The issue is that the available space in this little area of the basement is used for dumbell strength classes. My wife and I use the Peloton bike as much for the strength classes as for the bike itself. One of my kids also uses it for dance lessons that he takes remotely. So the big concern was how much this treadmill was going to encroach on those activities.
I think it’s going to be a slight annoyance, but hopefully not too bad. The big question now is whether or not to get a mat for underneath. I sweat quite a lot and I’m confident that the dripping sweat is going to make the surrounding carpet disgusting. But it’s super old carpet (at least 12 years old and probably much older), so I don’t really care that much.
Wow. This is a great thing you are doing. I love my sweets too, but I gave them up a few years ago and dropped about 20 pounds fairly quickly. It is difficult, especially on like day three. The first week is pretty rough, but after that it will get easier. I think sugar is far more addictive than we realize. For now, take it a day at a time, and really feel good about making it through another day. Its going to get easier as you go. No doubt.
My bad news is that I eventually fell off the wagon, and I put back my 20 pounds. But maybe you can succeed with this and I’ll try it again. It wasn’t that fun going without my sweets, but was fun to lose 20 pounds.
Yes. I think its likely your blood work will look better too with this approach to sugar. Like you, I didn’t do a complete ban. There was a little sugar in my bottled spaghetti sauce. But I would look at the label and buy the one with the lowest sugar content. I would also reward myself with an iced tea with fake sugar on Sundays and a coke zero on Thursday. Other than that, just water or occasionally milk. I was also okay with an apple a day or a piece of fruit that contains some sugar. Good luck and keep it up.
I wouldn’t hold yourself accountable for this, advertising works on everybody. Because you are a human with a human brain and the people selling things are utilizing decades of research on how to manipulate the brain chemistry of humans to trigger them to buy things.
People that are successful at avoiding the pressures of advertising do it by the exact technique you describe at the end of your post:
Literally no one can put themselves in the presence of constant temptation and overcome it day after day after day through sheer willpower. That’s a moralizing myth that people tell so them can feel like they’re better than other people.
If you haven’t. I’d highly recommend a book on habits.
A habit requires things.
Motivation
Ability
Prompts
Reward.
By not putting yourself in that situation, you are avoiding the prompts. It’s very effective. You can also try and change your habits via the other 3 as well.
I would think of it as maybe a more realistic ability. Like somebody may try to establish the habit of cooking more food at home instead of eating out, but if they’ve never cooked anything they will need to develop some skills to make that a habit.
For example. I dont keep snacks in the house. I occasionally go across the road the gas station to buy candy. It’s harder for me to eat snacks because they aren’t in the house.
I wanted to ride my back more. So I moved it from the parking garage to my hallway. It’s now 2 minutes faster/easier to do the behaviour.
A colleague of mine puts her walking shoes on at lunch. So when she tries to go for a walk after work she finds it easier.
For workouts. Do stuff that is easier and requires less skill/motivation.
I ran my first 5k yesterday since I was 17 and doing cross country.
I was shooting for a 12 min mile pace since that’s mostly what I had been training at and I haven’t been doing much distance. I ended up running it in 31:17 so I was pretty pleased with that. I definitely coulda gone faster as I found a lot of energy left at the end which is pretty normal for me going back to highschool races.
My cardio I feel like feels great at 5-6mph but my legs are just aching lol, don’t know if anyone else feels like that but that’s been the case for me so far these last couple months getting into running again.
I did a mile benchmark run at orange theory in late September and felt like dying finishing in 9:34 so definitely seeing improvement.
Someone talk me out of signing up for a half marathon in late March.
Great stuff on your race. I would note that my own personal experience is that jogging at 5-6 MPH feels a bit “clunky” and you’re kind of jolting with every step. When I can get that up into the 7-8 MPH it is a more natural “gliding” motion with less impact with each footfall. When I train my cardio endurance up, it’s actually easier to run at 7.5 MPH than 5.5 MPH because I feel like I’m gliding along as opposed to “bang bang bang” plodding along. Curious if anyone else experiences this?
I don’t know about easier but yea when I’m doing intervals at orange theory it def feels much different when you go up to 7-8mph as far as how my feet land
Exact opposite happens to me — when I get up to higher speeds over any decent distance I tend to overstride, which invariably shuts me down for a bit with knee pain. It’s important to make sure your cadence is still high when you’re running faster.
Are your legs aching after the run is over or during the run? Are you properly warming up and cooling down? It could be lactic acid buildup. If I go sit down straight away after a run without cooling down I definitely feel some uncomfortable soreness in my legs from the lactic acid.
Also don’t be afraid to switch up the cardio to a bike or something if it feels like your legs are taking too much of a beating. I also like to get in some moderate leg workouts, a few squats and lunges to make sure I’m working all the muscles in my legs.
Yea I don’t know if aching is the right word, I just mean moreso that the main reason I’m struggling during a run is my legs feeling tired as compared to having a hard time with the cardio
I don’t work out, and I’m not healthy, but I just reached the 20-lb weight loss mark after about 6 weeks in preparation for a trip to Hawaii in late December. No program other than keeping a rough calorie count throughout the day.
Hopefully it goes better than my 30-lb loss a few years ago for a trip to Italy. The pounds were waiting for me at the airport when I returned home
I don’t think it’s holding me back really but I do feel like it’s lagging behind my cardio, I do get pretty decent legwork in orange theory so I think it’ll come along it’s more so I think I just hadn’t done much actual distance running until last few weeks that didn’t have some sort of walking or resting like c25k plan or intervals at orange theory.
I think legs feeling tired and heavy is just lack of cardio fitness, and surpassing your lactate threshold. Check out the run coaching site that I linked previously (run coach dot com), and they will generate a training plan for free. It includes stuff like intervals and speed runs to build up your threshold.
Also, don’t run a half marathon. Maybe a 10k, and then see whether you want to double that.
That’s great. If you keep it up, you will eventually get to a point where your legs don’t feel crappy when you run. For me at least that was a pretty gradual process.
