March 2, 2016

Well today is Weigh-in Wednesday and after last week’s success I expected that to continue into this week.  This dietary/BMI challenge has me learning patience and persistence over and over again.  In short, I gained one pound back- I am at 152 with a total of fourteen pounds lost.  Seeing the fifteen pound weight loss last Sunday felt awesome!  I can’t wait to have that feeling back and for good! 

On another note…I have not really discussed my running on this blog (at length).  For a recap, I took the winter off (November-January) because of a bad strain in my hip flexor after training for a half-marathon last fall.  Getting back into running shape is much like losing weight…peaks and valleys!  My mission is to take it slow because I love to run and I would like to have longevity with it.  I had to ask myself what is more important- signing up for big runs, or just being happy to run and challenge myself at my own pace whatever that may be?  Since resuming running, the first few weeks in particular were hard.   My hip muscle has to be stretched a lot and although I was not feeling pain per say, I was feeling my hip in much of my movements.  Then just to top it off, for whatever reason I was experiencing a stabbing pain in the back of my knee (not while running) but particularly when I sat down with my knee bent. 

I am one month into running now.  I am not running more than 2 or 2.5 miles at a time.  So what’s the good news?  It is getting much better!  I rarely get the stabbing sensation in my knee lately.  I am not having pain or restrictive feeling in my hip movement.  I stretch it every day!  My current short-term goal at this point is to run five days per week all month of March without increasing my distance past 2.5 maybe 3 miles.  It is hard for me to do because I want to go on longer runs because I enjoy them! 

So in sum, I have not had weight loss success yet this week (in fact my weight fluctuated the opposite direction one pound).  However, my running is going well and I am starting to believe I can enjoy it as I have in the past.  This is very exciting to me.  The ultimate reward to my hard work of losing weight is to be able to run in shorts in the summer time!  Two summers ago I went for a six at six run in running shorts and I almost had to call the fire department to put out the fire located on my inner thighs.  This may be too much info for some, but this blog is daringly honest… Here’s to summer shorts!