The last couple of weeks I've been doing some self reflection with regards to my health and athletic aspirations. As many of my family and friends know, my health journey has been a long path to where I am at right now. I've lost 120 lbs so far with another 70-80 lbs to go in order to meet my goal, a goal set by myself and my primary care physician. Along this journey, I've managed to get some serious health issues behind me, but a few new ones have popped up along the way.
As an introvert, I know that if I am going to be successful in taking the reins of my health, I need to have plans and goals. It is how I am wired: I need to have a road map with a destination. For many years, I made swimming my go-to exercise outlet. It is a sport that I love to do and at the end of the workout, I always felt great for having done it. I also made some positive changes to my food intake. Early on in my journey, it was about learning about nutrition and good food choices for my body. In the more recent past, I've tried to break some difficult habits I had when it came to food quantity, e.g. I learned to eat less.
At the beginning of this month, I had a virtual appointment with my primary care physician. We discussed my progress in the last year. She was encouraging, as my numbers like my weight have gone done in the past year, but just barely. Looking at my record, it seems like my weight has dropped less then ten pounds in the last twelve months. Of course I have to remember that we've been in a pandemic for that time period. If I wanted to progress, I need to recommit myself to a new plan of action in order to make it to my end goal. Unfortunately I didn't foresee what was going to happen.
Earlier this month, the City of Laramie Recreation Center released an updated schedule for the 8 Lane Pool, the swimming pool I use. It seems that the Rec Center is having difficulty in getting enough qualified lifeguards, so they've had to cut back hours that the pool would be available for lap swimming. So combine limited hours, and lane reservations for a single swimmer has made getting into the pool regularly a difficult task. And later this month they are going to close the Rec Center for a whole week in order to major maintenance, it is becoming obvious that I need to figure what I can do here at home year round.
This is where the introversion kicks in. I ask and ponder questions like "what can I do reliably from home?" or "what will I realistically do?" and such. During the (brief) nicer weather up here in Wyoming, walking around the neighborhood would be good option. This option doesn't work too well for me once the mercury drops and the winter winds start blowing.
Another option I'm seriously considering is indoor bicycling. Right now I have two options: I have an indoor trainer for my bicycle and an indoor incumbent exercise bike. The upside of this option is I can do this any time of the year: it won't matter what the temperature and weather report are at the time, I could still get a workout in. The only issue to consider is the noise, either with the family or the neighbors who we share a common wall with.
The upside of the indoor biking is that it would lend it itself to me achieving an athletic goal: completing an aquabike event. If you aren't familiar with an aquabike event, it is basically a triathlon without the running. For my first event, I want to do a sprint distance aquabike: a half-mile swim and about a 12 mile bike race.
I've got some soul searching to do and adopt a new program in order to attain my goals!
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