by Brian

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I’m doing this, what motivated me, what snapped, what changed. I’d like to figure it out since it may help me with other things in my life.

I realized that part of why this has been working and why I’ve been able to stick with it is because I broke it down into very tiny chunks. Before, weight loss efforts had failed because I tried doing everything all at once: I’d completely change my diet, go to the gym, and try to change my entire lifestyle. This time was different. I started slow: I’m just going to walk. That’s it. I’m going to walk a block. I’m going to walk a half mile. I’m going to walk a mile. I’m walking 6 miles.

Then I started making tiny changes to my diet. I started with the water. I drank more water. Then I drank a lot more water. Then I started eating breakfast every day. Then I started being conscious of what I ate for the rest of the day. Then I started using Fitday. Then I asked my friends about what to eat before workouts, and it just keeps going.

That’s why I’m starting to jog. As of tonight, I decided that walking has plateaued for me. Crazy 4-6 miles walks just don’t wear me out anymore, they don’t push me, and I don’t feel like I’m losing weight right now. I’ve been extremely discouraged lately, because I don’t feel or look any different. I need to shake things up again.

I got out there in the freezing-ass cold and started extremely slow, like I started my walks over a month ago. I didn’t set any goals, I just decided to run as far as I could, rest, and then try again.

It was exactly like when I started walked: It hurts, it was incredibly difficult, and I was gasping like a beached whale. I made it about half of a block (1/8th mile), then slowed down to a fast walk, but didn’t stop. When I got to the end of the block, I started running for another 1/8th, then walked, then another 1/8th, and so on. All told, I went only 1/2 mile, but I’d say I jogged half of that, which is more than I thought I’d be able to do. So, 1/4 mile jogs until I can do 1/2. 1/2 until I can do a mile, and so on.

Hell, at the rate I’ve been going, maybe I’ll be blogging a month from now that jogging 4 miles just isn’t doing it for me anymore. I never thought I’d be able to say that 4 mile walks don’t wear me out. It still boggles my mind.

Hilarious non-related aside:

As I huffed and puffed back into my driveway, I heard a noise, and looked up to see a GREAT DANE barreling towards me from the direction of my back yard. I actually yelped; it was the most frightened I’ve been in a long time. The dog whined and ran by me and kept going down the street.

I tell ya, a dog as tall as your shoulders, running at you full speed is the LAST thing I expect to see at 3:30 in the morning in my driveway. I nearly pissed myself. I probably frightened him as much as he frightened me though. Stupid strays.

Posted Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 3:51 am under Life. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.