tcovert's Winter 2009 Mentor Group - FULL (Page 10)

Todd and Paul - since you've asked... 

oshunluvah = ocean lover - I'm in New England, Massachusetts specifically and we are notorious for dropping our "r's' or "ah's" as we like to say them.  But I truley do love the ocean and have always lived at or near it.  Unfortunately, because it's the northeast US the water is wicked (another Boston habit) cold so I'm a light-weight at swimming.  But that is soon to change

Now you know.

cool.  i lived in Eastport, Maine for 4 years.  That was all I could take  

I'll bet she pahked the cah in hahvid yahd.

I don't drink soda of any kind but my partner does and I get the addiction thing with it.  Maybe the flavored carbonated waters would fulfill the same craving???  I don't know, I'm more of an unsweetened cranberry juice or water drinker.  I know, boring. 

I get the biggest boot out of my wicked pissa nickname too!

I have consumed an uncountable number of diet cokes and french fries in my life. I'm so screwed!

Well, first bit of good news...I'm halfway to this week's goal. My motivation is doing well and I've already done a run, a swim, and a ride this week. Woo hoo!

Second good thing is that I just signed up for my first race of 09 which is the Surf City 5k. Can't wait to race again. I haven't raced since August and am getting antsy.

Surf City 5k is in Huntington Beach, February 1st.  I'm there, too!  I'm actually going to go balls out--excuse the term--on this one, which for me might be like an 8 minute mile.  I want to really work on the 5k part of a sprint tri ...

Jocelyn, very excited to meet you so let's be sure to hook up.  My last attempt at meeting BTers at the Day at the Beach tri in Hermosa was a miserable failure ... tough meeting people that you have no idea what they look like!  

Hey everyone,

I know I have been MIA since new years but things  have been kind of crazy for me. I know have an 8 week old australian shepher puppy who delights in being a little terror, so I have had plenty to keep me busy. I will be weighing in ona  couple of the topics that have been bouncing around on here the last few days in a few minutes.

 I just recently decided to give "Gallowalking"  a try. For anyone who has been thinking about it, I highly recommend giving it a shot. I have only done one run so far but wow what a difference. I did 3 miles and felt like I could have kept going. I only ran about a minute per mile slower than the fastest pace ive ran, and i easily could have gone 5 miles. The trick is to enforce the run/walk intervals. It managed to keep my hearrate under control and allowed me to keep up my pace the entire run.

Ok, now for my 2 cents on a few topics:

Weight Loss:

I am a compulsive scale user. I weigh in every morning. I agree with other people in this thread that you cant look at daily fluctuations, but I'm a numbers person so I need something. I put my weights in a spreadsheet and use a smoothing algorithm to smooth out the high and lows. Its a technique similar to what is used on stock prices. As long as my weights are consistently below that "trend" line, my weight will slowly drop. If anyone else is interested, I'll be glad to link you to it.

Diet

I've been trying to drop weight for about the last 4 years. It finally really happened for me this summer when I completely changed the way I ate. I was making dinner almost every night and maybe once every two weeks. I think that to make any kind of diet sustainable it has be a lifestyle change. I refuse to make anything completely off limits because that is what leads to falling off the wagon. I want to have a beer, I'm going to.  If I'm going out to eat for a special occasion, I might have a larger meal. The trick for me was to keep my calories under 2000 on most days.

 Soda:

I used to be basically addicted to Diet Pepsi. I was drinking at least a 6 pack a day. I've cut it down to a minimum now, but there are times when one just sounds good. 

Goals:

I am a goal oriented person, not a process oriented person. I can't work out just for the sake of working out and getting in better shape. I need a long term goal to get me there.

There's a pretty big group of BTers doing this race, so I'm sure we can get something together! I'm in this race if for no other reason than the party at the end and the surf bands! Oh yeah...and the two beers! Those count as recovery drinks, right?

Todd,

You CAN have a friend pick up your packet for you, as long as you provide a copy of your DL and a signed letter authorizing your friend to pick up the packet.  This was a selling point for me, because I'm not sure if I can be there the day before. If I can be, I'd be happy to pick up your stuff for you ... no excuses now, huh, Fun Boy?

Hi guys,

 Sorry I've been out of the loop lately. Just to chime in on Morgan's thought, I think that some great points are raised. I think that part of the culture of triathlon is to challenge yourself in ways you maybe never have. I think it doesn't take long before you've worked past sprint into olympic and then you're eyeballing the longer distances. For me, at least, it's not about exercise.

 Jake

I'm so glad you got it together and dropped the weight while you were still so young.  I'm very proud of anyone who accomplishes such a huge turnabout in lifestyle. 

I come here every day to read about all your successes.  You all help keep me on track and hope-filled.  Thanks for being on my life team.