Day One

Ok, first a little background. I lost 120 pounds about 6 years ago with the Atkins diet and exercise. I managed to keep it off until a few months ago. Life and stress got in the way, and I've crept up 40 pounds. I've tried to "crash" it off a couple of times, but it didn't work 6 years ago, and it's not working now, so I'm going back to what I know works.

I'm also very motivated to run a half marathon in January. I've walked two of them, but I would really like to be able to run, or at least do run/walk intervals in the Galloway style. I ran my first mile at 40 years old, then a 5K a few months later, but if I try go run more than that, I have issues with my IT band.

So here comes the experiment...can a 44 year old woman lose weight and train for a half-marathon while on a low carb diet? Can a person successfully run without carb-loading? Is there any truth to the theory of fat-loading? Will I drop dead trying? Stay tuned!

I will be using FitDay (go to http://fitday.com/fitness/PublicJournals.html?Owner=TucsonDawn ) to track my food and activities, and will start out using Podrunner Intervals on my Ipod to train. I find both of these free websites extremely helpful in keeping me motivated and accountable.

For now - here are my starting stats:

• Height 5' 6"
• Weight 160.4
• BMI 25.89
• Neck 13"
• Bicep 12"
• Forarm 9"
• Chest 40"
• Waist 31"
• Hips 42"
• Thigh 25"
• Calf 13.25