Fitness File: 1st Steps

I'm happy with my life and myself. I'm not obsessed with scales, dress sizes, the mirror, or counting calories (despite my tongue-in-cheek April post), but I decided I'd had one too many consecutive days (months?!) of feeling lethargic, out-of-shape, and unhappy about how my clothes were fitting me, . . . so I strapped on a sports bra, laced up my sneakers, and went for a run today.

OMG . . . There's nothing more defeating than that first foray back into the world of fitness. You've finally scraped together enough motivation to actually do something about your sad situation only to find out Things Are Worse Than You Thought! I ran. Slowly. For barely 20 minutes. When I finished, I was completely out of breath, my face was flush with every ounce of blood in my body, I had to fight the urge to regurgitate breakfast, and there wasn't a muscle in my body that wasn't screaming (even though, yes, I did stretch).

The obvious challenge I have ahead of me is whipping my butt back into healthier shape. What I need to admit to myself, though, is that the mental component of that challenge is going to be just as difficult as the physical component. I was bean-pole skinny throughout my childhood, adolescence, and much of my young adult life, and I ran track all through high school, so there's a part of my brain that has this notion that running and getting back into shape should be easy for me. This, of course, is the same part of my brain that has conveniently forgotten that my high school track-running days were 16 years ago.

I had done a good job back in 2006 of learning how to eat better (thanks to Weight Watchers), but I fell off the wagon and never got back on. Now, my plan is to combine the good eating habits I learned at WW with a much more regular exercise routine. And to keep myself accountable to this new mission I've set for myself, I'm going to try to keep track of how I'm doing on this blog.

I'm starting out from the standpoint that this should be a life change, something ongoing, so I'm not going to set a weight or dress size goal like I did with WW. I'm just going to judge my success by how I feel and work at maintaining good habits indefinitely. So, you can expect "Fitness File" to be a regularly occurring post from here on out.