A Tale of Two Numbers

Hi!  My name is Alissa, and I am an anti-runner.  I've never wanted to run, nor have I ever been good at it.  I even remember doing those "President's Challenges" in high school -- you know, the ones where you have to do X number of push ups, Y number of crunches, etc. to show that you're fit for your age group -- and I could not run a mile in whatever time limit there was.  So yeah, very very anti-running.  And this continued as I grew up and started adulting.  I did find ways to work out (like Crossfit for about 6 months, and personal training, which I still do today) but the cardio never happened.  But you know what DID happen?  Anything with cheese, bread, wine, pasta, sauce, chocolate ... you get the idea.  Fast forward to today and I am at my heaviest weight and a good 35lb heavier than what I would consider healthy.

Which brings me to the first "tale of two numbers:" my current BFI: 34.4%.  Yikes.

The last time I got serious about losing weight was last summer.  And so I went cold-turkey and stopped eating any bad food.  I ate nearly 100% clean for 6 weeks and lost 16lb.  I felt amazing.  And then I went on a mini-vacation and started to eat badly again ... and eventually I regained all my weight that I had lost, and then some.  And while I've been wanting to lose the weight again since then, mentally I didn't want to change the way I was eating.  I was enjoying everything and didn't want to give anything up!  And so now, as a last-ditch effort, I am going to try to do the one thing I never thought I'd do: join a running group in the hopes that my running performance will force me to start eating better so I don't have a crappy run every time.  I'm not going for distance, or for time -- I'm going for weight loss, but even more so: a sustainable BFI.

Thankfully, my personal training gym was about to start their second running group to train for a half-marathon in May.  So, much to my chagrin, I told my trainer I'd do it.  And I wasn't happy about it because it had all the elements I hated: running, waking up on Saturdays for a 7:30am long run, being outside in cold weather ... but I'm still hoping that things will pay off if I stick to it.

Which brings me to the second "tale of two numbers:" 7:05.81.  This past Wednesday night, our leader made us do half-mile repeats.  We did this 4 times over an hour.  The idea was to run a faster half-mile every time we repeated.  I laughed.  This is impossible.  Could I even run a half mile without stopping?  And I will say, as I ran the first half-mile and finished a good 2-3 minutes behind the rest of the group, I was feeling deflated.

But I kept at it.  Even running alone (since I was the slowest one), I continued to push myself to see what I was capable of doing.  And I surprised myself.

My first run (which was a full jog) was 7:30.64.  Each run since then was progressively better, and I wound up shaving 25 seconds off my time (even with a small break to walk and catch my breath up a small hill).  I was astounded.  Maybe I could do this after all.  At the end of the day, my biggest competitor truly is myself.  And I want to win!!!

So -- this is my starting point.  BFI of 34.4%, half-mile run of 7:05.81.  I'm curious to see what I'm capable of doing over the next 15 weeks.  But I know it's all going to come down to how I fuel my body.  I won't be perfect (in fact, after our long run tomorrow, I'm going to a girls' night and intend to eat pizza and drink wine), but I know the more I watch what I eat, the more weight I lose.  And the more weight I lose, the easier it will be to move my body.

I sure do hope this works.