Weight Loss

July so far has been a fairly poor month for me. The day after I wrote my last update, I started feeling a really strong jabbing pain along my right leg (or, in adherence to my little game of learning anatomy as I feel it in my training, my right iliotibial tract). I had a routine morning, but when I went to get up from my chair to take my morning break, I started feeling the sharp pain in my leg. I still went on my lunch-time run, but every other stride felt like I was literally being kicked in the ass, so much to the point I almost buckled at a couple points along the route. I expected it to wear off and heal by the end of two day’s time, but it persisted throughout the past couple weeks. I did test myself a few times and ran my normal long-distance routes, and found that I could push past the pain and discomfort with relative ease. However, all physical training advice comes heavily disclaimed to take it easy and not push your body beyond reasonable limits, so I’ve been avoiding pushing the envelope as I don’t know where the line really lies.
 

 
Over the past couple days, I haven’t been feeling the pain in the IT band so much. The left knee still bugs occasionally, and every now and then I’ll feel a tiny jolt in the ankle. For the most part, it feels like I’m ready to get back to full-time training, and it’s about time — I have this bad tendency to give into the lesser version of myself nutritionally when I can’t go running, and I’ve undoubtedly got some lost ground to make up for.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve last posted a complete measurement log update. In the time since that last update, I’ve gotten really bad about even doing the offline logging. Since I use an internet connected smart scale that logs my weight automatically, I’ve been largely deferring to that statistic. Admittedly, it’s been as demotivating as it can be inspiring. Towards the end of June, I found myself back above the 195 lb threshold. I found myself really confused by that, since by my accounts I’d been doing a pretty good job regular physical activity and hadn’t been indulging with food. I considered the possibility that some of that weight gain could be attributed to a slight increase in muscle mass, but it felt too convenient an explanation to buy into. I told myself then that that was a prime example as to why taking measurements regularly was important, to fill in the gaps that body mass weigh-ins can’t fully capture.

 
This past weekend, I was a bad little piggy. With all the exercise I’d been doing over the past week and a half, going on runs during my lunch break at work and then running my usual route in the evening, I’d been dealing with a slight frequency increase in the random knee/ankle pains in my left leg I’ve become prone to over the recent weeks. With my selection of wearable pants at an absolute minimum because they all fit so big now and the financial inability to go spring for new threads also becoming a big factor, I decided to let myself be completely gluttonous and lazy over the holiday weekend. I wouldn’t be surprised to step on my scale tomorrow and find that I’m once again weighing in at 196-198 lbs.
Shortcomings these past weeks identified, tomorrow is the start of a new week and a day for some serious reorientation. This past week, summer appears to have officially kicked in, and a lot of the laziness and overeating this weekend has been in response to the temperature increase…and the generally awful job I’ve been doing of staying properly hydrated. This week I’m going to make one last week focused exclusively on cardio and “double duty” running days. I bought myself an elastic sport knee brace today to help alleviate the knee pain, and I figure two weeks of this elevated activity should be sufficient to get my body adjusted to a higher performance benchmark. The week after, I’m going to start honing in on (body) weight training exercises to start building the muscle to replace all the fat I’ve been so focused on burning away.
 
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Over the past couple weeks, I’ve been missing my target “Measurement Monday” window to update the body stat tables and check in. Normally its something I give myself a lot of grief over, but out in real life, I’ve still been keeping up on “the work” and offline logging.
 

After spraining my ankle on Friday of last week and spending that weekend stuck on the couch and eating Mexican food I ordered in for both days, I was very reluctant to take measurements this past Monday. When days go by without going running, anything I eat feels like it has three times the caloric value than it does. After a whole two days eating Mexican food and staying put on the couch, I was expecting to find myself set back just above the 200 lb mark and remaining trapped in that plateau. Much to my pleasant surprise, the numbers showed that those two rest days did little damage. In hindsight, it was only two burritos each day, one in the morning and one at night, with a little snacking in between.
After I regained my ability to walk on Sunday night, I spent the majority of this past week wanting to go running, but settling for lunch time walks with my co-worker. Thursday evening, I decided to give taking to the streets a shot even though my ankle was still feeling a little wonky, I still managed to keep pace within my average times. Yesterday, I went for another run after doing a quick 15 minute yoga session as warm up. I woke up today feeling a slight soreness in my hamstrings from that, in addition to the knee pain and faint ankle stiffness from last week’s sprain. But when I stepped on my scale, I was pleasantly surprised by a readout out of 195 lbs, a 2.1 lb drop from Monday’s weigh-in.
Along with the excitement at the consistent progress made, in spite of dealing with an injury, there are a few couple of other implications that this morning’s weigh-in brings to the table. One of which I’m already starting to deal with is the fact that I’m starting to run out of clothes that fit. The other, slightly more off in the distance, is that I’m only 5 pounds (2-3 weeks) away from hitting the 190lb mark, the designated target weight at which I’ll allow myself to start growing my hair out again. This means I’m going to have to start dealing with putting time and money into hair care, something I’ve kind of enjoyed not having to deal with the past few years with a buzzed head.

It’s been almost a week since the sprain I gave myself last Friday. Ever since I regained my ability to walk on Sunday night, I’ve been contemplating going out on my route and just “seeing how it goes”. All week, I’ve kept myself from doing so, choosing to be responsible and give my body adequate time to heal properly.
But all this past week, I’ve been feeling extreme feelings of legitimate jealousy whenever I’ve seen people out and about running. It’s also killed my motivation — there are other forms of workouts I could have been doing, or a lot of work on personal projects I could have completed. Instead, I’ve just been doing a lot of lounging and reading in the hours not spent at the office or sleeping.
So, today, I’m going to go for it. I still feel a very faint stiffness in my ankle, but I need to get rid of this divide I’ve been feeling from myself.