TWIE me

Why does the turning of a year evoke all of these attempts to change our entire lives?  What is that about??  I'm sure there's someone who knows and would tell me, but I'm really just being rhetorical.

As I mentioned, I joined a challenge on Facebook to run/walk 500 miles in 2012.  I'm starting off pretty slow at it, having only finished 6 miles last week.  But, I've decided that a challenge is not called a challenge because it's something easy to do, so I'm not just going to give up.  This week, I have walked/ran 3.35 miles, mostly because I had a shoe breakthrough.  I was wearing a pair of shoes that I had purchased earlier this year and was doggedly sticking to them because I just didn't want to admit that I wasted money -- and that I was so wrong about my feet needs.  Turns out that I under-pronate slightly, which means that my feet have a tendency to roll out a bit.  I have fairly high arches and wide feet, so I guess it makes sense that I'm rolling out to where I have some meat on my feet.  :)  This was causing me to get calf cramps, especially my left leg.  (Which has its own issues that I still don't know how to explain or resolve, perhaps some other blog.)  I believed that this was due to the fact that I thought that I over-pronated and bought shoes that were stability designed -- extra support along the arch area.  What I really needed were neutral shoes, which have no such additional "lift."  On Tuesday, I finally decided to try an older, flatter pair of shoes -- and had an awesome work-out!  I was so inspired that I went out on lunch and used a Christmas gift card to get my new running shoes -- and had an even more amazing workout today!  2.27 miles in 32 minutes -- a personal record! 

But about those attempts to change our lives...  When I'm not praying for death during my work-outs, I'm usually making adrenaline fueled promises to myself that I break as soon as the adrenaline wears off.  Usually it's related to getting on to another phase in self-improvement.  Especially related to diet and trying to come up with a plan to get my eating and drinking habits under a better control so that I can start losing weight again.  But no matter how easy it is to track my diet through trackers on my phone, I just can't seem to commit to doing it all the time.  I will try for a day or so and then just quit. 

Here's what I've been thinking about doing...  Twitter has some followers who "TWIET" (twitter what I eat on Tuesday) and some who just TWIE (twitter what I eat).  What I've been contemplating is starting to do this.  I tend to be pretty good about using social media sites and pretending like people care deeply about my life, but I almost never use my existing Twitter account so this might make a good use of it...  Even if it's not tracking the calories, I just need to get in the habit of writing down what I eat.  Because, as we all know I am all about the baby steps. 

So, if you want to follow on, I'm @heatherparslee (it's a play on my maiden and married names AND my Spark People name for the challenge).  I don't have a public account but you just have to request to follow and I'll let you on. 

TWIE me!
Heather