The Last Fifteen

I've come to think of them as my running buddies. I either have 15 of them, or just two depending on how I count. For 15, I'm counting pounds. For two, I am thinking ST and OM (those are nicknames, of course--the real names are Spare Tire and Omentum). I'm talking about the weight I'd like to lose to get to an "ideal" weight for me, which I guess to be about 175 pounds.

Apart from running regularly, I have done absolutely nothing in an attempt to lose weight. Nothing. I think that if I made some sensible adjustments to my diet and increased the running and/or other activities slightly, these 15 would come off pretty easily. I dropped the first 10 pretty fast, and I have stabilized at about 190, which is still too heavy for me. My current BMI is 26.5, just inside the "overweight" range. Getting down to 175 would take me to a comfortable 24.5.

Again, that would fit my personal fitness goal, which goes something like: always have a normal BMI and be able to pass the Navy PFT for your age group. (I do fall within the maximum height/weight standard for the Navy, which is 196 for me).



Today I went on a 12-mile bike ride here in the neighborhood.

12M / 47min / 15.3mph / 714cal

12 miles seems like a great distance for a run replacement. It appears to burn a similar amount of calories. One idea would be to alternate running and biking during the week, which could look like this:

S / off
M / run
T / bike
W / run
R / run
F / bike
S / long run

-----

S / off
M / 5M run
T / 12M bike
W / 5M run
R / 5M run
F / 12M bike
S / 8M long run

TOTALS: 23M run / 24M bike