Friday, May 16, 2014

Why I Run

I've had a couple of days keeping right to my food diary, so I think I'm getting back in the groove after the trip disruption.  Now it's Amy's turn!  I'm curious about what her game plan is for her vacation (maybe she'll post about it when she gets back).

I thought today I'd post a little more about exercise.  I've been exercising at least a little (even if not always consistently) pretty much since after I had my first baby.  But I really ramped up the exercise last time I lost all my baby weight.  The biggest change was that I took up running.

I hated running.  I swore I would never do it, unless to save my life.  I mocked people who went out for jogs. I was sure that only skinny, anorexic, crazy people went running.  But when I was challenged to compete in a sprint triathlon and took on a couch to 5k program, I learned something that made all the difference.

Running burns more calories than just about anything else I could do.

Well, I can burn an equal amount of calories doing something else, but it takes longer.  So I get the most weight loss bang for my buck out of running.  It might work differently for someone else (all our bodies are different), but for me, running was the perfect exercise for weight loss.

I still hate it.

To motivate myself to keep going, I usually try to find one or two events to train for.  They have to be a challenge, something that I will have to work for so that I actually drag myself out of bed at the crack of dawn to get the training in.  This year I've set my sights on two, though the actual events won't be until early 2015.  One is a 26k trail run (that's about 17 miles up and down hills on rocky trails).  The other is my first marathon.

I have a countdown to remind myself to keep working.  I can do this!

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