jimsjournal

jimsjournal

A Six Week Tweak -- 03/06/05

I got this idea from Bozoette -- who, in turn, had gotten it from Melissa (Prairie Woman with Cell Phone).

The idea is to set some goals for a six week period.

So I figure I should set myself some six week goals. I've been trying to be regular about working out and I've not done too badly, but I still miss a lot of days for one excuse or another. And I've been avoiding running -- this has been a very snowy winter and the bike path where I like to run has been snow-covered at least since mid-January. That's just an excuse -- there's no real reason I couldn't run loops of the neighborhood. And although I've lost a little bit of weight -- about five or six pound since I got back from Las Vegas, but that was my point of maximum-blobbishness this winter, all of the accumulated holiday feasting - and the loss was made easier by that week of being really sick in February. So... It's time to get serious about this and six weeks is just about the right period of time to produce results that are more than just random fluctations...

Thus, my Six Week Tweak has these goals:

A serious workout six days per week (except for one rest day, generally alternating biking and weight training with running)
Run six miles (building upon today's three mile run so that by the end of the six weeks I will have brought my long run for the week to being a six mile run
Lose six pounds (I am currently 201 pounds)

Yes, I've been here before -- I've just poked around in my archives and found some other references to getting shape (in addition to the constant background mumbling about getting in shape that I probably mention at least once a month), that is specific entries complete with weight and such...

For example:

Back in June of 2000 I grumbled that my weight was bouncing around between 204 and 208 -- and in the entry that followed that one I noted that my weight that day was 206 and I wanted to try to drop twenty pounds. Two months later (mid Sept.) I was at 193 -- down thirteen pounds, just seven to go. And the next day I ran a 5k at an 8:12 pace (25:30). And then I had a business trip to Norway... and then Cleveland... and no more listing of workouts and weight... and obviously those shed pounds eventually returned.
The next year I did it again -- my June 23rd, 2001 entry noted that I had weighed 203 on the previous weekend and I had managed to drop two pounds that week. A month later I was down to 194 but then came Adam and Leah's wedding and the a very busy August with lots of travel and the get-in-shape and lose weight program seemed, once again, to fade away.

Well, actually, those are the examples of when I went so far as to set up a little table in the left margin to track weight and workout information... although long-time readers have had to put up with thoughts about working out and being in shape far too often.

I suppose digging up those two public failures -- after all, each time I failed to maintain the weight loss -- might be taken to show I'm doomed before I start -- but actually it made me realize that I really should be able to drop six pounds in six weeks. And noting that only four and a half years ago I ran a 5k at an 8:12 per mile pace indicates that there really is hope for me to improve upon my current slow and lumbering gait (i.e., my 10:21 per mile pace in today's race -- Kelly's Pace 3 Mile March Hare Hop).

So I guess I'm going to weigh-in and report on my weight and my workouts each Sunday for the next six weeks.

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