In the beginning...

About myself in this moment in time

Name: Debbie
Age: 35
Height: 5' 6"
Current Weight: 200 (yup, exactly 200.0 this morning)
Former Weight: 150-162 (adult low was 145- wedding weight (1998) was 148)

Why I'm starting this blog: I'm in the Air Force Reserves, but not participating for most of last year and this year. I have had two children in the last couple years. Due to the 60 lbs I gained with our son, and then getting pregnant with our daughter right as I was finally starting to lose weight... Well, you get the picture. When I go back to participating next year I'll be subject to having to pass the Air Force Physical Fitness Test (run, sit ups, pushups, weight, waist measurement) and there's no question I'd fail right now. I'm slow and fat. Sigh.

I've been working on getting back into shape after I had our daughter in May '06. But she's 9 months now and I've been able to work out since 2 weeks after she was born (yes, she was a really easy recovery. It was my son's that was really long and hard.) I was doing great at losing weight while I was on maternity leave. In the first 3 months postpartum I'd even gotten down 8 lbs lower than I was this morning. It's been going back to work that killed my exercising and sapped my willpower not to eat badly.

While on maternity leave I did the program called Couch to 5K in order to get back to running. I completed the program before going back to work and have been able to run again ever since. Since then I've sort of been barely holding on to that.

I work in a high-travel job. I live near San Diego, but we only teach in St Louis and Washington DC. I'm also the manager for our 9.5-person team. I work a lot of overtime and spend a good chunk of time on the road (about 25%) And sometimes when I'm not on the road, my husband (also an AF Reservist) is participating in military exercises. So it's really hard to find time to work out.

When I'm in town (and my husband is in town also), I work M-Th at least 5:30am-4pm (sometimes a little later). My commute is between 40-55 mins depending on traffic and time of day (thank God for books on CD!). I get home in the evenings between 5:00-6:00 and have to cook dinner. My husband can't cook so I get to do that. He does the dishes though, so it's a fair division of labor.

The start of the kids' bedtime routine is 7pm and they are totally down by about 7:45-8. By then I'm exhausted and ready for a little TV before going to sleep. Unless I run at work I have no time in the morning or evening to do it. But running at work has been the challenge. It's so easy to put running off because other "more important" things need to be taken care of. I've considered putting up a sign at my desk that says something like, "A year from now all these little annoyances will have been solved... but what kind of shape will you be in?"

In early January I decided to create a spreadsheet that would take me from running for 30 mins at my current pace (4.8 mph - 12:30 min/mile) to running for 30 mins at a 7.o mph - 9 min/mile pace. That's what I used to be able to do in high school and college when I was in good shape. The spreadsheet just has me increasing the mph on a treadmill by 0.1 every 3-4 weeks. It seems really doable. But the problem I'm having is getting on the treadmill when I'm home. On the road it's easy. There's almost always a treadmill in the hotel gyms, so it's really convenient. But at home, as I said, it's easy to decide I'm too busy. But I need to cut that out and just get out there. I wish we could afford to buy a treadmill for use at home, but we can't afford it right now.

My goal is to run on the treadmill 2-3 times a week and do my weekly Saturday morning run with my local running/walking group. That Saturday morning run is on a dirt road beside a local orange grove. Usually I'm pushing my double stroller and have to walk up the hills. There's no way I can run up those hills while pushing the extra 60 lbs of my two kids and the stroller. Just walking that is good exercise.

Today, since the kids have both had colds, my husband and I decided to keep the kids home and each of us would run separately. I went out and met up with my Saturday morning group with no stroller! Yahoo! So I had a goal of running the whole thing without stopping. It's 3 miles with slight to moderate hills. It was those moderate hills I was afraid of. But I did it. I ran for 38:36 which was an average pace of 12:53 or 4.7 mph. Not bad considering the hills! Overall I was really happy and proud of myself.

So as I start this blog, I'm not starting from scratch. But I'm certainly slow. I can only do 4 pushups (and those aren't even using perfect form!) and I have no idea how many situps. I haven't done those in a long time.

My current mph on the treadmill is 4.8. I think next week I'm supposed to bump it up to 4.9. In January I started at 4.5 or 4.6.

I'm going to be blogging about my successes and failures at trying to get my weekly treadmill runs in, my weight, my speed, my pushups (I tend to suck at getting those in), and my situps. Hopefully this year will have more successes than failures, and hopefully I'll make good progress in each of the areas I need to seriously improve. I'm tired of looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person I see.