The World IS Round

So many times in the past, when I’ve tried to get fit, lose weight, be healthier, I’m strong for a few weeks and then I reach the edge and fall off, the end, no more motivation = no more exercise or healthy eating choices.

Not this time.

I am actually enjoying myself.  I feel great.  I love getting off the treadmill feeling accomplished and badass and noodly limbed.  It means I’ve done something.  The weight, it’s budging and even in the right direction! 

So why haven’t I been around, having apparently found the edge of the Earth and fallen off?  Well, I think it was shin splints.  My shins hurt something fierce and the recommended course of action for them is rest.  Well, shit, pardoné moi.  Just when I was getting a groove, increasing my stamina and feeling like I was making progress and that I might actually be able to run more than 1.5 miles at some point.  I was not happy.  And yet, I am in this for the long haul.  I do not want to use this as an excuse to be derailed.  So I took 2 weeks off.  I hated every minute of it.

Then, Monday found me back on the treadmill.  I felt like a gangly chicken with Tourette’s of the Wing the way I was running, all flailing and uncoordinated.  I only went a mile.  I walked about half of it.  I backslid something fierce in my stamina and I could tell I lost a lot of ground in just 2 weeks.  But instead of getting discouraged and making it become the reason to quit, I made it my reason to keep going, to get back into the groove, to start over with the stamina building.  And you know what?  A mile feels just as badass as more distance if I’ve put everything into it that I can.  Just as I know ten miles will feel badass when I get to that point. 

So instead of finding the edge and falling off as I always have in the past, something clicked in me and I think I finally realized this healthy lifestyle is just as rounded as the Earth, that if I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, there is no edge, just like there is no spoon.  It is what I make of it, and I’m going to make the most of it.