No need for a grand introduction here - like many, I lurked YTF's thread while I was an overweight slob. Brought myself from 245 lbs (late 2014) to 158 lbs (spring 2016). Nothing special about it - simply counted calories and started walking/jogging for exercise. When I got below 200 lbs I ran a few 5k races and eventually worked myself up to a few half marathons.

During the end of last year I started to get lazy (both exercise-wise and diet-wise) and, as of this morning, have ballooned back up to 188 lbs. Surprise: it's not muscle. I've been hovering in the 185-190 range for a few months. I'm 6'0'' (eh, maybe a smidgen taller like 6'0.5''; on my online dating profiles I say I'm 6'1'').

Earlier this month I started to run again, and it wasn't until this morning that I was able to do an easy (~10:00/mile) pace without needing to pause and walk for a bit. That felt really good!

I've had my eyes on the Atlantic City marathon for a bit. Some good features: (1) it's a flat course, (2) October is good running weather, (3) easy proximity to venues where I can scratch that gambling itch. When I was training for half marathons last year, the longest I ever ran was 21.0 miles (9:45 pace). So, aiming for a full marathon six months from now seems like a reasonable goal.

As far as a "goal weight", I'd like to get below 170 lbs, and once that's achieved, evaluate if getting back below 160 lbs is a sustainable lifestyle.

When I "log a day" into this log, it will consist of (1) my weight that day, and/or (2) number of miles ran that day. I'm also doing kettlebell stuff 4-5x per week, but I want the focus of this log (for now) to be on me losing weight and building up miles. It's probably not going to be super-interesting, but, hey, I'm doing this for me.

Friday Apr 28
188.1 lbs
4.0 miles

Sunday Apr 30
188.2 lbs
6.0 miles

Tues May 2
189.7 lbs (yikes)
5.4 miles

Not thrilled that I took an off-day yesterday, but I was zonked tired. Hopefully I will get my ass back out there tomorrow, even for an easy four-miler.

Wed May 3
189.2 lbs

3.75 miles of hills (Ben Franklin Bridge walkway - one of my go-to spots for hills).

Good luck. I'll say this about YTF, he had a big fan base. FWIW, my own weight loss journey has had its ups and downs. I tend to fluctuate in a 15 pound range, but I've set two new lower high ceilings, if that make sense. 230 to 215, 215 to 200, 200 to 185. Probably not optimal but on the other hand haven't had a big regression back to my 240 high. Just my way of saying that I agree sustainability is important.

I'm not a runner, but I just wanted to wish you success with your goals.

Thanks! If I can go the rest of my life staying below 200 lbs, that's a huge win for me. I posted that my high-water-mark was 245 lbs, but that was during a time when I wasn't weighing myself every day - it's possible that my high-water-mark is actually 5-10 lbs heavier.

I figure while I'm young and have the energy I might as well try to do some cool fitness stuff and see what I'm capable of. 20 years from now when I look back and reflect, I think I'll place more value on having finished a marathon than getting my weight below 160.

Sat May 6
4.5 miles
189.0 lbs

Sun May 7
4.5 miles
188.7 lbs

This was a tough run. My sleep schedule has been f*cked the past few days; need to get that back on track. Going to do some non-running cardio tomorrow so my knees don't hate me.

Tues May 9
4.0 miles
188.1 lbs

Wed May 10
5.0 miles
188.2 lbs

More hills today - slower than I'd like to be on the uphills, but man it feels good to go fast on the downhills.

Feels like I'm starting to get into a good groove - sleep schedule has been reasonable the past 3 days - waking up and doing kettlebell swings first thing while I have the energy. Assuming no injuries, I'd like to stick to a schedule of two consecutive days of running followed by one day of non-running for the next few weeks. I'm not yet following an explicit marathon plan as many of the online plans have me running 5x per week, and I'd like to get to 20-22 miles per week for 2-3 weeks before upping myself to 5x per week.

Fri May 12
5.75 miles
188.0 lbs

Sun May 14
3.6 miles
187.7 lbs

Tues May 16
3.7 miles of hills
186.8 lbs

Been going low-carb for the past few days, so I expect to be dropping a bit of water weight.

Fri May 19
4.5 miles
185.6 lbs

No surprise that's it's more fun to run outside when it's 75 degrees compared to 90 degrees. Early morning is the name of the game for summertime.

Sun May 21 (forgot to post yesterday)
5.0 miles
184.3 lbs

Low-carb routine has been good (hence losing 4-5 lbs in the past 2 weeks). Of course, if I've done my math correctly, then only 0.75-1.00 lb of that loss is true fat loss (yay water weight), but still, it feels good to see the scale going downward.

Tues May 23
3.6 miles of HIIT
184.2 lbs

I wanted to squeeze in a longer run (8.0-9.0 miles) before the holiday weekend. Was hoping that was going to be today, but I woke up with an upset stomach and having not slept too well, so I decided against it today. Gonna give it a shot tomorrow morning (on the plus side, should be better weather).

Thurs May 25
184.5 lbs

Fri May 26
9.1 miles

Woke up early to crank out that run. Managed to go a bit faster than I expected, which felt nice. Thought it'd be interesting to weigh myself immediately after coming home (and having sweated off a decent amount of water weight, heh) - 182.6 lbs. Tomorrow I'll be spending time at a house that also has a digital bathroom scale - I'll take a measurement there simply to verify/validate that my own scale isn't way off (though I have no reason to believe that's the case).

Sun May 28
4.5 miles
182.2 lbs

Mon May 29
4.0 miles
181.6 lbs

Nice the job w the initial weight loss! And good luck with the marathon. Seems like your approach is nice and consistent so far. Assuming you are male, sub 160 for 6'+ sounds very light to me . I think staying in the mid 180s sounds just fine. But obv you know you better than I do!

Thanks! Indeed, I'm hesitant to go below 170 - at the time when I was 160-ish I wasn't doing any strength training - I was basically your textbook example of "skinny fat". Recently I've trying to keep a better balance between cardio and lifting (mostly kettle bell exercises, but occasionally I'll visit a nearby gym to use the leg-weight machines) - hopefully that's a more stable equilibrium that I can maintain.

subscribed.

do you have a specific goal time in your head for the marathon?

just slowly expand total running volume (general guidelines: expand frequency, then expand length of run, then expand pace of runs) while making sure to listen closely to your body and giving it the recovery it needs.

what pace are you running at? maybe include that (unless all of it is at an easy pace). the more you run, the more important it becomes to run the majority of your runs at an easy pace.

Most of my runs for the past month have been at an easy pace, which for me right now is anywhere from 9:30-11:00/mile. MapMyRun has a voice feature that can tell you your pace every quarter-mile, and almost all of the apps (Strava, etc) can display an estimate of my current pace if I choose to look at my phone. For now I'm ignoring those features mid-run; I'm not trying (yet) to achieve any specific pace during my training.

Here are my times from yesterday's 4-miler:



The day before (Sunday), I did a fair amount on the beach/sand:



And here are the splits from Friday's 9-miler (the first and last mile times are a bit wonky with GPS signal interference from tall buildings) -




I think those three days are reasonably representative of my "easy pace" runs for now (though I don't plan to do another "long run" for at least another 2 weeks).

Regarding a goal marathon pace: I'd like to do sub-10:00 miles, which would put me at approximately 4:20. Of course, a lot can happen in the next 5 months, so I might be adjusting that as the date gets closer. I'm being very conservative (I think) about not tempting any injuries, so at this point I'm content to simply put in the miles without too much concern for pace. A nice milestone I'm hoping for is that by mid-September I can do a sub-2 hour half (my best half time is 2:04 - that was 11 months ago).

that all sounds very smart, well done!
just keep doing what you're doing, progress will come automatically.