Waking Badger

I’ve been asked about these for some time and in all honestly, I’ve been very slack about taking care of something I committed to do…

So, without further delay…

Here are photos comparing my body at a pre-Gastric Bypass state (7/6/2009) to 6.5 months out from Gastric Bypass surgery (1/25/2010). I’m still not happy with where I’m at and I still have 30-40 pounds hopefully left to go, but I’m thrilled with the progress so far…

Sorry the pics aren’t all from fully similar views, but this is what I’ve got to show…

Here are some additional stats

Waist size (Jeans)

• THEN 52-54
• NOW 40-42

T-Shirt Size

• THEN 3XL-4XL (3XL was typically too tight to wear, so 4XL was the size of choice)
• NOW 2XL

I thought I would post a quick picture of my cleanly shaven face. I undergo this procedure 2 or 3 times a year to start the beard anew and I felt today made sense. I had to post simply because I look so different without the beard and I believe this is the first time I’ve shaved it all off since I had the gastric bypass surgery. Unfortunately, I do still have some fat on my face and some loose skin around my neck and chin, but hopefully that will get worked out more in time…

PS: Yes, I know I still owe the blog and friends a full photo showing my weight loss progress, but I just didn’t feel like doing that tonight

I got started with week 2 last night and this routine went much better due to my return to running in the gym. The only change was the intervals went from 60sec running/90sec walking to 90sec running/2min walking. Not a huge change, but the extra 30 seconds does make you feel it. I don’t think the next 2 workouts this week will give me much in the way of a problem as long as I am in the gym, but next week should be more interesting as the running kicks it up a notch. I do wonder if this will make running easier as so far I can’t tell a change, but in a few weeks will a few minutes running feel more natural? It’s just hard to imagine going from feeling sick/out of breath after 2-4 minutes of running to smiling as you pass 5-10 minutes of running. I’m hopeful, but given that I have never been a fan of running, this just feels…odd. Heather and I used to have a saying that you would only see us running if 1. someone was chasing us 2. a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop was on fire Well, now I am willingly getting into this and I wonder how much of the change I need is physical/mental and will Couch to 5k get me there?

On a related note, how do you get used to running outdoors? I understand that trying it in the fall/winter may not have been the brightest move on my part, but how do you get over the pain from an inflexible running surface and the resulting joint pain? Also, isn’t there an accepted way of breathing while running (in through the nose, out through the mouth or some such)? I have never been able to train myself to breathe properly and tend to more gasp when pushing myself

Wow, to say today’s workout was MUCH harder than the last two would be an understatement. Nothing changed in terms of the exercise (60 running/90 walking intervals), but the circumstances changed:

• Outdoors vs. gym
  • Concrete doesn’t flex like the treadmill’s platform
  • Cold
• Heavy warm clothing vs. gym shorts & t-shirt
• Still sore from tearing up carpet yesterday
• Slight incline/decline vs. no incline treadmill

I was supposed to do this workout yesterday, but I was simply too exhausted from the cleaning/carpet work. So, I delayed it until today as I’m not supposed to start week 2 until Sunday. This was the first workout since my surgery where I have found myself cursing the iPhone for telling me it was time to run again and then pleading for the time to end. All that said, I did do the full routine and will continue on Sunday with next week’s ramped up intervals. I do hope this gets easier, but I’m sticking with it…

I completed my 2nd routine tonight and I must say while the actual jogging/running was still painful, the after effects seemed somewhat less severe. Last time, I was walking at 3.2 mph and jogging at 4.5 mph. Tonight, I kept the 3.2, but bumped the jogging up to 4.8/5.0 mph. I’ve got one more workout for this week and then next week the jogging gets bumped up a tad in duration.

Next week, I have a body assessment scheduled at the gym followed by a personal training session. I’m hoping for some guidance on what else I can do to continue building on my weight loss…

My weight loss had seemed to hit a plateau recently and I had been stuck bouncing up and down within the same 1/2 – 1 pound area. This led me to investigate new options to help push my weight loss to higher levels. After all, I knew that eventually the weight loss boost that I received from surgery and my resulting lack of appetite would wain as my appetite increased. I can now eat more (still less than a normal person) and as a result my exercise should increase to accommodate additional calories. The issue is that now that I am back at work, I have less time to exercise than I did post-surgery. So, I need to find ways to gain more benefit from less time (no more than 30-60 minutes)…

Here is where the story ends up at Couch to 5k. I had heard about the program before, but never seriously considered it. However, now I do want to get used to running, so I reconsidered.

It’s actually relatively simple:

• 3 days a week you exercise with an off day in between – I will likely continue to walk pretty much every day.
• The exercises take the form of a 5 minute walk warm up, 20 minutes of iterating between some amount of time walking & jogging/running, and then a 5 minute cool down walk.
• Each week, the jogging/running intervals get longer
• Over the course of doing the above for 9 weeks, you build up to running a full 5k (3.1 miles)

I started last night and while I’ve done some jogging, this really made my leg muscles burn. It was definitely more of a workout than I had been getting with just 30 minutes of walking. They recommend you don’t exercise strenuously on the off days, but I think I will continue to walk as I aim for getting exercise (even if only moderate) 6 or 7 days a week. I will generally have to play this by ear as I am hurting somewhat today…

Interestingly & typical, technology made the leap more appealing. I found a great iPhone app that helps track and guide you through the routine. It’s called obviously enough “Couch to 5k“. The app will provide voice prompts, alarms to make sure you remember to switch activities (walking to running and vice versa), visual cues (green UI when walking, red UI when jogging/running) and tracking days completed. I have Nike+ running in the background and music or a podcast also going to distract me from counting the seconds, but this app just provides the audio cues over the existing audio. I love that I can have it all kicking around at once.

I’m hoping this helps in the weight loss area as well as maybe driving me to learn to run. Maybe I’ll even learn to enjoy it