Healthy Living in Connecticut Blog

A few months ago, I did an email interview with Derek Mitchell. He made the national news as he is doing a 5K race every month and plans to lose 175 pounds by the end of this year. He started out at about 570 pounds but he's doing an awesome job and inspiring thousands of others! I wanted to update on how Derek was doing, as he just announced he completed his ninth race. Great job Derek! If you're ever in CT, let us know... I'm sure many of your fans here would do a race with you!

1. How many races you've participated in so far?

9 - 8 live 5k's and 1 virtual 5k.

I struggle with getting myself into shape.  For quite sometime I have been "A SHAPE", primarily round. I lack the discipline to eat well and exercise. Excuses come easy, negative thinking drags me down and finances always seem to paint a picture of the easier "more affordable" options to eating being made up of .88 cent boxes of Ronzoni shells in butter versus eating whole foods.  Well take a look at these guys...

Simply put.  If these guys can do it at their ages.  Then I (we) have NO EXCUSES to get going. Here is a library I am forming of some really old people who are in much better shape than I am, and I'm half their age!

...At least I hope I'm gaining muscle! I've been hitting the weights 5 times a week. I've been doing stretching, crunches, planks, chest presses, lunges and so much more! I know I eat enough protein and calories and I definitely feel stronger. My trainer won't check my body fat percentage for a while but I know it's getting there!

So far no one has said they've noticed I've lost weight, which is a good thing! I've been trusting my trainer when he said to not worry about my weight. It might drop but as long as I'm eating the right foods and enough protein, it should level off. I weighed myself today and the scale read 201.8 pounds. This marks the first time, probably in my whole adult life, that I'm not in the overweight range on the weight chart. It was not my goal to lose weight, but I'm fine with it as I am now officially in the "normal body weight" area of the weight chart. According to the BMI chart (which I don't usually pay much attention to), my weight should be less than 202 pounds.

I heard this comment again today and it made me crazy thinking about it.

"Don't lose any more weight or you'll waste away…"

"And Won!" was our team name from the beginning of the challenge and we had that goal in mind. My teammate Janet Perusse and I won the Northwest CT Fitness Commitment Challenge! It was a long battle this fall, but we came out on top!

Janet really worked hard and lost an incredible 16 pounds during the challenge. Of course, my goal wasn't about weight loss but rather to lower my body fat percentage. We both reached our goals!