One step at a time…

Yesterday I felt horrible. My legs ached like never before. I hardly got any sleep the night before (maybe 3 hours) and all day I felt lethargic but not tired enough to actually fall asleep (probably a good thing in the long term, but at the time it was very frustrating). I intended to take it easy and rest, but with the way I was feeling, it would have been a struggle to do anything if I wanted to.
Thankfully I had an amazing sleep last night and woke up feeling a world different. My legs were refreshed and energized instead of painful and stiff. My head was clear and I was ready to go!

I jogged/walked for about 4K this morning (plus about an additional 2K for my warm-up/cool-down). At the start, I was feeling a bit weary and discouraged. Doubt crept through my mind as to whether signing up for my upcoming 5K was really a good idea. I had two or three walk breaks in only the first 2K and was starting to get discouraged. But when I turned around to go home, everything changed. Suddenly I had energy! I jogged the entire 2K back to my starting point without stopping and left my run feeling energized, enthusiastic and optimistic.

I left wondering why. How could I make the first half of my run just as good as the last? Maybe my warm-up walk wasn’t enough to get me sufficiently warmed-up… Maybe the trail is easier coming home (although the whole thing is pretty flat).

I’ll try it again on Wednesday and see how it goes. If the same thing happens again, maybe I’ll walk to the end do it the other way around (which would both give a longer warm-up walk and reverse my route).

What I love about running is that it’s different every time. Each time I go out, whether on the trail or on the treadmill, I’m learning something more about my body and my mind. Every run is different and there’s always something to strive for or improve upon.

Can’t wait to do it again!

Yesterday, the first day of my “back on track” strategy for busting through my plateau, was great. I did 30 minutes on the stationary bike, which was more than my usual zero. It’s amazing how much I felt the burn after having taken a couple months off.
I did will with eating too, coming in under 1500 calories. And that was with having chicken fajitas for dinner, one of the higher calorie meals in the rotation (we did the grocery shopping on the weekend, before I re-committed to counting ALL my calories). Tonight is BBQ chicken with broccoli and potatoes, so it should be easier to keep it within my limits. And I met my water requirements as well.

Today is going well too. I went outside for my jog this morning, mainly because the treadmill in our building’s little gym wasn’t working. I hope they get it fixed soon. I was a little nervous being farther from home, after having massive abdominal cramps the past two times. The cramps came again, but not as severe, and instead of stopping and turning back, I turned off my music and walked until they subsided, and then turned the music back on and continued for the remainder of my workout.

I’m not sure what I’ll do for my exercise tomorrow. If the weather is nice, I might hike to the top of Mount Royal (haven’t done that in a really long time and it’s a great workout). If it’s going to rain, like the weatherman is predicting, then I’ll probably do the bike again. The main drawback to the mini-gym in my building is that there isn’t much variety – only a treadmill, a stationary bike and an elliptical machine. Since the treadmill isn’t working and I feel really awkward on the elliptical, that leaves the bike. I could always go up and down the stairs a few times as well. Lots of options!

I’m feeling great and am optimistic about the forthcoming results. I only feel a twinge of regret that I didn’t reach this epiphany earlier. But it’s best to leave the past in the past. I can only change the present and the future! And that’s what I’m going to do!!!

I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with the same numbers always appearing on the scale. While I have loved doing C25K and am thrilled with the increase in my fitness that has resulted, I lost my focus somewhere along the line. I started this journey to lose weight but I’m not anymore.

I looked back at my lifestyle when I started in May (when I was losing a pound or two each week) and my stagnant scale doesn’t come as a surprise. I used to track every single molecule I put in my mouth, then I went to estimating and now I confess that I don’t even do that sometimes. I used to exercise nearly every day and do weights along with my cardio. Now I only exercise 3 times a week with no weights and to be honest, my jogs, while more than I’ve ever been able to do before, are still barely more than a fast walk. I used to write in my blog every day and read tons of blogs and articles, but now I mainly just talk about my C25K experiences.

I committed to change my routine in September, but now a week has gone by and no changes. That stops today.

Today I’m going to do 30 minutes on the stationary bike and weights. Today I’m going to track everything I eat. Today I’m going to give my body the water it needs. Today I’m going to set aside time to read blogs and articles to find inspiration and motivation from others. And tomorrow I’ll be back to talk about how today went.

Today is a new day and I’m going to do everything I can to make the most of it and get closer to my goal!

I went out for a run yesterday even though I didn’t want to. My body was sluggish and my limbs felt heavy. I could have walked faster than my jogging speed. Being a holiday, there were load of other runners out there (most days I’m lucky if I see more than one other person), and every one of them was passing me. I felt like a big fat phony! Not even ten minutes into my jogging interval, I got massive abdominal cramps and nausea to the point that I couldn’t continue, so I stopped. If I was in a better place mentally, I could have salvaged my workout, maybe speed walking for the remainder. But I wasn’t. I went home, feeling utterly defeated.

The most important thing was that today I tried again. This time I went on the treadmill, a little closer to home. Sure enough, 15 minutes into my workout, the abdominal cramps returned (not surprising, since I’ve been a bit backed up lately). I stopped and went back to my apartment to take care of business. The main difference between yesterday and today was that after I was sorted, I went back down and finished my workout.

The second half of my workout was good. I went a touch faster than my last treadmill run and maintained it throughout. It got tougher near the end, but I fought through it. So far, my total distance is 4km, inching ever closer to my 5K run in October.
I’m a bit worried about the 5K. My past behaviour would be drop out instead of risking possible failure, but thankfully it’s too late for that. My mom has already made a donation and she has been really proud of the progress I’ve made with C25K. To back out now would be a disappointment for her and I’m more afraid of that than of failure! I’m committed now. I AM going to do this!

On another note, today is our second wedding anniversary! I’m hoping to get flowers when my husband comes home from work. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for him yet, but I have a bit longer to figure that out. We’re going out for dinner on the weekend, so hopefully I won’t indulge too much. We’re going to a friend’s wedding in two weeks (my husband’s in the wedding party) and I have a dress in my closest that I bought two years ago that still has the price tag on it, so I was hoping to be able to wear it. It just fits, but with little margin for error, so it would be great if I could shed a couple more pounds before then (not to mention the satisfaction of breaking through this plateau!)

I’ve been in a funk all this week. Since my lame attempt on Monday, I didn’t “feel” like doing it again on Wednesday. My heart just wasn’t in it. It was the same story on Thursday. Not until this morning did I have the smallest inkling to get off my butt and go running again.

I think it had a lot to do with body image issues. How accurate is your body image? Mine varies dramatically. When I’m running or feeling confident and athletic, I “see” myself as weighting 50-70lbs less than I actually do: my goal weight/body (probably why I hate mirrors). On a bad body image day, I see myself as I actually am. This week has been more of the latter, and thus resulting in a lack of motivation. I’m not sure why this different exists for me. Sometimes it’s helpful, especially with increased confidence and motivation to be active. But on the other hand, if I always had a realistic concept of my weight, then maybe I wouldn’t have gained so much before deciding to do something about it.

Enough rambling. Today I ran on the treadmill for the first time. It wasn’t because of the weather; in fact it’s a gorgeous day outside. I’d like to think that it’s because every time I walked past the little gym in my apartment building, it’s been empty and I thought it might be lonely. But really, I think it was because I still had lingering body image garbage swirling in my head and running in there felt more private. Either way, it was an interesting experience. I think that I would get bored with staring at the same scene throughout my entire workout. I was definitely clock watching more than I usually do as well. But it was a challenge to maintain the same speed (although rather slow) throughout the entire 25 minutes of jogging. I’m more confident than ever that my body can handle these longer durations – something that was inconceivable two months ago. My leg muscles were starting to get fatigued but still had lots of juice left by the end and my breathing was steady throughout. Any desires to stop or slow down were purely psychological.

Next week is 28-minute run and I think I’ll go ahead with them, even though I didn’t technically complete this week. I can always stop part way through if it gets too tough, but the trick will continue to be whether it’s too demanding on my body or whether it’s a mind game.

I didn’t want to go out for my run today, but I did it anyway. And it was a total bust. I made it about half way through and then stopped. Physically, I was completely fine – it was 100% psychological.

I find that running tends to amplify whatever I’m feeling at the time. Running, or any other physical activity, creates a state of arousal – heart beats faster, breathing gets shallower, the skin flushes and sweats. Sometimes the brain can misinterpret the arousal and attribute it to something else, perhaps sexual arousal if you see an attractive person, or maybe emotional arousal caused by a thought or feeling.

Sometimes this works to my advantage. Days when I’m feeling really good about myself or optimistic, running makes these feelings stronger.But today was not one of those days. Today I felt horrible. All sorts of negative thoughts, most completely untrue, were swimming inside my head and I was getting so upset that I had to stop and calm down. I tried to continue after that, but by that point my heart wasn’t in it anymore.

I needed to put things into perspective, and the beginning of a new month is the perfect time to do it. August wasn’t has successful as I hoped it would be. There were successes, but overall I know I can do better. So I broke my weight loss plan into three parts and looked at each separately for ways to improve for September.

Diet: August was not as good as it should have been. I indulged way too much. I changed from counting calories to estimating and some days I didn’t even bother doing that. I haven’t stepped on the scale because I’m afraid of what it will say. For September, I need to get back into an eating routine and drastically cut indulgences.

Exercise: August was actually a good month for exercise. I’ve been keeping on track with C25K (thanks, in large part, to blogging about it). With my first 5K run coming up in October, I have the motivation to keep going. I’ll have to decide soon what to do after I’ve finished the 9 weeks, but I’ll cross that bridge later. Throughout September, I should also focus on doing some cross-training on off days as well.

Strength Training: This didn’t happen at all! I had been using 5lb dumb bells and when they started to get too easy, I switched to 10lbs. This was a mistake. The jump was too much and it was too difficult. I need to go buy maybe a 7lb set and use them for a while before I go back to 10lbs again.

So even though this morning’s run didn’t go as I hoped, it did offer the chance to gain some perspective, so it was beneficial in a complete unexpected way.

I got a bit behind on my postings, and on my C25K. Day 17 was Tuesday and it was really good. Even though I ran for the same amount of time as the Friday before (20 minutes), breaking it down into 2-10 minute intervals allowed me to go faster and farther.

Then there was a break. I travelled home from my mom’s (a 7 hour drive) on Wednesday, so I didn’t run that day (didn’t intend to). I was so tired on Thursday so I put it off again. I can’t remember the excuse, but I’m sure it was lame. On Friday I had some appointments and was busy cleaning in anticipation of the (dreaded) arrival of my brother-in-law and family, so I put it off again. This morning I got up early, put on my running clothes and got my butt out the door before my brain could come up with another excuse!

The 25 minute interval (my longest yet!) was hard mostly because I felt like it would never end. I’m sad to say good bye to the walking breaks throughout, but I found I was almost doing it anyway – jogging faster and then slower and then faster again. I’m hoping that next week will be easier. I’ll be able to listen to the same music all three days and I found that has really helped in anticipating the time in past weeks.

Different topic: my new size 14 jeans shrunk in the wash. They were fine when I washed them at my mom’s house, but she line-dries everything. I totally forgot about that when I put them in the dryer here and then, when I went to put them on, they were TIGHT! I could do up the button, and after a few hours they stretched out a bit, but for a while it was very uncomfortable.

At first I was somewhere between devastated and angry with myself. But then I came to a realization. A few months ago, when I first joined Buddyslim and started taking weight loss seriously, I was experiencing the same thing with my size 18 jeans. They were getting so tight that I almost couldn’t wear them anymore. The fact that now it’s size 14’s I’m worried about is another reminder of my success so far. And it’s a motivation to keep going so that it will be the size 14 jeans that will go in the “too big to wear” bag!

And I couldn’t jog for 25 minutes then, but now I can.

My routine has been a little screwy lately. I intended to go home today after visiting my mom for a week, but that has been extended to Wednesday. So it was around and around the circle again this morning.

It went really well this morning. Friday’s 20 minute interval gave me the confidence to really give it my all. I really wanted to go faster today, because on Friday my speed wasn’t much beyond a fast walk (with the intention of conserving my energy to reach the end). This morning I focused to started at a faster pace and maintaining it all the way through the interval. I was more tired than Friday, but I went further and faster than I had before.

I’ve been considering what to do after I’ve finished. I’m thinking I might start over again, but with an emphasis of increasing my speed instead of just finishing the interval. Podrunner Intervals (who I use for my music) also has mixes for 8K and 10K interval programs, so maybe I’ll try those. It’s still a few weeks away, so I have time to mull it over a bit more.

Still no loss this week, but I blame TOM, which arrived just after Friday’s run. I also haven’t been sleeping well, probably because I have slept in 5 different beds in 7 nights, including 3 nights in my tent. Oh well. It’s been a great week and well worth it!

Anyway, time for Mom’s nearly famous cinnamon buns for breakfast! They are deadly, so it’s hard to think “moderation” but I ran today, so I don’t feel quite as guilty about indulging a little. Maybe I’ll go for a walk later today as well, just for a bit more insurance.

I never imagine that I could be a runner. And today I ran for 20 minutes straight!!!

I had been looking at this day since I started C25K. A month ago, when I managed jogging for only 60 seconds, 20 minutes was an impossibility. Now I did it and it was GREEEAAAATTTTT!!!!!!!

I did go really slow at first. I didn’t know how much energy it would take to get through the entire time and I didn’t want to run out half way through. My pacing was barely faster than a fast walk at first, but I gradually increased as time went on and poured it on with a couple minutes left. I even sprinted the last hundred or so meters home (after my cool down) because I was so excited.

I don’t know if the scale has moved, but at this moment I don’t care. My body feels better than it has in years. I can run up and down the stairs at my mom’s house without any effort now. I’ve spent the week with older relatives bemoaning the stresses and strains of aging and I know that what I’m doing now is providing my body with what it needs to be healthy and whole for a long time. Sure, illness happens, but I have renewed my determination not to give it any encouragement and to make sure I’m in the best possible position to fight it.

So, my encouragement to all before another weekend is to have patience and keep working. Even the impossible can happen, and although it takes a LOT of work, the payoff is insane!

Today was another great run! Thunderstorms throughout the night made for cool temperatures and a noticeable drop in humidity. The first 8 minute interval was awesome (although I was still glad when it was over). The second one was a bit slower, and I was interrupted part way through by someone who needed directions.

It’s been really nice running at my mom’s house. The different location adds a bit of interest after going along the same trail for a month. Even better, my mom’s house is on a circle which is exactly 1km long, so it’s an excellent opportunity to get a better estimate of my speed. Both Monday and today, I did my full 30 minute run in 3 laps, or 3km. Both times were about ½ walking and ½ jogging, so I was quite pleased!

Friday is one long 20 minute jog! I’m really looking forward to the challenge and have been anticipating this one for weeks!!! I think as long as I pace myself well throughout (I tend to go faster at the beginning since I have loads more energy!), I’ll be able to make it all the way. How great will it feel! From being exhausted after jogging for ONE minute a month ago to jogging continuously for TWENTY!!!

Surprisingly, I’ve been doing pretty well with eating. I did have my share of birthday cake (it was my mom’s birthday yesterday and I had been craving a slice of chocolate cake for ages!) but snacking has been at a minimum and meals have been very healthy. Plus I’ve added some extra dog walks in addition to my C25K routine, so all is well.