Exercise is my friend.

Today I did my running like planned. Last week I managed 6.5 minutes of walking and 1 minute of running. This week I managed 8 minutes of walking and 2 of running. I know it doesn't seem like much but believe me for me doing ANY running is a big deal and I'm proud of my little bit of progress. What was more I did my stretching with my son and then later did some aerobic exercise with him which consistented of me making up things as we moved around to funny songs. He especially liked "ninja suprise" where we crouched up tight like we were hiding (ninja) and then leaped up stretching out our arms (suprise). It was awesome.

We only did about 2 songs so a little over two minutes but it was fun and even my 2 year old got worn out from it. What's suprised me is I'm not having any guilt or hangups with this. I may not really feel like doing it but I'm doing it anyway, and without the "I should be able to do more! I look stupid doing this! My neighbours must think I'm an idiot!"

I think the difference is instead of looking at it as a way to get thin I'm looking at the exercise (and some changes I'm making to my diet) as part of my mental health treatment. I'm not going "I have to do this because I'm fat and ugly." I'm going "Oh! This will help raise seratonin and endorphins. I like endorphins. Ooo and it will help me sleep and if I change my diet that will make me feel better and damnit I really want carrot anyway."

Out of curiousity I went on a free website (food focus for those curious) and calculated how long it would take me to lose the weight. The best estimate which assumed I lost on average 2lbs a week was a year and a half. The most conservative estimate was 3 years. Now that's a long time, but it didn't stun me. It did make me think though. I thought; "Am I perpared to go 3 years hungry a lot and tired and achy from exercise?" and my answer was "Yes. Because frankly the 10 minutes of exercise I did today? Made me feel damn ass good.

Tomorrow isn't a running day but I think I'm going to come up with an exercise routine I can do with Charlie because that was fun as anything for BOTH of us. How often can you do exercises that involve spinning in circles and laughing as well as things like touching your toes. I'm planning on going for a walk as well but we'll see how that goes.

Am I doing a big kick where I really expect to track my food everyday and get down to my ideal size in that 3 year period? No not really. It would be nice but I'm not expecting it and I don't really think it's going happen. However, I would like to be able to run for 20 minutes at a time and I do like figuring out exercises to do with my son.

It will also help my fibromyalgia, as hard as it is for me to get moving because I hurt once I do it helps me, keeps me from getting stiffer and stops the pain from getting worse.

More than anything else though? I like being happy, and exercising makes me happy. As odd as that sounds...