Fitness

I don't want to turn the focus of this blog to fitness, but getting healthy is a big part of my life right now and so it seems disingenuous to not address it to some extent. Fitness hasn't always been an important thing to me, but about a year ago (August 07) I joined a gym near our house with the overarching goal of becoming a healthy adult. I've been heavy on and off my whole life and I have always known that being overweight wasn't healthy. But, once I graduated college I started worrying about the health problems it would bring me later in life and the sort of example I want to set for my own future family. So since then, I have consistently tried to make working out a priority in my life. Even though it sometimes totally blows to carve out two hours of my evening to make sure I have time to get a work out in, overall it has been really rewarding. With my year mark coming up, I've been feeling the urge to evaluate my progress and set new goals. When I started out I didn't have many specific goals. I wanted to lose weight, but that was about it. Now, my attention has turned more towards fitness. I want to be able to do x number of push-ups or I want to be able to run x number of miles. I want to focus on building muscle. I don't just want to be not fat, I want to be fit.

As part of this, I've started adding new activities to my workouts. For example, a while ago started doing core work and push-ups after my usual cardio workout. More recently, I've started swimming too. A friend and I have a standing date to hit the pool twice a week. Its been awesome getting outside and a welcome break from the gym. Plus, I can really feel it in my arms, back, and shoulders :) Also, instead of doing the elliptical all the time, I try and break up my gym workouts with some treadmill work every once in a while too. That's been a real challenge for me. Running has always been something that seemed out of the question and to (somewhat) get over that mental road block of "I can't" has been awesome. For a while, I was on a pretty good roll with running. I was following a 5k training plan and running every other day. Unfortunately though, a pain in my left leg set me back and I haven't gotten back into the groove. Eventually, I do hope to start that up again. I definitely want to run a 5k race within the next year (mark that as one of my new fitness goals). I would love to add other sorts of fitness activities that don't necessarily include going to the gym, such as yoga, so that might be something in the works this year. I'm also interested in doing some personal training sessions. I couldn't afford to see one once a week, but I think it would be really helpful to even go a few times. I would want to learn new ways to build muscle and it would be nice to have some help in figuring out fitness goals that make sense for the results I want.

Anyways, yesterday my plans to go swimming were ruined by the rain so I had to hit the gym and it looks as though the same thing will happen today. Maybe I should take this as an opportunity to pick up running again?