Never Too Old

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During the past decade or so I decided that I was too far in life, too old, to make a positive difference in my health and weight anymore. My body, while not old and decrepit yet, was older, settled, and on its way down the other side of the proverbial hill, so why bother trying, right? Might as well settle calmly into old age, don’t fight it, age gracefully. Accept the wrinkles, the weight, the sunspots… There was actually a side of me that thought like this. Mostly it was fear- it’s scary to commit to changing your life, to looking at your choices critically, to seeing where they got you.
We all have addictions. Some of us lean on alcohol, smokes, most anyone reading this blog probably leans on food. Heavily. I leaned on food. I’m not sure why I thought my husband wouldn’t offer his shoulder to me, but instead of turning to him for support, I turned to him for a ride to the store, as a partner in pastry purchases, as my comrade in complacency. He never had a problem with food and didn’t understand what it meant to me when we went to the store to buy a pizza, reduced priced donuts and strawberry soda for dinner. I had never eaten like that before our relationship and eventually my women’s plus size 30 overalls reflected our food choices.
…But I was getting older, and I thought I was so far gone… I was a victim to my own thinking and my own food choices. At 340 pounds, looking down the scale at trying to achieve a 100 pound weight loss to 240, much less my BMI goal of 142… It seemed impossible.
But I wasn’t old. It wasn’t too late.
I’m not saying that I’m a miracle or a success story or anything like that. I’m a good distance down the path, but months of positive progress don’t add up to a weightloss success story. That will come when I’m in my 70’s and still maintaining my weight, still exercising, still living my life capably and with zest. My greatest fear is my mortality. Why would I succumb to aging and death prematurely if I didn’t have to? Why would I let this finite amount of time I have on this earth be consumed and dictated by food, my weight and my fear of my mortality instead of the love and attachment I have to my kids and husband? So I stood up and started to fight. I turned to my husband for support. What choice did I have? What choice do any of us have? My success story has a solid beginning. While I’m not a success story with a complete ending yet, I do believe that with determination I will, eventually, be a success story. I’m determined to live the best possible version of my life, at 40, at 50, at 70, at every age I have the privilege of living.
You’re never too old to make a positive change in your life. Ever.

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This Week in Non-Scale Victories…
Last year I got this jacket for my birthday. I could barely squeeze into it and I could eek the zipper closed. But it was so tight I was sincerely worried that I would bust the zipper. Plus, it would roll up over my tummy unless I kept my hands in the pockets to keep it down. Yeah, tight. Cut to yesterday when I wore the jacket out and realized what a very nice jacket my husband purchased for me! It is going to the best winter jacket, and, lest we forget- it fits!. Non-scale victory… 🙂

Arms Race!

Looking forward to September has me shaking in my boots a little bit. I have faith that within the new school year will also be time to run, work out, lift weights and all that. I know it’s possible because I did it last spring, but new beginnings can throw me for a loop. I decided to throw myself a little challenge in September, just to keep my momentum moving forward. I’m making an arms challenge for myself.
What does that mean? Essentially it means that I’m going to focus my lifting efforts on my arms in hopes of making a difference in the next thirty days.
Here’s where I’m starting:

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At this point I’m not sure if I want them to shrink or grow. What I do hope for is better definition and for flab to hit the road! I know some jiggle and wiggle, batwing-style magic will always remain, but I feel like if I put some sweat effort into my arms they will at least look tighter than they could.
Here’s where I was this last spring, when I started paying attention to my arms:

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Ok, I’m sure you’re feeling a little bit overexposed to my arm and, lefts face it, my armpit. It just comes with the territory.
If you’re interested in participating in my arms race, take a picture today and store it away someplace. By October 5th, have another snapshot taken, create an email with your before and after, have it in my inbox and I’ll hang your picture with mine!

I’m Still a Firework

I have been really considering, lately, what is up with my New Kids thing? I’ve rejected them for years, then, on a lark, I go to their concert and get hooked back into their world. Suddenly I’m following Donnie and Danny on Twitter, the rest on Instagram and looking up their personal lives online to figure out the juicy details. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed, but certainly have a greater interest in them than seems appropriate for a 39 year old woman.
I also wrote about Katy Perry way back in February. I wrote about how I love her brand of self expression and wrote about how her music makes me want to move. Firework was the motivator for my first real run. It was with Katy Perry in my ear singing and telling me I could do it and I threw myself an unplanned challenge- to run for the duration of the song. I did and felt terrifically empowered after.
It niggles me, all this pop music making its way into my brain, infusing itself like a much needed and desired earworm.
Tonight when I walked into our living room, Bradley had started something playing on TV. I assumed it would be Star Wars related or a documentary as that is what he picks when he has his choice. I was surprised to see Katy Perry make her way across the screen and, while I did arm curls, crunches, and worked my various muscle families, I watched as Ms. Perry’s fans talked about how inspired they feel by her. They spoke to a feeling of acceptance, love and encouragement. They held her up as a bastion of the American Dream- if you can dream it, it’s possible.

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{Me at 17- I’m the one with the unzipped graduation gown. I had just lost about 80 pounds.}
Somewhere along the way, between exiting teenagerhood and the onset of middle age, I think I forgot about possibility and dreams. Instead, I settled into what was and what was supposed to be. I looked to the futures of my children as my own dreams. I looked for models of what fiancés did, what newlyweds, young parents, homeowners and college students did to guide my own life. I forgot about looking at what I wanted, I had already decided: Wife, Mom, Teacher- those titles were in the plan. Done, done and done- the planning was over. I didn’t need to dream or be inspired. I was an actualized adult without need of a pop star to guide and inspire me.
Cut to my daughter’s first year of life and one day I found myself driving down the road bawling my eyes out. Earlier, I had been laying on the floor while she climbed all over me and I felt like a boulder- huge and immobile. I could do little more than pick her up over my head, rolling over was a challenge and I could hardly get off the floor when she finally crawled away. It just felt like a compromise of life. When I left the house I turned on the radio and 100 Years came on, reminding me how precious life is, how very brief it is, how quickly my daughter would grow up and I couldn’t help but realize that I was piddling my life and her babyhood away by being morbidly obese. So I took action. The rest of the story is pretty obvious, but if you want the whole story you can visit here.
Tonight I sat there watching as Katy rose to fame, went on a concert tour, got married, divorced, awarded, dressed, undressed, made up and more. Throughout it all she kept talking about living the dream, living your best life, doing what is important. She gives creedence to being playful, romance and silliness. She kept saying she loves her fans, loves people and was so kind as she met them, included them in her shows and into her heart. The New Kids do the same thing- they tell their fans they couldn’t do it without us, that they love us Blockheads, they’re glad we came, they appreciate our dedication and we can be whatever we want. Even still- after 25 years.
We stop listening, as adults, to all of those voices that are out there telling us we are a firework. We buy into ‘reality’ and stop dreaming, instead settling for nights on the sofa in front of someone else’s imagined life. We let the young’ns take center stage and defer those ‘follow your dreams’ statements to them. Instead we get ‘live, laugh, love’ which is nice, but not very proactive. Not very fun. We forget that even though we are almost 40, we are still capable of changing. We are not limited to only living, laughing and loving. Dreams are still very much alive! We are still allowed to reach for the stars.
I think that is why I’m engaging with my cream-filled pop-star center. The last time I let myself buy into pop music I was 16, full of hopes and dreams. I was planning my life still, looking forward to following this path. Well, guess what? I reached the end of my path- I have my babies, the best husband, a wonderful career, a home, Im left wanting for nothing- and suddenly I find myself in the same place I was at 16. What next? I have a few choices, primarily to settle into my easy chair with the remote or to continue to live this life to the fullest. I’m sure you know which path I’m choosing to walk. Just like at 16, I’m still dreaming and making plans, thanks to my heart being reopened and I’m hearing the message. The Whisper
It seems ridiculous, but Katy and the New Kids are reinvigorating my sense of adventure and the belief in myself – it never left, necessarily, but it certainly faded. Adventure is still out there, my life has 50 years of possibility left, and I’m going to do it as healthily as possible.

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Bikini

I have a favorite blog I follow called Brittany Herself. I started reading it because the girl is hella funny and I connect to her as a mother, a wife and curvy girl.
Like me, Brittany has gone through some weightloss transformations. She went from a 24 (I think) to a 14-16-18 depending on the brand and stretch, became a model, spokesperson for Land’s End and now is an online celebrity in her own right. Something she’s done time after time is to take her beautiful, curvy body, puts a bathing suit on it and she goes public- at a TED Talk, in Times Square and, most recently, she bikini’d up on her own blog. Whenever Brittany shows her lovely figure I squee and swoon with delight and envy. I love that she stuffs her fear and anxiety away to show the world something they have shuttered away for decades (the curvy, post- childbirth body of a mother).
If you know me well, you know that I am an open book. Ask me a question and I will answer it as honestly as possible. I have strong opinions about bodies, exercise, parenting, sexuality, education, socialization, vegetarianism, environmentalism, religion, politics… My body, after having two kids and accepting husband, is not a temple of privacy. I don’t really care what you see, I just cover it up because society dictates to do so. Truth be told, I’m a bit of a backyard nudist! Ha!
Which brings me to my point…
I hide a lot of my bikini pics from my blog- even though I ALWAYS actually wear one as a bathing suit in private and public! I’ll throw a ‘from the rear’ shot online every once in a while, or a link to a picture to protect the public from my saggy tummy and jiggly thighs without the opportunity to prepare their eyes first, but I don’t care. I realize I’m losing weight, so technically, in my brain, I should have less to ‘worry’ about, as a bigger girl stepping out in skimpy clothes. My problems in a bikini are the sagginess. My belly droops, has curdles, jiggles, shakes AND IT ALWAYS WILL NO MATTER HOW MUCH WEIGHT I LOSE OR HOW MANY CRUNCHES I DO! So, should I never ever wear a bikini? I think not! Swimming in bikinis feels better, you get sun all over, water all over and there’s less drippings from wet bathing suits on the floor from having less fabric. I found this really fabulous picture of a woman online who went from my starting size to a typical bikini size and didnt get surgery. She looks amazing and I hope to be similar…

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(If this is a picture of you and you don’t want it on my blog, don’t hesitate to ask me to remove it!!! I can’t remember where I found this inspiring picture!)
But…
The more I think about it, my wearing a bikini is one of the most political things that I can do. Putting on my bikini during my Oregon vacation was liberating. Scary, exciting and liberating. Putting on a bikini on a public beach invites people to… Well… See me. Judge me. As a fat girl, my size has always been one of the first things that allows people to form opinions about me so I feel incredibly vulnerable stripping down and allowing so much outside visual contact with my wobbly bits.
For the most part, though, everything went remarkably well. I’m sure people noticed me. I know some did, (people would slowly gather around while I splashed in the Pacific, then would disperse once I got dressed, with remarkable consistency) but only one person actually had the gall to snap a picture of me (super obviously, btw. What an ass).

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(This is the woman who snapped one. Fair is fair so I took one of her and she acted like she didn’t see me all of the sudden.)
Initially, I hated to think of how she would share that picture with her friends, pointing out the fat chick in the bikini at the beach. But the other part of me had a sense of pride that I stood there, in all of my 230 pounds, I bent over and dug in the sand, in my bikini, at 230 pounds, body surfing, in a bikini at 230 pounds, even turning cartwheels. In a bikini. At 230 pounds. I allowed people to look at me and see what a normal woman actually looks like. So even if that picture taking woman shares my picture with her friends, even if they laugh at and mock me, it will still be one more opportunity to see and acclimate to the diversity of what a woman’s body can look like.

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I’m hoping that, like Brittany, I can be a pioneer for body acceptance too. I don’t need to go on the Today Show or strip down on stage in front of 100’s of people, but I can be an anonymous presence on the beach who, through exposure, helps to propel the body acceptance movement forward. Cheers!
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I find it incredibly ironic, btw, that obesity is a huge epidemic in our country and we still are less than flexible with how much skin we allow people to see.

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And seriously, the before and after?! I think I look pretty freakin’ amazing!

Choose Your Hard

I saw a quote a few weeks ago that said:

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And I just keep coming back to it, considering it, pondering it.
Being fat was hard. I had to sacrifice a lot to be heavy- most obviously, quality of life, if not years of life altogether. Not to mention my fertility, watching my family skip events because I was over sized, lying to myself about what I was eating and how much I was moving. It hurt, my back, my muscles, knees. It was really hard being really heavy.
Losing weight is also really hard. It is hard to say no. It’s hard to make life changes that are so long term. It’s hard to go work out, to run every day. It’s hard to bend over and touch my toes because I’m ridiculously stiff. It’s hard to look at the clock and realize that you still have weight reps and it’s 10:00 PM. It’s hard to have PMS telling me to stick everything in my mouth and have to battle that craving for weeks at a time. It’s hard to circle the track once again.
Maintenance is going to be hard. Success stories are rare and percentages are not on my side. I’ve read that only 5% of people who lose weight keep it off (though this is disputed). It’s hard to look at the next 40 years with the awareness that I will never again go through a weight gain binge of just not worrying. It’s hard to think that I have to maintain a high level of fitness for always – even when I don’t want to. Hard.
Pick your hard. It think it’s obvious which hard I’m working on now.
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You know that feeling you get when you’re dieting and all of the sudden you fall off the wagon? Then you spend the next week or so making deals and promises to yourself, setting timelines and making excuses and lying to yourself to cover up poor behaviors? This is where I’ve been over the past week.
Then, if all goes truly horribly offroad you find yourself, two months later, with 20 pounds regained and an oppressive sense of defeat. It’s terrifying, seeing your determination take a break, looking for motivation, inspiration and nothing reveals itself. And then you’re an island without the crutches you desperately lean on to keep moving forward and all that’s available is yourself, but you feel so weak. It is much easier to just chill on the couch with (insert yummy food here) while watching The Biggest Loser while also feeling your ability or desire to be The Biggest Loser ebb away. Yeah. Every time I step outside of this rigid eating plan I have for myself I flip out that I’ll never get it back. That I’m on that path to losing it.
It’s times like these that I fall back on just being a really honest cheerleader to myself. One that reminds me of the things I told myself in the beginning:
– It’s up to me to do this. It’s my willpower and determination that will decide my success in this project- not the ‘right’ feeling, the right time, finding the motivation, being on a roll or having good habits- it’s me. I can do it or not, but if I fail, that was a decision I made and I can only be upset with myself. If I fail it will be my fault. It all comes down to me.
It was hard to get back on track. Hard, but not as difficult as the first few times. Those times I was determined and willing to try based on the blind faith that I had in myself to do this for real this time. Now I have experience on my side that proves I’m capable of stopping the snowball and getting my food back under control. This time it just took a day and I was stepping back into better habits. It feels so good to be in control again. So good to fall asleep without hating the choices I made. It’s amazing to believe in myself. It’s like I’ve kinda beat this monkey that has been on my back for years. I know I’m still early on, but if faith and determination have brought me this far, why wouldn’t I just keep on using them to believe in this for a lifetime?
It’s good to feel in control again. Phew!

Couching

Yesterday I mentioned an interest in sharing my thinking about some of my strategies and thoughts on this whole weightloss project I’ve embarked on.
From the beginning of my project (sorry, I just hate the word ‘journey’ for some reason) I decided that I wasn’t going to deny myself things. If I wanted a donut, I would have a donut. Or at least a taste of it. My thinking was that if I had a ‘diet’ of denial yet full of foods that are tasty but not personally fulfilling that need for something special, then I was going to go bonkers.
I relate to food in an intimate way – I think we all do- but over the years with my husband I’ve observed that food has a stronger hold over me than it does him. Food calls to me, even when I’m not hungry. I get the munchies so incredibly easy- it’s ridiculous. If there is anything delicious in the house- ice cream is my greatest down falling- it talks to me. I can’t leave it alone. My husband, on the other hand, goes through life with very few cravings, very few treats. He needs to be reminded to eat. Food is mostly just fuel to him. For a long time I felt shame about this issue, as though my genetic or psychological predisposition for elevating food to a higher level of need and desire made me less evolved, or worthy, or justified or… whatever! More recently, though, I’ve started to realize that I just need to have an action plan for dealing with food. Denying that these food cravings exist does me no favors. In fact, it makes me long more for some creamy, delicious thing… Instead, I realized that I love sour cream- the real full fat kind. Ice cream + me= true love. Chocolate is an old friend of mine. Chips are the perfect accompaniment to most sandwiches. I’m nuts about nuts and nut butters. I’m never not going to feel this way. I will always crave fat (I’m a fat eater, Bradley is a sugar eater- example- my favorite candy is always peanut butter plus chocolate something, his is sour or hot tamale sugar something). It’s where my mouth guides me. So I have to do things to insure my success with these kinds of foods.
1. I never say no. If I want ice cream, I’m having some ice cream. We only buy it in single sized servings. Right now our local bargain grocery outlet (we call it the ‘Gross Out’) is carrying these 150 calorie skinny cow ice cream individual serving cups. I keep them in the freezer and when I want ice cream, I don’t even have to measure. I just eat the whole thing and don’t worry about it. And I’m only allowed one a day- they are too expensive at .50 per serving otherwise.
2. I have one tablespoon of sour cream now. Not half a cup.
3. We buy all of our chips at Costco in single sized serving bags. I’m addicted to BBQ flavored pop chips right now. They are 100 calories per bag, so not a bad trade for a craving. Again, I never eat more than one a day. The expense is high, at about .50 per bag, so I’m judicial with them. They also carry the baked lays and sun chips at our local business Costco. Those run between 180-240 calories per bag though so I tend to stay with the pop chips. I’m glad my family had a healthier alternative though.
4. I don’t keep any candy around. If we want it, we explicitly go out and get it. And I’ll tell you what, you have to really be having a strong craving to get off the couch to drive to the store to buy a candy bar. I’m not saying it has never happened, but not keeping it in the house is a great deterrent.
5. I will trade exercise for food. The best thing about being a runner is the calories you burn. I’m dieting, right? But when I burn 2200 calories on a 55 minute run I have every right to devour an awesome and delicious sub sandwich. The coolest part is even after the sandwich I still usually fall way short of my calorie allowances. I have no problem paying extra minutes in exchange for a particularly high calorie food. Usually I get a super yummy meal on those days, but, yes, once it was a trip to Ben and Jerry’s!
Anything I do while losing weight should be a habit towards maintaining my weight once I get there. I plan to continue to enjoy all of these foods for the rest of my life. I love to bake. I love to eat. I love desserts!!! Cutting them out would take away a lovely sensory experience in my life. So I integrate them. You can ask my husband how whenever I do eat a piece of cake or something how I discuss it over an over with him, insuring that I won’t go into a frosting fueled cake eating frenzy if I do decide to have a slice (actually not a cake fan, FYI). I worry about it, that the treat will start me down a path that will degrade this project. So far so good.
*There are seeds of thought here from my head and all over the Internet, but if i borrowed anything it is from Katie at runsforcookies.com.
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WARNING: gross description coming up…
I have this weird thing on my ear. It felt like a pocket of fluid and it just built, like a tiny, enclosed bubble that was attached to the inner part of the ear- that part where you have to swirl a q-tip inside to clean it. So the last time it happened, it grew to the size of a BB gun pellet and then one day it just drained. It was gross, yeah, but I didn’t think much of it. It didn’t hurt or seem infected, just one of those weird body things that happened.
Then it started refilling. Faster. This time it seemed bigger after just a few weeks, and the day before yesterday I decided to help things along by giving it a good squeeze. Well, it popped- backwards. Instead of expelling the fluid outside of my ear it did it backwards, creating a new pocket among the cartelidge. It hurt a little. Then it hurt a little more. And then it hurt so much that moving my jaw to talk or chew hurt.
Today, this is me:

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There will be no running today. Or much of any movement. I’ll watch The Biggest Loser, heat my ear and boss people around from the couch. LOL!

Purpose

When I began writing this blog it was all about me. Me, me, me. It still is. Ha ha! As time has marched through the months, I have remained determined, I have continued to lose weight, I have become an athlete and I have been answering a lot questions along the way.
I totally get that. Seeing other people and reading the stories of other weightloss warriors was so important to me in the beginning. I was like, “If she can do it, so can I.” Seriously, at 340 pounds I was feeling like I needed to make a choice to live this lifestyle of an morbidly obese woman, or to lose it. Gaining more and giving in seemed easy and, to be frank, gluttonous fun, but it also just meant the climb back to health was going to be that much harder. Giving in to the fat seemed simple, easy, like a choice, but really it was just the lazier choice for me. For me, an unhappier choice. A limiting choice, but a choice nonetheless. Obviously I decided to take the hard route, the one with miles to run and food to control.
Anyhow, I have arrived at this point where people want advice and if you have spent ANY time with me or spoken on the phone with me over the past few months or the past few years, then you know how much I love to talk about diet and exercise. You know how much I would just love to sit down with you and make an action plan to get you moving, to clean your cupboard, to get your ball rolling… You know how much I love goal setting, for me AND you! I love to talk about this.
I have been careful on this site not to try to be inspiring (what a weird thing to say), to not give too much advice, to appear as just myself and let my story speak for itself. My reasoning is because:
1. I have only my own experience to speak from and my own knowledge base. Aside from the one nutrition class that I took in college, I have no professional training or expertise. I get my information from online, from a few doctors and from a few texts. But I would hate to give stupid advice that ends up in a lawsuit. So, let the record show that this site is never ever to take the place of your medical professional’s advice!
2. I have seen several weightloss sites where the women focus on inspiring other people as their primary source of motivation. I’m not going to deny that when people tell me that my choices have prompted a healthy shift in their own thinking it is incredibly motivating to keep moving forward and personally fulfilling. It feels good to affect positive change. But inspiring others seems like a dangerous thing to rely on for forward momentum. Eventually I will stop losing weight and just to maintain. Will I be as inspiring then? And if not, where will my feedback come from then? I need to build habits that encourage me to be self reliant, or reliant on my immediate support team more than relying on inconsistent feedback.
3. I don’t want to look like a know-it-all. A bragger. A compliment seeker. A glory hound. A narcissistic prat. Giving too much unsought advice can make me seem like all of those things.
4. Many ideas come from other sites, but much like an informational report, it is integrating into my lifestyle seamlessly and becoming mine- my belief system, my thought processes, my way of maintaining focus. But many of those ideas started as seeds at runsforcookies.com or theboringrunner. That said, I don’t want to reference their sites every time I talk about the way I process my life or get called a plagiarizer if I don’t. So I think I’m just going to write and talk. I’ll give as much credit as I can, but I wonder if I’m worrying too much about things like that. I just freak out in this litigious world.
All those things said, I am starting to realize through conversations that I am accumulating wisdom and thought processes that are working for me. I have smart things to share with people, so I think I’m going to start. I’ll still post all about me, but maybe I’ll throw some of my thoughts on eliminating bad foods, exercise and my tougher thought processes about the fixing of metal blocks and fear that hold me back a little more. I know for me, the mental work is the trickiest.
As always, I welcome your thoughts, questions and success stories!
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Today when I was running I sweated my phone to death. She’s gone on to other places, greener pastures… Her twin will be here in a few days. Until then, a dirth of photos. I apologize in advance that you won’t be able to look upon my glowing apricot skin and cascading chestnut locks for a few days.
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I met my goal on my Wii Fit today! Woohoo! I made a new goal to lose 10 pounds in the next two months. If I make it that will be my 40!
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Goals:
I think I’m one run away from hitting 100 miles. What a perfect time for my phone to break! Sheesh!
I ran 3.1 today
Goal: 12
Abs: 0
Goal:3-4

Why I Chose Running

It seems totally contrary to what I should be doing: running. Running is notoriously hard on your knees, the slamming impact bursts your joints, not to mention the discomfort of flopping skin and burning lungs… And I am not a tiny person to be running around the block at 250 (or now, 240).
At first it was the bad-assery of it that made me want to run. People who are serious, run. None of this pansy assed walking or sauntering, or machine exercise – as if?! Run on the street, run for a goal, no walking – it’s hardcore and romantic, right? So at first, it was just to see if I could. Guess what? I can.
After I established that I can do this running thing, I started noticing a side benefit: calories burned! When I ran, I could come home and eat a giant sub sandwich and STILL not have met my calorie allowances for the day! Running burns calories like nothing else! I run for 20 minutes and I’ll burn over 600 calories. Usually I run for about 40 minutes, so I’m really burning a lot! As I lose weight and my chassis is weighing less, I’m also burning fewer calories, but running is far superior to any other activity that I could find. Then I found this little graph:

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[I have to be honest and say I don’t know the original source for it – I found it at another running blog, so please A. don’t take this to your doctor as scientific fact or B. sue me for copyright. I’ll take it down if you ask.]
The numbers align somewhat with what I supposedly pull and comparatively it makes me feel like I’ve made a smart choice in exercise to assist the rapidity with which I would like to shed the pounds. Remember: 40 before 40!
Which brings me to my last point… My obsessiveness with weighing myself has turned into my obsessiveness with burning calories. I have to run. I MUST run. Back in the day when I walked and Bradley ran, he would walk with me often but never officially count it as his exercise. It always seemed somewhat insulting- unintentionally, of course. Now I understand. According to this graph walking burns less than half the calories as running. Unless I run, I feel like I haven’t worked out for real. The stationary cycle seems too simple, walking seems too unsweaty and the Wii fit, while fun, seems mostly just fun now. I must run every day, it seems like. That drive is exciting, but I need to keep it in check so I don’t injure myself.
Yesterday I just had to run and forced Bradley out the door with me. I needed to burn some calories or I was going to pace like a panther all night. Because we were going for a shorter run,* I asked Bradley to push me to a better pace. He did. My second mile was at a 10:30 pace, but the first mile was in the 9:40’s! Both miles kicked the booty of my previous miles, telling me yes, you can, girl. Yes, you can!
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With that run, I hit 10.75 towards my goal of 12 miles this week. If I take a 5K on Saturday I’ll exceed my goal. How proud would I be?
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I’m tweeting my runs these days if that sounds like something you’re interested in. Follow me, if you want to know my mileage and splits and all that good stuff.
Twitter
@tamarashazam
(Someday we will activate the twitter button, but for now you can play it old school)
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*I laugh inwardly all the time about how I call half a mile ‘easy’ now, how a short run is ‘only’ running a two miler. TWO MILES?! Who am I? Sorry, but what the hell is happening with me?! Ha ha ha!!!