Not that he’s deficient in any sort of popularity but he’s by far my most favorite tumblr that I follow. @bendoeslife is probably one the the most inspirational people that I’ve come across out of all of the blogs I follow. He was around my age and starting weight when he started running to change his life. He’s lost tons of weight and does lots of really great things all over the country to help to motivate people to change their lives and get healthy. And I think his “in your face” kind of approach (posting all of his videos and telling everyone in his life about his blog) was crazy amounts of brave!
One thing he’s doing this summer is: an unofficial 5K tour. He’ll be in tons of cities throughout the summer running/walking 5Ks with people of all levels of fitness. If you’re not already following him, do it! He’s honestly one of my biggest motivators to date! I remember reading his blog and watching some of his youtube videos as i did crunches in my apartment back in the summer of 09 when I was just starting out myself.
All of the 5Ks are free to participate in, but driving all around the country, unfortunately for Ben and his pose, is not. If you find him inspirational (and you will) and you have anything extra that you can contribute to his cause, do that here.
P.S. I’ll be at the Philly meet up :-D I’ll try not to get star struck when I meet my weightloss idol…
P.S. (again) he’s still not following me after all of this time :-/ but I’m sure he has a million followers and they’re all difficult to keep up with. im definitely not as big time as he is…on tumblr anyway (see what I did there?)
Starting with a 4 a.m. wake-up and a four-hour drive to St. Louis (which, you know, is rougher on Pa than on me, because I tend to sleep the whole ride anyway.)
The tour is and always will be a free extravaganza, but if you want to help out please feel free to click here. It helps out more…
Phew! Life has been treating me pretty well over all but it’s definitely been keeping me hella busy. I started this blog In Aug 09 when I also, after a bit of a health scare, decided that I really wanted to change my life, get healthy and lose weight. I can honestly and proudly say that in the almost 3 years since then, my life has been forever changed for the better. I still have some work to do but I’ve already come so far.
I’ve run a few 5ks since then, I completed a half marathon in May of last year, this past may I ran the Broad Street 10 Miler in 1:34:50! And I’ve lost 100lbs and have been able to keep it off (+/- 10 lbs or so) That’s some pretty awesome stuff if you ask me.
I now live a much healthier life, make better life choices from day to day and it feels great! My confidence is much better, I feel a lot more secure with the person I am and have become.my life has changed in so many ways big and small and I’m incredibly proud of that. When i was over 300lbs, down on life and depressed, I never thought it possible to lose 20lbs let alone 100! I never saw my self running across the finish lines of multiple 5ks let alone a half marathon (arms raised victoriously in the air and everything)! I’ve learned an infinite amount of useful things about myself, my body, and just health and fitness in general. I’ve learned (and have been super surprised) at how much a person can really push themselves with the right motivation.
With all of this being said and with all of the great things I think back on that make me feel awesome, I can’t shake the feeling of imcompleteness. I know that being healthy is a lifestyle and that it’s not something you do for a particuar amount of time and then you’re “done” and free to live your life like “normal” again. I think this feeling is coming from the fact that I have 20-25 lbs more to lose to reach my ultimate weight goal. When I get to that point will I feel that sense of complete that I’m looking for? I don’t know. What I do know is that therewillalways be a certain amount of “work” that’ll go into maintaining my goal weight when I reach it. That kinda sucks, huh? But what I also know is that I’ll feel great, have lots of energy, and will be even happier than I am now. Those feelings will be totally worth any “work” or effort that I’ll have to put forth everyday. And let me tell ya, I’m super excited to finally know what 180-190lbs feels like! I’ll let y’all know when I figure it out ;-)
Sorry for this loooong winded post! I have months and months of not posting to make up for though :) thanks for listening.
The true circle of life?
what, what….WHAT are you doing?! look at you life, look at your choices…
its been such a long time since i used tumblr last that i dont even really know how to use it anymore….what the heck?!
nice and refreshing :-)
i ended up only doing about 2.6 miles in 24:56. a pace of 9:35. not too bad for being so rusty :)
so at my heaviest I was 315lbs…at my lightest I was 212lbs…right now I’m 227lbs.
thats a -103 then a +15 making a net -88
I’d MUCH rather be able to say that I lost 103lbs rather than having to say I’ve lost 88lbs (although that’s pretty rad too)
So my first goal right now it to lose the extra 15lbs I somehow managed to find in the past month and a half!
212lbs…here I come…again!
PS. I’m going for a run right now! 3 miles…I’ll let you know how I do!
so its been a REALLLLLLLY long time since I’ve regularly posted on here. Usually when I don’t post for a while it means I’m not running/working out/being healthy but that statement isn’t all truth this time. So since I’ve regularly posted here last I trained for and successfully ran in my first Half Marathon ever! On May 22nd, 2011, I ran the The ODDyssey Half Marathon in Philadelphia. IT. WAS. AMAZING! I loved every min of it! I went out the night before to a Mexican restaurant for dinner and had a few maragritas (not the best idea in the world) but I still ended up doing ok. My official time for the race was 2:20:36. I had it in my heart to finish in under 2 hrs but I was ecstatic to even be able to finish at all!
In reflection of my journey from the first time I posted on here (Aug 16, 2009) thru my half marathon (May 22, 2011), just three months shy of 2 years, I’ve realized just how far I’ve come. It’s been a bumpy ride, to say the least. There have been a lot of times I’ve stayed in to save calories, blew off friends that I love so I could work out, gave up eating certain things, spent so much time counting out every calorie I’ve consumed, have been so sore I couldn’t walk, have spent so much money on gym memberships and running shoes, have read so many articles and have thrown all my attention into this one thing (losing weight). That moment I crossed the finish line on May 22, 2011 was worth every sacrifice I’ve ever made and made all of my hard work over the past two years worth it! I look back and still can’t believe that I’ve lost an entire small child! It was also AMAZING having my three greatest friends in the world there to root me on throughout the entire half! Alicia, Nadia and Guillaume all came out to see me and went to different points along the route so I got to see them multiple times throughout the race. I HIGHLY recommend having friends/ people you love come see you run. Every time I was getting really tired and didn’t want to run anymore, I would see one of them and it would bring my energy level up by A LOT haha. It was great of them to come out so early and stick around for two and a half hours and show their support like that!
Right after the race, I decided I was going to take a little break…you know, about a week or so. Then life got crazy and I moved and got busy with work and went home to Long Island to visit, etc… Now it’s July and I’m STILL not regularly running again! I’m starting this blog back up to get myself remotivated to start up again. I’m still signed up for the Philadelphia Marathon in November 2011, so I need to keep up my game or I’m not going to be able to finish! Alicia is also signed up to run the Philly Marathon and she’s been training a bunch! I don’t want her to leave me in the dust haha. I’m hoping to run another Half in September, the Rock and Roll in Philly, just to keep me on track with my training and all. Hopefully you’ll be seeing a lot more of me! Wish me luck!
Hey y’all! So I havent really been posting for the last month or so! Life go busy and my training got a little wacko all over the place, but now I’m back in full force!
My half marathon is in 5 weeks (WOW)! I can’t believe it’s so soon!
On sunday I ran 8 miles in 1:15:00 (h:mm:ss) so I still got it! yesterday I did 4.1 miles in 36:54…not too bad. This morning was killer and it took everything I had to get through but i did 3.4 miles in 32:28 (there was lots of walking) tomorrow im hoping to be able to get through at least 5 miles (if not 6?) we’ll see!
So what’s new with everyone? Is anyone else signed up for a race this spring?
has been pretty busy lately but I miss the internetz! I’ll be updating y’all soon on my life :-)
just so you know I ran 3 miles today after taking a “break” in training…it was an awful run! I felt like i was going to throw up die…but i pushed through and I’m back on the wagon! yay!
AVID followers (BAHAHA) I know I haven’t posted in a few days…I’ve taken a few days off to be social irl (i know…crazy) I’ll update you all on my weekend later today! Quick recap:
Sat I ran 8 miles! Woot woot!
Sat I ate my weight in food at a chinese buffet (anti- woot woot)
Sun I def went over my cal count bc my good friend came out from philly and we went drinking
Nothing exciting on Mon
Today I run 3 miles
You’ll hear from me soon
Happy March! It’s a new month, take this opportunity to try something new!
If you’re someone with a health blog that’s pretty much only been dieting, try the working out route for the month and see how you like it.
If you’re someone that’s very active but doesn’t pay much attention to what you eat, try to this month. Even if you’re not counting calories, maybe you want to see how a diet more rich on protein will affect your active lifestyle?
If you are someone who’s been wanting to get more healthy, there is no time like the present to take those first steps towards that!
If none of these things appeal to you, find something else, a new hobbie, a new friend, a new something. Think of something you’ve been wanting to do for a while but haven’t and let’s get it started. Let’s all make March a month for new beginnings!
What am I going to do, you ask? Well…coming from being someone that was once 315lbs I haven’t always been the most confident person in the world. It’s really hard for me to ask people out that I’m interested in. So my personal goal for the month of March is to ask a guy out that I’m interested in. I know it may sound kind of juvenile, but it’s a big deal for me. I’ve been in relationships before but they were only ever initiated by the other person. Sometimes I miss out a lot of stuff in the romance dept bc I don’t ever go out on a limb. We all have to start somewhere, right?
Good luck!
running with a group tomorrow and I super excited about it! When I ran in the Cupid’s Chase 5K a few weeks ago, what I loved most was just running amongst other people. One of my friends told me about this running program through a local running shop so I emailed the director and ask if I could come with! They plan runs every Saturday and they are really welcoming. You can basically run as much or as little as you want. Tomorrows route is a 6 mile, but my training program calls for a 7 mile run. So I’ll just get to our meeting place a bit early and do a mile before everyone else gets there. The only thing that I really not excited about is that they meet at 8am….on a Sat morning…
I just hope I can get out of bed in time to meet them!
after I weighed myself I was so excited and I wanted to share it with someone but it was still early so none of my friends would’ve been awake. So I texted my mom (we’re a texting family) and said “today was my weigh-in day…i’ve lost a total of 101 lbs :-D”
She replied with: “I am sooo proud of u! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND ALWAYS HOLD THAT HEAD OF URS WAY UP HIGH YOU HAVE TURNED OUT 2 BE A SPECTACULAR YOUNG MAN EVEN WHEN THE ODDS WERE AGAINST U! ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT :)@”
So first of all I think it’s hilarious when my mom uses text lingo like to=2 and you=u and all of that. But on a serious note, what she said meant a lot to me. Although her and I used to have a great relationship we haven’t been quite as close for the past 5 or so years. We tend to not get very personal or have emotional conversations with each other. It was nice that she said what she did when she could have just as easily said “great job”.
