Well, I’ve been absent, haven’t I? Moving across the country will do that to you. But here we are, all settled in to our new apartment (ahem: “settled in” isn’t the same as “unpacked,” right?) and trying to figure out a new routine.

I did not do so well on the whole healthy eating thing while we were on the trip, or even the week before the trip because we had packed all our pots and pans so the healthy cooking was not so much happening. But it wasn’t terrible, and that’s one of the great things that this lifestyle change has given to me. Even when I’m not actively trying to eat healthily, and I don’t have full control over my food intake, I still make better choices. Grilled chicken instead of fried, etc.

Perhaps that’s why I only gained 1 pound during the past two weeks of mayhem, and have already lost it. Plus one. At this point, I think it really is all about the exercise for me. Obviously, I have to keep eating well, not scarfing down greasy food or snacking myself into oblivion. But I’m doing that already. No, I’m not as strict about as I was when I first started Weight Watchers. But I don’t think that was tenable to begin with, not long term. If I kept track of every little M&M I ate, eventually I would crack and eat a whole monster-size bag of them. So instead, I’ve relaxed the rules a little bit on the eating side of things and am going to make up for it with exercise.

Denver is a very exercise-friendly city, and we’re getting a dog next week, so those things should help. Last night my husband and I, sick of being cooped up in the house, drove downtown at nine o’clock at night and took an hour-long walk. Our own neighborhood is not particularly walkable, although our apartment complex is lovely and has a pond and a few small walking paths. It will do for quick dog-walks, but for real walks? Not so much. And I imagine the dog would like to expands its horizons past the confines of our gated community as well.

So yes, we took a walk downtown, a long one, and this morning I had lost a pound. I feel very good about that. Plus, seeing the actual effect of exercise translated via a lower number on the scale is the best motivator for keeping it up.

So, the basic goal is to get at least half an hour of exercise every day, and some days more. I’m sure this sounds low to a lot of people, but to me it isn’t, especially now that I don’t even have to leave the house to get to work, whereas before there was walking involved in my commute. So, I’m thinking about the types of exercise I would like to do. And short walks with the dog don’t count. Long ones do.

• Our apartment complex has a gym. It’s free. It’s nice. It’s right here. No excuses not to use it. Not every day, but a couple times a week. Half an hour of cardio and half an hour of weight training. I can even go on my lunch hour when it won’t be crowded.
• Denver is a really walkable city. It has parks and paths all over the place. We have to drive to most of them, but that’s fine. We even got a fancy backseat cover thing for the dog. At least two or three times a week, we should drive to one of these places and walk around. With the dog. Exercise makes everyone happy.
• I love swimming. I need to look into whether Denver has free pools like DC did. Our apartment complex has a pool, but it’s small and only open in the summer. I want a place where I can do laps. I somehow doubt that free pools exist around here, but it’s worth paying to use one.
• Tennis with my husband. Our apartment has a tennis court too, a nice one. My husband is much better than me but I will never catch up if I don’t play. We both have racquets, so why not use them?
• The mountains. This will be a much rarer thing as I hear it’s a total pain in the ass to get there because everyone else has the same idea and traffic is horrendous. But I like hikes as long as they aren’t straight vertical climbs and don’t involve so many roots and rocks on the path that you can’t look around you while you walk. And I like snowshoeing. I do not like skiing, so cross that one off the list.
• Volleyball is my favorite sport to play. I tried playing with my office team when I was living in DC, but the games were far away and inconvenient without a car, and the team was snobby and cliquish and way too serious and competitive for what was only supposed to be a fun office rec league. So I quit, and now that I’m not in DC anymore it’s a moot point anyway. But I bet there are rec leagues in Denver too, and maybe I can find one to join. I will have to Google this. Or maybe there’s something on Craigslist.

I think the baseline here has to be the walking. Just moving around, getting your heart rate up a little bit, every single day. And mixing in more strenuous cardio activities a few times a week. Most exercise recommendations call for 30 minutes a day of moderate exercise and at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise and 20 minutes of strength training three times a week. Those are totally realistic, especially now that I’m working from home and have the time and flexibility to get myself moving. I think mixing up the type of exercise is the key to not getting bored and stopping. If I don’t feel like going to the gym and panting on the elliptical for half an hour, fine. I won’t. But I do have to do something else instead.

Plus, the side bonus of all this is that we will get to know our new city a little better. There’s really just no excuse not to do this. And I don’t want one anyway.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Blogs, Not a Diet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.