My Amazing Alaskan Adventure!

So, in the last two weeks, two of my friends (hi Krystal and Amy!) have found this blog by accident. I've kinda abandoned it in my guilt of basically not doing anything about my weight, and feeling sheepish about being so open about it. But two encouraging comments, and I feel like maybe this might be a worthy topic.

So, the big news for me is that when I went to Alaska for a month, I lost 10 pounds. Without doing ANYTHING. I did not conciously change a single aspect of my life. But I think it says so much about my struggles. So, here are the 3 things I think made the biggest difference:

1. In Alaska, I was constantly surrounded by people. In Phoenix, I spend most of my day alone.

I can not emphasize this problem enough, and I'm still feeling too shy to fix it. Being around people, for me, is energizing and frankly, not boring. When I'm around people, I don't feel the need to snack. When I'm around them, the conversation becomes my "treat," and I feel less of a pull to eat a thousand cupcakes. I'm just too busy to eat. Which is extremely effective, let me tell you.

2. Not to hot to function outside.

I went to Alaska from July-August, the hottest two months in Phoenix. Since I got back to Arizona, for about 2 weeks strait, there was an "Excessive Heat Warning" in effect, because temperatures were above 110 degrees. LAME. Alaska had the perfect weather... even with the rain, I didn't care. I went outside and just DID stuff outside. Yesterday, since things seemed to be cooling down I went for a 3 mile walk with Clara from 8am-9am, and I"m fairly certain I was on the road to heat stroke when I finally made it home. Even when it's not super hot here, it's still really hot.

Now, there's some good news to this: In Alaska, you have 3 or 4 really temperate months, and then 7 months of not so awesome weather. In Arizona, you have 4 pretty miserable months, but then 8 months of awesome weather. Really, I just came at a bad time, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to spend most of the winter outside doing something.

3. Built-in Babysitters

Ahhhh.... the joys of just leaving to go to the gym while Clara naps. I'd just say to a Grandma, "Clara's napping, she should be out for about 2 hours. Do you mind if I go to a Zumba class for an hour?" Yeah, they always said yes. Serious luxury, people... serious luxury....

Anyway, so, I think the moral of this story is I seriously need to make an effort to make some friends. If I felt like I had someone to talk to and do something with, I think even the heat would cease to matter. What's holding me back? Really (and no one believes me when I say this), I'm naturally pretty shy. It just takes me a while to warm up to people, I guess. Or to feel confident enough to invite them to something. But you know what? This week I'm going to make a goal to invite this nice young family at church over for dinner and games. Wish me luck!

Exercising

Exercising is my strongest point. I actually LOVE to exercise. I love the way it makes me feel. I love becoming stronger and lengthening my endurance.

My favorite thing?

It's over in less than 90 minutes.

See, with eating you have to be committed all day, every day, at every single moment.

With exercising, I make a choice first thing in the morning to go exercise, I work my butt off, and then it's done by 9am.

And I seriously work my butt of. I LOVE a good workout. I have to sweat, be out of breath and feel like I need a break in order for it to feel like a good workout for me. I never feel like walks are effective, I need to work on jogging.

The rest of my life is fairly active. I chase after a quick little 8 month old, I usually spend a lot of time cleaning which requires bending and lifting, although I have long stretches of sitting down.

For me, I think the trick is that when I'm exercising, I'm NOT eating. So, I exercise in the morning, but maybe if I go for a walk in the evening I won't binge on ice cream or something.

My lastest problem with exercising is that my weight it getting in the way. I've been working on the Couch to 5k program (I got out of shape after having a baby), and I"m stuck on week three. I can hardly get myself to run for three minutes strait, and it's extremely frustrating. I do it almost everyday, and I really honestly push myself, but I can't seem to break this barrier. The next step on couch to 5k is running for 2 1/2 minutes, walking for 2 minutes, running for 5 minutes, walking for 2 1/2 minutes. How can I do this if I'm still struggling to walk for 3 run for 3?

I've begun a strength training regime to help strengthen my body to be able to handle the extra weight (and I hope eventually lose it) so that I can continue building my endurance.

The First Post

I have a goal, and it's to be healthier.

I have made this goal over and over throughout my life, and I'm never able to stick with it.

Well, I'm done. I'm done making this goal over and over, so this is going to be the last time.


Here's the biggest problem I face: I KNOW how I should be eating. I know how I should be exercising. I know these things. I have read over and over again the best way to eat. But why is it that I know these things, yet I find I can not implement them? Because I am a serious emotional eater.

So, I"ll be focusing on three things:
-Food journals
-Exercise journals
-Discussing my feelings about eating

A lot of this will probably be boring. And that's ok. This is more a way for me to be honest with myself than anything else.