Personal Fitness Challenge: Confessional

     Alright so I need to be in better shape. For real. My youngest is almost 3 and hubby and I are not having anymore children. I can no longer classify the jiggle in the middle as "baby weight". Now hold up! Before my mom gets all, "you're beautiful, we are all made different, plenty of people would prefer to be your weight" I would just like to acknowledge all of this. Yes, it could be worse...it can always be worse. That's kind of the point, damn it! It can always be worse, so it stands to reason it could always be better. It also stands to reason that there is no need to sit and do nothing and allow it to get worse. Besides, for me, as with so many others, it really IS about being more healthy. About feeling better as well as looking better. I've talked before about setting good examples for my girls. Now I need to put my words into action.

     About 5 weeks ago now I started this personal challenge. Let's be even more clear. This is not about weight. It never has been for me. I don't own a scale and never will. I am tense stressed and anxious enough as it is. I do not need a quantitative target to obsess over, I just don't. It's enough pressure every few years when I have to decide what I need to report for weight on my driver's license. I mean, really. So I am not measuring by numbers. I am not in competition with anyone. I have placed no monetary payout on the results. Rather I am measuring by progression of my workouts, how I actually feel, and a visual aid. For incentive and motivation I am snapping a "selfie", in workout gear, every Monday. Motivational- if not just plain scary.

     I started by writing down a list of objectives. From there I made a list of crucial things that I needed to do differently. Be honest. You know why you're not as healthy as you want to be right? It's not really a surprise. There is something that you do that you shouldn't. Indulgences. Guilty pleasures. Foibles. We all have them.

     My goals were basic. I wanted to exercise more, eat better, and schedule my "work time" more efficiently. I was finding myself constantly feeling rushed, mal-nourished, tired, and rather weak. I don't like any of that. Not at all. I also feel like I'm not spending any time with my family. I am always trying to squeeze something else in because "I have to work later". My plan was to set an alarm, "workout" somehow, do some paperwork/computer work for the job, and get ready to go for the day and head out to work. The schedule worked great the first week except that it completely negated the whole "spending more time with the kids" notion. So I have since placed that duty back into the after bedtime list of goings-on. It's previously scheduled time slot is now devoted to family play time, morning walks, general getting ready for the day type stuff, and soon readying for school. It's much better getting smooches and snuggles before work than doing extra work! Duh.

    So, anyway, I looked more closely at what I could change in the first round. I know this is going to be a long term, life changing commitment. I need to take baby steps. I know this about myself. If I don't work gradually and efficiently my changes won't stick. I need things to change for my health and my sanity. I scribbled down what I was going to change on a scrap piece of paper and put it right on my night stand. I've been staring at it every day since then. Annoying but effective.

     I committed to spending 30 minutes a day doing a Pilates routine I know and had great success with before. I also committed to walking the 20 minutes or so to work. Beyond that I needed to drink WAY more water (a bit less beer- but baby steps!), eat more regularly, and eat less carbs. I have opted to do this by consuming carbs in only one meal a day, by eating a protein heavy breakfast every morning- usually eggs, and drinking a minimum of 6 pints of water daily. I keep track of this by making a pen hash mark on my wrist with every glass consumed. Another visual aid. Gotta love it. I have also committed to stop eating ANYTHING after 8pm. That's a big one and so hard, especially working in the food service industry with weird hours and food readily accessible. But I know this is terrible for me and my waistline, so changed it shall be.

     I have not been flawless or perfect in my commitments. I have missed a few workouts. There are days here and there when there are not 6 hash marks on my wrist. Some days I can not convince myself to walk to work in the rain. BEER! And there are plenty of days when the girls are barely in bed by 8pm, let alone me being fed by then. Nonetheless I am making progress. The workouts are getting easier and I've already increased their difficulty. Water isn't such a chore anymore, I can pretty easily avoid carbs most of the time, and I even found a new favorite smoothie place downtown. I'm still working hard at eating late at night, I've pushed my deadline to 9pm and focus on protein at night too if I just have to eat. I have taken pictures every week- no I am not ready to show them here yet- and they are definitely motivation. We will always be our own biggest critics I think, why not use it to my advantage for once?! I don't know, maybe I see some slight changes but I know I feel them, so for now I'm not unhappy.

I'll keep you posted on the progress but so far so good.

Simple City Sam