New Adventures, Old Friends

Hi everyone! I’m Kelly and, admittedly, new to blog writing. I’ve recently graduated with my Master’s Degree in English Literature, which is how Klaira and I met.  During our M.A. program, Klaira and I talked quite often about our various fitness goals, journeys up to that point, and the struggles we face sometimes.  Because of this, I’m really glad and touched that she approached me with this blog idea to document and share our different experiences towards engaging in more active lifestyles.

I’m pretty close to the very beginning of my fitness journey.  I’ve been doing yoga on and off for a while now, but nothing consistent and not a lot beyond that until now.  I’ll admit that a wide range of physical activity has always seemed to be daunting to me because of my size and build along with the fact that I have a few medical ailments that can make working out more of a challenge.

I was diagnosed with asthma when I was 8 years old and asthma attacks have been a regular part of my life since then. I’ve had each lung collapse spontaneously—one when I was about 9 and the other when I was 23—and I was recently diagnosed with Cholinergic Urticaria (I can’t pronounce it either, so no worries) which basically means my body treats physical activity like an allergy and I break out in hives from head to toe if my heart rate increases too much (Yes, I am actually allergic to exercise. Who knew?!).

While I’m on various treatments for these things, they have provided their own barriers when it came to getting physically active in the past.  I’ll probably discuss these, and other struggles, more as they crop up during this experience because, as my fiancé is regularly reminding me, “fitness is not a clean, upward slope, but a variety of successes, plateaus, and off days.”

I have no doubt that I’ll talk about Matt, my fiancé, a few times throughout this blog as he’s my running coach/buddy and veritable ass-kicker when needed.  

My goals for the time being are to do yoga more regularly and consistently while also trying my hand (foot?) at running. I have never run a mile under 12 minutes until recently and my goal is to, first, run a mile without stopping (no matter how long that mile time may be or how much I want to die while doing it) and, second, eventually complete a 5k all without breaking out in hives (at least significantly) or having a severe asthma attack. Yay! Goals!!

So, welcome to “Do Want Health” and thank you for following along.