Spring Sprung

I try to be a machine.  I’m supposed to live like a warrior- a weightloss warrior before, but now a warrior intent on getting her life to a place where I can authentically experience the world for as long as possible, more than just focusing on fat loss…  But even a warrior gets worn down.  I’ve been waging this war on my former habits for more than four years now and every once in a while I notice that I just kind of drop away from it.  It’s not intentional, I’ll just hit a two or three week slump where I sleep a lot, I usually get sick, I step away from my strict eating and exercise and sit down, lay down and eat a cupcake.  In general I get about three days into it and freak out, feeling myself slide down a familiar and slippery slope, knowing that a decade ago this would also be the end of my efforts.  That I’d gain back whatever I lost and lose whatever progress made, but I’ve been riding this merry-go-round  long enough to not be afraid of it anymore.  That’s where I’ve been for the last two weeks, and this time I just let myself.  It was interesting, to say the least.  I watched myself get into bed, get sick and make choices not to run or to worry about my nutrition awfully much.  This time I figured my body was asking to slow down after all of my hard training for the 15K.  This time I decided I earned a rest.  And it was so goooood!

The best part was that it worked out a bit magically.  I kind of ate whatever I wanted and didn’t exercise much at all.  I mean, within reason.  I ate real food, I ate healthy, I just didn’t alter anything to make up for the fact that I wasn’t working out and still ate dessert.   Yesterday I said to Bradley that I was afraid of the scale.  I told him the scale was not going to be my friend, then I impulsively got naked and jumped on before I could give it a second thought.  Like magic, it read 191!  Well, 191.6, but still!  That’s my current low!  I was flabbergasted that I didn’t gain anything!  It seems that the break was indeed in order- my body knew it.

  
This week was a bit of a bear.  It was one of those weeks that looks easy but gets complicated with half days that have conferences, meeting days with lots of listening and celebration days which are fun but are also more work.  It was just busy, so when Tuesday rolled around and I was still a little bit sick, I only did ten minutes of Zumba before I dropped out.  But I knew I had to hit it again on Friday, and I did.  The two Jessicas, Julie and I all danced for one, sweaty hour of Zumba and it was wonderful.  I could feel that I was back.  I focused on precision, with my goal of being an instructor, of trying to learn the moves correctly instead of just getting close to it.  Saturday was my baby boy’s eight birthday, then today we decided to go for a run.  Oh my goodness, the run!  When I’m away from running I am scared of it.  Does it matter than I just ran nine miles two weeks ago?  Nope.  I assume that running longer than a quarter mile will be soooo hard that I freak out, but Bradley hasn’t been running in a few months and I knew that he needed it as much as I did and he wouldn’t be running like the wind, so it felt extra safe and helpful to go out.  The motivation was nice.  We just did the extra large loop with a few cut-de-sacs thrown in for a bit of mileage and it felt just awesome for a total of 3.5 miles.  So good.  I just love running.  I never thought I’d be the guy saying that, but it’s true.  I love identifying as a runner about the same as I love identifying at a Seattlite.   I also love it when my husband, who hasn’t been running with me since about November, tells me that I’m so much faster, now.  Pilgrims’ progress!

Happy Spring!  It’s official!