Well my friends, it's been a heck of a long time since I posted (in fact, I forgot I had this blog- thanks for the reminder Facebook). I guess it's time for a bit of a reboot and time to catch up on what's been going on. Please forgive me if some of this was already posted before- while I think about things, I'm not going back to read the past...like I said, it's a reboot. With that said...
My body still isn't where I want it to be. Without the proper diet, Insanity, while getting me in better shape, didn't get me ripped and looking like everyone on the advertisements. I believe genetics plays a role in that as well. (Maybe an unhealthy dose of steroids too? haha jk).
I'm a graduate of Penn State University as of August 2013. I can't believe that it's been 3 years already! Yes, I'm still 100% a Penn Stater and am so happy football season is about to start again!
With the health and working out thing:
Since taking a job with AccessAgility in Vienna, VA in February 2015, my mental health has been a whole lot better. With any job one has, there are going to be pluses and minuses, but here and for me, the pluses are great. It's a good group of people to work with and the stress level here is pretty low. Don't get me wrong- it's not that there is no stress, maybe I've just learned to cope with things a whole lot better as I've gotten older. I have to say that this is a really healthy work environment.
I also started hitting the gym a whole lot more. I definitely wasn't happy with my appearance and I've been working on changing that. Again- the diet itself hasn't been the best, but I have noticed changes in my body over the last year and a half. Obviously I would like those changes to move faster but there are changes. My shirt size has come down and last fall I even had to buy smaller-waisted pants!
To me, lifting weights and getting stronger hasn't moved the progress on enough to me, so around mid-July I changed my strategy. Keep in mind, I have had a streak of logging my meals on MyFitnessPal for over 450 days. Reading other blogs and articles online got me thinking and changing my mind-set. My strategy became "lean out before building up". I've never been a distance runner, but having friends (and my dear wife) doing Couch To 5K motivated me to get out and run. I mean most runners who have been doing it for a while are pretty lean.
My first day out, I ran the majority of 3 miles. Yes there was some walking. Yes I have been refereeing soccer for several years and playing other sports, but those activities rely on sprints rather than distance. I've never argued that I don't have okay cardio, just I never did distance. Well, Day 2 I ran the entire 3 miles. Being able to do that was motivation to me. At that point I knew I COULD do it. Well, 2 weeks later, I entered my first 5K race- Potomac River Running 13th Birthday Bash. Was that pretty quick? Yeah sure was. I did hit my goals:
- Finish the whole race without walking
- Don't come in last place
Okay I really can't help it- I'm competitive. I finished with a PR of 10:33/mile.
Since then I've been out running a lot more (still not seeing enough changes as of yet, but I'm trying to be patient). In fact one day my legs were feeling good and fresh when I was around the 3 mile mark, so I decided to keep going and did 6 miles instead! This is how I've since gotten in a little trouble with the wife. I'll tell about that in my next post.
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