Eek, weaknesses

I have many weaknesses that I need to overcome. Here they are, from most heinous to least (I guess):

– I enjoy smoking cigarettes.

– I like having a few drinks, or more.

– I’m overweight.

– I drink too many Diet Cokes.

– I live in the South thus am prone to eating pork fat-laden and/or cheesy foods.

– I have never been able to stick to an exercise regimen outside of running cross country and playing basketball in high school. Apparently I need someone yelling at me to exercise.

Let me address these one by one.

– Ahh, cigarettes. Yes, we know they are bad. I don’t even know at what point I became a smoker. It started when I felt the need to rebel my senior year of high school after all my sports obligations were over. I only smoked occasionally when I had drinks in college after that. Then came law school, and I guess that’s where it happened. During our orientation, we had a former coke head give a speech about the stress and the dangers that substance abuse can cause during and after law school.  So, I stuck to cigarettes, not only because I’ve always been scared that if I tried something so illicit I’d end up like that girl in that Cheech and Chong movie who snorted Ajax. I’ll be honest, I like smoking cigarettes (especially with coffee), but I’m tired of smelling like smoke. I’m also tired of thinking about the toxins that come with every inhale. I have an electronic cigarette that I hope will help, although I haven’t given them up for good yet.

– I live in the same town in which I went to college. It is a small college town, where there are few options for socializing besides going to the bar. Having a few drinks for me always ended up being a lot, at least in college. Of course, this is probably the same for most people who went to college, but staying in the same town just makes you a lush. In the past few years, I’ve really cut back, and I’m proud. I also enjoyed being self-righteous, and abstaining from alcohol made me feel that way. This one is under control, where I only have some wine or beer once or twice a month. I’d like to find some more things to do that make me happy and let me socialize without the peer pressure. Yes, I still succumb to peer pressure anytime someone says “happy hour on a balcony?” It’s just what we do here.

– I am not happy with my weight. Ever since I got married, it’s like I didn’t have to worry about being attractive or something. My husband loves to cook, and he passed that along to me. Before him I would make cheese quesadillas with my quesadilla maker (which my husband donated because he hates appliances that aren’t multi-taskers) and eat black beans from a can. So, cooking and having drinks was a great and cheap way to have a date night. Of course I would find something incredible to make, which usually had lots of butter or cream, meat, and/or starch. Over the years, we have tried to become more frugal, and our diet revolves around cheap and easy things to eat. Thus there is a lot of meat with little vegetable variety. Boo. So, in the time since I got married, I have gained about 50 pounds. 50 pounds! Just the thought of me carrying around that much extra weight is disgusting to me. I also really love fashion, and I’d like to buy clothes that are in style, not just “flattering.”

– Diet Coke is my crack rock! I hope that I will be able to give them up entirely or maybe cut back to one a day. Fingers crossed!

– My diet is not great. I used to be a vegetarian. I’ve tried being vegan, but I love cheese so that didn’t stay for long. I lost a bunch of weight on the Atkins Diet after college, but I didn’t like the lifestyle. Living in the South and being surrounded by lots of buttery, cheesy goodness is also super tempting. I hope that this blog will be a way for me to talk about what diet (or lifestyle changes) I am able to stick with and maybe even share some successful recipes. I do love to cook!

– I remember liking being an athlete. I can say that I was actually an athlete. I liked lifting weights, I liked running although I was never very fast, and basketball was always a fun activity for my friends and me. However, I did them happily because I was on a team. I also didn’t have extra weight and did have others around me and coaches telling me to show up for practice. When I went to college, I took a high-impact aerobics class which I really didn’t like – I would have preferred to play basketball or something. I fell off the step during the first class (I was never super coordinated) so perhaps that has scarred me and kept me from group exercises since then. I need to devote myself to an exercise regimen that fits my schedule and is manageable. I want to try Couch to 5K – I have it on my phone and have tried it twice and given up twice. I would like to try P90X, since a former co-worker gave the exercises to me for free. Who knows, I might even try to start running 3+ miles again.

Inspiration

Self-preservation, obviously. See my first post.

My friend Evan started a blog a few months ago. He is on a mission for a new lifestyle, including eating better. He is an inspiration, and he has gotten so much positive feedback from others that I felt the need to talk about my own choices. I think I do need some help in that area – I know there are more of you out there with similar stories to mine.

I feel like these first two posts have been very self-centered. Sorry about that. But if this only serves as my own accountability gauge, it will be worth it. Plus, I’m a photographer so I hope there will be some nice photos on here soon.