“If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.”- Tom Hanks
So now I’m 50ish lbs heavier than I’ve ever been, and I’m only 20 years old…a very unhealthy 20 year old for sure. But as many people will attest to, once you’re this far down a stray path it seems ten times more difficult to find your footing on the path you know you should be on.
My spring semester had just begun, which meant developing a routine that balanced classes, work, studying, and at the time for me, the dreaded E word…exercise. With a beach trip on the calendar with friends, I had some good motivation to atleast work towards losing some weight for my own self-confidence while being surrounded by 80 peers and wearing a swim suit. Fortunatly, my schedule had a minimum of an hour’s time each day that landed around 11 am when the gym wasn’t very busy, so this in and of itself boosted my confidence 100x when I knew oher people wouldn’t be watching my face turn the color of the Target bullseye while dripping like a leaky faucet just from walking at a speed of 3.5.
I was used to hearing many of my friends talk about their daily or at least bi weekly runs and it really drove me nuts that I couldn’t even run a mile without stopping, let alone three miles just as my warm up…are you kidding me?? Okay, that might seem a little crass, but really, I’m so happy for the people who have been blessed with what I like to call “runner bodies”, but I so badly wish I was one of those people too, my thunder thigh genetics just don’t seem to work quite that way. But, back to the point, I decided that the most efficient way to shed a handful of lbs before this spring break trip would be to try and start running, or jogging, or fast walking?
That was the beginning. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or Saturday, I would try (sometimes with much more mental strength and success than others) to run for 1-3 minutes at a time without stopping and then walk 1-5 minutes in between. Most days I managed to run 3-4 cycles of this and then would walk to fill the remainder of my hour of time. On the in between days I had a Pilates class and would sometimes walk on an incline for 30 minutes in addition to that, depending, of course, on the motivation for the day and week.
I continued with this routine pretty religiously for about a month-one thing that made the time on the treadmill MUCH easier was this golden podcast I found thanks to a good friend, “Live Life Better with Scott Eastwood”, I would HIGHLY recommend for those of you who are like me and don’t do well with a bunch of advertisements or fluffy talk throughout a podcast.
I then started to realize that I should probably pay more attention to what I’m eating too, since everyone talks about the 80/20 rule. Sometimes for me this was the hardest part, I’m a lover of all things carbs and all things sugar…I mean I spent a month in Italy eating pasta nonstop, are you really that surprised? Seriously though, any chip, pretzel, popcorn kernel, starburst, m & m, ice cream, you name it, I want it in my belly. But, I wanted to be better, so I just started by limiting the “junk food” that I bought when getting groceries. I quickly learned how hard it is to stop eating things that you are used to eating on a regular basis, but also learned that if it isn’t in the kitchen, you can’t eat it!!
I dreaded walking into the gym everyday, but I began to feel so much better when I left. I knew I was working towards something that would better myself and I really wanted to just BE BETTER. Each day got easier, each week got easier, and eventually I got the nerve to push myself just a little bit more, because, why not? 🙂
Josie's Journey 