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

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.

It was a dark and stormy night. Ok. It wasn’t actually dark or stormy. Or night. But Crazy Inner Fat Girl was lurking about as if it was a dark and stormy night. She creeps on up to the hidden cash of chocolate like a ninja, her prey in sight. Just one wee little chocolate. No one will know. Peeking around the corner, Fat Girl slips a tiny chocolate in her mouth and pockets another. Ok, three more. The lights are out, no one is watching. SUCCESS! The calories won’t count!

Thus goes the secret snacking that never gets recorded and why my weight has been stuck in the 190s.

You see, I am a big fat fibber when it comes to snacking. A piece of cheese while I’m waiting for dinner to cook never gets recorded. The five crackers that go with the piece of cheese is ignored. And the existence of the little pat of butter on the aforementioned crackers and cheese is blinked away.

I might record the frozen yogurt I ate, but not the dark chocolate chips that go on top. I will write down the slice of bread I ate with my soup, but not the slice of bread with butter I ate while the soup was heating up. I’ll say I had lamb chops for dinner but there is no evidence of the teaspoon of mint jelly I had. OK 2 teaspoons. And I think the world might stop revolving if I actually made note of the coffee and creamer I have on a daily basis.

So why do I fib? It’s not like I don’t have the calorie budget to record 60 calorie piece of chocolate. It could be simple laziness. If I have that piece of chocolate, then I have to go to my computer, log in, search for the correct food item, click some buttons blah blah blah. Almost doesn’t seem worth the effort to eat the damn piece of chocolate.

So I’m starting a new week of total honesty with what I’m eating. Everything will get recorded. Everything, including the coffee and creamer. I’m working my butt off in the gym, and the few extra minutes it will take to log in my food for the day really shouldn’t be such a production. It will be an interesting experiment and should be quite eye opening.

So I busted my butt yesterday (literally. Note to self, get a more comfy bike seat before Fat Girl stages a revolt). I did my morning run (2.5 miles). And then I biked to and from work. I even did laundry. BodyBugg told me I burned almost 3500 calories for the day. And yet, I step on the scale this morning and it tells me I’m up 2pounds. 2 whole spiffy squishy pounds. I’m not all crazed about it or anything but after a really physical day AND staying well within my target calorie zone, it would be nice if the scale cooperated. Tomorrow is my Weight Watcher’s weigh in day. Blah, I haven’t been in a two weeks so I hope it’s not too bad.

I have to say, I’m a little fond of seeing the 3000 number in my calorie burn on my BodyBugg. Burning that many calories is a lot of work. I did it yesterday because I biked to work. I’m biking today too, I’m excited to see what happens.

Just before I headed out this morning for my run, I saw a flurry of tweet from people going out on their long runs – 16 miles seemed to be popular today. I got to my 3 mile mark and Holy Shin Splints Batman! My inner Fit Girl busted out some serious pom pom action!

We can CRUSH 4 miles! It’s just down and around the block and back. Go for it! DOOOOO IT!!!!!

So today I ran 4.37 miles in 52:49 at a pace of 12’05″ buring 623 calories.

A note from Fat Girl

Dear Amy, I know you think it’s cute biking to work. Yeah yeah, you’ve told me before about commuting to work on a bike every day for three years. Oooo look at you, all fit and green and what not. Blah Blah yadda. But I’m not sitting on that seat anymore. My lady parts are still sore. Get a new seat or I quit. Love, Fat Girl xo

So yesterday I decided to do a little experiment. I had already run my 3Mile Loop. I looked at my BodyBugg and saw that I had like oh, 4,000 steps to get to 10,000. I had about a half hour before I had to get ready to leave….. so why not go out and run a mile and see how long it takes me?

Well I did! And it took me 12mins and 25secs. Obviously, I did not run the whole thing. I wanted to, just I’m just not there yet and that’s ok. But what this did teach me, is that I have no excuse not to get some sort of exercise in. In that 12 mins I burned 143 calories. That’s more than I would have burned sitting on my but.

Now I have two milestones to work with. Improving on a 50min 3mile route, and improving a 12minute mile!