Habit Forming

Let me begin by saying, yesterday was not day one of my new diet and exercise regimen.  It actually started a week ago today when my friend Renae came to town and announced that we would be walking while she was here.  She had started a walking program and was determined to stick with it.  I was glad to walk with her, because I like to walk and have used this method to melt off pounds before, with a modicum of success.  Time to form a new habit.  I've done it before and I can do it again.   

We walked three miles on Friday and three miles on Saturday.  I felt reasonably good about our persistence in the face of what I like to call “Vacation Syndrome”.  You know about that one, right?  It is the insidious disease that infects us when we are on vacation.  The constellation of symptoms include a tendency to eat out for almost every meal, because hey!  We’re on vacation!   Other symptoms are a frightening sloth that creeps over the body once it is planted in a beach chair with a book and a fruity drink with an umbrella sticking out of the top.  We are entitled to this because we are on vacation.  Vacation Syndrome inertia can make it nearly impossible to lift that oversized rear end out the beach chair and go for a walk.  But we did it.  And as a side note, just let me say that three miles of walking barefoot in the sand is one heckuva workout!  It leaves the calves quivering and crying out piteously “Why oh why are you abusing us so???”  Which leads to yet another, even more vile symptom.:  because we actually exercised while on vacation, we have now earned the right for yet another fruity, umbrella-clad drink and another dinner out on the town.  Do you see where I’m going with this? This syndrome causes  a chain reaction of symptoms that often results in food comas, sunburns, large, Hawaiian print muu-muus and double chins.  Not a pretty sight.

As I said, I was reasonably encouraged that we walked in the face of Vacation Syndrome for two days in a row.  Alas, for the second half of the vacation we succumbed to full on Vacation Syndrome.  No walks for two days.  More magnificent dinners out on the town and the consumption of more adult beverages than should have been allowed. The horror!  Then, on Tuesday when Renae left I had to return to the inevitable backlog of work that piled up when I was on vacation.  No walk for me that day – I needed to recover from my vacation and the appallingly busy day at work, so I just watched Dancing With The Stars, butt firmly planted in the recliner and attempted to assuage my guilty conscience by eating a Lean Cuisine for dinner.    Yeah, like that really helped…..

When I woke up Wednesday morning, I was hit over the head with the ugly truth:  I had not walked or exercised for three days in row!  How was I supposed to get in a healthy exercise habit if I skipped three whole days?  I remember reading somewhere that it take two weeks of repetition to form a habit.  I want my exercise to become a habit and skipping three days in row was no way to accomplish this goal.  So immediately after work on Wednesday, I laced up my trusty New Balance walking shoes, plugged my iPod earbuds firmly into each ear and cranked up the tunes.  I set off on a fast paced journey down memory lane, thanks to the musical stylings of KC and the Sunshine Band, Sister Sledge and the Bee Gees (Saturday Night Fever anyone?).    And it felt good!!  Yesterday I spent my lunch break sweating it out on the elliptical trainer with a movie in front of my face and it felt good!!  And today I spent my lunch hour walking again, motivated by Kool and the Gang, The Ohio Players and Thelma Houston, among others.  And it felt really good!!  (And yes Randy, I will download some Earth Wind and Fire to my iPod.)   I even think I just might have felt the tiniest endorphin rush.  Just a tiny one, but it's a start. Maybe this is why I feel so good!  I remember well my days as an athlete and I know my endorphins,.  They are glorious! And the best thing about endorphins is that they make one crave more endorphins, thereby motivating an endorphin-crazed person to actually work out more frequently in order to satisfy that craving.  This is a good thing.

So dear readers, can you guess what this means?  I actually accomplished my goal of exercising five times in the space of a week and I survived.  And I feel really good.  I think I am going to like this new habit….

P.S. - I don't want to jinx myself, so I'll just whisper it quietly.... I have lost three pounds.  Shhhh....