- Duration – 10/12 weeks
- Weight lost – 8.6 lbs.
- Heart rate change – went from average ambient of 90 to 76
- Distance – have increased from 1.0-1.5 miles to 2.25+ 5 days/week
- Diet – continued struggles with sugar, but I’m eating much less of it! My body is learning to compensate.
Time for an update on my healthy heart goals. My ‘why’ was in early September and by Oct. 4
I was tracking my walk/runs so that is why my start date is not firm.
The weight lost is less than 1 lb./week – but it is in the
right direction! I’ve always dreamed of
quick weight loss, but it’s just not reality for me and that’s OK. There are so many non-scale victories:
clothing is starting to feel less snug, my face seems to be losing a little
pudge.
Heart Rate change is my proudest accomplishment! The ambient heart rate is your normal working
(but not pushing) heart rate. For me it
is when I’m driving or doing non-stressful chores: dish washing, folding
laundry, etc. My resting heart rate, the
one you take when you are just awake or actually resting, has been as low as 58
now. When I began I didn’t really know
the difference between ambient and resting so didn’t notice it. When I run, I used hang out in the 150s (with a high of even 170) now I’m
generally in the 120s (with a high of 154 – which is right at my 85% of
maximum). I know my heart is becoming
more efficient!
Distance – I’m proud to be able to do a 3 mile walk/run
without hyper-ventilating or tiring myself out.
I’ve experienced sore legs, sore knees, and have altered as I go to
prevent injury. This means I’m not
running as much as I would like. I
achieved a point of 75% running (at 2 miles) but found that to continue increasing
stamina I needed to fall back to walking more and running about 30%. I hope to increase this as I lose weight
(which will reduce knee stress).
Diet – when I’m off the sugar I feel much better! But it is so, so hard. I’ve had 2 relapses. The first one lasted about 10 days. Although I was picking up a few sweets, I
never went hog-wild. The second time is
right now and I’m about 4 days into it – trying to regain control every
day. Again – no binging has occurred. This is a milestone for me. In the years of dieting I’ve endured I would
always binge once I broke a diet. My
body is learning to compensate. Which
means, when I eat more at one point in the day, I naturally don’t eat as much
later to compensate for the calories I consumed. This is the way our bodies are born to handle
calories! My system has been so off, for so many years, that it feels wonderful
to finally be achieving a type of balance. I've also stopped adding salt when cooking, whether it's in the recipe or not!
Goals for the next month:
- · Continue to elevate my heart rate at least 5x/week.
- · Continue to reduce sugar.
- · Record my food at least 3 days a week. I’ve not been recording so baby steps are needed (calorie max should be 1850)
- · 13,000 steps daily are a minimum (including my run)
- · Find a new 5K or Heart Health event to join in Spring.
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