Catching up

I have been doing a lot of running lately, I've just been terrible about recording it here!

I wrote a few posts ago about wondering when I would ever start to feel "normal" again.

Well, it came.

Somewhere around 4 and a half months after baby, my body stopped having those "ouch, I definitely just had a baby" pains during my runs.

If I went faster or longer, though, they would come back. But the pain was barely there.

At about 5 months (which I hit 9 days ago), it pretty much stopped happening altogether.

The past few weeks, I've been running 4-5 miles pretty regularly (2-4 times a week).

I got a little ambitious and started running 4-5 miles around a 8:30-8:45 pace, just because I COULD. It has been so long since I've been able to push myself like that, it felt awesome.

And I thought surely I would start dropping the excess baby weight.

But no such luck.

I didn't watch my eating, but I figured running like a maniac and doing some intense workout classes combined with breastfeeding would do the trick.

But it didn't!

What the heck??

I wasn't losing a pound.

I talked to a friend who is an instructor at the gym.

She said I needed to do base training.

Run slower.

Keep my heart rate low.

Not again!! 

Just when I thought I could go all out again, and you're telling me to slow down??

But what she said made sense.

When I run super hard and do the intense workout classes, my heart rate is in the anaerobic range. That makes you burn sugar and carbs, but it doesn't teach your body to burn fat.

Aerobic exercise (keeping your heart rate lower) will teach your body to start burning fat.

She said, "get on the elliptical or treadmill and go at a pace you would go at if you were starting a marathon. And go for an hour."
I read a good article about it here.

So that is what I've done the last 2 weeks.
Going off the heart rate guide on the treadmill, I have to run a TWELVE minute mile to keep myself in the aerobic/fat burn range.
It's not so bad, it just takes all sense of competition out of you. :)

I've also started cutting SOME of the carbs out of my diet (man I love carbs! I didn't realize I pretty much eat a carb-only diet until I started monitoring them).

I've lost a few pounds already.

So I'm sticking with this plan, because I still have 20 more pounds to lose.

So anyway, I'm back in the game. It feels good. I can run again. And it should feel a whole lot better when I'm 15-20 pounds lighter!