This is part 2 in a mini-series by Steve Shipowitz (@stevenship) on his endeavor to lose weight, which led him to discovering ‘Born to Run‘ and Vibram FiveFingers.  You can read part 1 of the series here.

My weight loss effort began precisely on August 9, 2010. You may be wondering how I know this date; it is because its the Monday after the week we spent in Orlando, FL for vacation. To start, both my wife and I decided we would try the South Beach Diet. To be honest, I have never been a fan of following any diet, but I knew I needed to do something and this would be good to do along with my wife. One of her co-workers, who also has VFFs, told her that she must get, and read, the South Beach Diet book.

My wife is a voracious reader; I have seen her read an entire Harry Potter book in one day. I promised her that if she would read it, and follow it, that I would do the same. Needless to say she tore through that book like a pack of Girl Scout Thin Mints. I too read it, but I really depended on her to study and stick to the details, which she did. If you remember from my first post, I like reading as much as I liked running:  not at all! We also made a commitment that we would have to make a complete lifestyle change. No more pizza and pasta, no more trips to the ice cream shop, no more candy whenever we wanted; it was time to make a life change.

At this point I ordered my first pair of VFFs, the TrekSports, from REI. Remember, I had never even tried a pair of VFFs on, but I had followed the directions precisely on how to get a proper fit.  Once they arrived, I couldn’t wait to get them on. Now, anyone who has put on his or her first pair of VFFs can likely remember how awkward the experience was. I don’t know about you, but I had to force my pinky toe, and I mean force it, into its slot. Once on, I was not a happy camper, they just didn’t feel right. I walked around in them for a couple of days, but they never fit properly. At this point I wanted to give up, but I was determined to make them work. While all of this is going on, I continued to hold onto my hatred of running and was considering giving that up as well. Before giving up, I decided to try a different style, so I returned the TrekSports and got the KSOs. Well guess what? They didn’t fit properly either.

By now, I was just about able to run around the block without stopping in conventional running shoes. This, with my weight loss of  about 10 pounds in the first week, pushed me to return the KSOs and order the Bikilas. Yeah I know, REI must be loving me at this point, not so much. I had been following the South Beach Diet to a “t” and it was working, I was losing weight. The Bikilas arrived in late September and I put them on with many reservations.  To my surprise, they actually felt ok.

What you don’t know about me is that I am highly competitive. I played high school sports: football and lacrosse. When I got to college, the University of Alabama, I still wanted to play lacrosse, but lacrosse hadn’t yet reached Alabama in 1983. So I decided to start the team. It is still in existence and flourishing at The Capstone. I tell you this, to let you know that my office had decided to have a weight loss challenge at right around the same time that my wife and I made our decision to lose weight, so the timing was perfect. I wanted to lose weight anyway, and a challenge? – that is perfect for me because of my competitive spirit!

Click here to read  the next post in the series, where I talk about beginning to run in my VFFs…