Couch to 5k

As part of living a better, happier life, my January "goal" is to boost my energy. I feel like I am drained most days and end up taking 2-3 hour (if not longer) naps as often as I can which then means I have little time to do other things that day. Time to eat properly and exercise. 


I have never wanted to be a runner. I still don't. But I believe in having a goal in mind when you start something or you may never reach it. I did a 5k in late 2011 and did miserably. I give myself credit for completing it but that's where the congratulations stops. I am beginning a new program called Couch to 5k and completed day 1 today which was 20 minutes on the treadmill where you run/jog for 60 seconds followed by 9 seconds of walking and repeat until 20 minutes is up. Here is how I did. It would take a little under an hour for me to complete a 5k at this rate. It is my goal to be able to run a 5k with minimal walking at the end of 9 weeks.

Notice how I stopped the treadmill at 20:00 exactly? I was d-y-i-n-g. I screamed a list of obscenities to myself while I watched How I Met Your Mother on my droid. But I did it all out exactly as I was supposed to. And I am doing this just to get into shape, not to become a runner. It's bad for your knees anyways.

One great tool I've used in the past (and then completely ignored) is SparkPeople hence the current state I am in. You can use it to track your weight, measurements, nutrition and exercise. I've always been good about using it to track my weight and measurements but not so much on the food tracking because honestly how do you track certain things? How can I put in, say spaghetti and meatballs with bread? I have to add the list of nutrition for the box of pasta, the jar of sauce and the thing of meatballs and for the bread. And then I have to measure out serving sizes. It's a lot of tedious math... so I don't think I'll be actively doing that.

Currently I am 234 lbs! Gross and scary. My neck is 16 inches in circumferences, my bicep is 17 inches, bust is 52, hips are 51, waist is 45 and thighs are 28... that is a lot of fat and laziness. My blood pressure today was 120/81. Eighty-one is considered pre-hypertensive. Know how to fix that? Exercise and diet. My "normal" bp used to be 90/52 - borderline dead.

My overall goal is to be 140lbs but I'd honestly be happy with 160. This is me at 160, my junior year of college.

Please disregard the Nascar shirt... no idea what I was thinking. I don't look awesome but I look a helllllll of a lot better than I do now - well 74 lbs better.





So I guess that's where I am now. I mean, I did feel great and had energy the entire day after the gym so that's good news.