My Journey With Weight Loss – Back To Basics

This morning I was off to the beach fairly early (unfortunately while it was raining). It was my day to do an 8k and the run felt pretty good. However, there are two types of wildlife down there that I cannot stand. One of course is the dreaded geese and the second is rats (ok, not sure if you can really call them wildlife) and I saw both today. It is not really often that I see rats along the promenade, just occasionally and it always freaks me out. Today I was running in front of the museum and heard scurrying. As usual I hoped it would be a wild bunny but no, it was a rat. Yet this time it did not freak me out, rather it fascinated me as it appeared to be an albino. It was completely white and though I didn’t get a chance to see if its beady little eyes were pink I decided to stick with the notion of it being an albino rat so that it was somehow less creepy.

I mentioned before that since my husband retired in March and is home full time now that I have gained some weight. Yes, this is despite training hard for a 1/2 marathon. While I joke about it being his fault I do know the responsibility absolutely falls on me. I made the choice to not eat the way I know I should and fell into the trap of things like snacking. I made the decision a few weeks ago that as of July I was going to go back to the basics to get myself on track. I have given myself a realistic goal of being back to my goal weight by the middle of September when we do our next trip to the condo in Mexico.

So, here is what I am changing,

1. No more snacking (ok, except nuts after I have done a run as they help you recover)
2. No calories after dinner which means not even so much as a cup of tea because I take tea with milk. This is as close to intermittent fasting as I get.
3. Watching the carbs and focusing on healthy carbs. I want to go back to more whole grains rather than refined grains.
4. Adding walking back into my routine. When I hit my goal weight I had significantly cut back on my walking and instead focused on running. Now I need to burn some extra calories but I need to do it safely so that means adding a few walks each day. I’ll keep what has become my usual running routine of 2/5k, 1/8k and 1 long run each week (sometimes the 5k may be switched out for hill or interval training)
5. Significantly reduce wine consumption. Ok, this one is the hardest as I do like my wine but I have now restricted alcohol in any form to only being consumed on weekends (Saturday/Sunday) and even then it will be a small amount.

I diligently started this routine on Monday and trust me I have already clocked a lot of steps and kilometers this week. The funny thing is it hasn’t been hard to go back to doing all these things (ok, except maybe the wine). It is easier in that the weather is fairly nice meaning doing the additional walking is enjoyable. I haven’t gotten on the scale yet and don’t intend to until the clothes start loosening up and then I can see where I am at.

Back to those basics I started with when I began this journey.