Singing for a smaller me

The last thing anyone wants to do on a colder morning when you're cuddled up in bed is wake up early and exercise - yet that's exactly what I did this morning. Never thought I could make myself do it, but here it is nearly six hours later. I'm awake and alert and feeling pretty good about myself. Go figure.

One of my excuses for not working out was saying I could never find the time to exercise. It was complete bullsh*t. There's plenty of time during the day if I make the time - I have time to sit on my butt, watch tv, and play games on Facebook, so I have time to exercise. It wasn't the time, I just didn't *want* to exercise, and that doesn't cut it anymore. If this weight is going to come off, exercise has to become part of my daily routine. Getting here took a whole lot of work and getting back will take even more work.

Let's call today Day 4 of me and my buddy's 30 Days of Working Out Challenge. I'm at 3 of 4 days:

• Friday, Day One: I did a whole heck of a lot of walking because our office was in "OMGEmergencyMode, wedon'thaveenoughofthisorthat, gogetit!!!" So, I speed walked my way through the day and managed to pull in an half an hour there.


• Day Two, Saturday: was my Weight Watchers Get Fit DVD - the low intensity workout while the hubby gamed on the computer.


• Day Three, Sunday: I planned a work out after lunch with friends, but it didn't pan out. Lunch started late, ended late, there were errands to run, and then it was a going away dinner with my brother and sis-in-law. Got home around 9 p.m. Decided to go to sleep early and wake up in the morning to work out.


• Day Four, Today, Monday - I managed to wake my butt up at 4 a.m. this morning (which was not the time I planned on waking up). I was a little upset to see my alarm say 4 and not 5:30 a.m. as I was expecting. Guess I should have been a little more specific in my mantra before going to sleep. Instead of saying "I will wake up early, I will wake up early", I should have said "I will wake up with my alarm at 5:30" and so forth. Well, what can you do? I puttered around for an hour and a half, catching up on my blog reading and e-mails and at 5:30 sallied forth to get my exercise. It was a repeat of my Saturday workout, but I also did a circuit and a half of the Moderate Intesity workout on the same DVD bringing my workout total for the day to forty minutes.

In addition I've been staying on plan and writing down everything I eat. Can I say how much easier it is to keep track of my food on the Weight Watchers iPhone app? The darned thing is always with me and I'm usually using it in some form or another at any given point during the day. I always found carrying around a food journal with me a difficult chore - in so many cases I'd forget it at home or - better yet - it would get eaten up by the vastness of my purse. My phone on the other hand has a permanent home in my pocket or in an easily accesible pocket of my purse.

I'm really feeling good about the whole thing this go-round. Now I just need to remember to muscle through the "I Cant's", the "It's not fair's" and the whole self doubt thing. Still, I know I can do this. This is my time to take care of me and enjoy the process.