Progress Update

Yesterday was the finish of my second round of Les Mills Combat.  Of course that means progress pictures.

Please forgive the shirtlessness.  (My spell check says that's not a real word.  We will agree to disagree.)

Amazing what a side by side comparison does for your self esteem!  I can't believe the difference. I went from 262 lbs in the day 1 photo to 223 as of this morning.  It's crazy for me to think about.

I guess it's just hard to see when I look at myself everyday.  I also have the problem of seeing myself as the guy at 300 lbs when I started this fitness journey.

I've also been reeling at the other changes this week.

Brooke has been getting into running and really enjoying it.  We bought her an MP3 player so she could listen to some upbeat stuff to keep her going.  She put a lot of metal and wrestling themes on there.  That's my girl!

Out of morbid curiosity I decided to go for a run.  Which is totally insane because I hated running.  Despised it.  I would probably run half a block and stop because I was already huffing and puffing.  This time I ran a little circuit around my neighborhood.  Nothing too big, but enough to really get my heart rate up.  By the time I got back to the house the horror had set in.  I enjoyed myself.

A couple days later I decided to run for 15 minutes and then run back.  It turned out to be a pretty good run and I felt like I could do more.  My calves didn't agree, but what do they know.  When I woke up the next morning I found out.  Apparently it's a lot!

Anyway, I've ran a couple times since then.  Challenging myself a little more every time.  It helps to have some motivating music blaring in your hears.  I want to stop and then a good song comes on and makes me want to keep going.

I also tracked out my circuits yesterday and found that the last 3 times I ran I've been averaging around 2 miles every time.  Now for me (Remember, me and running were like the Hatfields and the McCoys.) that's monumental!  To even think about running that much, and liking it I might add, leaves me stunned.

I decided to celebrate my victory by going and buying myself a new Green Lantern shirt that was the smallest I could comfortably fit into.  It turns out I'm at a large.  Another shock!  I started out wearing a 3XL!  This whole experience has shown me how determined I can be.  I never thought I'd stick to this whole getting healthy thing.  I've never liked exercise, just ask my high school P.E. teacher.  She'd yell at me for walking the mile.  No I could actually do that and get a good time.  Take that my oddly masculine female P.E. teacher!