I haven’t been feeling that great lately. I know that’s one of the reasons I haven’t been writing as much. The day we left Florida to come back home, I developed a cough which was much like the one I had back in March when I had bronchitis, so I thought I would go to the doctor and nip it in the bud so I wouldn’t get as sick as I was then. When they took my blood pressure, I was a little nervous because my blood pressure runs high when I’m not exercising regularly. To my horror, the bottom number was 98! The nurse practitioner (I went to a walk in close to my work) told me I should follow up with my regular doctor about possible blood pressure meds. I told her if I would just start exercising again, I could bring it back down. She said maybe I should be on meds at least for a couple of months until I had been exercising awhile.

This has been a wake up call for me. I talked to a guy here at work that’s on blood pressure meds (sometimes his BP is as high as mine was even ON meds), and he said that’s probably why I’ve been feeling bad. He said that’s a symptom. Why, oh, why did I let myself stop exercising? I knew exercise was good for me. I KNEW my BP could go up if I didn’t exercise. I feel like such a fool for letting this get out of hand. Today, I’m going to exercise even if I have to do it at midnight. I’ll exercise at least 5 days a week. I’m not going to be TOO BUSY anymore. This is going to have to come first!

Another thing. This is something I’ve learned about eating and losing weight. The reason I can’t stick to a diet is because it’s a DIET. When I try to count calories, leave certain foods off, deprive myself of something I’m craving…that’s when everything falls apart. No more diets for me. No more foods off limits. The thing that works the best for me is cutting down (not cutting out) on foods that aren’t that good for me. Stopping when I’m satisfied instead of feeling like I have to eat everything on my plate. Cooking more so I can have yummy leftovers for lunch instead of going out to eat every day. (That saves money, too!) In other words…just good common sense and good habits. Hey, I just bought a boatload of Pampered Chef items, so I should be good to go when it comes to cooking.

Okay, so on my Sunday ROW80 check ins, I’m going to include health related items, even weight loss. I’ve already lost 8 lbs. and gained 2 back while in Florida. So I’m going to include my current loss in my total. Because, you know, it counts, too.

So who will join me? Who wants to be healthier and is willing to report that along with writing stats? I know some of you are already doing this, but not many. We, as writers, sit on our butts a lot. I do this at my day job, too. We need to get up and get moving. If our bodies are healthy, our minds work better. Are you ready? I am!