*Wheeze*

WOW I am out of shape!

Yesterday marked my first day of going to the gym in....well....a while. Let's just say a while. I have to be honest and admit that I've kind of let myself go over the last few months. Finding the motiviation has been very hard.

When Edgar and I were living with his parents, eating healthy and exercising just wasn't in the cards. First, I never cooked there. Edgar's mother cooked every night, and typically cooked whatever it was that his father wanted to eat. Which meant a lot of meat. Meat in everything. No chicken, very little fish, but a lot of meat. Beans? Put chorizo in them. Pasta? It needs ground beef. Eggs? Needs sausage. And if there's no sausage, hot dogs. All the time. I hated the kitchen in that apartment. It was small, it was cramped, and every shelf was overflowing with dishes. There was no room to cook, and it was a waste of money to prepare two different meals every night. So nutrition wise, I was stuck in a hole.

The gym at the apartment was abysmal. Two treadmills, one of which was missing a side rail. Two bikes, neither of which had a working computer interface on it so there was no way to add any resistance. One stairmaster. A few random weight machines, two of which were broken, and for the remaining machines there were only two weight pins that had to be shared among them all. Also, the room didn't have working air conditioning or even windows that opened. It's hard to exercise in the absence of fresh air.

I'm currently about 25 pounds heavier than I was at this time last year. Of course, at this time last year I was less than two weeks away from my wedding and I had been losing weight purposefully leading up to it and Edgar and I lived in our own place where we could cook healthy meals and we had a much better gym.

I'm not trying to make excuses. I'm just laying out how I got here in the first place. My own laziness is as much to blame as anything else. And my love of all things Taco Bell. Mmmmm #9 combo, plus a burrito supreme and a Meximelt make my day. Seriously, I can put away massive amounts of Taco Bell. It's unreal. The same amount of food anywhere else would be two meals for me, but with Taco Bell......it's insane.

And I'm the sort of person that's all "Oh, well, I could spend a few minutes cutting up some veggies to snack on. Or I could just eat chips." Bad decision.

So, bottom line: I need to lose weight. Edgar and I want to start trying to have a baby later this year, and I absolutely must lose weight before that happens. All of these studies are out now that say if a mother is overweight while she's pregnant that her child will have a higher risk of being overweight as well. My family and Edgar's family have enough health problems as it is--I'm not going to give our children added disadvantages. I usually do well when I have a specific reason to lose weight, like with the wedding last year. I can't think of any better reason than the health of my children.

I just have to avoid the pitfalls. Football season is coming up, which means BEER. Edgar and I are huge football lovers, and that means that there's at least one case of beer in the refrigerator each Sunday. As much as I hate it, I'll have to limit my intake, or at least try to switch us to lower-calorie options. I tend to hate the "Light" beers as a whole group. For most of them, you might as well be buying water. Except Sam Adams Light and Heineken Light. Those are good.

It also means not wimping out on going to the gym. Even after a long day at work or bad traffic. That used to be a common stumbling block for me. "Oh, I'm tired, it was a long day, I'll go tomorrow." I've definitely got to stop that. Same goes for cooking dinner. Some evenings Edgar and I get home and don't feel like cooking, so we'll just go out and grab fast food. That's got to stop as well.

I was already about 25 pounds overweight at that time last year, so I've got an uphill battle ahead of me (damn you hills!). And I know that. It's my own doing that I'm here.

Anyways, OUT OF SHAPE. I started running on the treadmill at 5 mph last night, and I only could make it about 5 minutes. Pathetic! I've never really been a runner, even when I've been healthy and a normal weight. I don't really like it at all, but running is a great workout; it burns lots of calories and gives you a major cardio workout. I used to be able to run a mile at 6 mph, so my goal is to get myself back to that in a couple of weeks.

I really like the gym at our new apartment. All of the cardio equipment is brand new. They even have TV monitors on them! Yay! The weight machines are all functioning as well, so that's a definite plus. So, problematic gym issue is no longer standing in my way.

As far as food goes, Edgar and I went grocery shopping on Sunday and stocked up for the week. I have the goods to make myself healthy lunches and snacks for the entire week. Dinners are a little bit tougher. Neither of us are big vegetable eaters, so it's hard to come up with really healthy side dishes that we'll actually eat and enjoy and not waste. Luckily, there's a grocery store near us that has pretty inexpensive produce.

So this is my mission: lose 50 pounds by the end of the year. That's 113 days. Roughly 3 pounds a week. I dont' know if it's doable. I'm pretty sure that it's not. Especially if it's one of those "Hmph, I can't seem to lose the last ten pounds!" situations that you always hear about. I actually don't know how I'll even track it since we don't even have a scale right now. And therein lies the challenge!