Halfway to "Lean"!!!

Two years ago when I started this blog, I did so to track my progress towards my ultimate goal of losing a total of 8% body fat. My first bod pod reading was astounding and really opened my eyes to the necessity of exercise not just watching your food when it comes to one’s health. To be really healthy you have to do both! I had thought I was golden because I was at my goal weight of 135 which I had worked hard to get to. Unfortunately, having less fat over all had not in any way increased the amount of muscle I had, so I was 29.7% fat. That is only .3% from being considered excessive fat!!! It was CRAZY! Well, it has been a long road during which I have jogged my first 5k, my first 10k, and completed a 100 mile challenge. All are things that not too long ago, I would not have imagined myself capable of doing. I am VERY happy to say that my efforts have been paying off. Last May my body fat was down to 27.9%. Last night, I got my third scan done. My body fat percentage has decreased another 1.9%!!! Officially at 26% body fat, I am exactly halfway to my original goal and am safely in the middle of the “moderately lean” category which is a good level for healthy living. I am hoping that it doesn’t take another two years to get down to the 22% I would really like to see, but it might. Either way, what I am doing is working. If I increased my strength training – which is my plan with my body exercises and working on my speed – then I just may be able to reach it a little faster. 

The break is over!

After I got back from my vacation to Chicago, I told myself that I deserved a week off from working out as a reward for all that I had accomplished. Well, that week turned into a month! Since coming back on July 2nd I have only worked out three times!! The first time, I actually ventured back into the gym. There I did 50 sit-ups, 30 squats, and attempted 5 real push-ups. Holy geeze I hurt afterwards! It took almost 4 days for my legs to feel normal again. The second time, I did the body strengthening workout at home. This time though, I alternated the moves to create a circuit. 10 sit-ups, 6 squats, and 2 “girl” push-ups – repeated 5 times. That was a pretty good workout I think. It got my heart rate up with the going up and down, but didn’t hurt as bad afterwards because I had spaced things out a bit. My third workout was on Friday, July 27th which I thought was fitting since it is exactly 1 month from my birthday and the end of my 100 mile challenge. I need a new goal – That is clear. Without that I will not have much motivation to keep to me going. So, I decided to go back to a goal that my friend Chrissy had set for us in graduate school when we briefly attempted to become joggers. Being much more athletic than I was/am she threw out the lofty goal of running a mile in 9.5 minutes. The closest I have ever gotten was a 10 minute mile. (Minus the one shining occurrence in 7th grade in which I ran a mile in 8 minutes and 11 seconds.) Since jogging for distance, I have settled relatively comfortably into a 12 minute mile pace. I think I have hit as much distance as I am going to strive for for awhile because that takes much more training time. The idea of pushing myself speed wise though, is interesting and would allow for shorter workouts. My first attempt at this went pretty darn well if I do say so myself. I ran the mile in 10 minutes and 17.93 seconds!! After that, I walked two more miles, did some lunges, and stretched a lot. Stretching is something I also need to be more careful about. Flexibility is my only natural athletic gift, but it badly needs to be nurtured. My new plan going forward is to do the squats, sit-ups, and push-ups combination daily and to run 3 days a week. We will see how that works.  To be totally honest, I haven’t tried it yet. Today is the day though! While watching TV tonight I WILL workout!

1150 steps & Dirty Girl 5k

There is no rest for the weary. :) Three days after completing my 100 mile challenge I flew to Chicago for my birthday vacation/to visit my friend Chrissy. Instead of the basic sight seeing stuff you might expect, we spent about 90% of our time outside doing some form of physical activity. When I arrived on Thursday we drove up to Wisconsin to Lake Geneva. It was BEAUTIFUL! And they are experiencing an unusual heat wave, so it was a great way to spent a hot afternoon. The water was clear enough to actualy see the botton of the lake! It was amazing! Treading water for an hour took some work though. Upper body strength is definitely not my forte. Friday was spent at Starved Rock State Park. The park is gorgeous and has about 13 miles of hiking trails. We did not walk all the way, but I would estimate that we made it probably 4 miles or so. Of that, Chrissy counted 1,150 stairs that we climbed. Thankfully, we did most of them going down because Chrissy remembered the path that she did with her mother and we went backwards through it. The best part though was the Dirty Girl 5k Mud Run that we did Saturday morning. It was a 3.1 mile long obstacle course that was scattered with mud pits we had to crawl through. Unfortunately we were not able to actually run most of it becuase of the mud and the water socks I was wearing (I forgot that I had donated the tennis shoes I had planned to wear until the night before my trip.)Plus, the grounds were the run was held was clearly not designed for a run. Our best guess is that it used to be farm land based on the neat little rows covering all of the fields. To keep from rolling an ankle (which I did towards the end of the run) you had to watch your footsteps and make sure they stayed in the valley between two rows. But, it was still a BLAST! All but one of the mud pits were bascially giant baby pools filled with water and mud. The second to last pit though was PURE mud keep icky with a continual flow from a sprinkler. We had to army crawl through all of them. We also climbed a wall, a cargo net, a hill of hay bails, and dodged our way through tires, and climbed a hill with a rope. I was surprised by how easily I accomplished each task. :) It was really fun, but very gross. That night we went to a concert at a football field which required us to stand for several hours anad then trapsed through the city, including Navy Pier, on Sunday. Other than some kind of outdoor activity most of what we did was eat! Chicago has some delicious food!