Impossible is a typoRunning my pants off and loving myself along the way

Two days ago I decided that I didn’t want a typical Fat Girl Thanksgiving. Usually, I’m in my jammies, cursing at family because they’re getting in my way in the kitchen. Then of course I’m stuffing myself full of food I don’t even particularly enjoy (stuffing is blah but I seem to eat a metric ton of it anyway cause well, its Turkey Day and you can’t have turkey without stuffing). Followed by three slices of pie or cake and chocolate.

This year would be different because I’m different. This year I ran the Massapequa 1st Annual Turkey Trot 5K. I had a few goals 1) don’t finish last 2) pass at least 1 person 3) run the whole thing 4) have fun.

Mission accomplished.

Massapequa Turkey Trot 2010 - Ready to run

Nice Hats

I tried to catch up to the girl in the pink shirt all race, got her with .5K to go!

Now, its time for turkey

Weight loss is such a funny thing. You’re always looking down the road at the next goal and what you need to do to get there. You forget what you’ve already done. The Crazy Fat Girl in my head whines and moans that she’s tired of all this, that she just wants a damn cupcake, that there’s still sooooooo far to go.

I am 11 pounds away from having lost 100 pounds.

Fat Girl Rant:

11 freaking pounds? Do you know what it takes to lose 11lbs? Sure, Biggest Loser contestants can lose that in a week? So what’s wrong with me that I creep along in ounces instead of giant losses??? I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m tired of counting points and working out. Just make me thin! And oh yeah when I lose that 11 stupid pounds I’ll still have 25 freaking pounds to go! So big whoop!

I need to flip my thinking. Instead of “11 to go”, I need to get in the mind frame of  ”89 down”. Its the same number really, but somehow I’m finding it really hard to acknowledge how far I’ve come. All I can see is how far I have to go.

If I just get one thing out of this Finish Strong Training program is that you don’t have to go hard every day. “Active recovery” is a very important tool in the fitness toolbox. I’m going to take a really hard spin class tonight so I decided to just go for a stroll to get a cup of coffee. And I totally felt like a kid again, jumping through giant piles of leaves, hearing that simple, comforting crinkling sound of leaves crushing under your feet. I guess a simple walk can do wonders for you!

I lost my iPod again. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working out. My crazy inner Fat Girl will gladly tell you, probably for hours, about all the hard work that’s been going on. Without my iPod, I seem to lack the ability or the desire, to keep tabs on what I’m doing.

See, I run Nike+ on my iPod. So here’s now it works – There’s a fat quarter sized disk in my running shoe that communicates to my iPod. I can then up load the statistics from my run to Nike+ website that allows you to see your progress with just a click. Then I can link that to Daily Mile, which is like the facebook of running. Daily Mile and Nike+ will both link to twitter. Without my iPod, I’d have to manually enter all that information and yeah, ok, I’m kind of lazy.

All that data entry just seems daunting. I get that way about tracking what I eat too. I’m a Weight Watcher’s member and the program only works if you keep track of what you eat. I get into lazy moments, just like with tracking my exercise, where I count points in my head and don’t bother to write it down. And we all know who lives in my head. Do you really think Fat Girl is good at math when chocolate is on the line??

There’s kind of a bigger issue here. I’m totally capable of being accountable and writing all this stuff down, but I don’t. Why is that? Laziness? It’s an interesting question

I got into a brief twitter conversation with @FatGirlvsWorld about tracking mileage run for her OctoberGoingTheDistance challenge. I just couldn’t get myself motivated to track the miles I ran for a whole month. I just seem to lack the ability, especially without my easy-fix technology, to keep track of anything for a month. She asked me why? Why do I give up on myself “You have come too far to do that anymore.”

That really stuck with me. I have come really far. I’ve lost 89lbs over the past handful of years. I’m feeling stronger and more fit than I ever have in my life.

Why is tracking food and exercise such a huge issue?

I think what it comes down to is that if I have a written record of exactly what I’m doing and have done, there’s no one to blame for failure but myself.

It’s taken me 10 months to lose 15lbs.

I think the main reason for that is this accountability and tracking issue. If I don’t know exactly what’s going on, I really can’t blame myself right? Well, that changes today.

Oh yeah, by the way, I found my iPod.

I had my very on Julius Ceasar moment this week claiming victory over myself. I came to the gym, I saw myself for who I could be, and I conquered just a wee bit of the Crazy Fat Girl that lives in my head.

I’ve been taking Pilates on and off for a couple of months now. I adore it for stretching muscles much abused by my recent stint in spin class for the Finish Strong program. And in every Pilates class, I have dreaded the Roll ups where you lay all stretched out and peel yourself off the floor to touch your toes. It has always served as a tangible reminder that my core muscles suck and I’m way out of shape. I could never peel myself off the floor, my feet always come up, I have to fling my arms forward to get momentum going to pull myself up. It’s just always tough, but I always struggle through, knowing one day I’ll get there and it won’t be a terrible struggle.

A Vici moment came after a rough spin class (more on that in a sec, hang with me!). My hamstrings have been way tight for the past two weeks so I’ve been focusing on doing extra stretching after spin classes and running. I was stretched out on the floor, enjoying a whole body yawn and while laying there, I figured I’d struggle through a few roll ups just to get a wee bit of core work in. I gotta sit up anyway, might as well roll up!

I crunch in my abs and boom, feet never leaving the floor, I am sitting up. I did a roll up with very little effort!!!! So of course I had to to 10 more dripping in excitement that I could do this stupid little exercise that has completely vexed me for months. I claim victory over Pilates (at least for the time being!)

My victory roll ups came right after a spin class that almost brought me to tears.

It was a hard class, with a sprinting hill climb to finish off. No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” was vibrating off the mirrors of the studio.

Jamie, my favorite spin instructor pushed us with her perky voice.

Take these pink ribbons off my eyes

She kept shouting- “you’re almost there”

So many reasons for me to run and hide

“You’re almost at the top.”

I’m just a girl, take a good look at me

“Visualize that mountain in your head.”

What I’ve succumbed to is making me numb

“Look yourself down in the mirror and fight to the top.”

I’ve had it up to here!

And I saw that mountain climb in my head. I saw myself, the sleek, fit, happy and beautiful self standing at the top on that mountain just waiting for me to get there, all dolled up in a killer dress and heels that would make my Nana swoon. Tina Turner legs and Michelle Obama guns. And in that moment, I knew that I can get there. I knew that it was all possible.

And in that moment, the Crazy Fat Girl that lives in my head knew it too. Crazy Fat Girl knew that all the drama she throws out hides a fear that it isn’t possible, that she’ll get almost to the top and won’t be able to make it. The fear of the “I told you so”, the fear of failure. And the fear of success. In that moment of fearlessness, Fat Girl, Fit Girl and me because one, and we cranked the resistance knob just a bit more and sprinted to the top of the hill and high-fived ourselves for the ride back down.

Vici baby vici.

When I first started running like, oh I dunno, like 2 years and 60lbs ago, I researched and used the Couch to 5K program. This is a program that is designed to get you from “a couch potato” to running 3 miles in 12 weeks or so. Many, many people have gotten into running with this program, and it is great. Really. I don’t know that I’d be where I am today fitness-wise without it. Over the summer I wanted to get back to running seriously and I choose NOT to do the couch to 5K program again.

Here’s why – My body already knows it can run 5K. I’ve done it. I have the proof. I know its possible.

When I started running, not only was 3 miles impossible, heck a block was impossible. I couldn’t run for 30 seconds. But with lots of sweat, effort, tears and some blood, I got to a place where I could struggle thru 3 miles. SUCCESS!

When I came back to running, I found the program really stifling. I found the pace held me back rather than provided me support. So one glorious day I headed out for Week 2 Day 1. I warmed up for 5 minutes and slid into the first run interval. I felt so good, I just kept on running. And running. And boom, 3 miles were done and I didn’t walk once. Yeah, it was a wee bit of a struggle but I knew I could do it because well, I had done it already.

There are times that I think you really do need a structured program to give you the support to get from point a to b. but other times, you really should listen to your body and let your body guide you to where you need to go. My body was ready to run again. It certainly wasn’t a cakewalk (cakerun?) but for the first time, I trusted what my body was capable of. Try it, you might surprise yourself!

It is not fair that some people struggle with their weight loss but that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong.

My friend Tina and I have had several conversations about how it’s not fair that we have to work so hard at weight loss. She commented on a recent post:

You know what gets me? I get angry as to why I must count the damn chocolate nibble and most people don’t have to. They can eat a few crackers while waiting for soup to heat up and it doesn’t change a thing. Me? It leads to destruction! It’s good to read your posts and realize I am not the only one… but sometimes it sure feels like it.

And yeah, it’s not fair. We have mutual friends who sustain themselves for extended periods of time on pork products and have delightful figures and single digit dress sizes.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about the bacon. That’s the sole reason I did Atkins – to eat as much bacon as I wanted. Bacon does indeed make everything better. But I digress. Oh bacon, you always distract me. I could be the picture perfect Weight Watcher all week, and one little episode of chocaolate, or pork, or pasta insanity and I’m sure to gain weight that week no matter how hard I worked out and how good I was the rest of the week. Yeah, so it’s not fair that weight just doesn’t melt off me at the blink of an eye.

It’s crazy easy to get into the “It’s not fair” conversation. But what that conversation really is about is comparing yourself to a standard or a norm and belittling your experience. If I get into the conversation of “it’s not fair” that I can’t eat bacon topped cupcakes everyday, what I’m actually doing is comparing myself to some fictional ideal. I’m comparing my experience and weighing them against a set of norms I’ve made up. I don’t know what other people’s experience with weight loss are. I don’t, in fact, know that Bobby Sue can eat all the cupcakes she wants and not gain weight. She might indeed gain weight and she might be able to knock that weight off faster than I can.

The “It’s Not Fair” conversation automatically assumes that there is something wrong with you. “It’s not fair” means that your current condition is deficient in some manner And THAT is the problem. Your current condition isn’t right or wrong, it’s just what is right now. If today, I ate a bacon cheeseburger with blue cheese and fries with a milkshake, chances are pretty good that I’m not losing weight this week. That’s not right or wrong. That’s just how it goes. Bobby Sue might be able to eat that exact same meal and see no discernible change in her weight. And that’s great, that is Bobby Sue’s reality right now. My reality is different. Comparing my reality and Bobby Sue’s reality in a game of Fat Justice only serves to diminish my experience and Bobby Sue’s experience. So let’s step out of the Fairness conversation. There’s nothing wrong here. Your reality is your reality. Period. Every second of every day is a chance to change your reality.