My Journey With Health And Fitness – Big Changes

Exactly 1 week ago today I was at a beach in Playa del Carmen. It was a beautiful sunny day and with the humidity it was about 33 degrees Celsius. Yesterday here at home it was cold, it never warmed up past 1 degree Celsius but at least it was sunny. Today I woke up to -2 degrees and it was snowing! This is simply not fair as I needed more time to adjust to winter weather. Fortunately, this is only supposed to last through today before changing to rain and warming up again. I so want to go back to Mexico!

I committed to myself that once I returned from Mexico it was time to make some significant changes. I had let my running lag a little after I injured my ankle in October, I was not eating as well as I should have and well, there was more wine being consumed than there should have been. Now don’t get me wrong, I have never stopped doing workouts, maybe just not to the level I should have been. All of this resulted in continued weight gain (note, I no longer blame all of this on my husband as quite frankly I let it happen). But I know this is not where I want to be so I decided that as of yesterday it is once again to start the hard work and get myself back to top form. It was time for some big changes.

Yesterday I started Dry February which is a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society (yes, I know it was only January 30th but it was Monday and I like to make a new start on Mondays). This means for the month of February I will not consume any alcohol. Normally, I would put in an extra donation to buy a cheat day but I have decided that even for Superbowl this year I am going to stick to it (though you can now get some awesome non-alcoholic craft beers and I may partake in a few of those). I have done Dry February several years in the past but this year I think it is an important kickstart to getting back to my goals.

Next is changing my diet. Once again I am trying to eat less carbs and even then only healthy carbs. As well, there will be no snacking between meals and no calories taken in after dinner until breakfast (my version of intermittent fasting). I actually don’t mind the diet change, I know I can do it as long as I remain focused and determined.

Finally it is back to harder workouts. I want to be back at doing at least 10km runs within a few months. To do this I need to train harder than I have been lately. I don’t need to start at as limited a level that I did when I first started running because I have still kept doing a lot of walking and did some training while in Mexico but I also know I am not quite in shape to do a serious run. And so this morning I started my first of three training sessions for this week. Yes, during the first 2 intervals I was absolutely hearing that voice in my head tell me to just do a walk but I kept going and I was pretty proud when I was done. Tomorrow I will tone it down back to a walk and then I’ll do training again on Thursday and Saturday. I have to admit I am kind of looking forward to my first full run in quite awhile but I will still try to take it slow in order to get there.

So why do I think this is going to work now when I said months ago I needed to get myself fully back on track? Well, I had 4 weeks in Mexico which allowed for some self-reflection. I had a decision to make, would I be content going forward to stay where I am right now or do I want to be back at peak form? It didn’t take me long to determine it could only be peak form. I have 3 months until I return to Mexico and I am determined to be comfortably back in my 2 piece swimsuit by then.

Yep, big changes but I know I have got this.