Where to begin?
My name is Jennifer Jones and I currently live in south central Ohio. My original diary is "Evidence of Joy" if you'd like to follow my regular life (I don't write much there). This diary was (re)created to keep any thoughts/progresses/declines and what nots that have to do with my current physical healing.
Why call it physically healing and what does that even mean?
As people we grow and learn and discover new things every single day. For the past year (almost), I have been working on mentally growing and uncovering truths and dealing with such things and learning to work with patience among several other things.. trying to get down to the core of who I am and where I am going. I have finally gotten to a point where it's time to branch away from only mental healing/growing and move on to the physical as well. Right now, when I look into the mirror, I don't feel disgust or hatred for myself.. I just simply feel unmatched with my mental growth and I need to catch my body up. And when I say "unmatched" I mean.. i physically see laziness, hurt, someone who hasn't taken care of herself and thats not who I feel I am or want to maintain being anymore. I've damaged my body over the years ..the way I see it now is that this is not the body that God gave me.. this is the body God gave me that I've ruined through depression and being lazy and not taking action or caring for or loving myself enough to do better for my life. This is now the time where I'm taking all that hurt and working my way through it to get to a physical peaceful state. Hence healing.
It didn't happen over night and it won't heal over night either.
This is my process. I can accept that this is a process that I must go through.. I did it and I have to undo it.. no one can do it for me and I wouldn't learn anything about myself if I had everyone do everything for me any way.
Patience Patience Patience. I cannot express to myself enough how important patience is through any process... specifically for one that has been attempted before and failed so many times before. I have patience on my side now and I have acceptance of the process and I am just doing something better for myself that will give me happiness. It will be hard at times.. But its never hard enough to overpower my ultimate goal.
This is it. I'm already in motion and have been for about a month now.
My stats? I'm 26 years old and currently weigh approx 214lbs as of Tuesday (when I went to the doctor's).. this is the last time you'll see any kind of numbers for awhile. Right now my goal is not to go to the gym and constantly be checking my weight.. my goal, right now, is to make sure that I get to the gym and do the program and get this adapted into my life for a permanent change.. weight loss will be inevitable. I have been thinking that eventually I will pay attention to the weight and make new goals.. but I'm still a ways away from that right now.
The Program:
I joined the YMCA and am currently within their 12 week program with a personal fitness trainer. I work on only cardio the first 3 weeks, then move to some strength training for 4 weeks, then a little more intense strength training for 4 weeks and the last week is something else that I don't currently remember at this moment. I have already completed the first 3 weeks of only cardio (it was more like 4 weeks because I didn't sign up for the program until a week into actually going to the gym) and today was my first day of strength training. I have about 5 weight machines (mostly upper body) that I am starting out with ..they work mostly my shoulders, back, abs, and hamstring area.. I'm to do 2 sets of 12 for each machine and adjust the weight how I see fit. It was nice to add something new to my gym experience.. I feel like I've been waiting to do the weight machines for forever.
What I plan to do after the program:
Besides continuing with the gym, I also plan to start the P90X program that I hear is pretty intense. It was suggested to me to try by someone who is already doing it and has seen results. I bought the program but decided to wait until after the holidays to get into it because I knew that I would not restrict my diet as much as needed through cookie/cake/candy season. So I'm starting with the 12 week program at the Y which will lead me into jan/feb and then I will get into the P90X program which will lead me into another 12 week ordeal. I figure this will be good incase I plateau within the first 12 week program because the P90X makes sure that you don't plateau by always switching things up.
Dance:
I currently am in lyrical/ballet class (by myself.. my friend is the teacher) but have to pospone it because I may have a stress fracture in my left foot from doing a move in class and landing the wrong way. I hope I won't be out too long. I'll update with that info later
Another ultimate goal:
I LOVE CYCLING/BIKING. Its basically my cardio (especially lately with my bad foot). I'm up to doing 65 minutes on the variety setting and making it about 12 miles within that time frame. I decided that I love biking so much (Not just from this experience..throughout my life really) that I would like to work and train myself to eventually be able to enter a cycling event. My goal is to be able to do this by 2011. My roommates dad is a hardcore cycler so I'm hoping he can help me to get me on the right path for this.
Food Restrictions:
My first food restriction was absolutely no fast food. Thats been easy and I have even started trying to cook some fancy things on my own. I have been lenient (sp?) about sweets because of the season but I don't feel that I am over doing it by any means. I am also cutting back on how much I eat. My body doesn't really like food. Sounds strange, but when I eat my body tends to get bogged down rather than burn it and give me energy.. no matter how much or little I eat. So I'm trying to listen to it (for now) and let it tell me when it needs more fuel to burn. Eating a lot less actually gives me waaay more energy.. I'm guessing because I'm giving it time to burn whats already there instead of just shoveling in more and more fuel (even if little by little) and it can't keep up to burn it all. Thats just my theory.. I'm working with it and moving on from there. My next food restriction I plan to make is less carbs. I also stopped drinking pop a year and a half ago (due to another diet.. that failed but I did keep the no pop thing going) and drink mostly water (a good 75% of the time) but also milk, juices, and lemonade.
Going to the gym has changed my whole body even only after a month. I can physically see some changes and am also never as tired as I used to be when inactive. I have a job where I sit 8+ hours at a desk and sometimes it was hard to make it through the day without taking naps on all of my breaks. Now I hardly ever feel tired until the end of the day which is how it should be  ..I bought a fitness ball that I now sit on.. I'm lucky enough to be able to listen to music while I work so I bounce and listen to music and have a good ol' time (haha)
I have some other exercises I'd like to incorporate when I'm at home. I just bought a stationary bike on sunday to use over the winter for when I can't make it to the gym due to weather.
That pretty much brings me up to speed for now.
As I have said before "I jog, I cycle, I swim, I walk, I dance, i take the stairs.... this is me in motion and its marvelous."
If you have any positive quotes or thoughts or questions or need encouragement for your own physical journal or anything then please don't hesitate to make a comment! Maybe we could be online fitness buddies 
-Jen |
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Welcome.
Good luck!
