Well, I did it. This weekend, I did something I never thought I would do, let alone do well. I ran a race.
Posing at the starting line
Thumbs up as I approach the finish line
The final drive toward the finish line
I felt like I was in slow motion the whole race, but I didn’t walk once. I was proud of that as I crossed the finish line. I even yelled to Wendy as she was cheering me on for the final stretch, “I’m slower than hell but I haven’t walked once!” I guessed my time around 37 or 38 minutes, so I was shocked when I looked at my cell phone after crossing the finish line and seeing it said 9:33 a.m., a mere 33 minutes after the start time.
I figured the time of my phone was different than the official race time, but it wasn’t. The results were posted, and my official time was 32:51. This makes sense, because without my running buddy to push me, I average an 11 to 12 minute mile, and I would guess that the adrenaline of the race and the crowd pushed me to finish just under an 11- minute mile. With my running buddy, I go between 9 and 10 minutes. But I was still just blown away.
I couldn’t even run a quarter mile when I started running in June. It wasn’t until after the race, after the fanfare of the results, after I took my friend and cheerleader Michael home and met Wendy and her fiance, Scott, for lunch that I really processed what I’d done.
I couldn’t even take you out and drive the race course, because I don’t remember it. I know which streets I was on, but I don’t remember where we turned. At the turn-around point, I thought I was only halfway done and was ready to give up, scratch from next weekend’s race and give up on running, but a man who I’d been keeping pace with told me we only had about a mile to go. We introduced ourselves, and he told me he was 45 and had had two strokes and started running for health. I told him I’d lost more than 100 pounds and saw running as the final fitness frontier to really push me toward my goal. He couldn’t believe I used to weigh more than 300 pounds.
I ended up finishing a minute or two ahead of the man. Crossing the finish line was a moment I will never forget — it was a very intense emotional and physical rush.
That said, I learned a lot from this race: I need to log more miles during the week so I don’t struggle as much halfway through. I need to hit the elliptical more to strengthen my hips and thighs, and do a lot more core work, to ease the strain. I need to keep going forward and improving. But most of all, I learned that I can do it! I can run a race!
About the lack of updates: Last week, the week leading up to my race, should have been the perfect opportunity for blogging. I should have written about my nerves, my doubts, my fears, and I didn’t. Mostly because I was busy between two jobs and preparing for the race itself, but also because I have had some serious doubts about blogging lately. Every time I hit “publish,” I think, do I really need to tell the Internet — and the trolls that may lurk therein — this? I’m not always sure I do.
Honestly, I am comfortable with coworkers, professional contacts, strangers, acquaintances and even frenemies/mortal enemies knowing that I have PCOS, that I try to live healthfully and am very passionate about fitness. I didn’t know anyone like me when I started my journey. I like connecting with others who’ve been there, and those who are struggling to get there, and this blog has provided a forum for that.
But to those of you who blog, I’m curious: Why do you do it?
Jillian Michaels now has a line of diet pills.
It truly saddens me that a fitness expert I really respected would lend her name to such a product. I’m a huge fan of her work on “The Biggest Loser,” I read any interviews with her I can get my hands on and I own her “30-Day Shred” DVD. I thought she was the real deal, a true champion for healthy living.
I’m not sure why anyone would even consider diet pills. It never even crossed my mind when I weighed 300 pounds. Don’t you think if there were one that worked, everybody would know about it by now and no one would be fat? If it were as simple as popping a magic pill, we’d all be skinny. Not necessarily healthy, but skinny.
There is no magic bullet, and there are no shortcuts. Not even Jillian Michaels can bottle and sell what it takes to make healthy decisions every day.
I never know what to say when someone I haven’t seen in a long time says, “You look so great, I didn’t even recognize you!” I know that usually, the person means well, and I always accept the compliment. But that doesn’t stop the little thought niggling in the back of my mind about how terrible I must have looked before.
However, the one comment — not compliment — that makes me snap is “Don’t get too thin.” I’ve heard that twice this weekend. I am not close to too thin. I am on the chubby side of average. If you hadn’t known me when I weighed 300 pounds and saw me walking down the street today, you would not think, “That girl needs to eat a cheeseburger.”
I explain that health is my goal and also that I have a hormonal condition that will probably prevent me from ever being too thin.
I also come right out and tell them that I weigh about 180 pounds and wear a size 12. Those are two numbers that I used to keep an absolute secret. I’m not proud of those numbers by any means, but I’m also not ashamed of them. They are what they are.
What bothers me the most, I think, is our tendency to accept overweight as normal. Because for the most part, in this country, it is. It makes my hair stand on end when I hear that statistic that “the average woman wears a size 14.”
You know what? The average woman is overweight. Fat. And even if you don’t care about skinny jeans and wearing the clothes in the September Vogue, it’s not healthy. It’s deadly.
So don’t tell the 180-pound girl she’s on the verge of becoming “too thin.” Because she’s not. She’s on the verge of becoming really healthy, actually.
Food, fashion and fitness tidbits from the weekend:
- For the first time ever, I ran 3.5 miles tonight and finished strong! It was the greatest feeling, we really picked it up for the last .25 and I am so pumped to run tomorrow night. This was following a few weeks of really mediocre running, which I’m now blaming on intense humidity. Major credit goes to my running buddy Anne, for distracting me with conversation and encouraging me to keep going! Go us!
- My ankle has felt weak for a few weeks now, so I bought an ankle brace yesterday. It never really hurt, but it made me nervous to run on it. I honestly think wearing heels for an entire work week combined with running is what did it, so I’ve been sticking to kitten heels and ballet flats. (Maybe I shouldn’t have been wearing 4-inch platforms to the office in the first place …)
- I know I said I wasn’t going to buy any clothes for awhile, but I totally did. The back-to-school sales are so good this year it is eating me alive. I didn’t do much damage: $9.97 on a pair of Old navy pants in kelly green. They’re a 12. Damn.
- I’m just not that into cooking lately. I’m also not that into blowing money on eating out, though, so I had to find a happy medium. I found a bag of five individually packaged, boneless skinless chicken breasts for $5.46 at Walmart tonight. I was going to buy a rotisserie chicken (about $4) and cut it up but decided the extra $1.50 or so was worth it (and will keep me from snacking on chunks of chicken as I rip it off the bone, which I’ve been known to do). Too bad I don’t have some bottomless pit of money that just allows me to eat every meal at Panera. I definitely don’t, though, so please through any cheap and lazy cooking tips my way!
You know what I like almost as much as skinny jeans?
Hot wings, unfortunately.
Last night was the last wing-off of the summer, in which local restaurants offer up their wings for the hefty price of $4 a half dozen. There’s also beer (also overpriced) but it’s outside, there’s live music, tons of people, and of course, you can sample a ton of different flavors. In other words, it rocks.
But the bloaty disgusting feeling I woke up with this morning sure doesn’t. It was the second night this week I’ve had beer, too, so it’s really time for some “detox”:
- I woke up early this morning and went for a short power walk around the neighborhood. There are a lots of hills and I moved at a good clip, got a little sweaty toward the end. Not much of a workout, but it got my heart pumping and muscles moving and felt good.
- Form-fitting clothes. It seems counterintuitive, but I’d feel like a total blob if I wore something a little looser. Something tighter reminds me of my shape and keeps me from even wanting to overindulge.
- Water. I’ve already had one 16-ounce bottle. I’m going to try to get two more in before lunchtime.
- Avoid the office party. Rumor has it there will be cocktail weenies, pierogies and brownies at work today, and though I expressed an interest yesterday, I’m going to have to pass today.
I’m pretty good at denying the inevitable, refusing to acknowledge things like the electric bill really is due again already or that I’m going to die penniless.
But if the next few weeks fly by as quickly as the last couple did, pretty soon it’s going to be fall and I won’t be able to deny that cold weather is imminent.
And I have nothing to wear. Nothing. at. all. All of the tops I have were purchased this summer. Anything with sleeves (jackets excluded) is way too big.
I’m stuck between clothing sizes, between a 10 and a 12. Again. Only at this point, I am too close to my goal to really justify buying much of anything. It’s the best of times and the worst of times — I’m still losing weight, but I occassionally look like hell.
Today, for example, I noticed my cropped white pants have gotten bigger on me, but not too big to stop wearing them. But that little bit of extra room took them from flattering to Michelin Tire Man territory.
Not all is lost, though. I ventured into The Gap for the first time ever a few weeks ago and fit into a pair of jeans (on clearance for $12.59, for the record) that were a size 12 — but they were low rise and skinny cut. Because of my belly, I never fit into pants in that cut in my size; I’d always have to go up a size. So when I slipped into low-rise, skinny cut size 12 jeans from the Gap for $12.59, it was as if the sun came out right there in the dressing room.
Still, as far as dress pants for work go, I have few options. The cropped pants I do have (in white and pastel pink, so it’s not as if I can wear them lots without it being obvious) are teetering on too big, so I wonder if I’ll even be wearing them long enough to pair them with knee high boots for fall.
It’s not worth it to shop at this point. I’d like to wait at least until I’m between an 8 and 10, where I presume I’ll be stuck for ages because I want that 8 so bad I can taste it.
If nothing else, this style purgatory is really going to push me to work out a lot harder. Because I’m a 12, I want to be an 8, and I used to be a 24W. So let’s get real — if I’ve gone from a 24W to a 12, how hard can be it to get to an 8?
Game face = on.
I forgot how much I love my slow cooker. Until I threw two chicken breasts and some seasoning in it last night and woke up to these two beauties.
I cut them up and made a wrap for lunch — chicken, spinach, tomatoes, mozzarella and some pesto.
Along with an apple and some peanut butter, it’s all packed up and ready to go to work. There’s a Kashi bar in there too, in case I get hungry this afternoon.
Yes, that’s really my lunch bag. I can’t fight my inner 12-year-old. And the tool peeking out is an apple corer. I love apples but don’t like biting into a whole one.
So. I guess it’s Monday — always a reminder that I still haven’t figured out a way to get paid to work out, shop and travel.
When I came home from yesterday’s run, I was so pumped to find my girl Jillian Michaels on my doorstep.
OK, it was really a box from Amazon.com that contained the 30-day Shred DVD (as well as “Love the One You’re With” by Emily Giffin and “I’m So Happy For You” by Lucinda Rosenfeld — thanks for the birthday money, Mom!)
I decided to try it today, after my run — I didn’t want anything to stop me from completing another 2 miles. And even in the 510 percent humidity, I finished my 2 miles at the exact same pace as yesterday.
Anyway, I came home and chugged some water and popped Jillian into the DVD player. I was nervous because there are marathon runners who’ve blogged about how hard the workout is.
And they’re right. It is hard. But not undoable.
What I liked best is that I knew it was only 20 minutes long — haha! I’ve been in hourlong classes where I’ve been watching the clock after 15 minutes. I knew that I could handle 20 minutes.
I also love what Jillian has to say during the session. I’ve done DVDs (and classes) where I just want the instructor to shut. up. now., but Jillian has a lot of great insight and I don’t mind her at all. I really agreed with her comment that we’ve been told fitness is as simple as choosing the stairs over the elevator, and that’s completely false.
That said, the strength moves are hard as hell! It was probably dumb of me to grab 8-pound weights, but I felt like 5 pounds would be to easy (I use 10 or 12 at body sculpting). The very first strength moves — the push ups and the overhead presses with squats — killed me.
I’m not surprised. Strength training has always been my weakness, but now I have Jillian to push me through it.
Those of you who shred: How often do you do it? How long before you took it to the next level? Did it do wonders for your fitness/weight loss goals?
My goals with the shred:
- Tone, tone, tone arms
- Banish this belly fat
- Continue getting stronger to help my running
- Push me from a size 12 to an 8*
* I know clothing sizes are a dumb goal. And it’s the least of my motivation at this point. But I’m still overweight and although I’m “fit,” I am still “fat” and honestly believe that I am meant to be slimmer and much more toned than I am right now. If I get into a 10 and it seems like that’s where my body’s meant to be, than that’s fabulous, and I will be a size 10. But until that day arrives … 8 it is.
Something pretty cool happened yesterday: I ran 2 miles non-stop in just over 23 minutes.
It feels a little silly to be so elated about running 2 miles in a blogosphere where even 4 miles is a quick jaunt for most folks, but it was a milestone I thought I’d never hit. The first mile didn’t take long, but going past 1.25 just didn’t feel like it was ever going to happen.
I started running June 14 with the Couch to 5K program. Week Five of the program asks you to run 20 minutes or 2 miles without stopping. I couldn’t, so I’d just go as far as I could and run/walk/run/walk for about 2.5 to 3 miles. It was beyond frustrating. I just wanted to hit that 2 mile mark so bad. It wasn’t the 10-minute pace that I was striving for, but that’ll come.
My friend Wendy is a former competitive runner and said I’d probably see a lot of progress in the next few weeks, and so far, she’s been right.
It seems like as I run more, though, there’s an odd lag in my hunger. Like, right after the run, I come home and have a green smoothie, and then I don’t feel hungry for hours. Even when I don’t have the green smoothie, it seems like the hunger takes awhile to kick in. If I run in the evening, sometimes I don’t feel it til the next day.
Runners: Have you experienced a “lag” in hunger like this? It’s not like I’m running a marathon. Am I just odd?
I finally updated my blogroll. It is on the right side of the screen until I figure out how to make it a separate page (pathetic, I know).
Oh — and if you missed it, Amy over at That Pink Girl is having a giveaway! Go leave her a comment!
