I started by sitting down and thinking about things that I could work for and one that kept coming to mind was doing a marathon. If there is anything that I hate doing more in this world, it's running. It is so boring and so isolating and is just not something I was ever good at. I decided that this would be something extremely difficult to accomplish but something definitely worth doing, and so I set up my plan. There was no way in heck that I was going to be able to run 26.2 miles with all my excess fat. I needed to set up a work out plan that would optimize my goals and help me to reach this mountainous goal. (side note) One of my favorite shows on TV is extreme make over, weight loss edition. This program is a documentary of a trainer, Chris Powell, helping transform individuals suffering from being over weight to much healthier lives. What I love about it the most is that it's not just about getting skinny and then rebounding. It's about helping that person understand the benefits from being healthy. Chris actually moves in with these clients on the show and helps them transform their lives over the period of one year. One episode I watched had Chris talking to a client who had a goal to lose 250 pounds in one year. Chris said to the client, "losing 250 pounds in one year is impossible, or is it?" That got me thinking, and came to the conclusion that it's not impossible to lose weight and I was going to follow Chris's format and do it.
Beginning Weight = 195
Beginning Waist = 36"
Beginning Bench Press = 110 lbs
Goal to reach overall= 160 (loss of 35 pounds)
1 quarter = lose 15 pounds (180) and finish P90X
2nd quarter = lose 12 pounds (167) and start doing crossfit
3rd quarter = lose 5 pounds (162) and complete a 50 mile bike race
4th quarter = lose 2 pounds (160) and complete marathon
When I first sat down and surveyed the landscape of what a huge thing I was taking on I got pretty overwhelmed. I mean, on purpose I had never lost more than 5 pounds before in my life let alone ran farther than 3 miles. Throughout the year I came to know myself a lot more than I had ever known before. I came to struggle with mental discouragement. I hit so many plateaus and came to question my whole goal and came pretty close to giving up. However, I was determined to never give up. I took a Nutrition class at UNLV and came to understand my enemy, food. I quickly came to understand why I had ballooned up to the point I had gotten to. An individual cannot live on a 4,000 cal a day diet with little exercise without expecting to gain weight. All of the extra large combos, biggie sizes and calorie heavy midnight snacks added up over time and totally destroyed my body. No more of this was allowed. I tamed the beast and figured out exactly how much to eat and what to eat every day to make the pounds start coming off and they did. I started keeping track of everything I ate on my 'Loseit' app on my iphone. This ultimately helped me figure things out. There is a reason every weight loss website tells you to write a food journal and keep track of everything you eat, it just works. After about a month of working with this, things finally started to click and the pounds started to come off. The scale started to be my friend and I began to conquer my bad habits every day. As each quarter came and went I hit my goals and I can't even begin to express how awesome it was to finally have some success.
About half way through the year I began to train to do a marathon. I called my brother up who had done cross country in high school and asked him for tips. He set me up with a running schedule that helped a ton. I ran 3 times a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, for 12 weeks. Tuesday and Thursday were considered my short runs and every Saturday I did a long run. With every progressing week and month each run got longer and longer until eventually I felt confident that I could tackle the 26.2 miles of a marathon with little to no problem. This whole process was tough. It's never easy to give up so much of one's time to dedicate it to something like this, especially on the long runs. Every Saturday I was gone for 2-3 hours just out running. The great thing after a while though was that it got easier. My lung capacity grew and I began to enjoy running. Sure there were a few set backs like a stress fracture in my foot and shin splints like you wouldn't even believe, but overall it was great to again see that I could tackle this goal no matter what.
After many months, I had hit all of my weight loss goals and the day of my big race finally came. Months previously I had signed up for THE BIG FREE MARATHON in Las Vegas. It's kind of a cool concept that I should give a plug to while I'm writing about it. Normally marathons have a huge (well huge to me) entry fee like $100 per runner or something like that. With this new concept of race, you pay a $50 entry fee and then as soon as you cross the finish line they refund your credit card and ultimately makes your participation in the race free. Free is always good. Anyway, back to where I was....the day of the big race. To say I was nervous was a huge understatement. I had never participated in something to this scale before. I got to the race at 4:45 in the morning and there were thousands of people there. My dad came out to the finish line and hooked me up with a hydration belt to wear throughout the race #lifesaver.
When time came to start the race they asked everyone who was planning to run a 5-6 min mile to start first. I figured no way would I be able to do that but hey why not start first? I hopped up to the front of the line and the race began. Immediately afterward people were passing me like crazy but I had read somewhere to just run your own race and tune out the racers around you. As each mile passed I tried to stay as hydrated as I could. I kept about a 8 min mile pace and high fived my dad at the first few pit stops that he drove to to take video for me. When I got to the 9 mile mark things got tough. The hills got higher and higher and I had thought I had trained enough for them, not true. I eventually got to the hardest part of the race, 22 miles. It's hard to explain what happened at this point. Never in my life have I experienced so much pain.
I got to 22 miles and my legs stiffened up and began to cramp so much so that I had to sit down, then walk 10 feet, then sit down again. Many times I thought to myself....you know, you could turn around right now and no one would know. Crazy how temptation hits you like that.I didn't succumb though, I conquered the pain. I finally got to the last three miles and it was weird, my legs were totally fine out of no where. I then figured, sweet....3 miles ain't nothin now. Little did I know that my chest and lungs thought otherwise. It became extremely hard to breathe all of a sudden. What the heck, my entire freaking body was shutting down. I became pretty emotional at this point....I know right, what a girl. Seriously though, it was just so ridiculous but I was going to FINISH come death or whatever was around the corner. Luckily the only thing around the corner was the finish line. There was about 100 yards of open land at the end of the race for the finish. I was all alone giving everything I had left to cross that line.
They announced my name as I crossed the line and oh man what a moment that was. I had done it. I had actually done it. Danielle, Laila (in Danielle's belly) and my Mom were there to support at the line. It was so surreal to finally have finished what I set out to do a year ago. Amazing. I spent the rest of the day with family and recovering.
There are few things on this list that will be as hard as this one was to cross off. But ya know what, after this year, anything is possible. I can truly accomplish anything and am so grateful for the people who help me to do so. I encourage anyone who is currently in a similar spot that I was in a year ago to choose to better your life. You can do it. It sucks, it truly does...but you will never regret it. Trust me, you a year from now will have wished that you had started today. I am grateful for a loving family, an iphone that helped me every step of the way and for Chris Powell for giving me the motivation to start this whole crazy thing.
So at the end of all things here are some fun stats from this year....
Ending Weight = 160
Waist = 32"
Bench Press = 210 lbs
Experience this whole story with me in the video below......
No comments:
Post a Comment