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.

Well, I did it. I finished in an upright position,  didn't finish last and I didn't "hurl" at the finish line!! These three things are important to me when I'm in a race. (Ok it's not really, but it is on my mind)

As I mentioned in a previous blog, this was my third LHRR. I experienced the  hottest sun I've ever felt while running. I ran the first 3 1/2 miles at my normal 15 minute mile; I was feeling good. Thankfully I was still running when the other runners were passing me, (since they all ran three times faster than me). For a split second I was embarrassed ~ but in true runner fashion, the high fives, shout outs, and thumbs up from those passing me by gave me the push I needed to keep going. Runners are courteous, kind, supportive and only in competition with themselves ~ my size didn't matter, my speed, or lack of, didn't matter, my being four to five miles behind them didn't matter. All that mattered to them was I was there; giving it my all. I embraced not only the shout outs and high fives of the other runners, but the spectators as well.

I was overweight for most of my adult life... actually I should say morbidly obese. I never dreamed that I could lose weight and maintain the weight loss for about two and a half years so far. After losing the weight, I've come to this conclusion: losing weight is the easy part!

This is just my opinion, of course, everyone is different. I have a much easier time shedding the weight than bulking up. The muscles are developing and my abs are tightening further, but still, muscle seems to come a lot easier to others.

I was at McDonald's today, not to order food but to get unsweetened iced tea, an excellent value and tastes good in my opinion. I have my own stevia packets in the car as opposed to sweetening it with Equal or Splenda. Anyway, whenever I'm there, it drives me crazy some of the choices people make when ordering there. I don't say anything to them, but it does give me good incentive to blog about how to make healthier choices. Here's an example.

A woman in front of me was ordering a cheddar something or other burger and asked if tomatoes are extra. The worker told her it would be 30 cents more so she didn't bother getting the tomato with it. She decided to save her money and go for... KETCHUP instead! Now how many of you would think that ketchup is the same as having a slice of tomato? I hope most of you will realize that ketchup is mostly high fructose corn syrup and like 30 other ingredients, very little tomato. It is not a healthy alternative.

My trainer figures that one more session, and I'll be at just about 10 percent body fat! This has been a long journey but an awesome experience. I feel fitter than I ever have in my life! My energy levels are high, I'm getting stronger every day and I see my skin beginning to tighten.

My trainer measured my abs with the calipers today, along with the thighs. He didn't do the chest but his best estimate is that I'm somewhere between 11 and 12 percent body fat. He also used the Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), a hand held devise that may not be accurate, but at least if the numbers are going in the right direction, you know it's working. My BIA came down another percentage point since the last time he checked it. I'm now at 18 percent on the devise versus 19 percent.