One thing I never had was a strong core. I could do a few sit-ups, but not more than a dozen or so at a time.

Part of the work-out at Main Street Strength and Conditioning is ab work. This is where I learned about planking. Doing a 30 second plank seemed like torture, but after reading about the benefits of having a strong core and how planks are an excellent exercise to build a strong core, I decided to start working on my plank.

First I started out small with 30 second planks. I would do this daily and then looked for opportunities like commercial breaks while watching TV to do a plank. I was slowly moving to multiple minute planks!

Then during one of the ab workouts at Main Street Strength and Conditioning, we had a plank hold contest. I lasted just over 9 minutes! That put me on the quest for a 10 minute plank which lead to a 15, 20 and ultimately I did a 30 minute plank!

I now routinely do 10 minute planks after my morning walks and on Saturdays I will do anywhere from a 15 to 25 minute plank (every once in awhile I will do 30 minutes, but that’s a long time to be planking and the weekends are short). And to think I used to struggle to do just 30 seconds.

See what you can do. Find your current limit and build on it and before you know it you’ll be doing 10 minute planks without breaking a sweat!  Then for some fun you can throw in leg lifts, side planks, arm raises and shoulder taps.

Get off the couch and start planking today!

It’s been some time since I’ve last posted, but I want to let everyone know that the weight loss is still going great!  I have been able to maintain the 150 pounds I have lost and feel awesome!

I plan on being more active here as I’m constantly asked how I lost all my weight.  Let me tell you a secret (and it’s really simple)…

It’s what your doctor always tells you to do, change your diet and exercise!

Yes, that’s the secret.  While it seems simple, it can be pretty tough at times.  The reason being, once you’re used to eating whatever and whenever you want…it’s hard to change that habit.

I am here to tell you though, IT CAN BE DONE!  You just need to start slow, set reasonable goals and stick to it.  When you slip from time to time (and you will, as I did…and still do), just remember that tomorrow is a new day.  Forgive yourself, regain your focus and get back on the road to weight loss!

While the knee isn’t 100%, I have to say it does feel a lot better and gets stronger every day.  I finished my rehab and have been getting out in the morning and walking.  I also hop on the bike from time to time, but there aren’t any really good paths around and too many young, distracted drivers out so mainly I stick to walking.

I had one run slated prior to my surgery that I had already paid for which was the Nashvillle Fourth of July 5K/10K.  I was signed up for the 10K and wasn’t sure if I was going to just do the 5K and be done or do the full 10K.  When I checked in I asked what the course time limit was for the 10K and they told me 90 minutes.  OK I thought, that’s a 15 minute a mile pace, I should be able to walk that.

The weather was nice and cool this 4th of July and my knee was feeling good.  The race started and it really sucked “walking” while I was seeing everyone else running.  I logged the first mile just around 15 minutes so I figured I might be able to pull off a 90 minute 10K.

Prior to the surgery I was hoping to be around 55 minutes for this race, now I was praying to finish within the course time limit.  I hit the 5K mark at 47 minutes and figured what the heck, I kept going and tried to pick up my pace.  For the majority of the race I was in last place, but at the 5 mile mark I caught up with the group ahead of me and for a bit wasn’t actually in last place.  Then in the final stretch those “walkers” jogged it in and passed me up…all but one.  That made me the 2nd to last finisher!

Finishing a 10K in 1 hour and 34 minutes wasn’t what I had in mind but it did feel good knowing I didn’t quit at 5K and actually finished the entire course!  Now looking ahead to next year’s Country Music Marathon, the course limit for the 1/2 marathon is 4 hours…hmmmmmm.  I have a lot of walking to do until then and I’ll have to see how things go this fall with the walking.  I plan on getting back to the group at Main Street Strength and Conditioning this upcoming week so hopefully that will strengthen up the knee even more.

While I could probably start running again, I really am not looking for my next knee surgery which is a full replacement.  The knee feels good now and there’s no reason to “rush” any unnecessary wear.  There are few other races this month that I’m going to consider going out for as there still is nothing like lining up with a bunch of other runners and hitting the pavement.  I doubt I’ll ever get a mud run in, but that 4 hour 1/2 marathon sounds tempting!

Oh, I’ve still been able to maintain the weight loss and have actually met my final weight goal of 220!  I’m at 215 and down to a size 38 pants.  That’s a weight loss of 135 pounds, 5 pants sizes, 4 shirt sizes, 1 shoe size and two ring sizes!  At my lowest in high school, the smallest waist I ever had was 40!  I just spent a week up in Ohio for work and it was interesting seeing how many “hellos” it took some of my co-workers to realize who I was.  I also got to get out to Cedar Point for the first time in about 10 years and I was able to ride some rides that I had never been able to because I was too big.  Let me say, Top Thrill Dragster is a rush!

So starting about this time last year I began my journey of getting back into shape.  It started small, just walking a mile in the morning as I began to get ready for what would be my first of many races.  The walk turned into a walk/jog and then a full out jog.  I then moved to two miles and now I’m running anywhere from 3-4 miles in-between my two days a week at the gym.

So my initial goal was to actually be able to run a complete 5K without walking.  I wasn’t really sure how many races I was going to do after the Mini-Country Music Marathon I was signed up for at the time but I knew it was going to at least a few as I needed to complete a full race without walking (which happened on my third race).  I hadn’t planned on losing a bunch of weight so I didn’t take any pictures of my progress (I’ll need to go through what I have and try and put some time-lapse look-at-me progression type thingy together), but as I was losing weight I decided to set two weight loss goals.

The first goal was to lose 100 pounds.  I see people write about how they did such a thing and I when I would read those stories I always wished that was me, so a 100 pound weight loss was my first goal.  The next goal was to get my BMI out of the obese range.  I started this journey at 348 pounds with a BMI of 47.2.  A non-obese, but still overweight BMI is 29.9 which would put me at 220 pounds.  So the second goal is to reach 220 pounds.  What’s crazy is for me to be at a “normal” weight would be 183 pounds. I think the last time I weighed that little was 5th grade…maybe 6th.

The lightest I can ever recall weighing was 189 pounds my Senior year in High School when I dropped down to that weight for wrestling.  That lasted all of about 4 weeks before I went back up to the Heavyweight weight class (we didn’t have the 220 pound weight class like they do now so I was wrestling people anywhere from 190 to 275 pounds and I was around 215).  I don’t see myself really getting down much below 220.

So as of this morning I reached the first goal of losing 100 pounds!  That’s a lot of extra baggage I’m no longer carrying around.  Next up is that 220 goal, only 28 pounds to go!

Below is a picture taken on December 24, 2012.  If I was any bigger I would have consumed Victoria!  After seeing this picture I knew I needed to make a change, it wasn’t until a few months later when I was on the verge of hitting 350 and was needing to buy 4XL shirts that I started such a change!  Man, what a year makes!  I’m 100 pounds lighter and take more vitamins than medication in the morning.  Praise the Lord!