I Can & I Will
One Woman’s Quest For Healthy ChangeArchive for progress report
Day 2
So, apparently 7 am is bad for waking, but good for exercising. I slept in late this morning, so I didn’t get to the gym until 9. Boy was that a mistake! Every treadmill was taken, so I had to face off with my dreaded enemy, the elliptical.
I don’t really like ellipticals; they aren’t all that much better for my knees, and I can’t control the pace as well. I hauled on that thing and kept my heart rate around 160 for 22 minutes, finishing about 2.2 miles. I couldn’t make it the whole 30, but I wasstill pretty happy with it.
What really surprised me was the stretching, which has greatly improved in just one day. Monday I could reach my ankles, but today I could actually stretch and touch my toes with my fingertips.
The food, today, though, wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it would be. I skipped breakfast, so I ended up eating my breakfast as a side with lunch. I chopped up some cucumbers, strawberries and green onions, and added that with walnuts, feta, baby romaine, baby spinach, and lite raspberry vinagrette for a pretty hefty salad. Unfortunately, it didn’t taste so great–either the chives didn’t jive with the rest of it, or I just don’t like feta as much as I thought I did. Either way, I muscled through it, but I’m not looking forward to eating the rest of it all =___=
Shot for the moon, fell in the stars
Today was the day: the first day I would get up early and go work out.
When I woke up, I was not feeling that great. My knees and back were achy, I was hungry, and well, a little tired as well. I was plagued with thoughts of quitting and pain, but a pep talk eased all those fears.
My goal was a 30 min workout, consisting of some warm up, a 15 min light jog, and a 15 min brisk walk to finish it off, and some stretching. It took some time to find a warm-up pace, but that went okay, but when I began to pick the pace up, things started to fall apart. I couldn’t stay on pace very well–I’d run really hard, then really slow, then really hard again. This only lasted about 8 min.; after that, I had to walk the rest of the half-hour, but at least I did that much.
Upon Nicholas’ suggestion, I also stretched after a cool down. That felt immensely good, and now I don’t ache nearly as much as I thought I would. Overall, I am definitely feeling a lot better than I did previously, or even than I anticipated feeling. I got back in plenty of time to shower and relax before getting started with my day.
Expect another progress report on Wednesday.
Stage I: Preparation
So, in light of my previously stated goals, I’ve decided to use the last few weeks before school gets started as a time to prepare for my new healthy life. Instead of starting a gym routine immediately, I’m deliberately going to wait until I get back and establish it as part of my “back to school” patterns.
But, I am going to start prepping for this. Here’s what I have so far:
- get a big poster, markers, and stickers to make a monthly fitness chart. It may seem lame, but I think it will work for me (that’s part of the reason I’m keeping this blog, too–to track my changes, vent my frustrations, and stay motivated). My initial goal is to do some kind of cardiovascular activity at least 30 minutes three times a week for one month. The poster will track how often I do it for that month, what I did, and how long I worked. The stickers are just for fun. =3
- Go through the Health Magazines my mom has around here, the cookbooks and some websites to get healthy (read: salad, vegetarian, or low-fat, low-cal) food recipes. This way, when I go grocery shopping, I can plan early to eat healthy and keep my fridge stocked.
-plan to update blog at least once a week, maybe more
-share my goals with family and friends to elicit support.
I’m welcome to any other suggestions you in cyberspace might have.
Backstory
I don’t expect this blog will get too many viewings outside of my friends and family who already know about it, but in case it does, I suppose some backstory is in order. Besides, it’s never a bad idea to record things for posterity.
It’s hard to know where to begin. Should I start where I sometimes do, explaining my high school illness? Or perhaps where I usually do, complaining about how I’ve tried and tried and tried again to lose weight and become more healthy? Or with yesterday’s epiphany, which changed it all and inspired this blog?
Perhaps I’ll start with high school and just get it over with. When I was a sophomore, I began to get sick. A lot. I threw up at least once a day, and barely ate anything the rest of it. I lost 30 pounds in a month, and then put on another 20, only to lose another 15, etc. Of course my parents took me to a doctor (several doctors, actually), and several misdiagnoses occurred.
March 2007, I was finally diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, and put on a low-dose estrogen therapy which actually worked. After 5 years, we finally had an answer, but it wasn’t without cost. I had accrued severe weight gain (I’m currently about 60 pounds overweight for my height and race), a horrible reaction to the prescribed steroids which left my skin ruined and scarred, and a jaded attitude towards medicine. I had also torn my left ACL a few years back, which in addition to the sickness I used as a crutch to keep from being very active.
Over the years, I had tried several times to “get back into shape.” I tried diets, various gym routines, accountability partners; nothing worked. I’d get on a “healthy” kick to lose X amount of weight, get frustrated, and give up. It scared me that my family has a history of diabetes and heart disease, and that PCOS put me a greater risk for both; it just didn’t scare me enough to stick with it. I felt guilty around my skinny friends, especially my very trim boyfriend, and always felt very insecure about myself. I hated seeing pictures of myself, and hated to shop for clothes.
Plus, I love to eat. Cooking is a great passion of mine, and so I tend to eat way more food way more often than I should. It doesn’t help that my family is not exactly setting the bar very high when it comes to these things, either.
But yesterday? I don’t know, something just clicked. I finally realized that all these things are just excuses. I’m 21 now, it’s time to stop whining and just start changing. I know it’ll be hard, but that’s not going to stop me. Here’s what I’m going to do differently:
- this time, I’m not going to go for a number on a scale. I’m going to aim at monthly fitness goals.
- this time, I’m not going to starve myself or make food a reward. I’m going to live by the rule of moderation, and in general, try to eat better by incorporating more vegetables, whole grains, and fruit in my life and less fried or processed things. I’m also going to cook for myself more often and avoid frozen “diet” foods.
- this time, I’m going to rely on my boyfriend, my friends, my blog and a poster in my room to help me stay motivated
- this time, I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to accept defeat or excuses.
- this time I can and I will change.
