Running: getting easier

Turns out I didn't need to be as skeptical of my ability to complete week 3 of the couch-to-5k program as I was. Last night's workout went remarkably easy. I didn't feel nearly as physically taxed during the two three-minute runs as I was expecting. It actually felt easy.

Am I turning into a runner? Perish the thought.

I managed to get through the workday without indulging in candy (besides a couple of Hershey's dark chocolate truffle kisses). Time to go trick-or-treating now. Neither my niece nor my nephew are big fans of candy -- so why do they go out in the first place? Must be the joy of getting stuff for free -- and they try to give a lot of it away. Tonight, I'm not buying.

New shoes

I am now the proud owner of a pair of 2007 Nike Air Pegasus + running shoes. Sounds like I just bought a car, doesn't it?

I had to try on seven pairs of shoes before finally settling on this one. Ironically, this was the first pair I tried on. I didn't really like the look of them, but the next several pairs I tried were either too narrow or too short.

I'm taking them for a spin on the treadmill tonight. The nice thing about getting shoes at Running Room is that you can take them back within 30 days as long as you haven't worn them outdoors.

Weekend Update

Not much to update, really. I've run for the last four days, so today will be a rest day before I start week 3 of the Couch to 5K program: two intervals of 1:30 run/1:30 walk/3:00 run/3:00 walk.

This week will be the first week in a while we're going out to eat twice. Tonight we're going to The Works Burger Bistro on our way to Running Room to get me a pair of indoor running shoes. Nepean Sportsplex is banning outdoor shoes starting Friday, necessitating the new shoes. Wednesday, we'll probably be picking up some fast food on the way to joining Lynne's niece and nephew in trick-or-treating. I'm only holding myself to two rules, no soda and reasonable portions, so hopefully I won't see too much of a weight gain this week (if at all). If I could get through Thanksgiving weekend without gaining, I can make it through this week, right?

The back story

So what prompted this latest attempt at weight loss? It actually started about two months before I really began in earnest, when I TiVo'ed NBC's rebroadcast of the 2006 Ironman World Championship from Hawaii. (Incidentally, Hawaii in high definition is breathtaking.) As I was watching it, it rekindled an old desire I had to do a triathlon someday. I watched it three or four times before going on vacation, and it motivated me more and more each time.

Now, of course, being around 300 lbs. and completely out of shape like I was is not really conducive to running a triathlon, even the shorter sprint variety. So, I slowly started to get myself in shape. And I do mean slowly, at least at first. So slowly, in fact, that I once again found myself at a complete stop shortly after coming back from vacation.

But I watched that recording again and again, and something must have finally snapped, because I started a new routine at the beginning of October and haven't stopped yet. I started out doing laps around my block, which I measured out to be almost exactly a mile. I walked it at first, then started to run for short bursts. When it was too dark to do that, I ran/walked on the treadmill in my building. I did two laps of the block in the rain one day, which is completely unheard of for me.

It got better. I started doing the Couch-to-5K program on Cool Running. I improved my eating habits, to the point where it's now second nature for me to have breakfast at home and take my lunch to work, instead of buying both meals in the cafeteria. I got a 6-month membership at the local municipal fitness complex, giving me somewhere to run on a decent treadmill and ride on a decent stationary bike in the winter. I'm planning on signing up for spinning classes, and on getting myself in the pool. I'm even to the point where I'm considering signing up to run the 5K on marathon weekend here in Ottawa next May.

The results so far have been tremendous. I'm currently down 11.8 pounds in 20 days, and I'm excited for more. My current goal is to get under 250 by February 1. We're going on a cruise to the Southern Caribbean, and I want to be able to sign up for some of the excursions that require you to be under 250 to participate. Long-term, though, the goal is still to get under 200, and I really think I'm going to make it this time.

Ten down

I weighed myself back on October 4, and clocked in at 301.6 lbs. My weight yesterday morning was 291.0.

More details soon.

WHAM

That was the sound of my mid-August allergies hitting me. My exercising may be curtailed somewhat while I lay in bed with horrible sinus headaches, wishing for sweet, sweet death.

14 months later...

I wasn't away. Honest. I just had a really, really long nap.

Oh, who am I kidding? I was away. Away gaining weight. Away not being active. This last year's been a pretty hard one to just get through -- I probably had clinical depression, although I never went to see anyone about it. To be honest, I probably still have it, but I'm working my way through it. It's like trying to make your way through a very thick fog. You have no idea which way you're going for a while, but eventually (if you're lucky), the sun burns it off and you can see your way again.

I put on a total of nine pounds in the last fourteen months, so it wasn't a complete disaster. 95 pounds is still doable. I'll try starting with 5 pounds by the end of August, though, especially since I'll be travelling for a week starting Sunday.

Weight update - June 7 (belated)

After a bad week where I didn't get to the gym at all, although I did walk a few times...I'm down to 285.2, 3 pounds lighter than last week. That's over 15 pounds lost overall.

I think the diet is more important than the exercise right now. I managed to stick to my eating regimen for the most part, so I still burned off calories despite being more sedentary than what's been normal recently.

Two notes:

- I started geocaching again this week, so that's at least gotten my butt out of the house (or office). I've found six caches this week alone, after finding only two all last year. W00t!

- I have a pre-op exam with a laser eye surgeon tomorrow. Getting LASIK has been something I've wanted to do since I first heard of it, and now I finally have the means to do it. It'll be so nice to be able to see at all times -- no fumbling for glasses to see the clock radio, no glasses fogging up in the winter, no glasses to get in the way when towelling down my face during a workout...awesome.

Weight update - May 31

288.0 pounds, accourding to Not So Evil, Slowly Becoming My Friend Digital Scale. That puts me at a double-digit loss after five weeks (yay!).

Today I get back on track after a rough day yesterday. I felt pretty miserable waking up, and ended up not eating breakfast at home OR taking my lunch to work. I did both of those things today, and I have a cardio workout planned for this evening.

This is getting exciting.

Good and bad

90 percent of life is just showing up.
--Woody Allen

I thought of this quote Friday night at the gym. It turned out that, despite having no excuses to skip the gym, I still didn't want to go. I actually didn't think I was going to go, so strong was my apathy. (Can you have strong apathy? Whatever.)

I knew though, that just showing up at the gym would be winning the battle, because once I got to the gym, working out would be easy. So I made up something to overcome my inertia and get me out of the house -- namely, a trip to Athlete's World for a new pair of workout shorts, because one of the pairs I bought in the States was 2X, despite saying 1X on the hanger. (Thankfully, I'm not THAT big.) All the way to the store, I kept thinking, "I'm never getting to the gym."

I bought the shorts -- a really cheap, really nice pair of Adidas shorts -- and left the mall, still thinking I'd never get to the gym.

I drove around aimlessly for a bit. "Not happening."

I turned around and started for the gym. "You'll never make it."

I pulled into the gym parking lot. "You honestly think you're getting out of the car?"

I walked into the gym and completed a nice workout. "Show-off."

The bad news is, I seem to have plantar fasciitis. So it looks like my running regimen is on hold for awhile. I hope to make it to the sports medicine clinic sometime soon to get it looked at, although I don't really know what they can do about it.

Curses!

I'm getting infuriated with the sports networks around here. How is it that, with three major sports networks in Canada, Blue Jays fans like myself can go EIGHT DAYS without seeing but one game on television?

Oh well...it leaves me with no excuses for not going to the gym tonight. Not that I was planning not to.

Running

And I ran
I ran so far away
--A Flock Of Seagulls

I never thought I would be a runner. I'd heard all the horror stories -- running kills your knees, your feet, your shins, etc. Having a heavy frame, I didn't think I was cut out to be a runner. And running scared the hell out of me, just because of the feeling of utter exhaustion I always got when I ran somewhere, thanks to my complete lack of conditioning.

I still may not be a runner...but running doesn't scare me like it used to.

During this past month, I never felt like I was getting all I could out of my cardio training. I could do the machines I was on without too much trouble, and my heart rate was up to where it should have been for cardio, but I never felt like I was pushing myself. I wondered if I needed to try something more intense. And with all the walking I've been doing, I started to think that maybe I could run after all.

I got a book two weeks ago called The Beginning Runner's Handbook, which describes a 13-week program designed to get anyone to be able to run a 5-K or 10-K run by the end of it. I read the program, and immediately thought, "I can do this." So today, I went out to try the first step:

Run one minute. Walk two minutes. Do this 12 times.

How simple is that? You don't have to run any kind of distance. Just run for one minute. Then walk off the laboured breathing. Then run one more minute.

And you know something? I did it. (Well, almost -- I miscalculated, and got back to my building after the tenth repetition. I know I could have done all 12, though, even if I was getting jelly-legged after the 10th run.) It was challenging, but not super-difficult. And at no point during the run/walk did I think I couldn't finish.

Can I do this for 13 weeks? Do I want to do this for 13 weeks? I don't know. But I want to do it again on Monday, and that's what matters.

Weight update - May 24

Getting-Less-Evil-With-Each-Passing-Day Digital Scale has me at 290.8, down 3.2 pounds from last week. Most of that weight came off in the first three days, and I stayed pretty even for the rest of the week -- excellent news, considering my weekend meals included stops at McDonald's, Arby's and Denny's.

I'm hoping this week will be a big week, since I don't have anything that would have me eating away from home for an extended period like this past week did, and it looks like it's going to be sunny for awhile, so I can walk to work without needing to carry the big giant umbrella, and then eventually getting driven to work because I HATE carrying the big giant umbrella for a half hour.

Wow, that was quite the run-on sentence.

Road trip

My wife and I decided to go to Syracuse this weekend. With the Canadian dollar at over 90 cents US, shopping across the border is amazing. We're saving at least 20% on everything we buy just by being in the States!

Even better, we went to a big outlet mall about a half hour west of Syracuse and saved even more. I'd say we got about $750 worth of clothes for $400. I went to the Reebok store and got some awesome new workout clothes, plus some new summer wear. Incredibly, I've already used the workout clothes -- I got up early, on a SUNDAY, to work out on the recumbent bike in the fitness centre. I swear, I don't even recognize myself sometimes.

I haven't been eating at the greatest places, but I'm not eating as much. Plus, all of the walking we've done through shopping centres (probably about 7 hours worth) helps me keep things in balance as well.

On the down side, Syracuse is quite a dreary little city.

Small victory

I realized just now that I managed to eat breakfast at home and bring lunch to work every day this week. I haven't done this in...well, ever. It seems like such a simple thing, but it makes such an incredible difference in my sense of well-being. Last week, when I bought breakfast at work twice (oatmeal muffin) and lunch three times (grilled cheese and bacon sandwich w/fries), I felt like crawling under my desk for a nap in the middle of the afternoon nearly every day.

Exercise has suffered, though, thanks to the constant threat of rain that got me driven to work every day this week and kept me from the gym every day but one. I'm such a wuss.

Weight update - May 17

Evil Digital Scale had good news this morning -- I'm down 0.2 pounds to 294. Any decrease is a good decrease, especially when it hasn't been a great week since my last weigh-in.

This week should be better. The only times I'll be eating away from home are Friday night at my niece's birthday (and that shouldn't be too bad, given the food at my Portuguese sister-in-law's gatherings generally isn't that good), and a Monday afternoon BBQ at my parents' place to celebrate the long weekend. I'm determined to make it to the gym five times this week, since the weather is likely going to be crappy enough that I won't be walking to work much, if at all.

I got a good tip for using the elliptical machine yesterday. Loosening my shoes before getting on the machine kept my feet from falling asleep as they normally do. If you have tight shoes, your feet won't move at all while on the machine, and will fall asleep halfway through the workout. Loosening them causes your feet to rise slightly on each stride, and keeps the blood circulating enough to maintain the feeling in them.

Fearing the scale

I'm not looking forward to weighing myself tomorrow. I had a pretty bad week, at least as far as eating went.

My exercise was OK, although not up to expectations. I walked six miles, did one round of weight training, and tried the ill-fated BodyPump class on Sunday. Other than that class, though, I haven't had any exercise since Friday, and haven't been to the gym since last Wednesday. I have plans to go tonight to work out on either the elliptical trainer or the treadmill.

Eating is what's killed me, though. I failed to bring my lunch to work twice last week. I had two Mother's Day meals out on the weekend, neither of which you could really consider particularly healthy (although they weren't super-high in calories, either). Last night was the killer, though -- I was feeling a bit tired and low, so my wife and I went out to the local BBQ restaurant, where I had the rib platter, followed by a wonderful brownie sundae. Well, at least it was wonderful while I was eating it.

I'm getting better at making meals at home, but I still have a ways to go before it becomes a habit.

Exercising and work

One of the real perks about my new job is the proximity. I left my old job for good because they moved to a place that would take me over an hour each way by bus. (It was 20 minutes each way at the original location.) My current commute is half an hour...on foot:



(I love Google Maps.)

So I save $70 a month on public transit, plus I get the added benefit of walking four miles every day. And the neighbourhood on the bottom part of the map is very pleasant to walk through. It almost makes up for having to cross two busy highway on-ramps in the other half of the walk.

My legs have gone from feeling like jelly to screaming with pain, so I may not do the walk home today.

Near-death experience

SCALE UPDATE: My parents' scale had me at around 291. That's only 4 pounds lower than my digital scale, but over 10 pounds higher than the rotary scale. Looks like evil digital scale wins.

One of the problems I have while exercising is that I often overestimate my abilities. I'll try too high a setting on the elliptical trainer, or I'll try and lift too much weight, or I'll try and go for too long on the bike. Normally, this isn't much of a problem, as I'll just adjust a bit, or cut a workout short.

This morning, though...well, read the title of this post.

I decided to try one of the BodyPump classes at my gym. It's basically high reps of light weights at a quick pace set to music. Think "weight training meets aerobics class". I'd been doing strength training twice a week for the last month or so, and my cardio was improving, so I decided to give it a shot. It started out OK, doing a warmup with a 5 lb. barbell. But -- and this was my critical error -- I put too much weight on the bar (20 lbs.) for the first real set of exercises. LEG exercises. I managed to make my way through the set with some difficulty. I then did OK with the next set, which were bench presses, done lying down. When I went to get back up for the next set (back and hamstrings), I knew my legs were totally done. I had completely burned them out with the quad exercises.

I went for the water bottle, but I didn't have anything with sugar in it, so I had no chance of getting any energy back. I started to feel queasy. I sat through the next two sets, then left the studio to take a walk. BIG mistake. I should have stayed right where I was. Getting up just made my queasiness worse, and I quickly ended up in the washroom riding the porcelain bus.

As I write this, I'm still a bit jelly-legged. I think I'm just going to go back to my regular routine for the time being. I'm still proud of myself for at least giving it a shot, though.

Kicking the coke habit

No, not THAT coke.

It's now been five weeks -- 35 whole days! -- since I had my last can of Coke. Or any other soft drink, for that matter. Nothing fancy, I just decided I wasn't going to drink pop anymore, and I haven't since. And I have seven sets of tally marks on my refrigerator as a nice reminder.

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that's the longest I've ever gone in my adult life without pop. Maybe my first crack at Atkins in 1999, but that's definitely it. I'm not even drinking diet pop, because I don't like the aftertaste, and it usually gives me a headache.

The great part about it? I can honestly say that I don't miss it. Me discovering Mr. Pibb on a trip to Las Vegas at the end of February and craving it for the rest of the trip seems a lifetime ago.