A Battle of Conscience

Remember the cartoons where the bad conscience (a devil) and good conscience (an angel) sat on the character's shoulder and battled to win over their will?  I've been having that battle on my shoulders for over a week now.  Only my bad conscience is a fat, slovenly, lazy guy and the good conscience is a healthy, trim, athletic one.  They look more like Oscar Madison and Felix Unger from 'The Odd Couple' than the picture above.

The bad guy has been telling me that I might as well eat all I want and take it easy on my exercise routine.  I can always start January 1st when everyone else does.  The good guy is asking why I would wait and undue all the good I've done over the past year.  You see, I've lost about 30 pounds and 5 % of my body fat.  I've gone from a size 14 to a size 10.  But I'm not done.  I can still be fitter.  I'd like to run a half marathon, do 5 pull ups (unassisted preferably),  lose more body fat and a little more weight.  In short, I'd like to be the fittest me that I can be.  And while I'd LIKE to be the fittest me that I can be in 2013, that doesn't mean I need to put off getting started until January 1.  I can start now.

So today, the bad guy won out on my eating. I polished off the remaining Christmas cookies we had in the house, plus the Boy Scout popcorn (Sea Salt Caramel - it's incredible).  I had 3 tacos for dinner.  I have eaten more calories in the last week than I did the month prior.  But the good guy won me over on exercise.  I put on my running gear, laced up my $100 Brooks shoes (LOVE them) and ran 4 miles.

And I didn't regret it one bit!