What motivates you?
As I have written about earlier, I'm struggling with my weight and I am not really motivated to loose it.
When we are younger we are brainwashed into believing that skinny is better and it will attract a partner/spouse; that's why we should keep our weight down and our looks up.
When I was in high school and in college I was very athletic (strange for a geek, I know) but back then girls did not do weight training. In college I Fenced and did quite a bit of training: stretching, weights, swimming, fencing, running and even playing chess. Each item brought different skills to the game and I was quite good at it. BUT the effect of all this training was I put on quite a bit of muscle. I think I went to college weighing about 110 pounds and I was quite skinny. When I graduated, I weighed about 135 and at one point my father said I was FAT.
Now that I am older and I have a husband (and not looking to find another one!) I certainly don't listen to those who tell me that IF: I put on a little makeup I would look "more appealing" - Hey my husband likes the way I look. By loosing weight, think of all the great fashion I could wear - No thank you! I am quite happy to wear baggy jeans and t-shirts. Then there are the general health reasons - well I may not be in World Class shape but I am not going to die of a heart attack any time soon (if this post is not finished, maybe I dropped dead here and now).
As you can see, telling me all these "common" reasons doesn't do it for me. I need a goal - some thing to accomplish and everything else is just a consequence.
Here let me give you an example. Years ago I was told that I "needed" to learn Java (the programming language) as it would help my career. I started to learn it and got rather bored and set it aside and actually, it has not influenced my career one bit. Now I have an Android phone. I want to program a few apps for myself and oh, guess what - I have to now learn Java. Learning Java for just knowing it does nothing for me.
Basically it come down to this - I need a goal for learning. To learn, I need something to apply it to.
So were it this all going? Over the past few months I have done some more weight training and just going to the gym to lift weights is not so fun for me. I was taking walks at lunch but I gave up because the results were too slow to appear. But through all of this I found I was dreaming about RUNNING. Nothing was chasing me, I not running way from anything. I was just running, out along a trail and I WAS HAPPY, I WAS HAVING FUN. Hmm, maybe my dreams were telling me something?
So yesterday I got new running shoes; track pants and jog bra. I have also set a goal of running a 5K in by summer, and no it won't be fast AND I am going to aim for a 10K in either November or December.
Today I went for my first walk. Here are my stats: 2.14 miles in 29:51 minutes. My average speed was 4.31 mph.
FYI I am using the free app Google MyTracks which you can use to record distance for all sorts of activities. I will be posting my progress as I go
As I have written about earlier, I'm struggling with my weight and I am not really motivated to loose it.
When we are younger we are brainwashed into believing that skinny is better and it will attract a partner/spouse; that's why we should keep our weight down and our looks up.
When I was in high school and in college I was very athletic (strange for a geek, I know) but back then girls did not do weight training. In college I Fenced and did quite a bit of training: stretching, weights, swimming, fencing, running and even playing chess. Each item brought different skills to the game and I was quite good at it. BUT the effect of all this training was I put on quite a bit of muscle. I think I went to college weighing about 110 pounds and I was quite skinny. When I graduated, I weighed about 135 and at one point my father said I was FAT.
Now that I am older and I have a husband (and not looking to find another one!) I certainly don't listen to those who tell me that IF: I put on a little makeup I would look "more appealing" - Hey my husband likes the way I look. By loosing weight, think of all the great fashion I could wear - No thank you! I am quite happy to wear baggy jeans and t-shirts. Then there are the general health reasons - well I may not be in World Class shape but I am not going to die of a heart attack any time soon (if this post is not finished, maybe I dropped dead here and now).
As you can see, telling me all these "common" reasons doesn't do it for me. I need a goal - some thing to accomplish and everything else is just a consequence.
Here let me give you an example. Years ago I was told that I "needed" to learn Java (the programming language) as it would help my career. I started to learn it and got rather bored and set it aside and actually, it has not influenced my career one bit. Now I have an Android phone. I want to program a few apps for myself and oh, guess what - I have to now learn Java. Learning Java for just knowing it does nothing for me.
Basically it come down to this - I need a goal for learning. To learn, I need something to apply it to.
So were it this all going? Over the past few months I have done some more weight training and just going to the gym to lift weights is not so fun for me. I was taking walks at lunch but I gave up because the results were too slow to appear. But through all of this I found I was dreaming about RUNNING. Nothing was chasing me, I not running way from anything. I was just running, out along a trail and I WAS HAPPY, I WAS HAVING FUN. Hmm, maybe my dreams were telling me something?
So yesterday I got new running shoes; track pants and jog bra. I have also set a goal of running a 5K in by summer, and no it won't be fast AND I am going to aim for a 10K in either November or December.
Today I went for my first walk. Here are my stats: 2.14 miles in 29:51 minutes. My average speed was 4.31 mph.
FYI I am using the free app Google MyTracks which you can use to record distance for all sorts of activities. I will be posting my progress as I go
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