Tag Archives: Exercise
My Merry May Challenge
You hear people talk about how they want to get back to what they weighed before:
- College
- Having kids
- Turning 40
- Just to name a few, there are as many before stories as there are people.
I don’t have a before story, partially because I have been overweight my whole life, yes even as a kid. Having grown up know this fact made me steer clear of scales for most of my adult life. So I truly have no idea what I was at my “thinnest”. I know that I have gained weight over the years but exactly how much there is no way to know that. I just know that my clothes got bigger as I moved towards 40.
While I guess I should not worry about this lack of before story it cause a very strange thing to happen for me. Because I have no frame of reference for not being fat the simple thought that I’m making progress towards not being fat anymore cause what can only be described as fear. This fear leads me to start to sabotage the efforts that are producing results. I settle back in to my familiar fat pants and say shucks next time maybe I will make it.
It was not until recent events have lead me to where I am now that I really saw what was going on with this horrible cycle that I exist in. So far due to radical changes in what I can eat I have lost more than 20lbs. It is the most I have ever lost at one time, if I had to guess I would say that all the times I have tried to lose weight over my 40 years I probably have lost 500lbs or so sadly it always comes back with friends. The last time I lost double digits was when I was on weight watchers years ago. I hit 16lbs and promptly quit going to meeting or tracking anything. Shucks maybe next time.
This time I tried really hard to go back to my old habits but not being able to eat anything with gluten in it has really put a crimp in my plan to gain it back. This is a good thing you are thinking to yourself:
- What are you bitching about?
- I would be totally stoked it I had lost 20lbs.
- What is wrong with you?
Not to worry. I had the very similar thoughts cross my mind when this pattern started to become clear. How can losing weight scare the crap out of me so badly? I really don’t have an answer to this question, but I do have some thoughts about it. I have always been the fat person in the group. Even with my friends who were overweight I was the heaviest. So my personality and persona where formed around that fact. I don’t know how to be a thinner person. I don’t have any experience at that and I really don’t do with not having at least base line first hand experience with things in my life. Pretty sure that there is now handy how to books on this subject, if I’m wrong let me know in the comments below I would love to read them.
At this time my fat clothes are too big on me so that makes me look a little bit like a homeless person. The problem being that if I get rid of them and I manage to find a way to sabotage this then I will have to buy new fat clothes and I really hate shopping in the 3’ x 3’ section at nation chain stores (yes Target I pointing fingers at you) or “specialty” shops where everything is crazy expensive. So not only am I still fat but now I’m broke too replacing stuff that I got rid of.
This time I did get rid of a lot of the stuff that is too big on me. My closet space is the size of a phone booth and there is just not room to hang on to ill-fitting items. It was a scary moment to drop them in to the donation box and drive away.
700 words later we finally get to what this post is really about. I am going to be doing the Hip Hop Abs 30 day challenge. I am fairly certain that I will not be taking any of these moves to a club near me, well ever. I dance like a white person, a really white person and I don’t think that Shaun T is a wizard and will be able to fix that. I do home to strengthen my core and have fun with it. I am also not sure I will see abs anytime soon, they have been safely hidden way for 40 years it’s going to take a lot more than just a fun dance fitness video find them.
I was talking with some people on twitter today about what age things start being inappropriate. Here is the link to it. I fall on the side of this debate that do what makes you happy no matter what age you are. Once I hit my goal weight and can stay there for a year I am getting my belly button pierced and new boobs and I don’t care if I’m 60 at the time. Side note I also have my nose pierced, too many holes in my ears and tattoos just for a point of reference in case you needed it.
I may do some videos for update but I’m not really sure yet, tonight is my first workout. I can say that I’m a bit scared but excited to give it a go. Oh I need before photos too. Eck there will be skin showing. Great now I have “Call me maybe” running through my head. And so do you now sorry about that.
Do you have a challenge for the merry month of May? Find me on twitter I’m really good at cheerleading others success.
Starting over again! 900th time is the charm?
Image by Kim.Wood via Flickr
I am back to trying to run. I was a runner not very good one but a runner all the same. The end game is to be able to run 5 miles with my son on November 11 of this year. While I have covered well over that distant, when I say run mean run for real, see DS runs cross-country so he is what I would call a real runner. I am almost 40 with adult onset athleticism. It is safe to say that we are not at the same pace any of the time. This time I want to be able to run really run that will give him a bit of a challenge. At this point he can skip backwards up hill and still be faster than me.
So I am afraid that there will be a whole lot of tweets about running and posts about running. I am sorry here in advance for that.
***9675 steps for today
Just a small fail whale today I guess
Image via Wikipedia
I guess it was just a baby fail whale, I wonder what baby whales are called. I bet SrCoolGuy will know I will have to ask him once he is done with practice. I don’t think they are whale puppies or kids I am pretty sure that is not right. Hmm, I guess that mystery will just have to wait till the end of this post, due to the fact that I am writing this in the car with no wifi while he takes his sweet country time getting out of practice that ends at 6:30, well lookie here it is after 6:30 and no SrCoolGuy that is why I have time to blog.
Any why back to my baby fail whale. It was not all a loss:
- I did eat lunch I packed.- Good
- I did go see about joining the gym downstairs at work.-Good
- I joined the gym down stairs at work.-Good
- I canceled my membership with my old gym.-Good
- I spent some money on joining the new gym but I will save like $20.00 a month. – Sorta good right?
- I didn’t ride BART- Not good
- I did drive -Not good
So you can see there was a little fail today, but over all it was a pretty good day in terms of my goals to make all these huge changes at once. I know that is the worst way to make changes, but we well see. I tend to get bored pretty quick so if I have all this to juggle maybe I will keep it all up, I can focus on one of the many things that I am trying to change. I really don’t know if it will work or if I will just crash and burn. I guess only time will tell.
I have to ask a question. Are you supposed to like your personal trainer? I mean should it be some one that you would like to hang out with when you are not at they gym sweating? So as I stated in my list I joined a the gym at work. I was on my way back upstairs when I was side tracked by one of the personal trainers that works there. He took me on a tour of the new space, and then proceeded to tell me how much my fatness was caused by the fact that I am eat ethnic food (mexican and finnish I am) and eating after 7:00pm I am never allowed to have a cookie again and bread is evil, something about it becoming a sponge, water and waste when by. At some point I told him that I ran in the past and with the knee I was pretty sure those days are gone but I had run a half marathon when I was running. We talked some more but he never looked me in the eyes, when we talked about the fact that I am FAT! OHHHMMMMMGGGGG! I am fat! I had not noticed, I just thought I was a conjoined twin or something freaky, I didn’t know I was fat. Well thank you shifty gym guy for setting my strait on that. And thank you for the tips on how to dress for the gym, because I have never step foot in to one before, I would have show up in a cocktail dress and heels. Glad we had that little chat before I showed up all over dressed and shit.
I know how to work I know how to eat right, it is my bad that I have chosen, I will say it again I have chosen to not do those things. And your every so slightly creepy ass will not make me want to change any of that. I have to want to not be forced it to it you said so yourself. So I have to tell him that I don’t think he is the right fit for me as a personal trainer.
The answer to to the baby whale question is Calf.
Ooh! Very scary! Well at least for me…
I was without a training buddy, she moved to PA last month. That was one of my strong arguments as to why I was not back out there running, walking or any other form of exercise. I don’t have any one to go with me. Well that all changed today, well ok it was really Tuesday or Wednesday.
I got an email from See Mommy Run it is a networking site for Mom’s, yes that is pretty obvious from the name huh? I don’t remember when I signed up for the site but sometimes I would get emails from them and they would end up in the trash bin unopened. I do that with a lot of “junk” mail that I get from various locations. I was on the look out for a new one from the so that I could unsubscribe from the list so no more junk from them. So when the on showed on this week I opened it so I could find the link that I needed to get off the list. As I headed for the lower portion of the email I accidentally read the content of said email.
It was announcing that there was a new group being formed in Berkeley. It stated that the group “founder” was looking to walk in the early morning. Hey that is just what I need, I have to be done and back home before 6:30 so I can get everyone ready for the day ahead and get to work at a time that is really near the time I am expected to be there. So this peaked my interest, most of the one that I have looked over wanted to walk in the morning, morning meaning like 10:00am. That will not work so well, seeing how I am at work at that point and time. So this one was different.
I had a huge internal debate as to what to do. Part of me wanted to just unsubscribe and go on with my life, but there was an even larger part of me that saw this as the opportunity that I needed to get my lazy ass out the door and start working on this goals that I set out in in this post here time is running out for me to make the one in November, but we will see how it goes. Because, I will never get there if I don’t start. So, I responded to the email and than waited to see if I got a response.
I was nervously checking my email to see if there was anything, I use my iPhone for mail and have push on so there was really no reason to keep looking. At some point work got in the way of my nervous waiting, and I stopped refreshing the main every 3 minutes and low and be hold there was a response. She has some question for me that I failed to put in my first email. I responded to her with the answers and letting her know that I was looking forward to working something out that worked for everyone. Through the course of back and forth email, I purposed that we meet for coffee this weekend before we meet on Monday morning at 5:30am. It turned out that only the “founder” was able to meet me today which was ok with me, because at the time I thought it was only the two of us, but it turns out that there may be as many as 4 of us.
As Saturday rolled around I started to get more and more nervous about meeting with her. For no other reason than I am very awkward around people that I don’t know. I am not really good with small talk, or talk of any sort when I first meet people. Usually if you can get me started talking I do ok but it take a lot of work on the other persons part to get to that point. I had to make sure that I kept reminding myself that this was my idea, that I wanted to be there and do this.
I got there, got my coffee and walked out to find her waiting by the door. I introduced myself to her and sat down and we started to chat about running, families, and work. It went very well, I tried really hard not to be a social-tard like I tend to be sometimes. I was truly interested in what she had to say and reacted to it appropriately. I had a good time, and it will be nice to get back out there being active. It will be nice to have some one to be accountable to.
So that was my very scary day. I met and like a perfect stranger that I am meeting with bright and early on Monday morning to walk for exercise for the first time in over two years. Here is hoping that the stupid knee will get on board with the program.