Hello dear readers, if there are any of you left. It has been quite some time since I updated my weight loss blog, and I realized that I missed it. I am a very busy guy these days, but I know I need to get better at taking time for myself, and part of that is this blog. So, this is the great blog reboot. My new goal is to update this blog once a week. It will not be on a regular day or time, but I am challenging myself to give a substantial update once a week.
I am currently sitting in the dining room at my parents' house. Fresh off a wonderful Christmas with my parents, my brother, sister-in-law, and my adorable niece. I have been sleeping in a room where a medal hangs, a medal my dad got for completing one of his various races over the last year. One the fridge is a list of goals my dad has in four different life categories. He runs no matter the weather or the circumstances. It is very inspiring to see in person. I look at that medal every night and think about my goals to finally take on a 5K, but more importantly, my goal of a 12 minute mile. That medal hangs there helping me recommit to my physical health.
Tuesday I actually went and ran with my dad, well, power walked and ran. It was the first time I had run in too long, and my body paid the price for it, but I also felt something I had not felt in a very long time: energized. I took Christmas off, but this morning I set an alarm for 8:30, made a delicious smoothie and headed down to my parents' club house where I found a treadmill. I set a goal to do a half mile today because it had been so long since I really ran, and I did not want to hurt myself. After a solid warm up walk, I started to jog at a speed a little lower than what I was doing over the summer. My new shoes really helped me stay balanced on the treadmill, which was very nice. I have never really spoken about this before, but if you were to pay attention to my walk, you would notice that my feet point out pretty aggressively, which makes walking in thin spaces difficult for me. Treadmills have always been a bit complicated for me because of that. It makes skiing impossible because the back of my skis always hit each other. My ankles have always been very weak, and I am not sure if it related to how awkwardly I walk, but there is always pain there. However, my new shoes help tremendously with that. My feet are still not perfectly straight, but the shoes help me stay relatively straight.
Once I hit the half mile mark, I started to wind down with a cool down walk, but I realized that I felt pretty good, and instead of taking a cool down walk, I took a 1 minute, catch my breath walk, and started jogging again. I hit the 3/4 mile mark and was just about to wind down when Pandora hit me with Eminem's "Lose Yourself." I told myself I would jog until the song ended, and next thing I knew, I had crossed the one mile mark. My time is not important, it was much slower than my best speed over the summer, but it is a start. I got myself two out of three days of being physical again. I am planning on doing it all over again tomorrow, and hopefully for the rest of my break. My hope is to get myself back to a place where I am working out 5 to 6 days a week. I slipped in a major way the last four months, but after the two work outs this week, I feel so much better about myself. Teaching stimulates me in so many ways, but I get so busy that I forget to take care of myself and I need to get back to it. It is so much fun to be active, sweaty and out of breath. It makes me feel like I am accomplishing something positive for myself.
Next week I will be updating with a recap of how I did with my goals for 2013, but I wanted to get my goals down for 2014 now:
1. Be the best teacher possible. This is truly immeasurable, but I will have it on my list every year.
2. No more Fast Food at all. I have managed to cut out fast food burgers, but time to eliminate it or real.
3. Get better at preparing meals. This means lunch and dinner. Martina and I are going to get much better at food prep in the coming year.
4. Not stress so much about things completely out of my control.
5. Spend more time talking about things I like and ignoring things I do not like.
6. Finally feel comfortable running that 5K I have been talking about for a year.
7. Write a full novel.
8. Work out as much as my time and body will allow me. I am not going to put specifics on it, it really amounts to just being more physically active in the coming year!
9. Cook something completely new every month.
10. Enjoy the world more. I want to see and do more in 2014. I want to be a part of a more full life.
What started as a journey for physical and emotion health has morphed into something much bigger. Here you will find musings about my health journey, my teaching job, my re-entry into the world of academia, random thoughts about the world at large, books, movies, television, and ultimately my search for sustained happiness.
