Friendship's Next Adventure

Hello, I’m Slick.  Okay, it is not my real name, but I am not yet comfortable with all the full disclosure on the internet. Anyway…I am a happily married 39-year-old mother of a six-year-old girl. I work full-time and am fortunate to have a job I mostly enjoy and a flexible work schedule.  About a year ago I had a chance to go to Rome for several days and in preparation I tried on all my capri pants and none of them fit.  I went out and bought a couple of pairs in a larger size and promised myself that I would lose weight as soon as I returned from Rome.  One year later, I pulled out my summer clothes again and realized I still couldn’t fit in my capri pants and my new ones were getting a little snug.  That week I joined Weight Watchers and haphazardly began going to the gym.  Within the first seven weeks on Weight Watchers I met my 5% goal.  However I realized if I worked out I could be doing so much better.  Towards that effort I have joined a gym, am training to reduce my 5k time and signed up to run the Rock n Roll half-marathon in March 2012.

I’m Tillie, a 35-year old stay-at-home/work-from-home mom with five children. My children are 11, 9, 6, 2 and 6 months and the top three are homeschooled. This leaves me with very little time to go out for the sole purpose of exercising. I try hard to find ways to incorporate exercise in with my day-to-day tasks.  With this method, I get plenty of “strength training.” I also try to eat a healthy pesci-vegetarian diet (though my sweet tooth is a definite liability!) The area I need to do the most work in is cardio. I can get in a two-hour walk and never get an elevated heart rate. It is hard to walk fast when you’re watching the world with a two-year-old. “They” say it takes 40 days to form new habits. My goal over the next 40 days is to get up and get moving for at least 45 minutes each day to kick-start my lungs and heart. For all the rest my children are my workout center!

I am Spinster Beth, a 42-year old single woman with no children. I have a desk job and sedentary hobbies such as knitting, spinning yarn, and reading. In August this year, after turning 42 (and gaining 10 pounds in the last year), I decided I needed to change my lifestyle. I started with Cool Running’s Couch-to-5K plan, and though I didn’t quite get up to 5K in 8 weeks, I have made great progress–I can run most of 3 miles, but still have to stop and walk a bit. I lost 11 pounds in about 9 weeks, and I would like to continue that trend. My goal is to run a 5K, without stopping to walk, by May 2012. I believe this is a fairly simple goal, so I’ll add more to it: I want to become healthy enough to stop taking blood pressure and cholesterol medicine. Like Tillie, I am a pesci-vegetarian. I nonetheless have very high cholesterol if left untreated. I want to conquer those high numbers through exercise. Overall, I want to be much healthier in my 40s than I was in my 30s. I am on the right track, and intend staying there.

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