Slightly Astray

Welllll, the week isn't exactly wrapping up like I'd hoped. I planned to exercise yesterday and today but neither happened. Yesterday turned out to be busier than I expected and by the time the workday was done it was time to get ready for a dinner out with friends. I was planning to wear a dress but just didn't have that dress feeling - probably because it's TTOTM and I'm all bloaty - so wore jeans and a blouse with a blazer. I love blazers, I never felt cute in them before losing weight but now they're a fall staple.

Dinner was interesting in that I had quite a few drinks and didn't feel under the influence. I think that means I've been drinking too much lately. I had 2 glasses of champagne, a glass of wine and most of a small glass of port and didn't feel even slightly buzzy. My dinner eating behavior was good. I was in wonderful company and I think that kept me distracted from the food. Even the yummy desserts we all shared didn't lead me to overeat. Alcohol + restaurant food usually = an overfull feeling but not this time.

Had I not had the alcohol at dinner I might have been tempted into a late night run. Or not. I woke up this morning with a scheme to get to the gym after work. Didn't happen. I was tired and dragging come late afternoon and didn't have the mindset to get myself there. Danger, Michelle...this is not the way. Tomorrow is Saturday, typically a rest day, but I'd like to get some exercise, and just might, depending on how the day plays out.

Sunday I have plans to go to brunch and wine tasting with my fabulous mommy friends. That's going to involve some calories for sure so if I get a run or something in tomorrow that would be good. And tonight I might've had the remainder of Miguel's birthday cake from Wednesday. That was after having leftovers from last night's meal for dinner tonight. Leftover Friday I guess. A nice wallop of calories there too.

So, as you can imagine, my gusto is a little busto at the moment, but two steps forward and one step back will get me there eventually. Thank you for all the support of late on my blog and on my FB page. It's been great and much appreciated.

What I Know Is True

This week is getting better with each passing day. As you know, I've mentioned that I'm currently navigating some difficult personal issues and that hasn't let up. The stress from that reached a bit of a psychological peak on Sunday/Monday and since then I've had a bit of mental relief. Just easing up on myself, taking off some of the pressure and self-criticism in which I'd been wallowing around. That, coupled with a return to exercise has me feeling significantly better about myself, about my life and about the future. Not to mention the here-and-now.

So Monday, after lazing around all morning in said wallowing, I finally got myself out for a run. It was either that or leap off the closest tall building. The run seemed like the better choice. I had my Garmin on but I purposefully decided to not look at it. Just run. Run like the wind, run fierce and strong, breathe deep and hard, run painfully, outrun the pain, outrun the anguish. In the end I ran 3 miles in just over 27 minutes. Then I went to the gym and lifted weights. I'm still doing this modified full body workout while I get my muscles used to moving again.

After the workout I felt better. I had a bit of a drive ahead of me and it was late, 2pm, and I was starving. I pulled into a strip mall for a late lunch and saw two choices pop out - Quiznos or Chinese food takeout. Ohhh, Chinese food. I was about to go there and get some (I'm sure) awful food like sesame chicken, fried rice, and slathered-in-oil veggies when a thought popped into my head, "you'll feel WAY better if you eat something healthy." That was enough to get me into Quiznos and order a turkey flatbread for 470 calories. Before I even ate the food I felt better about myself, knowing I was making a choice that was in my own best interest, that said, "I care about myself, I matter enough."

That said, I was still deep in psychological angst and stayed in a dark place the rest of the day. Which is ok. Feelings are feelings and I can feel them and still be ok. I don't remember what I had for dinner, and how much/if there was snacking, etc. But I'm focusing on my exercising right now and being patient with the eating/food falling into place. So whatever happened, happened.

Yesterday, Tuesday, I got myself to that WW meeting I'd promised to get to. And it was great. Simply being around others on this journey is inspiring. Seeing a woman who has 100+ pounds of weight to lose celebrating hitting her 40 pound lost mark was a big reminder of where I've been and what I'm doing. Something unexpected happened. I found out that for every year of maintaining you get recognized in the meeting. If you weigh in 10 out of the 12 months at goal weight you get another key.

Lifetime key has a new buddy, 1 year key.

So I added it to my keyring right next to my Lifetime key. I plan to collect a whole slew of these things. I didn't realize it but I was sitting next to a woman who was also celebrating her first year of maintenance. So we both said a few words about what's helped us (hers was going to meetings, mine was that plus never forgetting how much I want this). It was just what I needed.

That day at lunch I had what I'd consider a normal sized lunch but for whatever reason felt really full. For the first time in a while I had that, "I feel fat" feeling. So I sent a text to a friend for support, "You are not fat, In fact, you're that skinny woman that everyone hates because you're so skinny." I laughed out loud. Ok, that helped. Thanks Stacy! I sure hope that's not true, by the way, but the thought just made me smile, which is what I needed.

I went to a meeting in the late afternoon and darnit if they didn't have lemon cream pie. Probably my all-time favorite pie. So I had a big piece. And also sampled the chocolate cream cheese frosting cake. Ugh. But you know what? It's ok. Focus on the exercise, the food will fall into place. That's what has always happened, what I know is true. Just keep doing what works.

So after work I hit the gym with a plan to ride the upright bike. But a spin class was about to start when I got there so I hustled into change and got a bike. I could only stay in the class for 45 minutes but that was awesome! I was sweating like crazy and my heart got a real workout. Then I went and did just a few weights because my body is still adjusting and is sore. I left the gym feeling about as spiffy as a new car, with an extra dose of gratitude that the darkness is lifting.

Today is Miguel's 40th birthday. I'm heading out now to get a cake, etc, and my mom is making dinner. We're going to have a small celebration with the kids after he gets off work. They are very excited about his birthday, which is so sweet. Children are a gift, they shine such a light on all that is right in the world. I am grateful for their health and love and light. And also grateful they have an amazing dad. They are so lucky to have him. Happy Birthday Miguel!

Ok, that's all I have. Today is a rest day, back at the exercise tomorrow. One last thing - I got a haircut on Friday. A little shorter than usual and I love it!!

The Comeback

Holiday weekends are just lovely. You get to fill in all the weekend stuff, and then there's an extra day. Bonus! On Friday I hit the gym after work and did 25 minutes on the upright bike. I did level 8 but at one point had to drop down the resistance for a minute. Normally I'd die before dropping down the resistance but being I haven't had a regular exercise pattern of late, I made an exception. And my ego is still in fine shape.

After the bike I did a full round of body weight exercises. This time I focused a bit more on my back and PT exercises. My shoulder is finally starting to ease up on the pain front. In the bad news department, I'm still struggling a bit with afternoon fatigue. It would probably help if I got a bit more sleep.

Saturday was a lazy day. I lounged around all morning and in the afternoon did a little wine tasting with a friend before doing a bit of shopping. I need an outfit for my upcoming secret-fun-news so I bought a few things. I might post some of the outfits on FB and see what you guys think. Then it was off to dinner with Miguel and the kids, where I ate way too many chips and made a not-so-healthy dinner choice (a beef taco and a chicken enchilada, if you must know). Oh, and I might have also had a couple margaritas. Look for the scale to be inching up.

Today, Sunday, I managed to get out for a nice hike on Mt Hamilton. The hike was about 2 hours in all, mostly climbing on the way in, downhill on the way out. The weather was typical Bay Area fall - clear, sunny with just a touch of crisp coolness in the air. I couldn't find my Garmin before I left so I can't post the route to show elevation change. I was tempted to run at various points but decided to just take it easy, easing my body back into full blown exercise mode. Besides, mentally, it was nice to take a more leisurely pace.

That's all I got. My eating (and drinking) remains in the fair to poor range but it's not as abysmal as it was. More importantly, my healthy-lifestyle confidence is edging back up. Maintenance is all about the comeback. Heck, this whole journey is all about the comeback. And baby, I'm coming back!

First Law of Motion

Oh it's been bad. So bad. Junk food, candy, fast food, candy, junk food, fast food...bad. Tuesday evening is a good example. All the Halloween candy was out of the house...or so I thought. Miguel had left a plastic bag on a side table over a week ago and I never bothered to see what it was. I was doing some tidying and looked in the bag. You guessed it, candy. Two bags, one labeled Marek, the other Myra, filled with candy. Had I been smart I would have tossed the candy into the atmosphere the moment I found it, but instead I closed it up and put it in the garage. As if I'm not the food junkie I've always been.

Fast-forward to after the kids were in bed and...

Yep, that bad.

How many is that? 9? 10? Fun-sized didn't feel so fun when all was said and done. And that's only part of the candy. Honestly, I can't even remember all the crap I've eaten in the last week. I've been wrestling with my behavior, as you can imagine. Because of being so busy mistaken priorities I haven't gotten to a WW meetings in at least a few weeks. For next week I put it in bold letters on my calendar, with several exclamation marks to remind me - this is important, go!! I may not have all the answers and I may not have it all figured out but I know what helps, and going to a meeting will help.

And exercise, exercise will help. I went to the doctor yesterday convinced she would tell me my lungs were at least 80% clear and that I'd get the green light to exercise again. She listened to my lungs and I could tell she wasn't happy. Not as clear as she was hoping. She didn't give me a percentage but it sure wasn't 80%, "still quite a bit of inspiratory pops and squeaks". No. Please no. No, no, no. But then, "but you can start running again, in fact, that might even help." What?! Yay!

And then I felt it. The weight of Newton's First Law of Motion, an object at rest stays at rest, and the mental battle to get myself moving began. I thought about posting to my tri club page asking for a run buddy to meet me later, but I didn't. Eventually I felt the late afternoon sleepiness that used to be a daily experience. I hate that feeling. It's one I hardly have to endure in my new lifestyle but between not exercising, eating like crap and having pneumonia/taking antibiotics, it's made a temporary return.

After work I was driving to the gym and a steady thought stream of, "I don't want to go, ugh, I'm so tired" made it that much harder. I challenged that stream with, "Just do it Michelle. Sure you're tired, but it won't kill you. And you'll feel better afterward, I promise. Don't think about it, just do it." I listened to my better self and, not unlike a robot, drove myself to the gym. On the way I was trying to imagine what sounded like the least-painful run plan. It was chilly and a bit windy outside so an outdoor run in my gym's 'hood didn't sound fun. The treadmill sounded worse. I settled on changing my clothes and then driving a couple miles to a local trail for a trail run. That sounded the least painful. Why didn't I reach out for that run partner? Having someone to run with would make it 10x easier.

I'm pulling into the parking lot at the gym when I see Alan, a gym-regular with whom I often chat.

Me: Hey Alan, you all done?
Alan: Nope, just headed out for a run.
Me: How fast do you run?
Alan: Slow, you want to go with me?

It's a miracle, a running miracle! This has never, ever, not even once happened at my gym. And today, on the day I really needed it, a running partner falls into my lap. I didn't even know Alan ran outside around the gym like I do. He goes on to tell me he has this relatively flat loop, maybe 2-3 miles, and again he reminds me he's slow. Per-fect. "Hurry," he tells me, "we're running out of daylight." So before I could have another thought I ran inside to change, the whole time thinking, "yay, yay, yay!!"

We started running and my body let me know right away that it's been at rest. My legs were aching, my lungs felt tight, and running just felt hard. "Just a couple miles Michelle, doesn't it feel good to be moving again? I mean, this is hard, but it's good, right?" Right.

Alan and I didn't chat much, he was busy breathing and I was busy thinking. Over the last couple weeks I'd been noticing all the little ways in which my body was not happy. The headache, the sleepiness, the return of shoulder pain, not being as "regular" as I usually am - ok, maybe you didn't need to know that last bit but it's true. I used to think all sorts of things were just the way my body worked, and I didn't really make the connection between that and my poor diet/lack of exercise/extra weight. I thought I was just prone to constipation. Nope, poor diet. I thought I was just a person that got headaches. Nope, poor diet/stress/lack of exercise. I thought I was just a sleepy/lazy type. Nope, not at all. Now, knowing that those were all consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle adds to my motivation to maintain.

pic from Newton Running

Yet how quickly we forget. The good thing is, my body is here to remind me. Didn't like that headache? Get moving. Don't like feeling sleepy at 4pm? Get moving. Want to be regular again? Stop eating all that crap. Oh, and get moving. An object in motion stays in motion. And I was back in motion. We ran 2.1 miles in just over 21 minutes for an average of 10:03 minute miles. We both felt great about that pace and the distance was perfect. Had I been alone I would have pushed it to three miles, my standard weekday distance, but two was better, I could feel it.

Back in the gym and I did a full body workout just to wake up all my muscles. Pushups, squats, lunges, arnolds, russian twists, and a few PT exercises. I'd been worried I wouldn't be able to do my exercises - that irrational part of my brain that thinks I'm going to be starting from scratch despite evidence to the contrary - but it went fine. It was a challenge, I could feel my muscles straining to lift the weight, but I did it. And I know that if I keep doing it, in 3 weeks or so it will be easy again.

The eating thing is slow going. I'd decided to view all this food debauchery as if I were on vacation. You know how you go on vacation and eat way different than you normally do? So these past couple-few weeks are like a vacation and I'd decided my vacation would end when I started exercising again. I left the gym with a plan to eat a healthy dinner, no snacks, no crap. I had an ok dinner healthwise, nothing too junky, but ended up eating the last few pieces of the candy (no, I hadn't gotten rid of it) and later dove into the kids' bag of veggie chips. These poor kids, I'm eating all their crap. I suppose I'm sparing them from it, which practically makes it an act of humanitarianism.

So my evening food intake didn't exactly go as planned but I'm moving in the right direction. And history has taught me that as I get back into my exercise routine, the eating will fall into place. That, coupled with a WW meeting next week, building up a series of recent-memory healthy behaviors, and I should be back in the groove before too long. The only other complicating factors - my painful shoulder (that I'm essentially pretending doesn't exist), my clustermess of a personal life (that I can't ignore), and all the other stresses of a working suburban mom's life - remain. If I chose to add a full blown weight gain/food relapse to that I'd surely be begging for a padded cell before too long. With life in flux, I need my healthy habits now more than ever. Today my body is sore, my muscles hurt a bit. But I'm still hitting the gym after work to do something. Maybe a short spin on the upright bike and a bit more weight lifting. It's what I do. It's who I am. I am an object in motion.

Ok, last thing...remember that exciting blog-related news I hinted at? Well, I still can't tell you what's afoot but I can tell you I'm flying to the entertainment capital of the world soon to get knee deep in the fun. I'm not sure when I can tell you what's happening but I'll be taking pictures and journaling all along the way so that when I can tell you all the details will be at the ready. Oh, it's so exciting, and so hard to keep under wraps but I'm sworn to secrecy.

Happy weekend everyone! Get busy living!!

At Goal, One Year Later

Yesterday was a special day for me, an important milestone on my journey. On November 4, 2012 I posted this picture for my blog post celebrating arriving at my goal weight.

11/4/12

And just now, I took another picture.

One year later, 11/5/13

In my goal blog post I wrote:

I know this number doesn't really change anything, but it just feels so good to finally hit it. So good. As far as eating, I plan to keep doing what I'm doing. I don't really feel like I'm "dieting" per se. I think I'm eating a healthy, balanced diet. I'll just have to see what happens with my weight.

What did happen with my weight is that I continued to lose for a while, dipping down to a low of 134.8 pounds. That was a week after getting diagnosed with pneumonia. I've dabbled around in my head with what my "maintenance" weight should be and I find I like being under 140. Being over 140 isn't so bad either, and I don't actually mind wobbling around in the low 140's, but I see that as a sign to tighten up some, get back under 140 and carry on.

Things are tricky right now because although my weight number is low, my percentage of body fat is creeping up, now up to 28.5%. Weight gain is sure to follow. But I'm feeling confident that once of I have this pneumonia thing kicked, I can get my butt back in gear and lose some of the extra fat.

So I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on my first year of maintenance by sharing some thoughts.

• I got pneumonia 4 months after reaching goal and had to go on bed rest. But managed to recover and get back on track. And now I have it again. I have no doubt I'll be back on track before too long.
• I completed 8 races in the past year - The Turkey Trot, Kaiser half, Rock-n-Roll half, The Guardsman 10k, See Jane Run half, 4th of July 4-miler, Santa Cruz Triathlon and the Nike Women's half.
• My relationship with food is really changing. I still overeat from time to time, I still get in trouble with cravings, I still make less helpful decisions, but each time I get back on track. And slowly, very slowly, the pull of food to solve my problems is lessening.

I could go on and on but just know this, I have changed. "Obviously," you might say, but I notice this change in such subtle and almost imperceptible ways and for whatever reason, those changes give me hope. Hope that I might continue to change and grow in such a way as to eventually eliminate this "problem" of my food intake altogether. Or at least mostly. I met a woman in WW who was in her 13th year of maintenance and she said she was there. It took her about 8 years of maintenance to get there, but she did. The idea that I might one day slay this demon altogether is hopeful.

I'm excited to go to WW next week and share the news. And I hope to inspire or motivate anyone that needs it because that's a big part of why I keep this up - blogging and sharing and telling everyone who wants to listen that change is hard, but it's worth it - to potentially inspire someone else to go after the dream, to fight for it, work for it, value it. I feel great about my body, great about clothes shopping and going to social events, great about seeing my own picture or bumping into an old friend, great about seeing an 'out of order' sign on the elevator or eating a candy bar in public - I feel great. A year later, and it still feels great. I hope to never forget how much I wanted this, how hard I worked (and continue to work), and how worth it it remains to keep going to the WW meetings now and keep getting on that scale every day for a reality check.

Thank you all for the support and encouragement over the past year, I've learned so many things in the comments and gained so much support from you guys. Thank you!

p.s. I had fried chicken for lunch today. That is all.