Ran Without Pain Tonight

I saw the season premier of NBC's The Biggest Loser tonight. I just happened to catch it on the on-screen guide, and I decided to tivo the season. I watched it, and was instantly hooked. First, it's in HD, always a plus, and it's big-budget, and well produced. Finally, the kicker is the reality element of the show, where you get involved with the personalities. I'm less interested in the competative nature of the elimination rounds. I'd rather keep in touch with the progress of all the participants. However, they do immediately follow up on the eliminated player, fast forwarding 6 months or so, to show their long-term progress. That's a very nice feature, which makes the eliminations more acceptible for me.

Anyways, the show is also inspirational, even though you really don't see too much of what they're actually doing on a daily basis to lose their weight. And, their weight loss doesn't look healthy or sustainable. In week one, the average weight loss for all the contestants was about 6.5% of their initial weights. Some of these guys were losing more than 20 lbs, which was probably the average. That's weight loss for one week.

So I decided to get off the couch, and take a walk around the neighborhood for a bit after dinner. My knees have been feeling better, and I decided to try running up the hills. I was happily suprised that running felt fine (other than my weight), and I was running naturally without pain. I haven't run without pain in a very long time. I know it'll feel even better once I lose another 10 kg. Ultimately, I might lose another 15 kg. It's just a matter of time.