A never-ending journey in making health way more awesome than you'd ever think.
How These Shenanigans Got Started
So, why now? Why a blog? Why anything?
I turned 30 this year, for starters. Turning 30 is either one of those moments where most of you “grow up” and realize life is no longer one large continuation of sophomore year of college, or you reached that point when you were, well, a sophomore at college (or the equivalent age if you were like me and said “fuck this” to crazy student loan debt college), so now you’re faced with this milestone and have to think about what you’re going to do with it.
By nature I’m a super motivated and competitive person. I attribute this to growing up in Colorado, a state where I was fearlessly riding horses across open fields at age 10 and catching snakes as soon as I had the hand-eye coordination to do it. I swear, this place is like steroids for your system.
However, I was never motivated to do anything physical in terms of fitness. Or cooking. I grew up very lower lower working class (single parent on minimum wage) so all I really knew was can-stove-mouth. After marrying a chef the bar was raised considerably and I started to learn how to make things from scratch. Although truth be told, I still buy spaghetti sauce from the jar because fuck all that labor intensive tomato boiling business. No. Just no.
This all leads us to the point where I was approaching 30, had learned how to cook, but saw myself as the sort of person who only ran if there was an axe murderer behind me. Not to say I didn’t enjoy going outdoors and hiking, I just never saw myself as one of those “Hey! Let’s get up at 6 and run in 28 degree weather!” types. Then I started working from home and making my own hours. Wowzers! Look at all this time I don’t have to spend driving, or making myself presentable for public view!
About a year before, a friend of mine turned me on to Body-For-Life. I kind of half-assed it for a few weeks. Enh. I had school and work and too much going on to really go for it. The pivotal moment came when my husband took a dive off a bicycle and got a concussion, a $7,000 hospital bill (we’d been without insurance for about five days because the universe is great that way), and what have become a host of health problems, many stemming from him being a naturally skinny, but woefully unhealthy man. So yeah. Skinny ain’t healthy. Eating well (we were eating mostly lean protein, whole grains, and lots of fresh green vegetables) ain’t healthy. The complete picture is what matters.
I completed my first Challenge on my 30th birthday, May 21, 2012. It was awesome, and after 6 weeks of pretty much not doing anything I realized I absolutely have to maintain that competitive nature and keep Challenging. So, starting July 2, I am in Challenge #2, with my husband along for the ride. This is my story, and maybe some of his too. But mostly me. Because I am writing this damn thing.
