Half marathon training is under way!

Can you believe it everyone? Another week has gone by on this get healthy journey and it was a good one! If you are just joining in, I decided to not only lose weight but make a healthier lifestyle change. If that wasn't enough, I decided to add my first half marathon training into the mix and I have only completed week 3. I could possibly be crazy for this but after 3 weeks of eating healthier and 1 week of working out completed I'm feeling amazing! If you would like to catch up and follow me through this transformation whether it be you're motivated to lose some weight, you need to work on your nutrition, or you want to tackle that half mile with me you can start right here with new year-newme-newus.

I'd like to start off by saying that yes, it's January, and yes, I live in Ohio. I did some research and it said that you should get outside to run as much as possible so that is exactly what I'm doing. One, I figure that if I start in the cold then that will only make my workouts in warmer weather that much easier and two, I don't own a treadmill, so I have no other choice.

I stuck with my counting calories which has worked well so far but next week I'm going to add in carb cycling. In my massive amounts of research, I found out that sometimes training for a marathon can hinder your weight loss goals and I'm definitely not about to bust my butt for 4 months and see no results. Running a half marathon has always been a goal of mine but looking good in a 2 piece is also on my list so back to the nutritional side of it we go.

Carb cycling is when you rotate high carb and low carb days. From what I gathered because I am not a dietician, is that it keeps your body guessing and doesn't get used to one certain thing which in turn helps keep that dreaded plateau from happening. I am still in the learning phase and figuring out what works best for me but from past experience I know that a low carb diet works... for my body, not for me. I love carbs and the fact that I still get to have them in rotation keeps me excited. The only difference this time is that I will be subbing my high carbs with sweet potatoes instead of mounds upon mounds of bread and pasta! I am excited to test this out and let you know how it's going in future blogs.

Like I said this past week was a good week. I got some great exercises in, and I ate fairly healthy. The calorie deficit did me good this week because I ended up under! Happy little baby steps. 3 weeks down and a lifetime to go.

Below I am going to list a few things that I am planning on buying to help me with my marathon training. I am an affiliate of amazon and I haven't tried these products out myself, but I have researched them and plan on buying in the near future. Right now, I am on a cycle run. I will jog 1 minute and walk the next until my 30-minute workout is complete. It is such a pain in the rear to have to constantly look at my phone to see when my minute is almost up that's why a workout watch is a must. Also, I am in my mid 30's so it's time to bust out the knee braces. It will be much better to wear these now and avoid knee surgery in the future. My mom just had knee surgery a few weeks ago sooo "no thank you and I will take 2 knee braces please."

Start weight: 189 Current weight: 183. Total inches lost: 2.5 inches