On the Way to Healthy

Today I finished the first part of my health and fitness journey - an introduction, you could say.  When I signed up to work with a personal trainer, I was taking advantage of my gym's pre-New Year's special.  They offered 4 personal training sessions at a discounted rate (I love a deal) so that people could get a jump on New Year's weight loss resolutions and see if personal training was for them.  I had been considering it for a while anyway, so this was just the final push to make me do it.  My fourth session was today, and my trainer and I talked about where I would go from here.  Not trying to sell me anything or work in her own interests, she told me honestly that I'm a good candidate to continue.  I've already made so many big and small changes in my life that have produced results that it'd be crazy not to keep going.  Even if she hadn't said that, I was ready to commit to 10 more sessions because I've gotten so much out of this, and I'm excited to see where I'll end up at the end of those 10 weeks.

As far as fitness goes, I'm seriously amazed by all of the things I've been able to do in the past few weeks.  I always thought that I'd be limited in exercise because of my back, but it hasn't been a problem at all.  And every time that I probably would've just given up if I had been working alone, my trainer has been there to give me the push I need.  Even when she's not there, I work out harder and longer just because I know she'd want me to.  She told me she was proud of the work I did today, and seriously, no one has ever told me I did good at exercising.  I wish I could take that back to all my old gym teachers who gave me bad grades and just yelled at me for not doing well, rather than encouraging me to keep trying.

I don't particularly enjoy exercising all the time, but I know that I feel really good after I do it, and I know that it's getting results, so that's enough to get me into the gym.  I went 5 times in the 8 days in between our training sessions.  And all of the exercises I'm doing now provide me with enough variety that I don't get totally bored by it.

I think eating is the area where I've made the most changes, but not in a way that I feel deprived or hungry all the time.  I've made small changes, such as switching to fat free creamer in my coffee or using honey instead of brown sugar on my oatmeal.  I've been trying to eat as many fruits and vegetables as I possibly can, and I've been trying out all kinds of new recipes (my current fave is this quinoa and chicken salad, and I even made my own wheat bread this week!) just to keep things interesting.  It turns out I can cook really good food without using things like butter, sour cream, tons of cheese, etc.

It's been especially hard to maintain the good eating habits over the holidays, but I've done a pretty good job.  Logging my food has become pretty much second nature, and if I know I'm going to be in a potentially bad eating situation, I log what I'll eat before I even get into it.  Last week before my work holiday dinner I checked out the menu online, picked out my meal and put it in the log.  It was easier for me to stick with that, so having a plan helps.  If I eat something that isn't that healthy, I don't eat a lot of it.  If I have a beer or a cocktail, I have a glass of water before having another one.  If I'm at home and want a piece of candy, I force myself over to the fruit bowl instead (this one is really hard for me because I love chocolate so much, but I'm getting there).  The hardest part is still, as I mentioned in last week's post, dealing with comments from other people about my eating.  I don't know how to react without sounding really preachy about it, so I just kind of laugh things off and change the subject.  I suspect that once people in my life get used to the changes I'm making, it'll stop being such a big deal.

Another unexpected consequence of exercising so much - which I did kind of talk about last week - is that a lot of it is done in front of a mirror, which has helped me really take a good look at myself.  I'll preface this by saying I have really high self-esteem regardless of what I look like, so I don't want this to sound like I'm down on myself, but I finally acknowledged this week that, physically, I could use some work.  All along I've said I want to be healthy - which I do - but I'd be lying if I didn't say I'd like to look healthier too.

At the end of the hour, I had my last weigh-in of the year.  I'm down 2 more pounds (which is amazing with the holidays thrown in this week!), for a total of 5 pounds since I started on December 6th!