Many months ago I started working out. Needless to say, it didn’t really work out that good. I had originally tried working out by doing all the weights and using the treadmill and biking machines. It was nice for a short time and all, but I very quickly lost the enthusiasm to keep up with it. I then purchased the iPhone fitness app iFitness to try and get me back but ended up never going back to workout again.
After some months I enrolled in a program through work that tried to teach some healthier things to do. Start simple by just walking and build up to jogging and go from there. That, along with cutting soda from my diet, helped get me going again. I started to run around the campus a few times a week. In the first many months of this I’d go about a mile then just have to walk a distance and then walk/run the rest of the way back to the apartment. Total I was running about 1.5-2 miles per trip and walking the rest of the distance.
Enter Nike+. Like any good and loyal geek, when the new iPhone 3GS came out, I had to have it. Not because I’d actually use all the functionality, but because I just had to. So, my older iPhone 3G 16GB got transferred to Justin and I purchased the 32GB iPhone 3GS. A few months after having it I bought a pair of Nike shoes along with the Nike+ sensor. This is what has changed my health and my body the most. In the beginning I was starting easy by running 2-3 miles. After a few weeks I was able to go the distance without stopping. Then I signed up for a coaching program on the Nike+ website which helped get me up to better distances more often during the week.
About a month into using Nike+ I had minor surgery to remove some moles (one on stomach and one on my arm). A few days after that I fell off my bike and slid across a sidewalk – not a pleasant experience to say the least. Both of these events combined caused me to take just over two weeks from running either because I didn’t want to rip out the stitches or it was just too painful to run as I had scraped up my knee, leg, elbows and palms. Once the stitches came out however, I had pretty much completely healed from the fall. A few days later I restarted my Nike+ coaching as I had fallen way behind.
While getting back into it, it seemed like the coaching was pushing me too much but I was able to quickly get back into a good grove. That was two months ago. In those eight weeks, I have ridden my bike to work almost every single day (only about 4 miles total distance round-trip) and I am now up to running four times a week. Tonight I ran my first six-mile run. Admittedly I had to take a small pause after four miles but then did the rest and maintained a good pace throughout.
What is the point in all of this? Well, I haven’t lifted any weights at all. I haven’t even seen the fitness center at all since I started running. All I’ve done is ran and rode my bike. In the past three weeks I have lost over ten pounds, I’ve felt healthier than ever before and I am starting to see definition in my abs. Seeing real results like these is what keeps me getting back out on the road or on the track running so much. Tonight I weighed in at 189 lbs which is the lowest I’ve weighed in a number of years. My goal is to weigh 180 lbs, but I’d like to weigh less if possible. Given my current progress – not a problem!
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