Diet, exercise, and Blogger

Treadmills at the Y

Those of you who have been following me for awhile know that I am addicted to exercise. Five years ago, I retired from working every day, and we moved from Colorado to Washington State. And now instead of working, I work out on an almost daily basis. It's not like I didn't exercise before, but it was not the center of my day. Today, it is. I wake in the morning, have breakfast, dress and take the bus to town. After a leisurely latte at the coffee shop, I leave fifteen minutes before my class starts, walk to the Y, change into exercise clothes, and make it to class by 9:00am.

Exercise class, instructor Joanne on the right

I see the same people there every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Another Tuesday-Thursday class is also held at 9:00am, and I'm there on Tuesdays but hike with the Trailblazers on Thursdays. I wrote a blog post back in 2009 where I talked about seeing all the overweight people here in the Pacific Northwest and how different it seemed from Boulder. (I just re-read that link and was pleasantly surprised to find it is still relevant and interesting.)

What triggered this post was a recent visit to the mall and again noticing all the really overweight people in the Food Court. Notice in the above picture, not one person is overweight. The thing we all have in common is consistent exercise. I have had a lifelong struggle with my weight, as some of you know. I wrote a post here about having gained ten pounds in 2011, which was brought home to me at my annual doctor visit. They weigh you every time you come in, and I had been avoiding the scales at home, because I knew I had put on weight and wasn't ready to acknowledge how much.

I read a very good book about Mindless Eating in April of that year, and then I read The End of Overeating. Little by little I was able to lose that extra weight; in fact, I lost more than my goal weight. But I knew I had to maintain it, and that is always the hard part. My sister Norma Jean introduced me to Lose It!, an app available for the web or a smartphone, and I use it religiously. It has helped me know how much I'm actually putting in my body every day.

On another note, a couple of blogging buddies have wondered what those of us dependent on Blogger's Reader are intending to do when the first of July comes and it goes away. I tried Feedly and then The Old Reader, and I am very very happy with the second one. It's really easy to use, and I was able to import all the blogs I follow into it without any trouble. In fact, I like it much better than the one that is being discontinued. It was created when Reader was changed a while back and people preferred the old version, and here it is. There's no advertising or annoying ads, either. Let me know if you've found any other solutions in your comments, so others can know what else might be available.
:-)