I would like to be able to say that the end of December of 2010 was when I realized that I was incredibly unhealthy and getting worse. Unfortunately, I knew that for years. It was during the last week of 2010, however, that I decided to finally do something about it.
It was a Thursday night and I had just gotten off of work. I was on my way home when I decided to stop at Burger King and get some dinner. My usual meal from there for quite some time was three double cheeseburgers with mayo and ketchup. I looked in my wallet. Yep. I had a $5 bill. Checked the change in the car. Yep. I had a bunch of pennies. I knew that my heartattack would cost me $4.06 exactly and I could have exact change.
That's when I really started thinking about it. How sad is it that I know the exact price of three double cheeseburgers after tax? How sad is it that I regularly eat enough double cheeseburgers for three people? I decided it wasn't only sad, it was disgusting. I was disgusted and sick of myself. That was the best $4.06 I've ever wasted as I threw away the burgers when I got home. No more.
If anyone is wondering, just one double cheeseburger with mayo and ketchup from BK is 610 calories and 43g of fat.
I opened with Stephanie the next morning and told her that I wanted to start working out and getting in shape. I asked her for her help and she gladly said she would help in any way I needed. I've never asked her but I'm pretty sure she was skeptical. She had reason to be skeptical. I couldn't remember how many times I said I was going to start and never really did.
My dad and step mother have an elliptical machine in their basement. I attempted on many occassions to start working out on it but they always ended the same. I would go pretty slow and not really push myself for about five or so minutes before I called it a day. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a competitive and proud person. This may be a fault but it's the reason I decided to use an elliptical at the YMCA instead of the one available in the basement.
With no one else around, I was able to be lazy and stop early when working out. I knew that in a room full of other people at the Y, my pride wouldn't let me give anything short of 100%. I actually probably overdid it by doing a full hour on the elliptical. It might have been a little too much on the first day.
I was feeling something I hadn't felt in a long time: determination. I was determined to get back to being an athlete. I was determined to drop the weight. I was determined to feel good again.
Stephanie helped me put together a schedule. At the time, I was just doing the elliptical Sunday through Friday with a weigh-in on Friday and a rest day on Saturday. The key at this point was just simply getting into the habit of going to the Y and getting the work in. I'm a person of habit and routine so I really needed to establish this as part of my day.
After I felt I was in the groove of going to the Y in the morning to get in at least thirty minutes on the elliptical, I began to mix it up. I started lifting Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with my friend Zach. Lifting was something I had always wanted to do but I had no idea where to start or really what to do. Zach claims he doesn't really know that much but he knows quite a bit and and we started getting a very productive hour of lifting three days a week.
I followed this schedule of elliptical and weight lifting for about two or three weeks before I started thinking about running. Stephanie is a crazy runner who started with running 5k's before moving on to half marathons and will shortly be on to full marathons. They're real milestones as examples of what she's done and how far she's come. I wanted that. I wanted a mark of progress. I wanted some sort of athletic showcase to show how far I've made it. I wanted to do a 5k.
My step mother, Julie, told me about a workout program and it's accompanying website Couch-to-5k at www.c25k.com. It's a program designed to take someone from complete inactivity to being able to run a 5k, 3.1 miles, in nine weeks. I highly encourage anyone looking to start running to give this program a try.
The program has you running three days a week with different intervals. The first day, you start with jogging for 60 seconds and then walking for 90 seconds. You swith between the jogging and running for around twenty minutes. As you progress through the program, the jogging intervals get longer and the walking intervals get shorter until week nine when you're running for forty minutes straight.
Only one minute of jogging then a break? Ha. Child's play. Or so I thought. Perhaps three years and 60-70 pounds ago, it would have been a breeze. Perhaps when I was an athlete, I could have laughed it off. I had been firmly settled in to a sedentary lifestyle. When was the last time I really ran? I had my answer to that question about twenty seconds after the first running interval started. Had I really fallen this far that I couldn't jog for a minute straight?
Stephanie was there to help. Like I mentioned earlier, she's a crazy running person. She knows her stuff. She was able to give me tips that helped a lot. With Steph as my running and nutrition coach and Zach as my weightlifting coach, I had my own personal Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper! Without the gay thing of course.
Pain is about all I remember when I got started. My arms, chest, shoulders, legs, and just about everything else throbbed from lifting. My knees, hips, and ankles were screaming from the impact that jogging brings with it.
I was hurting physically way more than I ever had but I was feeling great. While I still get sore and tired (you're kind of supposed to!), the pain slowly began to ease as my body got used to getting off the couch. The ball was rolling and it was rolling fast!
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