I am Spartan

Why is it that it takes the deadline of going back to work soon to force me into action?! Two months before I return to work, I realize I need to finally lose the baby weight.

I’ve spent this last month kicking my butt into action. It was pretty humbling to start. I’ve always known I was overweight. But in the back of my mind, I would justify it with the fact that I am active and fit. So when I went for my first run with a girlfriend, I was very dismayed to discover that I couldn’t run for more than a few minutes at a time and when I was running I was very slow. It was the biggest wake up call. But thank goodness I had it.

During the month of May, I ran twice a week; I worked with a personal trainer twice a week; and I went to bootcamp twice a week. A lot of it was preparation for a race, but the underlying goal was to finally shed the weight and get fit.

Well I haven’t lost a damn pound! Its been super discouraging. There were a few days where I just wanted to cry. Mostly I thought, ‘it’s not fair’. I want to be one of those naturally skinny girls!

However, participating in the Spartan Sprint on the weekend (a 5km obstacle race) gave me some pride that losing a pound could never provide. The race was way beyond my comfort zone. I desperately wanted to back out. It was beyond hard. But wow do I feel amazing for finishing it. In fact, my inspiration to continue working towards fitness and health has grown. Today I started meal planning and looking at what else I can do to improve. I feel so good about the future now.

It’s funny, when I started this post, I thought it would be more about procrastination. But when I started writing, I realized how good I was feeling about myself! Forget the scale. Instead of focusing on losing weight, I’m going to focus on gaining health!

Ps. The picture is the start of the race, running uphill in the snow. Sadly I didn’t get one of myself covered in mud at the end because I was too focused on getting out of the wet clothes!

Failed Dieter

I recently tried to complete a three day smoothie detox featured on Dr. Oz. I was positive it was the ticket to get me on track and make it easy to fall into the 17 Day Diet (a book a friend had given me). I was wrong.

I hate doing things the hard way. I’ve always searched for that quick fix that will give me instant results. You think I would learn that the quick fixes have never proven successful (for me anyways) and its only when I’ve put in hard work that I’ve seen results.

Even worse still, I set myself up for a major mood dive. I failed at my diet so what does it make me automatically want to do? Eat everything in sight. Thankfully, since I’m staying with my parents, I didn’t fall into that trap today (minus the ice cream cone). But the feeling of failure is still there.

I could have made it. It was three days of smoothies. Even though they didn’t taste that great, it wasn’t awful. But poor planning and the look of my parents’ dinner made me want to cave. I started looking for excuses to get out. A reason to justify breaking the diet. As soon as I had one, I jumped at the chance.

But it bums me out that I can’t stick with a plan. It adds to my feeling of inability to do anything. Why try losing the weight if I can’t.

I need to try this diet again. Not because I think it will do wonders. But because I know I can do it. I want to feel proud of myself. I want to prove my negative voice wrong!

I deserve so much more

For me a sentence that starts with ‘I deserve…’, gets me in trouble.

Today I wasted the day with the thought that I deserved to relax after a busy weekend. You would think doing something that you think you deserve would make you feel good. So why did I progressively feel worse about myself? I finally made a last minute push and sent myself to the gym at 6pm. I came home feeling great! I thought I deserved to relax, but rather than watching dumb tv (which made me feel even worse because I had originally vowed to watch little to no tv) I could have gone for a walk or a workout or even read a book. Instead my relaxation choice made me feel bad and in the end added to my level of stress.

I often find that I feel I deserve to be thin. So out of spite I will eat poorly or not workout. How ridiculous of a thought is that?! Does someone who chooses not to workout or eats like crap deserve to be thin? Um, no! But then my inner voice kicks in and says that there are people out there who do that and they are thin, so I should be able to also!

In the end, I think I deserve to be proud of myself. To do that, I need to do the things that will make me proud. I just have to work at remembering which things I’ll be proud of.

Challenge of the Week

To keep myself inspired and on task, I’m starting weekly challenges for myself. My previous challenge of doing daily compliments fell a little short. I didn’t make it to the 30 days I proposed for a few reasons: I got sick and couldn’t think of anything nevermind a compliment, but I also found the process start to get a little fake. I am not totally comfortable with my body yet, so I couldn’t find the compliments about it. I think instead of forcing compliments I am going to do the work so that I can comfortably compliment myself.

So this week’s challenge is to workout everyday. Today I walked at the zoo. Not an overly hard workout but I was out and moving while carrying A in her carrier.

I’m looking forward to the week ahead!