On Eating Cake

Today I am pretty impressed with myself because I have exercised for two days in a row! Oh dear, how far I've fallen. After spending almost 3 years getting back into shape towards the end of college/beginning of grad school, I completely derailed all of my hard work over the course of studying for step 1 and my first 3rd year rotation (surgery). To think only around a year and a half ago I was a bit exercise-crazy, running or working out nearly every day, and now it takes me a good 30 minutes to talk myself into getting off my butt, if I manage to at all. Given my natural tendency toward slothfulness (doesn't everybody?), I am not yet at the point where I turn to exercise when I have a bad day or am feeling down instead of curling up in a ball with a blanket and that makes getting back to where I was really difficult.

Of course I'm going to lay on your nice clean naked bed. I'm a cat, it's what I do

Over the course of the past year as my exercise habits have fallen off a cliff never to be seen again, I've come to appreciate the importance of convenience and of having an exercise buddy. When I moved to my new apartment last year, I lost my comfortable routine of running a short distance uphill to the fields behind the gym, then doing a body weight workout, and finishing up with an easy jog or walk downhill back to my apartment. I also lost my running loop route that I had become so comfortable with when I moved. Initially, it took me weeks to get comfortable running by myself in the area around my new place or even using the gym at the apartment complex. I also had to learn how to do my body weight workouts in my living room (and ignore the fact that I'm sure my down stairs neighbors really do not appreciate the jumping) as there is not a suitable outdoor space nearby nor enough room in the small gym. When I moved I also lost perhaps the most important driving force behind my  previously healthy, wonderful exercise habits, namely, my exercise buddy to hold me accountable and goad me into working out even on days I'd rather sink into the couch never to be seen again.

Tiger Lily says, "Mommy, I don't mind that it takes you a week to do laundry after you've sorted it. It's comfy."

Unlike the Husband Unit, I do not derive pleasure from exercising, nor have I found it to be an indispensable part of my day for most of my life. Now that I have experienced both the lazy extreme and the active extreme (by my standards anyway), I will concede that I feel better, sleep better, & focus better when I am more active (something I would never have believed if you asked me in college!). And so, I am starting the long and slow road of returning to a more active pattern of life. I've seen countless lists of reasons to exercise floating around the interwebs. As for me, my reasons are these: to sleep better, to focus better, to feel better, to keep the inevitable age-related weight gain at a minimum, to feel more confident, to be able to be the kind of parent I want to be someday, to not become those patients that make me inwardly cringe, to make my husband happy, to feel sore the next day, to feel accomplished, and, perhaps most importantly, to eat cake and not feel guilty about it!

Mmmm one year-old cake.