Wednesday, July 29, 2009

These Boots Were Made for Walking

As I mentioned in the post immediately prior, I've finally negotiated an uneasy truce with my treadmill. The poor thing has been languishing most of the past six or seven years, and as a result of that, it's developed quite an attitude.

I've never been much of one for deliberate physical activity. When I was young, our neighborhood had a plethora of young boys, but there were only 3 girls near my age. The first one moved to California, then the second moved to the north end of town, leaving me with only one other female on the street, and she and I just didn't share many interests at that age. So past the age of nine or so, my default leisure activities were reading or watching TV.

In my teen years I had mandatory P.E. in school, which helped. And during my days at community college, I walked 3-6 miles per day. My parents live near a large-ish lake with a walking path around it, so I'd get up in the morning at oh-dark-hundred, stumble around the lake, come home, get dressed, go to school then work, then come home and put on the walking clothes again, stumble around the lake... repeat as necessary. I weighed 122-123, and could eat anything.

It was revolting. Hee.

When I moved to Tallahassee for my last two years of college I was dragging myself all over campus on foot, simply due to complete impatience with the bus schedule. It wasn't deliberate exercise, but my body didn't know that and cooperated with keeping my weight at a good level.

That was all she wrote when I graduated, though. I held steady for a couple of years due to the grace of God and a fantastic metabolism, but after that is when my body started thumbing its nose at me, and I began the progression that finally had me weighing 200 pounds in August of 2006.

I hit a low of 145 in November of 2007 and I've been bickering and struggling with my metabolism and eating since that time, hitting 160 in January, then down to 147 in mid-March just before I quit smoking, and back up to a number I will NOT recount here a few weeks ago.

Suffice it to say, I'm back down to 159. Whew. But yeah, that got ugly there.

One thing I realized in this last period after quitting smoking is that I just have to exercise. No choice. I flat-out must do some deliberate physical activity almost every day or my weight will go back up and I will weigh 200 pounds or more again.

And that, my friends, would be unacceptable.

So last Monday, with the children out of the house with their grandparents (because one of my huge excuses for not working out is that the kids come out and stare at me as if I'm a creature in the zoo when I do it), I eyeballed the treadmill with no small amount of suspicion and climbed back on it. I only made it for 20 minutes that first day, but upped my time to 25 minutes last Tuesday, and have progressed to 50 minutes both this Monday and Tuesday.

My routine varies on it so far. Early last week I was trying to run and walk, with 60 seconds of running followed by 90 seconds of walking, but that wasn't going to work for too long. I want to try that again sometime, because one goal I have is to actually be faster than my delightful offspring. For now, though, I'm tickled pink that I'm walking at a brisk clip covering over 2.5 miles in 50 minutes.

And it seems that the physical activity was exactly what was needed, because the scale finally budged.

Whew. Now to just keep doing it.

5 comments:

Grumpy, M.D. said...

I use Wii Fit, though have had my issues with it, too. As I noted in my blog a few months ago. But I do like it.

Tycho Beresford said...

Try walking wearing tennis shoes instead of boots. Your feet will thank you.

Amanda said...

Grumpy, I'm considering the Wii Fit as we have a Wii, but I'm not quite there as the children stare at me in that delightful "Wow, Mommy's MOVING!!" kind of zoo-exhibit way.

Tycho, it's... oh nevermind. :P

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Yeah, I bought EA Active, and have been doing that, too, for variety when exercising.

This has been an issue at my house, too. Becasue I only have time to do these work-outs on weekends. At first the kids watched like I was a zoo exhibit, and at first it bothered me, but I've since zoned it out.

And eventually they got bored and realized I wasn't that much fun to watch, anyway.

Amanda said...

I keep hoping mine will drop the fascination, but we've got an issue with our cable connection here and it appears that when there's no TV, watching Mommy on the treadmill just can't be beat.

I worry about those boys some days...