Slow Starts

When all our clothes stop fitting, this means one of two things; 1) Our dryer is set on super shrink, or 2) we need to lose some weight. Sadly, I think the dryer is working fine.

I’m no stranger to losing weight; most unfortunately, once my weight loss goal was reached (and exceeded) I thought I had won and I didn’t have to try anymore – the battle was over. This mindset seemed to be working well and for 2½ years as I had no problem with my weight, I was very happy where I was. However, life has a habit of getting in the way and that’s exactly what started to happen. Over the last 4 years I’ve managed to gain back 35 ± pounds of the 100 I lost. Some of this is due to stress, some to lack of exercise, some to my diet, and probably some to medication. Nevertheless and no matter what the cause, it has to end. So when over the weekend Gerald suggested we start getting up early and going for walks, I readily agreed.

The alarm clock began screaming at us at 6:00 Monday morning and Gerald hit snooze. Although I had just been dozing for the previous 45 minutes, I fell sound asleep for those 10 extra snooze minutes. After the alarm started screaming a second time I jumped up and got dressed. I pulled on my long underwear, basketball shorts, and UC Berkley hooded sweatshirt. Gerald opted for just shorts and a shirt, which he soon found out, was a mistake. I forgot to put my contacts on so I had to go back upstairs to do that. I grabbed my gloves and stocking cap and we were off. I jogged next to Gerald while he walked and after about 30 seconds I decided I would be better off walking too…After about 20 minutes, Gerald was still cold (admittedly I was too) so we decided to call it good and go make some coffee.

Tuesday morning when the alarm screamed at us at 5:30, we decided it would be better to walk every other day and start off slowly, and we hit snooze three times before getting up to go have coffee.

Wednesday morning we decided that it’s best to spend some time getting used to getting up early, and we went downstairs for coffee and breakfast.

Thursday and this morning we did just that – got up early and it seems to be working – each day is getting easier and hopefully next week we’ll be able to bounce up at 5:30, feed the cats and be out the door by 5:45. We can walk for 30 minutes, and then have 30 minutes to eat breakfast before we have to get ready for work. It will be nice if this routine can be started and actually stuck to!