why am I doing this?

I'd like to point out my motivation for all of this. It was all an accident. I accidentally got healthy and then the new energy made me motivated to get more healthy so I started working out and got stronger and got more balanced and started looking great and it was just a reinforcing pattern.

So how did this happen? I explained some of this in my first post but I rambled a bit. of course, I'm going to ramble here too. I'm 48 years old now and this started when I was 44. That winter I started getting lower back aches. I swam at the gym but that didn't help. One of my friends told me she really enjoyed yoga. I didn't know anything about it but my back was hurting so I looked it up on the web and found a nearby studio and it said newcomers welcome so I showed up at class one day and it turns out I stumbled on the perfect teacher for me. It was really hard at first and my goal was just to make it through the class. I don't know if that started changing my mentality or not. It rested my mind and I think that had an effect.

About 5 months later I decided to become a vegetarian, sort of from a random conversation with a vegan. Oh, a year or two before that I had read "Fast food nation" and was grossed out by our meat production system and was buying organic meat. and I had read a book about environmentally friendly consumer choices you can make and I learned that not eating meat has the biggest effect. So I was sort of heading this way and then took the plunge when another friend did too. I enjoyed it immediately. I just enjoyed not eating meat.

I also accidentally didn't drink milk for 2 weeks while traveling in Mexico and Sicily and discovered that my daily indigestion went away! That clued me in that I might be lactose intolerant so I experimented with ingesting dairy, and discovered that I was. Well, that made it easy to go vegan a few months later.

Then I started losing weight and had more energy and it was really a surprise for me! I started researching veganism more and realized that it's healthy for you! And I also learned more about the horrors of animal exploitation and food production and that sealed my decision to remain vegan. I lost 30 lbs and not only felt great but looked great. Wow. what a surprise for someone my age. I've always been dorky looking and now I'm less dorky looking than ever before.

I had a set-back when I broke my kneecap in 2006, but yoga really helped me get back my strength and mobility. I joined the Monkey Bar Gym to help me get stronger in my leg, and discovered that it helped me get stronger everywhere. It was really hard at first. I could only go one day a week because I would get sore for the next 5 days. But eventually I started getting stronger and feeling stronger and looking stronger and it was so much fun, it just motivated me further.

So I'm just tickled that at the age of 48, I'm feeling and looking good. I never ever expected that treat. According to Dr. Fuhrman, this should be perfectly normal for everyone, but the Standard American Diet has ruined everyone's health.

The thing that surprises me the most is my heart. I have a murmur and I used to get skipped beats all the time and had a fast resting pulse rate. Now my resting pulse rate is 45! I just bought a heart monitor because I'm curious to see how good my heart is now! I don't get out of breath like everyone else. Note, this is mainly from my eating habits and also going to an exercise or yoga class 5 days a week, running 1 day, and taking 1 day off. so it's not like I'm exercising 3 hours a day. I ride my bike everywhere but I ride slow and enjoy the view, I hardly think it's a work out.

I'm just surprised by the whole thing and that's why I'm writing this post. I wish everyone could experience this.