I have finally gotten off my ass and started thinking about my future and being healthy.
I have done every kind of diet and exercise routine imaginable only to find myself eventually stuffing my mouth with every kind of bad carb, high sugar, and unhealthy food item out there. The longest diet that I ever survived was in 2003 when I went on the Atkins diet and got down to 188lbs. I was too skinny. I don't give a damn that all the literature out there says that the most I should weight at 5'11" is 177lbs; I would look disgusting at 177lbs. Even when I was down to 188lbs my friends were asking me if I was in the final stages of a deadly disease. I had to quickly correct them and tell the it was the Atkins diet that was making me shed all my weight - not AIDS.
I was sitting at home watching tv and shopping the Apps store on iTunes when I came across an application, Couch to 5K, and it really caught my attention. It was an application that is designed to help you prepare to run a 5K in 9 weeks. This time frame works perfectly with a work function 5K that will take place in April. For the last two years I have attended this 5K but I was given the "walking" colored number to pin to the front of my shirt and it made me really think about how good it would feel to actually run the event. I bought the application for $2.99 and started reading over it. It sets you up to build stamina and tolerance for running and by the 9th week on the program I should be able to run 30 minutes without stopping. The program starts out with a 5 minute warm up, which I have decided that I will walk, and then alternating running for 60 seconds and walking for 90 seconds and wraps up with a 5 minute cool down period. Each week the routine progressed and by the 9th week I should be running the entire 30 minutes.
Walking has always been my exercise of choice. It is easy on my knees and honestly I have never been able to run very well. If my house was burning I would probably run to the front door and then give up and except the fact that my skin was burning. The first day I started the program it was very difficult to run with my fat stomach and big man boobs. It felt like I had two five pound weights slamming against my heart and every time my foot hit the pavement I wanted to give up. Who needs additional wrist and leg weights when I have these two man boobs holding me down? At one point I thought my boobs were going to just rip off my body and flop on the ground like silicon implants. If I had long hair and it was windy out I would look like a model for the 1980's running along the sandy beaches of South Florida while my breasts bobbed up and down blackening my eyes with each step.
These big man boobs were going to be an issue so I had to try and figure out how to solve this problem. I thought about wrapping my chest up with saran wrap, an ace bandage, of even worse, a female sports bra. I said it in jest until I was at Target the other night and I stopped at the ladies work out clothes section and gave the sports bras a once over. I thumbed through the different sizes and after pulling out a 2X in pink, I put it back down and continued walking. Even though it would be my secret I still wouldn't feel comfortable purchasing a ladies sports bra knowing it was going to be housing a set of hairy boobs attached to my chest.
The other application that I purchased, Lose It, calculates how much I currently weight, how much I want to lose per week, and then tells me how many calories I can have per day and when I will reach my goal. I currently weight 237lbs, yes I wear it very well, but my goal is to get down to 200lbs. If I stick to my daily calorie budget of 1928 per day I will reach my goal on June 30, 2011. Since I started my new lifestyle this past Wednesday I have been under target each day for my daily calories. I am doing very well and it is amazing how better I eat when I pre-plan my meals and bring food with me to work. At first I thought that I would be starving with only 1928 calories a day but with all this exercise I am doing and eating healthier I have not been hungry at all.
I was trying to figure out why I was finally making these changes. My long term goal is to be the healthiest person that I can be. I spent so many years dieting and trying to lose weight but I really never cared about being in shape. I felt that being skinny was all that mattered. I have opened my eyes and now realize that skinny people can actually be unhealthier than fat people and that cholesterol can live inside a skinny person's veins as much as a fat persons. This isn't about losing weight but about being in shape and living the best life that I can. It was my "ah ha" moment and I hope I will run with it for the rest of my life.
Have I been watching a lot of Oprah lately? YES I HAVE!
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