In January 2008, I weighed 190 pounds.

Well, okay, I didn’t weigh 190 pounds. According to our brand-new Wii Fit scale, I weighed 189.6 pounds. It was close enough to round up. It was the most I had ever seen myself weigh.

Up until that point, I didn’t think that I was really in bad shape. Sure, I couldn’t run a 5K, as I had proven just a few months back in the Race for the Cure, but come on…that’s three miles. And sure, I had probably needed the better part of a week to recover from the exertion. And yes, my size 34 shorts fit…if only just. They were probably shrinking in the washing machine, right? (Yes, I actually used that line on myself!)

But the scale made it hard to deny. In the past, I had made a bit of a joke about it, but this was starting to get serious. I’m only 5’8″. 190 pounds on such a frame wasn’t healthy, no matter how I wanted to spin it.

I was living a sedentary life. It was literally possible for me to go an entire day without taking 200 steps if I played my cards right. I wasn’t ever really overindulging, but over time, it was starting to show.

At the time, my decision was that the Wii Fit would help me out. And for a while, it did. But then I stopped using it. I lost about 10 pounds during my week of mulch-slinging, but put some of it back on afterwards. Following a vegetarian diet for a month cut about five pounds off, but I started to gain again.

It was in Aiken, South Carolina, of all places, that pieces started to fit into place. My sister was working through the “Couch to 5K” program, and enlisted my help in helping her run while we were there for a Masters practice round. “Sure,” I said. How hard could it be?

The morning of the run, she told me that it would be 10 minutes of running, 3 of walking, then 10 more of running. (Veterans of the C25K program know that means week 6, day 2.) I told her to set her pace, and I’d try to keep up. So we set out. About seven minutes or so into the run, she asked if I was doing okay, and I said that I was. Then she asked the magic question: “Feel like you’ve got something to prove?” My response was simple – “maybe to myself”. I managed to make it through the whole way, but man, was I sore for the rest of the week.

And I thought to myself, “It shouldn’t be like this. I mean, I’m 33 years old. I’m in the prime of my life. I should not be as out of shape as I am.” So, eventually, my mom had the idea that everyone in the family should try the program, and my competitive nature came to the forefront. I can do this.

When I started the program, I weighed somewhere between 175 and 180 pounds. I didn’t have a weight-loss goal in mind, except “less than I am now.” I had no idea how fast I could hope to run a 5K, but I figured that it was about 3.1 miles. For whatever reason, I chose 32 minutes as my goal. “That’s just a little slower than a 10-minute mile…I can do that.” I set my sights on the Race for the Cure in October.

I discovered that I like running – as long as I have music. I tried it once without music and it was tough. I liked being able to say “I went farther today than I did last time”, and as I began to run more than walk, “I didn’t give up and walk on that big hill” or “I got through the entire 5K trail today!” I started weighing myself on the Wii Fit again, and I noticed the weight start to come off.

Then Kelly and I ran a “practice” 5K after five weeks of our program, back in July. I had no idea how I’d do, but I figured I was in better shape than that time at Race for the Cure, so if I could do it then in about 40 minutes, why not 35 today? So my goal for that day was 35 minutes.

I obliterated that time. I finished in 28:54.

I didn’t have the stamina to run the entire way yet – not even close – but I was much better off than before. And I wasn’t that sore the next day. I was ready to try it again!

Fast forward another five weeks, to last Saturday. Now I was fired up. I even had a goal/mantra – “160/27”. 160 pounds being my goal weight, 27 minutes being my 5K time. I wasn’t quite there yet on the weight; I had less than two pounds to go, but I thought that I could make the time at the 5K.

Well, I destroyed that time, too. 24:12. I took over 4 1/2 minutes off of the time I had set in the “practice” race. And this time, I ran the entire way!

Which leads me to this morning. I stepped on the Wii Fit scale, and it did something a scale had not done for me since 2000. It stopped before it reached 160. I weighed 159.6 pounds – exactly 30 pounds less than I did 3 1/2 years ago. The size 32 shorts that I had bought during all this because my 34s were comically large? They are starting to fall off of me.

I don’t say this as someone who thinks he’s made it all the way yet. I don’t think that I will be actively trying to lose any more weight, but I do want to redistribute the weight that I have. I can see my body getting closer to the body that I want to have. And my 5K goal, which was once 32 minutes at the Race for the Cure? Well, I’m shooting for the moon – ten minutes less than that. 22 minutes.

Why not? I feel like I still have something to prove.