Trying to get healthy is not much fun. At the age of 42, with mounting health concerns I have decided to make an effort at doing all the things I should have done at 25 or so but didn’t as I was (am to be honest) lazy.

Eating right has not been a struggle, as because of my circumstances I am living back with my mother. Since she buys the food, there is not a lot of crap. Also I find that being perpetually broke makes the temptation of McTacoFood easy to ignore. The difficult bits have been pop (or soda if you are reading this anywhere but Michigan) and exercise.

Recently I have made myself start walking. This has been an effort, as inertia has kept me motionless for longer than I care to remember. I have taken the lessons learned from a class I took at the VA regarding depression and applied them to this circumstance. The specific lesson was on just getting up and doing something, anything, because just sitting there makes things worse. You may not want to do it, but if you force yourself to start it gets easier and easier, and next thing you know it becomes a habit and you start to enjoy it.

I applied this to another aspect of my life to great success. As a teenager I was into fantasy role-playing and tabletop war gaming. Part of this entailed painting the pieces involved in playing the games. In January of this year, pushed by my desire to no longer be depressed, I started back with the war gaming. I rediscovered how much I enjoyed working on the intricate models, and that I was actually good at it. Not great, but good. And that is enough for me. Plus I enjoy the game immensely, and I have met some wonderful people that I am glad to call friends now.

So I have taken that theory (just move!) and applied it to walking every day. I put my headphones in, turn on the Internet radio station on my smart phone, and go. Currently I am living near a lake, so I walk there and back in a loop. I have a few different loops that I use with distances that vary from one and a half miles to two and a half miles. As I get better and stronger I will add distance. Come the cold, I may have to adjust things, but that is months away, I can come up with a plan later.