Day 4: Story time

Time for a little story from roughly summer of 2013. Phil and I were on a walk around Lake Nokomis pushing little Abby in the stroller. When we lived in our old place, we would walk around the lake very often in the summers. Sometimes for exercise; sometimes just to get out of the house and spend time together.

This conversation with Phil sticks out so much in my memory that I can tell you the exact spot on the path that we were when it happened.

I was expressing to him the importance of health in my life, specifically the importance of consistent exercise. We were both unhealthy at that point and slightly overweight. It was a hard conversation, but I was trying to find a way to say that I wanted him to exercise more. I wanted him to find it important. I wanted him to make it a priority.

He basically told me he didn't have time to exercise, and that if he did it would take time directly away from spending time with Abigail and I.

I remember feeling sad. Sad that he didn't agree with me that health and exercise were important enough to prioritize. He didn't ever really have to exercise to lose weight, so to someone who was generally fit (until then) even without exercise it was hard for him to find the value. We were both approaching mid-20s where very slowly both of our metabolisms were slowing down, not to mention I had just had my first kid.

I never gave up on convincing him to find exercise important, and after a few years and life slowing down enough for him to actually have the time, he started coming around. It happened very slowly. It took persistence. It took him seeing me prioritize it and choose to get healthy after each baby.

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And here we are today, with Phil training for a marathon. Ohh the irony.

One of my all time favorite experiences with Phil was running a 10k together. There was something really cool about both having the same goal, training for it together, working really hard to get there, and achieving it side by side. Literally hand in hand.

It means a lot to be able to do things like this diet with Phil, because at one point there was no way in the world I would have been able to convince him to do this.

And after the 30 days are over we get to cross the proverbial finish line with a trip to the State Fair, where we will enjoy our proverbial prize. Which will most likely include every single one of the foods you can't have on the Whole 30. :-D