Showing posts with label 5k. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5k. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Weight Loss challenges

OK.  Let's take a moment and talk about the strategy and philosophy of weight loss challenges.  Most challenges are structured to reward those who lose the highest percentage of their body weight over a fixed period of time.  Fairly simple.  To calculate the percentage of weight lost you divide the total pounds lost by the participant by their starting weight.  The idea of using the percentage of weight lost is it tends to be easier for larger individuals to lose more pounds.



So with this in mind, I have a weigh in today for a 10 week weight loss challenge - The Biggest Winner, which is part of the Las Vegas Corporate Challenge.  I am actually the captain of a 5 person team representing my company.  It is our combined percentage of weight loss, when measured against the other teams, that will determine or placement at the conclusion of the challenge.  To prepare for this weigh in, I have been eating lots and today am adding in salty foods and drinking lots as well.  By my estimation I will have added about 10 lbs. over where I was last week.  Is it wrong to "stack" the deck like this for a challenge?  Personally I think it falls into the realm of game play and have no doubt that other teams are doing exactly the same thing.

Right now I'm predicting my weigh in weight to be about 440 435 lbs.  I will consider my competition to be a success if I can get below 400 over the next 10 weeks.  Towards this end I will be tacking my progress here.  Every Tuesday morning, I will weigh in and track how much weight I have lost both in lbs. and percentage of initial.  My secret weapon will be that I am going to start walking and riding like a mad man.  I have the Tour De Cure coming up next month and the 5k in May.  All that training and exercise, along with maintain a strict accounting and adherence to a total calorie intake of 2000 per day will get me where I want to go.

By the Way, If you haven't done so, could you please support my effort to stop diabetes by donating to my Tour De Cure ride? Every little bit helps!

Thank you.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Mark your calendars - May 11, 2013

I've been thinking about this for a while and finally talked to my wife about it today.  We are taking this journey towards better health together.  Today I asked her to do our first 5K together.  I am both excited and terrified at this prospect.

The 5K in question is the Las Vegas 5K which is run on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip and passes the iconic "Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas" sign.  Its said to be an easy, flat course.




I'm excited that Michele and I get to actually do this together, but terrified of the fact that right now, with my current fitness level a 5K is out of question.  My goal over the next couple of days is to adapt the Couch to 5K program to our time frame which is 15 weeks.  I will stretch the program out, repeating early weeks to get us to the 5K by the event date of May 11.

I am thinking that we should be able to complete this 5K in under 45 minutes and I'm hoping for under 40 minutes.  Now those of you who are runners are thinking "piece of cake" but you have to remember, right now I couldn't make it to the end in an hour.

I know it will take a lot of work and dedication to get us there but we will make it.  Antone out there want to join us on May 11th???