New years and new plans

I've come to the realization that every year, without fail, I find myself lacking the will to really focus on working out starting around mid-October.  That's about the time I slack off and lose interest in my fitness routine and it lasts until the first part of January.  In 2008 I started my weight loss journey in May, lost weight consistently for a while, then fell off the wagon all winter until after the New Year.  I started tracking my food again, got down to a total weight loss of about 55 pounds, then stopped counting calories for the last few months of the year.  Come January of last year, then, I was in the mood to get serious again.  We joined the gym, got a trainer, I signed up for the marathon, and was consistently dedicated until race time, after which I just couldn't get myself consistently back into the gym.  And then a couple of weeks ago I started feeling compelled to go work out again.  Apparently this is just part of my annual cycle, and I'm not going to get all weird about it.  It is what it is.

Now that it's January, though, and I'm feeling all gung ho again, I'm back in the gym at least 5 days a week and ready to really get something accomplished.  I've promised Kourt that I won't get into a race training regimen until after the wedding, so no marathons this year.  And that's probably good, actually, because now that I'm on the other side of it I realize how much marathon training got in the way of weight loss.  You really can only focus on one thing at a time. 

So this year my big focus is the wedding dress.  I want to lose weight and look great on my wedding day.  I do have a bit of a side goal to keep running with the goal of improving my 5k time.  I'm good with distance, but not great with speed.  And racing is fun, so I definitely want to do more 5k and 10k races just for fun.  But this year I'm going to focus mostly on building a better body.  And to that end I'm going to lift weights.  A lot.  Hardcore.

I like lifting weights, and I've really liked working with our trainer.  We've learned a lot.  But marathon training doesn't leave much room for weight training.  You don't want to overwork your leg muscles on days that might affect your long runs or speed work days, and the long amounts of time spent on trails and treadmills really don't leave much time left over for strength training.  Now that I'm not spending three to five hours on a trail each weekend or doing hour long running workouts during the week, bring on the power lifting! 

In fact, I'm not even going to rely on calorie tracking unless I have to.  So far, without tracking my food or having an intensive cardio plan, I've lost three pounds in the last week or so.  I've been doing short treadmill runs to slowly build my ability to run faster over short distances, mostly as a warmup before spending 45mins to 1hr on focused weightlifting.  When I have time, then, I do some cardio after. 

It is time, though, to say goodbye to our trainer.  We've learned a lot, and I'm confident that we can put together our own workout routines without him, but our contract is up and financially it's time to focus that money on other things.  It's been one of the best things we've ever invested in, though, and I highly recommend it.