For those of you who have been a pretty consistent reader of my blog, well, obviously, I haven't posted recently. In fact, it's been about 10 weeks, sadly. The reason? I started up with Zoo Camp, and let me tell you, it's exhausting. I just haven't gotten around to taking care of a blog post, even though I have had plenty to talk about. In terms of the main parts of this blog (exercise and health), I haven't been doing quite so well, so regarding that department, there hasn't been much going on unfortunately. But oh well, let's get started. I'll probably have two blog posts to cover this summer, one more about my health, and another to talk about how the summer has gone in general. This one will be about my health, and my next blog post (which will be soon) will be about non-health things like camp, my new computer, etc.
So I left off two days prior to my 21st birthday back in mid-June, so I've got a fair amount to cover. At first, I was running a bit consistently, not necessarily long runs, but at least getting outside and getting some exercise. But then camp started. I love camp, but it's so damn exhausting. My time to run is always right after work, before I eat dinner, at about 5:30. Unfortunately by that time, I'm done for. I've used up all my energy at camp, and all my body wants to do it rest in order to prepare for the next day. So the frequency of my runs quickly diminished, so that I was only getting a couple runs in a week. Bummer.
The good news is that Wednesdays (Frisbee day) is when I'm most active. Not only am I running around at frisbee, being the fact that we have 10-16 people playing ultimate (and I can actually run with some stamina during the game, considering that I've gotten into considerably better shape in the last half year), but I'm also running down to the field, which is about 2 miles. It's a pretty easy run along the road, but I generally push the pace for some of the runners, making it quicker than it normally would be for some of us. So it's quite an intensive hour of running and playing ultimate. Let's just say that by the end of the night on Wednesdays, I am WIPED. My first week, I literally came home and crashed by about 9:00, which is so crazy for me.
But like I mentioned, my running has become less frequent, and when I do go out for a run, it's usually just a quick mile run to get moving and my heart pumping. And because of it, I've put some weight back on. I really hate that I've let myself go some, but it's just the way it is. It also doesn't help that I don't eat all that well when I'm back home, partially because I don't have 100% control over all the food that is in the house, but also because I use up so much energy at the zoo with the campers, that I need more food to bring my energy levels up. The problem with that is that I'm burning less calories than I'm ingesting, just because I'm not really burning that many while working (definitely staying active by doing lots of walking), however, it's hard to keep your energy levels high while working with 5-6 year old campers all day. I hope that makes sense. Nonetheless, I'm eating more than I should, and I'm not exercising nearly as much as I should be, or as much as I was prior to camp.
So this is where I hope to change things up. Starting today, I'll be running more, and getting out for exercise more, to focus on losing back this weight that I've gained this summer. Oh, and within the first week of summer, I went back up to 205 just because of lots of eating and drinking due to birthday celebrations and what not. And since then, I'm probably between 210-215. It's hard to guess, since my scale is not even remotely accurate. I'd love to be back to 205 by my doctor's appointment (it's not set up, but I will be setting it up, to see how I'm doing, get a blood test, etc. in a few weeks). I don't know if that's too optimistic or not, since I'm not 100% on my current weight. But I'd like to lose 5 pounds before then at least. The idea behind having my appointment at the end of the summer was that I was hoping to lose more weight during the summer, thinking that I'd continue a good eating pattern, and be working out more as well, plus lots of walking at the zoo. Obviously that kind of backfired on me, which is something I was worried about.
Today, I did go for a run. It was short, just one mile. My time was 7:05 which is pretty quick for me. I had a PR a few weeks ago that was 6:58 which is nice to get a sub seven minute mile. The first 1/2 mile was great, but due to my energy levels this week (haven't been sleeping much) I wasn't able to finish strong. Otherwise I probably could have gone for a 6:45 or so mile if I could have finished strong. My plan to continue running is to keep doing mile runs, and every so often add in a longer run, until I've built up my stamina. Plus camp is done next Friday, so after that, I should be able to run much more often and for longer periods of time due to not being fatigued as much from camp. But tomorrow is frisbee day, so that's 2 miles (downhill mostly). Thursday I'll do another 1 mile (and when I say 1 mile, it's always going for a PR, so it's quick), Friday a break since we often eat food right after work. Then on Saturday 2 miles, and I'm unsure about Sunday - just depends on how I'm doing. But that's my tentative schedule for this week.
That's all for now. I'm hoping to write my next blog post this weekend. Not sure when, maybe Friday just because it's Fancy Friday after all, but more likely Saturday or Sunday would be my guess. Until then, I'd appreciate it if you stayed fancy.
