The Journey in July

After thinking some about my last post, I remembered that although we did a majority of our hiking & walking on the Mat-Su Greenbelt trails; that's not where it all started.

It started out at Scout Ridge above Cottonwood Creek & the Palmer Hay Flats. There's a really cool overlook there and a one mile loop trail. The view from the overlook is pretty amazing.

There's a cache a short way down the mile loop trail that we decided to hit. We spent some time searching and came up empty. Once we got back on the trail, we decided instead of going back the way we came, we'd do the full loop. Doing a full mile was a little intimidating at the time and about halfway around we came to a steep little hill that was completely muddy.

This may sound silly, but being able to navigate around that and finish off the mile loop in decent time was a huge confidence boast for us. It was after that we begin to hit the trails hard, doing 1 to 3 miles at a time, 3 or 4 nights a week. One weekend we did a five mile excursion and seven miles another.

And it was paying off. I posted some good numbers for June & July:

(click on image to see all of it...)

 

 So by the end of July it's looking like I could hit 331 by the time my parents got up here in mid-August. That would be 40 pounds lost in 5 months. Again, it's not Biggest Loser numbers; but it's better than heading towards 400 pounds, guzzling down soda by the gallon.

My clothes were fitting better, I was sleeping better, I could get around better. I still craved the soda, but I was excited about the progress.