fat to fit — an update

I’ve been doing the C25k pro­gram for many weeks now. I’ve hit a few bumps in the road but I refuse to give up. I read a post while ago about how there is no wagon and it really stuck with me. Regard­less of how many false starts I have I am deter­mined to get healthier.

Lately I’ve been really spo­radic about mak­ing it to the gym. My train­ing log over at the dai­lymile proves this. (Are you on there? We should totally be friends!) I’ve fig­ured out that if I pack my gym bag before going to bed I don’t have an excuse to “for­get” it. Today I had my bag here at work and I almost didn’t go. I’m tired. I’m crampy. I don’t want to. But you know what? I went any­way. I’ve decided that if I get to the gym and after run­ning an inter­val if I really don’t want to be there I can leave and not feel bad about it. I fig­ure that if I still don’t want to be there after walk­ing over there, get­ting changed and run­ning then I will prob­a­bly stay and get the work­out done.

Today I almost left. I did three run­ning inter­vals and wanted get off the tread­mill! I decided that I’d walk the next inter­val and see how I felt when I heard the prompt to run. I ran, albeit slowly but I fin­ished the inter­val feel­ing strong. When the next prompt chimed I decided to pick up the pace. I nor­mally run about 7.5km/h but I decided to try 9.6km/h. This felt huge! I’ve never run that fast before. I know that there are peo­ple run­ning much faster than that but for me this almost felt like a sprint. I felt the tread­mill pass my usual run­ning pace. I only had to do this for 60 sec­onds. At some point I hit a spot where my brain started to complain.

This is hard! I can’t do this! I want to stop. I can’t stop now! I can fin­ish this! Holy shit! I am doing this!”

I fin­ished the run huff­ing and puff­ing but it didn’t kill me! The chime for the last run­ning inter­val rang and I ran at the same faster pace again! Again I reached the same point where my mind started to com­plain but I shoved the voice down, hitched up my falling down pants and car­ried on. I fin­ished the last run want­ing to laugh/cry! I felt ridicu­lously proud. It’s not like I did any­thing really fan­tas­tic. I just decided not to stop.  The rush of emo­tions and endor­phins was overwhelming.

It’s over an hour later and I’m still feel­ing the buzz. Before I ran today I was judg­ing myself for not stick­ing to the pro­gram but I real­ize that it’s ok to tai­lor it to meet my needs as long as I’m mov­ing for­ward. Slow and steady with bursts of speed. I’m lis­ten­ing to my body and it’s hum­ming with happiness.

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I get knocked down but I get up again

It is so pre­dictable. Life throws me a speed bump and I stop tak­ing care of myself the way I should. I stop going to the gym because I was home with the kids. I sleep funny and wake up barely able to get out of bed my back hurts so much. I stop eat­ing, grasp­ing for some­thing, any­thing that I feel I can control.

Last night’s sleep dis­rup­tion left me feel­ing like a zom­bie and not the good kind of zom­bie. I’m irri­ta­ble, short tem­pered and my potty mouth is outrageous!

Con­duc­tor please stop the ride I want off. The urge to flee is becom­ing sta­tus quo. This has to stop. I can’t run away. I know that no mat­ter where I go my prob­lems will find me. I know that if I don’t take care of myself, then I can­not take care of any­one else. Last night I read my friend Mo’s lat­est entry and it left me shaken. I do not want to let myself dete­ri­o­rate to the point that I am left so bro­ken that my chil­dren have to care for me. (Mo, I say this in the least judgy way that I can, no offense to your mom)

This is me declar­ing again that I am going to take care of myself. I will pick myself up and keep mov­ing. This pity party needs to be can­celed for­ever. I’m get­ting my ass back to the gym. I’m going to find a yoga prac­tice that I love. I am worth at least these first steps.

Posted in I don't wanna be a grown up, fat to fit, in pursuit of happiness, parenthood | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

a change in bedtime routine

We did it! We’ve finally made it to the stage where we can read sto­ries, kiss the kids good­night and walk out of the room with them awake. My daugh­ter will occa­sion­ally com­plain loudly (read whim­per, whine, or cry) but if I tell them that I need to go potty, do laun­dry, or help Daddy they usu­ally snug­gle down and I don’t hear a peep from them. On night when my hus­band puts them to bed it’s even eas­ier. Some­thing about me being out of the house or “sleep­ing” makes it even eas­ier for him to get them to bed.

I was really hes­i­tant to write about this for fear that the sleep gods would scoff at my cock­i­ness in writ­ing this and throw us in to a mas­sive sleep regres­sion. But the thing I’ve learned is that there will always be sleep regres­sions. So please sleep gods, I’m not scoff­ing! Please con­sider this as a tip of my hat and let us carry on with this fab­u­lous new routine.

Edited to add that tonight there was a false start in putting the kids to bed. I read sto­ries and said I had to do some laun­dry and my daugh­ter com­plained bit­terly that I wasn’t there hold­ing her hand. The hus­band went in to try to set­tle her but no dice. I went back in and sat with her for a few min­utes and then said I had to go and it’s been silent ever since. Thank you sleep gods!

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