Challenged

I met up with my very own personal "personal trainer" this past weekend. I told her my plight. I need to get this tired, squeaky, out-of-shape body moving again but I have many little quirks going on and I need to be careful I don't damage my feet, neck, back and joints in the process.

My friend listened to my tales of woe about my excuses about why I have all but stopped moving. I know most of my idleness is completely my own choosing and I'm grateful my daycare "career" keeps me moving as much as I do (bookkeeping on a full-time basis would have seized me up completely). But I know I need to push myself harder than I do.

At the end of my weekend, I was given three challenges:

1. Go for a good, long walk (she recommended walking on our riverbank trails) three times a week. Walks with the kids don't count. 
2. Bring my donated exercise bike in from the garage and watch TV while I cycle twice a week.
3. Do one thing that pushes me out of my comfort zone .

That sounded easy. Until I got home.

At the end of my first day back, I asked my son to help me move the exercise bike downstairs. I tried it out while it was still outside and though I was sceptical that it worked properly, I thought it worked good enough to make the move.

I adjusted the seat, cleaned it up and hopped onto it for a ride to no where. No where is a tedious destination when you have nothing to challenge you and are sitting on a very uncomfortable bike seat to boot. I couldn't adjust the tension, but I could adjust my speed. I would try to go fast for a while then just try to keep pedalling. There were some numbers that may have been calculating my speed but they were hard to see and they didn't make sense.

I believe I gave the bike twenty minutes before I "filed" it away for another day (lifetime). Thoughts of "I think I could advertise this for "FREE" on Kijiji and get it out of my sight" coursed through my mind.

I woke up to "yesterday" knowing that if I didn't go for a walk first thing in the morning, it was highly unlikely it would happen at all. It didn't happen.

I walked through yesterday physically, mentally and emotionally drained. It was the hardest "daycare day" I've had in a while. I don't know if it was my exhaustion level that did me in or if it was the kids. I think it was mine. I went out and bought a confused concoction of groceries last night (a little bit healthy and a little bit junk-laden), picked up a filet-o-fish meal with an iced coffee (so I could stay awake long enough to watch the Dancing With the Stars finale of course!) and sickened myself on part of a can of Pringles afterwards. My stomach woke me up in the middle of the night telling me "That was a VERY bad idea!"

I woke up this morning feeling defeated but I realized that I am only three days into this week-long challenge so it isn't too late to jump back on the exercise bike and try again.

The idea of pushing myself out of my comfort zone was so much easier when I was driving towards my destination last weekend. Having already pushed myself out the door and onto a relatively uncharted highway, I was feeling invincible. The closer I got to home on my return trip, the more fearful and closed down I began to feel.

I woke up the next morning wanting to hide in my little cocoon for a while.

I was giving three very attainable challenges. I feel like I'm losing the battle. If yesterday was any indication of how awful the transition from the "old me" into the "potential newer me" is going to go, I'm not too motivated to continue.

I need to break out of some old patterns and habits and step onto a new and improved "highway" to get where I most need to go. It may be like the unmarked highway I couldn't find at the onset of last weekend. It IS there. I just have to seek it out and start travelling.