Then to now

I realized as I was about to push the publish button you'd probably see the full horror of the first tummy shot in your Twitter or Facebook feed, and I didn't want to put you off a meal or anything. So I put in this pair of quiescent kitties. So calming, soothing.

Now to the subject matter at hand.
March 15
An ongoing post starting just after the Talisman 10 mile tri. There was a photo of me being passed by Terry on the run. My gut is way out in front, like below only more so. Sheesh. Time to do something.

I decided to cut down on sweets and taper back on the wine a bit. In discussion Michelle generously offered to support me by giving up gummy bears. Not that her petite geometry needs to lose weight.

The big trauma right from the start was freezing 13 of Linda's wonderful cookies so they don't tempt me day to day. These are not empty calorie cookies. Lots of good stuff in them, but there are choices that are more nutritionally dense.

So, for the next month, what does this look like? Wine, no more than one 5 ounce glass a day, and if I miss a day it doesn't carry over. No cookies, cake, bars or other treat sweets. Dial back on how thick the peanut butter and honey is spread on sandwiches.

Not that the scale number is the ultimate or anything, I weighed myself today, and will do so at the end. It isn't the measure of success, it's just an indicator number. (238.8, if you were wondering) Maybe I'll get a cloth tape and do some strategic measurements. (I didn't.) Or maybe I'll get a duplicate of that shot above, same shorts and jersey, see if it makes a difference. (I sort of did.)

March 17
So far so good. I haven't broken down and defrosted a cookie, or bought one from anywhere. I'm still feeling a bit tired from daylight savings time, at least I hope it's that and not my metabolism shutting down on low fuel.

April 16. So much for a near-daily recounting of the month. You weren't interested in the trivia anyways. You want results. RESULTS!

 I'm feeling great! The running has been going really well, running faster, and generally feeling lighter on my feet. Except for the last couple that happened shortly after tough bike rides, so that sort of understandable. The bike fitness is about where I expected it to be. Swimming sort of comes and goes.

Overall I got through the whole month without any sugar cravings. No cheating on cookies, and not even getting carried away with little balls of energy and recovery goodness. No cakes or treat bars. The closest I came to busting on the wine was one Saturday when I had two (measured) glasses, one 3 oz with lunch to finish a bottle, and a 4 oz with dinner. Lots of days I didn't have any wine at all.

There was one bad day where I'd eaten all the dates I'd brought for snacks, and all my lunch, and right after lunch I realized it was a long stretch to dinner. That wasn't much of a fun afternoon. Fortunately there was no work stupidity, or a bout of hangry might have happened.

I even had coffee at Purple Perk with buddies, and didn't have one of their treats in spite of being seduced by the 3 part butter tart chorus. I was pretty proud of myself after that. (Have you seen their treats? They are awesome!)

What is the future? I will go back to eating cookies and treats of course, but the trick will be cut down on the quantities. There's still lots of tummy that can be trimmed back, and I've got several months before the contemplated marathon. The lighter the better for that. The MEC marathon I've got my eye on is in October. So I've got 7 months to gradually build volume, and trim weight. At the 5 pounds a month rate, I could be down to what I weighed in high school, though I was pretty skinny then. I don't think that's a realistic target, or even a particularly desirable goal. During the IMC expo I got weighed, and they said I was 218 pounds. I'd like to be down around there again, and I think that is reasonable.

Here's the current tummy. It wasn't the best place for a side shot, because there's a really steep hill about 2 steps in every direction sideways and forward, but it was the best we could do post run.

That post run just happened to be 15 K, 1:52, for a 7:27 pace. The idea was to start at the canoe club, run down the canal to 50 Ave, cross over, get on the Bow River path, cross on Ogden Rd, go through the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, cross the Bow again at Blackfoot, then run up to the pedestrian bridge over Deerfoot and back to the canoe club.

I'd consulted the detour map, which told me about some detours near 50 Ave. The map was wrong. We ended up going lots further south, and then cut off the loop north of Blackfoot. I was feeling really good till the last K or so. I thought we were at 12 K or so, and was surprised to hear the phone say 14 k. Getting back to the car was almost exactly 15 K and we strolled around the parking lot to cool down. It all makes a very nice addition to the pathway map I'm colouring in.

The swim yesterday was ok, and the one on Wed was very clunky. There was a 6 K, 43 min run on Tuesday that felt very heavy and slow. No surprise after a really hard bike ride.

So the month of no cookies, et al was good. The number on the scale was 233.3, so down 5.5 pounds in a month. I think most of it was off my tummy, since the fit of my pants hasn't changed. I'm pretty pleased about that.

The other piece we were talking about on the run. Typically running at a 7:30 per K pace my heart rate was up in the 130's. Today the average was 120 it says, but it took me a minute to remember to turn the Garmin off at the end. But most of the time it was low 120's today. So I'm running further with my legs feeling fine, at a lower heart rate, while maintaining the same pace. I'm pretty pleased about that too.

Spring is full go here. The grass is greening up, the lilies are going gangbusters. Linda has the garden pretty well all cleaned up from winter, and is thinking about annuals, and filling the planters she found. I still need to pressure wash stuff. Later today, if I get at it.