The Chances

How a 250+ Pound Couch Potato Got Healthy

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Weight Workout + 2.85 Miles!

Hey guys. While being busy hasn't changed, some of the fitness details have, and I'm excited about it. I just had to share. :)

I've been with my company for close to 10 years now, and back in my morbidly obese days, early on in my employment, we had a gym, but I never used it. Pretty pathetic, right?

We moved to a different location, one where rather than owning the building, we leased. They wouldn't allow us to put the weights there, because our company was on the 4th floor, and they didn't think it would be safe having it all in one place. Understandable, I suppose, but it didn't sit well with the owner of my company, who had talks with them. Come to find out, there was a weight room on the bottom floor, so the owner made an agreement where he'd allow them to use some of his equipment if we could use the weight room.

Coincidentally enough, this was around the time I made the changes I needed to make in my life to be more healthy. I was able to use a keycard to get into the gym, and I made use of it for about a year.

My company decided to move again, and sure enough, we put the gym facility back into the new building. This was great! I took full advantage of it, but it was difficult because there just wasn't enough space for the amount of equipment we had. It was such a problem that doing squats with an olympic bar was dangerous, and a few times I almost hit my head on a weight stand. I finally decided to get my own gym.

I've driven over there almost every day the past two or three years. Well, guess what? Yup, my company moved again. There's a big enough space, and the gym equipment's been brought back. The only problem is the gym I've gone to is too far to be able to drive over ther,e work out, and drive back within my lunch hour.

I finally just decided to drop the membership over there, but this time, I took the money I was spending and put it towards a gym local to my house. They're a decent size, but really busy during peak hours. In August, they're going to expand to triple the size they are now!

Today I did my first workout in the gym at work, and there were a few additional benefits I hadn't thought of. There's no driving time. It doesn't take me 5-10 minutes to drive there and 5-10 minutes to drive back, it's 30 feet from my desk. I was able to get in, do my routine, and get out in 30 minutes, then run 30 minutes. Run?

That was another problem I was having. On workout days, I couldn't run. I'd tried a few times to run in the evening, but I was just too tired to sustain it. Now, I can still run during the workout days, and run during my off days, my running base won't suffer, and I'll enjoy the benefits of working out regularly!

I still have the local membership, as well as the stairclimber at home. If I feel awake enough, I can choose to do either one. The gym is 10 minutes from my house, so going there and back is about the same amount of time as it used to take to get to my old gym at lunchtime.

Today's workout was fabulous, too!

Warmup, 3 circuits of 5 w/bar
Overhead Squats
Squats
Alternating Lunges
Romanian Deadlift
Deadlift

Workout
High Step-Up, Reps: 10,11,10 @ 2x25lbs
Romanian Deadlift, Reps: 10,11,10 @ 135lbs
Offset Incline Dumbbell Curl, Reps: 10,11,10 @ 2x12lbs
Incline Lower Trap Raise, Reps: 10,11,10 @ 2x12lbs

That's 30 minutes and 226 calories burned.


See the activity on RunSaturday
Type:Run - General
Duration:0:29:03
Distance:2.84 mi


Running in the heat for 30 minutes was almost 3 miles (I need to work out the new routes), for another 308 calories and a total of 534 for the day. Not only is that sustainable, but if I'm up to it, I can still do a stairclimber workout tonight! If not, then that's ok too, because I've already burned a good amount of calories.

I just feel like I've been freed again. Today is a good day.

Greg

From Twitter 06-28-2010





Tweets copied by twittinesis.com