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

FatGirl and FabGirl have tea before a night on the town.

FabGirl: So, we’re going out tonight, black jeans or a skirt and tights?

FatGril: No no, I’m staying in. I have a lot to do. {emergency cheesecake stands by}

FabGirl: Don’t be silly, of course we’re going out. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’re going to celebrate love… {wistful sighs and naughty eye sparkles}

FatGirl: No really. I have to update the virus protection on my computer and I have 134 videos in my Hulu queue, really I have too much to do {nervously eyes cheesecake, fingers twitch towards the fork}

FabGirl: We haven’t been out forever. Our friends miss us, and you never know, Dreamy McDreamy might just waltz into our lives tonight.

FatGirl: Yeah, whatever, that’s great but these pins will not just pin themselves on to Pintrest, you know. I’ve got stuff to do,  going out is too much work.

FabGirl: Stop being silly, we’re going to see our friends, have a fruity cocktail, dance a little…

FatGirl: DANCE?? DANCE?? You’re a freakin’ lunatic. Fat Girls don’t dance. Everyone will point and laugh. “Oh look at that fat girl. Get out of the way, she might squish you and can you believe she wore that? Fat AND trampy”. Look, I don’t want to have a boyfriend, I’m perfectly fine on my own. If I had a boyfriend, I’d have to lose like 50lbs before he’d love me anyway. He’d constantly be commenting on what I was eating when we went out to dinner and at some point, we’d have to NAKED together and who in their right freakin’ minds wants to be naked with me. No one wants to date a fat girl. Fat girls don’t date. When I lose the 50lbs then I’ll be happy and sexy and someone will want to date me. We’re just going to stay home and watch Once Upon a Time and it will be fine {forgets the fork, dives face first into the cheesecake}

To say that relationships have been an issue for me is kind of an understatement. I made some bad choices. No, that’s not really true. I made the only choice I could make at that exact point in my life with all the information that I had. I fell in love with a guy who, somewhere in him, was a nice person, but was wrapped up in his own pain that he couldn’t deal with his own emotions. No, that’s not really true either. I fell in love with the idea of the person I wanted him to be, thinking that I would then be the person I wanted to be.

And then that ended. Badly. And I gained 50lbs.

For a long time this is how I thought dating worked – be skinny, then you’ll be happy, then you’ll have a fun, sexy loving relationship.

But what if I could be happy RIGHT NOW. Right this second. Wouldn’t the result then be skinny and in love? I mean, after all who wants to be in love with a grumpy person who is also fat?

I had this revelation the other day. I keep throwing up reasons why I can’t date:

• I’m not at my goal weight.
• I don’t have the right clothes.
• I don’t have time.
• I just started a business, that’s more important right now.
• I really don’t feel great about how I look and don’t want to get naked with someone.

Then I was asked a very simple question: What are you concerns about being in a relationship? The answer is two fold. 1) Obviously I’m scared of getting hurt. 2) I’m scared that I could actually get exactly what I want and then I have to deal with that.

Whoa.

What if Mr. McDreamy were to enter my life today? What if I had to actually walk the talk and be a responsible adult and make room in my life for someone? What if there was another person on this earth who accepted me for what I was and what I wasn’t? What if there was someone who loved me for me? Crap. I’d then have to love me for me.

I started looking at the reality of my dating life. I get several offers a week from online dating sites from men who want to meet me. I don’t have a fake picture up there, and I think I actually have my true weight listed on one of them (none of that “I’m curvy” stuff). There are actually quite a few people taking the effort to email me with interest. And I’m shunning all that with a story about “I don’t have time” which is actually hiding “I feel fat” which is actually hiding “I don’t know that I can love myself enough”

Whoa.

And this all has comes about because that’s exactly what may be happening. A guy, we’ll call him The Frenchman, contacted me via a dating site. I made him jump through hoops to schedule a time for drinks. I was like a freakin’ Nay-saying Ninja throwing out all these impossible limitations. He deflected them all and made it work and we had a lovely night together. If I could create the perfect man for myself, the Frenchman comes pretty darn close. And it scares the pants off me.

I don’t know where this is going, but I’m ready to find out.

It's beginning to look a lot like Easter?

Sometimes, I run to 7-11 to get coffee. Meaning I run 2 miles or so and oops, I happen to find myself at 7-11. Oh gee, might as well get coffee.

On Christmas Eve, I took a quick sprint, you know, to be all healthy like. OK, fine. I wanted a cup of coffee. I ran for coffee. Sue me.  I breeze into 7-11 all bundled up like Ralphie from the Christmas Story (my abhorrence of the cold and how that effects my running is another post alas), and my crazy inner Fat Girl damn near stampeded the poor folks getting snacks and convenience items when she spied this display.

You see, Fat Girl’s most favorite treat on this earth is Reese’s Peanut Butter holiday candies. Those magical heart and Jack-o-latnern shapes have the absolutle perfect ratio of chocolate to peanut butter. And the illusion that they are only available for a limited time makes the doubly irresistible. You must eat as many peanut butter chocolate Christmas trees as physically possible before they’re gone and you have to wait an entire year before you’ll see them again! I mean really, if you don’t get ‘em now, they’ll be GONE!

Thankfully calmer voices in my head prevailed and I was able to break Fat Girls hold on my psyche and communicate that Easter candy on Christmas Eve is… Just. Plain. WRONG.

OK, Fine. I didn’t get my absolute favorite treat on this earth because I only had $2 on me and coffee is almost always more important than chocolate.

But it is still a major WTF moment – What the hell is Easter Candy doing in 7-11 on Christmas Eve? Did I fall in a worm hole and transport myself to spring already?

1001 Reasons not to run

And FatGirl says:

I have too much work to do. I can’t run.

I just ate lunch. I can’t run.

It’s cold out. I can’t run.

I can’t find my socks. I can’t run.

OMG! What are you nuts? Look at the weather! I SIMPLY WILL NOT RUN IN THAT!!

I’m sitting at my desk listing all the reasons I shouldn’t go for a run. The murky mess that is out side being hitting the top of the list. I have back to back conference calls and only 45 minutes in between. Surely, not enough time to run. My list got longer and longer and longer.

Then my Inner FitGirl started chiming in.

You work from home so that you can run.

It’s not going to rain so you can run.

It’s 50 degrees, not cold at all to run.

No one is going to notice if your socks don’t match on your run.

And I realized, FitGirl was right. I can run. And run I did. Through the fog and muck…

Apparently, in the North East this week, we’ve opened a portal to Hell itself and we’re channeling their weather. We’ve had heat indexes in the triple digits and the heat radiating up from the pavement cause Marilyn Monroe like moments with your skirt fluttering up. Yah for Spanx! That’s all I’m gonna say on the matter.

So it’s Sunday, my “long run” day, and Weight Watcher day. I took off for my 4 miles before it gets too toasty. I felt slow, like I’d entered a snail marathon. Kind of like running through glue. My body was slow, my pace felt slow, and even my music felt slow.

But run was done, and a quick change to get to Weight Watcher where I was greeted with a 3lb gain. I stayed in my points range, dipping into those extra 49 weekly points pretty hard. I had garlic knots and french fries and everything else was solid.

So, what’s so? I ate salty french fries. I had way too many carbs and not enough protein. I have my period and it’s the first time I ever really was aware of feeling bloated. There was one moment where I actually felt myself expand, my clothes got tighter in a matter of moments and I had to take my ring off. It was a really strange feeling.

So the reality is I gained weight. Could be the carbs, could be the heat, could be the salt, could be my ovaries.

Lesson learned – don’t eat salt during “that time of the month”.

My life recently expanded. New job, new commute, an evening class, meeting with a client one night a week, and you know, trying to have a social life and stuff. And then of course that’s exactly when I decide to take on training for a half marathon. Noooooo, I couldn’t do a half when I was working part time and had no life! Of course not. I have to be super complicated. Obviously, out of the millions of people who train for endurance sports, or any sport really, contend with real lives that are real busy and they successfully complete there events, so intellectually I know that it is not IMPOSSIBLE.

But I’ve really had it in my head that it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to wake up at 5am or earlier and work out. I’ve tired before with every good intention but somehow my crazy inner Fat Girl always won the Snooze Button Battle and I’d end up sleeping in.

Well now, I came to a moment of choice. There are things in my life I want. I want to work in NYC. I want to not be broke. I want to participate in this class. And I want to run a half marathon. Oh yeah, and its become crystal clear to me that I cannot function on less than 7 hours of sleep a night. I could sacrifice one of those things and have an easy life.

OR

I can make it possible to have it all. This is a blog about making the impossible possible after all. So the way to have it all is to get super intentional about life. And live it exactly how it needs to be lived. And that means getting up at 5am and running twice a week. That means making bold requests of friends, family and colleagues that we meet later and in a location where I can show up sweaty from the gym. That means standing up and saying “I need to be on this train so I can get 7 hours of sleep”.

And what makes all of this possible is that I have found and cultivated a deep commitment to myself and living an awesome life and I am no longer willing to settle for less. And if that means 5am runs, I’m going to make that possible.

Oh crap, my 15 mins of blog time is up. There’s oatmeal to eat! A train to catch! LIFE TO LIVE!

A longer post is coming, but I wanted to get this up before my day gets going. Here is my first “long” half marathon training run. 4 miles and I’m on my way! Tons of thoughts running thru my head like “Man, I have to get faster” and “Holy crap, I ran 4 miles” and “Boy, my Nike+ is way off.” More on all that later. Happy running people!

Oh yeah, and I lost 4 lbs at Weight Watchers today. A good start to a good day.

So I got a new job. Had to turn my life upside down in 12 hours to take it. A major consequence of that is having to reschedule fitness plans and figure out how to start training for a half marathon AND work full time AND have a three hour commute, and you know, get laundry done and stuff.

Fat Girl has long used the “I’m too tired after work” excuse to not work out. Yeah, granted when you’re done with work at 9pm, that argument is valid. But what happens when you get home at 6:30?

So I proved today that it is possible to get home from work and get out for a run just before 7pm. Was it a good run? Not really. My legs were tired and I had an odd cramp in my foot. But the point is I did it. I proved that it is possible. And it just might be possible to train for a half marathon AND have a full time job.

I’ve gained weight. 14 pounds. That’s what’s so. There’s no judgement in that. That’s just reality. What’s so is I was sick, then sick and tired. Then I got into this space of not caring, of wanting to binge on junk and I did that. And that is completely out of whack with who I am. I’m not really a mopey whiney little girl but I guess I had to visit the Land of Woe is Me for a little while.

So how did I get here? I’ve been playing this game that I deserve to cheat the system, that I don’t need to count the points of the handful of Fritos I just downed. That I’m dissatisfied with my job so its ok to eat my way through it. That I don’t need to work out. That I’ll start again tomorrow.

Well tomorrow is here.

I’ve become very clear in the past few days that what I’m committed to is having an awesome life. I’m committed to me being awesome. And it doesn’t work when I get all funky in the present. The present is so fleeting. See? The preset, just now, became the past and you got a little bit of tomorrow. Hm I think this is another post.

So today, right now, in this moment, I’m committed to living that tomorrow.

Step 1 - Fat Girl's Guide to Feeling Like Crap and Avoiding Exercise

Fat Girl’s Guide to Feeling Like Crap and Avoiding Exercise.

The mission here, Folks, is to avoid exercise at all costs. We’re going to get crafty, subversive, sneaky and down right slippery. Your inner Fit Girl is a tough nut to crack. She LIKES working out – GASPS. I know, it’s hard to believe. I don’t know how anyone could enjoy working out. I mean seriously. You get all sweaty and smelly. You sweat. Ew gross! You get pimples on your nose. AND you have to wear work out clothes AND everyone will be looking at how big you butt is. This is unacceptable. Fit Girl doesn’t care about these things. She actually thinks its COOL when she gets soaked in sweat. Yuckie. So we’re going to have to employ some sneaky techniques to avoid exercise at all costs. And if we do this right and we’re really lucky, we’ll have endless bags of Cheese Doodles.

Step 1 – Fill you’re life with awesome exciting stuff.

This is the most crucial part. You have to get so busy with amazing stuff that you feel like you have no time to brush your teeth let alone take an hour to run or go to the yuckie gym. Keep saying YES to projects. Say YES to helping friends move or working on their websites. Say YES to extra work shifts. YES to everything and anything. You want to get your life scheduled down to the minute. It’s super important that you schedule phone calls first thing in the morning, and last thing at night. It’s ideal if you work with people in different time zones for maximum schedule SNAFUs. Oh and make sure you schedule only 20 minutes between appointments. Any thing more than that and Fit Girl might get in in a run.

Step 2 – Do not go to the grocery store.

Now that your life is full of awesome stuff, of course you won’t have time for the supermarket. For your inner Fit Girl, the supermarket is an adventure what with all the label reading and comparing light bread and whole wheat bread and normal good-ole-fashioned white bread. Seriously? How can you have a PB&J and whole wheat?? It’s like eating cardboard. Once you’re scheduled so tight, the only option is to use your gym time to go to the supermarket. “Oh, wait, instead of standing in line at the supermarket, we can just snack on hummus and chips at the handy convenience store. We’ll have time for salad tomorrow”. This is your mission – CONVINENCE. Taking an hour to cook and prep veggies is NOT convenient. Sure, if you invested an hour at the grocery store you’d be set for the week, but please refer back to Step 1. You’d rather be doing awesome stuff than shopping for carrots.

Step 3 – Tomorrow, Tomorrow

Embrace Tomorrow. Tomorrow you’ll have time to run. Tomorrow you’ll have time for the supermarket. Tomorrow you’ll have time to cook. Tomorrow you’ll eat healthy. Really get into Tomorrow Mode. Today you can have Cheese Doodles because TOMORROW you’ll be good.

Now, if you successfully implement Steps 1 through 3 for about a week straight, you’ll be low on sleep, you’ll have none of that endorphin nonsense from exercise and you’ll be well on your way to running your immune system into the ground thereby catching a cold. Then it’s Golden Time! When you have a cold, ice cream for breakfast is totally appropriate! Now go out there, Folks and do your best to avoid exercise!!