I went to the doctor on Monday. Nothing scary, just an annual check up. The number on the scale was U G L Y, ugly! I never managed to shake the pregnancy weight gain and in the years since the kids were born, I’ve only gone up. I’d been holding steady until recently. I knew I’d gained some weight, but I didn’t think it was THAT much. See, I sort of have this denial thing going on. I look in the mirror and see a woman who is overweight, but doing ok. Then recently I’ve seen myself in pictures and I swear my thought pattern was “wow, the camera really does add 10lbs.” Guess what, it’s not the camera goober! Ooops.

It is time for a change.

Monday was an awful day for eating. It was stressful and I was on the go from 7am to 7pm. In the midst of it all I had 10 minutes before I had to be at my next appointment and I zipped into a shopping center passing the Starbucks and heading to Staples. I bought a funky composition book and some new pens, my new food journalling tools.

See here’s the thing, I don’t DO diets, I like food too much (well DUH!). No, I mean I can’t do boxed meals or canned shakes. A – I’m committed to eating fewer chemicals and B – YUCK!! I am a picky eater. I like full bodied food with flavor. Clearly, I’m just eating too much of it. The whole measuring EVERYTHING and counting points sounds stressful. I don’t want short lived change, I want to make wholesale lifestyle changes.

My hope is to write down everything I eat and how I’m feeling and see where and when I can realistically make cut backs. Let’s face it I am not giving up chocolate forever, but perhaps I can make better choices. Once I have a few weeks recorded, I’m going to make an appointment with a nutritionist to get an expert’s opinion.

Monitoring food intake and cutting down on sweets, are obvious steps but the other component of my plan is to increase my exercise. To that end, my crazy neighbor is already offering her support. She convinced me to sign up for the Renegade Playground 5K Mud Run.  Thus far, the Weasel/Whippet team is fielding 13 contestants and the chatter on Facebook is already beginning as Coach Becky encourages us all to train. There isn’t a description of the course on the site, but as best I can tell it is a 5K combined with mud, tunnels, mud pits, obstacles, mud baths, and did I mention there will be mud? My goal is just to finish. I don’t care if I’m dead last for my wave, if I complete it, I’ll be happy.

I got out today and started Couch to 5K (C25K) a running program that starts slow and builds your endurance until you can run the full 3+ miles. There’s even and app for that :). I grabbed the C25K app from Bluefin software from iTunes. It tells me when to switch from walking to running and allows me to play songs from my iTunes library. I plan to alternate C25K with EA Sports Active on the Wii. I might even throw in a few bike rides just to keep things interesting.

I’m nervous, I’m not a particularly coordinated person but, I need something to work towards because while I’ve been exercising for months, it just hasn’t been enough. It is time to put it all together and get healthy once and for all. I’m excited because most of the others on our team don’t run regularly either and while I’m sure there will eventually be some trash talk, for now, we are all cheering each other on. We have one ex-military guy, so he’ll sail by us, but that’s ok, because someone has to do us proud.

Wish me luck!