Friday, January 21, 2011

Irene Does Life

This one is long, bear with me.

Have you ever heard of the blog, "Ben Does Life"? Is that grammatically correct? Oh well. Ben Does Life is about a 24 year old guy who was very overweight and decided to do something about it. He started changing his eating habits and began running. Only a couple weeks after he started his new lifestyle, he participated in a 5K and fell in love with running. He has lost a total of 120 lbs and he's not done yet! He not only got healthier physically, but mentally as well. He was very depressed and had lost his girlfriend of four years to that depression. After changing his life for the better, he was happy! One of the things he says repeatedly throughout his blog is that when you want to start living life, just do it! Get up and go.

I first read about Ben in a Yahoo article featuring 8 outstanding people who lost an amazing amount of weight and blogged about it. I have been hooked to Ben Does Life for the last couple of days. I have felt so inspired to just get up and change my life, to stop being lazy and do it! Laziness has taken control of my life and I intend to fight it!

Ever since I stopped working in daycare, there hasn't been much of a physical aspect to my life. I do housework and take care of my one-year-old, but that's pretty much it. Last spring I spent a lot of time outside, hanging up laundry and going for walks, but many of the old habits started to return slowly and have now gotten out of hand! That type of lifestyle (sitting around watching TV or movies much of the day, staying home 24/7, slacking on the chores, etc.) is the beginning of a long downward spiral of depression for me. However, I'm going to stop it in its tracks right now, before it gets to a really bad place.

Now, I don't plan on being as radical as Ben and making my entire life about running, but I do want to get healthy and be a more productive housewife. I would like for my husband to come home to a beautiful, cozy home at night and not have to tell him tearfully, "I lost track of time," or "I was so tired!" I'm not going to devote a whole blog to it, but I will give updates now and then as to how I'm doing. Ben talks so much about being held accountable by his blog and I know how important accountability is so I'm going to be sure to document my successes AND my failures.

I found out that the loop around the trailer park is one half mile, so I plan to walk it 2-4 times a day (depending on the weather since I have to take my precious Lil' Squirt with me) at first, working up as I gain more strength. When the weather gets nicer, there is a pond just a couple miles from my house where I can walk that is also a half mile and gorgeous to boot!

So stay in touch to find out how things go! I don't want to disappoint you, but more than that, I don't want to disappoint myself. Please pray for the ability to rely on God in ALL things and for the strength to keep moving forward. Thanks, friends!

2 comments:

  1. I'll be praying! Let us know how things are going, and I'm sure it will get easier to be outside when it is warmer (so if you can do it now, it will be easy in the Spring!).

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  2. Sounds like a great thing to do! I find getting outside, even if it is cold, just revives me. It's a good thing to do, especially if my day isn't going so well or I'm just feeling tired. I'll be praying for you! Have fun walking. :)

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