My First Post!

So I've been blogging for quite some time (though not very consistently) about therapy stuff, but lately I've been really focused on health, fitness, diet, and weight loss.  I know that when I start to get interested or involved in something, it takes over my life and most of my conversations, and I would guess there are lots and lots of people on my Facebook who don't really care what the awesome thing I just cooked looks like, or that I discovered that LARA Bars are an easy paleo snack, or that I'm going to be starting a barbell training routine this week.

But people have commented that I look like I've lost a bit of weight (and I have - though only a bit... I need to prioritize decreasing the amount of natural sugar I eat), and some want to follow what I'm doing.  Other people are just glad to see my start to fight the possibility of becoming a 400 pound diabetic lump by the time I'm middle-aged.  (More on that in a second.)  And some are curious about what a paleo diet is.

Ok, I promised more on the possibility of becoming a 400 pound diabetic lump.  Maybe inevitability is even a reasonable word.  Because before all of this stuff, I wasn't grossly overweight (though I was over my recommended BMI, though BMI is a quite troublesome and problematic way to gauge health)... but there are a few things that were true.  These things were:

• I basically ate whatever fell in front of me.  This involved a lot of sugar and bread-type things.  It occasionally, though not too often, involved fast food.  It definitely involved cake.  I used to joke that if I stopped eating cake and cookies, there was probably about 10 pounds just waiting to fall off of me.
• My regular exercise involved walking down the hall to get my next therapy client.  Don't get me wrong - it's a long hallway.  But I hardly think it constitutes exercise.
• I constantly felt guilty.  I knew I "shouldn't" (and boy do I hate that word, Should) be eating the way I was and I know I "shouldn't" be so sedentary, but nothing had really clicked.
• I constantly felt like the "chubby person" in photos with many of my friends, or even standing in a room talking to someone who was fit.

So how did all this start?  I'll post a more thorough story later, but basically every time I travel home to Los Angeles (where I'll be moving next month), I have a conversation with my parents acknowledging that I need to make some serious lifestyle changes or else I'm going to have health problems as I get older.  Last time I saw them (in Oregon, where my "before" photo was taken), I decided it was time to stop saying something and start doing something. 

So I googled "how to get in shape."  Honestly.

And I found Nerd Fitness, which talks about working out, but it also talks about the Paleo diet, which appealed to me because it's based on just eating Real Food and being omnivorous and avoiding processed junk and things that could not exist without contemporary agriculture, such as grains, legumes, refined sugars, etc.  And at the very next meal I sat down to, I declared that I was "going paleo" and became a huge pain in the butt to our server, who looked at me like I was the worst thing to happen to her all day.  (Also, that's a look I'm getting used to at restaurants, but I don't dread it anymore because I feel confident in my decisions.)

Jeez, as I've been writing this, I've had to stop myself from going off on a bunch of tangents, because I see a bunch of things that are going to be future blog updates.  Here are some things I'll hopefully get around to writing about that I've brushed by in this intro:

• My "success story" to date
• What the paleo diet is
• My current exercise routine
• What I'll be eating while on the road to LA
• Problems related to a job that requires me to be sedentary
• My issue with the word "should"
• Feeling better about myself
• Eating at restaurants versus cooking at home
• The websites that have been the keys to my success

Actually, I'll give you the websites list now.  I think it's pretty great stuff, and if you're reading this because you're interested in trying some of the things I've tried, this should give you a wealth of information to start with:

• Nerd Fitness - just what it sounds like, fitness for nerds.  The writing is incredibly clear and accessible, and the nerd verbiage appeals to me because he talks about things like "leveling up your life."  This was my starting point for every other link on this list except the last one.
• PaleOMG - Juli's recipes are amazing.  Seriously, amazing.  If you think you know that you can't eat certain things (french toast, for example, or pasta dishes) on a paleo diet, her recipes will flip that notion on its head - she basically just modifies Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) foods to be paleo-friendly.  If I hadn't discovered this website, I'm not sure I would have stuck with paleo eating as long as I have.
• Nom Nom Paleo - More recipes, illustrated with adorable cartoons and mouth-watering, step-by-step photos.  I prefer PaleOMG's format because the recipes are easier to print, but there's some awesome stuff here too.
• Mark's Daily Apple - Articles and information about paleo eating, exercising right, incorporating play into your life, dispelling conventional wisdom, finding inspiration, and living primally
• Couch to 5k - A running program for people who have never run before, or for people who hate running but think they really ought to try it.  Thanks to this program, I went from getting winded walking up a flight of stairs to running for 30 solid minutes without a walking break.  You don't HAVE to work out by running - there are a million other ways to get exercise - but if you want to give running a fair chance, this is a good introduction.

Enjoy!