Why now??

Hmmmm..... where to begin.  I guess I should start with the reasons I am starting this blog.  Weight has always been a battle for me.  I remember crying to my mom about watching my friends eat what they want but still miraculously remain 5 pounds; while I could attempt to diet and exercise my ass off just to lose 5 pounds in a month.  It took a long time for me to just accept my body for what it is:  I will never be that girl that can eat what she wants and get away with it; I will always have to work hard to be healthy.  So facing that means facing other harsh realities- that yes, I probably do overeat, and yes, I make WAY too many excuses to not get to the gym.  So here I am, ready to stop making excuses and hold myself more accountable, put my vulnerabilities out there and see what happens.  Here it goes....

I always considered myself somewhat of an athlete.  Never the star or the best on the team but yes, an athlete.  Being a swimmer on both the high school and club team meant that I was exercising, A LOT.  Once I got to college and decided not to swim, I never really hopped onto the gym band wagon and began to gain that dreaded freshmen 15, okay maybe it was more like 20 or 30 (this is about me being honest right?).  It wasn't until my senior year after I gained even more weight from a semester of nothing but bread, cheese, and wine in Paris that I pulled myself together and started to seriously diet.  Now if you know me, you know that once I really put my mind to something I am going to accomplish it.  Somehow, amongst the consecutive nights of heavy drinking that entailed senior year, by the time that I graduated I was down 3 places on my belt loop.  By the end of the summer I was almost 30 pounds lighter and 3 pant sizes smaller.  It was a great feeling.  And the best was not just seeing the numbers go down on the scale and on the tag in my clothing, but I just felt..... clearer.  I could think more clearly, handle stress appropriately, felt more confident and level headed.  Just overall a great, GREAT feeling.

I kept this up until my second semester of grad school.  With juggling my second year internship, a full-time student coursework, and part time job I was overwhelmed, and needing to cut something out of my life.  I ended up making the gym less of a priority and began to grab more convenient, unhealthy foods for meals.  Once I started working it just became harder to figure out a consistent gym schedule.  In college it was easy as class was the same time, for the same duration, on the same days every week.  With work there's so much unknown and setting down a schedule just became difficult.  But even here I feel like I am making excuses, really I just wasn't motivated enough.

But some harsh realities given to me by a close friend made me ready to make a commitment and start to take this more seriously.  So join me as I share my joys, hardships, successes, and struggles down the road to be healthy, happy, and complete.

Here it goes...


Day One:

Today was good.  Probably because in the back of my mind I had this idea of starting this blog to help me be held more accountable.  Lets see how long this lasts....

One of my biggest struggles with eating is the free lunch at work.  Now being in the non-profit realm of work, means that my salary is not that high.  So any chance to save money is a bonus.  When I learned that my new job meant free lunch, I thought GREAT! ... Less money to spend at the grocery store.  However, I soon realized how goddamn hard it is to go for the seriously lacking salad bar, when the grilled cheese and pizza just looks so much better.  So I have been hitting up the salad bar for the past 2 weeks.  I am starting to get seriously sick of salad, especially since a "good" salad bar day consists where there are both tomatoes AND cucumbers available.  But so far I am doing okay with this. 

Even got to the gym today too.  One of the things I have done to help me get motivated to go is to choose a gym that a) has a pool since I love swimming and b) has a parking lot so that I can go right before or after work.  Just pack a gym bag in the morning and give myself no excuses to go home.  My pool workout felt pretty good too.  My old workouts consisted of swimming 4,000yards a practice.  I made it a goal to do a solid 3,000 yards in an hour. (For all you none swimmers, 25yards is one lap at the pool I go to, I'll leave it to you to do the math ;) )

Here is a breakdown of the swim workout I gave myself:
Warm-up: 200y swim freestyle, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 breast. (total 800 yards).
Workout:
                 5 X 100 freestyle on 1:30.
                 200 freestyle sprint
                 3 X 200 IM (butterfly, back, breast, free) rest 10 seconds
                 200 pull, odds breath every 3, evens breath every 5
                 20 X 25 on :25 seconds
                 200 kick odds sprint, evens pace
Cool- Down: 200 easy choice.

Total: 3200 yards.  It felt pretty good.  I did it in about an hour and 5 minutes followed by a long soak in the hot tub to ease my aching IT band but overall, I felt really good about this workout.

So here it is, leave your feedback, leave your suggestions. And join me as I move forward to "weight" no more live a healthier lifestyle (get it??) :)