Sometime around the last week of August I decided it was time to get really serious about my health.  I had all the information I needed and it was time for action.  I’d stalled enough, and indulged myself in about… eight (or more?) false starts.  The false start time period is always very fun- you get to be glutenous all weekend, saying “I’m starting a health-kick on Monday.”

Poor Earl endured me going crazy about five weekends in a row, followed by a chorus of “I’m starting next Monday!  Seriously!” … then I wouldn’t, and then it would be “oh, well… I really will THIS TIME.  I’ll start NEXT MONDAY”  This got so bad that I actually looked into buying the domain name for startingnextmonday.com and considered turning it into a diet and exercise motivation website :p

Believe it or not, I finally *did* start.  I starting working out every single day and also drastically cleaned up my diet.  No more lunches of baguettes and cheese.  More vegetables, more fruit.  Less processed stuff.  No more sodas, and much less sugar.

And you know what is the craziest part?!  I’m actually sticking to it!!  I’ve been doing this for three weeks now, and here are the statistics so far:

  • lost 13lbs
  • lost 2″ off my waist
  • lost 1/2″ off hips
  • lost 1.5″ off each thigh

Holy moly, right?  The best benefit has not even been weight-loss related.  The best benefits have been twofold:

  1. SLEEPING.  I have always struggled with insomnia, and once I cleaned up my diet and started doing a workout every day, I sleep through the night.  Even on nights when Earl stays up late to code, when I used to get woken up when he would come to bed and then toss and turn until morning, now I sleep through it.  THERE ARE NO WORDS TO TELL YOU HOW AWESOME THIS IS.  I love being tired and then being able to actually pass out when I want to go to bed.  This is so unusual for me, it’s just fantastic.
  2. MOOD.  Woah.  I’m happy for no reason.  Like… I’ll be sitting around smiling for no reason.  It’s nice.  I feel balanced.

So that’s how it’s going.  I don’t really have any specific “goals” for this fitness challenge other than to overhaul my lifestyle towards health.  I guess you could say the Napa Half-Marathon on Halloween and the California Marathon in December, but those are more… tangential aspects.  Wait- I take that back- there is one specific, declared goal- get stronger for the CPAT.  I did a weight-vest stair test on the stair machine at the gym last week, and I only lasted ONE LOUSY MINUTE wearing 24lbs of weight at 60 stairs per minute.  I need to get up to 75lbs of weight for 3 minutes.  So, um… that goal is hella far away.  I shall keep plugging along.

I’ll check in with more updates on the Fall Fitness Challenge in about 3 weeks or so.