The beginning of Running

So I run.  I run 3 to four times a week.  I want to get it up to 6 times a week but it is hard with kids, work, PhD and other life obligations.
The reason I started running was to get fit and to lose the baby weight.  Particularly since the last baby was (when I started running) 3 1/2 years old.   I had pretty much gone up a size for each pregnancy.  Lucky for me that was only from an 8 to a 12 - two babies.  Two healthy happy boys.
Me on the other hand not so much in the healthy happy zone.  I was getting acid reflux, my blood pressure (BP) drifted back up again to pre-hypertension crossing over to full hypertension.  I got tachycardia and arrhythmia.  My doctor acknowledged that although I wasn't grossly overweight that losing 5 kgs would do a lot to fix me up.  So I did nothing for another 12 months.
BC (before children) I used to go to the gym.  Not religiously but frequently enough that I kept a base level of fitness.  I did gain weight in Canada (hello deep fried food and excessive drinking and unhappiness) but I shifted it off within 6 months of getting back to Oz.
After Child 1 I went back to the gym.  I was going fairly regularly even into my second pregnancy.  But the doctor's pulled the plug on it when my BP shot up.  (By the way exercising when not pregnant is highly recommended for lowering blood pressure - running has really smashed this problem - but exercise with high BP during pregnancy when baby is having growth retardation is NOT recommended). But after baby 2 came along I couldn't get to the gym.  It became too hard.  Not just because there were 2 kids but also because I went back to work part time when baby was 3 months old.  Then I got guilts.  I would feel guilty if I did go and put them in the creche because I was always putting them in care so I could work or study for my Masters.  I wasn't actually but that is sure what it felt like.  And it felt indulgent. Like it was me being selfish when my babies needed me.  I wasn't earning money by putting them in the creche I was just... exercising.   And you can exercise for free right?
I had a jogger pram that carried 2 kids easily.  But although I had good intentions and even tried during my depressive stage to go out and walk with them it rarely happened.  One time early on I nearly popped my c-section just trying to get down my driveway.  The rest of the walk was pure misery as it hurt to push up hill and everywhere is hills where I live!
Another time it rained so hard my kids got soaked through.  Not good.
So I stopped trying to walk with them.  Am not sure in hindsight why I didn't do what everyone else does and go down to the beach paths for a walk?  I can't remember.  Maybe it was too hard when the baby was little and then the eldest decided he wasn't a baby anymore and therefore didn't need a pram.
I vaguely tried to diet and sporadically exercised.  Even buying a treadmill.  But nothing stuck and nothing came off weight-wise (and that is very depressing).
Then I saw another mum from a playgroup I used to go to posting about her Couch to 5KM progress on facebook.  Then I saw another mum doing it too.  At first I thought " Easy for them, they don't work!  Show me a fit mum and I'll show you a stay at home mum! "  But it sat and burbled in my head.
Then I got an iPhone and I downloaded the C25K app that these mums were using.  I donned my expensive cross trainers and my best sports bra and I started the run/walk program.
Wow am I unfit I realised and also - this IS doable.  In the second week I got sick, or work got in the way and I stopped.   Then I restarted thinking I could make this work.  And I kept at it.  Even when I didn't like it, even when I was sick.  I have hardly skipped a single week now.   The beauty of running is it is over in 30 minutes.  All done and back to work, back to study, back to kids.
My husband set up his bike on a trainer so often we ran/rode together in front of a DVD (highly highly recommended).  You still watch crap but you don't eat crap and you get fit together.  Great for the marriage I tell you!

As this is as much about running as it is about losing weight I need to explain how the 10 kgs I have now lost have come off.  Running alone didn't do it.  I had already figured out that to lose weight I also needed to count calories/kilojoules.  So I found a recommended app for that myfitnesspal and started logging all I ate.  Oh.  That is why I struggled to lose weight.  It was amazing how often I simply ate more than maintenance.  Certainly more than I should to lose weight.  Plus it also showed me that if I exercised I could eat more than my allocated 1200 calories.  More importantly if I exercised I could still eat an icecream and drink a glass of wine at night and lose weight.  Not at any great rate that would make headlines in a women's magazine.  I am convinced these indulgences played an important psychological role.   I didn't feel I was "dieting" and got to mellow out.

Hence my philosophy of there are no bad foods, just some foods aren't worth the effort of burning off or earning.  I have seen running singlets that say "I earn my chocolate one step at a time", but for me I want to earn my icecream, wine and hot chips one step at a time!

And that is how I started to run and how I ended up losing 10 kilograms.