“I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five hundred more.”
–The Proclaimers, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”

Miles Since Last Time: 93.25
Total Miles: 1000

Yes, I missed posting last week, but I bring two pieces of good news as consolation:

1.)    I’ve hit the four-digit mark–1000 MILES!!! Wha-WHAT?!

2.)    Four more pounds down, making for a total of TWENTY. Again I say wha-WHAT?!

I propose that we celebrate these milestones by watching this video of The Proclaimers’ “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” as performed by the cast and crew of Doctor Who in 2009.

Can we all just agree that a dancing Ood Sigma is probably the best thing in our lives?

ONE THOUSAND MILES! Just to put that in a little more perspective, that is greater than the distance between my childhood home and my family’s frequent vacation destination when I was a kid: Jekyll Island, Georgia. I mean, not that I’m tooting my own horn or anything.

So, with ONE THOUSAND miles between myself and this past April, have I learned anything? What kind of wisdom did those footsteps bring? I can think of five nuggets in particular.

You don’t really notice twenty pounds being gone.
Yeah, I know what the scale says, but I have to say that I don’t really feel any different–probably because there is still so far to go. Every pound still feels firmly attached.

If you have the time to go to the gym and don’t do so, you will regret it every single time.
It never fails. Every time I talk myself out of going to the gym so that I can enjoy an off day, something will come up later in the week making me regret said day off. I’ll not be feeling well or I’ll have to go do something or some other excuse, and then I’ll have missed more than one day that week and I’ll have to make up for it. Gym problems, am I right?

Food is always worth more calories than you think.
Seriously. I’m always surprised when I open the MyFitnessPal app to enter a meal into my food diary and discover that I’ve just consumed a few more calories than I thought I did. What’s even more frustrating is when you have to search the database for whatever you just ate and see that there are about seven different variations of the meal/snack, all worth different amounts. In those situations I do the most logical thing I can think of: Choose the option worth the least amount of calories and go about my day. Obviously, the chicken quesadilla I just ate was probably worth five hundred calories and not nine hundred, right? It seems perfectly sensible.

Planking is, like, really hard and stuff.
I think that by now we all know my feelings about planking. It was probably created by Satan just to torture us. I’ve been taking a break from planking for the last couple of weeks, but I feel reasonably moderately not even close to somewhat certain that I may or may not be able to train myself to plank for a reasonable amount of time over the next five hundred miles.

MyFitnessPal takes pleasure in my sorrow.
After my weigh-in yesterday, I input the loss in MyFitnessPal. We then had a little conversation that went something like this:

MFP:  Hey, that’s great! Congrats on losing four more pounds since the last time you did this!
ME:  Um, thanks.
MFP:  Since you’ve lost that much, how about we rethink your weight loss goals?
ME:  Sure, I guess.
MFP:  Okay, we’re just going to lower your daily calorie goal by 110. Have a great day!
ME:  WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?
MFP: BECAUSE I CAN.

Yes, for some unknown reason, MyFitnessPal decided that I could do with 7.2% fewer calories every day. So, I’m dealing with that right now. I mean, what if I wanted to use those 110 calories on a banana or something? What about THAT, MyFitnessPal? Let THAT be on your conscience.

Now, if my math is correct, that should make one lesson per two hundred miles, which means I’m in store for approximately two and a half more before I hit the end of the 1,500 Mile Project. I can’t wait to learn more stuff!