I don't know how I got so deluded, but I thought that pushing my double stroller while running would add minor difficulty to a run. Ummm... no. It's a whole lot harder than I anticipated, not simply because of the additional weight (I test-ran it with almost 50 total pounds of toddler on board), but because it seems to require a change of running posture which isn't very comfortable. The handlebar has tremendous height variability, but it wasn't really comfortable in any position. Running one-handed was the best I could do (thank goodness it handles well that way and if I remember to lock the wheels next time it might help keep the kids from squirrelling off the path), but uphill and downhill require both hands, and there seem to be lots of those here in the mountain foothills.

Regardless, I'm still working my way through my running program though sans stroller for the time being. The first full run comes at the end of week five (I'm currently in the middle of week two) and I decided to see how I felt after that point and to revisit the stroller training run idea then. On race day I'm expecting to have only about 37 pounds of kids in the stroller and am hoping like crazy to be yet another 15 or more pounds lighter myself. Thirty pounds doesn't sound like a lot to me right now, though my four-year-old is 40 pounds and if I imagine carrying three quarters of him along for a race, I suspect that it will make a difference.

I've had to put a concrete limit on my intake as that's my bigest problem weight-wise: snacking, snacking, snacking. I don't necessarily snack on bad stuff (chips and the like) but I do tend to favour high-calorie stuff (nuts, trail mix, granola bars, breads of all sorts) so I decided to see how I felt at 2000 calories a day. Two thousand seemed right because I thought a reasonable diet would be about 1700 (I have since learned that 1780 is my daily limit to maintain my goal weight) and I wasn't sure if breastfeeding allowed me an additional 300 or 500 per day. It's day five and it seems to be just the right number to keep me from feeling deprived, though I do have to exercise a lot of self-control to keep from using up all my calories by mid-afternoon.

The really good news this morning was that the scale is finally budging! I stepped on and off three times just to make sure it wasn't reading 3.5 pounds lighter because of standing on it the wrong way. So seven pounds down and uh... only 75 to go. This race at the end of August is my first mini-goal; getting under 200 pounds will be a huge relief!

Labels: calories in, calories out