Run, Run, Running
Well, its been a bit since my last running post but I think its about time to add some more.
Susan G Komen 5K in Hartford
This was my first ever 5K and boy was it fun. The race had thousands of people (which, later, people told me isn’t a good idea for your first 5K). I found myself trying to just get into a stride for the first mile because there were so many people of different skills and speeds. I got into my stride after the first mile but… I realized I’ve only been training on completely flat surfaces. So when I got to my first hill, then second, then third… I realized I wasn’t mentally or physically prepared for hills. But, thankfully, because this was a Breast Cancer fundraiser with survivors all over the place creaming my time I felt like it was impossible to go slower than them.
My second big mistakes was that I didn’t really know the course before I started. This led me to thinking that we were coming into the finish line when we actually have another .75 mile loop to do. I was so defeated on that last loop… I gave everything I had way before that so it was a lot tougher than I wanted it to be.
I ended up finishing in an all out sprint with a final time of 34:57. My coach was happy, I was ecstatic that I even finished, but I went back to training.
A special note to everyone that helped me raise money for this cause: thank you SO much from the bottom of my heart. As a first 5K, I wasn’t even sure I was going to finish but I’m happy to have finished and supported such a great cause. We raised $670.01 and it all went to Komen CT!
GE Petit 5K
This was my next race but SO much hotter than the last one. Luckily, the residents of the area were super nice and put out sprinklers and hoses to cool everyone off. Before I did this 5K, my Coach at www.prsfit.com told me to essentially “run as hard as you can until you puke”. Well, thats basically what I did. I memorized the course before I left and it was relatively flat which helped.
I ended up coming in at 29:23 totally obliterating my previous 5K. This was my second 5K so I was so excited to kill my previous PR.
Moving Forward
My big “A” race as people call it is the Hartford Half-Marathon. I’m going to be working up to a 10K in August and then the half in October. So far its been pretty great. I’m hoping that the heat will give me an advantage so when it (hopefully) cools off in October I’ll be better prepared.
Also, today marks 197 lbs for me. I’m just so excited about this that I have to keep writing it down. I have 17 more lbs to go for my goal weight as given to me by my Doctor. I started this March and its just been a huge ride losing about 50 lbs so far. Between my exercise, lifestyle changes (brought on by The Best Life Diet), and perseverance I’ve been able to get into the best shape of my life. Thanks to my wife Jamie and my coworkers James for helping me push along when I’ve wanted to give up.
Diet For The Rest Of Your Life
Thats the question I think you need to ask yourself when you start a diet or fitness program. Most people think to themselves, “Oh I can do diet X for the next 4 months to lose my weight.” The first major problem with this is obvious: diets don’t produce results when you aren’t on them.
If your diet is a temporary choice, you will lose weight (most likely) up until you stop doing it. Then when you go back to your normal eating habits, you’ll regain the weight and lose all your gains.
Thats why diets don’t really work for most people. “No carb”, “High protein”, “All liquid” diets can work temporarily (at this point, I’m ignoring the nutritional issues with some of these) but if you do “no carb” can you really tell yourself you’ll never have bread the rest of your life? I doubt it.
The same goes for your fitness strategy. I’ve had several friends do P90X and fall off the wagon. I think this, again, is relatively simple: while a program like P90X can provide rapid results do you have the willpower to do it the rest of your life? I’ve personally never done the program, but it sounds like after doing a day of it you wish you were at the end of your life.
Its important to choose small steps that you can continue doing for the rest of your life. If you make incremental improvements, you can build and build and build until you reach the point where you answer “this is the most I can do for the rest of my life”.
For me, this ends with two choices: following the Best Life diet (a list of healthy eating guidelines essentially) and upping my activity levels. As I’ve written in my other post, I knew that running too much would likely kick me off the wagon. So I took small jumps… run a few more this week and then lift a few more the next week. At some point, I’ll realize that I’ve reached my fitness plateau. I can blast a bit more in the short term to make gains I won’t be able to sustain more than that plateau.
So now that we’re coming up to beach season, think about your diets as a choice during those hard times: holidays, five years from now, vacations. While its OK to bend the rules, these aren’t rules until you meet your goal they are rules for your best life.
How Losing Weight Is Easy (If You Do It Right)
I started this adventure when I realized I was overweight. Well, overweight is how I like to say it as technically I’m obese (thanks, BMI). I initially started with a *very* aggressive diet plan that I won’t name. At the time I was telling myself that I wasn’t going for the get think quick plan, but I really was. I found the rules VERY difficult to follow especially when it comes to traveling for work. So I inevitably lasted about a week… and then had to give up.
Then on some advice of my wife, I found an amazing diet plan. I’m going to spend the rest of this post covering some of the amazing tools that I’ve found that have worked really well for me, but also share some of the insights I’ve come to learn.
The Best Life Diet (about $6)
This diet plan has been absolutely amazing. While calling it a diet is sort of a misnomer (its really just healthy eating), it was able to do what a lot of other books, diets, plans were unable to do for me: create a realistic set of goals. The Best Life Diet is broken down into three phases: Getting Started, Digging Deeper, and Life Long Maintenance. It has a set of simple rules that are laid out like “no white bread” or “no soda” to start with. To start with in Phase One, there are only 6 rules you need to follow.
I personally love “rules”. I think its much easier to make healthy food choices when you have a set of guidelines instead of merely telling yourself, “I’ll just eat healthier.” The book breaks down how some “healthy” foods sneak around as very un-healthy ones. (Did you know that even if a box says 0 g trans-fat it can have up to .49 g of trans fat?)
Run Your Butt Off (about $12)
I thought this book was quite helpful. Part of the “Best Life Diet” is to increase your activity. What I usually do when it comes down to this is to start running… too much. I’m not physically fit as it is so running for a mile or two all of a sudden will do me little good but tire me out and make me stop faster. “Run Your Butt Off” covers a bit of a “walk to run” program: the idea that getting active is the most important part of a new exercise routine. Don’t set unrealistic goals for yourself, thats the easiest way to fail. Instead, set very realistic goals… walking for 5 minutes, then running for 1, all the way up to running for 45 minutes straight. I’ve also used other plans online but this is the best book I could find that covers the process.
In another post, I will cover a few of the devices and iPhone apps that I’ve been using as well.
