Small Step Forward

Every so often I have talked about the things I do to try and get into some routine of exercising.  Unfortunately for various reasons, I don't stick with them.  Life tends to get in the way, with things such as events taking place after work or emergency surgery putting me off of my routines.  Of course, it is harder to pick it back up afterward.  Clearly, with the number of failures I have had, a new approach is needed.

I think one reason I do end up falling out of a routine is that I, like most people, try to do too much at once.  Plus then I get this fantasy of being able to do all of this stuff and make all of these changes in a short amount of time, and when it doesn't happen, I subconsciously say "fuck it."  I really can't say that because I should exercise.  I need to do it for health reasons, and I know if I want to continue to be my sexy self, I am going to have to make sure to put the work in.

So this time around, I'm going to start on a smaller scale.  On Tuesday nights when I have gone up to Columbia to hang with friends, it became a routine after the place closed that JG and I would start walking laps around the parking lot.  I am taking that and expanding it into something that I do as soon as I get home from work, but instead of driving up to Columbia, I walk around my neighborhood.  So far it seems to be working, I found a route that is a bit over two miles and that is not entirely flat.  I'll probably make changes and walk other places as I see fit.  

The plan is that I would like to get myself into a routine of exercising after work.  Eventually I'd like to make it a run, and go further.  Once I am sticking with this for a few months, and it turns brutally cold outside, then I can look into investing going into the gym behind my apartment.

Another line of thought is if I worked on getting myself to bed earlier in the evenings and got up early in the morning, I could hit the gym for a few minutes, come home, get cleaned up and ready, and still hit my bus.  Of course, to do that means breaking years of being a night owl, that could take some time.

I also am taking note of my diet more, and being conscious of how much I am eating.  I've debated going back to one of my more extreme measures of doing a completely raw food meal, but I may save that one for a last resort.  I did it about a year and a half ago, and while it did work well at the time, I am just not ready to invest my time in it again.  Besides, I went from the smoothies I was drinking then, to having oatmeal with honey in the morning, which is already fairly healthy, at least for me.

If I start with this, I can stick with it.