Sep 12, 2013

Fit by 50: an update

I just turned 40, so if I call it Fit by 50, I'm giving myself plenty of time. Don't judge, Internet.

It occurred to me after a few people asked on Twitter that you guys are curious how I'm doing on the diet-and-exercise front. I guess I hadn't really thought about how often I'd tell you how it was going ... but by not talking about it at all, you may have assumed that I've already fallen off the wagon and am back on a steady, highly enjoyable diet of Reese's Cups.

Sadly, that is not the case.

I've been at this horrible thing they call A Healthy Lifestyle for about seven weeks now. When I weighed yesterday morning, I was down a total of 16.6 pounds, and yesterday afternoon I was able to jog a mile without stopping.

I'm not sure if anyone was under the impression that I might share incremental progress, like every five pounds or something, but this is probably the first time in my life that I've made a conscious effort NOT to talk about a current diet with my friends and family.

I've found that not talking about it keeps me from thinking about it as much, even when I'm in the middle of it. And the less I think about it, the less miserable I am. Everybody wins!

You normal people out there are thinking that the weight loss should be an encouragement to me, that I'm well on my way to The New Me! That's because you are NORMAL. Remember? I'm not. My brain doesn't work that way. I'm glad I'm losing the weight, which is the goal. But getting there is brutal. BREW. TULL.

For those who may be concerned that 16 pounds is too much in just seven weeks, it's coming off more quickly at the beginning, but it will slow down. As a matter of fact, it already has. I lost three pounds in the first week alone ... now I'm losing one pound a week. I'm eating 1,500 calories a day, and I'm walking two miles four days a week. When I can, I'm adding seven miles on the recumbent bike at the Y, and occasionally I can add four miles on one weekend day.

For someone who feels like being sedentary is her destiny, that's a LOT of exercise. But it's not a dangerous amount of exercise, by any stretch of the imagination. I wear a pedometer that tracks my steps and active minutes every day, and I'm also checking in with my GP to let her know how it's going. (We're friends on Facebook, so that makes it easy.)

TO RECAP: I'm still working on it, but I'm not talking about it much. Mostly because when I was little, my mom told me that if I didn't have something nice to say, I shouldn't say anything at all. I DO occasionally Tweet about it, because Twitter followers are famous for wanting to hear people complain about things.

Sometimes I Tweet while I'm exercising, so if you want to read things like this, maybe you should follow me on Twitter:








To the Tweets about the woman who passed gas BASICALLY ON ME while we were walking, I would like to add that she did not so much as turn her head and look behind her before she did it. I mean, COMMON COURTESY DICTATES, does it not? Turn your head, see that I'm there, pull over to the side, fart in the bushes -- LEAVING ME OUT OF IT -- get back on the sidewalk.

Sorry. I've gotten way off topic here, but re-reading those Tweets took me back to an unpleasant place.

I'll try not to go quite so long without giving you an update again. But I promise not to talk about it TOO often.

And I definitely won't fart on you.

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