Sarah and I are on a new plan. We decided to commit to losing a certain number of pounds, by her birthday (July 16). Basically, we eat according to loose THM standards, alternating between ‘E’ (low fat) and ‘S’ (low carb) meals, with no snacking. It is a hard, but livable plan — lots of people do a modified THM plan for months and years at a time.
We also have started walking together at night. Not to be left out, David has joined us in our exercise and no-snacking discipline, which is very encouraging to me. For some reason it is a lot easier to go out walking and jogging at night when I have my two cheerful buddies with me.
Back in July, we all were running, but it was pretty miserable, so I decided to start more gradually, this time. We walk a certain distance (about 1.2 miles) and I’m slowly adding in a little jogging, along the way.
“OK, how ’bout we jog from here to that white mailbox,” I’ll say to Sarah. If she agrees, then we do it — and we often find we can go further and faster than we thought. After we catch our breath, we do it again.
Today it was raining, but David and Sarah are Washington bred, and didn’t mind at all.
Some days we walk a lot more than we run, but today we were down to about a 12-minute pace, which means we’re doing a fair bit of jogging (our walk-only pace is more like a 17 or 18-minute mile). Hopefully over time, we can get down to a 9-minute mile (which was my best pace last summer).
I’ve found that dieting alone just doesn’t do the trick — my body seems to need some kind of exercise to keep it in fat-burning mode. Otherwise, my metabolism decides we’re in famine mode, and I burn less calories as I eat less, which seems extremely unfair.
David and I were laughing about our the imaginary Calorie Foreman in our stomach’s control room:
Foreman: “OK, boys, it seems Tim has been marooned on some terrible and snack-less desert island. We’d better ratchet the furnace down a bit, until he is rescued.”
Down at the bottom of the bar on the left of this blog is a progress meter for our weight loss. Sarah and I are neck-and-neck at this point, but we’ve made a good start. We’ll keep you posted.
Project 365, Day 36
Tim
First comment!
YOU LITTLE RAT!
I, unlike SOME people actually READ the blog. Thanks for doing this with me, Dad!
I think we can get down to an 8 minute mile, but 9 sounds fine too!
I really enjoy running/walking with you guys!
Great idea on the walking/weight loss. I hope it goes well for you all- you are making great strides already!
I have been working on the same goal since end of October 2014 and so far, so good!