title and registration.

so, i haven't been blogging. it's probably fine, because nearly everyone i have on my list has a similar year in their last post as well :) but i miss it, and i've been reading TONS of blogs lately in an effort to keep up with my attempts to lose weight. so i think i'm going to come back, but add in more about my efforts, along with the other things that are going on in my life.

so, if weight loss blogs are super boring or awkward to you, feel free to skip out on mine going forward.

i gained back about 30-40 of the 100 lb i lost over the past year. bummer. it just goes to show that jim gaffigan was wrong: "when i see really fit people at the gym, i just want to tell them to go home. you made it. you won." i got too comfortable in bad habits, and ate way more than i needed...plus, with a knee injury and a general feeling of laziness, i wasn't working any of it off. so, shockingly enough, i gained weight! so here i am. one of my very favorite bloggers talks a lot about weight watchers, so i decided to give it a shot on my own. I found a free points calculator app, figured out how many i get per day plus how many i earn for my favorite exercise, and off i went. i do love weight watchers, because i think it's logical plus the easiest way to track. it's hard for me to remember that i ate 364 calories for breakfast plus 579 for lunch, so that leaves me with...how many? whereas points are just so much simpler. 4 points for breakfast, 29 to go.

i also started training for a half marathon, which is actually my 4th half marathon, but i haven't done one since 2009. i was training for the st george marathon that same year, and my knee was acting up so i visited a sports med dr who basically told me that the cartilage in my right knee was gone, and was fading fast in the left. he encouraged me not to run, and that's about when i stopped. i was frustrated and upset, but i didn't want to spend my 30s not being able to walk, and in that moment, it seemed like it was pretty serious.

fast forward to last year, when i got fed up of forcing myself to do the elliptical or stationary bike, so i went to a sports med dr who is completely non-surgical, and focuses on healing. he told me that my quads and calves are strong, but the muscles surrounding my knees are weak and that's causing my knees to take all the strain. he also told me that if i lose weight, the pressure on my joints will be drastically alleviated. (!!) so, i did 6 weeks of no running while doing daily strengthening exercises, plus i started taking glucosamine/chondroiton and calcium every day. and the fabulous news is that i can run with no knee pain!

i trained for and ran the american fork canyon half marathon (recap to come) and it was a great race. i loved it and can't wait to run it again next year. but i did notice that this time around, my legs were sore for much longer. i attribute that partially to the fact that the first 9 miles were downhill, so it used different muscles. but i also know that i am heavier than i was when running any of the previous 3 half marathons, so that's putting pressure on my legs. after the st. george training injury, i talked myself out of ever doing a marathon. but i'm now thinking that once i can reach a better weight, i will do a marathon. my body just can't take it quite yet.

so that's what's up! i have 2 10K's on the agenda, one in july and one in august. my goal for the next 6 months is to work on speed training with intervals. i have great endurance, and can run a long way, but am pretty slow. so i want to work on getting a little faster!