Day 45 That Bright Shiny Object? Closer Than It Appears

photo credit ♥.·•Lovely Haru!•·.♥@flickr (seriously...)

You may not realize it, this just being Valentine's Day and all, but there are only 157 days left til the first day of summer. You've rolled your eyes at me, but I did detect your split second heart rate increase. Yes, I did.

If you do absolutely nothing different between now and then you'll spend another summer wishing you were fit and trim at the beach in your new orange bikini. Or whatever rings your bell. Speaking of which, I guess the only logical choice was to put the pink bikini on the doll with pink hair but I oh so wanted to see it the other way around *shrug*

Seriously, if you're one of the 17.2 billion of us who suddenly have that gigantic bright shiny object in the sky come out of no where, leaving a wake of frumpy sweat clad wearers behind, maybe now would be the time to make some inroads...

Today I ate 2,567 raw calories, banged out 2.5 miles at a 4.0 average pace and swam 1 mile - which was 60 straight minutes. I kinda love what's going on with this. I walk around in impossibly baggy sweats, sometimes two pair at a time because it's freakin' cold here. I wear plain, non-descript shirts and over-sized jackets. I toss my hair into a pony tail and forget the make up. I look 'like crap' most of the time. No one sees me. I'm completely invisible. I walk through the market and no one notices me. I go to the gym and though I have less clothes on, I don't have fancy work out stuff. My racing suits are ratty and I'm glad. I'm the invisible woman. I could have gone dancing on both Friday and Saturday nights - the two best days of the entire year thanks to Valentine's Day but I stayed home. On purpose. I washed oranges. I did laundry. I was happy.

Why? Because this is time for me. Just me. I don't care what anyone thinks. In an hour I could dress up and look 'hot' by some standards but that's not what this time is for. This is time for me to finally take care of me, work on my diet, my body and my life. I've never consciously devoted any amount of time, much less a year to the care and feeding of myself. Oh, yes to quite a few others - boyfriends, daughter, my elderly mother, former ungrateful spouse, squirrels, birds, dogs, cats, fish, hamsters, neighbor pets - but never myself.

When would be a good time to start taking care of you? What will you do with your next 157 days? What will you do for yourself over the next year?