I love starting new things. A new notebook can give me joy for days. There is always the tingly feeling of possibilities. The road yet unseen just rolling up ahead. The heights I will reach, the newfound connections I will make! I can just feel the premature glow of new better me. Of course, all new things eventually become if not old, then no longer new. The goal is achieved and the habit is formed. I am still benefitting from my new object, habit, routine, but wait, up there just in the distance, why look at that notebook!!!! There is another newy thing that I should surely be adding to my life.

And then, my now not new notebook has so many pages left. My new routine is so time consuming. Whatever my new thing is, it’s no longer new and I long for that quick high of the next new. I think it is the hope that comes from the new thing. The possibility it seems to offer. And I am nothing if not capable of creating a strict routine and sticking with it like a soldier. Except eating. Eating is my absolute downfall. I will eat everything on my eating plan, and well a few more things to boot! So when I incorporate a habit, a work out plan, a writing ritual, it is likely to stick, even if I have to readjust it form time to time. However, the benefits begin to feel ho hum.

Case in point is this blog. When I first started working out over the age of forty, this blog really helped keep me accountable. However, after years, it started to feel like a whine session. I wasn’t a beginner working out anymore. Running at all in the beginning gave me great joy and I felt like a super hero. There was always a place to push myself. Run longer, run faster. Except, after a while, I wasn’t able to go any faster. My feet started to feel like hamburger after ten miles. Maybe I reached my max? And then, instead of feeling like an accomplishment it became a never ending failure. And then I went backwards!!! And then, well, it sort of went away. Was it because it became too hard? Or was it because that initial sense of joy of accomplishment just faded. It was no longer something I could do, but something I should do. And my blog reflected that. Which of course, made it less fun for me. I tired of myself, so definitely didn’t want to see it in print. So, I started a new blog less about working out and more about dealing with being over fifty. But, most of the entries, I chose not to publish. I wasn’t feeling very new, I guess.

So, I bought I treadmill. Last summer I tried running for just thirty minutes every morning. My bike was broken and I needed something, so I ran. I also gained weight. Can’t outrun a bad diet either. When I fixed my bike, the running evaporated. I went back to walking on Sundays as a way to do something outside. But then, this past February, my bike was finally paid off and the work out plan that came with it, was ready to renew. When I bought my bike, it was advertised as free with a three year commitment to the fitness platform that comes with it. I more felt of it as the workout platform free and the payments were for the bike.  I love this work out program, have grown attached to the trainers. So when it was time to renew my membership, it seemed dumb not to pay an extra ten bucks a month and get the treadmill. It is advertised as free, but I worked it out and for the family membership, it is actually ten dollars more a month. But to me, that is worth it.

So now I have a new thing that comes with some new possible experiences. I don’t want to give up on my bike. This is part guilt, I don’t want to dessert it for my new toy, and part superstition. I did lose quite a bit of weight on that bike, and I am concerned that if I don’t do it several days a week I will be a lost cause. Which is where the conundrum comes in, because I have also added strength sessions to my workouts in the form of forty to fifty minute sculpt or bootcamp sessions. (As I write that I realize that I eat a lot!!!) I already get up between four thirty and quarter to five, I can’t get up any earlier. And really, I don’t do this for the joy of it anymore. If anything, I wake up every morning and tell myself, “Just do the best you can. If you can’t hit the numbers, then at least you showed up” I do show up.

Except for my new thing. Since I am doing only beginning workouts on my treadmill, I am finding them quite joyful. The one minute on and one minute off jogging sessions, and I do mean jogging, leave me in good spirits all day. I feel strong. I work up a sweat. I wonder if maybe I should just stay running in this way, because of the way it makes me feel. Can I bottle the newness and keep it fresh? Everything would be great, except I’m pretty sure they aren’t hard enough to move the needle. And by that, I mean the scale needle. That thing is also forward looking apparently. So, as much as I like them, I have decided to use them as active recovery days. Which means instead of one active recovery I now have three. So my choice is to either, readjust, finally get a hold on my eating (I am trying) or buy new clothes that actually fit me.

Well, at least the clothes will be new.