1/24/11

Well I did not do the things with William this past weekend. Not his fault! I went to look at houses. Sorry William! William and his wife watched my kids while we were out. After that his wife made a wonderful dinner, and he talked about his struggles. Best of all William thanked me for getting him moving. He said he is not seeing the weight loss, but feels better in general. He said the he changed the Batteries in the smoke alarm. To do this he had to stand on a kitchen chair. He would have never done that in the past. Awesome!!!


William this is not just a weight loss this is a change of life, you are doing great man. Keep your head up. Things will all come together soon!

A New Direction!

I, again, have not been blogging…. I went to Williams to do P90x, which went well. William up until yesterday was slacking on exercising. His wonderful wife told him what she was thinking about his journey so far. What she said, I thought, was a little harsh, but true! I hope it hit home, which I think it may have. Thank you, Shannon, for saying what I was thinking! The one hard part about doing this with William is that I want to help him, but I also want to still be friends. Sometimes I feel I can’t be too harsh otherwise I might jeopardize our friendship, which I would never want to do!

Yesterday, I talked to William about why he is not motivated to do better. He said when he was playing football he was trying to be better than the guy who is after is position. Now he feels no need to push hard. I need him to see himself as the adversary. That should be easy in my mind; being better than that guy sitting in the couch.  Right?

All he needs to do is stop the excuses of why he can’t do it; the cold weather, he has a cold, or he is tired. We all have that voice in our head telling us to take it easy. Punch that voice in the mouth and show it who is really in control! Doing things the easy way got him to where he is now! That’s why we also discussed a new training protocol.  Taking what William said about trying to be better than the enemy has made me think I need to turn William’s weight into the enemy! I can’t believe I did not do this to start! I want to design a program for William in which he doing things that make him push his weight around a little more, something like pushups, sit ups, 300 yard dash, etc.  Things we can log and see progress, so that William can see that he is better than the enemy! Saturday is going to be the day.

William and his wife came over the other night and planned out the dates of some 5K’s and a duathlon that we can all do together. They plan on doing the Muddy Buddy in May, which is a 3 mile run and 3 mile bike done with a buddy and some mud! I am pumped that they are going to do a 5K a month I think this will help keep William motivated to keep training for something. I hope his friends and family can join us.

William it’s a long journey keep your head up & keep kicking ass!!! . I know you can do it. You have it in you. The last two days have been a step in the right direction, keep pushing!!!

Things to do when you can't get out.

The weather outside is not good for exercising. I know William will not run or bike in the snow. I have a few things I like to do when I can not get out.

-Pushups, I like to do 10 pushups every commercial break while watching Television.

-Sit-ups, I do the same thing. 10 sit-ups every commercial break.

-Lunges, after doing pushups or sit-ups do lunges to my water bottle, and back again.

You could also put in one of the exercise DVDs you have collecting dust on your shelf.

Just find a way to move when you can’t get out. You will feel better!

Good luck, have fun.

Get moving!!!!

Making the right choice.

Today on my way home from work I called William to see how he was feeling. He answered the phone and there was a lot on commotion, he told me to hold on. I waited a minute and then said that I could call him back. Then asked what he was doing. HE WAS OUT RUNNING!!!! OMG!!!  I then yell get off the phone and call me later.

I am so glad to see that he is out there running. Maybe that 5K was the spark he needed. He has said that he is going to run 11 more 5K’s this year. Keep up the good work William. You are making the right choices. You will make your goal if you keep this up!

The first 5K

Happy New Year, Coagulations to William for completing his first 5K EVER!!!!!

What a day for a run?! On the way there it was pouring down rain! What better for a first 5k than to have it raining and cold?  Well it stopped raining before we ever got there. As we were standing in line to pick up our bibs I could see that William was nervous. I told the group of ladies behind us that this was William’s first 5K, they got excited and took a picture of him and said this is going on Facebook! I was thinking this is the exciting part of doing a 5K; surrounding your self with motivated people who are all there to support you. I could tell that this eased William a little, but it was not to last.

The starting gun went off and we took off, a little fast but we were moving. We got to the first hill and William hit the wall. We are only about ½ mile and we are walking and William is starting to complain about his calf muscles hurting. I know he can run 3 miles, but he was struggling mentally. I think it was all the people passing him that he knows he is better than, but we are at a race where people are prepared for this. We struggle along awhile and I can see he is getting frustrated at my persistent pushing.  I was thinking I know he can do better he needs to get out of his head!  When I ask him what he is mad at?  He tells me the fact that he is running, at me and at himself.  I ask him why is he mad at himself? He said “I am mad that I let myself get to this point.” I ask what can you do about it? “Get off the couch!”, he replies. I think it is now hitting home!

We run a little more I am pushing William by yelling “Come on 81!” (his bib number) . There are a few ladies running near us and they look at me and laugh. I tell them that I am here to motivate him on his first 5K. They start cheering him on. One lady yells back to him that she has lost 73 pounds since March. Wow! That blew my mind.  Here he is looking at what could be him in a few months! There also was an older lady just steadily walking by us while all this was going on. She told us she was 64 years old, and she has only been doing 5K’s for 2 years. William was not able to keep up with the older lady so I stayed with her and talked for a minute. I told her that she was William’s “carrot” he was to keep up with her. She said with a snap “I don’t mind being the carrot.” I could do nothing but laugh. I yelled back to William, “Come on man she does not mind being the carrot so get her!”  Well we had to slow down this was to fast for him, he is not ready to run/walk and talk. We walked over the pedestrian bridge and ran it in to the finish.

William sprinted to the finish just over 55 minutes. At the finish line was Shannon his wife (yeah I singed her up to), my wife, the “carrot”, her daughter, and the other group of ladies along the way. They were all there to congratulate William on his accomplishment! It is awesome how perfect strangers are willing to rally for someone they barely know, but see as an inspiration to themselves.  I hope that William knows that is what he is becoming, an inspiration to everyone who will meet him and here his story! And I hope William got a little inspiration from them as well.

William has accomplished his first official goal of running in a 5k.  He has now set a goal of running a 5K a month. Just maybe all support from strangers has motivated him best of all.