Color Me Fit: weight loss, fitness, exercise

Since I’ve always wanted this blog to be a place where I could post insights, lightbulb moments and other similar things, I might as well dedicate a whole entry to the summary of the past year or so. Anyway, I’ve mentioned yesterday that I wanted to do so, so here it is.

The good news is that, no, I haven’t gained all the weight back plus some. That’s something I’ve managed to keep in control, and that’s fortunate.

The bad news is that going back to college kind of threw me out of the loop in a nasty way. I was confident that things would go like they used to go back in 1997-2000. See, that’s when I had gone from 72-73 kgs to about 63-62 with NO effort, just because I had to walk all the time and couldn’t afford junk foods on top of the campus restaurant (which wasn’t a crappy option at all, on the contrary!). In fact, before 2005, all my weightlosses had been due to circumstances (extra activity, no extra food under the hand, etc.), so I don’t have the “yo-yo dieting” mentality, but I also lack a certain understanding of how exactly losing weight and maintaining is hard. Now that I’ve stumbled and fell, I understand all of this better.

So. Back to college I was, and thinking that it’d go as previously, that is to say: well and easy. I had just forgotten to factor a specific element in that: at the time, I didn’t have to work during the schoolyear to pay for my studies, since I had a State grant and summer jobs would cover the rest of it! No need to say that those 23-25 hours a week (work + commuting take that much), plus the fact that I need to do extra homework in order to make sure I’ll be ready to take my competitive exam in three years, were… quite a deterrent to keeping a healthy enough lifestyle. I felt like there never was time for ANYTHING.

And that was my mistake: to believe that I could NOT do it. Because I want to believe I CAN. I swear I want. There is no way I want to envision my life for the next three years as an endless circle of eating junk food because I have little time and little room to cook. There is no way I want to spend these years sitting all day long. My legs are killing me for a walk all the time now, and I think that perhaps my body is actually trying to tell me something good for a change!

I won’t try to fool myself nor anyone else: before that, I hadn’t been committed all the time either. I can’t remember if there was a specific reason to that, so I assume there wasn’t, but I know I had to cut on going to the gym five times a week for lack of money for gas, among other things, and that I didn’t like running back then. So I kind of maintained my loss (plus a couple of pounds now and then), but didn’t go lower than that. Not bad in itself, but not terribly good either.

Now, I want to take opportunity on the summer and the upcoming four months during which I’ll be freed of school activities (uhm, almost: I still want and need to study). The upcoming schoolyear WILL be full, but I’m hoping that if I manage to take a good start NOW, something will be left of it by then. “Mens sana in corpore sano” has never been so true: I don’t think I have all my chances for such a hard exam if my body and brain are exhausted by junk food and the lack of a minimum of exercise. So I’m not only doing that for my health, I’m doing that for my studies as well. Double incentive.

Many things have changed, too. I’m single again and living in a city now, I’m totally on my own, and I’ve had to readapt to that kind of life. I think I’m managing, though. Taking the bus is less expensive than having a car, and I’ve recently applied for housing in a building for students that is RIGHT next to a gym! If I get an apartment there, I’ll scrap every bit of money I can to go strength-training there, because I’ll have NO excuses. At. All.

To go to the bulk of the matter:

• I’m so totally out of shape it’s not even funny anymore! XD However, I’ve given a more serious try at jogging in the park nearby, taking a newly acquired MP3 player with me, and I’ve realized that I actually like it! It’s encouraging, and my breath is pretty okay too. I just need my legs to pick up on strength again. (I can run for 25 minutes straight without having to walk/stop. I’ve never done that well in the past. ^_^)
• No lies: I’ve gained some weight back again. I went up to 146 pounds. And I intend on losing those as soon as possible. No kidding. If my scale hadn’t told me that, my jeans would have anyway.
• It takes me between 50 and 60 minutes to go to work (tramway and bus). If I take the bike, it probably won’t be longer than that. So on sunny days, I’ll go to work on a rented bike. Maybe even on rainy days if I don’t have to carry a laptop with me by then.

And that’s it. Simple as that.

So let’s work on making things better again!

Tags: college, weight loss