Couch to 5K

If I haven’t said it before, let me just take a moment to tell those newcomers what I’m talking about, the rest of you can skip down a paragraph or two. I have felt, since about the time that I married Matt, that I wanted to lose some weight. It wasn’t bad, but I just wanted get rid of a few pounds. Then I noticed some of my clothes didn’t fit so great anymore. I didn’t really have a good job, for a while I didn’t have a job at all and I guess I was a little stressed out and a little depressed. I’m not making excuses or crying for help or anything, it just was. Sometimes, I have a hard time getting motivated to do things as well, which makes life a bit harder than it should be. I finally realized I needed to get moving when I weighed myself and found I was close to 160 lbs. I’m about 5 feet, 6 inches and I was working on getting to the unhealthy weight, according to BMI charts. So I joined a site called MyFitnessPal.com. It helped me track calories and set goals for myself. When I first joined, I was so embarrassed by my weight, I LIED to a website and put in 157 lbs. for my starting weight. Thankfully, the next time I weighed myself, I did weight 157, so it’s a hope that I either lost it really quickly or was already on my way to not weighing 160. Since then, I have become an avid collector of workout videos. I eat much healthier (most of the time), and I’ve lost 6 lbs. If you start from the 160 weight, I’ve lost 9. My goal weight, at this moment, is 145. It puts me squarely in the healthy BMI and body weight, and its not some strange weight I have concocted for myself based on what I weighed in high school. (Holy crap, I was really tiny and I thought I was fat, I am so dumb.)

So. That was longer than I expected. But, the point here is that I’ve plateaued a bit with my weight loss. I bounce back and forth between 150 – 152 lbs. (oh boy does that piss me off) and I’ve gained back some muscle I lost in my legs. I’ve also put some muscle on my arms, which is really exciting! I’ve never had arm muscles before! So, I noticed that a friend of mine from the Fitness Pal website/Facebook had started a program called Couch to 5K. This program helps you get prepared to run a 5K in about two months. Maybe a bit more. It starts you out slow and then you work into doing the full 3 miles. Today was my first day. It was much easier than I expected, for myself. I would like to remind you, dear readers, I started being serious in August of 2010 and I’ve been doing cardio workouts about 3-4 times a week. So, starting the running wasn’t as bad as I originally anticipated. I expect it be hard about week 3. But I think I would like to try to get in shape for a 5K (that’s three miles, right?!) and do one of those. And, it can only help my weight loss goals and overall fitness goals. (I’m totally going to get ripped abs. Someday.) I already feel so much better about my body and I think that’s what important.

I’m also blogging about this as a reminder to myself. I’ve been slipping a little these past two weeks because I LOVE LOVE LOVE junk food. It’s a problem. So, this is a reminder to myself that I’m proud of the work I’ve done and I can find low cal/healthy sweet things to eat. Yeah.

So the pictures for today are pictures of myself and I hope you don’t think me narcissistic. I just want to post my progress and I just got done running so that’s all I’m thinking about. I was going to take a picture of the treadmill I used in the apartment’s facilities, but I forgot my camera.

My front. I has the curves, and I kinda like ’em. My legs look so much better than what they were and my dance muscles are back. It’s nice. Also, skirts that once were too tight fit wonderfully and my pants are too big. 

I think this face I’m making here is super cute. Haha, I was concentrating. Imagine what I look like in class. This is more for myself, so don’t think I’m showing off or anything (there is nothing to show!). I just want to take pictures every now and then to show myself (fine, and everyone else) the progress. I feel pretty ok about this picture, actually. My pants ride up pretty high though so try not to be alarmed. 

Thanks for reading, I know that’s not my normal but it’s been on my mind a lot lately. 

If you want a quick funny story, get this.  Earlier at work, I ate an orange that was apparently going bad and I didn’t realize because the taste was pretty ok when I was eating it. So, I then go home and start to have gas issues, you know how it is. And if you have any delusions that I’m some sort of health nut now, let me just shoot that in the foot; I was starving and ate an entire small pizza from Papa Johns. I do not regret it half as much as I should. So, here I am, bad orange and entire pizza in my stomach. I will skip the details, but I spent some time visiting John, then went to run. Other people were there. It was a fight to keep my gas issues, which did not go away with the visits to John, to myself. Yeah, super classy. Let’s just make sure no one comes here ever again, huh, Strain? Geez. 

Happy Wednesday, friends. Be proud of yourself for something.

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