on again

I dislike New Year's Resolutions, in part, because of their reputation. New Year's Resolutions mean trying to change for a couple weeks and then forgetting about it when life intervenes. That's why, while I'm making some changes, I refuse to refer to them as resolutions.

First, I've given up soda. As of my return from Chicago for Christmas, I haven't had a single drop of soda. I'm still addicted to carbonation so I'm back to carbonated water (go through about a twelve pack of cans in 4 days). This is because I've noticed a pattern: I gain weight or have more difficulty losing weight when I'm drinking soda (diet soda, sugar soda, it doesn't matter). I don't know if that's corralation or causation, but regardless, I'm not drinking soda. I do best on a water/carbonated water/coffee routine (note that I'm not giving up caffeine - coffee and tea are still acceptible).

Second, I'm training for a half-marathon again. I know that by the end of my training last year, I was sick of it and couldn't wait to not have training runs on my schedule anymore. For that reason, I'm not signing up for the race yet. I've got the training runs in my calendar and a training partner all lined up. If the end of March comes around, and I don't want to spend my Sundays hitting the trails in Forest Park, I won't. But, I think I will want to. I enjoyed the actual race immensely, and I love having a committment to myself to be running. It gives me an excuse for being obsessive about my exercise.

Third, I signed up for weight watchers online, and I'm going to lose the weight that I've gained since the broken arm (and hopefully a bit more). I know that as the training ramps up this is going to get more difficult, but I also know that I have to do this. My weight will only keep going up if I don't do something about it and I don't want to be the round thing I was when I graduated college ever again. Hopefully, in the next couple of months (while training is still relatively light), I can lose the 10 pounds that are currently making me feel bad about myself.

Finally, I'm posting my stats here again even though they embarrass me. I've become depressed about my lazy girl on the couch weight gain (or broken elbow weight gain) and I know I can't really hide it from the world anyway since you can see it on my face and in my waist. So:

Weight: 171 (ug, how did it get this bad!?!)
Training: Running 30 minutes (about 2.5 miles) with a 4 minute walking cooldown afterward