Only One Today

There are days when I wish had I more hours. There are weeks when I wish I had the luxury of not working and be able to do nothing but things I enjoy. I just always feel like I’m juggling three thousand things, between things I have to do (*cough* work *cough*) and things I want do (everything else in life!). Eventually, I have to let some balls drop in order to make sure others stay in the air.

This was most of January.

The biggest attraction to the life I was leading before this whole “make me healthy” kick I got on was that it required absolutely no effort. This is obvious since I never exercised, avoided anything but the normal daily movements and never gave any thought to what I ate except how delicious it was and how much I looked forward to eating it again.

Now, I’m finding that this exercising and eating better requires quite a bit of effort and thought. I have never been and will never be a morning person so getting up early to work out just ain’t happening. So I’ve been squeezing them into an hour of time between when I get off at 4:30 and when Steve gets home about 5:30. But this means that if I’m late leaving work, I am completely off schedule and everything else in the evening is delayed. The difference is that in the past, I would’ve used it as an excuse to NOT do it whereas now, I’m just sucking it up and doing it.

The food though – oh man, that is tough! I already hated thinking of what to cook before I was trying to eat well. The laziness of not exercising extended into a laziness of not wanting to put a lot of effort into cooking, especially after a long day of work. Now, that’s still there but it’s even more of a pain because I have to think about what’s good for me and balance it out with something Steve will eat as well. (Note: he is on board with this and will generally try anything I cook, but he is inherently picky and he won’t survive on plain chicken breasts and veggies which is what I would probably eat if I was on my own).

Again, the required effort doesn’t mean that I’m not doing it. On the contrary, I am trying as hard as I can. And it is exceedingly difficult, especially during times like last week when I had a hectic week and worked really late at least three days in a row and missed my work out time and just wanted to go through the drive thru (one night I actually did). I have cheated. Even today, I cheated a bit. But I’m not gorging myself on awfulness. I’ll have a sweet here or there and maybe a breakfast burrito from Sonic. It’s not the best I can do but it’s not the worst. I still choose the fish over anything when we go out to eat. I load my plate up with veggies and lean protein when we cook at home.

I eat spinach now! Never would touch the stuff before but find it actually quite delicious with a pinch of salt and some of that I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray.

But I spent most of January just trying to figure out how to rebalance my life to include these new things. It has been tough but I have stuck with it and I’m actually enjoying it. I look forward to eating veggies. I feel anxious if I miss my workout. I am enjoying the Kinect but I’m finding that I really, really love walking around the neighborhood. There’s something about setting off on a nice afternoon with my pop fitness station playing on Pandora and the sun shining that just makes me feel awesome and wonder why I ever missed out on it in the first place.

I told myself I’d give it a month before I invested any really money into it. And while I’ve slightly deviated from my schedule this past week because of circumstances unforeseen, I decided it was time to get back to where I belong and keep to my four days a week of exercise and my healthy choices.

And that it was time to buy a pair of sneakers.

This if the first pair of sneakers that I bought for a purpose and not because they were comfortable and I wanted to wear them casually. I am such a newcomer to this life that I don’t need shoes perfectly designed for running or cross training. I just needed something that was comfortable and supportive and would not make my feet hurt to the point where I wanted to give up.  I decided to go with running shoes because I read online that when you’re overweight, it’s better to start off with them because they offer extra cushioning and support. I also needed something wider in the toe than the Adidas & K-Swiss ones I’ve for years because I have a callus underneath the pinky toe that gets irritated and my feet kind of tingle and go a bit number around the ball of my foot. These Asics were on sale at Sports Authority and weren’t god awful ugly and I figure the yellow would help when I’m walking as it’s getting dark.

Next up, a heart monitor that counts my calories and possibly a small elliptical for the house.

Baby steps!

Regardless, I am still not going at this as hard as I should. Others would probably still call me a novice, an amateur. It takes all of my willpower to not completely give up or to just think “I can cheat today because there’s always tomorrow”. I have to remind myself that there are a thousand tomorrows but only one today and that the only way I can keep from constantly starting over is to not give up.

But it’s a step forward and I’d much rather go forward than stay where I am. Because where I am is not the place I want to be a year from now. It’s not the place I want to be right now.

And I’m the only one that can change that!

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On the general life front …

My blogs make it seem like I’m entrenched in this fitness thing – that’s far from the truth. It’s really not a huge change but it’s there. Work has taken a lot of my time, especially here lately. Last week was the kind of week where everything I touched seemed to fall apart or fall through the cracks. Add the fact that I skipped workouts because I got home late and I was PMSing and I was just a giant ball of stress.

There has been a lot of downtime in the house. Steve is sick this weekend so it’s been a stay at home kind of time. The few weekends before that were the same though none of us were sick. I think we just needed some winding down from the holidays. We’ve peppered that with quite a few dinners out with friends and quality time with the awesome ones in our life. I decorated our mantle and gave it a spring look.

Did some organizing around the house, cleaned pretty much everything I could get my hands. I’m kind of over winter and ready for the spring to get here so I can open the windows and let the world in. We’ve had weather nice enough for us to have them open but it’s not consistent so that leads to sickness.

Pretty much all the normal things that normal boring grown ups do.

Such is life I guess!

All in all, I’m pretty darn happy with it.

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I’m also trying to do the February photo a day on Instagram. You can follow along here if you’d like.