Grab a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, a shot of whiskey...this is a long one!
...I've been musing a lot about health in the last week.
I'm always relatively obsessive about weight, without much thought to health. I spend a lot of time focused on the size of my clothes, the glowing number of the weighing machine, the reflection in the glass. Naturally, none of these are met with positive feelings. Still doesn't stop me from answering every feeling (happy, sad, stressed, anxious, mad, elated, frustrated, bored) with food.
Sometimes I get annoyed enough at one of the aforementioned issues that I commit to a Monday start of eating better, eating less. The proverbial Monday reunion with the gym. You know the drill. (You do, don't you...)
Sometimes there is an event with a concrete date on the calendar that inspires the same commitment. Most recently for me it was my brother-in-law's wedding. For a year six months I (mostly) thought about what I ate and went to the gym on the regular. Almost every night at 10PM. And it worked (sorta). At least I fit into the strapless dress I'd ordered a couple of sizes down and didn't feel wholly awful about myself (success!).
And then they got hitched (a year ago, ahem) and all bets were off. I stopped finding time and motivation to hit the gym, or do anything active, really. I drank more wine (liquid calories FTW). I ate lots of carbs (bagels are so delicious, aren't they?). This did not result in a svelter figure.
This summer we bought a little house in a summer community. Cute, isn't it?
I went in to this summer swearing it would be the summer of fitness. On property gym! 180 acres of walking trails! Pools! Pond! Yeah. No. I can count on one hand the number of times I have hit the gym that is 100 yards from our house. I tried the trails once and they weren't cleared so I turned around.
Dora had major surgery and that was a super terrific excuse to stress eat (and not celery) and not exercise. By the beginning of August I was feeling more miserable than I had in a long time. I begrudgingly took this creature for a slow walk every other day, if that.
She needs fast walks sprints daily.
By mid-August Dora was ready to start longer walks on her new titanium spine. We started making them family walks. Two moms, two dogs, one kid. Shelby (pictured above) started to calm down. In the beginning the walks were a mile, then 1.3. Now these family walks are nearing the 2 mile mark, depending on how Dora is feeling each day. These walks, slow as they can be with someone 6 weeks post major surgery, started making a difference for me. I started feeling better and stronger, ready to tackle more hills, and a quicker pace.
I started taking Shelby on my own early in the day, family walks still at night. Last week, according to Runkeeper, I started breaking the 15 minute/mile mark on my walks. Given I was having a hard time 19 or 20 minute miles just a couple of months ago, I'm pretty impressed with myself.
Back to the original muse -- the kid. Our kid is a jock. She excels at any sport she tries. This is not typical parental bias, it's just true. Her current passion is soccer. Soccer requires running endurance. She does not have this endurance, and I 100% blame myself.
Arden loves organized sports. And then she likes to come back to the house and hang out with her best friend, the iPad. I'm a terrible role model for my kid when it comes to making health a priority. We feed her (and ourselves) pretty well most days. But we're not active. Dora had an excuse, she physically could not be active. With the replacement of her spine, she can (yay!).
And honestly, it's hard. Right now, Dora is out on leave to recover, and I am out on leave to take care of her. Time is on our side. We can hit the road as a family as soon as the kiddo gets home from school. There is no rushing to and from the city for work, no getting home at 7PM or 9PM with a list of 75 million things to do before the sun rises on the next day. Healthy activities do not have to be squeezed in, time doesn't have to be negotiated.
This has to continue once the normal insanity of life resumes. We have to help Arden make good habits. Sports are her thing. If her thing was music or art, maybe we'd put less emphasis on this, but she's an athlete.
This weekend, she and I started Zombies, RUN. We're doing the Introductory program - an app getting us in shape to run a 5K with the help of zombies chasing us. It's fun and different and perfect for an 8 year old. Lots of walking with bits of running. Plus we still have to walk Dora!
This is a long (long) winded way to say we're finally making our family a priority. I want to be the model for Arden that my parents are for me. They have both worked out regularly since I was a kid. They both look years younger than they are. They are (knock wood) healthy and physically fit in their 60s.
We're not going on any crazy diet. We're going to eat lots of healthy foods, limit things that impact our family negatively (lots of simple, overly processed carbs), and be active. We will still have treats. If we eliminate things entirely, we will fail. It's not real life to eliminate this or that, at least for us. It is certain failure, for me in particular.
The goal of all of this is just a healthier, longer life. I feel better already. Stronger and fitter. Happier (endorphins rule).
If I had to pick a small, concrete goal? The January 2015 Disney trip. We're hoping schedules allow us to go during their Marathon weekend. We want to do the 5K as a family, but beyond that, I just want to feel great walking around. A nice side effect will be (hopefully) not loathing every photo of me.
If you made it this far, you get a reward. I didn't mean to be so long-winded, but this post has been bouncing around my head for a bit and every piece of it is important to my/our story.
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