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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Journey to Fitness

For anyone who's known me from my younger years (or anyone who's looked at pictures of me as a child) they know I've never been "skinny".  I've always been on the chubby side of things.  The smallest I've been was in high school when I was a swimmer/water polo player and in college when I had a personal trainer (one of the best gifts ever!)  Once I accepted the fact that I'll never be a size 4, I became more comfortable with my body.  I'm at the age where I don't want to be skinny, but I do want to be healthy.  Since getting married and starting PA school, I've let my sweet tooth and busy lifestyle get the best of me.  Especially over the past year I've noticed my body filling out in ways I don't like.  I like to think of myself as moderately active and have overall healthy eating habits, but I definitely have much room for improvement.

At the beginning of the summer I started the Couch-to-5k running program.  After only a couple weeks I fell off the proverbial wagon.  I like to blame it on work, life and the unbearable Texas heat, but really I just lost focus.  I restarted the same program in August with a goal to run a 5k with a friend at Thanksgiving.  I was doing pretty well, made it to week 5 then had a few setbacks including a minor injury.  I got discouraged and a little scared (of failing perhaps?) and never came back to it.  Although I felt good doing something I didn't really enjoy running, no matter how much I tried to make myself believe I did.  So, what to do?  I did some walking/jogging workouts on our treadmill and the Wii, but got bored and lost motivation quickly. 

Finally, 3 weeks ago, I bit the bullet and signed up for a 2-year gym membership (thank you Costco for a great deal on 24 Hour Fitness!).  While I would love to lose 15-20 lbs, I really just want to be more active, more healthy and fit into my clothes better.  Will I have a bikini worthy body by summer?  Who knows, but I'd be happy with having to buy some new, smaller clothes for our Spring trip to Italy and Greece.

A great friend of mine recently started on her own fitness/weight loss journey and has decided to blog about it.  While encouraging her, I realized perhaps I should do the same.  The monetary investment in a gym membership is a good motivator to get my bum to the gym, but also having someone (even if its only my imaginary blog readers) to keep me accountable will help propel me forward.  So here goes my fitness journey!

I won't be specifically blogging my weight because I'm trying not to focus on a number.  However, I will post a weekly update on my trips to the gym and diet choices.  Won't you help me along?  Keep me accountable, push me and don't be afraid to ask if I've cheated.  I welcome all the help I can get!  After all, it takes a village, no?

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