Monday, August 13, 2007

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life.........

I have been trying for a few months now to psych myself up to start a new fitness program. I find excuse after excuse after excuse to NOT do it. I had it all set in my head that I was going to start when I went on vacation to my mom's cabin. Well my mom's sister has turned a corner in her illness and my mom had to go to spend the rest of the time my aunt has left with her. So my vacation to the cabin had to be put aside for this year. Just another good excuse for me to not leap forward and get started. I already have in mind what I want to do.....

I want to run

My sisters both started running and have touted to me the wonderful feelings it invokes. I want to feel those wonderful things. I want to expend all this energy I feel building up inside me, manifesting itself into a restlessness, a nervousness that makes me almost feel like jello inside. I want to feel spent and feel my heart pounding in my chest, getting stronger and healthier with each beat. I want to feel good. I want to be healthy of body, mind and soul. I have a new life starting soon, with an amazingly wonderful man, and I want to be healthy and live a long time with him. I need to be healthy.

I am not unhealthy, I am overweight. I have no chronic health problems.....yet. There is a family history of diabetes, cancer, and even some heart disease. I need to make some physical changes and take control of my own health. I don't want to end up being 50 and needing to take handfuls of medications every day. I have overcome so many of the mental things. I no longer need medications for depression. I have found my self worth, and I think it is in finding this self worth that I have this need to take care of my body. Only one problem....

I have a fear of being outside alone.

It is not gripping fear. It isn't as though I can't go outside. But it does seem, the longer I am outside alone, the more the panic and the need to get INSIDE gets. I go places alone. I can easily go from the house to the car to work or wherever I need to go. As long as I have a clear path and know where I am headed. If I go outside to do anything, I am constantly looking over my shoulder and feeling increasingly nervous, until I just go inside. I need to figure out where this is coming from. I have been like this for over 20 years.

So, tomorrow, I am going to just try to suck it up, and go out and do it. I need to start small with the running anyway, so, I am just going to go out, run until I start to feel nervous, then run home, and then hopefully increase my running time and my tolerance for being outside. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love the help and some encouragement as well.

3 comments:

Dust-bunny said...

"Just do it." (personally, one of the best advertisement campaigns I've ever seen in my life)--

Just start today. Don't wait to start on a particular occasion or after a certain date--your health is important every day, even on the not-so-special days.

Keeping exercise on the same level as a holiday or a wedding makes it unreachable. In order to stay healthy forever, exercise has to become "unspecial"...just one of those things that are part of your everyday routine, like laundry or cooking. I don't mean to make it sound mundane--because it definitely isn't, it's liberating--but it can't be considered so extraodinary that it's relegated to special occasions only, like "...next Monday" or "...after the holidays" (preface each sentence with, "...I'll start exercising...")!

Good luck to you!

Anonymous said...

If you don't like running outside, try an indoor track or a treadmill, both of those work quite well. I racewalk but often don't want to walk outside but I will walk at the track and the YMCA has a wonderful track. Means I can walk all winter without slipping too.

Jessica said...

Just leave us hanging why don't you...did you start running?