Crook’s Weight Loss Blog

Ran 2 miles… walked 5 miles.. burned 1058 calories!  I lost .5 lbs on weigh-in on Friday.  WTF!  I will have to re-evaluated my caloric intake.  I think I might not be getting enough and my metabolism is slowing down.  We’ll see.

Yeah, that whole humidity can suck a fat one.  There’s nothing like running in that shit around 3:30pm in the afternoon. :D  I made it just under 3 miles and I was dying….  I was supposed to run a total of 3 miles last night, but ended up doing a little walk/run/sprinting at the end to compensate for having to stop and rest/breathe.  Overall, the runs are going well!

Wow yeah… it’s effing hot outside….lol   I just got back from my 3.5 mile run (4.8 miles total including walking… 793 calories burned).

I’m trying something new (to me), which is called belly or diaphragm breathing.  Instead of inhaling and exhaling with my chest,  I’m using my stomach to breathe so my upper body barely moves at all when I’m breathing.  I have to tell you, it’s awkward as hell, but I forced myself to use it during my run.  It works - plain and simple.  My breathing was controlled and I was getting more air than I normally do.  I didn’t feel like my breathing was out of control at all or not getting enough… well until the end…heh

If you want to try it, lay on your back and put your hands on your stomach.  When you pull in a breath, push your stomach out and keep your chest still.  Then when you exhale, use the same muscles in your stomach to squeeze all the air out.  That’s it.  Simple, but not so simple when you are teaching yourself while you are running.  It’ll get easier!

Here’s an article as well:  http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=9546

Ate like total shit yesterday and today….lol  Hell, it was the holiday… why not right? :)  Rest time is over…  Here’s the schedule for the week:

Sunday - 3.5 mile run

Monday - walk

Tuesday - 3 mile run

Wednesday - walk

Thursday - 3.25 mile run

Friday - Rest

Saturday - Rest

Happy Independence Day! :)  Some updates!  We started a new weight loss challenge with some of my friends.  There are 10 of us doing it right now.  We are tracking our progress through a spreadsheet on google docs.   Weigh-in is every Friday.  I proposed a penalty of getting the boot if you fail to lose weight for 3 consecutive weeks and/or miss more than 1 week of weighing in.  We’ll see how it goes!

With my last competition, I dropped a total of 53 lbs (but gained about ~5 back).  I’m now trying to lose the other 30-something lbs.  My goal is to weigh 200lbs.  I started at 286 last December and I weighed 239 as of this morning.  Great start!