Hopes & Goals

Last week was a bit of a shocker on the scale.  I logged another 2.4 lbs lost!  Something this is mildly troubling to me is that my Fitbit Aria is saying that my body fat % is steadily going up the last 2 weeks.  Before that, it had been steadily going down.  When I went to my doctor the other day for a follow up, I mentioned that I had lost about 6 lbs since I had been in to see him 2 weeks before.  He responded with “muscle loss.”  No.  No.  Noooooo.   That can’t be.  I’ve been swimming regularly for decent amounts of time.  I’m doing 4-6 strength training workouts a week.  I walk a lot.  But, the truth of the matter is that I’m not able to workout my biggest muscle groups as well as I would like.  I can’t do machine squats or single leg kick backs.  I can’t do calf raises.  I can only do static lunges, no walking lunges, no courtesy lunges.  I can’t do pistol squats with the TRX straps.  I can do box jumps.  I can’t use the BOSU ball to its fullest intentions.  I’m fairly limited with what I can do with my lower body while wearing the boot.  So, while I am losing weight, I have to accept that a portion of my weight loss is indeed some muscle loss.  But I don’t believe it’s a lot.  It’s nothing I can’t recover from once the boot comes off.  I’ve already decided, on my last day of medical leave, with my wrap around stabilizing ankle brace on my ankle, I will for out for a slow and careful 5k run near my apt complex.  No expectations.  I just want to discover what I can do.  I want to discover my starting point.  If things go well, which I’m sure they will.  I’ll wait a day for recover, then do another run, just a little further.  4 miles.  I need to run 3 days a week and TRY to get my longest run as close to 18 miles as possible and I don’t even care right now if there will be walking because I’ve already decided and accepted that there will be a fair amount of walking at the South Padre Island Marathon AND at the RNR San Antonio marathon.  Got my sidekick, Jennifer, along for the walk/run on that one!  Priority #1 right now: have fun!  Priority #2: don’t DNF!

So, more plans for once I’m out of the boot are as follows:

• a dedicated LEG DAY with lunges, squats, kettlebell exercises, balanced 1-leg squats, walking lunges, courtesy lunges, single leg kickbacks, calf raises, leg curls, leg extensions, whatever lower body workouts I can find to stuff into this workout.  This workout will start with a warm up in spin class.  If I’m not dead  after this workout, I do want to hit the pool if possible.

• up the weights I’ve been using with the upper body machines and push myself further.

• discover and add more exercises to my freestyle workout.  I’m thinking maybe hit my rope reps between each exercise I do.  That’ll add some nice burn to the workout and make it a little more cardio-esque, thus upping my calorie burn.

• take a spin class once a week, twice if possible, followed by a workout, followed by a swim if possible.

• outside of the gym: run 3 days a week, varying distances, building up to the longest run I can build up to with just a month of training time to work with.

• on top of my spin classes at the gym, I want to do a long distance cycle once a week, and include one of my gym workouts in it.  Ie-ride bike to the gym, do my workout, ride my bike the loooooooong way home.

Some goals for the post-boot era of my life:

• run/jog at least half of both marathons I have on the schedule

• don’t DNF at the Austin Halloween Half Marathon (3 hour cutoff…eeek!)

• finish losing weight, maybe adjust my weight loss goal but going down 5 pounds to 165.  But, I really don’t want to go any further below that as I think any lower and it will be too stressful and difficult for me to maintain that weight.

• far off goal: run the Austin Marathon with no walking beyond the water stops.

• keep up with my super varied training and do my first triathlon in March (St Patrick’s Sprint Tri).