Diary

It’s been sitting right between 76-85 this week, but the humidity has been moistening that business right up. Sheesh. It’s damp, sweaty and hot, HOT, HOT in Seattle! Hot enough that I have tassels on my corn and ripening tomatoes in July. I remember last summer trying really hard to be a good runner, but I hate running in the heat. I hate being that sweaty- so sweaty that as I run the sweat drips down into my eyes, stinging me, making me cry and taste salt every time I lick my lips. More than that, I hate the feeling of not being able to get a deep breath. Running in the heat is suffocating to me. Yuck.
I feel like I have been doing a decent, but not excellent, job of moving every day. Today, however, I started watching Extreme Makeover: Weightloss Edition, and, sometimes when I watch those shows I just get disgusted and irritated with myself. They have been able to do this in a year with the exact same tools I have, so why aren’t I weighing in the 170’s yet?? It’s been well over a year! Today I decided to make up for that with a long workout out of the heat and in the “spaceship” (remember- that is code for gym/garage)! I got on the elliptical and finished watching the most recent Hell’s Kitchen episode, then moved on to EM:WLE. I ended up riding that machine for a little over and hour, then hit the Bowflex, then I took my son out for a bike ride. After that I felt hot and sweaty, so I got my bathing suit on and the kids and I made a whirlpool in the pool by running circles in thigh-deep water for about 30 minutes. After that? I made dinner and was pooped out. LOL!
But I feel very good about my good choices today, both in diet and exercise. I made a very veggie- heavy dinner tonight of grilled corn, grilled Brussels sprouts, grilled tomato bruschetta, cabbage salad and grilled vegetarian shrimp. Colorful, flavorful and from the grill! Two years ago if I had served this dinner there would have been complaints at the lack of carbs. This year, we eat it without notice (unless I get all prideful about it, like now).
All-in-all, a very good day!

For my 40th birthday I asked for a home gym to be installed in our garage. Well really I didn’t ask for home gym, I asked for a treadmill. We already had a stationary bicycle, but I wanted something that would give me an opportunity to train for distance and get a really solid workout in, even when it’s yucky or too hot to train outdoors. As we were searching on Craigslist for the treadmill we kept coming across other equipment for excellent deals. We added the elliptical at the beginning of July of last year and have used that consistently all year long. Bradley wanted the Bowflex, so last fall we found one of those for a bargain on craigslist and added that to our collection. This spring, on the side of the road, we found a stair stepping machine so of course we added that. It’s kind of funny to think about because we started out just looking for a treadmill and now it seems like we have everything except the treadmill! Ha!
The machines have been living in the rumpus room since we acquired them. It’s a big enough space to house them, but the room was intended to be our kid’s playspace and hang out zone, not their parents gym equipment storage… This spring we finally cleaned all of the leftover old building materials out of our garage from when we built our house. We realized that, for the most part, it was pointless to keep all of the extra flooring, tile and moldings in our garage, taking up space so we gave it away or sold. This past week Bradley cleaned everything out, donated the last of the dregs, put some rugs down and I was upstairs reading when I heard him groaning and grunting as he independently moved all of the equipment in there! The good news is that, in addition to having all the pieces in the right room now, we think we have a treadmill in mind now and we are going to go get one in the next few days! But even better than that was when I walked into our garage/gym a few hours after we had it installed and saw this:

All the Lj’s hanging out in ‘the spaceship’ as it’s now been dubbed, thanks to us dorkifying our kids a little more by showing them Star Trek. As if being a bunch of Star Wars/Disney geeks wasn’t enough… Anyhow this is the new place to be in our house and our kids all day long asked us, “When can we please go work out in the gym with you again??” Keeping kids active… I’ll take it any way it comes! It’s easily their favorite place in our house at present. Seriously- they’re in the garage as I write this, playing spaceship! 🙂
***
Katie at Runs For Cookies features success stories on Mondays on her blog. I know that I find it incredibly motivating to hear other people’s success stories, and, while you’re here to read about what’s happening with me, I’m sure that sometimes it’s nice to hear other perspectives. With that in mind, I would like to encourage my readers who are finding some success of their own in weightloss and/or fitness, no matter how large or small, to start sharing their stories with me so I can feature you on Tamara Shazam! I don’t think I have the readership to support a consistent , dedicated, weekly motivational post, but if you have something amazing that you did or you feel extra proud, shoot me an email and a picture with a description about what you did and I’ll try to include it in a future post.*
update: just realized that there is no dedicated email account or link to access me in any capacity! For now, comments work well (you have to click to the article proper to comment, or find me on my Facebook account and message me there.

The rumpus room is now an exercise equipment free zone! Yahoo!
*
To be clear, I will reserve the right to edit your prose as I see fit without changing the factual information, refuse to post something sent to me and to edit pictures as needed. 🙂

I was 21 years old (or thereabouts- I just know I was of legal drinking age). It had long been a goal of mine to be a hiker. I love being outdoors in the woods, I love the mountains, it made sense that I should love hiking too… Except the fitness part, the climbing hills part, the switchbacks, the two-foot-high steps, the log bridges, and the slippery mud parts. Those were not appealing and, frankly, at my weight and level of fitness, they were fairly dangerous.
But still. The spring when I was 21 was full of new friends. We lived in crappy apartments eating cheap vegetarian food while drinking way too much tequila. In fact, one of those tequila fueled nights lead to my first ascension of the Heather Lake trail. One night, after hearing my friend Amy wax on and on about the pool near the waterfall at the glacial end of the lake that looked as though fairies flew there, we drunkenly decided to go… and the next morning I found myself in a Volkswagen van with several people, my boyfriend included, headed through Granite Falls, fresh lunch and cigarettes packed safely in my backpack.
We arrived at the trailhead and most of us gleefully ran into the forest. At that moment I got a little worried I was in over my head. They were literally running up the trail. Running. But nevermind that. I decided I could power through for the day. I would be out of breath, but I would fake my fitness and run up the hill alongside my slender and experienced hiking friends. I mean, we’re talking real salt of the earth types who did this all the time. These were people who hiked up to the top of the mountain with beer- the least potent alcohol- without a second thought to conserving energy. Hiking was fun for them. They did it every weekend. Easy. Me, on the otherhand? I was wheezy. Out of breath by the first switchback. Wheezing by the second and thinking about the irony of those cigarettes in my backpack.
My boyfriend and one other kind friend stayed behind with me while the rest of my friends literally bounded up the trail. I pondered heading back to the car and spending the day there, but I really wanted to see the fairy pond and I really wanted to just DO IT. I decided to send the friend ahead, as it seemed way too embarrassing to admit to him what I was going to request of my boyfriend: to go as slow as I needed, to take lots of breaks and to make my way to the top. And eventually I did just that.
As I sat up there, by the lake, smoking my well-earned cigarette, I thought of the irony, first, of spoiling the gorgeous, clear air with that cigarette. Nor did it escape me that my brief, yet dedicated, smoking habit may have contributed to my difficulty in getting up those 1100 feet of elevation. Just maybe. But I also thought about my weight and my dietary habits. I realized then that I needed to change some things.
I’ll admit that I did change my behavior after that* to a degree. That spring prompted a lot of walking, a change of diet and a series of hikes that the boyfriend and I took throughout the Verlot area, but I have never returned to Heather Lake… Until TODAY!

I’ve had a hankerin’ fer hikin’ all spring, but we were too darn busy to hike out of the city. Yes, St. Edwards is outdoor trails and they are miles and miles long, but they are, like, 10 minutes from home and don’t actually remove one from the city. You often hear cars, rarely cross a stream and it is highly unlikely that I’ll cross through a mountain meadow or walk by a glacial lake. I’m not a religious person, but I am very spiritual. My church is in the mountains and and woods. My spirit is filled there and I feel that large, tearful kind of emotion when I find myself completely ensconced in the forest. I get giddy and so happy and so full of beauty. I know I’m so full of precious cheese right now, but I’m completely sincere about how I process hiking.
Anyhow, Heather Lake has kind of been a litmus test for me. If I could hike it now, it means I made it. Today I sailed up the trail, parts of it I even ran. The trail is really hard. It’s a little over two miles, each way, of roots and rocks and treacherous ground. Some of the ‘stairs’ were waist-high to Jude, about thigh high to me. Leg lifting was important as was lifting ones feet high enough off the ground, but never once did I get exhausted or worn out to the point that I wanted to stop. Not even a little.
And at the top, I made it around to the fairy pond. It was blue like the Mediterranean and cold like hypothermia. My little fairies didn’t fly, but they did splash, dive and swim through the water, my little water sprites! It was one of my most perfect days on record EVER. Like, ever.
I have a friend called JOhn who hikes this trail year round, looking for birds and burning calories. I’ve seen pictures of this place in snow and under ice- it looks beautiful. Perhaps I’ll have to see this place again, but next time in winter. 🙂
Happy Hiking!
Heather Lake

*
My smoking career was spawned by some ‘bad’ friends I had at CWU who actually smoked marijuana. Wanting to be ever the good girl, it only made sense for me to smoke legal (but more toxic) Marlboros. This fit in nicely with the new, grungy, Seattle-edgy, goes-well-with-a-boyfriend-in-a-Mohawk-and-dog-collar look I was trying to achieve as well. I smoked on and off until we broke up two years later, then didn’t smoke much at all until I smoked my last cigarette on the Eve of my wedding. Hopefully I won’t have any lasting effects from my temporary stupidity.

Today I had a butterfly moment.
One of those moments where you take stock and look at something with new eyes, in this case, me.
Last Fourth of July looked great on film, but behind the smiles were a different story. I’m not talking E! Hollywood Story or anything, but I had just finished my professional certification, had just lost 50-60 pounds and Bradley and I were in a bit of a daze. Life had changed so much, the pro-cert program did not bring out the best in me, at all, and I remember Independence Day being awkward, stilted, out of sync and lonely in that way that you can be lonely while being surrounded people. Like an outsider. Like I didn’t belong.

{July, 2013~Three Capes Lookout, Oregon Coast}
This was a year of growth, for sure. Mostly I grew in that way that my weightloss doesn’t seem that newsworthy anymore. I got used to my skin. My body doesn’t define me in the same way it used to. This year I learned that I love my body and what it can do. I learned that I’m capable of change. This year I learned about being courageous in ways that seem obvious. To speak up when I’m not feeling happy. I think it’s that I don’t want to burden people with more that they don’t need, but I know that saying it aloud sometimes makes it lose its power over me. If I can just break through that wall, all is healed.

In the last year I’ve only lost a net of 25 pounds or so. When I look at it as a total sum, I’m pleased that I’ve lost that much, but also know that with focus I could have met my 170 pound goal. That’s irritating. I learned a lot about my eating habits, recognized reactions I have to food, I was honest about unhealthy habits I deceptively (to myself) maintain. I learned that I can, albeit very carefully, practice intuitive eating as a means to maintain. I figured out that when I step away from tracking calories, I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full and eat LOTS more with increased exercise! I learned how important it is to dangle a goal in front of myself that will help motivate and propel me forward…

I guess what I’m trying to say is that since last Independence Day I’ve gotten to know much more about who I am. I’ve learned what I need and what I won’t accept. I’ve learned that I can tell people I’ve got too much on my plate, that I can’t take their project on as well. I’ve learned to make hard decisions to improve my life, physically and mentally. I’ve learned that I can speak up, face hard things, uncomfortable situations and still behave with dignity. I’ve learned a lot about who I am, but I’ve also learned a lot about my relationship. I’ve learned how much I can trust him and rely on him to be a rock for me. As hard as things were last year, it’s the polar opposite this year.
It’s amazing that as we get older, we just continue to grow up.
Happy Independence Day, indeed!

I think it’s safe to say that I’m hitting my stride again. Officially! We ran the big loop without a second thought or even a side stitch. I’m so glad that fitness returns easily, as long as you don’t let it get too far away from you, I suppose. My first run this week was a doozy. I wasn’t even a mile into it and I had to sit on the sidewalk and rest. I had some weird stomach cramp that was determined to cause me strife and I was a little worried, but this most recent run made me feel good- like I can hit that six miles and beyond very, very soon! Tomorrow I’ll do a three or four miler to see how that goes. I’m excited to be running again! I always feel strong, capable and in control of my life when I have a solid running streak.

Yesterday I finished up my root canal. I was very worried about it. The recovery from round one was awful. I frequently felt as though someone had decked me in the jaw! It was really painful! Getting back into that chair was really hard for me. I had a lot of anxiety and actually I cried as he was giving me the anesthesia! However, as the anesthesia wore off later that night, I had almost zero pain! The root canal worked! Yahoo! I’m one happy girl now!
***
We finally have buttoned up our loose ends enough that life seems like it can resume now- my back is healed, our apartment rented, my root canal complete, my classroom has been moved and I even think we know when we are going in vacation! It’s like we can start running and hiking and having an actual summer now! We’ve been putting off making any plans until we got our ducks in a row, even what we’re doing to celebrate Independence Day! No worries, we are creative people with good friends and sparkling personalities (we’ve got fireworks- the good kind- can we come over??) who will welcome us with open arms, I’m sure (yep-lots of fireworks!).
As long as we bring a lighter.
Have a safe and fun celebration tomorrow!

I loathe the dentist. I used to be ambivalent about sitting in that chair, but then I had a really bad dentist who shamed (nagged me meanly about brushing- at the time I was only a once-a-day person), bullied me about my dental care (tried to force me into X-rays while pregnant and then acted like I was an idiot for declining to do so) and other unsavory things he did to my husband and kids. It totally turned me off of going at all! It’s silly, I know, but it’s interesting to note how adversely residual feelings like that can impact me.
Anyhow, after all these years of avoiding the dentist like the plague, I finally developed an issue that turned into a root canal. I walked into the dentist office totally naive of the process. I thought it would be like any other dental visit of drill-kill-fill-feel better, but oh no. It has not been so. I’m nauseous, in pain and altogether out of sorts, made worse by feeling overly embarrassed about missing so much time in my Wired for Reading workshop that I’m attending, for which there was a paid fee to go AND I get paid to be there! All this money wasted going out and coming in! It’s really frustrating! I’ve missed an entire day now! Ack! Hopefully I can finish out the week strong and stay all day tomorrow!

Old friends can surprise us. Here I am, blaring it from a website, that I’m losing weight! I’m running! And me? I need this. I need to be public and loud, otherwise it don’t hold myself accountable. Other people though??? They go all quiet for a year and then, suddenly, something like this gets posted on your Facebook stream:

DENISE!!! WOW!
This girl was one of my besties in high school. Tenth through twelfth grade were our years together. I found her at a time I really needed a friend. Before her, I never really had a friend who had a similar, twisted sense of humor or music tastes (she also straddled the pop/alt line, but unlike me, there is not NKOTB in her house today). I spent many nights at her house discussing important things and doing less important things, I’m sure- like painting our nails black, dying our hair with kool-aid, discussed the benefits of Doc Martins versus Birkenstocks, who was the hottest member of Jane’s Addiction (?!?) and vegetarian diets (it was the 90’s). She never got to be humongously gigantic or anything, but like me, she always had a little extra sumptin-sumptin shaking around on her.
Well, no longer! She has obviously changed something and is looking to win the accolades (and a few bucks) she has been working towards! Please, click on any of the links sprinkled throughout this article to go and vote for her as the most transformed body (hers really is the most transformed in this group). Please? She’s a good person (like, a really good person) who has worked really hard on this and has shown significant, positive change!
When I wrote to ask her if I could use her pictures, she had this to say
“I’m really proud of how far I’ve come. Has been an interesting year!! Precision Nutrition is just the best program ever – if you do decide to use my photo on your web site, please give a shout out to them as well – best group of people and really amazing program.”
Throw her a bone!
And then, while you’re hanging out looking at her pictures, if you’re anything like me, you’re also wondering when you can kick your butt back in gear so you can weigh in the 170’s too! Thanks for the super motivation, Denise!
VOTE FOR NUMBER THREE!!!

This week I am taking a reading workshop called Wired For Reading. It was one of those things where I knew I should, I knew I would, I also knew I should get it out of the way so I wouldn’t agonize over giving up a few precious days of hot, dry August all summer.
Naturally, I’m antsy at this thing. I’m standing in the back of the room on my tippy-toes to get my wiggles out while we discuss the birth of the English language (Did you know that the English language was born about 400 AD?) and the location of the tongue for varying letters in the alphabet. Interesting, but… I mean, summer’s here! It’s 76 perfect degrees out! Thank goodness I really like my new team of teachers. But still. I’m wiggly. So what did I do? I did what I ask my own students not to do- I escaped to the bathroom. While I did need to visit the restroom in an official capacity, I also just needed to move a little. While in there, I discovered that during our weekend in Idaho, all that time on the blanket and on the dock laying in the sun made my hair do this:

I’m suddenly a blonde!
🙂
That was fun, and free!
(Sorry about the tongue. I have a hard time taking selfies seriously and I got all embarrassed. Silly, yes?)
***
I’m thinking of doing another diet bet. I think I would lose weight, but even if I didn’t, I know I would do better with that level of accountability during the summer. I know this from past experience! I’m not completely committed yet, but I’m thinking on Monday I might get serious about it.

“I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

This, of course, is Jim Carrey giving a commencement speech at Maharishi University’s School of Management in Iowa, earlier this month.
“So many of us chose our path out of fear disguised as practicality,” Carrey said. “What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect, so we never dare to ask the universe for it. I’m saying I’m the proof that you can ask the universe for it. And if it doesn’t happen for you right away, it’s only because the universe is so busy fulfilling my order.”
***
If you read here with any regularity, you know that I’m always seeking my purpose in life. What am I truly meant to do? How am I supposed to make my mark on the world? How can I fulfill my destiny, live a satisfying, happy life, all the while making choices that leave this world a better place?
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a singer more than anything. I spent hours and days singing. I sang on my roller skates, I sang on my bike, I sang while walking. In fact, the primary activity amongst my neighborhood friends and me was to circle the two blocks we all lived on while singing at the top of our lungs Top Gun’s version of You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling, We Are the World, Stand By Me and any other song we fancied. It was a way of life, singing was. I loved it. I still love to sing and I sing a lot, but I’m not a gifted singer. Or at least I don’t think I am. Instead of fronting an all girl pop band, I started thinking of my other strengths- I’ve loved working with children and I’ve liked little kids since I was one myself, so it was a natural choice to turn to teaching as a more realistic option. A safer option. I don’t regret that choice at all (well, sometimes, on a hard day), but what I do regret is never taking a voice lesson, never learning guitar and never allowing myself to buy into the idea that singing could ever be a possibility.
As life has progressed, I’ve watched people around me fight for those big dreams that Jim Carrey is referring to. I know people from high school who have been very successful doing things that seemed like pipe dreams- they’ve invented things, run nationally renown foodtrucks, have had television pilots made about them on HGTV, written books and I even know someone who became quite famous as a guitarist/pianist/producer/singer in a very successful indie rock band! He did the VERY thing I considered to be impossible.
My passion right now is nutrition, movement and health. Like anyone who has lost a significant amount of weight and has made a huge transition towards being active, I feel different. I have this vent diagram in my mind that categorizes the before and after of my life, and I can so clearly see the difference. I want to share that with others! What I’ve been struggling with is how to do that without being either overbearing or pious.
Toward the end of the year, a mom from my class approached me to let me know that Whole Foods is interested in partnering with teachers and schools to encourage kids to eat healthy and move their bodies through modeling and explicit teaching. I eat right in front of my students all the time. This year I was in my room, alone with my students, from 9:15-12:25 without a break. I get hungry around 10:30, usually, so the snack policy in my room was to eat when you were hungry, plain and simple, me included. Kids look to their leaders, so I always make sure to model healthy eating and usually choose fresh fruit or fresh vegetables for my morning snack. Whole Foods also sees teachers as health models, just like I do, and I think I’m the exact kind of person they are looking for. In addition, they are campaigning for salad bars in schools and so much more!
This seems like such an exciting opportunity, and like it aligns itself beautifully with my life’s purpose! I realized that I can live my life, my healthy life, as a role model for my students. I can share my love of whole-body, healthy-living with my students as part of their curriculum! And, as a role model, I even get to share the reward in front of me- running the Disney Princess Half Marathon! What better reward is there for making good choices than a really fun, athletic event, located at he Happiest Place on Earth? I’m so excited. And the best part is that I don’t even need to make a career shift to do this.
I met Brittany Herself last fall, and she said that she just keeps throwing spaghetti against the cupboard to see what sticks. What she meant was that opportunity arises from saying things aloud, taking risks and sharing your vision. When you do that enough, something is bound to grow legs and take off. She now has written a book, had a pilot tv show for HGTV, is a spokesperson for Rivet and Sway, was a model for Land’s End Plus Size, has been featured in magazines, on the TODAY show, GMA… The list goes on. Becca holds a contract with LeapPad now, spawned from her passion for teaching kindergarteners, as well as travels regularly for her home and family website (which has been featured in magazines and online, as well). Katie went on to become a running coach as well as was on the Dr. Oz show, has been featured in Runners World Magazine and has traveled around the country to run in races and observe cats‘ responses to different stimuli. Opportunity is out there if I throw some spaghetti. This is me saying I’m excited, and I hope something awesome and healthy happens for the kids I get to work with, now that I have found a new purpose.
So, Universe? I’m ready to see what can happen!
***
{Watch the whole minute, clipped together highlight video of the speech, though, and if you’re like me, you’ll go find the full length speech online. Then, just maybe, you might go down a Jim Carrey YouTube rabbit hole and waste an afternoon considering what a wise and funny man Jim Carrey is…}