Tired going up a few flights of stairs?

[gberardi]

June 1st kicked off my Get-Back-Into-Shape month. I started the month at 191.5 lbs. Ideally I want to be back down to 165lbs, but I'm fine with taking as long as it should take to get there. I initially thought that I could get to 185, but when I was close to hitting that by the end of my 2nd week, I decided that 175lbs is probably doable, too. I also want to build up my endurance and running ability, specifically because I want to play soccer again. I used to be able to run a full game in high school and still want to play more, but nowadays if I get into a game, I'm winded before a few minutes are up.

So, my goals: lose weight and get comfortable running again.

I cut myself off from alcohol, I tried to make sure I ate mostly vegetarian and a lot less processed food, and I started using the treadmill at the day job's gym each day for an hour. I've also been doing the HundredPushups.com routine already, so I continued to do that along with the treadmill.

My usage of the treadmill: I set the machine to do a Weight Loss scheme,
picking Aerobic 2 (whatever that means). Basically, it incrementally changes the incline from 0 to 4 then incrementally back down to 0 throughout the routine a few times.

I initially walked at 3mph, then running at 5mph for 5 minutes straight, then walking at 3mph again, but I've pushed it a bit more each time.

Most recently: 10 minutes at 3mph, then 5 minutes at 5.5mph, then 5 minutes at 4mph, then 5 minutes at 6mph, then 5 minutes at 4mph, then 5 minutes at 6.5mph, then 5 minutes at 4mph, then 5 minutes at 5.5mph, then walked at 4mph the rest of the time. There is an extra 5 minutes of cooldown, and if I enter it at 4mph, it lowers me down to 3.2mph for that period of time.

The machine says I burn over 600 calories at the end of a session. I don't know if that sounds right or not, but I'm not counting calories so I'm not that concerned. I use it more for a general sense that I'm doing well with sweating and breathing hard.

Since June 1st, I've lost 5 lbs. A friend who is a personal trainer told me that I should expect to see 1 to 2 lbs of weight loss per week, so that's about right. He warned me not to go every day to avoid overtraining, so I've cut back to only using the treadmill Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The Reason I'm Posting Here
Today I was in a position to need to go up two floors on the stairs at a school, and I was surprised that doing so made me breathe hard. It made me realize that in my day-to-day existence, I don't generally need to use the stairs except to go to my 2nd floor apartment, which isn't much at all.

But I'm still surprised that after a few weeks of using the treadmill regularly that I found myself slightly winded from using the stairs today. Now, maybe I might have been completely winded if I had done so a few weeks ago, but one of the things I want to be able to do is get back in shape enough to feel comfortable playing a full game of soccer, like I used to back in high school (I'm almost 28 now).

I'm losing weight (my pants fit so much better now!), so that's good, but do I need to do something else to build up my endurance? Is my current exercise routine just too lax for what I want to do?