Video replay: her story is so inspirational!  I’m so proud of her! :)  WAY to go!

A helper of mine collected some interviews for me a couple of weeks ago.  This is Jimmy, addict of half marathons!

I have hit a major road bump in my prep to my first marathon. I’d love to get as much input as I can. What do you think?

Question:

What does it take to get you off the couch and to the gym on a tough day?

It has been a while …

I know it has been a while since I have posted a video or an update.  Life is tough right now.  I’m on track for my goal, but I have never been busier with my business.  I’ll post an update this week to catch everyone up. PROMISE!  

This isn’t getting any easier, and finding the time is harder than ever. In the meantime, what advice would you have for a guy that can’t seem to visualize the finish line any longer?

Here we go … my FIRST check-in with Brian.  I could NOT be happier with what he had to say.  These are the moments that keep me going.

86 Days

I will complete my FIRST marathon in 86 days.  Do you realize that less than 1% of the population has completed a marathon? I’m really starting to feel the pressure.  Who can relate?

No excuses!  Period.  These are the moments that I can look back on that get me through the tough days.  What’s your no excuse story?

If you’re looking for a great forum to share your body building experiences, bodybuilding.com is the place.  They offer some great free resources too.  Just thought I’d share!

On Stretching …

Q: How much should I stretch before a workout?

A: For me, 4-5 minutes of a hearty warm-up helps to not only improve workout performance, but also prevent injury.

What about you?

There I am standing at the finish swine with my bottled water right after I completed the flying pig 1/2 marathon.

Wow is an understatement on how I feel.

I was the the poster boy when I was in the Navy. Fat, never me. Fat people don’t care. Fat people are lazy. Fat people are … STOP!!!

Fat people are just people like I was that got there by accident and saw no way out so we punished ourselves by eating and eating to eat. 

There will be a moment when we do have to stop the pity party and “get’r done”. There were hundreds of signs being played in my path, all saying “this does not have to be your life.”  Finally, I had enough.

How bad did it get?

I ate so much food that people would buy me lunch just to watch me eat it all. My wife would make me dinner and say “eat quick because we are going over to a friend’s house for dinner.” She would get so embarrassed from the food I could eat that she feed me before we went to eat at a friend’s house. The weird thing was that I got away with it for years without gaining an ounce of weight.

Eventually, the free ride came to a screeching halt. I started gaining excessive weight and people who knew me as a “ripped” and fit Navy man couldn’t believe my transformation. When I was selling cars, a guy walked up to me and asked for Todd Hudak without even realizing it was me. Todd Hudak, was the poster boy! I went from poster boy to Pillsbury dough boy. Unfortunately I excepted the pain and stayed fat for many years.

Some of the painful things I accepted: 

• I couldn’t walk up a set of stairs without getting out of breath
• All my clothes stopped fitting and 4x was the solution
• My legs would swell up and hurt so bad I wanted to cry
• I hit 300 pounds, kept climbing and really didn’t care
• My wife would tie my shoes for me: I would buy dress shoes and tie them once and never untie them again
• I had to rock back and forth to get out of the chair
• I couldn’t sit at a booth to eat because my stomach pressed on the table
• My kids would ask me to stop killing myself
• I watched the biggest looser while I sat and over ate
• My doctor said enough is enough: My blood sugar level, blood pressure and cholesterol was a serious hazard to my health
• I ate because I was depressed, I ate with the mindset of “how much more damage could I do …”
• I ate to eat and the more people tried to help me, the more I ate
• I was at a buffet in Virginia and after several hours, the manager came up to me and my buddy and gave us our money back and asked us to leave

The final moment came. I heard a statement I will never forget.

When the pain to remain the same becomes greater than the pain to change, we change.

And with that, I changed. 

Last year, I completed the Flying Pig Half Marathon on my quest to lose 100 pounds.  This year, I’m going for the marathon.  Welcome to the journal of my journey.