Goal Weight: 195 lbs
I’ve been stuck at five to ten pounds above my goal weight for about a month. I’m running regularly, eating reasonably and doing my pushup and sit-ups daily. Anyone who sees me knows that I’m thinner looking than I have looked in years (although I have been lighter). I have to assume I have packed on more muscle. Or something. Whatever the case I will continue to work toward 195 lbs. In a perfect world, I’d like to slim down to 185. Why you ask? I don’t need to carry the weight anymore. I’m not tackling running backs. I quit doing that 27 years ago. I’ve realized that I’m now going into the stage of my life where my health would be much better if I were lighter. Right now is the time to make that happen. When I still have a little bit of a metabolism left.
My schedule and fatigue have taught me the most important asset we have is energy. I have a lot of it and could use more. Everything you read about on this blog is my attempt to have the energy to get more out of my day.
I hope you got to see the sunrise this morning. It was glorious. I like sunrises. Why? They are a reminder that I’ve lived to see another blessed day. And when you’ve survived cancer, you know how special that really is. Now that the sun is coming up earlier, I get to see the first whispers of dawn as I run. This morning was probably the perfect morning to run. It was cool. There was a slight breeze. My legs felt good after a three-day rest. I wish I had had more time. But I managed to squeeze a 4.25-mile run in.
I got back to the house, bent over to catch my breath, looked off at the orange glow to the east and said a quick prayer as a thank you for another day. And then went in to officially start it.
My friend Kevin Stenstrom is one of my cancer heroes. He, like me, is a melanoma survivor. He’s had a tougher battle, though: His came back — and he beat it down again. He’s a hero because he believes in taking the fight back to the beast (as we like to call melanoma). His love of running has provided a framework for runners (TEAM M4M) to run marathons (he’s why I ran mine back in 2010) to raise money for research. Right now, TEAM M4M runners have raised over a half-a-million dollars so far. Now he’s running one to raise cash. Read his story here. You’ll be inspired. I know I am.
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Marshall, you’re way ahead of me but being older I may have been through this more often than you have, and pretty much every doctor has told me that my goals need to be more than just weight loss. Sure, when you weighed 240 it was easy to see that you need to drop the pounds. However, at this point you might want to concentrate more on your blood levels, clothes sizes, run distances and speeds, more reps or heavier resistance work, body measurements, body fat content…you get the picture. Weight alone is a tough booger when you get close, and if you can take care of the rest of it the weight will either eventually get where you need it to be or it will become less important. You continue to inspire me – this is the first week since forever that I have made five miles on my morning walk all five days. I’m probably too old and my knees too worn out to run like you do, but I may try to jog a little next week just to get my heart rate up faster. Hang in there…