My Challenge Of Walking 2 Miles 30 Days
I Took A Challenge
You are not going to believe what happened when I walked 2 miles in 30 days.
I have been unmotivated about getting healthy. I know I should work on getting healthy and I know I don’t look good. Still, until last month, I was lazy and didn’t care.
How do you get healthy? I have tried every diet possible and some worked for the short term, but ultimately, I failed them all. I believe that since I have tried so many diets it has become counter-intuitive and caused me to gain weight in the long run. The question, how do you get healthy is different depending on who you ask and who is selling something. I was confused and just gave up. At this point, I am still failing and turned to walking every day.
Exercising was no different. Do cardio but stay in fat-burning mode. Uh…fat-burning mode? You mean you want my heart rate up but now I must make sure it stays below a certain number of beats a minute? Don’t go fast, keep your heart rate down and get into fat-burning mode, not a cardio mode or you won’t lose as much fat. What? I didn’t even know that you should go slow or fast in order to lose fat or not. Who made this up? Then others say, don’t do cardio, do weight training. I mean, can anything get more confusing?
My Inspiration
I saw a post on Facebook from a girl that I went to high school with. I had already seen she had lost 50 pounds. I had no idea she was 50 pounds overweight. She looked fine to me but then I saw her “after” picture, and she looked thinner but more importantly, she looked and happier and seemed excited about the new her she had become. I was inspired. She was the same age as me. I am more than 50 pounds overweight. She could get what I was going through, right?
Her post was about walking 2 miles every day for 30 days. She was walking 2 miles for 30 days and it was a challenge from one of her friends. It was a time to walk and talk with God. How wonderful was this? I knew this was a challenge for me. I could at least walk 2 miles a day.
Walking was not going to be easy. I have a full-time job where I sit all day and I am busy and taking time for me was not in the cards. Finally, I decided no more excuses. I had to get my butt up, put down my wonderful, creamy ice cream and get to walking.
Time To Get Going
Here is what happened when I started walking 2 miles.
- I couldn’t breathe or talk for the first couple of days. Yes, I was only walking but it was much tougher than I thought. My arches started hurting and my knees starting hurting. After a few days, this was all gone. I could breathe must better and I wasn’t hurting. I did hurt later but it was a good, working out hurt.
- I was sleeping better. This was a real surprise to me. I walk very early in the morning, so it was not like I was exhausted walking after a long day and I wasn’t waking up any earlier to walk. This was a great bonus.
- I had more energy. This must go along with getting good sleep because, within a week, I could really feel a difference. As time went on, I could think more clearly and was less distracted at work.
- I lost inches. This was another surprise because I had only lost about two pounds the whole 30 days but I felt different. I put my hands on my hips and there wasn’t as much hip.
In 25 days of walking I had lost 2 inches off my waist, 1.5 inches off my chest, 3.5 inches off my hips, 0.5 inches off my forearm, 1 inch off my thighs, 0.5 inches off my upper arm and .75 inch off my neck. Get this…I gained 0.5 inches in my calves. I am good with that.
The best part is that I did it. I didn’t fail as I have with so many other things when it comes to my health. I am very proud of that. Having my friends join me on this challenge was also a big bonus. Even though we didn’t walk together, we posted each day the number miles we had walked and supported each other and that is priceless.
What do you do when you finish a challenge? You sign up for a 5k run and you start walking 2 miles for 30 days all over again. Time for round 2!
Stay tuned for my first 5k adventure. This should be interesting.
Until next time,
Kari
