Still fighting one year later: An update on progress

Hi everyone! I'm baaaaaack. Sorry for the hiatus, but based on feedback from mentors, I decided to play it safe and stop posting during my medical residency application cycle. However, on the heels of recently matching at the UCLA Family Medicine Residency Program, and my guest blog post to Stanford Scope Blog about my decision to pursue family medicine, I'm excited to come back to my personal blog about my own fitness journey. To start off, I just want to give a general update on my progress.

Fight for Air Climb 2012 and 2013

This past weekend (on Saturday, March 23, 2013), I participated in the Fight for Air Climb in San Francisco to raise money for the American Lung Association. Besides doing it for a good cause, it is also a way for me to measure my own fitness progress in the past year. Over the past year, I've lost 40+ lbs and have had to change out my wardrobe, but now I can report that I'm actually fitter, faster, and stronger too comparing my results from the past 2 years! Last year, I climbed 52 stories in 17:18, which I was already proud of. At that time, I remember hearing other people set time-based goals, and I would just think to myself, "I just don't want to die and I hope I can finish." I was thrilled to make it to the top alive and still breathing, which was a huge fitness feat. This year, I knew I had progressed because I had a time goal too, to climb 52 stories in less than 15:00, and in the end, I clocked in at 12:29. It felt great!

In short, don't take my leave of absence as an indication that I put my healthy lifestyle on hold. I'll continue posting with some lessons learned in the past few months, including being off of Paleo for a month while in Guatemala in February, my strategy for staying healthy while traveling to Taiwan in the next few weeks, and some new recipes as well. Stay tuned! Thanks all, nice to be back!

Comparison of my results in climbing 52 stories for Fight for Air Climb 2013 (top) and Fight for Air Climb 2012 (bottom). Of note, our technology also advanced in the past year from paper based results to a futuristic computer results kiosk....