Hey folks: as of yesterday, I am two pounds away from my goal for September 9th of being down 20 pounds! Yee Haw!
My other goal of getting back to running 3 miles in 30 minutes is probably not going to be reached though. I've been running regularly since June now, and there's been a clear improvement. I have no problem running 3 miles now, without being exhausted like I used to be, but at this point it takes me about 15 minutes per mile, and there is basically no way I want to push myself hard enough to shave 5 minutes off each mile in the next few weeks. I'm going to keep that one as a longer term goal, something that might come to me over time. Being able to say that I run 9 miles a week every week feels pretty cool though. That's a nice thing brag about.
I'm going to continue working hard at personal wellness and have set a goal for one year from my birthday (i.e. end of next month) of reaching my ultimate goal of being right where the BMI scale tells me I need to be, while continuing to lead a healthy and active lifestyle. This means I still need to lose some weight, but in a less accelerated way. It should be a challenge to get there, but not too hard since I've basically changed my way of eating and being active to the point where going back is hard to even fathom.
In the two hours before making this post I was outside digging out limestone from a spot beside our deck to create a pit to fill with compost accelerator, place my composter over, and begin composting with. Breaking the hard, limestone and clay based ground, moving two large wheelbarrows full of limestone, and all the strength that this requires were skills totally outside my reach in Spring. It feels pretty awesome to have my strength back! I can't deny that the pain is a little worse than it used to be, but the trade-off for increased strength and overall fitness is well worth it. I've come to peace with the fact the arthritis is not going to go away, and have also come to a really comfortable understanding of how to read my body and its needs and limits - which is something I didn't even realize I was missing before.
So anyway, I have a lot of work to do over the next year to reach my final health goal, but my short term goal of losing 20 pounds this summer is fait accompli. And that feels pretty awesome.