In my efforts to lose weight and get my health back, I opted for an impromptu hike nearby last weekend. We’ve tried to hike at Black Rock twice before but our timing wasn’t the best (frigid winds in the winter). I came armed with my map found at the CT DEP‘s site. We headed up the blue trail on the western side of the park.

As usual with CT, it starts off gradual for about 50 feet and then up! This is a deceiving “short” hike. The funniest part was on the way back down we passed several people in their 20-30′s who said, “good grief I feel old”. I’m guessing too many of us sit behind our desks and computers too much. Then there was one guy who was pretty lean and limber and was doing the loop, up and over the mountain and back down, he passed us 3 times. Pretty damn impressive.

I’ve kept up with eating vegan and exercising minimally 3 times a week. My total weight loss is 12 lbs so far. My short term goal is another 8 lbs. The next goal is 45 lbs from that point. The final goal is another 25 from there. I’m sure there will be plateaus and I’m preparing already to mix things up.

I got The Kind Diet for Christmas, along with Chef Keith Snow’s book Harvest Eating. I’ve flirted, as Alicia would say, with vegetarianism for probably 11 years. I’ve never stuck to it. My own laziness and lack of commitment is what usually has me faltering. The Kind Diet is a step further with going vegan. I grew up in a family that loved their milk, cheese and eggs. I stopped drinking cow’s milk about 8 years ago. I’ll have it in a hot chocolate or coffee, but that it. Cheese on the other hand is my Achilles’s heal. I love it! But I also know it doesn’t always love me and my sinuses always clog up after having too much cheese.

My schedule is still a bit crazy to get into cooking big meals. This past weekend I decided to simplify, choose only meals that could be quick, not even heated and still fall under the vegan and healthy guidelines.

I made home guacamole for the first time. It was awesome! I’ve been eating oatmeal and fruit for breakfast. I cooked up crispy orange tofu from the Kind Diet cookbook. Tonight I made couscous, which I haven’t had in a very long time. I also attempted to make a wrap for lunch. I used a tomato tortilla, hummus, roasted red peppers, avocado and sprouts. It was…ok…I need to figure out something to first add more flavor, but also make the avocado a bit smaller. I used chunks and I wasn’t really loving it.

I’ve also gotten into the habit of impromptu exercising. My Mom called me up on Saturday and gave me a 20 minute notice if I wanted to go for a walk. I was in the middle of working on some projects, but I decided, this nice weather doesn’t come along that often and I need to get out from behind the desk. So off I went for a good walk. Tonight, I was waiting for Craig to be free but he got busy with a few different things. I watched as the sun went down more and more, and said, screw it, I need to take advantage of this weather. So I took myself out and went for a walk. 45 minutes later and my heart pumping I feel much better.

I’ve always made the excuse of not enough time, energy and being too busy as to why I didn’t just get out and exercise. It’s fun… you only live once right? and I’m sick of not being able to take off my rings and not being as flexible several years ago. I’m only 31, not 61.

I can’t remember exactly when I discovered Colin Devroe’s The Diet page, but at one point I joined and after sharing my progress with my friends, they wanted to join in too, but didn’t want to use their regular blogs.

I decided to create our own site to log our progress, keep up motivation and keep it semi-private. As you can see from the Archive dates, we’ve had some starts and stops along the way.

This year I decided to record videos of my progress. Also joining in is my sister in law and my mother in law. My best friend Kelly, who is much more on top of nutrition and exercise regimens is writing full blown articles for us and keeping us motivated. Late last year she did the P90X and had great results. Craig and I picked up a copy of Power90, which was more our speed.