YAY!

I am absolutely loving life right now. More than I have in quite some time, actually.

Yesterday I stood on the scale for the first time in a while because I've been trying to avoid it, and the number was super extra awful. It's a code red situation around here. It's OK though, I spent the day yesterday coming up with a reasonable plan and I can fix it. I'm not letting it bother me, I'm just going to fix it.

Being the big techy nerd I am, I immediately started looking at weight loss iPad apps, because my life revolves around that darn thing, and I signed up with My Fitness Pal. It's super cool, you log your weight, everything you eat, all your exercise and activity and it keeps track of it all and tells you how many calories you can have and has graphs and charts of your progress. I like that sort of thing. I've used similar websites in the past, but this one is way nicer than the ones I've tried before, and it's free! It's also got kind of a Facebook-like news feed where you can track your friends progress. If you use it and want to be my friend, my name is wenders11.

I also bought a Fitbit, which is a really cool digital pedometer that tracks your daily activity. It keeps track of how many steps you take, how many flights of stairs you climb and even how well you sleep at night if you wear it to bed, and then it automatically logs it in on the Fitbit website. It's fun to set a daily goal of how many steps you want to take and then see if you can make it. It encourages you to keep moving.

I truly believe that the only real way to lose weight is to move more and eat less, so that's what I'm doing. It will be slow, but I don't care. As long as it starts moving in the right direction, I don't care how long it takes.

So this morning I woke up energized and ready to do something fun. I really wanted to take my morning bike ride but they're having a huge ribfest at the park today I didn't want to ride my bike in the middle of it. So I decided that today was the perfect day to attempt my first greenbelt bike ride!

Boise has an absolutely gorgeous greenbelt that goes along the Boise river all across the entire city. I have no idea how many miles it goes from one end to the other but it's really really far. It's basically a really long biking/walking path that goes through the city. It's amazing. There are lots of places to hop onto it throughout the city and I've really wanted to take a bike ride there ever since I started this whole bike riding obsession. My eventual plan is to have the whole family take a ride on the greenbelt, which will fulfill our Year Of Adventure bike riding goal, but before I do that I wanted to try it out first. I'm not really that familiar with where it goes or where a good place to stop and start was, so I wanted to explore a little bit before the whole family goes.

Ever since Josh got his new bike he's been really excited to ride it every chance he gets so he decided to go with me. We decided that the whole family would go in the car over to one of the hop on spots, drop me and Josh off with our bikes and then Shawn would take Matthew and Clarissa to a park that was on the greenbelt path a few miles away and then Josh and I would ride our bikes over there and meet up with them at the park. We weren't really sure exactly how far of a ride it was going to be, but we were up for it!

They dropped us off and we started riding. I can't believe that we've lived in Boise for 12 years and this is the first time we've done this. It was AMAZING! The first part of the ride took us next to some horse stables and I love horses so I had a great time watching the horses while I rode. There were a lot of people on the path and we quickly got the hang of the greenbelt etiquette, how to pass people, etc. It's an absolutely beautiful ride by the river, over bridges, through the trees, with birds chirping and the sun shining. It was awesome!!

It turns out that the ride from where we started to where the park was was only about three miles, but we took the wrong path and some point and ended up having to backtrack a bit. We got a little lost because the path splits off in some places, but thank goodness I had my iPhone with the GPS map and I used that to get us where we needed to go. We ended up going 4.2 miles, which isn't even as far as my daily 5 mile ride, but it felt harder. There are more inclines and it's not as smooth and easy and taking laps around the park. It was SO fun though!! It was the perfect morning bike ride for me and Josh and it would be the perfect length for the family ride. Now that we've scouted it out and we know what to expect and where to go, I can definitely see us doing it more often. I'd love to make it a standard Saturday activity all summer!

My daily bike ride is making a HUGE difference in my life. I can't believe how much better I feel. I have really struggled in the past to find an exercise program that I didn't hate. My asthma always seemed like a big hurdle, it's a pain to go to the gym when you have to pack kids along with you and I just never managed to find anything that I enjoyed enough to stick with. Bike riding seems to be just what I was looking for. I love being outside and being on my bike makes me feel very free. It feels like being a kid again. I leave all my stresses and worries at home and just enjoy the sunshine and the fresh air. My legs hurt like crazy as my muscles get stronger, but I don't care. That's how I know it's working! :)

This afternoon I think we might make a quick trip over to ribfest at the park. I'm counting calories, but the more I bike and walk the more I can eat, so I'd better get moving! :)