Couch to Fitness

A long time ago, I can even tell you exactly how long ago (it was January 31^st this year) I was doing a lot of couch training. I could do 8 hours and more of sitting-down, watching TV show marathons, pushing-off the couch to do laps to the fridge and cupboards then cooling-back down on the couch. Oh those days, I was so fit as a captive TV audience! It wasn’t just TV shows, I also watched Hockey games, so you can see I was a well-tuned athlete.

All those years of intensive couch training now going down the fitness drain, what a waste. I now spend over 4 hours a day working on building a leaner fitter me. I can barely watch one hour of TV without falling asleep.

In this previous post, I had debated about walking versus running. I had decided to walk. In my plan’s first step, I only walked. I lost over 20 pounds in less than 2 months. 

I’m convince that I could walk all the way to my weight goal. However, my ultimate goal is to be healthy. My weight would be down but my general fitness would suffer. 

So in step 2, I have decided to add cardio training in the form of running. I started a program called C25K which stands for Couch to 5 K run. It’s an 8 weeks program leading up to be able to run 5 K. It alternates jogging and walking for specific length of time. I don’t want to run too much, my weight would just put to much stress on my knees, so I’ll repeat the first week training until I reach my step 3 (180 lbs). The first week is:

• Brisk five-minute warmup walk.

• Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.

I’ll do that 3 times a week.

If you want to learn more about C25K’s training program, you can just go here. 

On another subject, we are really excited, we found a place where to play Pickelball. If you don’t know what Pickleball is, it’s a great game played on a court and is a cross between tennis and ping pong. After 15 minutes of play, sweat was coming out of every pore, but what fun we had. Yesterday we played for 2 hours. Wants to see what it’s all about? Check it out folks…

So my training priority has shifted, in order of priority:

• Pickleball – When you exercise, fun should always be number 1.

• Walking – Can be done any time

• Running – Speeding the cardio fitness

My schedule will be:

- Monday: 15 k Steps and Pickleball
- Tuesday: 20 k Steps combining walking and running
- Wednesday: 15 k Steps and Pickleball
- Thursday: 20 k Steps combining walking and running
- Friday: 15 k Steps and Pickleball
- Saturday: 15 k Steps combining walking and running
- Sunday: 15 k Steps


I’ll proceed with caution, if I see a problem, I’ll modify my schedule. But as long I can keep it up, this will be my routine. This is not a long term plan, it’s for the next month or so and subject to change without notice :)

What about you, are you keeping up with your schedule? I hope you are all doing great.