Steve's Fitness Story

The following is a guest post by my husband, Steve. He has inspired me, and still does everyday with his discipline and dedication. I didn't know him until after his weight loss journey had began, but I'm so proud of everything he has accomplished. 

My Fitness Story

My name is Steve Rimnac. I am 32 years old, I live in Arlington Heights, IL and I am a mechanical engineer. Some of you reading this have known me for a long time while others don’t know me at all. Some of you have known me before I was in college (the “old me”) and some of you have no idea what I am talking about. The following is my story.

When I was born, my parents lived in a 2 bedroom condo. I was their firstborn, but they did have pets - two cats. About the time I was 18 months old, I developed severe animal dander allergies in addition to asthma. My parents discovered this one night when I was struggling so hard to breathe that they had to take me to the emergency room where I was hooked up to a ventilation machine. I was officially diagnosed with asthma and put on medication.

From that day forward, asthma seemed to rule my life. I couldn’t play sports as a result and I was extremely limited in any physical activity. I remember needing to carry around a rescue inhaler with me all the time, and at certain stages of my life I would go through one in a month (which, for a rescue inhaler, is quite a lot). I did still get to play outside, ride my bike and go to the park. For the most part, I lived a pretty normal childhood.

The one thing that wasn’t normal was physical education in school. Gym class was always a struggle for me. I would often have to be excused to go to the nurse’s office to take my inhaler because the activity we were doing that day would bring on an asthma attack. I was never very overweight as a kid, but I was by no means skinny either. I hit puberty early and was always at the top or above average on the weight charts.

Of course the limited activity did not help, and toward the end of high school I got an academic waiver from gym class. I hated gym. I particularly hated the various tests they would make us do, like the dreaded mile run. Running was sure to bring on an asthma attack.

Imagine trying to run down the block while only breathing through a straw. That’s what asthma feels like. I would walk/run through the mile test, desperately trying to complete it in less than 20 minutes.

So naturally I was happy when I went away to college and I didn’t HAVE to take gym class any more. Unfortunately though, that’s about when my weight really started to get out of control. I wasn’t watching what I was eating and I wasn’t exercising. To be honest, the attitude I had was, “That’s not something I need to worry about until I’m in my 30’s.  I’m young, I can eat whatever.”

The summer before my junior year in college, about two months before my 21st birthday, I went to get a physical exam with a new doctor. Honestly the only reason I would go to the doctor at that point in my life was to get my prescription for my inhaler renewed. He performed some blood tests, and the results came back bad. Really bad.

At nearly 260 pounds, my triglycerides were through the roof, my bad cholesterol was elevated, and my blood pressure was high - just to name a few. He basically told me that at 20 years old, I was at a 3 times greater risk of a heart attack than the average person. At 20 years old. He told me that if I didn’t get my weight under control that he would have to recommend I see a dietitian.

Now, I had always wanted to lose weight. I didn’t like the way I looked or felt. I didn’t like being picked on or the fact that girls didn’t really show much interest in me. I had wanted to change for years. I guess I used my asthma as an excuse. I can’t exercise, I would think.

I think my doctor realized that my asthma was a roadblock for me, and so he gave me a prescription for a newer, stronger controlling medication. He also said I needed to start exercising. Maybe it was the fear of the frightening blood test results or the embarrassment (in my mind) of going to a dietitian, but something finally clicked.

Starting almost immediately I decided to increase my activity. I started small. It was still August at the end of summer break, so I started riding my bike around the block for about 20 minutes a few days a week.

A month or so later, I moved back down to school and continued to ride my bike around campus after class. It also helped that my apartment that year was a good 15-20 minute walk to most of my classes, so that was added activity as well.

I decided that I was going to start paying more attention to what I was eating. I didn’t change overnight. Again, I started small. I would eat smaller portions. I would snack on fruit or pretzels instead of chips. It took a lot of work and a lot of gradual changes.

When the weather started getting colder, I would do exercises in my room for 20-25 minutes. Around this time, I started dating someone. She encouraged me to go to the student health club. It was a very nice facility with a lot of equipment and courts that was free to students.

Now, please understand this was a really big step for me. I was scared. I’d never worked out in a gym before. What if people judge me?  What if people talk about me? My girlfriend told me she would go with me, and it soon became clear that most people at a gym are too concerned about their own workouts to stop and judge someone else.

I started using the stationary bike because that was the most familiar form of exercise to me at the time. I would ride for about 25-30 minutes. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it was hard. I dreaded it. I was sore, I would get tired, and I just wanted it to be over.

Losing weight is hard.

But I continued to push myself, and as the school year went on the pounds just dropped off. I would come back home for breaks and people wouldn’t even recognize me. I was turned away by bouncers at bars because I no longer looked like the picture on my ID. My hard work was paying off, but it was not over.

I continued exercising and dropping weight. After college I joined the YMCA near my house and started using the elliptical and treadmill. I was increasing the duration and intensity making sure that I was continuing to challenge myself and not fall into a rut.

Oh yeah, and my asthma, for all intents and purposes, was gone. I no longer had to carry my rescue inhaler with me everywhere I went.

I still have asthma and I still take a control inhaler twice a day, but it is a night and day difference. I’m on the lowest dosage and most of the time I can go without it.

When I moved into my own condo I took my parents’ old elliptical machine and used it at home. I was now up to working out for 45-60 minutes 4-5 times per week. I joined a kickboxing and martial arts gym (where I would one day meet the woman I married) and fitness was a regular part of my life.

One day, my elliptical machine needed repairs and it was going to take a few days to get it fixed. Since I didn’t have a gym membership other than the martial arts school, I decided to go out for a run.

By this time, my endurance was high and I was able to go miles before stopping. Yes that’s right, the activity I had to fight through in middle school and high school (and hated) was actually something I was getting pretty good at.  Not long after that, I got a crazy idea from a friend at work: I signed up for the Chicago Marathon.

A marathon? Seriously? It used to be that I could barely run a single mile, let alone 26.2 of them. I remember thinking to myself in college that I don’t understand how people can run 26.2 miles. I could never do that. That is impossible. Yet here I was, signing up for it.

I trained hard using the program from the marathon website and on October 11, 2009, over 90 pounds lighter than when I first started my journey, I completed the Chicago Marathon in 3 hours 28 minutes. I caught the bug.

Since then, I have run 7 marathons. My fastest one at the University of Illinois qualified me for Boston. (Unfortunately, I was not able to get a spot to actually run the Boston Marathon despite my qualification.)

During this time I remember being proud that I could call myself a marathon runner, and a pretty fast one at that! But I also remember thinking, “This is great, but I could never complete an Ironman triathlon. That’s impossible!”

An Ironman is a type of triathlon consisting of a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride followed by a 26.2 mile run. This is done all at once in a single day. I thought to myself, "Only crazy people do that. I mean that’s something like only a Navy Seal can do."

I continued to run marathons and tried to requalify for Boston. My wife got into Crossfit and I tried that for a little while. Even though I was trying Crossfit, I knew I was still a runner at heart. My name is still on the board for the fastest mile time at her Crossfit gym.  

One day I remember my wife saying, “You should do an Ironman.  I think you would be good at it.” That thought kept playing over in my mind. My wife believes in me. My family and friends support me. With the right training, I can do this! Luckily for me, one of the owners of the Crossfit gym that my wife still attends and coaches at is an endurance coach and has done several Ironman races. He agreed to coach me.

I signed up for the Ironman in Louisville, Kentucky about a year before the event and almost immediately started training for it. I had never really done any kind of swimming and had only ridden a bike recreationally.

I bought a used road bike and got a membership to a gym with an indoor pool. At first I was working on the skills, like swimming. The first couple of weeks (and even months) I could barely swim the whole length of the pool without having to stop.

It wasn’t so much that I was out of shape, but rather I didn’t have the breathing technique down. It took some time, but I finally got comfortable with it and I was swimming farther and farther each time. I started getting used to the mechanics of the road bike and using bike shoes with clips.

As the training program progressed, I spent on average 1.5 – 2 hours per day training by either swimming, biking, running or some combination of the three. Towards the end there I would spend up to 5 hours on a single bike ride. I worked at getting my during race nutrition down because you NEED to fuel during the race.

Again, I am not going to sugarcoat anything here; training was hard. It was a lot of work and took a huge commitment. There were plenty of times when I just didn’t want to go workout for several hours and I had to push myself.

People always think things like, “Oh you’re a runner, you must LOVE running all the time.” Yes I am a runner, and yes there are times when I enjoy it. But there are also times when I HATE it.

There are times when I just plain don’t want to do a training run, when I would rather sit on the couch and watch TV. There are times when maybe I didn’t eat too well the day before and I feel like I am made of lead.

Those are the moments that define you as an athlete, as a runner or whatever other sport you are doing. This does not just apply to running or triathlons. It is one of the greatest senses of accomplishment to know how badly you don’t want to do something, but you power through and finish it anyway. Even if it wasn’t as fast as you wanted it to be.

On October 11th, 2015 I completed my first Ironman in Louisville, Kentucky with a finish time of 13:46:06. It was challenging; it was both mentally and physically exhausting.  My wife was so supportive the whole time - during the race as well as during my months of training. She and my family came down to cheer me on and see me cross the finish line. It was a very rewarding moment.

So why tell this story? Do I just want to brag about my accomplishments or say how awesome I am? Not even a little. The point of my story - the reason I want to tell it - is to encourage people.

I want to encourage people who think they can’t reach their fitness goals. I went from someone who was overweight and would almost stop breathing when I ran for more than a few minutes  - to someone who is healthy and able to run for hours. If I can do it, certainly anyone can.

I want people to set “impossible” goals and work to reach them. At one point, I thought each of these things I did was impossible.

Now, I am not advocating going too big too fast. Be smart about setting goals and coming up with a plan to get there. Don’t go from being a couch potato to an Ironman in one year. My story was many years in the making.

But do dream big and work hard! Seek help from someone with experience. I would love to help anyone who is in the same situation I was in. I am still setting goals for myself. I want to do another Ironman and beat my time. I want to requalify for Boston and actually run the Boston Marathon. This is a lifestyle, and anyone can make it that with hard work and the right goals.

Thank you so much for reading my story.  I hope to have inspired someone to set an “impossible” goal.

If you'd like to contact Steve and talk to him about fitness, weight loss, or just ask him a little more about his story, you can email him at strimnac@aol.com.