I'm glad to see you back here reading about my journey and I promise I will schedule time to write each week. No more big delays like this. Onwards and upwards to the doings of my life the past 7 plus days!
I'm gonna start with the bad- if you can call it that. I put on 2 pounds between the weigh in on 6/25 and this past Sunday 7/1. This bummed me out at first pretty bad. I realized something that has changed my aspect of this. I began a water regimen. My job has a sink and I have been adamant on staying properly hydrated. The past month I've been drinking water before and after workouts and at meals. That's it. Nothing in between. Hydration is important when increasing physical activity to prevent cramping in muscles and also flushing out the toxins from the body. I weighed myself on Friday when I got the scale working and was devastated. I weighed 374 pounds. I knew a day like this would come where I would put on a little bit of weight but I was not expecting that. That was like I regressed from all of the progress I have made so far. I weighed myself on Saturday and I was surprised to see that I had dropped back down to 365. Upon further reflection I realized the amount of water I was drinking each day since starting work was a lot. I was using the restroom every other hour. On Sunday I hopped on one more time and the scale said 368. I'm going to leave it there. I won't use a different weight from the previous days and I won't fudge the numbers. What this does is reiterate the fact that I need measuring tape. That will be purchased tonight or tomorrow. You will see numbers on this site I guarantee it!
From a mileage standpoint I regressed. Between work and various activities, I can explain the drop off in mileage. Also it can be explained by my running program Frank to 5k. The previous week I walked/ran/ellipticalled roughly 21 miles. Last week I totaled 15.05 miles. There are few things to add in here. Saturday I spent the afternoon walking with friends all around Venice beach accumulating over 3 miles of walking after running earlier at the gym! I also managed to get a wicked sun burn... Chris bought a basketball! We went to the park twice last week and played basketball. The first time we took on 2 fourteen year olds in a game of 2 on 2. Nothing feels better than stamping out the enthusiasm for sports from kids! Just kidding. They wanted to play against us and we obliged. I ran hard to achieve my cardio goals but neither Chris nor I played like we would against people our age and we ended up winning 11-7. They were some funny dudes and it was good to play against someone different from Chris. They were a lot better than we gave them the initial credit for as well! I was only able to walk to the library once last week. Since 10-3 is booked via work, my after work activity has spiked. Chris and I have been going out at night and networking with people from Couchsurfing to better set root here in the city. Also, with my running program starting last week I have to adhere to strict running and walking patterns that cut into the total miles I crank out at the gym. My new workout schedule is to do only the running program on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and then do light cardio coupled with weight training on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Another wacky project I've started is Dancing! As you can see from the picture above that maybe I have a little more work to put in as far as that goes! Overall, I was disappointed slightly with my output last week, but I keep my mind focused on something is better than nothing! Luckily progress isn't measured in numbers alone.
I DID IT! I made it through an entire month where I drank nothing but water. I didn't even make it to milk or tea. No alcohol. No Sports drink. Nothing with sugar added. Just water. And I can honestly say that I feel great! I faced a few times where I craved an orange pop or the numerous times with Chris at the bar where a Bud Light smelled and sounded delicious, but I stood tall and said no! Will I drink again? Yes. But my month of sobriety has opened my eyes to life in the real world. No distractions. Just me. I'm far from perfect in how I interact with others but I'm getting better. I think I'd like to perfect the art of communication as a sober person! This may seem like I was drinking heavily a lot, or that I used alcohol as a crutch to talk to others. I wasn't. But I had definitely gotten used to being drunk or buzzed while talking to new people. The calories in beer are just as bad as in soda; and they are all empty. Drinking more than two in a night negates half of my time in the gym that day. From this day on I am more privy to the consequences of drinking from a weight standpoint.
On Sundays I will be posting exclusively on the Frank to 5k program with my first one I aim to complete tomorrow. I will be creating a new page on here devoted to my results so stay tuned for that. Also I have decided to alter the homepage format just a little bit to better fit my tracking needs for weight loss! The library is closing so I will leave you with this quote I came across and fell in love with! Good night!
"Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the
body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always
tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were
younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired...You've always
got to make the mind take over and keep going."
- George S. Patton, U.S. Army General and 1912 Olympian