The Perfect Formula

So, I'm sure you are probably wondering about my cholesterol that I talked about initially when creating this blog. My levels were in the high 200's and now are in the mid-low 100's!!! Since 2006, I have gone from hovering around190 lbs to currently in the low 160's (don't weigh myself too often) My body fat percentage is between 16-18%, and I am in the best shape of my life by far!!! But to be honest with you, the numbers don't really matter to me. I know it might seem easy for me to say, but I am not running to maintain a number of any sorts. Obviously there are significant benefits to running, but I must say that now I mainly do it for other reasons. Here are a few of them:
1. Running is my personal time away from everything. Everyone needs some quiet time, and if it takes waking up at 5 am to get it, so be it. No kids, patients, co-workers.... just myself, the course and my Ipod (sometimes)
2. About 10-20 minutes into my run, I get my endorphin high, where I almost feel like I'm floating and sometimes I feel like my legs are moving and I'm not even trying....it's the coolest feeling and you truly feel like a well-oiled machine.
3. Running a race is a very exciting feeling. You get butterflies in the stomach before the race....have trouble sleeping the night before, and analyze every move you made during the race, just like being part of a big football, basketball or baseball game. (I can't even imagine how exciting it's gonna be at the start of the Disney Marathon 18,000 people!!!!!)
4. It keeps me accountable to my patients and my fitness clients. I have to set the bar for everyone else. I will never ask someone to do something that I can't do myself. So if I can't set the bar, I don't deserve to work with you.
5. Running gives me great energy throughout the day. My workdays can sometimes be 13-14 hour days. Since I started to run consistently, I don't have the fatigue that I used to have about 7 hours into the day. I used to come home from work and fall asleep on the couch after about 5-10 minutes. Now, I stay up... talk to my wife about her day and my day, play with the kids if they are not sleeping yet, and send out e-mails, do bills, or wash the dishes before I go to bed.
6. It's also quite amazing that people have said to me that I inspire them... my dad recently started running more consistently, because he saw how much weight I lost and was impressed that I ran 14 miles one morning before he even got up. He has started to increase his running to about 15-18 miles/week, and has lost about 15 lbs over the last 2 months. My patients and clients inspire me, and I sometimes inspire them, so I think that's pretty cool.

I have about 25 more reasons I could bore you with...but that'll do for now. Ok...gotta go, patients are coming through the door!!!!!!