Years ago, I was a mommy blogger, but then it got weird.  I realized that in all likelihood, my children would not enjoy reading my musings on their young lives.  And so with a bit of a heavy heart, I shut that blog down and I didn’t look back.  And I’m glad I did it too because now you can’t find a single item in the cache…although I’m sure it’s all out there somewhere.  I was relieved to get away from it all relatively unscathed.

Until this year when I turned forty.  Forty.

Forty.

Who thought I would ever get here?  Certainly not me.

I remember my mom turning forty.  I was ten.  After we sang the song and she blew out the candles, I asked her, “Does this mean you are over the hill, Mom?”

She rolled her eyes at me.  If I were her, I would have smacked me silly.

Forty has been a bit rough on me.  Don’t get me wrong, my husband and I celebrated my actual birthday big time.  We left the kids at home and spent a week in Europe.  We saved every penny, every credit card point and air miles credit we could scrounge to do it too.  And we had a lovely time in the City of Light.  It was glorious.  I even wrote “Forty is FABULOUS” on my Facebook status.

And then the vacation was over and we had to come home, back to reality.

And the reality for me is that forty hurts.  No really, it physically HURTS.

My back hurts, my neck hurts, my head hurts.  I find myself slower at forty, more lethargic and less involved in life.

Besides the white hairs that seem to be multiplying daily, I hurt in places I didn’t know existed before forty.

This year has not been easy for me.  It culminated in me breaking down crying in the endocrinologist’s office when she told me there was nothing she could do for my weird hormonal levels that seemed to be contributing to my weight gain and fatigue, despite my desperate battle to run from the fat monster that has been pursuing me for the last ten years.

I knew, walking out of there that warm July day, that I could not do this anymore.  I needed to change my life.

But there is one problem, I am horribly lazy.  No really.  I hate to exercise.  I hate to eat right.  I hate doing the work I need to do to be where I want to be.

But I hate being fat and slow and in pain even more.  Or at least, I think I do.

I hope I do.

I’ve started to run again and I joined a yoga center and have been practicing yoga at least three times a week since September.  I hate love it.

I have also changed my eating.  I did my first Whole30 in November and…yeah…I rocked it.  More on that, later.

But none of this has come easily for me.  And it is frustrating to see how easy it is to talk myself out of that 3 mile run and into a cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

Running.  Ugh! Running.  I love it and I hate it.  I’ve been running since 2007.  I’ve actually run a couple of full marathons and quite a few half marathons.  I run them very, very slowly.  But I finish, and my times are not humiliating but they are not great or even what you would call “good” either.  But I still do it.  I run.  Mostly.  I like my intervals.

You know what I love about interval running?  The walk breaks.  Mmm…delicious walk breaks.  I get one minute for every four.  Worth it.  So…worth it.

And you know what I love about yoga?  Shavasana.  Otherwise known as “Corpse Pose”. It’s the time you get, usually at the end of the practice, when you just lay there and do nothing.  It is my motivation. Sometimes, Shavasana is the only thing that gets me there and keeps me going.

So that is my intention for this blog.  I don’t want to sound melodramatic  but I feel like I am fighting for my life here because my body is very directly telling me that I have got to get off my tush or face some serious consequences.

I am starting Round 2 of Whole30 tomorrow and I plan to blog every day in January.  But still a big part of my brain is saying, “Ugh!  Really?  Can’t you just eat another cookie, throw in the towel and call it a day?”

We will see.  Bring on Shavasana.