The Beginning

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Healthy Biker blog!

Let me tell you a little something about myself. I am a 27-year-old single mom, entering my last of TEN YEARS of post-secondary while pursuing my PhD in psychology, and I am currently in the range of 100 lbs. overweight. My BMI is 39.5 (if you put any stock into that), putting me into that fabulous category of "obese". Everyone wants to be there, but only a select (though growing, in more ways than one!) few of us get to be. I am one of those lucky few.

I just bought a bike - like bicycle, not motorcycle (I'm not that cool). I haven't ridden a bike since elementary school, when I rode on sidewalks and didn't wear a helmet and didn't go more than a few blocks to my friends' houses. Those were the days! But then I learned how to drive and got a car, and have been lazy ever since.

The reason I bought a bike is because I've put on a lot of weight from the sedentary, stressful life of being both a graduate student and a single parent. It is my intention to spend this last year of my PhD - my internship year - bike commuting to my internship site (which is about 8 km away at the university's student counselling centre) in an attempt to graduate a healthier, happier person. Because, really, who wants to have a psychologist who's 100 lbs. overweight and unhappy about herself? More importantly, who wants to have a Mom like that? I need to set a good example for my future clients, but more importantly for my daughter. I have struggled with weight problems since early childhood, and I hope my daughter won't have to do the same.

I'm facing some particular daunting challenges. For one, I'm pretty self-conscious about the state of my body right now, and it takes a lot of courage to get on a bike and jiggle around in public while nervously and sweatily biking alongside cars on my daily commute. Secondly, I'm not used to biking and I have bad hips/knee joints - one of the fabulous consequences of being so overweight for so long - and I wonder how long these weak knees will hold out. Lastly, I happen to live in one of the coldest major centres in Canada, so my dedication to bike-commuting will take me through approximately six arduous and dangerous months of winter cycling. For a novice, that's a very scary proposition.

This blog will document my bike-commuting successes, failures, and HOPEFULLY resulting weight loss. I acknowledge that exercise alone won't help me lose all the weight, so diet will undoubtedly come into play, and I'll document efforts/challenges in that, too. It's my hope that by putting my effort out there into the blogosphere, I will feel compelled to stick with my commuting challenge, and I would love it if others felt inspired to challenge themselves similarly. There are so many reasons to do it - the physical and mental health benefits, the eco-benefits, the financial benefits - that I hope some of you out there will join me!