I thought time away from grad school would be a good thing until the injury came. Nearly, two years ago, my brother-in-law and two of my uncles passed away during my first semester of grad school. I had just moved 14 hours from home to live in Princeton. The stress of school and the grief took a tole on me physically and emotionally that first semester--I turned to food for comfort.
Running had never really been my thing, always hated it throughout my childhood and teen years, but I started doing it as a stress reliever, class project, and as a form of therapy during my second semester that first year. In about four months time, I went from being unable to run for 5 minutes to running 6.2 miles in 1 hour and 9 min. I was on top of the world, down almost 30 lbs and on my way to running a marathon; it's always been on my bucket list.
It has taken nearly a year and a half for the injury and daily pain to heal. I am so thankful, but I have paid the consequences. I had to give up all exercises and gained all of the weight back. It's tough to sit here and say that I've never been this heavy in the 25 short years of my life. I feel kind of hopeless, scared, unsure how things are going to go this time.
Tomorrow, I'm going to start running again. I need to in order to feel that I'm healed. Injuries leave more than physical scards, but pscyhological ones too. I need to prove to myself that I can do this, that I'm worth doing it.
In a few days I'll receive my Fitbit Surge and the tracking will be fully under way. That's how I did it last time. Tracking. Tracking. and Tracking. I used MyFitnessPal to watch my food intake and various apps to develop workout routines and calorie expenditure. That's my plan this time, but with the Fitbit, I should have almost constant stats on my progress in the coming months. I fully recommend MyFitnessPal and Runtastic. Two great apps.
I know this is only a month long, but I plan to do multiple dietbet challenges throughout my journey. 4% per month is faster than 10% in six months, plus there's more money! I wish you all the best and good luck. We're gonna rock this challenge! :)
I'll keep you posted on how things progress. I'll be starting the couch to 5k tomorrow.