New Year

Like everyone else, I’m looking at the start of a new year as an opportunity for a fresh beginning. I’ve been reading a lot, noteably The Rules of "Normal" Eating and Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, and they’ve both really got me out of the "diet" mentality. They’ve also both got me thinking about this as a long-term lifestyle choice, not a quick-fix that has to be perfect right out of the gate.

So my new philosophy is that I want to change one thing, and one thing only, every week — if even that often. With that kind of approach, surely I can keep up these good habits more easily. I concentrate on the one thing, and am successful, which gears me up to achieving the second thing (in addition), in the second week.

Week one, which actually didn’t start until Thursday, due to the short week and other factors, I  started exercising on the treadmill every morning. I wake at 6, when hopefully the boy hasn’t begun to stir (or at least is content to stay in his bed), and come downstairs to fold down the treadmill and walk for 30 minutes. I credit laying out my clothes and shoes the night before as a reason for my success in accomplishing this 2 days in a row. I will also need to do serious laundry this weekend (and in future) to keep up with this habit, but that’s a good idea, anyway, right?

So far, I’ve been steady at about 4 to 4.2 mph — not fast, but I’m just starting and this is the new moderation plan.  I’m feeling the exercise in my midsection, mostly, but some in my legs, too. This is really important, because sometime over the last couple of weeks — with sleeping on other people’s beds, etc. — I’ve really started to feel my age and my weight. My body is creaking, in other words, and I need all the muscle strength I can get to maintain activity. So this battle (mentally) has gone from being about appearance to being fundamentally about health and longevity. And all it took was for me to start getting old