Week two: working out

Thank you to those who have sent such nice (and supportive) comments lately to the new addition of cardio in my life. I have to say that the next few weeks are going to be the toughest for me. Any time I start something new, the first week or even day is the easiest. I have so much enthusiasm and excitement toward it and then I hit a point soon after where I either get bored, distracted or overwhelmed. So then I start, but never really finish anything. I know that in order for the exercise to work and count I have to be consistent and not just do it on the "perfect" or "good" days.

I’ve mention this before, but I think a lot of us are trapped into thinking that there is going to be something that comes along to make this process easier. I’ve seen so many infomercials that in the span of five minutes made me believe it was the “solution”. In my family I’ve seen my mom buy Richard Simmons tapes, Tae Bo DVD’s, an Ab Doer and enough diet books to start a diet library. The secret is…they all can work. We just have to get past the hard parts, work out on the stressful days, get past the first 15 minutes, and keep going back. My challenge for myself and anyone else trying to live a healthier life is to stop waiting for a better less stressful day, stop waiting for the exercise equipment to come, and stop waiting for the motivation to come. It will never get easier than it is today, it won’t be easier to move your body tomorrow, next week or next month and there is nothing that you can buy that will make it that way.

It was hard going Monday, as in, it was tempting to stay home because it wasn't such a good eating day, and it was kind of rainy and I was feeling stress from work, but I went anyway. It was hard to do it after strength training and even tough for the first 15 minutes, but then it clicked and was good and before I knew it the 55 minutes were over and I was happy that I did it again and my body was rejoicing.

I have to admit that my weight loss from last week happened because of the exercise. My eating was all over the place, in forms of daily sub sandwiches from city sub that haunts me down the street, one too many skinny cow ice cream sandwiches, and other food in various forms that I didn’t track. It felt excessive, not glutinous, and believe me there is a difference.

The challenge now is to find the balance between good eating and exercise. It seems when I was doing well with weight watchers, I wasn't doing well with exercise and now the opposite is happening. I don’t feel horrible about it, its just something to keep working towards. I don’t want to have unrealistic expectations for myself. I'm glad that exercise is taking the front seat. I've seen a lot of people get to their goal weight that ignored exercise and then gained it back soon after or have to scrutinize every bit of food they eat to maintain. Replacing fat with muscle allows more flexibility with food intake because it boosts the metabolism. I believe that building muscle while losing weight will not only help in losing weight, but maintaining weight loss once the weight is lost.