This Is What Motivates Me

Katesaysstuff posted about this the other day and until then I hadn't realised just how much I liked the numbers.  I LOVE the numbers (wonder if that was why I became an accountant ????)  but I digress - again !  I must confess that I am probably the least competitve person I know - I have no ambition to compete against anyone, I have no desire to be better at something than the next person, I have no sense of wanting to beat someone BUT I do love to see the numbers that I can post for myself.  When I started running last year, all I wanted to do was improve my time and it was a strange feeling because it was such a foreign concept for me to grasp.  It was never something that I worried about.  When I played sport - I played for the exercise - I couldn't care less about who won - mostly it wasn't me and that was OK - I went out there to exercise and that is what I did.  If I/we were lucky enough to win - good, but the sun still came up the next day if we didn't.

When I started to run last year - I would run and then have to cycle the route to see how far I had run and my times were in round minutes.  This was never really good enough but it was all that I had so I had to make do.  Then we bought our Nike shoes and they came with the Nike + sports dongle thingy and that told me distance and time - down to seconds - and I loved it EXCEPT those are the shoes that stuffed my knee up so I wasn't that happy with them !!!  And, because the dongle thingy goes inside the sole of the shoe, it meant that I couldn't track what I was doing if I wore another pair of shoes.  A had ideas of putting it in a money bag and tying that on my shoe lace - not happy about that idea Luv, thanks all the same.  So then when I ran he would cycle with me and try to keep track of how fast I was going (except that the bike works in kph rather than mins/km so it got a bit confusing at times).  Then I got my new beaut shoes and so started to look at watches that tracked distance, pace, speed, calories etc.  Of course the basic watch wouldn't do that, you had to go up a couple of models and they started at $280 and I was saying that, while it is nice to know, I didn't think I needed it THAT much.  So I shelved the idea.
Then I got my phone and have recently started to look at the applications that are available - man I love the applications !!!!  I have loaded Runkeeper (see pic above) and I JUST LOVE IT !!!!  I love that it tells me how far I ran / cycled - and gives me a map of where I ran / cycled - what my pace was, what my speed was, what I ran in each minute, how long each km took me, how many calories I burnt - the only thing it doesn't tell me is how stuffed I am when I am finished exercising (and I probably don't need it to tell me that because I already know !!!!!)  It seems that the numbers are really what motivate me.  I love seeing my statistics - how fast I went, where I slowed down, where I seemed to tire and then get a second wind.

I love being this motivated to get out there and exercise that I land up going for a run around the block before I go to personal training just because I can.  I love having a plan of attack for my exercise regime and that I can be flexible with what exercise I do each day.  I know that there is no training on Thursday so have decided to cycle if the weather is good or do one of the circuits that Jane posts on her blog every so often.  No matter what happens - there is going to be some exercise happening.

Even if all this exercise doesn't help with my weight loss because, as the naturopath explained to me, when I weighed 62kgs, I wasn't exercising much and didn't have much in the way of muscle tone.  Now that I am exercising so much more, I have more muscle tone and better developed muscles therefore, I have to weigh more given that muscle weighs more than fat.  This is not an excuse to not lose any more weight but rather a realisation that, realistically, at age 46 and 5'7", if I lose much more weight, I am not going to look as good as I do now.  I have noticed that the texture of my skin has changed and is no longer the smooth looking skin it used to be.  And, I think that if I lose more weight I will probably look a lot older because I will be a little more gaunt and a lot more haggard.  All in all, I am closer to accepting that I may never see the 60's again - and that is OK.  I am not longer repulsed by seeing myself naked - yes I could do to lose the love handles and the hips, but, A and I are the only people who see that (oh, and the osteo but he's about 25 and, I am sure, couldn't care what I look like - or at least only cares as to the impact that my weight has on my body !!) and A loves me no matter what my weight and I am starting to love me as I am, so really how important are those numbers on the scale ?  I am trying to make them less important than they used to be.  A work in progress !!!!

I love that I am now self motivating myself and not having to wait for A to say "Let's cycle or go for a walk" - which is good because now that he is away for however long he is away for, I wouldn't do much if I couldn't get myself motivated !!!  I love the inspiration that I take from Lyndal, Aroha, Jane and Kate.  While I couldn't run, I was almost jealous when reading of what they were doing because I so wanted to be out there running - I didn't want to walk - I wanted to run.  Now that I can run, I hear them in my head when I am running - the times when they wanted to give up but didn't, the times that they didn't want to exercise but they did - and it makes me push myself just that little bit further - thank you my wonderful online friends and motivators !

Have the best 'rest of the week' possible - I know I am going to !

TFTD : I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship - Louisa May Alcott