New Day

I've been in Japan for just over a year now, this time around. That time has just flown by. I wouldn't say that it took me long to settle in, but it did seem to take me a year to fine-tune my life here to get it running how I want it. When things don't run how I like them or if I'm upset or tired, I comfort eat. This now finds me at the heaviest I've ever been in my life and running on the lowest energy, while trying to to the most amount of stuff. I remember a friend years ago saying to me, "Melanie, you need to be three people to do everything you are doing."

My reply, "If I was three people, there would need to be nine of me to do everything because I would find three times more things to do."

Anyway, I digress.

I feel like I've had my year of excuses and indulgences and what a great year it was, but now it's time to get back into shape, get fit and healthy and full of energy again.

I'm fortunate enough to be married to health professional. For those of you who don't know Wayne, he's a sports massage therapist (in Australia his clients included Olympic divers), acupuncturist and personal trainer as well as a very enthusiastic martial artist. In the early days of our relationship I received far more massages than I do, the occasional acupuncture treatment and a less than frequent fitness session. I think I may now be more likened to the broken car the mechanic has in his garage at home.....

That's all about to change.

In the past when Wayne has tried to train me it has ended up in arguments. He goes into "instructor" mode, but I don't switch into "instructee" mode, but rather stay in the girlfriend/wife role. I hate him telling me what to do and have more than a few times yelled at him and stormed off.

Wanting to get fit and healthy again though, we are determined to try again, but with a slightly different tack. He's going to write me programs and I'm going to go off on my own to do them. He has been writing a fitness blog for a little while now, so I've asked to be his guinea pig. Today is the day we begin.

In the next few days, he will be measuring, weighing and photographing me so that we can watch the progress, but I'm not quite ready to put those up on the Internet as yet. If you want to watch my progress or see the program and philosophy behind it, check it out here.

In the meantime - wish me luck!