The first thing I did after realizing I was going to get back into shape I realized that I was going to have to have a plan. I'll talk more about each part more over time.
Get a Goal
For me I've decided to give my self a goal of completing a marathon 1 year after starting to get back in shape. It's a bit of a stretch goal but I figure with the right approach and a solid plan it'll be possible.
My other goal is to beat the time I ran my last marathon somewhere around 1995. I ran it in 4 hours, 1 minute. We'll see how that goes.
Eat Better - 3-4 Weeks
Phase 1 for me was to stop putting on the 1 or 2 pounds a month that I was currently doing with regularity.
For me it was about starting a new relationship with food and caring about what I ate. I simply felt that if I was going to even think about getting in shape I needed to start changing the way I ate.
Basically I did the following:
- Ate a bit less
- Ate more vegetables
- Stopped loading up on sugar
- Switched to drinking tea (Temporarily)
- Started eating breakfast - Homemade fruit smoothies!
After a couple of weeks I started feeling better and my energy was more stable throughout the day. I don't remember losing very much weight but I turned the corner.
General Fitness - 2-3 Months
Once I started feeling a bit better I signed up for a gym membership and cracked open a pair of running shoes I had purchased a few years ago but never really wore.My goal was to get my muscles back into condition to work, slowly. The only goal was putting in the time and getting into a routine. Perhaps the biggest challenge was carving out time in my week to work out. After years of not doing it the routine had solidified. It's important to get those people around you to understand that you need some time, and it's important.
Fortunately my wife had been nagging me forever to get fit again, so she couldn't complain when I backed out of the kids bath time. And, my coworkers were fairly nice about my extended lunches over at the YMCA.
Basically my week looked like this:
- Monday - Warmup and Light Weights at the gym
- Tuesday - 20-40 min run
- Wednesday - 30 min swim at the pool
- Thursday - 20-40 min run
- Friday - Warmup and Light Weights at the gym
- Saturday - Maybe a 60 minute bike.
Running and Cycling - 5-7 Months
After hitting the gym, and getting into the routine I canceled my gym membership. Money was a bit of an issue but now I felt ready to start actually working at running and increasing the mileage.
During this phase I ran 3 times a week with a bike ride on the weekends. After a few months I added a longer run on Sunday, starting at 1 hour and gradually increasing from there.
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