I have my eye on a 5K at the end of July, if I can work my way up to it. My foot hurts some today, and I only did my weights and walked a mile at the gym. I'm going to have to step it up some if I intend to make the 5K. I don't want to win, but I would dearly love to finish.
This is something I wrote recently:
I never really considered myself a senior citizen, although I could probably get the discount at most businesses.
But the years are creeping up on me and the extra weight and lack of exercise were making me old long before my time.
Getting up and down the stairs to do laundry was a chore - I pushed the basket in front of me as I went up the steps, and dragged it behind me to get down.
I was falling down far more frequently than I ever did before, and getting groceries from the car to the kitchen was a job that left be breathless.
I couldn't walk across the street without getting winded, and and I never walked up the steps to an office
I have to visit regularly. I waited for the elevator.I was exhausted all the time, and spent Saturday and Sunday taking long naps.
Looming in the background was a family history (both sides of the family) of diabetes and heart disease.
In short, I was getting old and feeble long before I was ready, and I could easily have auditioned to be the Razorback hog mascot - and won the part.
It was time. If I was ever going to do the things I intended to do, like hike in the mountains, learn to canoe and sail, take a walking tour of Europe and ride horses again, I was going to have to do something about my health.
I was also thinking that if I intended to keep up with a group of fourth graders in the fall, I was really going to have to get in shape.
I started by going online and joining Weight Watchers, and after a week of counting points, I stepped on my bathroom scale.
The whole process nearly ground to a halt right there - I could easily have had a heart attack on the spot.
But I decided that rather than be a candidate for an early grave, I was going to dig in and really do something about my health.
After about three weeks and minus six pounds, I bit the bullet and walked into the local fitness center, because I knew that the weight loss would screech to a halt if I didn’t exercise.
The plateaus were coming in every two pounds down anyway.
I started out slowly. Very slowly.
(Just incidentally, the photo is NOT me. I have no idea who it is.)
The director of the center, had me start with five minutes on an exercise bike, then he guided me through a series of weight lifting machines.
I started at ten pounds on every one of the machines, and it was still very hard.
I finished up with another five minutes on the exercise bike, and hobbled out for the day, vowing never to return.
But the next day, there I was, back at it.
After a week, I was upping the weight a little bit on some of the exercises, and I upped my initial bike ride to ten minutes.
Now, about two months into my self-improvement program, I’m not quite a new person, but I’m certainly better than the old one.
I’ve lost 18 pounds, and I’ve upped the weight on some of the machines to 50 pounds.
Some of them are still at pretty low weights, but I am improving and I can tell.
Best of all, I feel better.
I have more energy and I don’t sleep away my weekends.
I can carry the laundry basket up and down the steps, and I don’t get winded when I walk to the chamber office.
My backpack doesn’t feel as if I’m carrying around a load of concrete every day, and it’s much easier to get the groceries up the front steps.
I feel steadier on my feet.
As my current motivation, I have an application form for the local 5K on my bulletin board, and if I can work my way up to it, I’m going to enter.
My goal is not to win, but I would love to finish.
As of this writing, I’m walking one mile every day, and if I can make it to 3 1/2 before the day of the event without killing myself, I’ll be at the starting line.
Let me make this perfectly clear: I still hate exercise. I loathe waking up at 5 a.m. to be at the fitness center before work.
I miss eating cheese and fried catfish.
But I love the way I feel, and it’s worth getting up early, sweating at the gym and keeping within my Weight Watchers points to accomplish it.
The best part of the whole process is the way my girls talk about me now.
They are proud of me, and they say so.
Some of it, I’m sure, is the road I’ve walked to get back to teaching, but a large portion of it is my uphill battle to good health.
I always tried to set a good example by not swearing (much), going to church on Sunday and getting up and going to work every day, as well as making my bed and all those other things mothers are supposed to do.
I’m so glad that now they can see a mother who set a goal of good health, and is trying, every day, to meet it.
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