Every few years, Lee and I pretend to be responsible parents and go have physicals performed. Our most recent one was about 2 weeks ago. And now here I am, with a call from my general practitioner's office telling me that I have to start regularly exercising.
Sigh.
I know that I need to. I know that I want to. But the parts of my body that actually NEED the exercise...my heart, my lungs, my abdonimal muscles, my all the other muscles...they are all like, No, babe, sit down! Have a snack! You're still in fantastic shape...
They are like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Except they are offering me Goldfish crackers and beer instead of an apple.
So. New rules that I am going to apply to my daily life:
1. No more chocolate dipped granola bars for breakfast.
2. No more Goldfish crackers unless I have exercised that day already. (*dispensation for co-op days when I always bring Goldfish. But if I snack on them there I must run after co-op.)
3. I will recommit to running at least one mile 5 days a week. If I run through the neighborhood, around Drew's school, and back to the house, that's 1.5 miles.
4. I will do some kind of strength training 5 days a week.
5. I will quit my gym. I don't go. It's a waste.
Five's a good start. These will hopefully help me get stronger. I could use some upper body strength. All that carrying Connor is HARD. He's heavy, as you may remember!
I'll try to be honest about it too. I'm guessing my first run is coming tomorrow morning, when I (GROSS!!!!) set my alarm and get up at 6 to accomplish this run. Stay tuned. And send encouragement. I am going to need it!
5 comments:
Give 'em hell!
And by "'em" I mean "you", here. What about a triathlon?
HA!!!!!! Can I do a triathlon where I only have to swim 1 length of a pool, ride 5 miles, and run 1 mile? Lee's the real athlete in this family. I am a poor second...
A sprint tri isn't much worse than that, really, you could totally build up to it in 6 months, I bet!
Don't quit the gym - go when you'll see folks much older than us or folks much younger than us - It'll kick your competitive side into gear. Plus, you won't have the "It's too hot to run outside" excuse during the summer.
Hey Colleen - I've been keeping up with your FB posts and these blog entries. Good luck with getting back into an exercise routine - it's not easy for anyone, especially not for parents. My suggestion would be to look at how much time you really have to devote to working out each week, then figure out what sort of workouts fit into those time slots.
I used to like to do long distance events - I'm not fast, but I could force myself to keep going. That was BK (before kids) of course. I don't have time or energy for that now. Instead of having all day to train or play, I've got my lunch hour during the week. So now I look for workouts that I can do in 45-75 minutes total (changing, working out, cleaning up). Changing my expectations helped me stay motivated and enjoy my workouts.
Just a thought...
Jon B.
Post a Comment