Sunday, April 13, 2008
I did it again.
Fringe benefit of this exercise program: Scout thinks I am an angel from heaven. Or at least the coolest alpha dog in the world. WALKIES!! Walkies for MILESES!! (Hey, two miles qualifies as "miles".) Also, there is an adorable little family of Canada geese (or maybe just brant geese? I think Canada geese are maybe bigger), with a little huddle of goldeny babies, living on a pond that is exactly at my turnaround point, which is a great motivation not to cheat and give up early.
So, anytime with the strong, sculpted calves that look great under above-the-knee skirts, right?
Friday, April 11, 2008
stupid ***** class.
I am not one of those inexplicable people who NEED TO RUN. Know what I mean? The ones who just feel that their day isn't right unless they've got out there in whatever kind of nasty or nice weather and pounded the dirt with their shoes for eleventy gazillion miles. I might wish I was one of those people from time to time, in much the same way as I used to wish I could be anorexic when I was in high school. (Thank you, popular culture's conception of the acceptable female form. Thanks so much.) But instead, here is a list of things that I feel I simply MUST do every day or lose part of myself:
- Read.
- Eat.
- Check my email.
I'm going to be brutally honest and not put "pray" on there, even though it should be, because that's more of an external-reminder-needed kind of thing. Ditto "study", "read the Bible", etc.
So. I have no internal motivation to seek any kind of exercise, which is maybe why I have struggled with my weight in some degree or another for my entire life, if you include being ordinary-shaped in high school and wearing a size ten and thinking I was SO SO FAT as "struggling with my weight". But now I have a pretty hefty external motivator, in the shape of a really expensive textbook and a college class, both of whose goals are basically to teach me to feel bad about the way I feed myself and my family, and to encourage me to do better, and oh yeah, to exercise. Often. Often and sweatily. Which is why, today, I (drumroll please)....
jog/walked for two and a quarter miles.
You must understand that other than an occasional brisk walk, frequent easy strolls (which, contrary to my comfortable self-delusions, do not count), and a very brief encounter with a perky British woman named Petra in a Reebok aerobics video who kept telling me I was doing great and to remember to move those ahms, I have not engaged in substantial exercise since I was required to do so. In high school. Three pregnancies, three thousand bowls of ice cream, and nearly half a lifetime [choke] ago. So the fact that I voluntarily chose to begin the famous Couch to 5K Running Plan, with no Mrs. F or Miss H standing over me threatening a bad grade if I gave up, is a testimony to the efficacy of NUTR-10 as a motivator. I am frankly unsure if I will ever make it to the 5K end; at this point I'm just enormously proud of myself for having left the Couch. Once, so far. If I never mention this again, you'll know why. (Where is Mrs. F when you need her?)
