Scuba Dooba Doo

So the hubby, who is Rescue Diver-certified, has been after me for years to get certified to dive. I'm not a big fan of actually swimming in a pool or putting my face underwater. Let me lounge around in a hot tub or float on a little inflatable raft with cupholders and I'm good. Plus it's not exactly a cheap sport. So I've managed to put off doing scuba certification for quite some time. 

I have been scuba diving twice now, but both times were "Discover Scuba" where you dive with an instructor who worries for you about your air and depth and whether your lungs will explode if you ascend too fast. So they were relatively stress-free dives and they were in Hawaii and Costa Rica, respectively, which had amazing sea life to compensate for the terror of taking myself 40 feet below the surface. So I survived and actually enjoyed them.

Then along came a Groupon. We've gotten to do some pretty cool things via Groupon, and lo and behold a certification class came up for over 50% off, checkout dives included. That deal, plus the much appreciated used equipment donation from the hubby's parents (both of whom are expert divers), kind of took away my excuses not to get certified. 

So tonight I found myself in my first Open Water certification class. The whole course is basically 15 hours classroom learning plus 5 checkout pool dives, followed by 4 checkout open water (lake or ocean) dives. Provided I can survive this week I'll do the lake dives when it warms up in the spring. In addition to 2 hours of classroom time tonight, there was a 200m swim and 10 minutes of treading water. 

I'm really terrible at treading water. I don't think I've done it since I took swimming lessons in elementary school. No one treads water for fun. Plus, in a pool, I do not float. I sink straight to the bottom. However with a variety of leans, floats, and kicks I managed to stay afloat for those ten minutes, which is all I needed to get to the next class. 

If I didn't know how much I liked seeing the reef life and how relaxing it is once you're in a dive, I honestly would say I would be totally freaked out. But the instructor is really good and I was promised there is no more treading water involved for the rest of the course. So I'll hang in there and let you know how it goes. 

Here's to a Strong 2012!

Happy New Year! 

So I decided to do another competition. It's not really a New Year's resolution since I actually started competition prep a couple of weeks ago. I kind of wish it was a NY resolution, because dieting through the holidays with family sucks. Not only is there a lot of delicious homemade food but everyone wants to go out to eat. Overall, though, I survived.

The holidays were also pretty darn crazy so I didn't get much time to post. I'm still working on sending out Christmas cards. It's cool, we're only on the 9th day of Christmas and Ukrainian Christmas is Jan. 7th so I figure I've got a few more days. :P But, I'm back to posting because it keeps me accountable! 

I'm really excited for this competition. The first one I did for the experience; this time I want to see just how far I can go. I have a fantastic trainer and I already have been making strength gains and getting smaller. It really helps to have a deadline for fitness goals - I see results faster when I am committed to a deadline - I do believe it has something to do with how committed you are to self-control. 

The tricky part this time is my husband is home (yay!). The only upside of a deployment is I only had to worry about cooking for me and stocking the house with only the food I could eat. This go-around I have to also worry about a hungry man who is interested in eating more than chicken and oatmeal all the time. I spent two hours in the grocery store trying to find him food that he would want and I wouldn't. This resulted in a lot of beef jerky, sandwich meat, bread, milk, and spaghetti-o's.  Sweet stuff wreaks is kryptonite for my willpower so it's best not to have it in the house. I really appreciate how supportive he is. He even helped me grill my chicken breasts and zucchini.

Best wishes to you and yours in the new year! Big goals, big dreams!