Jogging

As you may already know, I have been hitting the gym every work day since last December.  I started when I got on the scale one day and realized that I was getting pretty tubby and figured that I had no excuse when I had a full gym less than 10 feet from my desk.  So, that began my odyssey.  I chose to follow the Couch-to-5k Program on CoolRunning.com.  I really like this program because it starts out so easily, which allows you to build a solid base before taking off.  One of the problems I faced with jogging on previous attempts was starting out too aggressively and then getting hurt and quitting.  This program saved me from myself.  Well, about a month ago I graduated from that program and have continued to improve my speed since.  My current plan involves running on the treadmill (3 miles at 6.0 MPH) on two days, riding the stationary bike 2 days for about 35 minutes and running on the elliptical machine for 3 miles on Friday (for some reason, I can trick myself into thinking this is fun).  I am now getting people ask me about my workout and asking for advice… weird.

This is all fine and good… I am feeling great and my goal of getting in shape for backpacking this summer seems to be easily attainable.  But… my weight hasn’t changed in a couple of months!  I know this shouldn’t be important and that the other metrics are more important, but I find myself focusing on weight.  I guess because it is the easiest to measure progress.  To help me to more closely watch what I’m eating and doing, I am logging my daily meals and activities on FitDay.com.  At the top of the list at the right, I have placed a link to my FitDay Journal.  I do not plan to get really crazy with it but am aiming for a 2000 calorie diet, with the expectation that some days I will be over that and others will be under.  On my workout days, it looks like I am burning somewhere between 3000 and 4000 calories, so I have a deficit of 1000 to 2000 calories on these days.  I’ve only been tracking this for 3 days now, but I do not think that I’ve changed my eating habits drastically from what I’ve been doing for the past couple of months, so I think this will be pretty easy to maintain.

Well, that’s probably more than anybody wants to read… even you, Justin!  Let me know if any of you are interested in losing weight with me.  Goodness knows I could use the help!