In August 2014, I went for a physical and got some not very good news - threats of obesity, thyroid, diabetes, cholesterol and blood pressure, yadda yadda yadda! Made a plan, didn't stick with it. Felt crappy and just kept on doing what I was doing, with no change - DUH!
July 2015 rolled around and I felt a little guilty about not having made much success, except a few tiny changes to eating and drink. No more 100% Sweet Tea - instead I had reduced back to a 50-50 split and over time even that got sweet and now I drink either water or unsweet iced tea (ya I know GAK!) LOL! Believe it or not I lost about 4-5 lbs doing just that alone over 9 months. The other part was we started eating out less for lunch - and eating more at home, which required more ideas. The final change that I made in mid July is I started training intensely to run 3 days a week. At first I barely made 1 mi in 30 mins, - a little math calculation to what I was doing and I managed to slowly up it to 1.2 then 1.5 and eventually I stalled out 1.8.
In August, we drove the long haul up to the parents house with the kids, so for 2 weeks I had no access to the treadmill. Sure we did some walking, but not enough. One way or another I was not going to get diabetes, my thyroid would work a little better and the obesity label would decrease. Blood pressure and Cholesterol well, if I fixed the others they would happen too!
Home for a week after the family visit and then ran off to the beach for a month. After the 1st couple days there I told the kids that I would be a regular user of the fitness room the rest of the month. They were amenable to bringing their electronic babysitters or a book down to the fitness room and sitting in out of the way places should others enter! So for the 3 solid weeks, I walked up and down 14 floors to the fitness room, endured idle stares from geriatric crew (beach in August after the kids have gone back to school means the over 60 crown hangs out at the pool!) while I set the treadmill and did my worst! :)
Returned home and finally made that follow up appt with the Dr, for yet another physical in November! (ya, I'm not a procrastinator!) Better news this time. My thyroid, while not perfectly functioning is looking better the numbers are lower - and that was good news. I had kept off the measley 5 lbs, but hey it was 5 lbs better than a year ago and it hasn't come back. The thread of diabetes was back in check - not completely out of the woods but enough that diet and exercise will hold off threats for now. Blood pressure is stable - high but stable - and that was better than reaching for the top! The only icky was Cholesterol - and the dx was keep working on it, and if it isn't better by next time, we'll pull out the drugs!
So I have kept up the running for 5 months. I have officially lost 5% of the weight I started this journey with and am working to lower Cholesterol and Blood Pressure while keeping out of the reach of diabetes and thyroid problems.
So begins my adventures. While at the beach, I discovered an awesome app called Zombies, RUN! And have been using it consistently since October when we returned home. In early November, I decided to try the payware app of Zombies, RUN 5K, and can I say improvements are being made to my running. I managed to burn past the 1.8 mi that I was stuck at and am comfortably runnint 2.3 mi at a time.
I've decided to try and earn a shirt, from Avicci via the Runkeeper.com and I entered the Zombies, RUN 2016 Virtual 5K. Dang it, I'm gonna do what I have always wanted to do, I'm gonna run in a race, even if it is on my treadmill in my basement, with just me, Ethel (the treadmill, yes she has a name!) and my phone.
Right now, I'm not making the physical progress I would like to see on my body, but that's okay for now. I'm not trying really hard. What I am trying to do is make the physical connection with enjoying activity, and little improvements with my eating. Once those look better, I'll dig deeper, and at that point, I'm sure I'll start seeing faster improvements. Stay tuned, I might post more! LOL!
