Speaking of Plans

I should have known that naming my blog "Where My Plan Ends" could be an omen that this whole pursuit of a healthier me might not go - wait for it - as planned.

Thanks, kid.

Family stuff trumps my personal health goals, unfortunately. So does the daily drudgery of this life I call mine. When your child decides to draw on every vertical surface with a red crayon just as you're starting to put together a delicious salad, and those vertical surfaces are in a house you rent, and the owner of the rented house is not known for her even-headedness or forgiving nature, you drop what you're doing and go on a red crayon hunt with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser sponge. When you had planned to go on a hike and spend your days doing walking lunges around the house but your grandfather ends up in the hospital and has surgery, and your grandfather is your grandmother's only caregiver, you drop what you're doing and go stay with your grandmother because that's what family does. When your washer is not moving the way it's supposed to and your husband is very valiantly lifting and scooting that washer outside to fix it, you get off the yoga mat and go dutifully stand next to him, so he doesn't have to do it alone.

Life. It just gets in the way sometimes.

I'm pretty sure this will be the site of my demise.

That being said, I only got on the treadmill once since my last post. And it about killed me. Really. Didn't I used to be able to throw on my shoes and run 4 or 5 miles straight in under an hour and still have energy to doll myself up and go dancing for hours the same night? No, I didn't have kids back then, and I was also able to sleep as long as I wanted. But I'm still me. I've added some things to my life (2 kids and a husband, oh and responsibility) and subtracted others ( mostly sleep). But I've always been on the move. Until now.

Now I jog for 2 minutes at a 16 minute/mile pace and I feel like my insides want to come outside and my lungs have both collapsed. I stop, walk, catch my breath, and start back slow and easy and get going but once again, after 2 or 3 minutes I feel like I'm being waterboarded and fighting the stomach flu. Am I just out of shape? Is this what aging is like? Did I just imagine the athleticism of my previous decade?

To be honest, none of this makes me want to give up. It makes me frustrated, though. Even the 2 pounds I subtracted (despite the 1 pint of Ben and Jerry's I added...shhh) doesn't feel that great because I don't feel any healthier. I don't like what I see in the full-length mirror and my jeans don't fit any looser.

That extra second doesn't count.

Achievements? I've started doing sit-ups and lunges with the girls in the afternoons. I can feel my butt cheeks simultaneously loving and hating me. And every day I've made a plan for how I'm going to get my 2 miles in (obviously not always successfully but at least I'm attempting to make it a part of my day, every day). Also, on the one deathmarch I made this week, I managed to get my time to exactly 30:00, which was a goal I set for myself last week.

I'll keep planning. The plans will probably keep being altered and interrupted and sometimes cancelled. But I"ll keep planning. Because if I keep planning, eventually it's going to work out.  And somehow, so am I.

 Weight: 194.2