A New Year

Over the holidays I rediscovered DDR. I haven't played in a long time and jumping on the dance mat felt amazingly good. Unfortunately, along with feeling good, playing DDR forced me to take a good hard look at myself. As I expected, I was a lot slower than I used to be. But the big problem is that my lung capacity is completely gone - I tire out a lot faster than I used to. On the plus side, my muscles remember how to play all of my fave songs, so I can still play them, and even beat some of them on hard mode. But the lack of lung capacity and the easily tiring really bothered me.


Along with that, I have known that my mental health has not been good for awhile, but it seems to be getting worse, not better. I have been stressed thanks to school (nothing new there) but I also think I am withdrawing. I don't want to be around large groups of people at all (and by large I mean 3+ people which isn't good). And I have been feeling angry at all kinds of stupid things.


So today I went out shopping by myself, which was nice. In my travels, I did two things. First, I picked up Jillian Michaels' book Winning by Losing. And second, after picking up a notebook for myself, I bought myself tea at Starbucks and wrote about the things that are bothering me (and some rather tentative fixes for some of them). While writing about things doesn't fix them, it sure made me feel better (at least for now). So my next step is to come up with some real strategies to make me feel better. And I'm thinking that being active will really help in that regard (giving me more energy and possibly helping my mood lift a bit).


But the problem is the whole "working out" thing. I don't like to do things that feel structured and like an actual work out. That's why I shy away from the gym in favour of something like DDR. I'm thinking that a good fix for me will be to get a dog, but that cannot happen until after I move out. (Hilarious side note: the dog idea evolved from me wanting a horse. A horse would be awesome but is entirely impractical unless I win the lottery. A dog, on the other hand, is completely realistic. I'm planning on getting both a cat and a dog when I move out). So I need to come up with something in the interim.


As part of the exercise thing, I think I am going to try to schedule certain times where I will definitely work out in one form or another. Those times will have to be flexible though to allow for problems with glucose levels (I can't work out if I'm low). I'm hoping that actually scheduling time will help me stay active during the coming term. I'm also planning on scheduling time for other things so that school doesn't completely take over my life again, resulting in a stressed and depressed me.

As to Jillian Michaels' Winning by Losing, I was wandering through the bookstore in the mall and found myself in the healthy living section. I'd recently bought a Self magazine featuring Michaels, and she sounded like a down-to-earth person who I wanted to hear what she had to say. I flipped through a couple of her books before deciding on this one because this one started with a section on the self; this first section is all about changing how you look at things. I know that's the hardest part about changing your life, and really feel like I could use some help with it. I'm hoping this book will be the help I need.

As a side note, I also want to get into better shape in the hopes that it will help my knee. I don't know why I thought of it today, but I'm wondering if my knee isn't really getting better because I am so out of sh

ape. I guess the only way to know for sure is to try.

Finally, I know I was abysmal with the weekly updates last year, but I will make a renewed attempt this year. Like exercise and other stuff, I am going to schedule them into my weeks so maybe I will actually stick with them this year!

Wish me luck with everything!