2013 - My Journey into Fitness

Now, I know, I know. I don't look like the type of person who needs a fitness routine. Yes, I am decently skinny and have been so most of my life, but I have never once been in shape. I have never been able to run for any extended (read: over a minute) period of time. The fittest I ever was was back when I was still going to the beach a lot as a kid and boogie boarding and swimming in the ocean. The least fit I have ever been was when I was dating my ex and eating and drinking way too much and gained probably close to 20 pounds over two years. The break-up phase didn't help with that at all either.

I've tried here and there about attempting to get fit again, and then always slowly stopped doing it. Ellipticals, trying to get into running (but not easing myself into it), Wii Fit, etc. Nothing ever really stuck. I hated all of it. I hated the gym, I hated that I sucked at running, and the hate eventually made me say fuck it each time.

So, what made it stick this time around?

Back in late August of last year, in another bout of hating my body, I bought a Fitbit. I had hoped that it would make me realize just how inactive I truly am, and encourage me to do more. And...it did! When I first got it my daily step count hovered around 2000 to 4000 steps a day during the work week. And on weekends...oh gosh, there were days that I barely even got 1000! This HAD to change.

Late fall of last year I started pushing myself to walk more. Instead of waiting for Rich to meet me somewhere after work, I'd walk the near mile to his office instead. Instead of getting up from bed in the mornings on weekends and going straight to the couch, I planned walks with MapMyFitness and Routeloops that I would have to do before I could sit on my ass and play games for 5+ hours straight.

Somewhere along the line I bought a scale too, but wasn't seeing much progress in weight. I was hovering around 131 for weeks.

So, despite saying during New Years that I wasn't going to make any resolutions, about a week in to January I decided to make more changes. I started taking the 5 flights of stairs up to my office. I started trying to sneak in little bits of strength training where I could here and there. I started using MyFitnessPal to track my food intake and realized how much I was eating serving-wise. This has also caused me to cut back considerably on certain foods and alcohol. I do still drink, just less.

After a while 4+ mile walks were becoming too long and I'd been talking about starting Couch-to-5k for months, so I finally bought some running shoes.

Tomorrow starts Week 5 Day 1 of C25K for me. And while I in no way feel I can call myself a runner (yet), I have made so much improvement over the last 5 weeks alone. The first day of the program has you walk 1.5 minutes and then run 1 minute for a total of 20 minutes. I could barely run those one minute stretches. And now, here I am, running 3 and 5 minutes at a time in the program. The last day of Week 5 is to run 20 minutes straight, and while I'm definitely worried about it I definitely think I can do it.

I've lost ~8lbs total since the true start of my journey back in January, and I'm nearly to my goal weight of being 120 again. It hasn't been difficult at all (well, except the running at times) and I honestly think that anyone can do it with a bit of discipline.

I'm still not completely happy with my body (who ever is, right?), but I think finishing C25K and being able to run 30+ minutes straight nearly daily will help. I also need to get back into my strength workouts. While I've been keeping up with my arms/shoulders/back and abs, I've basically stopped all leg strength workouts because of the strain I know running puts on my legs/knees and not wanting to over do it. (I am, however, trying to do Tuff Butt April to ease back into the leg workouts). I'd also like to get into yoga, because I'm not very flexible and it also seems like it's meditation-like, but I'd actually like some girlfriends to get into that with. I doubt I can talk Rich into going to a yoga class with me and I know I won't go alone.

I should probably say that I have dragged Rich along on this journey too, and he is in much better shape than I am! I'm extremely thankful for the days he's pushed me when I wanted to stop (or not do anything at all) and for slowing down and going at my pace, because I know he could go further and faster.

Feel free to add me on Nike+, MyFitnessPal, and Fitbit!