Back in May, I went to a local urgent care facility for a strained nerve in my back. It was preventing me from sleeping. I had packed on a bit of weight from the early quarantine days – I’d hit 345 lbs. Apparently, Little Caesars is not part of a balanced diet when you wash it down with a case of beer. While running tests, they discovered fairly high blood pressure. Some of that may have been from the visit to a health care facility in the midst of a global pandemic, but most of it was bad diet and a complete abstention from exercise.
On May 27, once I got over the nerve pain in my back, I started exercising – it had been so long, it was essentially like starting over. It started with walks – a mile or so everyday. I eventually found a path that was just at 5k – 3.1 miles, so I could give my self a goal. I wanted to be able to jog that whole stretch without walking. It took me several weeks – I didn’t follow the couch to 5k program (I should have), but I slowly added more jog to my daily routine.
In just over two months, with only 3 off days, I’m happy to report that I finished the entire jog this morning without stopping. The work doesn’t stop here – I’m down 57 lbs from that health care visit and I want to continue to improve my time and pace. But if this old, pizza deprived guy can do it, I hope I’ll see you out there (socially distanced of course) in the morning.