Get on your feet..

So I've written a lot about nutrition so far but I haven't really touched on exercise at all. Considering that for me, this is probably the biggest change I've made, perhaps it should have been the first thing I wrote about.

I have thyroid disease. In the past I've always complained about not being able to lose weight because of it. I'm not always super active, but in the past I've had some commitment to working out 3-4 times a week with cardio and strength training. When I don't lose weight doing that, and eating healthy I assume it's my thyroid wreaking havoc on my metabolism. This causes me to get frustrated and just give up.

So when I first bought the Fitbit, which really motivated me to get that step number as high as possible everyday, imagine my surprise when Ah ha!! It worked! One thing I realized is that I wasn't as active as a mom as I thought. Don't get me wrong, I'm on the go a lot. Eh, but it's a lot of standing and cooking or driving here and there. Or sitting and doing homework, reading, doing puzzles, playing legos. Even laundry is sort of standing and folding. Which doesn't exactly get the heart rate going.

This is when I started my early morning walks, which turned out to be quite therapeutic for me. I also started parking as far out as I could whenever I did have to drive anywhere. I'm still pretty amazed at the changes I started seeing. I had more energy, and I was sleeping so much better at night! No more laying around for 20-30 minutes+ while I tried to fall asleep. I also found that I had no interest anymore to sit and watch tv. I am always too antsy to get moving.

I also started adding in some cardio at the gym. I tend to stick with the elliptical because I have trust issues with my knees. Once I did some research I realized that it wasn't my knees I needed to have a conversation with, it was my hips and the muscles around my knees. So a quick search on the interwebs and I had some exercises I could do that added in some strength training and core training.

Before I knew it, that 60 days and 10lbs were long gone and I was ready to head to Jamaica. Feeling great, full of energy and excited about where I was at. Not to mention that it was fun to get the girls involved. Having dance parties and bowling challenges on the wii and xbox, and going for long walks to visit some of the other play structures in our neighborhood have been a lot of fun for all of us. Grace gets a kick out of asking me how long it's been since I had soda (for awhile we were tracking it in weeks but now it's months).

In some ways, it was really hard. It was hard to give up soda. That first week was a killer. It was hard cutting back on coffee, but now my one a day is like a serious treat. I still pass by fast food places and think how good that might taste. In other ways though, it was really easy. Once I saw how great I was feeling and how strong I was getting, it made it that much easier to drive past the coffee and fast food drive thru. Plus, when I do indulge I often don't feel so hot the next day.

Now, I know that everyone is different. Not everyone can do the same things and get the same results.

What are some goals you set and reached that have really excited you? Did you set new ones once you reached them?

Now that I've reached my goal weight, the next step for me is to try running. I'm also going to try CrossFit. I bought a groupon for a local place here for 5 classes. We'll see how I feel at the end of that 5 and then I'll decide if I want to keep doing it.