No More Lazy Bones!

It has been awhile since I’ve focused on fitness. Although I have been focusing on my eating habits, I have been almost exponentially gaining weight these last few weeks and months. This is a sure sign that I need to increase my physical activity, and despite the fact that I am busy, I am never too busy for my health and welfare.

I signed up for the Jingle Bell Run/Walk this Saturday. What’s really funny is I was a team captain last year and I ran it and was cute, small and adorable. This year, I am walking it, and am not cute, fat, and way less adorable, and will not have a team of fitness gurus. I will, however, be walking with the girl I met at some road races last year, so it will be nice to talk to her and make some fitness goals together.

I am so embarrassed of the weight that I have put on, and unfortunately that shame hasn’t been motivating me to take action. It’s motivated me to hide from the world and be too embarrassed to participate in a lot of my prior activities. I worked so hard to lose weight several years ago, and I was running all of the time and keeping active. I was a part of a running club while I was on travel…running was so important to me and now it is nothing.

I intend on “starting over” in the running department, and participating once more in the Couch to 5k running plan that infected me with the running bug several years ago. I am going to sign up for a half-marathon in the spring, as a motivator for gaining and keeping fit during the winter months. I need to operate on the “No Excuses Plan”, where, obviously, there are NO EXCUSES for not working out and being active. It will be quite a lifestyle change…changing back to my old, healthy lifestyle, from this sedate lifestyle I’m currently [not] enjoying.

So my first step is this walk. My second step is to start going to the gym regularly. I need to determine when it is best for me to go. It is so darned busy after work, so I should go in the morning. But I'm so darned lazy in the morning...I think what I am going to do is try to go to the gym two mornings a week, and do a workout video at the house the other three days. If I find that I just can't do the mornings, then I am going to wait in line at the gym and suck it up and do it there 3 times a week, with a work out video twice a week at home. My goal is to keep active on the weekends by walking outside and partipating in active events.

I need to figure out what half marathon I am going to do. I'd like to do one in the midwest so I can go "home" and take Mircea to see my old stomping grounds. I'll post later on when I determine what race I'll participate in. If I'm lucky, I'll run a decent half and be able to run a full marathon in the Fall, but I don't want to set myself up for failure as I have in the past.

I do want to put a disclaimer here. I am very hard on myself about my weight...but I don't think that people that are overweight are "lazy" or "worthless" like I feel about myself. The reason I hold myself to that standard is because I maintained a very healthy weight for much of my young adult life, and though I put on weight, I took the iniative to get it off and become more active. That is the lifestyle that I want to live, and I know if I don't rebuild those habits now, then I will be very unhappy with myself and it will become impossible to take the weight off as I age and my life changes (babies?).

I'll post a picture of myself at the walk this weekend...with a picture of myself from last year. Here's hoping next year's will look more like the "old" me.