Now that all of my traveling is done for the summer and my last thyroid test results came back perfect, I’m ready to get serious about my fitness. I’m active and workout but when I’m traveling or busy working on projects in the house I tend to put my fitness needs on the shelf.

After having half my thyroid removed last fall, I gained about 14 pounds in three months. Seriously, could you die? Anyway, it’s almost impossible to lose that weight when your body’s metabolism is moving at turtle speed. My new meds are working and I’m very motivated to work off the weight I gained.

So here’s my plan:

Week 1 and 2 I’m following the South Beach Diet. I love this diet for detoxing off of sugar. It’s a great way to jump start your weight loss without starving and being able to get off the sugar. Personally, at my house we call it something else that starts with a “B” but I’ll skip going into that. Let’s just say I tend to be a tad bit crabby when I’m kicking sugar. Probably another great sign I should be detoxing from it. The trick is to not get back on it after you get off of it. I also follow a Body for Life format during this first two weeks. I actually follow it the entire time I’m dieting. The format is eating six times a day and frankly, this should be a regular practice for everyone. Eating every two to three hours speeds up your metabolism. It’s about the choices of what you eat for those six meals that makes the difference.

I also have an account on the Livestrong site where I can track my weight, set up a calorie counting plan, and log the food that I’m eating. This page is amazing. It lets me know how many calories I need to eat to reach my goal weight and lets me log everything so I don’t have to keep track of it myself.  About 98% of the foods I eat are already in the system so all I have to do is type the food name and the calories are already entered in. There are other sites that provide this but Livestrong is my favorite and I’m used to how it works.

I’ll be Crossfitting three days on, one day off, three days on. I’m also going to start to work on my running again………….

Sorry, I had to take a moment and think about wether I really want to do that last part or not. Really, I have to tell you something.

I. HATE. running.

I really do.

However, the last time I was running I followed a program called “Run Your Butt Off.” If you want to run, I mean really run, you need to read this book and try this program. I’ve blogged about it before because when I used it to get on a running program it was life changing.

Remember, I went to a Sheriff’s academy when I was 35 years old. I never ran over a mile until I was over 30. I have a reactive airway, aka asthma and I’m really uncomfortable running and trying to breath. I suffered in the academy and so did my fellow recruits. As I was running behind everyone, they were always in the front leaning position waiting for me to arrive. As a class we ran over 200 miles in six months. It sucked and left me hating to run. However, I still like running events and I like knowing I can run somewhere during an emergency if I need to. So I needed to find some way to make the running happen.

After trying several couch to 5K programs, I finally found this book. “Run Your Butt Off” is a book you can buy or download digitally. It’s a slow moving 12 week program that is the best cardio building program I’ve ever followed. I never felt breathless or overly fatigued while I was following it. As a matter of fact, I felt ready to move on to the next step at the end of each week. By the end of the program I was running better than I ever have. At the end of the program a three mile run was a breeze and for the first time in my life I could actually start thinking about things during the run and not just about the thought I might be dying. I also never went through the sore knees and feet that I usually experience when I’m training. Like I said, it was life changing.

Last weekend I was talking to my cousin, Lindsey, who is really wanting to run a 5K in October. I was encouraging her to use this program. She actually bought the book the last time we talked about this. Seriously, how many times do you find yourself talking to friends about running races? My sisters and I do it all the time. How many goals have you set to run a 5K and never followed through or walked it instead? Right? Me too.

So here’s the deal, I’m going to start the running program on Friday the 18th of July. If you are interested in joining me from the beginning of this program then buy the book! You can also download it from Amazon or iBooks. It’s so worth it. We can do this together! Leave me a note in the comments that you’re going to do it. We can suffer together, or maybe we just might succeed together! I know Lindsey is going to, at least now that I called her out she has to!

You have four days to get some running shoes and get hooked up with the book! Let’s do this thing! PS if you can’t be ready by Friday, join us anytime! I’ll blog entries under “Running” on this same page where we can encourage and challenge each other to keep up with our programs. We can share our tricks and tips and just share what we’re learning about ourselves through this journey.

Seriously, why not? Just do it.

Who’s down?