Reasons to Lose Weight

Saturday, May 18, 2013:

I keep messing around with the weight loss, and I know what to do, but then I go off the program whenever I get sick (which sometimes happens right after starting to lose weight) or for any of several other reasons including an upcoming marathon.  My arms, legs, and butt are fine, but I have extra weight on the front of my body, useless fat of the medically-worst kind.  Here are some reasons why I should take off that fat:
• My blood pressure is marginally high sometimes (e.g. 143/70); weight loss may help that.
• This type of fat can set me up for heart disease, which runs in the family anyway.
• I can run faster - "they" say 1% faster for every 1% weight loss, and I believe it.
• Vanity - I don't like man-boobs or a belly.
• More energy.  Well hey, who knows?
• I'm sure there are more reasons, maybe even better ones.

It's not especially obvious that I need to lose weight, but I'm the one who sees me in the bathroom mirror and I know.  I use Weight Watchers to lose weight, writing down my points every day.  When I actually DO write them down, I actually DO lose the weight.  It's that simple.  So I've started again, and so far so good - I haven't gotten sick yet and I've lost a couple of pounds.

Because of recent rain, I ran on the park's paved trails today instead of my preferred grass trails, 5.8 miles in 56:54, for a pace of 9:49.  That's not a bad pace, about a minute per mile faster than I can do on the hillier, softer, grass trails.  I did work pretty hard, though, almost as if it were a race.  I like to do a hard run a week before a marathon.  Also, this was a hot run, with a temperature of 77 and fairly high humidity, good training in case the upcoming Med City marathon is hot.  Our next marathon after Med City is Grandma's, and it often is hot, sorry to say, but some hot running now will help me train for that too.

I'd love to get a cool off-the-lake tailwind at Grandma's someday - some year.

Whining: None.

Thursday, May 16, 2013:

My legs felt weary today, I think because I'm on a calorie-limited diet.  I ran a minute faster than Tuesday, though, on the same 6.3-mile route, even though I took a brief natural break without stopping the watch.  No pains.