Hi all – it’s been awhile since I’ve updated everyone on my health journey, but today has been a good day in that regard, and it’s time for a wrap-up of the last 12 months.
First, addressing the title of this post: Still Not Fat Again. This might sound a little on-the-nose, but we know from data that somewhere around 90% of people who lose weight re-gain it. Every so often a well-meaning person (at least I assume they’re well-meaning) will come up to me and be amazed that I’ve kept 200 pounds off for over 3 years now. And sometimes they literally say things like “I’m surprised you haven’t put back on the weight”. So before I jump in any further, here’s a weight update in graphical form:
My last weight check-in with everyone was around 210, so I’m pretty fine with being within the 10 pounds of that weight for the past year. Aside from holidays where I bump up a bit (and vacations), I’d argue my weight is at a fine point, especially given the other changes I’ve made in 2024 that I’ll talk about below.
Anyway, with that aside, let’s recap where I’ve been and what I’ve been trying. Late 2023 and 2024 has been a year of “tinkering” so to speak.
November 2023: I had started going on some light jogs / runs in early 2023, and continued that until the weather got too cold for my liking last winter. My last run of the year was a 25-minute run on December 17, 2023 where I averaged a 10’01” mile, and 165 spm. Notably though, my heart stayed in Zone 5 most of the time, 18:09 of the 25 minutes. I wasn’t thrilled with that. My heart rate recovers quickly, but still, I didn’t want to always be maxing out. Around this time I also started logging food again, just to see if that would do much for me. Spoiler alert, it really didn’t, and I stopped logging again in August 2024.
In January, I decided to add some functional strength training to my workouts, so I started planking every day. Starting with 1 60-second plank, by the time I’m writing this, I tend to do a 5 minute planking routine every day, consisting of 2 50-second extended planks and 2 45-second regular planks, with 30 seconds or so rest between. I have noticed some changes to my arms and abs, which is encouraging. I was recently able to dead hang off a bar for 5-10 seconds, and could pull myself up slightly, whereas before I never could.
Throughout the spring, I kept doing the planks, and came up with some functional workouts I could use when the weather was too cold or rough to go out. I also continued to do some Apple Fitness+ workouts from time to time. I also got my Lumen up and running again and it basically told me that my metabolism was still flexible. I also started eating some of the products from Huel, including Daily Greens and some of the pre-made meals and protein powders. Their stuff is tasty, and I find it a good enough value for what it provides to me nutritionally.
I started running again in May 2024 and had lost a little bit of time, but not much. It was at this point that I also began to wonder if I needed a bit more formality in my running. Let me give you some background. My first experience with jogging or running came in 9th grade, when my physical education teacher, Mr. Boynar, would have all of the boys in the class jog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. At the start of the semester, it would be for 8 minutes, and then every week he’d add a minute. This seemed fine, until you realize that in the middle of that semester, my third of the class had 6 weeks of swimming. So I basically was asked to jog for 6 weeks going from 8-14 minutes, then take 6 weeks off while I swam laps on Tuesdays & Thursdays, then come back and jog 20-26 minutes. Not exactly ideal, especially since Mr. Boynar’s method of teaching jogging was simply to tell you to go jog, and he didn’t care what speed you jogged at. He was in his 50s, and jogged with us, so at least he jogged the jog (as opposed to walking a walk), but never any guidance on what running or jogging was about.
So it’s probably no surprise that when I started to lose weight, I was intrigued by jogging and running (because hey – it requires very little special gear, and it gets you places, literally), but really had no knowledge of the sport. I figured, naively, that all you needed to do was get out and move fast. So that’s what I did in 2022, and 2023. Coming back to it in 2024, I thought “Maybe I should actually learn about this whole thing?”
So I downloaded Nike Run Club, and bought a pair of actual running shoes. I started doing the guided runs by Coach Bennett and others where they actually teach you how to run. I learned about different types of runs (speed runs, long runs, fartleks, recovery runs, tempo runs, tabatas, etc…) and some of the golden rules of running (e.g., give yourself an adequate warm-up, don’t go out too hot/fast, take active and passive rest days, etc…). And I found that not only was I liking the quicker exercise that runs/jogs were giving me, I was actually starting to like the whole process of running. I even ran while on vacation, as you can see below. You know it’s something you enjoy when you decide to do it while on a vacation where you regularly are walking 15-20,000 steps a day!
Anyway, once I had worked through the guided runs, I also started working on my steps per minute, realizing that I was overstriding just a little bit (my average SPM was 150-155), so I tweaked my playlist to tunes that would get me into the 160-180 range, and built my own training plan. Not sure what I’m training for, but at this point it’s just building the muscles and abilities.
All of this led to a new PR for my 5K time, just this morning, at 29:31. This is about 90 seconds down from my average 5K! In general, I’m pretty happy with this evolution of my “run” game.
In addition to the planks and the runs, I’ve also started working on flexibility, doing at least 5 minutes per day on stretching. My goals there are just to loosen up my muscles and tendons enough to somewhat resemble the movements the trainers are able to do in my app. Who knows if I’ll get there, I’m only a month in.
So there you have it, my journey over the past year. I continue to eat pretty much whatever I want, whenever I feel hungry. Future plans include thinking about other outdoorsy activities such as camping and hiking, and some day I may actually run a race of some kind, just haven’t decided where/when/why on that just yet.
So no, I’m not fat again, but I am evolving and changing with purpose.