NSV: I ran 5km (and was disappointed!)
The last time I tried going to a gym and working out more seriously, back in February/March 2020, I couldn’t manage 1km on the treadmills at a consistent pace at first, but then eventually managed to run for up to 9 minutes at a time before I had to stop. I’d come off the treadmill and I’d be wheezing and in pain; my feet felt like they were physically tearing, my lungs and heart were working overtime and it still wouldn’t be enough. I would dread the cardio aspect of any workout.
Today, I ran 5km in 32 minutes, and was disappointed. I recently found out that I can manage just over 9km in an hour, but today I had eaten too close to my time in the gym. I’m not as tired, sweaty, or in pain as I was back in 2020, and I don’t dread cardio any more.
The biggest difference though is that now instead of struggling to move 110kg of lard and muscle, I now only need to move 94kg of slightly-better-proprtioned lard and muscle. I feel better physically, I am better mentally, I hate what I see in the mirror less (still got a way to go, and until then the full-body mirror stays up), and I’m lighter than I’ve been in my entire adult life.
Throughout the last 12 months, I’ve used CICO (for mosst of them), although I feel like I’m not doing it entirely right; a deficit of 750 calories a day would have meant hitting my goal way back when. Added to that, I started walking a lot more; for the first 2 months I would only walk to the supermarkets close-ish to me for up to 3 items of food, and buy no more. If 4 were needed, I’d go buy 3, take them home, then walk to another supermarket. After that, I starter longer walks and distracting myself; a park about 12km from where I lived, to feed and befriend the crows, or to practice using my sling in crow-free areas. Then I started adding weight, with a 2l bottle of water additionally to my drinking water, then first one then two 5l canisters of water.
Moving city meant changing that; and so I had to find new routes to walk. Luckily, going to university in my current city means a 4km walk either way, and slightly closer there’s a hill with some lovely crows; and so I’d walk those routes with my water canisters on my back. Truth be told, I didn’t even notice that I was losing weight until a month or two ago, when I realised that none of my trousers fit me any more! I’ve still got a way to go, as my final goal is 85kg, and to maintain weight there (but drop body fat percentage), but the chunk I’ve already lost makes me feel I can do it.
Through it all, a couple of mantras have kept me going too. “Blood and Sweat” has been the big one all the way through, which is really just a shortening of “every day I will sacrifice my blood and sweat on the altar of self-improvement”; “Learn to love the suck/pain” was pretty useful at the start.
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