Brian and I have decided that after a year and a half of marriage, and lots of weight gain (on my part!), that we wanted to start getting healthy and fit again. Not only do we want to loose weight, but we just want to be all around healthy. We want to be able to live long, healthy, active lives. We want to be able to play with our future children and not get exhausted. We want to be able to play with our future grandchildren with ease. We want to be 70 years old and still running races. There are so many things we want to do with our lives, and we won't be able to unless we are healthy.
I don't know what happened after we got married, but I started to get a little careless and "comfortable" with just eating whatever I wanted and not having any desire to exercise. I mean absolutely NO desire. I was pretty pathetic. Since I had lacked desire, and didn't care what I put in belly, I put on a whopping 35 pounds. THIRTY FIVE POUNDS!! All within 18 months. Not my proudest moment in my life. In fact, its a little embarrassing.
I don't know the exact moment I decided that I wanted to start getting fit and loosing weight. Maybe it was when I stepped on the scale and saw I was the heaviest I have ever been in my life. Maybe it was when my clothes started splitting at the seams (literally, I had 3 pair of pants split right up my butt crack...and I cried about it....hard...like a baby). It could have been a number of things, but the fact is, I decided to make a change. In February I got a gym pass to Planet Fitness and started going to the gym with my friend Haley. If it wasn't for her, I probably would have never gotten that pass and actually started exercising. After a couple months the weather started to warm up and my mom and I decided to start walking/running the Provo Canyon trail. We did this a couple times a week and would walk (and try to run) from Bridal Veil Falls to Vivian Park and back (about 5 miles total). It was then I started to notice my thighs and tummy start to get a little bit smaller and flatter. YAY!! I could finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.
In July, my friend Breanna had convinced Brian and I to sign up for the Hit and Run 5k that was happening in August. Then we convinced out friend Lance and my sister Sarah to sign up as well! It was at this point Brian joined in and wanted to start running again and getting back into shape. So we started to train for our first 5k and was running a few times a week. Of course, running is a piece of cake for Brian and he went out and ran 2-3 miles like it was nothing. Me on the other hand, I was dying after about 2 minutes. I was heaving and dripping sweat like it was going out of style. I barely made half a mile my first real attempt at running. But I surprisingly didn't give up, even though I wanted to and hated running with a fiery passion. As I kept running it started to get easier, not easy easy, but easier. After a couple weeks I was able to run 1.5 miles without having to stop and walk. (That is HUGE for me! 1.5 miles is nothing for most people, but for this girl, it was pretty amazing!) I don't know how it happened, but I somehow broke through a wall and was able to just keep running even though my mind was telling me I couldn't.
So the 5k came and it was pretty fun! Not only did we get to run, but there were obstacles placed through out the course and it made it so much more enjoyable!
After out first 5k, we were pretty much addicted to running now and wanted to do more 5ks. So we signed up for another one that was happening in September. It was called the Fallen Officers Memorial Run. So we kept training and completed our second 5k on Sept 13. This time we had a pretty good sized group sign up with us! We had my mom and Ryan, my brother in law and sister in law Ian and Katelyn, our cousins Jose and Melissa, and our friend Lance. It was so much fun to have our family and friends participate with us! We have become a running family! Now we have all signed up for our next 5k in October. We are doing the Haunted 5k in Orem. Its going to be a blast! I am so glad that our family has decided to do all these 5k's together! It really is so much fun, and we are all getting healthy from doing them.
While we have been training for our 5k's, I also started a workout program called the 21 Day Fix. I didn't want to just have running as my main workout, so I was in search of a program I could complete while doing this. A friend from high school had posted a picture about how she dropped a couple of pants sizes from doing this program. I was pretty amazed (and super jealous). So I asked what this 21 Day Fix was and she told me about what it was and it sounded like the perfect program for me to start along with my running. After a couple of weeks of talking myself in and out of purchasing this program, I finally bought it. 21 Day Fix is a 21 day program where there is a different 30 minute workout for each day of the week. Along with this, there is a meal plan that you must follow to maximize your results. The reason I knew this program would be perfect for me was because I desperately needed help with my eating habits and the workouts are only 30 minutes. I can handle 30 minutes of working a day. So I started my 21 day journey on July 28. The first week was pretty brutal. I couldn't walk, or move my arms for the entire week! I was so sore, but it was a good sore. I love that feeling! It just kind of makes you feel like you are actually working and making a change in your body. The exercises were challenging but doable. It wasn't like an intense P90X workout (thank goodness!!!) but it was just the right amount of challenge where I didn't feel like giving up after the first week. I completed my 21 days on August 17. It was now time to break out the tape measure and step on the dreaded scale. Much to my surprise, I had lost a total of 5.5 inches throughout my body and dropped 7 pounds! 7 POUNDS!! YAY!!! Again, 7 pounds may not be a lot for some, but for me it was a pretty big deal! After seeing that number just keep going up over the last year and a half, it felt SO AMAZING to see that the number had started to go down. I am on my second round of this program and I am now down a total of 10 pounds! WOO!! Never in my life did I think it was possible for me to loose 10 pounds. But I have done it! And I am going to keep loosing more because I am so addicted to getting healthy and fit. I am to the point where I feel so guilty when I miss one day of exercise. I never thought I would ever get to that point, EVER! I am not one for self praise cos it feels selfish and weird, but I really am proud of myself for getting to where I am right now!
I am also so proud of Brian and my entire family. We have all been working so hard at getting healthy and fit and it is so amazing to me! We are all each others support system, and I am so grateful for that! I wouldn't be able to do any of this without them! It has been a hard journey to start, and it has been a complete lifestyle change for us, but it is so worth it!
