If only I'd known it was that simple!

Simple and easy are not the same thing.  Simple does not mean it's easy!  Simple is just plain simple.  So what am I talking about?  Well, today I was so determined to make it to the gym for a workout.  I'd missed the last three days, due to a minor stomach bug that I caught.  I woke up Wednesday morning and as soon as I opened the bag of Godiva Chocolate Truffle coffee grounds, I was hit by a wave of nausea.  Unfortunately, I didn't listen and attempted to drink a cup of coffee.  It didn't go well.  Thursday, my husband and I got so caught up in Christmas shopping that we didn't have enough time left to hit the gym.  And Friday....well, Friday, Lily vomited all over her carseat on our way home from the dentist.  And then did the same thing after I got her to eat a few bites of mac & cheese for lunch.  So, we stayed home.  I was determined to not make it four days in a row that I'd missed out on the gym!  So determined, in fact, that I put the kids down for a nap and had my husband warm up his 4x4 truck so I could head to the gym while the kids slept.  I drove the one mile to the gym in blizzard-like conditions!  The snow was up to my calves and my husband hadn't had a chance to plow our driveway.  But I went anyway!  And once there, I spent exactly 84 minutes on the hard-core, kick-your-butt, elliptical!  I increased the resistance several times, kept my pace as steady as I could, my heart-rate in the 80-90% range the entire time.  It was torture!  But I did it!  And I'm so proud of myself for it, if for no other reason than I just proved to myself that I could.  I burned 1200 calories at the gym today!  Take that, holiday baking!

So...where does the "simple" come in?  Well, here's the thing....two months ago, I would have taken any excuse to get out of going to the gym.  Got a stomach bug?  Well, I probably need a good week to recover!  It's raining out?  Yup, don't want to go outside.  I much preferred to stay curled up on the couch with a book, whenever possible.  Before kids, I couldn't tear myself away from my books to get exercise.  After kids, I spent my time attempting to read or sitting on the floor while they played around me, playing with them, but not really participating 100%.  The entire time, I lamented my inability to motivate myself to exercise.  I just couldn't figure out how to change it.  I wish I'd known how simple it was to change that!  Those first 30 days straight of exercise were no where near easy!  They were hard.  But, I pushed myself just a little bit and I held tight to the idea that I didn't want to disappoint myself.  And each day, I made myself do that one hour of exercise.  And somehow, someway, that one-hour a day for 30 days worked!  I'm motivated to exercise now.  I don't always make it, but each day that I don't, I feel a restlessness set in and each day it increases until I get to the gym.  I feel compelled to workout!  It's still not something I enjoy tremendously while I do it (although, Black Eyed Peas with a fantastic base does help).  But, I feel great afterward!  I feel happier, I feel healthier, I feel more flexible, more energetic, more whole.  It's incredible!  If only I'd known long ago that all it would take to get me more motivated to workout is the right motivation and 30 days of pushing myself!  I know, those things aren't always easy to come by and 30 days is a pretty big commitment.  But really, it's so worth it if it makes the rest of your life that much better, that much healthier, that much happier!

Off to test Lily's blood sugar.  We got her new pump and have switched all of her settings over.  So, I get a little extra work tonight, keeping an eye on things and hoping that the minute little changes I made with the new pump fix some of the issues we've been having.  Did any of you know that the new Medtronic Revel pump not only gives basals in .025 increments but also boluses?  How awesome is that?  Instead of doing .1 increments for bolusing, we can go down to a quarter of that!  I'm thrilled by that idea!  Maybe this will help balance out Lily's hyper-sensitivity to all insulin and carbs!