Before and after the Couch to 5K

On August 25, 2010, I started the Couch to 5K.

I don’t have many pictures of me back then — no one likes unflattering pictures of yourself — but here’s some taken from that summer:

My husband Tony, Scoop the dog, and I.

Before going up in a balloon at the 2010 Great Falls Balloon Festival.

I also don’t know how much I weighed the day I started Couch to 5K because who wants to know how fat you really are? It was probably somewhere in the mid-to-upper 190s. At my heaviest point in my life, I stepped on the scale at 201 pounds.

From my friends’ wedding.

My friends had a wedding earlier that summer and, when the pictures came out, I was shocked how much weight I had visibly gained since my own wedding a year earlier (I was about 175 then).

Have I convinced you with enough before pictures yet? OK. These pictures were taken about 5 weeks into the couch to 5K:

I weighed about 182 then, so I estimate I lost about 10 pounds in the 5 weeks.

 

Be patient with the program if you don’t see results right away. 

Here I am at about week 9 — my first 5K. I ran it in 31:42 … my goal was to beat the woman pushing the stroller with two kids. Uphill.

My first 5k!

After the 5K, I started working on the Bridge to 10K program.

Around this time, or maybe a little later, people started noticing. My family said something when I went home for Christmas, at about 174-177. That’s 20 pounds … it really takes a long time for people to notice, but once you pass that threshold, you feel like you’re always saying, “why thank you for the compliment!”

In February — 169.

On April 2, I ran my first half-marathon at 2:12:42. I was in the 167 range.

That’s 30 pounds I ran off, there.

I hit my goal — 164, the end of the normal BMI range for my height — in April. Sadly do not have pictures. 🙁

Around May I started training for a marathon. I was around 163 through most of May. In early June, here I am ~ 160.

 

In the course of training for the marathon over the summer, I’ve lost another 10 pounds — 150.

Here I am in September:

If you stick with it, you can do it. It was a slow, but steady, journey.