Thank you.

So my regular blog reading has really actually helped me become healthier and change my eating and exercise habits dramatically. Devan has a post up about YOU on a Diet and the exercise regimen it calls for, and what it says makes me feel really good about my activity habits. Here are the three components of the program and how I measure up:

• It calls for 30 minutes of walking a day. I walk from my apartment to the Metro and from the Metro to my office, and then back again, every day. Each of those walks is just under ten minutes. So I'm actually walking a bit more than half an hour on weekdays. Weekends are more relaxed, but I usually go to and from the Metro at least once if not more, so that's 20 minutes of walking, minimum. This is the convenient thing about living in the city and not having a car. At some point, I know we're going to buy a house and a car, and then I will have to work much harder to fit this half hour of walking into my day. But for now, it's built into my schedule, so I'm set.
  
• It calls for 20 minutes of cardio, three times a week. I'm doing the Couch to 5K program (thanks to Swistle, and along with Devan, Jonniker, and Artemisia, and please let me know if I've missed you and you're doing it too), which involves three 20-minute walking and running workouts per week. And doing it with these blogger people and reading their posts about it and posting about it myself has been really helpful, and really motivational--I can't skip a workout, because I have to report back. Even if Swistle is getting sick of my whiny comments in her blog about how I want to die after every workout.
  
• It calls for 20 minutes of strength training, three times a week. After I do the C25K workout, or before if I have to wait for the lone treadmill in my building's tiny gym, I do weight training on the machines for my arms and legs. It takes about 25 minutes.

Also, thanks mostly to Sundry, whose success motivated me to start, I've been doing Weight Watchers online for two months, and so far I've lost 22 pounds. I don't go to meetings or anything, but the online program has been incredibly helpful in making me pay attention to what I eat and how much of it, and in offering healthy suggestions and great recipes.

I haven't actually noticed a difference in my weight loss rate since I started doing the running and weight training, but I feel healthier and more fit already. And then, you know, there's the whole thing about working in public health and spending time advocating physical activity and good nutrition and everything to other people, so I would feel like kind of a jerk if I weren't taking steps toward becoming healthier myself.

And it's not about a quick diet, or a brief gym fad that will die soon. It's about a lifestyle change, and it's not a coincidence that I started this stuff right when Torsten moved in with me and our whole lives and schedules and habits were changing anyway. The fact that we were already in transition made it fairly easy to make the switch, and I haven't really felt any pain from it, or withdrawal or anything else. I just generally feel much better.

So what it really boils down to is that I am much healthier than I was two months ago, and I'm getting healthier all the time, and I never would have started on this path if it weren't for those two amazing bloggers I read, Swistle and Sundry. So, thank you guys so much.