Fitspiration

Since my fitness plans got thrown off track, I'm finding it hard to get motivated to get back into it.  Well, I have been good about working out - the real problem is trying to get back to eating healthy.  I keep finding reasons to allow myself to eat badly and why I can't eat healthy today.

Today that stops.  Today I'm going to get back on my health kick and start getting back to losing weight.  I know I can do it.  Sure it's hard, but the reward is so worth it!!

Life Happens

Sometimes the best laid plans get kinks thrown into them.  Just as I was starting to get into this weight loss kick and get into a routine, I got laid off from work.  It actually happened the night after my last post, which is why I never posted my before pictures and haven't posted in a while.  I am a stress eater, so you can imagine that it did wonders for my diet.  In addition to the stress, I was at home a lot more which made food a lot more accessible.  All in all, being laid off set me back in my plans BIG TIME.  And then throw Thanksgiving (and even more food) into the mix....

I was really scared that I wasn't going to be able to find a job without having to move, but I was really lucky and found a new job quickly (and locally) thanks to one of my ex-coworkers.  I can't thank him enough.  Unfortunately now I have the stress of starting a new job, but I think I'm finally ready to get back into action and start back to eating better.  The good thing is that I never stopped working out, so I can at least feel good about that.

This weekend I'm going to get Jason to help me do before pictures and get all my measurements to get a starting point.  And then from that point forward - it's nothing but healthy for me!!  And I think I need to work on how to cope with stress without resorting to food.  Any suggestions?

New Shoes

So I finally got new running shoes over the weekend and I'm going to try them out later tonight.  I'm so excited!  I actually got a a pair of Newton running shoes, which normally retail at $155, but I got last years model that was severly discounted and got them for only $50!!  It was nice to see "You saved $105" on my receipt.  Hopefully they feel good when I run tonight.

I also got my hair cut this weekend - and by cut I mean chopped.  I've had the same hairstyle with only slight changes for at least the last 10 years and it was time for a change.  I'm now 8" of hair lighter.  It feels weird and will take some time to get used to, but I think I like the new 'do. 

I was trying to post a picture, but for some reason it won't load, so I'll have to try again tomorrow. 

Tonight I am also going to take a full body "before" picture so that I have something to compare to in the future.  I'm also going to weigh myself and take measurements so that I have an accurate starting point.  Then I'm going to weigh myself every 2 weeks to check on my progress and periodically take measurements.  Plus I'm going to start posting my exercise to help keep me accountable.  Check in tomorrow to get my initial stats.

Ouch my feet

Why does getting in shape have to cost money?  I'm in desparate need of new running shoes, but I don't have the extra money for them right now.  My arch in my right foot has been bothering me because my shoes are so worn.  I guess I will just have to deal for now until I get paid next.  Just makes it that much harder to motivate myself to get out there when it hurts.

Excuses

We all do it.  We find an excuse for why we can’t do something.  We find a reason why we failed.  I went to lunch with Jason today and we were discussing my new get healthy kick.  As we were talking about it, without even realizing it, I was already giving him reasons why it was going to be hard to succeed.  After going on for a while, he stopped me and pointed out all my excuses.  I’m already making up excuses for me to fail.  He told me that the only thing standing in my way is me.  He couldn’t be more right. 

Will I always be a turtle?

I only had 30 minutes to workout out last night so I thought I'd get a quick run in.  Even though it was beautiful outside, I went to the gym because I knew if I went home I would get distracted and wouldn't run.  I approached the treadmill with trepidation knowing how much I hate running, but I was determined to do it.  I ran/walked 2 miles last night in a little over 27 minutes.  That's over 13 minute miles.  When did I become SOOOO slow?  I used to run 9 or 10 minute miles without much problem, but that was a long time ago.   I know I just started this blog last week, but I started running again about a month ago and I just don't feel like I'm making much progress.  Am I ever going to get faster again?  When will it get easier?  Am I always going to be a turtle or can I transform myself into a rabbit?

I could have run more if I had more time, but I don't know that I could have gone much faster.  My most immediate goal right now is to run a 5k without having to walk.  I'm trying to pay more attention to the distance than the time, but it bugs me anyway.  Ugh.

Spin Cycle

For those of you that don’t know me, I’m a spin junkie.  I heart spin class.  I’ve had love affairs with spin off and on for the past 10 years.  And back when I was good shape, my old gym used to offer 3 hour spin classes (with a different instructor each hour – talk about killer!) on special occasions.  I was always the first one to sign up for those classes and I loved it.  Sometimes I think I have a sick need for torture. 

My relationship with spin is a little off right now because the times for the classes at my gym haven’t been jiving with my schedule very well.  Plus, I’m a little bummed because my office moved and now I can’t make it to my favorite instructor’s class anymore.   I went to my first class in over 2 months this past Saturday and I expected to die.  It was my second favorite instructor and I know she kicks ass.  Somehow I made it through class still alive and I actually kept up.  It was still super hard, but I was able to struggle through.  I was so happy to be back that I’ve been trying to find a way to work more classes back in my schedule.  I’m contemplating taking the 5:45 am class tomorrow, which is big for me because I am so NOT a morning person.

Speaking of spin, I think it’s really hard to find an instructor that I really like.  In my opinion, there is nothing worse than a bad instructor.  If you want me to come back to your class, here are my must haves:

1.       Music is probably the most important thing to me in class.  If they are playing techno, I just want to kill myself by the end of class.  Techno is ok in a club, but in a spin class, it just makes the class seem to go on forever.   I like all kinds of music and I think a good instructor has a good blend of music from different genres (because you can’t make everyone happy, but you can try) that makes you want to kick ass.

2.       You have to be just the right amount of peppy.  Too peppy and my head starts to hurt.  Not peppy enough and the class is just boring and lame.

3.       You need to be able to spin better than I can.  If you can’t, then I don’t know why I’m in your class.  I need motivation to be as good as you are.

4.       I don’t want to sit in the saddle the entire class.  If I wanted to do that, I would be outside on my bike where I don’t have the smell the BO of the sweaty guy next to me.

5.       I like it when instructors give you a 1-10 (or similar) scale for how hard your resistance should be.  I hate it when they just give you general ideas like make it harder or easier.  How much harder?  How much easier?  (that might be the engineer coming out in me) But my one caveat is that this scale somehow needs to be the same for all instructors.  For instance, most instructors I’ve ever had have said at a 10 you shouldn’t be able to move the pedals.  However, there’s one instructor that will actually occasionally have us ride at a 10.  How can I ride at a 10 when you aren’t supposed to be able to move the pedals at a 10?  I guess her scale must be different.

6.        You need to be able to keep the class in line.  There’s nothing more annoying to me then when people in class are carrying on a long, loud conversation and distracting me.  The best instructors will tell people to shut up or leave.

7.       Make eye contact with the class.  I don’t know why this is so important to me, but I took a class once where the instructor was looking at the stereo, the clock, or the floor the entire time and it drove me crazy!

8.       Make sure people have their bike set up correctly and they are using proper form.  Most instructors are pretty good about this, but I’ve seen people in class before where there seat was obviously way too low or they weren’t in the correct position and the instructor never said anything.  That’s how people end up with injuries.

Don’t you agree?  Are there any other things that you think make a good spin instructor?

Me + Gym = Love

I made it to the gym last night to meet my friend for some strength training.  Having a friend to workout with helps get me to the gym a lot more often, but the problem is also finding the time to do some cardio.  On top of that, sometimes when we workout it is no joke and I’m way too tired after to get on the treadmill.  But last night I was there about 20 minutes early, so I tried to get in a quick run slow jog before she got there.  I tried to go a little faster since I wasn’t going to run very long, but my cardio is just not there yet.  About halfway into it, I thought I was going to die and I had to walk for a bit.  Why is starting back running so freaking hard?  And when will it get easier?

The gym is always entertaining to me as I love to people watch.  There the old man in the gym that’s there every day with a bad toupee.  I never actually see him working out either – just walking around talking to people.  There’s the anorexic girl that’s always in pants and long sleeves and is kinda bitchy.  Just eat something already and maybe you will actually learn to smile!!  Then there’s the guy that is working out in regular clothes.  I will never get how anyone can workout in a pair of jeans.  Just seems super hot and uncomfortable to me.

I love the gym for other reasons too.  Throughout the years, I have made tons of friends by just seeing the same people every day and starting up a conversation.  And not just friends you casually talk to in the gym, but friends I hang out with outside the gym too.  I also have killer spin workouts from superfit instructors that I think must be on crack.  But I’ve gotten so used to it that if I get a lame instructor and I don’t feel like I’m about to die at the end of class, I feel like I was somehow cheated. 

You are probably wondering how for someone that loves the gym so much let herself go so badly.  Well, the problem is that I am inherently lazy.  Getting myself to the gym is the big problem when the couch and TV are calling my name.  As much as I enjoy the feeling I get after a good workout, I always dread the pain that I’m going to go through.  Once I get myself into a good routine, I’m usually ok.  But alas, Iife inevitably gets in the way and once my routine is derailed I always struggle to get back on track.  But this time I’m going to find a way to stay on track.

Does anyone else love going to the gym as much as I do?

Who Needs Knees Anyway?

I have had a lot of pain in my knees for about the last 10 years. When they first starting hurting, I had them checked out and was told they were fine. I got used to the pain and just played through it all the while thinking that it was normal. It got a little worse over the years, but I mostly attributed that to the extra weight and still thought there was nothing really wrong. This past January I was playing softball (haha to all you cold climate people – in Florida we can play softball outside in January!) and was just running the bases and my left knee really started to hurt bad. I kept playing though and by the end of the game I could hardly walk. A normal person would have gone to the doctor then, but I was still convinced I was just being a baby, so I waited 2 weeks. After 2 weeks when I was still having trouble walking, I decided there must actually be something wrong. At my first visit, the doctor took one look at my x-ray and said that I was going to need surgery. Of course, I needed to get an MRI to confirm, but she had me schedule my next appointment directly with the surgeon because she was so convinced I was going to need surgery.

After my MRI at my first appointment with the surgeon, it was confirmed that I needed surgery. I had a torn meniscus and I had really bad osteoarthritis in my knee. He needed to go in and fix the meniscus and clean up all the debris from the arthritis. I wasn’t thrilled about having surgery, but it was just arthroscopic, so I would only really be on crutches for a couple of days.

As I was waking up from surgery, my doctor came over to talk to me and told me that he’s done that same surgery over 5000 times and my knee was in the top 5 worst knees he had ever seen. He couldn’t believe it was that bad in someone as young as me (at that time I was 35). I have the knee of a 65 year old. Good times!!

On my follow up visit, he told me that the arthritis in my knee is progressed enough that I’m going to need a knee replacement, but I’m too young for that, so I’ll just have to deal with the pain. Knee replacements don’t last forever, so doctors don’t like to do them until you are at least 50. And the worst part of it all was that he told me that I shouldn’t ever run again.

At first, since I love hate running so much, I didn’t really think of it as such a big deal. But then I realized I would never be able to play softball again. On top of that, I would never be able to do a triathlon again. I suppose I could do an aquabike, but for some reason that feels like cheating to me. I was super bummed.

The real bummer was that my knee still hurt a lot after the surgery. I figured it would at least go back to the way it felt before I tore my meniscus, but that wasn’t the case. The doctor I suggested I get shots of Euflexa, which would help lubricate my knee joint, but those didn’t help either.

I had already signed up to do a triathlon in May before my knee got so bad, so I figured I would go ahead with it even if it meant walking. I signed up to train with a group and the coach used to work with orthopaedic surgeons a lot and couldn’t believe that the doctor told me I couldn’t run. She pushed me to get a second opinion and I’m glad she did. I went to a doctor that has a background of sports medicine and working with athletes. He pretty much confirmed that my knee was horrible and I would need a replacement when I was old enough, but he said I didn’t have to stop running if I could deal with the pain. He also gave me an anti-inflammatory (Meloxicam), which has helped me a ton. I go back to him next week to get a shot of something similar to Euflexa (can’t remember the name), but he said that he thinks it works better. Even if it doesn’t, I feel so much better with the Meloxicam that I can walk without limping and even run a little.

Check out the cool knee brace!

I did that triathlon back in May, but my knee wasn’t good enough at that point to run. I did another triathlon in September and I was able to run/walk in intervals. I’m really working hard right now to try to get up to a full 5k running the entire time, but you wouldn’t believe how hard it is when you are totally out of running shape. (Or maybe you would if you have been there before)

The most important thing I could do to help my knee feel better is lose weight, so that’s a big portion of my motivation to get healthy. And as something to look forward to, the doctor told me that there is no way that my one knee has such bad arthritis and my other knee doesn’t too… That knee is a little stiff too, but doesn’t bother me much, so I’m hoping it stays that way!!!

Winning!

I am super overly competitive.  I bet you couldn't guess that in the fact that my whole blogging site is about me vs. my bulge, could you?  I grew up in a house full of brainy atheletes (yes they do exist) and everything was always a competition.  I won a race once in junior high and the first thing I did was run over to my dad and tell him that I belonged in the family.  I also ended up in the same Spanish class with my brother once and we always tried to beat the other one on anything that was graded. 

I never realized how bad I had gotten until a friend of mine told me about 10 years ago.  She was my gym buddy at the time and we ran next to each other on the treadmill a lot.  She told me that it would crack her up because any time she increased her speed, I would increase mine so I was going a little faster than she was.  I didn’t even do that consciously – I’m that competitive deep down that I did it without even thinking.  And if I couldn't run faster than you, I would run longer.  If I couldn't do that, I would lift heavier.  You see the trend, don't you?  There was always something I was better at.

Of course, winning isn’t as easy as it used to be.  And the downfall to every super competitive person is that once your realize you can't win, you stop trying. It took me a long time to get over that and realize that I don’t have to win everything and that there’s a lot of accomplishment in just finishing.  The biggest area I had to humble myself athletically is when it comes to running.  I used to be a sprinter in high school and although I wouldn’t have said I was the fastest, I was at least competitive.  By that I mean that I would occasionally win.  As I have gotten older and gained weight (and now have bad knees to boot), I have gotten SLOW.  And I mean SLOW as in I bet my 60 year old mother can run faster than me (of course she did teach aerobics for 20+ years, so she has always been in great shape).  I used to run a 5K in around 28 minutes and now I’m lucky if I finish it in 40.  Some of that is from still being out of shape, but I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get back to being as fast as I used to be. 

I did 2 triathlons in the past year and to get ready for them, I trained with a fabulous group of women.  I had actually done 2 triathlons before that, but that was over 3 years ago and I was training with a different group.  I was still slower back then, but the group I trained with then wasn’t all that competitive or fast, so I could pretty much hang with all of them.  Not so with my new group.  I can hang with the faster people on the swim, I’m mediocre on the bike, and of course, I’m always in the back on the run.  It was EXTREMELY frustrating to me to accept this, but at some point I had to.  I should mention that I had knee surgery back in February, so I actually couldn’t run for the first triathlon and had just started running again when I did the second triathlon.  If anybody has ever done a triathlon, then they can probably sympathize with how awful it feels to pass people on the swim and the bike only to have them pass you again on the run.  And unfortunately, in my opinion, the key to getting a good time in a sprint triathlon is to be a good runner.  But as much as I like to win, I am also not a quitter and I am determined to become a better runner.  I may never win anything, but just being able to get down to a 10 minute mile would be a huge accomplishment for me – if I can get faster than that, even better. 

I haven’t totally given up on competition, but I’ve changed the way I think about it now.  Instead of trying to be the best in my group, which I know will probably never happen, I try to get faster than the person that is just barely beating me.  Though I’ve also learned that even if I never beat them, I’m still winning by getting out there.  After all, the biggest competition I have is against myself.  I just need to beat my own demons that are preventing me from losing weight and being fit.

Just as any new health kick goes, I’m out to a rocky start.  I was bad again today and dipped into more leftover Halloween candy.  I didn’t go totally overboard though, so I don’t feel all that horrible.  One packet of snack size M&M’s isn’t going to kill me, but it doesn’t help either. 

I Hate Diets...

As I start this journey to lose weight, I’m not trying to get skinny; I just want to be healthy and fit.  The fit part isn’t as much of a struggle for me as the healthy part.  My problem has always been food.  Growing up I was a really picky eater.  I’m am the baby of my family and I was a little very spoiled, so when I refused to eat something my mom just made me something else.  My mom’s heart was in the right place, but I hardly ever ate anything healthy.  Not a big deal when you are little, but that stuck with me as I got older.  I have gotten better over the years as I’ve forced myself to try things I never would have before, but there are still some things that I don’t like no matter how hard I try.  For instance, I hate salad.  I’ll eat salad, but it always feels like punishment.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to diet when you don’t eat salad???

I wasn't very good today... didn't have time to eat breakfast and had to go straight to a meeting.  When I got back to the office, someone had put out leftover candy and I was so hungry I couldn't help myself. :(

Wishful Shrinking

Since this is my first post, I figured it would be appropriate to explain a little bit about myself and why I started this blog. Things have been a little slow for me at work the past few weeks and there is only so much you can do to waste time on the internet. And then I discovered the wonderful world of blogging. Finding entertaining blogs helped make the day go by so much faster. After spending a little too much time reading them (it's a wonder I didn't get fired), I realized what a wonderful tool they were to not only motivate others but to motivate yourself.

Hence here I am starting my first ever blog... My goals? I'm starting this blog to help me battle my demons when it comes to losing weight and getting fit. I was once a collegiate athlete (if you count softball - I have a friend that swears it's not a real sport) and was uber fit. I was never what you would call skinny, but I was nowhere near being called fat. After graduating college, I went from working out hard core all the time to working out like a normal person. I’ve never been a healthy eater and I wasn’t used to having to watch what I ate since I was always working out. I slowly starting gaining weight year after year, but didn’t really notice how bad it was.

About a year ago we had a weight loss competition at work and I, of course, signed up being the super competitive freak that I am (more on that another time). On the first weigh in I found out that I was 250 lbs. 250!! Yikes! It's amazing how easy it was to not pay attention to the weight I was gaining. I could hardly believe I had allowed myself to get that big. It was a 2 month competition and I ended up losing 25 pounds. I didn't do any special diets or workouts; I just really paid attention to what I was eating and how much I was eating. And I cut out alcohol – anyone who knows me knows how hard that was for me. After the competition was over, I had a hard time motivating myself to stick with it. I didn’t gain all of that weight back, but I haven’t kept it all off either.

So here I sit trying to figure out how to motivate myself to get back on that weight loss train. I’m not trying to just lose weight; I’m trying to change my lifestyle. I figure the best way to start is by taking it one day at a time. I’m going to use this blog to chronicle my daily battles as I start on this journey to making myself a better person.

Today’s challenge? It’s Halloween… enough said. I had already decided that I wasn’t going to get any candy to hand out because I hardly ever get any trick-or-treaters and I end up eating most of the candy myself. The hard part for me today is avoiding all the candy and junk at work. On top of people having candy at their desks, we are having a cupcake competition at work and they look so yummy!! But I turned them down so I'm starting out on the right foot.