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I started In January at 223 and in April I'm now 196! In addition to running, I'm watching my calories and making good choices...cutting out sugar, bread, pasta, etc., and adding in more fruits and veggies! It's working!

(In my best 12-step voice) Hello. My name is David. And I'm a couch potato. (back to normal) I'm 52, twice divorced, remarried and things are going great in my life for a change. But there has been one annoyance that I can't seem to get rid of and that's my weight. I'm just under 5' 8" and when I saw that I had crested 190 pounds, even though I had a clean bill of health, I was wondering what was in my future. I wanted to do SOMEthing to improve myself but nothing ever stuck. Gyms were too intimidating, running was too painful and I never lasted long. I had a VERY limited amount of success with some Your Shape, a fitness program on the Xbox 360 with Kinect but that didn't last too long. I keep looking back and wonder where the strength I had as a kid went. I was born crippled and grew up in casts, crutches, braces, wheelchairs - you name it. After major surgery when I was about 6, I hear the doctor tell my mother I'd never walk again. I was walking (in casts, on crutches) the next day - 3 days later without crutches. It wasn't easy - I wouldn't have my first "normal" pair of shoes until I was about 12. Where did that kid go? After my first divorce I dropped from somewhere over 200 pounds to 135 (I know I'll never see that again, but...). Then I married the worst greatest cook - kids came along and all the stuff I was doing to keep somewhat active fell by the wayside. Getting divorced again after 19 years of marriage and depression didn't help. Here I am now, married to a wonderful woman for the past 4 1/2 years and I want to last longer. So how? It started with a new phone. I bought a pair of iPhone 6+ handsets a while after they were released. After a while, I noticed the graphs in the Health app. I knew I could still walk distances (it hadn't been too long since I walked across the neck of Cape Cod and back) and I started paying attention to how much I walked during an average day. I'd notice things like how LONG the building is where I work - a half mile from my cube to my colleagues cube and back. After a while, I mapped out a 5K route around my neighborhood and started occasionally walking it, just to see the spike graph on my phone. I don't remember HOW I ran across the C25K idea. I know that I was perusing the runDisney site and saw the finisher medals that they gave out for their 5K, 10K, half-marathon and marathon. I started to think, heck, I can WALK a 5K - could I run one? I didn't know if my body would let me. I read all the stuff from C25K that said how THIS program was made to minimize the risk of injury. I bought the app package. I bought proper shoes. I started. Then we got socked in with over 7 feet of snow in rapid fire blizzards. So much for running around the neighborhood. That was January. This is March. The more I was reading about 5 & 10K races and, I hate to admit it, the finisher medals, the more it bugged me that I'd stopped. So, a couple of weeks ago, the snowbanks retreated enough and I restarted. I was terrified that Week 2 would have me hitting a wall. About an hour ago, I finished W2D3. I have a regular Wednesday, Friday, Sunday schedule for these sessions now. I've done it in near-zero wind chills just flat-out determined to finish the session. I keep looking at next January when I want to run the Walt Disney World 5K & 10K - I already have my hotel reservations and we've turned it into a vacation. My wife wants to run the races as well. I have plenty of aches and pains from this. My back aches but I'm attributing that to all the extra weight I'm hoping to lose. I have one leg shorter than the other so one ankle keeps feeling like it's being stretched a bit - but I'm taking this slowly. However - these pains don't seem to last. Oh, sure, the first morning I woke up in horror but that was it. I can't express how hopeful I am that I may have FINALLY found a program that works for me (Ok, technology seems to have helped as well).

Hi Rachel, I swear I was just about to open a new topic to write about this, but when I saw your post I've decided to reply to you to motivate you. I am now at week 4 day 2. During the first three weeks of the program, I needed to literally drag myself off the couch to do it. I hated it! I was constantly thinking, what are to other people talking about....? How was it possible that so many people enjoy this...? They must be crazy or something. But as a competitive person that I am, I was determined to finish it (mainly to show my husband that I wont quit this one too ). But please hold on Rachel for at least a couple of weeks more. Because now I LOVE IT!!!!! I seriously cannot wait to get out of work to do my run. Trust me on this: It is going to become addictive!!! . Keep it up and let us know how you are doing. Dess

Completely agree! I'm on a treadmill bc my lungs can't take running in the cold... So music is my main source to aimlessly start thinking about everything other than running... I find if I throw my towel over the treadmill display, the run goes by a lot quicker! Just started couch to 5k after a long break after having my daughter!