Healthy Writer – The Original Post

This is me. I’m still astonished to find that I’m now 60 years old. How did that happen?

Along with the mystery of how I got this old, I’ve got other conundrums to contemplate, like:

How come I gained all this weight?

When did my health take a nose-dive?

And, last but not least, what can I do about it?

The answers to the first two questions are pretty simple: 1) I’m a writer, and spend most of my day sitting in front of my laptop surfing the Net doing Important Writing Tasks, and 2) I stopped exercising regularly and eating healthy.

That third question’s the kicker: What can I do about it?

I don’t want to be young again (been there, done that & not going through it again). But I do want this Third Act of my life to be happy and healthy. I want the energy and excitement of youth, without all the stress and anxiety that comes with being inexperienced and insecure.

Being healthy means losing the excess weight that has caused me to develop Type II diabetes, sleep apnea, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and sore joints. Somehow, I gained 100 pounds over my best weight. In the name of Quality of Life, all that fat has got to go!

Healthy means finding a way to build exercise into my sedentary daily routine. Writing is an important part of my life, but they say sitting is the new smoking. I can’t be healthy unless I find a way to balance writing and healthy exercise.

And while I’m building this healthier lifestyle, I want to become more consistent in my book production and more skilled with getting my books noticed and read.

So here’s what I’m doing:

Enrolled in a medically-supervised diet. I started on April 1, and so far I’ve lost 10 lbs. Yay me! Only 90 more pounds to my goal! There are many good diets out there. I chose this one because it worked for me before, about 19 years ago – I had to stop when I got happily pregnant with my son. Now that I’ve decided to get serious again, this is the one I am turning to.

Joined my local YMCA. They have a great selection of classes, including Water Aerobics and Pilates. However, I’m starting with some gentle weight lifting that I can do whenever I choose, using an app that creates the workouts for me and also tracks my progress. 

I’m also breaking out all those time-management tools, like the Unschedule from The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. 

On top of all this, I’m ditching the hair dye and letting my natural silver shine forth! I’ve been inspired by fun blogs like Katie Goes Platinum. 

 So far, I’m about 4 months into the transition to gray. Here are some photos that show the developments to date: