My 4-month exercise story

I started my new lifestyle on January 7th. Along with healthy and sustainable food choices, I started exercising. The first walk I took was invigorating, but only 0.91 miles. That's right, I didn't even make it one mile. My legs were sore for 3 days. I told myself that I was going to lose weight slowly through changing my eating habits and that I wasn't going to focus too much on exercise. After all, a buddy of mine had lost a good amount of weight without any exercise, so I was going to do the same.

However, I'm best when I challenge myself...when I set a goal and dare myself to reach it. There isn't an award, or a trophy, or even a kiss waiting for me at the end of the challenge, whether or not I reach the goal. It's just for me.

In January, I didn't have any goals yet. I was still convinced that I wouldn't really be exercising, and so I mostly didn't. That first month, I walked 14.6 miles over the course of 10 walks. My pace was about 19:45/mile. It was as fast as I could go.

From January 22 until February 9, I didn't walk a single time. I was already giving up. My legs hurt, my knees were sore, I was embarrassed to think about what I looked like on the road as cars passed me. I used to see overweight people walking, and think to myself, "you're going to need to work harder than that, fatty." The irony is that I was probably on the way to, or on the way from a fast food drive-thru with a 2,500 calorie order that would be easy for me to eat.

I wish I'd taken some notes on February 9th about what happened to me that day, but I didn't, so all I can tell you is that something motivated me. Something changed and I decided to give it a better effort. There were only 19 days left in the month, and I walked on 15 of them for a total of 46.1 miles. My pace improved to about 17:45/mile.

I figured that if I increased my daily distance, and had a full month to work with, that 100 miles was attainable. So I set my first goal: I would walk 100 miles in the month of March. It was going to be a challenge for me, not only because of the shear scope of the goal, but also because I would be out of town for several days on vacation and if I didn't keep it up, I probably wouldn't make it.

In March, I walked 23 days, and made it to 100.1 miles on the last day of the month. My pace dropped to about 16:10/mile and I began jogging about 10% of the time.

During my 100 mile journey, I developed some recurring pain in my right foot and my left knee that I felt were the results of over-doing it a bit. With each walk, the pain was slightly more, particularly in my foot. Knowing that the elliptical machine causes far lower impact, I decided to switch.

In April, my new goal was 1,000 minutes on the elliptical. I honestly didn't think I would make it. But my foot and knee improved almost immediately. There was other soreness but it was just from the new exercise. I went on another vacation, but made time each day to get on the machine at the hotel. I'm so proud of myself to be able to say that as of this morning I finished the month and I blew away my goal. I finished the month at 1,502 minutes!! On top of that, I walked an additional 15.8 miles with a pace of about 15:50.

Tomorrow is May 1st. I'm tired, but not ready to give up. I'm more invigorated than ever and have set a new goal for 1,000 elliptical minutes and 50 miles walking during the month of May. I'm again faced with not feeling as if it's attainable, but as I said, that tends to be the type of thing that brings out the best in me.

I'm down about 75 lbs during this time, but still at least 75 lbs away from the day when I can feel good about clicking on the "A few extra pounds" box, but I'm incredibly happy with taking control of things rather than continuing down such an unhealthy and lazy path.

What are your goals for May?