THE NEW NORMAL

Friend wife and I have been working out at the gym now for about a month. We don’t set records by any means, but we are making progress.

Wanna feel my muskels?? :-)

Our gym has a contest running to attempt to exercise in miles what the recent *R.A.G.B.R.A.I. event did in miles across the state of Iowa. In two weeks my wife has either walked on the tread mill or used the elliptical to go over 20 miles and I’m just behind her with 19.75 miles!

Feeling better is one of the MAJOR benefits of losing weight and exercising. I didn't know how bad I felt till I started feeling better!


…when I stop and think about how IMPOSSIBLE setting a pace of 3.5 MPH on the elliptical for an hour used to be, and how it’s “normal” now, it blows my mind!


That I could do any activity without stopping for an hour… (Ahem…besides eating)…has been nothing that I could ever imagine before.

I didn’t dare to dream that big!


My wife and I are total opposites on so many things, yet this is something we get to do together! We take walks and talk about stuff…. we’re (re)connecting and we talk far more now than when we would sit silently across the table from one another at a restaurant eating, which used to be “normal”.


Small bites add up! My morbid obesity can attest to that.


The flipside, however, works too!


“Small bites” in the area of small decisions to eat lower calorie choices, exercise an extra 5 minutes, call a friend or mentor to get refocused, use self talk and encourage yourself that you can stick to this plan, that you’re not really that hungry, going and looking in the closet and finding the clothes that are too big now can keep you going….and the results can be stunningly BIG!


Dear reader, I am not the exception; this is nothing new…you can do it, I can do it!


[By the way, I need to hear it as much (OR MORE) than anyone!!!!!]


Can I love myself enough to make the choices necessary to feel better?

Can you?


What would I pay for a new lease on life?

How much would you pay?


What are you paying now by being overweight and unhealthy?
I had sometimes resorted to walking with a cane to ease the joint pain!!


There is a whole new world out there that I either didn’t care about or my mind was so sluggish with too much food I didn’t recognize its existence!

 Losing hope is a terrible thing!

Finding something that I didn’t even know was missing is “SHAZAAM” time!


So yes, it’s tempting to skip the hour at the gym 5-6 nights a week. I always feel better afterwards though.


ALWAYS!


I have never been sorry for the time I’ve spent at the gym, and I've never been sorry for the food that I didn't eat!

So I'll continue to work through these heavy thoughts and attempt to let them motivate me to lighter living.

It’s beginning to be the new “normal”.






*(Des Moines) Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.