Goal!

Back in October I started the most basic behavior management with myself. I started a sticker chart to keep track of and reward my exercise efforts. That seems like long ago- very long ago- but, a couple weeks ago (right around the time the internet started being a biatch again) I filled my chart right up. I finally counted all the way up to 100 workouts. And that doesn't count any workouts that I had away from Luanda- I only put on stickers for the workouts I had here. So... felt pretty good to put that last sticker on there. And, if you figure that it took me October- April to fill in the chart, that seems like a long time, but, that is 100 workouts in 210 days- which means, I was working out an average of every two days! For a person who didn't really exercise before, I'd say that's pretty good!

The thing is, I've become a "person who exercises." I was just telling some friends the other day- the question no longer is, "Am I going to the gym today?" but rather, "What am I doing at the gym today?" I can remember back in October and November that I would come home from work, and I would be tired, and worn out and, well, without motivation to head to the gym. I would think about my sticker chart and the current reward, and it was a motivation for me- as was the ever present, "I'm getting married in (insert relevant number)- and it's going to be a week on the beach!" Eventually, the reward was no longer necessary- as you can see in the picture- about half way I stopped giving myself rewards, though I kept adding stickers. So, I became a person who exercises, and started seeing results!

The really nice thing is that after 7 months of exercising regularly (and paying attention to what's going in my mouth as well), I'm finally seeing some changes in my body. Besides the 19lbs/8.5kg that have come off since October,a lot of my clothes are falling off these days and there have been a few changes in my measurements as well (expected, I guess)- and the part that really feels good, is that random people keep noticing, and I get comments like, "WOW! You've lost a lot of weight!" weekly.

I'm not sure if I can say that increased athletic ability feels better than looking good, but I have to say, that this morning when I ran 11k for the first time without too much problem I realized that I have come a ways. Ok, some people train for a marathon in three months, and I have no idea how they do that (start from zero to marathon, surely not?). What I do know is that in December I ran a total of 33.5km. In January I ran 60km, in Feb 67km and in March 64km. That all would have been ok- except that I didn't follow the main rule of running, and I increased my distances too quickly (doubling them in a month!)- and then, I ran with pain. I kept running when my feet were hurting, and when I would spend a day or two hobbling after a long run. Finally in April I only ran 18km because I was in that much pain. I couldn't run. I got new running shoes, I spent time doing other exercise and slowly started again. May is almost over, and I have run 61km this month (eek, trippling my distances in a month, I just realized, but, it feels different this time). I am more careful about my running these days- I slow when I need to, run less often if need be, do only one long run a week.

So today I did 11k, and I feel proud of that. It's hard to remember how excited I was about running my first 5k in 38 minutes- 5k is not really anything now- done in a half hour, and not "enough" as far as a good workout goes these days. But I know that I still have a lot of room for progress. I want to be able to run much further than 11k someday. Maybe someday soon I can start making running progress like the people who train for a marathon in 3 months- maybe not. But, I guess, I'm just going to do my best to continue to be a "person who exercises!"

(By the way, I still can't get into blogger the right way, so I have no ability to load more than one picture into a post, or to control the placement- annoying, but at least I can post!)