I thought I would share a little of my story as it seems there are a few on here that can perhaps relate or might find some motivation. The truth is, I love talking about running and my weight loss. I always felt a little awkward talking about it because it seemed boastful or a bit of a humble brag, or something. Maybe it is. Then I read something recently where someone who had lost weight through running say the reason they like talking about it is because it makes them accountable to those that hear the story. That resonated. So, to the extent I can be accountable to a bunch of people I've never met (mostly), here is a condensed version of my story.

Married. 4 kids. 5'11" and about 185 when I got married in 1999. Pretty active in my teenage years and first few years of marriage. Worked in physically demanding jobs during college and played basketball regularly. These activities helped stave off substantial weight gain. Went to law school, sat around all day, and got fat. Topped out somewhere around 230 pounds. Got busy raising kids, focusing on career, etc., and was really quite sedentary from about 2003 to 2013.

One day in April 2013 I stumble across a picture of me at the beach holding our first child when he was about 6 months old (he just turned 14). I was in fairly decent shape. My wife saw me looking at the picture and, in reference to me, and as a joke, said something like "who is that?" For some reason, something snapped. I thought something along the lines of "This is ridiculous. I can do better." So, the next day I started to try and lose weight. I used MyFitnessPal to track calories in and out and dusted off the treadmill. My goal was to get to 180 pounds (I was 220 at the time).

The treadmill was hell, but, as I ran a little bit most every day and watched what I ate, the pounds started to tick off. I didn't follow any training plans and had no desire to train for any races (a 5k seemed like it might as well be the Western States Ultra at that point). I simply was trying to burn a certain number of calories. I started on the treadmill walking and running and it sucked. But, I stuck with it and by August 2013, I was down to 185. I remember the first time I hit 3 miles on the treadmill -- it was sometime in August 2013 and it took me 42 minutes. At any rate, I was achieving my goal with relative ease, so I revised my weight loss goal to 175. Right about that time, we moved to an area of town where it was safer and more fun to go run outside -- there were actual running paths, desert trails, etc. So, I folded up the treadmill, bought an actual pair of running shoes, and went outside. It was at this point that I started to love to run. And the pounds kept melting away. I eventually bottomed out (or topped out) at 163 pounds (I am back up to about 170 pounds now). By January 2014 I was pretty consistently running about 5-6 miles 3-4 times per week and I started to think that I should train for a half marathon sometime in April 2014. One night (I love running at night -- it clears my head after a day at work) in January 2014 I went out to run and ended up doing about 9 miles. It was the farthest I had ever run, but I felt great afterward and decided that I had basically already trained enough. So, I signed up for the St. George Half that was only a couple days away. It went reasonably well -- I finished in 1:51 (had a goal of 2:00 hours). Since then, there have been a couple of Ragnars, the St. George Marathon, and the St. George Half again (just last week).

The absolute highlight of my weight loss/running journey to this point was doing a rim-to-rim run of the Grand Canyon with some buddies this past October. No clock, no medal, nobody cheering. I did it less than a week after the St. George Marathon and it was brutally awesome. If you haven't done it, you should. Stepping up on to the South Rim off of the Bright Angel Trail was one of the most euphoric things I have ever experienced. I was in tears. It is hard to explain, but I think for me it was the exclamation point to my weight loss story. I literally could not have done it just a few months earlier.

So, to anyone who is dabbling with the idea of running, or wanting to lose weight, I am here to tell you: you can lose weight; you can become a "runner." You also don't have to eat kale for every meal. Just be sensible. There is a dude in my office who was at about 300 pounds a few months ago. He is now down to 245 (or close to it). He has taken up running and just signed up for his first 5k. It has been awesome to see and I love encouraging him.

Lastly, thanks to BlueFrog (I think) for recommending the War on Drugs a few months back -- a few tracks have been added to my running playlist.