me: healthy

If you see me coughing up a lung today, it isn't because I am sick. Yesterday, I decided I want to try to be more healthy and a part of that is adding cardio workouts to my routine (swimming, running, jazzercize). I've been doing other workouts, but nothing to get my lungs and heart moving. I've been stagnant and my little belly pouch shows it. 

I hate to run. I enjoyed it in high school, but being on the cross country team for 3 years took all the running out of me. It gets boring sometimes and others it just kills. I don't really know how to jazzercize, though I would really like to learn how. That leaves swimming. 

In the cross country off-season, I had a job working for a physical therapist that had a full-purpose gym in his office. When I would finish paper work for the evening, I was encouraged to use the equipment and interact with customers as they needed help lifting. I was in such great shape. 

I went on an LDS mission to Brazil and kept so much in shape there. I walked everywhere in the tropical sun on the banks of the Amazon (yes, I am bragging about where I spent two years for the Lord). I worked out in the morning and couldn't help but stay lean and in shape. 

I got home and had no routine. I became lax and by my first Christmas my mom commented on how I was getting chubby as I took a bite of her famous Christmas day cinnamon rolls. 

After Christmas, I "fell in love" and had a relationship with a girl I thought I loved. Everything seemed like it was going so well. I proposed to her and we got engaged to get married in August this year. I was working out to get in shape so I could look good for wedding pictures. My fiance left for the summer. I got put on a back burner where I felt emotionally neglected and forgotten. I was made to feel like I didn't have any say in my own wedding planning. I prayed about it and felt like we needed to push our wedding date back and was told that I was receiving inspiration from Satan. That was the last thing I wanted to hear after already feeling emotionally abused. I prayed again and felt like I needed to call off the wedding. 

So...I did. 

It wasn't easy. I put on a facade that everything was all right and that I was fine, but I fell a little. I stopped working out completely. When I would get home from work in the late afternoon, I would spend the evenings working, drawing, or watching Community on Netflix. I didn't want to make food for myself. Fast food became a way of life for me and I payed for it. I didn't save as much as I should have, and I let my body go until I didn't feel well. Ever. My body has ached almost every morning and walking up any stairs gets my breathing so heavy it could hold down a tarp in a Kansas windstorm. 

I realized this and have tried to get myself to do something about it, but I have a hard time getting myself to be early and never have the energy to wake up in the morning to go swim like I would like. Luckily, I have a wonderful roommate. 

Yesterday, Jordan and I decided that we needed to do something to get ourselves back into shape and that we would do it together. This morning we woke up at 6:47 (Jordan always sets his alarm to prime numbers) and went swimming. I was nice to be in the water. I felt free, I felt alive, I felt like I might die because I haven't done that for awhile, but I also felt the best I have in a long time. After a half hour of swimming, we were both pooped and decided that we would work our way up incrementally. We're going to swim on Tuesday and Thursdays. It's going to be a part of our routine. 

The best part wasn't even the swimming. The swimming made me feel wonderful, but it was singing "Circle of Life", "Jingle Bell Rock", and "My Girl" in the locker room with the old guys who swim in the morning and sing in the shower that really gave my day a fantastic start. The locker room has a great echo.