Dust yourself off and try again...

Not surprisingly, I fell off the health-kick wagon.

In a nutshell, I went through some seriously stressful things at work and at home and decided that I had bigger things to worry about than getting my butt out of bed early every morning. That, coupled with the fact that this was one of the hottest summers I can remember, didn't do much for my new exercise kick. I'm sorry to say that I schlumped around for much of the summer. I didn't just give up on being healthy over the summer, I gave up a lot of things (like writing for Inner Thoughts & Outbursts... sorry about that), and am just now starting to get in the groove of things again.

Some of the other healthy habits stuck, though. I'm hardly drinking any soda (only at the occasional weekend party) and I only have a glass of wine on the weekends (and not many weekends at that). I've also been able to give up table salt on most everything (except eggs... I love salty eggs). Last weekend I even went on a mini-vacation and spent the weekend riding a hydrobike, swimming laps before breakfast, and biking.

I'm also learning (perhaps confirming is more accurate) that I don't like feeling like I have to do something. Maybe my morning walks felt like torture because they were an obligation. I've been trying to do other things instead, like walk whenever I need to run errands, take the stairs whenever there's an option to do so, and other similar things. I'm trying to make exercise more fun and purposeful than just dragging by butt around town in the morning.

I even bought a bicycle.

Yes, folks, a bicycle. I haven't owned a bicycle since the sixth grade. Up until last summer when I spent the weekend at a mountain resort, I hadn't even ridden a bicycle in years. So, I went out and bought a bike. It's pretty snazzy. I even bought a basket for it. (That's a shot of the bike, at right.)

So far, I'm not a very good cyclist. I'm slow and out of shape, and small boys fly past me on BMX bikes that leave me in the dust. That being said, riding a bike is immensely more fun than aimlessly wandering to nowhere, and even though I feel out of shape while I ride my bike, I feel like I'm getting in shape while I ride it. I haven't been riding on a schedule or anything, but now that the weather is cooler I'm taking the bike out more often and hoping to ride all through the fall.

So, recap: I want to get back on track with my HEALTH plan. It's time to restart the process of being Healthy in my Eating, Actions, Language, Thoughts, and Heart. I'm thinking of this post as the next step toward healthy Language and Thoughts. I've always thought that it's okay to fall off the wagon, so long as you back on it again.