Results of my personal project, Spring 2011

I haven't really been updating my post for the last few weeks because:

1) schoolwork and practicum have dominated much of my attention, and

2) I've pretty much given up on the losing 10 pounds portion of my personal project.

Immediately after finishing the marathon, I came home and weighed myself to find that I had lost 7 pounds within a period of about 7 hours. Of course, the rest of that day and the next day, I did the least amount of moving possible, partnered with non-stop eating of everything I wanted. I ended up with a post weigh-in gain of 10 pounds, which gave me a net weight gain of 3 pounds, the night after the marathon.

Things have leveled off afterwards, and currently, I weigh pretty much what I did at the start of this semester. I'm starting to get the feeling that some of my friends are getting sick of me talking about the marathon, if it happens to be brought up in conversation, and as far as weight loss goes I'm essentially back at square one. I have to admit that I had not publicly proclaimed my weight loss goal as much as I had for the pending marathon. That being said, while I didn't really have people in my life cheering me on for the goal of shedding pounds, one of my most vocal supporters for the endurance race was easily Michelle Miranda. Not only did she drag 2 other people out into the adverse weather conditions during the Sunday afternoon of the big event, but she also repeatedly encouraged me beforehand and praised me afterwards. Completing that 26.2 mile run felt like an even bigger accomplishment because of her support.

As for reasons for not being able to achieve the weight loss goal, I think it was mostly because of my on again, off again (mostly on again) love affair with food. I can clock in a significant 60-90 minute workout any day of the week, but I can easily turn around and polish off an entire chicken plate from Dino's or a carne asada burrito from King Taco, without thinking twice about my meal's impact on my weight loss goals. Well, I do take it into consideration, but I really don't feel bad about it because I know I can go home and bike for an hour or play ball with my friends on the weekend. Despite my eating habits, I think I'm fairly active when it comes to exercise, but at this point in my life, one does not seem to offset the other enough to really make the needle on the scale go one way or the other.

The other members of my family in my household are not overweight like me, and my parents do have a regular schedule of gym time, but I am still the most physically active person in my house, by far. So, I can say that we don't share similar weight loss goals. While I do have a few friends who could lose a few extra pounds, they mostly don't have the level of motivation to want to do something about it when I do have that motivation. Basically, another challenge is that I have difficulty finding people around me who share similar goals and weekly schedules.

A third barrier I have identified is the pattern of nearly stopping any efforts of healthy eating or staying physically active whenever school work starts to pile up and the deadlines get closer and closer. This is basically a time management issue because a well structured pattern or routine should be more resistant to stressful situations like school or work. Doing a better job of including healthy meals and exercise may even improve or benefit my management of some of those stressful situations. So, that is definitely something that I need to be more aware of and continue to work on.

Despite my lack of progress in the weight loss department, I did learn some things about my own personal motivations to make healthy changes in my life. Also, as a result of Dr. A's demand at the beginning of the semester for me to abandon my sheepish approach to registering for the LA Marathon and "just do it", I ended up achieving one of my near-term life goals, which was to run and complete the LA Marathon before I turn 30 years old (I have about 5 months left). Many people have asked me whether I'll be doing it again next year, but we'll just have to see. I'll have numerous opportunities to best my uncle's marathon times before I match his current age of 54, so whether it's next year or 1o years from now, I will eventually want to run another one.

update update update 4/12

So, I ran the marathon.

In the weeks leading up to the big day, I could have told you that any number of things would happen in life's attempt to make things like running a marathon even more difficult than it is. Although it was not really a huge surprise that obstacles were going to present themselves, I would've never guessed how exactly it was going to go down. I ended up getting sick about 2 weeks before the marathon. I never get sick. I honestly don't think I've been really sick for over 2 years. But, I am attributing this to the dentist visit that resulted in having to take antibiotics, which probably weakened my otherwise usually dependable immune system. That little episode killed about a week of training. After that, I started to develop a very uncomfortable tightening in a muscle in my left leg, which prevented me from running for longer than 30-40 minutes without taking a break. This muscle cramping/tightening continued for the last two weeks, all the way through the marathon.

The night before the race, I found out that the weather forecasts all confirmed rain for the next day. I ran out to the closest store that would be open at 10:00pm, Walmart, only to find that they were sold out of rain ponchos, but I ended up finding one at CVS. The morning of the race, I woke up at 4:00am to have some breakfast before getting ready to head out. Oatmeal with milk and plain yogurt, strawberries, red grapes, bananas, green apples, dried cranberries, and sliced almonds. I ate as much as I could and got ready for the car ride to Dodger Stadium. It rained moderately all the way there. I found out that the cars were all lined up on the 5 freeway, waiting to get off the exit to go up to the starting line. The starting time crept closer and closer, so I decided to jump out of the car (my dad was driving) and run the last 3 miles up to the starting area, before the race even started. It stopped raining at that moment, so I thought at least the earlier part of the race would be somewhat dry, but I was wrong. It started raining as our section of people started moving, and not only did it not let up for the entire race, it rained ridiculously hard at times, even horizontally. My leg started tightening about 2 hours into the race, and it persisted for the next 3 days. I ended up finishing in about 7 hours 2 minutes, not my estimated finishing time, but a finishing time nonetheless.

I could barely move the next day, except for getting up to eat or go to the bathroom. For the next week, I carried my finishing medal around with me in my pocket, not to show off to people, but more to remind myself why I was in so much pain. It was one of the toughest things, both physically and mentally, that I've ever done in my life, and I think there have been few times in my life when I felt as accomplished as this. I'm glad I did it, but for now I wish people would stop asking me when I'm going to start training for my next marathon.