Starting Fresh

So, tomorrow morning I am starting a new job in Indianapolis. Although I live in Lafayette now, I’m planning to move down to Indianapolis around the end of August (yay!). As things stand, I’ve been slightly less motivated than usual lately, so I’m hoping a new job (and new routine) will make it easier for me to get back into the habit of regular gym days. My usual schedule is running 3-4 miles on Monday and Wednesday, doing a shorter jog or the elliptical along with weights on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then Fridays are a crapshoot–sometimes I do a 3-4 mile jog with intervals or I do 40 minutes or so on the elliptical. The weekends are also unpredictable. I have been known to go for long 7-10 mile hikes on Saturday mornings, but sometimes I just let the laziness take over, which is totally okay.

However, with the hot weather, I have not been motivated to go for runsoutside, or some nights even drive over to the gym, so I’ve been adding in lots of dancing in my living room to make up for fewer runs. I’m hoping to get back on track with my runs this week as I am doing the Zoo Run Run 5k in a couple weeks and want to be ready for the run in the heat. I did run about 4 miles today, and according to the app on my phone, I did 2 of those miles at about a 9:30 pace, which for me, is awesome.So, things are looking up.

So, in the spirit of trying to re-motivate myself, I’m taking a look back at where I started from. A little over a year ago, my boyfriend and I made a wager as to who could lose 10 lbs. first. I think we initially had a 25 dollar bet, but I’m not sure anymore. We also agreed that neither of us could eat any french fries until we lost 10 lbs. This little rule sounds incredibly simple looking back at it now, but at the time, I was eating french fries at least a couple times a week, and I LOVE french fries.

Anyway, this little wager helped me to finally get going on my goal to run that I had set the summer before while I was broken in pieces. I stopped eating french fries and other fried foods, I tried to eat smaller portions in general, and I made sure to go for 3-4 mile walks most every day. Soon, I started adding some jogging to my walks, doing intervals of each. I would run maybe a quarter mile or so, and then walk a quarter mile, and then repeat that pattern until I felt like I was going to do. At that point, running more than a quarter mile at a time was a challenge.

I think it ended up taking about two months, but we both ended up losing our 10 lbs. around the same time, and to celebrate, we ate french fries. I know, terrible. Afterwards we stopped eating fries again for a while completely, and I kept working toward my running goal. I went out most days of the week and challenged myself to try and run farther and farther each time. In November, I joined a local gym, and at that point began training on the treadmill. When I joined the gym, I had worked my way up to being able to run about a mile without stopping, and I made it a goal to run a 5k.

The very last week of December, I huffed and puffed through 3 miles on the treadmill without stopping. It was a definite struggle and I thought I was going to die by the end, but I did it. I wanted to cry I was so happy and proud of myself. I signed up for my first 5k, and in March completed the Challenge 5k on Purdue’s campus with a time of 31:29, which was waaaaay better than I ever would have expected myself to do.

Me, last summer at the start of my wager to lose 10 lbs.

Me, a couple weeks ago, down 35 lbs and feeling AMAZING!

I’ve kept running, and trying to improve both my time and my endurance. I’ve moved up to running 4 miles several times a week, with not as much of a struggle, and last week I ran 5 miles for the first time. I feel stronger. I feel better about the way I look. I feel like I have so much more power within me than I would have ever imagined. In the past year I have lost about 35 lbs. without doing any fad diets. I have changed the way I live, my general eating habits, and my view on fitness, and I believe these are things that will stick with me. So, today I will celebrate, because I am f*cking awesome.