Yeah, we’re going to try this again. At 372.8 lbs I am at my heaviest ever and am physically miserable. My kid is four and I gotta keep this meat suit of mine goin’ for at least 14 more years.

I’ve been listening to Ethan Suplee’s podcast American Glutton in which in which he frequently stresses the need for a plan. Now, there have been plans in the past, but this time I’m taking a different approach.

Past plans have been long ones spanning months. Now we’re going to take it a week at a time. Another part of Op: PYA is daily blog posts with my meal plan, the day’s weight, and the prior day’s fitness tracker stats. Daily posts of this detail are a challenge so there may be some missing here or there. The main thing is finishing each week strong and entering the next week with a new plan.

I do have one long term goal which is a 5K on May 23^rd 2020. That’s a ways away though and there’s some basic fitness stuff I gotta work on first.

Today is day one/week one. Let’s do it.

My run this morning didn’t happen.  By the time my warm-up was done my compression sleeve folded over three times and was actually causing me more pain. By the time I got home to throw it on my porch I no longer had time to run.

Old Chris would have been ticked and pouted all day (which I kinda did do at first), but new Chris chose to compile a list of five super positive things he’s grateful for right now.

1) I’LL BE A DAD IN SEVEN MONTHS
While this is a really scary prospect I’m so excited to meet my kid. My family as it stands is already awesome but it’s gonna get more awesomer.

2) A HOT CHICK LOVES ME
I’m married to the prettiest, funniest hottest woman I’ve ever seen. She’s the kind of person you can spend 24/7 with and not ever get tired of her. And she let me put a baby in her.

3) I’M STILL LOSING WEIGHT
Slowly but surely in dropping pounds and definitely dropping inches.

4) WARRIORS TOOK THE FINALS
Awesome year and awesome series. Go Dubs!

5) MY BLOOD PRESSURE MEDS HAVE BEEN CUT IN HALF!
Getting off the meds is a big goal of mine. About 10 more pounds and I’ll talk to the doctor about eliminating them all together.

So yeah, even though my morning sucked I still have plenty to be stoked about.

Today I repeated Week 7 Day 1 of C25K. My knee has been feeling like crap (self diagnosed as Runners Knee), but I wasn’t going to let it stop me from running on this particular day.

This weekend I effed up in a personal relationship and in a bad way. Rather than sulk and hate myself I decided I was going to run it out.

To me this is huge. I believe it shows a positive behavioral change. Rather than drowning my sorrows in a pillow case size bag of circus peanuts I decided exercise. Of course my knee is extra effed, but my soul feels a little lighter.

While I still have to repair the damage done in my personal life, the damage done to my joints this morning were totally worth it.

As a government employee I love a good acronym. Most of the time. The acronym I recently learned after experiencing knee pain is RICE, or Rest Ice Compression and Elevation.

While researching what could be causing the sharp pain on the outside of my knee I found this article on runnerunleashed.com that gave me a lot of insight into my ailment.

It suggests that always running on the same side of the road (which I do) changes your gate as paved roads generally have a crown to promote better drainage during rainy seasons. Face palm! Looks like I should switch up my route.

The article then explains how to rehab yourself when experiencing this kind of ailment (like using the RICE method) and even proposes some presentational measures.

Just three more days until I attempt to run again. Three long days.

This morning I was only able to run a mile when I was supposed to do 2.5.  I should probably be ashamed, but I’m not.

After binging on pizza, nachos and ice cream (I could feel it sloshing around in my gut), having to wake up at 2:00 am for medical reasons, having a jacked up knee and 93 percent humidity I still ran a mile. AND I ran that mile in 13.37 minutes! That’s better than my best time in high-school.

Now I think I’m going to stop running until Monday and restart week 7 of C25K. In the mean time I’ll do some restorative yoga and maybe some weights.

This week ain’t getting me down.

For the last week my eating has been out of control. Example; today I had breakfast from Nations, pizza for lunch and taqueria nachos for dinner followed by Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked froyo.

I’m still up on my running but definitely need to reel in my eating.

I’m not going to beat myself up over this. That’d just put me in a funk and make me want to eat my feelings.

Tomorrow is a new day. No looking back.

Today was the second most difficult day of C25K program so far (the hardest being day 1). 20 minutes of running without walking. To be honest I really didn’t want to even start this day and once I started I definitely didn’t think I wanted to  finish it. The reality of it is that I crushed it. The muscle fatigue was bonkers though. However, the recovery afterwards was quick.

According to app I only ran 1.8 miles. Eventually I’m going to have to improve that figure.

I swear I wanted to quit with each step (which according to my Fitbit was about 4,600 times). The logical part of my brain is what kept me going. Basically I have to run with the attitude of a Vulcan.

Taking an overdue two days off from running but will definitely slip some yoga in there somewhere.

Hey there. My name is Chris and I’m a morbidly obese civil servant living in Northern California. Read More