On the road to Eugene (even if I thought it was Vancouver at the time)

OK so here is excerpt one from my journal of my journey to Eugene...Sometimes our kids say the darndest things...I hate it when my kids are right...and I love that they make you think about what is right...

December 22, 20009

And so it begins…

So this is day 1 of my journey to a healthier, happier me. It starts today with my first training session to run the Vancouver half marathon on May 9, 2010.

I have to be honest I’ve started and stopped so many times that I feel almost hypocritical, especially after yesterday when I was having a discussion with my son Nathan (who is 14 and a typical teenage boy) and I’m telling him how he talks about being passionate about things but only if he doesn’t have to work at it. I used the examples of how amazingly talented he is musically but he doesn’t want to practice which of course got us into a great argument about how his mom and I ruin everything for him by making it “not fun” because we nag him to practice or try to challenge himself and take him out of his comfort zone.

At this point we get into the conversation about his supposed new found love of running. I should explain that in his early childhood Nathan’s calf muscles did not grow as fast as his skeletal system and so it actually hurt him to run (not to mention he looked very interesting when he did “run”). After over 2 years of physio-therapy where he did a multitude of home stretching exercises his muscle length finally caught up to his skeleton. Now in middle school Nathan had as part of his Physical Education (P.E.) class the joy of having to do road runs and when he started the year Nathan would always be last or near last. As the year went on he persevered and got better and better and faster and faster to the point where he was finishing in the top 5 most of the time. The following year he kept working at it and by the end of the year there was only one boy in his class who he couldn’t beat. Ironically it was the school’s best athlete, more ironically his name just happened to be Mike Rogers (must be something about that name and high school sports!). So along comes this year, Grade 9, his freshman year in high school and he decides that he loves running now so much that he wants to race cross-country. I’m proud to say that by the end of the racing season he was the top finishing junior boy on his school team in the provincial championships.

So, getting back to the passion conversation and not working at something. Having given you the background on Nathan’s new found running love. I was telling Nathan that even though he supposedly “loves” running he did not work as hard as he could have, nor did he train in advance of the season. In fact the point his mother and I were making to him on this day was that if we hadn’t hounded him to go do his weekend runs he wouldn’t have done them at all; and the fact that he missed some weekend runs because we weren’t there to hound him how much better could he have run this year? Well, obviously this went over really well with him and he immediately shot back at me “Dad, you said you love running but how come your not doing it?”

This one hurt because in the summer this past year I had started running again and was really feeling good when I injured my Achilles and was in physio for 8 weeks. In the past 6 weeks since being “allowed” to run again, I have felt really down and just didn’t “do it”. Well Nathan’s comment hit me hard and made me realize that he wasn’t the only one who wasn’t working at it. I have struggled with my weight for years and 4 years ago lost 40 pounds prior to going on a missions music tour to Italy. After coming back I gained back about 10 pounds during my wife’s pregnancy with our daughter but had held onto that level pretty good. Then I joined World Vision and put on 60 pounds in about 8 months (I traveled all over the world A LOT). I have managed to lose about 10 of those 60 pounds and kept it off for over a year but I am still 20 pounds heavier than I was when I started losing the weight prior to Italy.

After getting upset at him for calling me out, I spent the rest of the day thinking about what he said and wrestling with my own inability to “commit” to my health. So I decided to do something about it. I went back and found my training schedule for the half marathon I was planning on running before I got injured in September and decided that if I was going to lose this weight once and for all I would need a goal (or goals) so I decided that my first goal would be to run the Vancouver Half Marathon in May 2010. This type of motivation had worked very well for me before when I was getting ready to go to Italy, the problem was when I got back from Italy I just stopped (there were a lot of really good excuses for it at the time or so I allowed myself to believe and buy into…) This time it needed to be different and whereas last time it was about “losing weight”, this time it was about “re-gaining my life”.

This morning I woke up at 7:45 am (Christmas vacation is a beautiful thing) and feeling pretty good about things and my new found commitment I decided that today was the day for me to start training and changing my life once and for all. Now I know that beginning an exercise program 3 days before Christmas for most people would seem ridiculous but I was tired of saying to myself “next week on Monday I start”. Today was day 1 of my training plan for the race and so I needed to do my “run”, which at this point was actually a walk.

I know myself well enough to know that I am going to struggle with certain types of foods over the next few weeks it being Christmas and all but I also know that taking one small step is better than not taking any step. I also have spent the past 8 years learning about water and food and exercise, and I know that one without the other doesn’t work well. I’ve always tried to do this by starting with the food and “working towards” the exercise doing things I don’t enjoy, eating food that is “prescribed” only to discover that I can’t sustain it, so with that in mind I began this journey in a different way. I am committing to a training program for a race, and on my “rest” days from running, depending on how I am feeling I will either actually “rest” or do a workout program called “Escape your Shape” (“EYS”) by Edward Jankowski which I had started doing a number of years back, loved it but like everything else just kind of “lost” momentum. This time instead of being the focus of my training, Escape Your Shape would be the supplement to my training. In conjunction with that I committed that I would eat more responsibly over the next 2 weeks and that I would start planning more of my meals starting January 2nd. I’m not going on some food program, I’m not going to buy “special” meals. I’m going to make better choices, more often and keep “portion control” in mind at all times. I know that Wendy’s or McDonalds or some other fast food restaurant will call my name from time to time but I won’t “super-size” any meals any more. This is realistic for me and while not what the doctor would order for successful “weight loss” it is what I need to recognize about me for long-term success. I cannot eliminate all the things I love as that will destine me to failure because I will have something and then get mad at myself at then 1 will turn into 2 will turn into 20 of those types of choices and exercise will fall off…well you get the picture. So no “low-Carb, low-fat, low-sodium, low this or that focus” it will be about “balanced eating. In other words, I will eat more of the right foods, (fruits, veggies, whole grains, low sugar) more of the time while keeping up with my training.

And so here goes…


Week 1 Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009 to Monday Dec 29, 2009

Down the stairs to the gym in our basement I go. I can’t weigh myself on our regular scale because I am too heavy so I am going to weigh myself using my Wii Fit program (which is wonderful for those of you who want to start “moving” again by the way). I wanted to take measurements of myself this morning but my wife and I could not find the tape measure so I need to buy a new one today. I will fill in my “measurements” tomorrow. I have determined that I will only weigh myself twice a week, maximum but always on Sunday’s as this will be my “weekly weigh-in day”

Day 1 – Dec 22, 2009 – Half Marathon Training - 20 minute walk – 30 minute workout.

So onto the treadmill I got this morning to start my commitment to a new healthier me. Per my plan I will be doing my EYS workout only on Wednesday’s, Saturday’s and/or Monday’s. But today I will be doing a 30 minute workout starting with a 5 minute warm-up walking, 20 minutes of walking at 4 mph and then a 5 minute cool-down, followed by stretching.

As I start my workout I am surprised at how good I feel and how comfortable it is for me to get up to 4 miles per hour on the treadmill. I guess all that on-again, off-again working out was not completely a waste of time although I know I can’t possibly run at this point without gasping for air. My heart rate peaks out at about 132 beats per minute (BPM) at about the 20 minute mark and I make it through my 20 minutes at 4 mph without feeling “stressed”. This is how I need to start, with a pace that I can build on, not too fast, not too slow. I don’t even start my running at all on the training plan for the half marathon until next week and then it is a combination of running and walking. My first week where I am “running” the whole time is not until week 7 of my 20 week training program which is the 1st week of February. I am determined to train properly so as not to get unnecessarily injured and thereby derailing my efforts once again.

I finish my workout feeling really good about myself and then in keeping with my commitment to eating better I have a breakfast that includes 2 eggs scrambled with a little bit of cheese (less than an ounce) and some ham/bacon. I top that off with 8 oz’s of V-8 Juice and away I go. The rest of the day will be spent finishing my Christmas shopping and starting the other commitment I’ve made to myself which is to see our house “de-cluttered” (which also takes time). And that is day 1 of the rest of my life. Tomorrow is an Escape Your Shape day so I am looking forward to getting back on my elliptical and doing some resistance training as well (ok maybe not looking forward to it, but I’m definitely committed to it).