Sparked

Oh, hi there. Remember me? I used to blog somewhat regularly about health and fitness and family … and then, I didn’t. It’s not so much that I didn’t like you guys. I do, I really do. I just got busy. With life. And family. And work. And life. And … not so much my own health and fitness. Kind of ironic when you look at the title of this blog, huh?

Truth is, I’m horrible at taking my own advice. See, once upon a time, I made a major life change and moved to Idaho. That sparked a few other changes. I realized I was unhappy with my weight, and concerned for my health. Something about that move made me want to do better. For myself. For my kids. For my career. So I started making little changes that added up to a very big change. Over about 13 months, I lost 55 pounds. It wasn’t rocket science. I moved more, and ate less. I thought I was so smart. I smugly rolled my eyes when I heard others complain that they had no time for exercise after working all day, and it was so much easier to order a pizza than to cook something healthy, and they just couldn’t lose weight.

Because you’re doing it wrong, I’d say to myself. It’s really, really easy, I’d say to myself. All you have to do is move more and eat less. Duh.

And then … a few pounds crept back on. Well, that’s not so bad. I wasn’t working out as hard as I had been. Because, you know, 55 pounds down, I didn’t have to work that hard. Well, OK, now it was more like 50 pounds. No big deal, right? And then, I remembered my fondness for certain foods. A girl’s gotta reward herself after all that denial, right? Eat the cake. It ain’t gonna kill ya. Have that cocktail. You’re different now. You got this.

And bite by bite, sip by sip, halfass workout by halfass workout, over the course of a few years, I’ve gone up. Not all the way back, thankfully, but close enough. I am within 20 pounds of my heaviest weight since moving to Idaho in 2004, a place I never thought I’d be. It is hard to see those words in front of me, and to know that I’m about to publish them for the entire web community to read.

There have been a few changes, obviously, to my lifestyle. One thing is that I’m working a lot more. And God knows that as a freelancer, I can’t complain about that. When you’re self-employed, you’re grateful for any and all work that comes your way. But it means sitting at my desk for much longer periods of time. I’ve also changed some medication, which I know is contributing to my recent gains. And … I’m older. My body at 45 isn’t the same that it was at 36, when I started my last big weight loss.

The biggest obstacle, however, is myself. I’ve become very lax about my diet and activity level, and it doesn’t take a nutrition degree or a personal training license to figure out that I’m my own crown of thorns. My mantra got switched around at some point, and my way of life became move less, eat more. And to butcher paraphrase Charles Dickens, or is it Shakespeare?, “That’s the rub of it.”

But I’m done beating myself up over it. That has only led to even more weight gain and frustration. And stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but … I know where I’ve gone wrong. I know what I need to do. The hard part is just making myself do it.

Then a little birdie named Shannon flew by and chirped in my ear that it would be a good time to make some changes. And, I couldn’t agree more. Remember back in the olden days when we all blogged about our personal progress, and struggles, and supported each other, and made it OK to hit a plateau, and understood each other’s challenges, and offered insight and helpful, encouraging words? You know, back before so many of us left blogging because we got sick and tired of the silly high school popularity contest it had become? Yeah, remember that?

Well, Shannon’s getting the band back together, so to speak. And although I am somewhat wondering What have I gotten myself into? how I’ll be able to pull this off, I’m also intrigued and excited to see what can be accomplished.

This is a starter post, in response to Shannon’s A Spark endeavor. She and Susan Ito have bravely asked many of us to give this a shot and see where it takes us. (Thank you!) I have a lot to say over the next few months, some of which I can’t wait to get off my chest, and some of which I’m terrified to share. This has been a very emotional journey for me, and I’m not sure I am ready to let you all in on my secrets. But as I’m thinking about it today, I know there are just as many positives as there have been negatives, and for the first time in a long time, I’m feeling very positive about the direction in which I’m going.

A friend shared this image on FB today, and I thought it was perfect timing:

I’m a writer, always have been, and nothing is more exciting to me than the prospect of a new chapter. So, why don’t we take a breath, and open that door together? I’ll be here. How about you?