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Out with the old, in with the new

I've tried my best--I really have.  It's just so hard.

Exercising has never come easily to me.  Nothing athletic ever has.  The first sport that I ever signed up to play was soccer when I was in the first grade.  At the first practice, the coach made us run the perimeter of the field to warm up.  I can't remember anything after that--probably because I quit shortly thereafter. 

I tried again in the fifth grade when I signed up for softball.  I only signed up because all of the other "cool" girls in my class were doing it and they had told me that at the end of the season we got to have a pool party and that we'd all receive trophies.  I figured I better sign up since it might be my only chance to ever get one.  I lasted the whole season, but the only time that I ever made it off of home plate was when I was hit by a ball.  I never played another sport again after that.

This doesn't mean that I wasn't an active person.  I took dancing--tap, jazz, and ballet for 13 years.  I even tried out for cheerleader once.  We tried out in front of the whole school.  The start of the routine was down on the floor on our knees, leaning forward with our head tucked under, allowing my V-neck T-shirt to gape open and flash the whole school.  And in case you're wondering, no, I didn't make the squad.

I was always a fit person, thin and healthy, so I never felt like I needed to exercise or be athletic.  (This was back in the day when young girls weren't obsessive about their weight.)  When I got to college, lots of girls worked out religiously.  Someone was always looking for a partner for a quick run or a late-night walk.  And, no, I was never one of them.

But it was somewhere around the age of 25 that that all started to change.  My metabolism started to catch up with me and I found myself wasting money on gym memberships.  I only say "wasting" because I never used my membership.  Turns out, if you want to lose weight, you have to do a lot more than just carry around your membership card in your wallet.

It's gone on like this for almost ten years now.  Several months ago (okay, eight) I decided to fire up and change my exercising habits for good.  Since then, I've only lost five pounds which is a majorly discouraging.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out why my weight loss has been so slow.  REGULAR EXERCISE! 

Back in August I joined our local YMCA.  I started out strong, the first month going at least four times a week.  My routine included cardio and strength training.  I even had one of the trainers there set me up on their FitLinxx system which helps me keep track of my workouts.  It was awesome and I was really feeling good and noticing a difference in how my body was looking, even if I wasn't dropping lots of pounds.  (I like to think it has something to do with the muscle that I was building in my flabby upper body.)

And then the Cheese Eater started school and what had been my regular routine had to go through some changes.  And guess what was the first thing to go?  No shocker there.  But then today when I was on the treadmill--yes, you heard me right--I was reading the latest issue of Health magazine.  In it there was an article titled, "Can't Get Moving? Get Motivated!"  where three women talk about "what gets in their way" of exercising.  There was one simple piece of advice that a professional trainer gave in the article that was an exercising light bulb moment for me.

"...think of exercise as a must, not a should."

So now, every time I say to myself, "I really should go workout" I'm going to stop myself.  Now much like when I say, "I have to get some sleep" or "I have to go grocery shopping," I am going to starting thinking about working out as a HAVE TO.

We'll see if that helps...

We'll see...