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Oh, how the mighty have fallen, and I am not talking about the Lakers.  It's me.  Since I reached my goal weight of 185 on March 10, I have gone completely off the reservation.  Now two months later, I am 8 pounds heavier and have been struggling to stay at that precarious weight.  I have plenty of excuses, but unfortunately these ideas are just that, EXCUSES!  I allowed my confusion about fitness nutrition to translate into uninhibited eating, late night snacks, and junk food binges.  I allowed my fear of performing below expectation in the relay translate into not abiding by my heart rate routines.  I have allowed the nice weather and vacation time to translate into skipped or mediocre workouts.  In general, I have fallen into a pattern of undisciplined behavior.

I think what has happened is that I have lost focus.  I will always have the long term goal of getting fit and staying healthy, but I need to be able to achieve this ultimate goal by conquering more short term goals; I need to continually challenge myself to stay focused.  I had originally said that I wanted to weigh 175 pounds by June 25, because that was the first day of the Bike MS Ride.  As that ride has become financially impossible for me, I lost focus on losing weight.  Additionally, as my goal of running my leg of the marathon in 49 minutes got closer, I lost focus on running in my heart rate zones. 

Jeff told me once that fitness is a moving target and sometimes you need to readjust to hit your mark.  So with that in mind I am updating some goals in the hopes of having greater focus and achieving my ultimate goal.

Goals:

1.  I want to weigh 185 pounds again by July 10.  That means 1 pound per week for the next 8 weeks.  This one will be tough, but I can do it.

2.  By this time next year, I will have run a half marathon.  I have a couple in mind, one of which is in September.  I think the additional training will help with the weight loss.

3.  I want to weigh 175 pounds by October 1, 2011.  Again, another tough goal, but if I can stay focused on this goal I know I can get it done.

To help achieve these goals, I will limit my alcohol consumption to 7 drinks per week.  To some of you this may seem like a no brainer, but when you live in my neighborhood this can be a tough one.  Also, I will be more disciplined with my eating habits.  I realize that is a very general statement; I need to work on the specifics of this idea.  Lastly, I will stick to my HR workout routines, 3 runs per week, and I will ride my bike at least once every 2 weeks.

There, I said it.  All that's left is to go out there and just_do_it!