Either you run the day or the day runs you.

I promised in a past post that I’d update you all on this weight loss thing and how it’s going. So here we go.

I’ve lost 31.5 pounds and 10% body fat. That’s a lot of fat. The last time I was at the gym I picked up a 30 pound weight just to see what it felt like and my body goaned and my heart skipped and my head exploded. 30 pounds is HEAVY!

A lot of people in real life always dance around The Question. The “What did you weight to start” question. I’ve never really understood that. Like, why is The Weight Question something that people are so reluctant to answer? It’s a number. It doesn’t define your self worth. It doesn’t MEAN anything to anybody but the person answering the question. I think that most women are scared to answer it, especailly when a skinnier person is asking, because women are SO OBSESSED with that number. It’s like a competition. It’s not. Women, seriously, stop it. I’d rather be 140 pounds of lean muscle mass than 105 pounds of weak emaciated limbs. The Number has a different meaning for evey person and using it to gain some kind of psychological upper hand is lame and catty and why 81% of the female population bugs the shit out of me.

Last September, a few days before my birthday, I got on the scale for the first time in MONTHS AND MONTHS and expected to weight MAYBE 200 pounds. I weighed 230. My body groaned and my heart skipped a beat and my head exploded. It’s a general theme. That wasn’t even the worst part. Ben and I made the collective decision to Get Healthy so we went to the gym and I ran for two minutes and had to stop because I felt like I was going to FUCKING DIE RIGHT THERE OMG. I couldn’t believe how out of shape I was. I was ashamed and sad and SCARED.

Today, four months later I weigh 197.6 which is progress! But still around 40 pounds from where I think a healthy weight is for me. I’ll never be 120 pounds again and, honestly, I don’t ever want to be that tiny. I want muscles. I want strong powerful legs and biceps and CURVES. I don’t think I’d make a good skinny girl.

I feel better, my clothes fit better, I’m stronger, I’m a better me. It hasn’t been easy. When the first pounds come off you feel GREAT. You are MOTIVATED and AWESOME and YEAH! Then you hit a wall. I haven’t lost any weight in the last two weeks and I have to keep reminding myself that I’m STRONGER. I have muscles now that I didn’t have before but it’s still easy to fall into that little lull that leads back to The Quitting. I set a challenge for myself this week to do intense cardio every day. For me this will be TurboJam kicking my ass.

One of the hardest parts of this entire journey so far has been what I see as a personal defeat: The Running. I LOVE to run. I love the sound of my feet hitting the ground, the feeling of air deep down in my lungs, the empty mind as I focus on breathing and getting to my next goal. It’s therapeutic and I love it. I’ve come leaps and bounds from that first two minute run. Cardiovascularly, I think I could run MILES but my shins start to ache after the first mile. Like, BAD ACHE. Like, have consistent pain for the week following. Like, actually limp up and down stairs for the next three days. I can’t begin to explain how frustrating this is to me. I feel like I have failed. My body is failing me.

So here’s my plan. My final effort. I’m going to give this one last try force my body with all my might to shape the fuck up. I’m ordring some shin compression wraps as soon as I’m done posting this and as soon as they get here my run will look like this.

1) Wear compression wraps
2) 10 minute FAST walk to warm my muscles up.
3) 1 mile run at 5.5 MPH (I can go faster but I want a baby step here)
4) IMMEDIATELY ice. Like, get off the treadmill, stretch, drive home, ICE.
5) Aspirin!
6) See how I am the next day.

This is pretty much my last ditch effort. I can’t tell you how bad I want this to work. I just can’t.

Till then, the rest of this week will look like this:

Wednesday: TurboJam Cardio Party
Thursday: Core training at home on the ball with the medicine ball & AbJam
Friday: Gym (cardio and upper body. Have I mentioned I’m addicted to my new bicep muscles?)
Saturday: TurboJam Cardio Party
Sunday: Core training at home on the ball with the medicine ball & AbJam
Monday: Gym (cardio and upper body)

We’ll see how that goes. I want my legs to be completely rested (from weight training at least) when I go for that first run.

AND! Now I’ve gone on a lot longer than I meant to.

Night!

PS – I might start doing some videos they way Julie is. I love watching them and I like the idea of being 1) accountable, and 2) able to look back later and see the change in body and attitude.

PSS – Talk me out of getting a fourth tattoo. Seriously. It’s been on my mind a lot lately.

The first thing you lose on a diet is your sense of humor.

I’ve lost 15 pounds. I’m not sure exactly where that 15 pounds went. My pants feel a little less painted on in the morning but other than that I’m stumped. Knowing my luck 5 of it came off my feet and the other 10 were just cleaned thoroughly out of my colon. We’ve been eating very “clean”. Whole grains, lean meats and LOTS AND LOTS of fresh veggies and fruit. Over the next few weeks I’m going to feature some of the recipes here because most of them have actually been much tastier than I’d think something good for you should taste. Gone are the days of rice cakes and plain egg whites that’s for sure.

Of course, Ben has less weight to lose overall but has already lost more than me. He’s at 20 pounds lost. It’s totally awesome for him, he’s doing so well. But certainly there is some twisted higher being out there that was drop kicked in the face by a woman at some point and now we’re all paying the consequence by having to do twice as much work to lose the same amount of weight.

We’ve also been hitting the gym pretty regularly. It’s amazing to me how in two months I can do the same workout on the treadmill but my heart rate average has gone down 40 beats per minute. FORTY. BEATS. PER. MINUTE. I thought for sure during that first workout that my heart was going to commit mutiny. He was going to band together with my spleen and gallbladder and find the quickest exit possible. I’m not sure how important a spleen or gallbladder is but I do know that I’d be kinda screwed without my heart.

Today I made an appointment with a personal trainer that I routinely see TRY TO MURDER people at the gym. Tonight a man just WALKED OUT in the middle of his hour. WALKED OUT! Dude is INTENSE. And I’m really really looking forward to it. Also, I’m wondering how hard I’d actually have to hit him to knock him out to run away. Maybe kicking hm would be better. I guess we’ll find out Wednesday.