What was I thinking? About ten months ago (or so), I decided it was time for me to lose some weight and get in shape. Too many years of sitting at my computer eating junk food and fast food meals finally caught up with me. I found myself about 25 pounds overweight. I downloaded an app on my iPhone to track the calories I eat (wow, what an eye-opener—it’s the MyFitnessPal app, btw) and some other apps to help me get fit (mostly walking/step counting like Striiv). A couple of months ago, I even purchased an UP band (and downloaded the app)—it sits on my wrist and tracks my steps, but more importantly, my sleep.

What have I learned? I don’t get enough sleep (not surprised), but I do average more than most women my age (not telling how old I am cause I already feel older than I am). I quickly lost about fifteen pounds, but then stalled out. I’ve stayed around the same weight since then and it’s been a struggle to take off those last ten pounds.

Okay, I have never been a big fitness nut. I DESPISE exercise! No, really. It’s an eight letter word (that’s twice as bad as a four letter one, right?). But I figured I could walk a little more. You know, park further away from the doors in parking lots, walk to the mail box to get the mail. Little things like that. And it was working for me. Until it wasn’t. So I decided I needed a bit more help. One day, my UP app kindly suggested I try getting more exercise and offered a couple of apps as options. I decided to check them out. I downloaded the FitStar app. It wanted me to do a fitness test. So it sat there on my iPhone for almost a week. A little while ago, I decided I could do the test.

Yeah. The jumping jacks for forty-five seconds weren’t too bad. The elbow planks (45 seconds) and plank to downward dog (10 reps) almost killed me. I could barely hold the elbow plank for about 20 seconds before I had to stop. Then the kneeling push ups. Oh my! I made it through (there were only fifteen), and the bodyweight squats (10 reps) were no problem. The final thing was the split stance back extensions (15 reps) and they weren’t too horrible either. I felt pretty good, even though I was out of breath (yes, I’m that out of shape that these six minutes made me breathless).

I plopped into my chair here at the computer (didn’t even put away the yoga mat I was using to soften the wood floor) all ready to get on with my writing day.  And now my body is screaming at me. “You fool! You fool! What have you done?” And I’m like, “Body, chill. You forced me into it. If you would have lost the weight walking I wouldn’t have to do this.” And my body responds by sending messages to my brain that I need to go back to bed and sleep. I’m refusing to give in. I’m the boss here, right?

So I’m tired and my body really, really, really wants me to go back to bed, but I’m going to push through it and see if I can get some writing done on a MG or YA today. I’m hoping that my body will eventually stop whining at me, and that I’ll get used to somewhat regular exercise as well. I don’t plan to do this kind of a work-out every day at this point, because, let’s face it, I’d probably die. But I hope to work my way up to some kind of a daily exercise routine (in addition to my continuing to walk). Hopefully that will help me shed these last ten pounds and feel better about myself! And if I’m not so tired and depressed, I’m sure it will help my writing motivation (with which I’ve also been struggling during the school year). At least that’s what I tell myself.

What about you? Are you as out of shape as I am? Do you have an exercise routine? If you do exercise, do you find it helps you be energized or does it make you want to crawl back into bed and pretend it was all a dream?

Write/exercise on!