Author: Tamara

This-n-that

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Yesterday I forgot to eat. I know. How does that happen? If you asked me before yesterday I would have said that was an impossibility! Like those women who go to the doctor with a tummy ache and come home with a baby? Same kind of thing in my book. What happened was, well, honestly, the PMS gods were holding me hostage and we had to be at a birthday party. I was getting ready while being difficult, bratty and depressed and just somehow never put more than one cube of watermelon and two sips of coffee in my belly. Brilliant. Then I went and swam and played and finally at 2:30 there before me appeared a bowl with ice cream… And it made me sick. No food + ice cream makes me feel icky. So I had to wait for pizza. Pizza, at 3:was good. But even then I was still not hungry. And I never did get hungry yesterday. It was weird. I started wondering if my body has gotten efficient enough at seeking belly (or thing/arm/brain) fat that maybe I just don’t get hungry so much anymore… Ha ha! Wouldn’t that be nice? At least for a little while, to not have an owly-growly tummy yaking at you the second the final shred of yum exits to Intestinal Way.
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When I run lately I run with one hand on the leash and the other on my pants. They have been falling down. I have known I need new ones for a while, but it is hard to justify that kind of money on clothes that I only wear for 40 minutes per day. Regardless, I got spoiled by my man who bought me several pairs of size XL(!!!) pants and a few exercise shirts as well. We will see if I like those or not. Yesterday I came home with a transparent shirt- it was so wet with my sweat!
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I wear a size 18 now and can shop in the regular clothing section at Target. This is more profound than manny people know. That is where cheap clothes are. I usually have to pay at least 15 for a tshirt or tank top. But now, at Target, I can get one for 6. And there is junk fashion that I probably won’t buy, but I’m gonna try it on. And finally, Gigi and I can shop together. Because I am a size 18, and waaaaayyy down at the opposite end of the scale is my little size 1 daughter! She discovered that she can wear junior shorts today. Someone just got a lil’ more sassy!
***
I weighed in yesterday at 245.6! Mwah! In love with that number!

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My Almost 5K

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I went out today just with the intention of running off some mega calories I consumed at Ben and Jerry’s. I don’t often go off diet, but when I do I make sure to do it exactly in the biggest, most delicious way. So, yes, please to candy bar pie and chocolate crazed deliciousness flavor. It was so rich I was actually one of those people who says, “Oh my, that is just too rich for me,” and then pushed it towards my husband’s mouth. Those people make me feel guilty for finishing my ice cream cone, so please don’t hate me. I’ll be more subtle next time.
Anyhow, I came home and Bradley hemmed and hawed about whether or not he should go running with me (he is losing his extra fat fast!). In the end he chose to save his knee and I headed out with the goal of hitting at least a 1.5. I hit 1.5 and then decided to try for two. But after I looked that last time I just let go. Dan Savage was telling me scandalous things in my ear and I lost track of time, told my body to get over itself and I ran. I ran and ran and ran and didn’t stop. Not once. Not when I ran up the hill, or the next hill, or when I ran up my driveway to get my dog, or crossing the road, or… Ever. I didn’t stop until I hit my porch for the last time and I threw myself on my bench, steam rising from my completely soaked shirt. 2.8 miles in 36 minutes. I ran for 36 minutes and 49 seconds WITHOUT STOPPING.* Me. There is a part of me that wishes I had just continued on around the block one last time so I could finish out the 5k completely, but there is another part of me that is just proud enough and happy to look forward to the inevitable milestone that is bound to happen next week. I can run three miles without stopping now. My 5K is gong to be such a celebration. I cannot wait until the Color Me Rad Race!!! I am so happy that I know I will be successful now. I know I can do it. I kinda just did.

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The first picture is at the beginning, the second moments after I arrived home.
*I have decided that it is most important for me to get miles under my feet more than I need to be fast right now. So I am going slow, yes, but I am going further!

Pink Shazam: Registered

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Today it was sprinkling beautifully so I had to run. That, and I signed up for my rad race today and thought I had better be getting more mileage under my toes if I’m going to be in condition to run 3.1 miles by August 10th. Yep! I signed up! Gigi and I are running under the team name “Pink Shazam!”
To celebrate, I ran one mile in 11:40 with my girl and the whole family came out for the second mile. Again, my son ‘Flash’ (instead of Dash, now) challenged me to the next post, the next corner, tree, house- whatever, so that mile was walk/ran in intervals, ending up at about 13 minutes. I had a fabulous time.

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On a side note…
I get confused with how much I actually eat versus how much I want to eat. Like, tonight I was entering my food into my journal and thought, “Man. I really did it today. I regret my choices, ooh wee!” And then I actually enter in my calories and am in shock when I hit below my targets. I must think about snacks a lot if I imagined I ate them. It amazes me how often I need to tell myself no!

Hippy Chick

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Last night I curled around my pillow with that kind of tired that is reserved for … Well… Really REALLY ridiculously tired people (I was going to say the elderly but that seemed rude, mothers seemed too exclusive, and really, we all get sooo tired from time to time! Exhaustion is not exclusive to one group. Ha ha!). I kept scootching around my bed, adjusting pillows, trying to get rid of this bump under me. No matter where I moved, there it was poking me. When I finally reached down to remove the offending object I realized it was my hipbone. My Hipbone. MY HIP BONE! Ha ha! It’s been a while since I’ve heard from her.
My skeleton IS in there!
Emerging!
Uncomfortable, yet cool.
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I was pleased today to see 247 on the scale every time I weighed in. I hit PMS and have been sitting at 249 ever since. It gave me great satisfaction to see the numbers drop back down. Hopefully this will mean another run of pounds dropped in the next short while.
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I ran today.
I felt triumphant as I burst out from my driveway. I headed down the hill, keeping stride, warming my muscles, feeling it. I kept my pace, pushed hard, harder, and harder still. Surely, I thought, this was going to be amazing. Surely, I will be in the upper tens, or at least the low elevens… I ended up with 11:48. I ran my route backwards and it was mostly uphill. I have to forgive that! It’s funny how I have gone from being thrilled at running half a block at all, to marveling in wonder at my 12 minute half mile, to being disappointed in an (almost) 12 minute mile. Silly ole me. I have to remember that I’m doing really well, that I only walked about a quarter mile this time (and then it was because my lower back cramped all up), that this is nothing to be ashamed of. I just think I’m feeling the need to start getting miles under me at decent pacing. I want to make sure I’m prepared to run for a few miles before I sign up for a few races. It will come. Patience, Grasshopper.

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Keeping On

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Boston.
I don’t understand why anyone ever tries to solve anything with violence. Why that’s ever an answer to anyone- to hurt other people. It’s so ridiculously counterproductive.
I’m just going to say how pleased I am that the media is focusing on ‘the helpers’ this time instead of glorifying the villains. I’m so pleased the heroes praises are being sung. It also makes me glad I’m a runner now- an indomitable runner who won’t be deterred by these asshats and their fear campaign. I didn’t run today or yesterday because of crazy schedules, but I can’t wait to get out tomorrow again.

***
I was commenting to Bradley today about my diet. I’m feeling out of control lately with it. Like I’m eating too much, not exercising enough… When I enter my data into my app everything aligns and falls into place- my calories are spot on and my exercise is solid- but I get caught up on the not losing poundage and it messes with my head.
I also have to say a weird thing. I don’t always trust myself to make good choices. When I was a kid I had a hard time with truth telling- I was impulsive but hated paying the price for my actions so I would hide things, lie, evade my parent’s questions… Not to be too Wonder Years or anything, but it was then I learned that my actual character was in question, not just my actions, and I made myself a promise that I would never lie again. At first that meant brutal honesty (A friend asks: do you like my hair? I honestly would answer, even if I did not like their hair!). There was an adjustment phase where I got mad often because I wasn’t trusted yet, though eventually I think I’ve earned a reputation for being very honest. Over the years, I’ve learned diplomacy and I continue to I adhere to the concept of honesty is the best policy.. But the nagging suspicion remains that I’m a liar. That deep down I’m all ready to spring forth with exercise lies, poor food choices and diet cheats- which is strange, because that is so not me! Being truthful is a concept that I think about a lot.
The point of that loooong story is that I just don’t trust my choices all the time. But I need to. I need to start realizing that I’m a good kid. A good mom. A loving wife. A super smart and nice teacher ;). A well intended person. A good human being. An honest person. And if I’m honest with other people to a fault, why do I think I’m going to lie to myself with stupid cheats? I’m not. I’m so intentional, so careful, so paranoid about all of this that I second guess myself constantly and I can’t feel like that for the rest of my life while I maintain the weightloss. Feeling out of control, like I’m a liar and a cheater, just makes me feel bad. If there’s some new learning I’ve had lately, it’s that I have been eating my feelings all these years. Food soothed my nerves and lifted any bad feelings I had for years, and I’m not letting it do that anymore. So I can’t feel bad about eating calories that I haven’t eaten otherwise I’m going to find myself in the kitchen at 8:00 at night with a handful of chocolate chips and a spoonful of peanut butter!
***
I have PMS again. I hate writing publicly about that stuff, but it is relevant to this project I’m working on- losing weight. For half of the month I’m such a crab AND I can’t lose any pounds! As I was making my action plan for the next few weeks, I found myself telling Bradley that as soon as I get beyond this cycle that I’m gong to hit it hard, maximize the two weeks of non-crabby-energetic-can-actually-lose-poundage time. Then I was thinking, “Seriously? I can lose for just two weeks a month?” That is stupid. I gotta go talk to my doctor to see if there is something that I can do. The thing is, I know this is my pattern. The last time I lost a bunch of weight (6 years ago) the same thing happened. I’d lose right after my cycle started then stall until it played out. If I could somehow fix that I could possibly pick up some more losses. We’ll see.
***
I spent some time talking to this really neat mom who volunteers in my classroom this year. She is on a similar path (she’s much more slender than me but weightloss and fitness are relative- her 20 pounds are every bit of a challenge to her as my 75 pounds are to me- we’re all in this together) and she invited me to an early morning mom’s exercise group. My first reaction was to be all like, “No!” And then to clutch my pearls and take a whiff of my fainting salts to revive my delicate sensibilities. To exercise with other people? Why, I never! I flipped out that I wouldn’t be able to keep up, that I’d look like a fool in front of all the abs of steel moms in midriff tops and spandex booty shorts that do not contain a belly flap formerly inhabited by two infants and lots of fatty deposits… But then I heard my brain spazzing out and stopped the insanity. These are normal women, normal moms. The mom who told me about it is a pretty fly chica. That was fear talking. I’m definitely intrigued. I think I’m gonna give it a go in the very near future.
***
It cracks me up when I sit down to write without anything to say and I turn out a novella.
Goofball.
Yep… That’s me calling myself a goofball.
Welcome to my brain.

Data Collecting

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As a family we have been taking this whole health thing by storm. We are not messing around, people! Daily, you can find the Lj’s out walking, running, playing, riding- whatever. We try to make healthy choices and we are looking at our lifestyle carefully, being very intentional about what we do and what we eat.
Part of what we are doing is tracking ourselves with the Wii Fit. At first, we were so annoyed at the whole body check thing. It feels judgmental and kind of rude as it chides you over your lack of balance, nags you abut not showing up daily for workouts, tells you how frequently other family members work out in comparisons to you, and the worst- announces where you fall on the BMI scale with “That’s Obese!” Being told to me every time I weigh myself. Not exactly big on handling us with kid gloves, let me just say that. However, two things have happened as a result:
We have changed how we talk about fat/overweight/obesity in our house. It used to be that no one could say anything to me about me being fat without reducing me to tears. Jude used to comment quite often on my weight without trying to be mean, but it was hurtful. I was sensitive. I was not happy. It had very little to do with his observations and more to do with my self perception and unhappiness with my unhealthy body. Now we share all of this information, we share our weights, measure ourselves often and we can talk about fat in our house without tears now. Without awkwardness. It opened a dialogue that is very honest, thanks to the cutthroat way the Wii matter of factly tells us we are fat, out of shape and aged beyond our years! (That is not entirely true- my Wii Fit age is usually 35 or below now. Today I am 23!)
The other thing that has happened is the ability for us to track ourselves as we collect data by checking in often on the Wii. While I check in daily, the rest of my family is less consistent. Bradley is checking in almost daily and the kids are about once a week or whenever they feel like it; we don’t push them to do it. We want them healthy – not obsessive. I am wavering between 245-249, gaining and losing half pounds, full pounds or more day by day. I thought it was just me, but it turns out that when we look at our data collectively, we all follow the same patterns- every one of us Lj’s! As I fell and lost to hit my 245, so did my whole family. We all dipped then. Easter came, and we all gained a little. Now we have all, plateaued as we ready for another loss cycle. It was really interesting to see, and I’m excited to continue tracking ourselves to see what happens over longer ranges.

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Fruit Binge

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Lately when I start to have a problem- like, I want to eat a bunch, eat wrong foods, skip working out- instead of giving the universal excuse of being tired, I’m trying to go a little deeper and see what is actually at the root of the craving.
This weekend was tough. Unfortunately, we have a somewhat strained relationship with some of our family members and when our kids head out for a weekend away with them it causes me a bit of anxiety. When I have anxiety I look to distract myself. Apparently my main form of distraction is food. Add to that the return of PMS (really?! So soon?!) and lets just say it was a weekend to fight through.
I wanted to eat. So when I looked deeper, I realized I wanted to eat my anxiety away. I wanted to not be in control. I wanted to not think about every little thing that went into my mouth. I wanted to just sit back, relax, and wash all worry and over-thinking from my brain. While on a diet, that is almost impossible as you’re adding up each calorie and fat gram before it even passes over your teeth… On Friday I did that with garbage food- chips & candy.
Today I was getting frantic on the way home as I realized it was happening again- I could feel it coming. I knew when I got home the chips and salsa (which I don’t even like that much) would call out to me even though I knew they would make me sick. So I had Bradley preemptively stop and spend a whole bunch of money on watermelon, strawberries, grapes, mango, cantaloupe, pineapple and any other fruit that looked or sounded even near to yummy. I came home and prepped everything, stacked it on a plate and went to town. It was fabulous. My stomach was full and I got to nosh and nom to my heart’s content, but I didn’t feel sick and I didn’t feel guilty. Phew!
*

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Gross. Guh-ross!

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Tonight my kids are gone, spending night with their grandpa. Bradley and I are alone in the house, rattling around… Looking for something to do. We made dinner, went in the hot tub, and ate. I ate a BLT (fake bacon, naturally), a bag of pop chips, and tried to call it good. Except… It wasn’t good. I wanted something more. So, I decided to let myself have it. “It” being whatever I wanted to put in my mouth. I wanted chips and salsa. In the belly. Reese’s peanut butter cup. Nom nom nom. And it was if the Teddy Grahams just danced down my throat to some old Grateful Dead tunes. It was all very peaceful and fun and I enjoyed letting myself eat food. I haven’t eaten off my plan, really, since New Years. I’ve been very good for over four months.
(All totaled, I had two servings of tortilla chips, two of salsa, the equivalent of two-three Reese’s peanut butter cups and a handful of teddy Grahams. It could have been MUCH worse. It also could have been much better though, I know.)
Cut to two hours later. Gross. GROSS! GUH-ROSS! That’s how my belly feels now. Gross gross gross. I don’t miss junk food as much as I assumed I would. Turns out? All that junk makes me feel sick.

Clothes

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My clothes don’t fit anymore. I like getting dressed. Scratch that. I LOVE getting dressed in the morning. In fact, I love it so much that I spend an hour or more every Sunday putting together outfits for my week… Mixing… Matching… Accessorizing… Sigh… That way I can roll outta bed at 7:15, roll out the door by 7:45 and still look cute – or, at the very least, feeling cute. That is how it seemed to go so far.
Then this week happened. It is both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because I have external evidence that this is happening peeps. I’m getting smaller. Things are changing! Curse because my closet is shrinking by the day. It is only Wednesday and I’ve already thrown five articles of clothing (three shirts, two skirts) into the too big for Tamara pile. These are things I thought still fit me and planned to wear this week, but when I put them on it looked like I was wearing sails or something! So my time saver has been a big tricker this week, making me create three last minute outfits at 7:35 when I still needed to put my make up on and do my hair! (I wore braids today, that was my level of lateness.)
Ah well. Could be worse. I could be digging my bigger clothes out of storage instead of needing to buy smaller ones. I’m finally at a point that I don’t have any more goal clothes. I fit all of the “tiny” things I have bought over the years. I’m not that impressed with my spoils, truth be told. My style has changed some. Things fit different than I expected.
Guess it’s time to buy a few things. Awwww shucks.
***
Funny note- I almost forgot to write this next part. That shows me how normalized this whole exercise thing is becoming….
I went out and ran a mile today and walked another .7. Finally, my tracker went untouched and unbumped and I got a decent read on my mile. I ran it in 11:35. I’m pleased with that. There is definitely room for improvement, but I’m forgiving myself for feeling a little sore and tuckered today. I think I’m going to take this weekend off from exercise to get another good rest/heal in. I’m starting to feel battered.
I tied a ribbon from Martha to my wrist today in place of the heavy retractable leash. It seemed to work fine. She is such a good girl and I know she is fine off leash, but as a person who is scared of big dogs, I hate to make other people uncomfortable so I keep her tied up. I love having her as my running mate. It’s nice to have her there to ‘motivate’ up the hills and to the next goal. “C’mon Martha! Keep it going! Atta girl! Good puppy.” I’m not sure who needs to hear those words more, her or me.

Muzak

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It seems like when one thing gets figured out and taken care of, something else pops up and needs assistance. Take my hips. Pretty much all better. But oh my goodness if they didn’t consternate me and worry me and I thought I was going to have to stop running for good! I figured that out- rest day is very important. VERY. IMPORTANT.
Now I have a new thing. It started with this tiny little twingy feeling at the base of my skull, and it connects to just under my shoulder blade. It has grown into this tight OWIE! feeling now. It is only on my right side and gets worse after I run. After speaking with my runner pals (tee-hee- I’m in that club! Bwa ha ha! BiZaRrE!) it was concluded that I am too tense up top and need to loosen up, rely on my core muscles, not shoulders, to support me more (there’s the ‘core’ again!). As to why it’s only on the right side? That’s the side I hold Martha’s leash on. Now I need to problem solve this…
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Today I rode my stationary cycle for 30 minutes. I checked my heart rate several times and was surprised to find myself sitting right between 120-126- perfect fat burning pace! The noteworthy part is that in the past, fat burning and lung burning went hand in hand. These days if my lungs are burning I need to slow down and rest. Good lesson.
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I listened to this on my bike today. What can I say- it gets me moving!

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(Mock me all you want. I don’t care.)