Monday, September 29, 2014

September

This was how I felt going into September.  Board meetings and corresponding presentations. Dinner with board members and high-end donors...cocktail attire required. Hosting a Danish exchange student for 16 days. My parents visiting for the weekend the day student leaves. And a NASCAR race.

Yup...it was a month. A fun month. An exciting month. An exhausting month. Routines were broken. I exercised when I could, mostly got my 10,000 daily steps in, but didn't sweat as much as I would have liked. Eating habits went out the window. With a 17-year-old in the house, my pantry became home to all sort soy yummy and tempting things, like Halloween Oreos. You haven't lived until you've eaten bright orange Oreos.

I also got to be a mom of sorts. I was responsible for another human being, whose own parents were halfway around the world. I made her dinner, packed her lunch and snacks for the next day, asked about homework, did her laundry and picked up after her. We played board games, went shopping, went to the movies, watched Super Nanny, and took the dog to the park.

Charlotte headed back to Denmark on Friday and my parents arrived later that afternoon for the weekend. I made sauce, baked, cleaned, did laundry, tired Bernie out. They left this morning and today my life gets back to normal.

MyFitnessPal is officially my pal again. The treadmill -- in anticipation of another 5K in early November -- becomes my bestie. And planning my meals needs to become my way of life again. I've managed to maintain my streak under 200 but just barely. The last week was sort of a free-for-all. All junk food is out of the house. Soda has been relegated to the bottom of the pantry, out of sight.

October is going to be relatively simple. At least compared to September. And so that means that October can be about taking care of me.

So instead of Green Day, I can end the month singing to Earth, Wind and Fire.






Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Finding the girl I used to be

I ran a 5K on Sunday. My first in more than a year. Last year, I ran eight. It's September and I've got one under my belt. Rather than focus on the negative, I'm choosing to think about it in a better way.

I ran a 5K. I didn't run the whole thing, but I ran a whole lot more than I thought I would. And I finished faster than I thought I could.

For the last three months of 2013 and the first five months of 2014, I dated a really nice guy. A good man. However, he was not the right man for me, for a lot of reasons. He was lazy -- emotionally and physically. He didn't like to work out and he didn't like to eat healthy. And rather than do my own thing, I let him lead me down the path of carbs and lazy Sunday mornings and skipping the gym. At the time, it was fun. Towards the end of the relationship -- even before either of us saw that the end was near -- I was getting antsy. I wanted more, I needed more, from my partner.

I needed someone to push me, to understand what finishing a 5K felt like. To understand the difference between 1,200 calories period, and 1,200 calories in a healthy mix of carbs, proteins and fats, and calories in vs. calories out. And if he didn't understand, to listen to me when I tried to explain to him that all calories are not created equally when he attempted to shed some of his winter weight, but he was focused on eating 1,200 calories, regardless of what they were made of.

Yes, I'm still in the stage where I'm only remembering the frustrating stuff. And I say frustrating, rather than bad, because there wasn't really anything bad. There was frustration. There was boredom. There was vanilla. There was purgatory. And in the end, when it was over, there was relief because I could never really pinpoint anything substantive reason to go with: we should break up.

And so when he ended things for his own misguided reasons --  he had a lot going on in his head -- I was appreciative that he pulled the trigger. And as the weeks went on and I was on my own, I began to find myself again. And even though I've struggled to find the 180s, I have embraced working out, in the way I used to, in a way I hadn't known for much of the time I had been with Lee.

I have a dog who makes me walk 10,000 steps every day, and I have a treadmill in my basement that prepared me for my first 5K of the year.

And slowing, I am finding the girl I used to be.


#100sweatydays Days 15 and 16

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Old weight, new weight


Old weight, new weight, the same weight. As I've mentioned, I've been struggling with the same five pounds over the past few months. It's like an unwanted house guest. they leave, but they're still standing on your front –stoop, so it's very easy for them to weasel their way back in the house.    

 The same goes for new weight, I've noticed. These five pounds come back on so quickly, because it's like they haven't really left. My body hasn't adjusted itself to the new weight that any deviation in clean eating is an easy excuse for the pounds to come back.

I  don't understand the science behind it all, but for whatever reason it makes sense. I've looked at the graph of my weight on MyFitnessPal. A steady decline from August 2012 to about May 2013, and then up and down, spike down through the end of the summer, and then nothing but up and up, down and then up and up and then down again. Literally looking like a readout on an EKG machine.

My low-point (in a positive way) was July 2012....under 180 pounds. My high point, just a few weeks ago...199 pounds. Getting back into the 200s scared the shit out of me. And while I'm not excited about my current weight (somewhere in the low to mid 190s), I also need to remember the big picture, which I sometimes forget.

I'm in marketing. My whole professional life is about the big picture, but for some reason, I forget about that with my own life. I have to remember that even 194 pounds -- and to have sustained under 200 for more than a year -- is a huge accomplishment considering that I once weighed 252 pounds. 

Yup, when I graduated from college, I was closer to 300 pounds than I was to 200. So am I happy with 194? Not exactly. But am I still healthier than I was for most of my teens, 20s and 30s? Absolutely.

I recently saw a high school friend, someone I hadn't seen since probably high school. The first thing she said to me was how beautiful I was and how proud she was of me. I immediately thought, but I've gained 15 pounds. But not to her. To her, I was healthier and skinnier than the girl she always knew.

I was in Ithaca last week, as I've mentioned, and my friend Molly said something similar. She told me my face looked thin and I immediately jumped on those 15 pounds of the last year. And she said, but even right now, you were never this thin when you lived in Ithaca.  Big picture. Yes, 194 now. But not 200. Not 220. Not even 252. And so I need to be thankful for the now, the progress I've made and be proud and thankful for those pounds I've kept off and stop focusing on those that I've gained.

 #100sweaty days These pictures represent days 11 through 14, and on day 14, I ran my first 5K of the year. More on that in my next post.

Friday, September 5, 2014

First day of school

In my Time Hop, I saw that three or four years ago I boycotted Facebook for the first week of school. I just couldn't handle all the first day of school pictures when I was so desperate to have a baby of my own.

Time has healed most wounds, although there are moments that sneak up on me. They come out of nowhere and surprise the shit out of me when they happen. It could be someone telling me that she's expecting, it could be someone asking me if I have kids.

Earlier this week when I was showing a picture of my great-nephews to a friend, someone else in the room asked if they were my kids. It annoyed me -- more because this person annoys me, in general, but also because of the presumption. If I've learned anything from this childless existence, it's that you don't ask people if they have kids or presume the pictures on their phone or on their desk are their kids. "Oh, they're cute. Who are they?" That's the appropriate response.

And maybe I'm not being fair. Her question wasn't insensitive, it's just that maybe I'm overly sensitive.

There's no maybe about it. I know what date is coming up next week and in the span of a few hours yesterday, I saw a friend and former co-worker post pictures of her son's first day of kindergarten pictures and then my niece posted pictures of my great-niece's first day of kindergarten. Duncan was born in October, Lauren was born in July. And my baby should have been born in September.

Regardless of whether I carried a boy or a girl for those eight weeks, I have two constant reminders of how big my child would be, how he or she would be developing. And most times when I see pictures of Duncan or Lauren, I don't make that connection.

Yesterday, it bitch-slapped me. If I hadn't miscarried, that baby would be starting kindergarten this week. I texted Jill, who knew immediately what was going on and what to say.

"You will have more of those moments. You are such a caring and thoughtful person and at times like these, it works against you!"

And so, maybe I should have taken my own advice from a few years ago and boycotted Facebook this week. I'm thinking Halloween will be a good time to take a social media break.


Thursday, September 4, 2014

Moving into the second week

Day four was good...I went out with a friend, stuck to diet coke and an appetizer and got a workout in before going out. I was on a high note going into the weekend.

I started strong on Friday, as I drove to ithaca for the next 24 hours. I got a strenuous walk in...strenuous because it involved pushing a double stroller with a two year old and an infant car carrier. Up hill. I could feel it in my thighs and the next day, could feel it in my arms. The sweat was pouring off of me and by the time the walk was over, it was just after noon and I had 7000 steps in. My afternoon was just as active as I played on the playground with my best friend's daughter.

Saturday the wheels started to come off the bus. Got a work out in when I got home but attending a housewarming party at my neighbors...cookies, hot dog, more cookies, a brownie nite, another cookie, some fruit, some veggies and probably another cookie.

I felt like shit when I woke up on Sunday. Like a hangover. And it certainly was a carb hangover. However the feeling didn't stick with me long...and leftovers got shared and more cookies ended up in my house and in my tummy. Thankfully, when it slip like this with food, I'm still sweating. The workouts are never the problem...it's the food.

By Monday, the wheels were off and I just told myself to enjoy the rest of the Labor Day weekend. Lunch out with a friend and then frozen yogurt for dinner. My weight was not good on Tuesday, but it stepped back on the scale, made my lunch, planned my meals, all the things I know how to do.

Tuesday and Wednesday were all about being back on track, clean eating, good sweating, 10,000+ steps and down a little on the scale this morning. 

I need to figure out how to not slide so badly, to enjoy a taste, a small cheat and not go completely off plan. I can do this. I have done this. But really all I'm doing right now is losing and gaining and losing and gaining the same five pounds. I need to get over that hump.

#100sweatydays #daysfourthru10