From couch potato to 42.195 – Part 1

I wanted to share my story here, please bear with me if you find this boring. I wanted to one tell the story, most importantly wanted to let people know that if I can run then anybody can run. If I can influence at least one person to take up running for their good then my goal will be achieved.

Roll back to December last year, I was like most of us working in IT, carrying a Tyre around my tummy (I still have one :0). I always thought that my priority is not health and work. I can and will focus on health when time permits and it's easy to get back to shape. Also, I can easily reduce weight by playing cricket / badminton during weekends for few hours.

While playing badminton in UK, I experienced severe breathlessness after playing casually for 10 mins and had to drink water to bring myself back to normal condition. I wasn't able to continue even after that and had to call it a day. This repeated after couple of months and was a wake up call. I consider myself a decent player and was capable of playing hours together without needing a break. I still don't know what happened that day but one thing was sure, my lifestyle was taking a toll on my health and I can no longer take my health and fitness lightly. I had gained eight kilos in 10 years, not a very drastic increase one would say and my BMI was telling me what I was overweight not obese.

Roll back to March this year, I decided to do small things to remain active and started walking for 30 mins in the morning. I also started reading lot of articles on benefits of walking, running and what needs to be done to reduce overall weight. Also, how much can one achieve by way of losing weight and what actually being fit means. My eyes were wide opened once I realised that even walking isn't sufficient and running is the best exercise (if one can do) to remain in shape and lose that extra pounds. Also, that one size doesn't fit all and one should carefully consider his / her condition before deciding any form of exercise.

I haven't run in my life at all so this was a difficult decision to take. Most of all, I was questioning the sustainability of such an idea. I made a reluctant start in July and started to run for 10 – 15 mins daily. I will go out of breath after that and was content with what I was doing. I also realised that I was able to remain fresh throughout the day but the weight remained same. I again reached out to online websites to know more and realised that I have to increase the running time without worrying about the pace. This is the time I also learnt about Fit4Life and started running 5 – 7 KMs daily and logging the same as well. Wonder happened, I lost my first two kilos in a month and everyone around me started noticing the lighter me. Yay, what a feeling, can't be expressed in words.

Reach me at hifromsriram at GMAIL.com