Exercise

So, I have started an exercise routine over the last two weeks that is either going to help me lose some weight or KILL ME!!!! Sometimes I think that the latter is the only possible outcome.

I joke, I joke. It has actually been very helpful (although painful). You know how you get it in your mind that you want to lose some weight, feel better, or get more healthy through exercise and/or diet from time to time? Well, in late January I felt that way. Let me tell you how it went down because I have lost 30 pounds since late January.

So, there was this person I knew that was trying to diet. However, it was impossible for them to diet because everyone around them was not dieting (I agree it is not easy to eat healthy when everyone around you is eating all that wonderful tasting crap that we so often consume). They began to try and recruit people to start dieting as well, so that they could stick to their diet. I thought about it and blew the person off a couple of times.

A couple of weeks later, though, I began to feel like I never really had very much energy and that my joints were painful after a lot of walking or standing on my feet (sometimes not even after a lot of walking or standing on my feet). At about the same time I went to see my doctor for my annual physical and he told me my cholesterol was too high. I put 2 and 2 together and decided that I needed to start a diet and probably an exercise regimen.

I knew that the biggest challenge to any diet/exercise routine was too much too fast. I started to think about what small step I could take to ease into it. After that small step I would add the next small step and so on until I was starting to make real progress.

At the time I was drinking Dr. Pepper (the best soda in the whole world!!!!!!) like 50 times a day. As hard as it was I decided to quit the soda (except for once a week, I love that time of the week, the nectar of the gods as some say). I stopped drinking soda for two or three weeks. I lost about 4 pounds doing that and I already started feeling better (not a ton, but it was noticeable).

The next small step was that I was going to eat a healthy dinner every day (lunch with the work buddies was too much for me to turn it into something healthy, so I started with dinner). I really like those Healthy Select soups. They only have 120 calories per serving. So, I started to just eat soup for dinner. After 2 weeks of that and cutting out the extraneous snacks I lost another 6 pounds. So, I was down 10 pounds after about a month and a week.

Going into March I decided that I couldn't still eat 1500 calories at lunch and accomplish my goals. So, I did what I never thought I would (especially if you knew me from my teenage years and on up) I looked up nutritional information on the internet for the various fast food and sit down restaurants I ate lunch at. I picked out a HEALTHY meal at every place I knew I might go for lunch. I stuck to that meal. In another two or three weeks I was down another 5 pounds. Go 15 pounds!

It had been two months and I had lost 15 pounds. It wasn't just the weight loss. I was feeling better and I was eating healthier. I had more energy, more stamina, etc. I really did feel physically better than I had (significantly) two months prior. I started this diet weighing 280 lbs though, and I wasn't happy with 265 lbs. So, I needed the next step.

Exercise reared its ugly head. You work all day sitting in a chair staring at a computer monitor. You then go home tired (oddly enough) and sit down and watch tv or play on the wii. I was getting almost no exercise at all throughout the day/week (hence the 280 lbs). So, starting an exercise routine was tough. I am not going to lie to you it wasn't easy even getting to a respectable workout. I was exercising 20 minutes and stopping. You are not going to lose weight doing that. So, I worked everyday doing just a little more at a little bit of a faster pace until I got up to 1 hour workouts. I have lost another 15 lbs because of those workouts.

I am down to 250 lbs from the 280 lbs I started out at. I feel so much better and even look physically thinner now. I went to this website that said if you burn 500 calories a workout (7 days a week) you should lose at least 2 lbs a week. I am on the 500 calorie workout now and hope to continue to lose at least 2 lbs a week until I get to 200 lbs. So, 50 lbs at 2 lbs a week means 25 weeks. So, hopefully in 6 months time I am down to 200 lbs. That is my goal, although I don't think it will take that long because I have been losing more than 2 lbs a week.

Pretty cool, huh? I can't tell you how important taking small steps is in starting a diet/exercise regimen when you're not used to it. There will be a point where you start to feel good about the diet and exercise and will naturally feel like you want to step it up. Until you get to that point, you have to set up small baby steps that you can accomplish. It took me about 9 weeks until I felt like I wanted to naturally step my game up.

If you're thinking about dieting and/or exercising give my advice a shot. It might save you from some really prohibitive painful workouts and/or burning out in a week. If you are trying to lose some weight or get more healthy...good luck!!!