Inspired by MStar's Gateway to Cathe

[RapidBreath]

Here is my weight/workout history, whats yours? If you had a moment where you just decided you wouldn't turn back, that fitness mattered more than sleeping in or whether you looked cool doing it.

My gate way to Cathy was Kathy Smith.

My workout/body weight history:

Age 11/12: Dance troupe for kids. We went to Disneyland for magic music days, that is what got me started with the Walt Disney company. I went on to work through the Walt Disney World College Program.

Age 11 summer: Baton/ballet
Age 12: Kathy Smith video, I got it as a rental at the video store. It was an oldie but I was hooked. The weird thing is I have always been overweight so I was even at that age trying to lose weight. At the time I didn't understand my endocrine disorder and was on a extremely low fat diet which only made me sicker. Damn thing would have killed me if it weren't for the exercise.
Age 12-16: Ballet at a different dance troupe and physical therapy for a car accident I had been in at the age of 11.
Age 12-18: polynesian dance. I can hula with the best of them.
Age 16: Modern dance, jazz, tap at the local community college.
Age 19: I took step at the community college. I was hooked. And I was awesome. I was short and 170 pounds. I started loosing weight. And feeling really exposed. Two stalkers later, terror and an endocrine disorder equals a bad combo. anyhoody hoo.
Age 21: I had to stop taking classes because I transfered colleges and my course load was too heavy. As a consequence my weight just kept going up and up.
Age 26: I was 258 pounds when I graduated from college. I broke my foot three days before. I was off my feet for 3 months. I was not allowed to walk. My appetite went in the sewer. I couldn't eat anything. I came down to 228 by fall.
Age 26: Working for the Walt Disney company I was putting in over 20 miles per day. Thats the average for anyone working in the park. I was working as a show keeper which is very intense physical labor. My weight had dropped to 210 when I came home.
Age 27: I went to Holly-weird. I worked there for two years. I was on foot a lot. My weight went to about 220.
Age 29: I came home from working a ridiculously over rated and underpaid job. I was called up for jury duty. I was 230 pounds when I started. Three weeks later I was 258 pounds. I was told I was insulin resistant. This was also when I discovered I couldn't tolerate certain foods. Dough conditioners work like a charm to make me fat. I forgot to mention I was exercising the whole time, I used an aerodyne.
That winter I got injured on another film set. It was at that time that I decided I was not cut out to work 6 days a week for 20 hours per day. My love affair with the film industry was over.

February 2007: Working in the family business, with my feet up (one being broken) I discovered Sandra Ahten and I decided not to give up. I was terrified that being off my feet would mean I would gain but I started walking, counting calories and drinking just water. I cut HFCS. I lose 12 pounds that first month. Soon, I was able to walk for 10 minutes. I worked up to 20 minutes.
March: Then, I decided to get out my old Gin Miller tapes that came with my Reebok step. I worked with that and my old workout tapes for about 6 months. I discovered Cathe in the fall. I bought RS first not understanding that her idea of advanced wasn't Gin Miller's advanced. Not the same thing at all.

When I got down to 210 pounds I got a HRM and started adding tougher hills and tried the C25k program for the first time. I had to deal with this moron in the neighborhood who didn't think that fat people should be seen exercising. I know because he told me to my face. This was before I became more adult and learned to let these things go, I cussed him out like a sailor. Y'all would have been proud

2008: I made it down out of that plateau to 176 pounds all thanks to Cathe. I kept seeking intensity and I previewed videos for fun. I know, its probably a sickness lol!
2009: I got terribly ill and was reduced to bed rest for months and months. But, I still came back to the forums because I hoped there would be a light at the end of the tunnel and all my Cathlete friends would be there and Cathe would be holding the lamp.
2010: I've put on 6 pounds and need to re-lose a few and progress down to my goal of 130, its going to take at least the rest of the year. I'm still a bit sick but I'm working my way back. I used to do 6 workouts a week and I'm down to 3-4 now. I get sick, I get tired, I get injured and darn it I'm ready to be back in the saddle again (metaphorically, I don't have a pony, wish I did!)

I know that was a novel, but thats ok, don't we all have a novel when it comes to working out?

Hey, I'm doing Step Moves today, whats your workout?

 

[kathryn]

Warning: long (but nicely paragraphed for legibility )

)Here's mine:

I remember my mother and I going for walks to a park that was about 1/5 miles away, when I was young (when? how long? I don't recall).

Aside from that, I wasn't very active, not athletic at all, and was always chosen last in gym class.

Flash forward to High School, and my first initiation to 'working out': several friends and I decided to form a 'workout group' and get together to workout at home, but I don't remember it! My best friend from HS reminded me of it, but I couldn't recall. It obviously didn't last more than 1 or 2 times!

As an undergrad, walked and biked almost everywhere (no car), but didn't really get into 'working out' until I started working at a coop, and started getting more interested in health and fitness.

About my 3rd year of college, I began walking/running 4 miles a day, up and down hills, in cheap shoes (it was both the "no-pain/no-gain" era, and "I'm a poor student" era!). After about a week of this, I developed a knee injury that sometimes still rears its ugly head.

About the same time, I was helping unload a coop delivery, and loaded a 25# bag on each shoulder. After I put them down, someone asked, in a very concerned tone "are you alright"? I didn't know what they were concerned about, until I realized I had grabbed 2, 50# bags rather than 25# bags...and it had felt pretty easy to me.

I decided I wanted to be strong, so I went out to buy a 100# (?) weight set, and hauled it myself from the car to the 2nd-story bedroom I was living in. (Did I say "no-pain/no-gain" era?).

I fooled with it for a while (thankfully not doing much, because I no doubt could have done some damage), and picked up a yoga book that went through a 30-day course (adding a bit each day).

I don't know how long that all lasted.

In grad school, I biked a lot (even did a Century ride, with 2 weeks prep! I wasn't fast, but I finished!), worked out 'a bit' to some exercise records (just my second year), then took a weight-training course.

One day in the WT course, our regular teacher (a guy) was gone on an away game for whatever team he coached, and a woman subbed for him. She spent the whole hour busily going from person to person, correcting form (something the guy never did: he cued us to squat with "a flat back" without showing/telling what that meant, and I was definitely doing it wrong, in a way that could have caused some bad back problems). After her coaching, I realized I'd have to learn some things myself, or risk being injured, so I picked up two books: one by Rachel McLish, and Arnold's Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, and read them cover-to-cover.

I started walking again (4-8 miles, a few days a week) and still biked many places (no car until the last few months of my studies).

I stopped doing weight workouts when I got into my thesis writing (and I and fellow students griped to each other about not having time to keep in shape), though I still walked and biked a lot.

When I started working, I would occasionally go for walks (not as far or as often as previously), but did no weight workouts.

Skip forward 2 years, and an encounter with a scale, when I discovered that my 'tightening' clothes were not lying: I'd gained 10 pounds!

This is when I picked up my first workout video: one of Cher's, and that's where the "Gateway" post begins!

Between then and now, I've used many, many workout videos/DVD's of a variety of types.

Beginning in 2007, I got back to walking regularly (in the warm months only). In 2008, I bought a Garmin, and it took my walking to a whole other level.

I began playing with speed and distance, and on July 4th entered, at the spur of the moment, a local 2-mile walk. While futzing with my Mp3 player (the music I'd thought would motivate me and speed me up was much slower than the race pace I could do) and starting on the not-quite-front line put me in 4th place, 4 seconds behind the 3rd place walker (and prizes only went to the top 3 walkers), I discovered that I could not only walk fast, but I could race!

Last year, I again entered the race, with the goal of placing 3rd... and ended up 2nd. I also did a couple of more races after that.

This year, I've fully accepted my role as an "adult-onset athlete," and am doing 2-4 5ks a month, starting in April.



Today's workout: I recently finished a 7-mile walk, and when I get home (I stopped by the office on the way home), I'll be doing upper body.

 

[Barbara P]

Nothing until age 27
when my mother turned 50 and - as she was a lifelong exerciser - I looked at her and said d@mn I would love to look like that NOW (at age 27 and I was 5'6" and about 115 pounds....but totally, utterly out of shape...).

My epiphany - August 17, 1980.

It took me a good month to get it through my head that I was actually going to do this workout thing, not for a few days and quit.

Sept 16, 1980 I got in the pool, swam 10 lengths in 15 minutes and literally thought I would drown. I knew how to swim. I was so out of shape.

About 3-4 months later I swam a mile without stopping once.

I am still swimming laps daily. So is my mom. She will be 80 on august 17. She is competing in the Empire State Games in Buffalo NY the weekend before the Cathe road trip.

I moved to Connecticut in March of 1981 with my company and the home office had - a fitness center!!!! I joined and went to lunchtime classes daily until I got laid off in 2005.

I started doing home workouts regularly in the late 1980s. Found Cathe in 1996 when I got my first home computer and found videofitness.com.

I ran the Hartford half marathon in 2001 and 2002. I run a couple of miles 4-5 days a week after my swim, but I'd really have to train hard to run another half.

Today I still go to the YMCA daily, swim and run, I work very part time so I'm home a lot. I do DVDs at home afterwards and on weekends.

When my mom and I are together, we work out together. We went on a Caribbean cruise in March (DH thinks he will get seasick so he won't go) and we swam every morning, and took a couple of pilates classes and used the gym. I lost 2-3 pounds on an all-you-can-eat cruise.
there are pictures in the link in my siggie.

I credit my mom with everything....I grew up watching her exercise. No small feat considering this was the 1950s and 1960s and women did NOT EXERCISE. She was the neighborhood weirdo because she did. I remember us (4 kids) all sitting around the TV (only one TV in the house) watching while she folded laundry, the she would get on the floor and start doing her "exercises." She was always and still is active. she swims every day, does either pilates or yoga or treadmill afterwards (depends on the day) and on Fridays in nice weather plays 9 holes of golf (no cart) in addition.

Now if my son would only start exercising.

 

[carres1973]

I didn't start "formally" exercising until about 15 or 16. I started with Denise Austin, Gilad, and that ESPN morning show that escapes me now (Bodyshaping, maybe?). I would get up early in the morning and workout to that. I wouldn't do it regularly or anything, but maybe a couple times a week. I would also do bicep curls and tricep extensions with a 7 pound pair of dumbbells, that for some reason were at my Gram's house.

While in the military, I would work out most mornings before work. There was a gym down the hall from my office and a shower in the female restroom. The gym actually wasn't too bad...coupld treadmills, nautilus-type weight machines, etc. While in the military, I also got into step aerobics at the gym on base. I LOVED it...more accurately, I LOVED how fun the instructor made the class. After getting out of the military, I really slacked off. The only exercise I got was walking to the local store (I lived in Germany at the time).

After DS was born, we bought a treadmill (that I still have) and I would get on that (just walking). I didn't really get into exercise DVDs until about 5 or so years ago. I had only a few tapes...Jane Fonda's 60 Minute Workout, the original Buns of Steel, and Tae Bo. I still enjoy Jane's 60 Minute Workout and wish it was available on DVD!

Fast forward to about 5 years ago. I decided I wanted to do more than walk on the treadmill. I remembered liking step aerobics so went to Target and got the smaller "home version" step. It came with several Cathe workouts. I had never heard of Cathe up to this point. At right around the same time, I discovered Exercise TV. Lo and behold, there was Cathe on there as well! I started my collection by just DVRing her Exercise TV workouts and doing the few that came with the step. Funny memory - I remember DVRing IMax 2, copying it to a DVD, trying it and writing on the DVD "CRAZY!" I had NEVER tried anything so hard for exercise! I have since built up quite a collection of exercise DVDs by different instructors, in different genres.

I have tried many other instructors for weight training but ALWAYS come back to Cathe. I just don't "click" with others. I really try and really want to, since they all SEEM so nice and the workouts look good. DH questions every time I buy a non-Cathe workout "you know you're not going to like that, right?" and he is right...but that doesn't stop me from tryin'!

I have gone through many phases of working out regularly for a long time and then slacking off because I get tired of everything. Right now, I am in a slacking off period. My only cardio is walking and my weight training is almost nil. I just can't seem to get motivated to get back into anything. I have been adding bodyweight-type exercises during commercials of "must watch" TV shows (i.e. 24) but that is about my limit now.

PHEW, did that turn out long!

Carrie