entire run...and I'm not entirely sure why...I think it may have been resting on a cord.

 

Also, the big toe on my right foot hurts today. That's a new one.

 

Weight Watchers is coming to my work later today, so I'm restarting the program. Details to come.

Week 2 Complete

Apparently, my last run on Week 2 went so well that I forgot to blog about it.

 

Don't you hate when that happens?

 

However, I did finish the first two weeks within a two week time period. That, I'm quite proud of. I didn't get to do my extra run on Saturday due to attending a Tomato Festival in the 100 degree heat...my legs are still sore though from all of that...I'm not entirely sure what that means.

 

Week 3 Day 1 is tonight. I'm a little nervous, but I've done it before. Moving from 1 minute to a minute and a half during Week 1 and 2 wasn't a huge issue at all. However, I remember quite well that the three minute runs are the start of the "not fun" part of this. Week 3 features a 90 second run, a 3 minute run, a 90 second run and another 3 minute run. Again, I only run for 9 minutes every day this week...but the 3 minute intervals are a wee daunting.

Week 2 Redux - One to Go!

Two down. One to go. Week 2 is almost done.

 

I didn't run back-to-back days as I had initially planned because I had a friend who needed me, so tonight will be the conclusion of Week 2. In two weeks, no less. So far I'm at my fastest completion rate yet!

 

Anyway, I showed up to the Y and found a treadmill. While I was listening to a book on tape on my iPod, I tend to want to turn the TV on while I run just to give me a little visual stimulation since I can't have the normal running down the road stimulation. Unfortunately, at this Y, all of the TVs with remote controls were taken, so I had to find one and hope it was on something I would want to watch...it was on ESPN2 and it was primetime, so I thought I was safe. Not so fast my friend. 3 minutes into the run, we came back from commercial break - professional women's softball. That's right...as I sat there running along, the whole gym saw me watching professional women's softball.

 

Did you even know there was such a thing as professional women's softball?

 

But I digress...the run wasn't hard...as I mentioned earlier, I'm going to try to finish up Week 2 tonight...so we'll see how it goes!

Another Week...Another Run

I hit week two running. Well, mainly because that's the point.

 

I'm too lazy to go back and look, but this may only be the second time that I've actually reached week two. The last time I made it through week five. I know as a fact that I've only made it into week three once.

 

As per week one, last night was on the treadmill...I listened to an audiobook while watching the Reds-Cardinals game.

 

A quick sidebar: I've been asked how I can listen to an audiobook when I run...basically, I just zone out...or I focus on more than one thing at a time. As you've seen from this blog if you've read back at all, I tend to go back and forth between books and music. Right now, I'm on books. I guarantee you that as soon as I run through Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, we'll be right back to Pearl Jamming and DMBing it up. And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

 

Week Two consists of six 1:30 runs and 5 two minute walks. As I did last week, I did all of my walks at 3 MPH and my runs at 4 MPH. We're going on a flat course...my theory being that once I get the distance, then I can start messing with the speed and the terrain. In all honesty, it wasn't that much harder than any of last week's runs...towards the end, I started thinking that maybe I should have had a little bit more water before I came, but other than that...it was smooth sailing.

 

I'm learning quickly that the art is to go slooooow. As in, run as slow as you can while still maintaining a running stride.

 

Finally, again this week, I am running into a Friday night where I won't be able to run, which leaves me with two options - I can run again tonight and then Thursday or I can run tomorrow and then Thursday. I'm thinking that tonight would be my best option, so I will be doing W2D2 this evening and hoping that I recover enough to do W2D3 on Thursday.