No Excuses. It's Time.

Sometimes you can accomplish things on your own, and sometimes you can do much better when you have the help of friends.  Sometimes you don't realize how MUCH you need the help of friends until the help has arrived, and suddenly you see how much better things are.  This has been my situation of late.


Like many others in my age group, I have gained weight that I don't need. I am tired of weighing more than I should.  I'm tired of being tired all the time.  I'm tired of my clothes not fitting the way they should.  I'm tired of all sorts of things that come with being heavier than I should be.  I have decided it is time to take some action.  What is amazing to me is that about the same time I was reaching this decision, one of my co-workers also reached this decision for herself.  She decided to start an exercise group at the library for herself and any of the staff who wanted to join in with her.  


The exercise group meets after work for half an hour four days a week.  Staffers are invited to join in for any or all of those four days. We meet in the conference room of the library and exercise to the Leslie Sansone  DVD you see pictured here.  It is a walking exercise plan, and it is easy enough for just about anyone to do.  We have been doing the 2-mile exercise plan, but there is also a 1-mile plan for those who need to ease into it.  She has several other DVDs too which you can see at the link from her name if anyone wants to try something different.  

Although not everyone takes advantage of the class, we have several regulars and several others who come to it part of the time.  We just follow the exercises from the DVD, so the only cost to us being in the class is our time while we are there.  You can't beat free!  For those exercising alone at home, even the price of the DVD is probably affordable to most.

The "walking" combines walking or marching in place with side steps, front kicks, knee lifts, and heel lifts to the back and various combinations of these moves.  Arm movements are also added in for part of the class.  You can add weights to the plan too if you wish as you grow stronger and need to increase the intensity of your workout.


My co-worker decided to call our little after work exercise group F.L.A.B. (Friendly Librarians Against the Blahs).  Ha-ha!  That's probably not the name I would have chosen, but it is what it is.  We have been exercising for two weeks now.  Not long, I know, but we have been having fun.  It really does make a difference when you have someone else to do a workout with you.  We are supportive of each other and encourage each other when we struggle.


The library director thinks our group is a great idea.  So much so, in fact, that he is having an empty room in the basement of our building painted and converted into an exercise room just for us.  Currently we use the conference room, which works fine except that tables and chairs have to be moved out of the way every time we exercise and then put back again when we are done.  Having our own room will make it much easier to not have to rearrange the furniture every time we want to exercise.  Also, currently the conference room is only available to us four days a week.  Once we have our new exercise room in the basement, we will have access to it five days a week.


So my co-workers are some of the friends who are helping me with this new venture of mine.  I have two blog friends who have recently blogged about weight loss and how they were able to set and reach goals. These two friends have also helped me decide that it is time to act and start taking better care of myself.  No one can do it, but me, after all.  Both Diana and Dorothy wrote what I thought were very inspiring blog posts to encourage others to set goals to improve their fitness and health by losing weight.  Thank you to both of these ladies for their supportive words.  You can click on their names to read how they lost weight.


Another friend of mine recently told me about a free weight loss website which has some tools on it to help you meet your weight loss goal.  The site is called my fitness pal, and it provides a very handy calorie counter and tabulator along with several other tools to help you lose weight.  It does all the math for you and remembers foods you eat frequently and even shows the break down of the food that you record each day in your personal log into calories, carbs, fat, and protein.  It has a nutritional database that I find to be very easy to use.  There are many other websites, of course, that can help you with weight loss if this one doesn't suit your needs.  I like the way this one is set up, though, and I'm hoping it will help me to relearn what and how much I should be eating.


I debated about whether or not to blog about this, but I am hoping by writing about it that it will make me stick to my workout plan and continue to be conscious of what I am eating.  I am hoping to report back here with the news that I've reached my goals in a few months.  I also thought that, perhaps by writing about it here, that it might help others who struggle with their weight to get back in control of their lives.  We will see whether or not I succeed.  With the help of so many friends, I feel that I at least have a fighting chance.