Kiss kiss bang bang

the result after this morning's post

Appearances

Every week, if not every day, I read a post on somebody's blog that talks about how it doesn't matter what we look like. That if it weren't for the fact that the fat was detrimental to our health, none of us would feel so bad about how we look. And that while they wouldn't mind looking thinner, that isn't really the reason they are in this weight loss thing - their motivation and drive comes from a desire to truly be the healthiest they can. When I read those kinds of posts, I go away feeling bad about who I am. I feel shallow and question why I can't be more concerned with who I am than with what other people see when they look at me and what size my clothes are.

Admittedly, for me it is the driving force in my efforts to lose weight. While I of course want to be healthy, the thing that has kept pushing me has been the desire to fit into my clothes better, and to be able to buy smaller sizes and cuter clothes. While I wish that I didn't spend so much time worrying about what I look like, comparing myself to other people, and always finding myself lacking, it isn't something I have been able to overcome.

Take for instance the fact that I am going to get some bangs cut into my hair this morning. While this may not seem like a monumental decision or act, I have gone back and forth with the decision for a couple of weeks. See, I want some of those swoopy side bangs that are popular now. I have been growing my hair out for a couple of years now from its previous A-line, ceasing the endless straightening of my natural curls. As anyone who has grown their hair out knows, it often seems like you are waiting to get to the point where your hair is long and beautiful, and meanwhile you are just trimming it every couple of months. It changes slowly, and seems to look the same for months at a time. So I have reached the point where I want something to mix it up a little, something a bit different, but I am not done growing it, don't want to cut any length off, and don't want to color it because the upkeep is just too much for me and most of the time I like my natural auburn and gold highlights. So bangs seem like a good idea - a small change but something different and fun.

So decision made, right? Ha! Because see, my mind doesn't work on a linear level. It curves and climbs and dips and doubles back. Worries and fears jump out from their dark hiding places and interrupt the path of decision. What if the bangs look weird? I mean, I will have to straighten them each day to make them swoopy, and the rest of my hair is curly. Will that look funny? What if I hate them, and after all this time of trying to get my hair to all be long in length, I now have to start growing bangs out all over again? What if I just looked better without them and never should have gotten them? And on and on and on. (To which my husband invariably replies - "What if your arm falls off?" I imagine twelve years with my insanity is enough to drive a man crazy - he doesn't even try to calm me down anymore.)

I have asked friends and family their opinions, looked at endless pictures online. All for this seemingly small change to my hair. Well, yesterday I finally made an appointment to get the cut this morning. Decision made again, right? Yeah, I am going to go through with it, but last night I had this terrible dream that I had already cut them myself into fringe-style bangs, which looked horrible, and then the lady who does my hair looked horrified, and really couldn't do anything to help me, and I was just so regretful that I had ever touched them. I woke up this morning thinking I should text and cancel my appointment. But I am not going to. I am going to go and do this, and convince myself that no matter the outcome, it won't ruin anything, it isn't a drastic decision, and it is only hair. It will grow back if I don't like it. And on the flip side, I may come back from it looking like a movie star. Who knows?

Now imagine that all this craziness is applied to my body. Even after losing 50 pounds, there are still days where I find it impossible to get dressed and feel good about how I look. It is a downward spiral, all fed by things I was told as a young girl by a vindictive girlfriend of my dad's and an ex-alcoholic grandfather who still had an occasional mean streak. But today I will silence the voices and take a small step in the direction of believing in myself and my decisions. And hopefully come back with my hair looking more like this:

And less like this:

Focus

Lately I feel that I have had two distinct goals in my life - 1) run a half-marathon and generally continue to improve my fitness and 2) lose weight. Now, #2 has been on the goal list for quite a while. And I have been losing. Slowly. And it seems like #s 1 and 2 go hand in hand. But I have to tell you, lately it really feels like they are at odds with one another. Because I have been improving my fitness - lots and lots of cross training, and I am definitely trimming down and gaining muscle. Which is what I think is causing some trouble with the weight loss. I may be losing fat, but I am replacing it with muscle, so the number on the scale? Isn't moving.

And while on one level I know that this is the case, and that it isn't just that I am not changing at all, on another level it completely stresses me out that I am not seeing results reflected on the scale, and it is leading me to spend way more time than is healthy obsessing over what I am eating and why isn't all the time I am spending working out helping and blah blah blah.

I think that what my problem is (shall I say one of my problems? Because lets be honest, I have too many to list) is that I am splitting my focus. Right now, I feel like I need to either focus on one goal or the other. So for now, I am going to be focusing on improving my fitness and getting my training underway for my half marathon. I will put all my effort into that. This doesn't mean that I am not going to still strive to make good choices food-wise, or that I won't ever weigh myself, only that I am going to put the most work into improving my body through exercise, and along with that, maybe the weight will drop. But if it doesn't, I will do my best to be ok with it, and to be happy with the achievements I will be making in that arena.

Now, on a physical note, I think that I strained my foot when I went running the other day. I need new running shoes, as mine are pretty worn, and my best guess is that this fact resulted in my injury. My foot is really sore along the outside of the sole. I can walk on it, but after a bit it really hurts. Any thoughts on this???

What a Tool

Wednesday = workout class. I think it is called Group X, but in all the time I have been going on Mondays and Wednesdays, I have never referred to it by its name. Randy kicked our butts today. Actually, let me rephrase that. He gave us the tools to kick our own butts. Because really, while he will stand there and tell us to pick up the speed and correct us when we aren't doing something the right way, for the most part we are responsible for how much of an effort we put out. Some days, I have a harder time getting myself to really push it. Other days, I give it my all. Today was one of those days.

We did something similar to drills, so we were in a line. There were only four of us today. I was in front. And I pushed it and did things quickly. And ended up at the back of the line, because today no one else was really pushing. And I didn't fault them for that. It just meant there were times when I had to wait a minute to start the next exercise because I had just finished my 5th time through while the others were just starting their 5th. It felt good to be the one who was really on today.

I need to apply this principle to the rest of my healthy-living. Especially my eating. Because really, I know the drills. I have the tools to kick my butt into gear and lose the last 15-20 pounds. But I am just holding them, lightly using them, setting them down when they feel too heavy. And no one else can pick them up and finish the job for me. I am the one who has to do the work. I will be doing my best to focus and remember that today. Because while I still haven't had sugar since last Friday, my other eating habits haven't gotten any better. And it isn't any one thing that is holding me back, it is a general faineance in the eating department.

Are you using your tools?

Back at it

After yesterday's walk turned into a run halfway through, I kind of caught the bug to get back into my running. I don't know if anyone remembers, but a while back I declared that this would be the year of the half-marathon for me. Since then, I have done nothing in the running department to further my goal. Sure, I have put in a mile or two here and there, but I found myself in a funk and just couldn't bring myself to really run. I kept up with my other cardio and my strength training, but since running outside in my first (and only) 5k last November, the treadmill just doesn't do it for me. And I didn't have the will to push it.

Well, with the return of the nice weather here in Northern California (at least temporarily,) I got just the inspiration I needed to get my feet moving. This morning I left my house, intent only on running as far as I felt able, and just getting back out there. We live in a rural town, but right next to a (slightly) bigger one, and so I headed out down my country-ish road towards our local grocery store, Raley's. My husband was home working on something, but he was going to be heading to the store to pick up some chorizo for breakfast (as my mother-in-law is making homemade tortillas as I type this,) and I figured that I would just keep running as long as I could, and he could pick me up on his way back home if I couldn't go any further. 

Where the rural part of our road ends and the more populated area starts is about a mile and a half. When I was training for the 5k, that was how I marked where to turn around to come back to get the full distance. But as I reached that point this morning, my hubby had not yet driven past me on his way to the store, and I didn't want to turn around and run where I had already been, so I kept going. Where our road ends altogether is about 2 miles from my home, so I figured I would get to there, and if I hadn't seen any sign of my husband I would just keep going as far as I could. I reached the corner - still no sign of Hubby. So I thought "Well, I'll just keep going until I can't." 

And I did. I just kept running, eventually deciding that I would just try to make it to Raley's. At some point I figured that my husband must have already passed me and I just hadn't noticed. Well, I made it all the way to the store. A distance of 3 miles. And I probably could have gone a bit further, but at that point I just decided that I might as well meet my husband there and catch a ride back home. So I pulled out my cell phone and called him, figuring he was already inside somewhere, and simultaneously when he answered I saw him at the stoplight waiting to pull in. 

"Did I pass you?" he asked me. When I told him no, that I was at Raley's, he was surprised. "I was starting to worry that maybe you'd hurt yourself and fallen in a ditch." 

But no, I ran all the way. The first time since Thanksgiving that I have run that far. And it felt wonderful to accomplish. I think I am ready to start my training for the half-marathon. But for now, there is chorizo & eggs and fresh-made tortillas waiting for me.

Not my chorizo, but close enough. This one doesn't have eggs in it yet.

President's are made for pajamas

Good morning, blog peoples. It is 8:02 a.m. on the west coast, and already it has been a great day! How many times do you get to say that? Me? Not very. So I will claim it, and love it, and carry the feeling with me in hopes that I will remember to look for it again in the future.

Today has been declared Pajama Day for my family. A day off from school, Hubby's day off from work, and we are going to cocoon ourselves for some much needed family time. There are copious amounts of movie watching ahead, and maybe some board games. And probably a nap. Or two. Heaven? Yes, I think so. However, Pajama Day falls on a Monday, which is one of the two days a week that I have my workout class with the evil trainer, and I refuse to miss those classes unless I am dying or out of town. They are that killer.

So I was up at 5:15, and out of my pajamas and into my workout clothes while the rest of the family slumbered on blissfully. I hit the all motion trainer for 28 minutes, then the half hour class (today's focus was strength - my muscles were so shaky by the time we finished.) Then I hopped in my van and headed home, fully intending to change immediately back into my jammies and call it good.

Only I didn't. Somewhere between the gym and my house (which keep in mind is only a two mile distance) I had decided that I was going to go for a walk when I got home. (I know - who am I, and what happened to Morgan?) So I came into the house, said good morning to three of my children who had risen in my absence (my 6 year old son looked at my workout clothes and said "You are going to put your jammies back on, right?") and then headed out. There is a hilly 2 mile loop from my house, which was my one source of exercise in the months when I lost my first 30 pounds a couple years ago. I decided I wanted to revisit it, as I hardly ever use it now that I use the fitness center.

My fastest time to do the loop in the past was 27 minutes, and that was sometime after I had lost that first chunk of weight. Today I set out at a determined pace, and about halfway through I started jogging. And I didn't stop. Downhill, uphill, slow but steady, I ran over half the loop all the way back to my house, and could have kept going if I hadn't reached my destination. It felt wonderful. And before I had always used the end of my driveway as my stopping place, telling myself when it would get rough to keep going "Just to the mailbox, then you can stop." But today I ran to my front door. Upon checking my time, I was pleased to see that it took me about 24 and a half minutes.

I feel great, and am so so glad I went out. I am a little sweatier than I intended, so I think I will actually shower before putting my jammies back on. But pajama day doesn't officially start until everyone is awake, and Hubby and the eldest girl are not awake yet, so I have some time. I hope that everyone out there has a great President's day, whatever you are doing!

Bad timing

Let me start by saying that the day you go to a baby shower is not the best day to decide to not have any sugar. What is it about celebrating an impeding birth that inspires buffets of brownies, cake, and candies? No matter - I didn't touch any of it. I said I wouldn't have sugar yesterday, and I didn't. And I at least partially owe that to you all - making it a public statement on the blog made it more necessary for me to stick to it. So, one successful day over. Today I am still not having sugar, but I am also going to focus on portion control. I feel like I ate a lot yesterday, some of which wasn't strictly necessary. We are spending a Sunday at home - kids are sick, Hubby is going to work, so I am missing church and hanging by the fire. Hopefully I will get a walk in later, too. Happy Sunday all!