Slow Going

Do you ever wish that you had a fairy godmother, who would wave her magic wand and give you an instant body make over? I know I do! In all seriousness though I am feeling a bit underwhelmed by the pace of my weight loss. Intellectually I know I’m losing the weight the healthy and maintainable way, but it’s going painfully slow. Wishing for a fairy godmother or a magic pill isn’t going to do me any good.  So this week each day I’m going to write a little about the reasons why I made the decision to get healthy. Hopefully writing this all down will help me stay focused. Starting with today, my first reason for starting to get serious about my weight loss was to improve my fitness level.

My fitness level has been decreasing rapidly since I stopped being physically active. In general I’m a pretty lazy person but when I started feeling physically taxed from bending over at age 26 I knew things had to change. I want walk up a flight of stairs without being winded. I want the idea of a hike outdoors not to be daunting. I want to go out dancing and actually dance the whole night!

Surprisingly I think this is where I’ve seen the most improvement thus far. Today at boot camp, we had some first timers join us. It made me think back to how hard the first couple of days were, and how I felt crippled the day after workouts in the beginning. Now don’t get me wrong boot camp is still kicking my butt. Only now I feel like I can fight back and push myself harder than before. Even during tough workouts I know I can make it through to the end. I’m taking fewer and fewer breaks, and I’m even starting to do harder progressions on some exercise.  

The standard definition of physical fitness is being able to perform daily activities with ease, as well as being capable of meeting any unforeseen physical challenges with a minimum of physical stress. This is what I’m aiming for, slow and steady wins the race!