With Your Head Down.

Over the past few and a bit, I enjoy my walks. Whether it was walking to work in New Haven or walking to the subway now, I enjoy moving at a slower pace. It gives me more time to look around and take things in. I've also noticed that it allows me to observe more of my surroundings and get to know where I am better.

It wasn't until the other day, however, that I noticed a trend.

When I'm walking somewhere new, down a new street or taking a new way to work, or even on a stroll with Jake, I'm always looking up. I like to look at things around me and people around me as best I can. But the occasions where I'm walking somewhere familiar, I walk with my head down. And not just looking down. I've noticed that I walk with my head hanging down.

After a little reading on the subject, I've learned that my head down means I have self confidence issues and don't want to be looked at. Interestingly enough, both of those are true. While I'm slowly getting more comfortable with myself and accepting me for who I am, I still face self confidence issues and no, I don't really like to be looked at.

Another article says that walking with you hands in your pockets could mean you are unhappy with how you look and, combined with your head downs, means you're unhappy. I walk like this frequently. I put my hands in my pockets because it's cold, or so I thought. Could this mean that subconsciously I'm more unhappy that I know?

Today, I was walking down the long hallway at work back to my desk and I noticed that I was passing people and 99% of the time I have my head down. I started making the conscious effort to have my head up, smile and look at people more. I'm such a social being. I thrive on being social and having friends. Has the past year and a bit or moving a lot and being in places where I don't know people turned me into a recluse?

How do you walk? What do you think it says about you??

Runners.

My obsession with the gym started my senior year of college. My boyfriend at the time made me feel really self conscious (whether he did it on purpose I'm still trying to figure out) and he wanted to join a gym. So I joined too. Then I was hooked. I can't decide if I got hooked to the exercise part or the potential to lose weight part.

I've had personal body image issues pretty much my whole life. I don't think it helped that I was always the tallest, either. Once I started feeling the benefits of working out, I couldn't stop. When I moved back to Portland from college, I started working out more. And it helped that my best friend worked out with me.

While I worked out frequently, like every day, I never really tried running. I always opted for the elliptical or other such machines. After I lost 20 lbs in a weight loss competition last year and tasted what it was like to be my best self and finally in a 'healthy' weight class for my height, I've wanted to get back there so badly. 

We are Runners.

It was easy getting down to 150 last year. At the time, I was working two jobs, both of which was also a social outlet because I worked with all my friends and my boss was my best friend so...it was pretty awesome for a while. My boyfriend also lived in Ohio at the time so I didn't have a distraction in the world. My day was usually going to work, going to the gym, tanning and bed. It was easy to regulate my food intake like crazy, and there were even days I didn't eat or ate celery because I was going to win this challenge darn it! (I came in second...I swear the guy who won cheated....) 

So all those factors made it easy to put in the time and lose the weight. But now, it's much harder. When we moved to Toronto, I hit a record 181 lbs. I was literally like 'what the fuck am I doing?' (apologies for the swearing but I wanted you to get the effect). Last week, two days after Canadian Thanksgiving, I weighed myself again. I am down to 174 lbs! 

While it's still more then I'd like to be, it's a start! I've changed up my work out routine lately, and I think I can thank that change for my recent boost. I've started running. It started two weeks ago when I did a steady job for about 10 minutes. That's huge for me! It's gone up a bit since then and this morning I ran a whole mile at a quick pace in 10 minutes! Then I ran an exta half mile for kicks!

My goal for this working out and life altering: I want to be between 160 and 170 by Christmas. I know it's a broad range, but I'm trying to be realistic. I am determined to get to a certain size by June next year, but I'm also determined to do it in a healthy way in which I can maintain that size.

If you run or work out a lot, what tips do you have for my new routine? Do runner prefer to run inside on a Tredmill or outside?