Alright, call me lame and crazy, but I get weirdly inspired to get in shape, not through pictures of beautiful people or wanting to look like someone, but by athleticism I see. For instance, watching Ice Princess ALWAYS makes me want to get in shape -- see how far I can push my body to achieve something. I just read this absolutely fantastic book - Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (to be reviewed later) - and the way he wrote about the hoverboarding -- the way it's almost like a real sport, requiring lots of stamina and core muscle control and how hard you work to keep your balance -- honestly, it made me want to rollerblade again.

I realized the other day that, for the most part, "tame" exercise is the wrong way to go for me. Yeah, I can blow 45 minutes on an elliptical with my video 'Pod showing me old episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? but it doesn't fulfill me or make me happy. It just blows 45 minutes of my life in a slightly more constructive way than World of Warcraft. I LOVE weight lifting at the gym, but I hate cardio. I hate that hamster-on-a-wheel feeling. I think I love weight training because no matter what machine I'm on, I understand that I'm going somewhere. No matter how pointless it seems now, I'm getting stronger, and I feel proud when I leave the gym after weight training. I feel like a million bucks. If I just do cardio, I leave feeling bored and slightly annoyed.

I've realized -- well, more like I finally snapped the last puzzle piece in -- that the exercise I *do* like is all outdoors. Walking, even if just to the supermarket, really calms my soul. Biking somewhere, even. But my #1 Fuzzy Love in outdoor exercising is rollerblading. I have never, not once, fallen on rollerblades. Not once in the 13 on-and-off years I've been blading. There's a fantastic 9-mile round-trip trail that leads from a park not far from my workplace to the beach. I only bladed the whole thing once, because I was brand-new to the trail and didn't know how long it was. I did the whole thing in the hot sun with no water -- nearly passed out and had to lay in the shade for almost an hour before I could finish blading home. ((Still didn't fall, though!)). Even after that, I waited impatiently through my mandatory day of rest after that bout of sunsickness and got on the trail again as soon as I could. I learned, though -- I always have a bottle of water and a small protien bar, just in case I start to feel off. And I blade by time now, not distance, to make sure I have enough energy to go back with :) 30 mins in each direction.

My problem is that I *really* want to start this up again, but it's about 12 degrees outside. The trail is ALWAYS in the whipping ocean winds and usually colder than the air. I don't think even with a ski mask, long undies, and several layers could I do this properly. So I'm looking to head back to the gym. Maybe by the time it's warm enough to go, I can be in good enough shape to do that whole hour of blading without getting tired :) I pay $40/month for the gym; I should damn well use it.

The strange thing is that this new desire for fitness is just that -- fitness. Although I'd like to be thinner, it's not my main goal here. I don't feel like counting calories or even weighing myself. I'm over that. I'm going to use my heart-rate monitor to count calories burned, but only as a measure of workout intensity, not to count the damn calories. I always try to turn everything into a counting game, and it never works. So from here on out, I do what I enjoy. I refuse to live a life of deprivation. One day, I will be fit. It may take until my next birthday. Hell, it make take until my 30th birthday. Or 40th. I want to be fit, but I also want to enjoy my life, and one of the things I enjoy about life is food. I refuse to give up my soy mint-chocolate-chip ice cream. I refuse to give up fried chicken.

So, yeah, doing what I enjoy. Rollerblading is #1 on that list, and I'll just have to get over the inconveniences of getting changed at the school and driving my ass to the park. I enjoy sappy romance movies and old lame YA TV shows and witty sitcomes. So I'll put them on my iPod and traipse my way through 45 mins on the elliptical. And I'll put together a weight training thing sometime in the next few weeks so I can start enjoying feeling strong again.

My heart pounds after I go up a flight of stairs. I'm 26. There's something wrong with this picture. I've had my turn at being lazy; I've been growing nothing but weeds in my garden through my neglect of myself. Now I've got goals I need to meet -- not just nutritional or fitness-related, but real actual life-changing goals -- and I need to start sowing the seeds of discipline. I need to plant the slow flowers that need lots of tending -- and remember to tend them. I need to learn to *work* for what I want, instead of hanging around waiting for it to be given to me. This applies to all areas of my life.

So, hopefully starting Monday, I'll toss my hat back in the ring. I need to start downloading Rocker Girl music for my workouts, though :) I'm actually liking a lot of stuff from Christina Agulara's new "Back to Basics" CD -- very jazzy, very powerful, and very "I dont take no shit!"