Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...sort of?

I’m not really sure how to start this one off, so I’m just going to kind of brain-vomit here for a minute:

It seems that the more depressed I get over certain aspects of my life, the more positive I get about my body image. I don’t know how to explain it really, but I’m struggling so much with making some major life choices and am adhering more and more the mantra of “life is too short to be miserable” – and while this isn’t magically dissolving my depression since I haven’t actually made any decisions yet, it has made me realize that being overly fixated on my body image and being unhappy about how I look is ridiculous. The fact of the matter is, I like my body just fine. It’s a pretty good looking body. It’s a pretty well-functioning body, too. 6 months ago, when I went for my first physical/check-up since I was a teenager, I was a healthy person. And in the last 6 months I’ve made several BIG changes that are only adding to my health: quitting smoking, eating out less often, drinking alcohol less often, getting 7-8 hours of sleep regularly, and being more active and/or exercising on a daily basis.

This isn’t to say that there aren’t still things I want to change about the way I look – there are. But I’m learning how to let go of those aesthetic (and scale weight) changes as my main focus and putting more emphasis on how things make me feel and how they affect my physical (and mental) health. Am I going for a run because I feel like I have to in order to eat that pizza/drink that beer/have that ice cream, or am I going for a run because it makes me feel good/clears my mind/boosts my mood? Am I doing strength training to get “awesome abs”/”toned arms”/”dancers legs”, or am I doing it because it makes it easier to lift my toddler/boosts my metabolism/makes me sleep better?

More and more I’m doing my chosen type of exercise for the health benefits, not the what-my-body-looks-like benefits. And the fact is, my body composition will change as I continue to do these things and one day I may wake up and realize that doing things for my health has also improved my body aesthetic – but that is quickly becoming just an added bonus and not the main purpose of all this time and energy I put into fitness.

…as far as counting calories goes, I’ve all but given it up. I will still log my food – sometimes daily, sometimes just a couple days a week - but I don’t really stress over the calorie count anymore. I’ve raised my “limit” to TDEE, and I’m making sure my protein and carbs are where I want them to be. Probably the biggest change for me and my relationship with food is now when I eat “junk” or sweets I make sure to ask myself after the first bite if I really want it. If that first bite isn’t as delicious as I want it to be, more and more I’ll choose not to eat any more of it. I’m maintaining my weight while my body composition continues to change, and that’s okay. I’m happy here. And thank goodness! It’s hard enough dealing with all this depression, stress, and anxiety without the added pressure of hating my body all day every day. I was in that place over the winter and it was pretty terrible and crushing. I’m working really hard to maintain this body positivity while wading through the rest, and it feels so wonderful to give myself a break from the abuse and negativity.

Now for something completely different:

#100daysofchange will soon be coming to an end, and I’m kind of freaking out about it. It’s been such an amazing tool for me and an excellent way to hold myself accountable. Thank you to everyone who has been following (and participating) in this little project! I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I’ve decided I want to extend this challenge for myself. I want to make this a year-long project. I’m still coming up with a tag for it, but it may be as simple as #365daysofchange or something similar. I’ll be sure to make the announcement once I’ve made up my mind.

Mental Importance

I touched a little bit in my 50 Days update on the importance of cardio (walking/running) and maintaining my mental health. I want to go a little deeper into it.

My motivation and energy have been really low this week and last, and I’m kind of teetering on the fine-line between Worn Out and Depressed. Stress has been very, very high for me the last two weeks and I’m having a hard time managing it. Getting a run in probably would have helped me immensely in this area, but our weather has been a little wonky here in Virginia and I’ve used that as an excuse big time. Not to mention, the 5k really, really wiped me out and the last thing I wanted to do last week was run. I’ve been wondering if I’m maybe in a bit of an overtraining cycle, which with my current stress level wouldn’t be difficult at all to have reached. This could explain my random weight gain despite good nutrition/plenty of exercise, my interrupted sleep, and recent exhaustion no matter how long I’m in bed.  

This week, thanks to work issues, rain, and crazy wind, I didn’t get ANY walks in until yesterday. I’ve come to realize how vital these lunch break walks are in keeping me from murdering people during the workweek. I also ran a couple miles last night. Well, “ran”, intervals really. Mostly walking. I’ve been reading a lot more about heart rate training recently, and tried to focus mostly on proper recovery from my “high” intervals - which sometimes meant walking longer than I would have liked. I still finished the 2.3 in 30 minutes, so it wasn’t a terrible pace, and if I keep it up I’ll get better/faster and able to recover more quickly. On a bummer note: my shins are bothering me a bit this morning even though I did my shin-specific stretches post-run. On a positive note: I felt much happier last night and today (so far) than I have since my 5k. Anecdotal evidence (y'know, and a crap ton of scientific evidence, too) shows that walking and running help elevate my mood and regulate my depression, anxiety, and stress. Now, if only I can convince myself how important this is come November when the weather gets frigid... perhaps I should go ahead and start saving for a 6 month pass to the local rec center's gym? Or for my very own treadmill?


This week was supposed to be my big “return” to strength training, but I’ve been flailing a little bit. This is not to say I haven’t been working out, I definitely have. But I am kind of all over the place and haven’t really put together a program to work on yet. I’ve also realized recently that I should really put some focus on making sure my form is correct before adding any heavy weight (duh moment, I know), and this might mean a few weeks of bodyweight training. This is where my lack of patience kills me. I really need to maintain focus on long-term goals and quit being so "right now" with everything. Something to work on, for sure.

I feel like I have a lot of reevaluating to do over the next few weeks regarding how I want to move forward after #100daysofchange is over. I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s seemed to work for me as far as fat/weight loss in the past, and I’m wondering if it might be beneficial to give some things another shot and see what happens. I’ve been having a tendency to get caught up in this whole idea that just because I’m 30 now, all of a sudden my entire biological landscape has changed – but clearly it hasn’t. That shit doesn’t just happen overnight.But it will change over the next 10 years, dramatically, and I need to create and cement good habits now in order to maintain my health for, well, the rest of my life.

Cement good habits and... stop over-thinking everything. I get so caught up and I think sometimes I create additional stress for myself, which does not help me in my training/fitness goals in any way, shape, or form. Something that is probably going to help me with chilling out: my FitBit up and dying last night. That’s right. I just charged it a few days ago, but before bed last night I realized it wasn’t lighting up anymore. I went and stuck it on the charger… nothing. I cleaned the connectors, nothing. I did a hard reset -- 2 quick flashes showing full battery power, then nothing. This morning I couldn’t even get it to reset. It’s dead. I’m not sure how I want to proceed… I can’t afford to replace it right now. Our home HVAC is being replaced next week, and that is obviously not cheap. A new FitBit seems like a bit of a frivolous expense. I downloaded the free app, Argus, to my iPhone as a replacement. I’ll see how I like it. So far it’s draining my battery pretty awesomely, but I might be able to live with that… maybe.

I probably shouldn’t have downloaded Argus. I probably should have just been free from a fitness tracker for a while to just see what happens. (Magic! Maybe magic would happen!) But then the other part of me is like, “I’m gonna be in Disney world next month, and I want those 40 BAJILLION steps counted, damnit!”

Y’know, because if technology isn’t tracking how many steps you’re taking… then clearly you haven’t taken any steps.

Hey, I don’t pretend to understand my own distorted logic.

The last couple days I’ve stopped logging calories throughout the day (again). Before bed I put everything in and see where I am, but mostly I’m just eating as I feel I need to. I’m trying really, really hard not to slip into the mindset of: If I’m not counting calories, calories aren’t really being eaten and I can eat ALL THE JUNK FOOD.

Are we noticing a trend here? If steps aren’t tracked they aren’t happening… if calories aren’t tracked then they aren’t really consumed…

It’s hard being me.

My rocky relationship with running and the fat on my body

At some point last summer I started running. I don’t know why. I’ve always kind of hated running. I would run every once in a while as a teenager, just because that’s what people did to stay in shape, right? My mom and dad have always been big recreational runners. My mom used to get up at 5am everyday to run when I was little bitty. That and Jane Fonda aerobic videos was how she lost her pregnancy weight after I was born. My dad still runs on-and-off throughout the year for weight loss/maintenance, but also because it’s a mental release for him. He’s always told me he does his best thinking on a run and feels so much better emotionally after running. Throughout my running experience I’d regularly been plagued with shin splints and similar injuries, plus I never really experienced the “runners high” probably because I was very active in my everyday life anyway and was just “high on life” most of the time. Essentially there was not much that drew me to it other than a great-big Fat-And-Ugly Attack. Then I’d throw some sneakers on and go run a couple miles and feel like I did something healthy for myself.

My experience with running last year was very different. I invested in some good shoes, took it easy, and learned to run more on the balls of my feet and less slamming my heal into the ground to avoid the shin splints I’d regularly suffered. I did mostly intervals on my runs as I was dabbling in the “Primal” way of exercising at the time, but realized very quickly that sometimes I just really enjoyed a steady-state run for a little while. It was my time to be alone with my thoughts (and my music), and I understood for the first time in my life what my dad meant when he talked about that mental release during a run. I guess maybe that is similar to the “runners high”. It definitely boosted my mood, as well. Considering the depression I was/am currently battling, this was/is obviously a great side effect.

While I didn’t run regularly (or at all, really) over the winter thanks to the Polar Vortex, I definitely missed it a lot. I signed up for my first 5K a couple months ago (as most of you regular readers know), and since the weather has started to thaw out a bit I’ve been trying to get out at least twice a week in prep for my race. But what I realized last night is: running is making me feel my age. I can feel all the aches and pains in my joints that I never experienced in my 2+ years of on-and-off weight lifting. And I don’t think I like that.

(Full disclosure: I did experience some lower back pain over the winter due to poor squat form, but once I corrected my form the pain quickly subsided.)

Another thing I don’t particularly like is feeling the fat on my body jiggle around when I’m running… which is something I’ve noticed more of lately. Special thanks to those fat stores I put on over the winter while slacking on my diet and my exercise… A friend posted on Facebook yesterday about being frustrated with what she called “saddle bags” – but essentially she just meant having hips much larger than your top, making it hard to find or make clothing that fits properly. This term must have gotten stuck in my brain, because last night as I was getting in the shower, I started noticing that I have actual saddle bags; these really not-fun little fatty pockets on my hips that I’d never really noticed (or chose to ignore) before. Some of you may be thinking, “WHAA?! No! LIES!”, but they’re incredibly easy to disguise by simply wearing some kind of clothing! So of course you wouldn’t have ever noticed them in the photos I post here, or even in real life if you saw me – because I’m generally not nude. But what I also noticed is that I’m starting to slim up and firm up everywhere except where I most need/want to, which of course is my lower belly/hip area. These are always the last fat stores to go – especially in women of child-bearing age. Whomp, whomp. But there IS progress happening.

I keep thinking to myself, “Self, just commit to your strength training and HIIT and be a little smarter with your food choices – the fat will burn off.” And just about every weekend I think to myself, “Starting this week I’m going to avoid processed food and be really on point with my diet.” – and then I’m not. But I also realized that eating for my training is much like my wanting to quit smoking or wanting to get more sleep at night; I wanted and “tried” to do these things for several years, but it really just didn’t click for me until this year. “Dieting down” may not click for me for a while longer, and really the most disappointing part of that is I will have to purchase shorts in a larger size for this summer. I’m trying really hard not to let that push me into a deep depression, because it’s really nothing worth being depressed over right now. I’m on the right track. I need to just let this serve as reminder to keep on top of my diet/exercise moving forward, and not give myself a 3-4 month “break”. I honestly think the largest part of this equation is going to be returning my focus to lifting and move away from steady-state cardio. Last spring/early summer I was exercising less than 3-4 times a week, doing minimal cardio, and lifting lots of weights – this seemed to agree with my body, although it was around the same time that I started falling into a really deep depression. I think once I wrap this 5k, my runs will be strictly for fun/mental health, mostly intervals, and mostly short distance. This will better benefit my strength training and fat loss while still offering me the mental health benefits of a run.

Can't Come Up With Subject Title, But Read It Anyway!

Well, it started a little bit weekend before last and perpetuated through more of last week than I intended (or would even like to admit). I made excuses saying that the socialization time was important (which it was) and I was still keeping up with my chores (sort of... laundry, yes, mostly - cooking fell almost completely to the wayside). I was still working out. In fact, part of what was waylaying my responsible bedtime was the fact that my workout has been taking me a full hour, making it so that I'm getting a late start on anything I'm trying to do on a weeknight.

I digress... so yes, excuses excuses and then some more excuses. Then Friday rolled around and I was so excited for the weekend, so happy to FINALLY leave work (45 minutes later than normal), and to get home and have some friends over for drinks and games... and then my husband ended up on working 3 hours late, my children transformed into demon spawn, and I had a couple beers before my eldest was in bed for the night. Within an hour of both kids being in bed, I was a little tipsy and then decided I was on a mission to get a little drunk and enjoy my Friday night since I was at home and didn't have to drive anywhere. This turned into staying up until 2am at which point I started falling asleep in the middle of the game and promptly went to bed.

Funny thing about going to bed at 2am when it's your turn to get up with your kids the following morning... IT DOESN'T WORK OUT SO GREAT AND MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE CRAP.

I was completely disappointed in myself as this was the first thing I wrote on my "who I want to be" list over a week ago - "The person I want to be does not stay up until 2am drinking/socializing if it's her turn to get up with her children in the morning. Or at all." So much for that, eh?!

I tried dozing on the couch while the boys played, but they have such a love-hate relationship that I ended up refereeing most of the morning... finally at 10am my husband came downstairs and tapped me out to go take a nap. I slept 3 hours. I wasted almost my entire day. Saturday morning is cleaning time, not taking-a-nap time. I didn't get all the vacuuming done I normally do, but at least I got some laundry going, cleaned up the kitchen, and got the tile swept up in prep for some mopping. The day was over before it even began, and I skipped my workout completely because I was so tired, but also because I was feeling completely depressed. I was/am completely disappointed in myself for acting so irresponsible about sleep knowing full-well this would push me into a low place for the next few days, doing nothing except perpetuate my tendency toward bad habits. Vicious cycle.

I did slightly better with bedtime Saturday night, but was still very tired Sunday and opted for a nap in place of a workout, which may have no been the better choice. Now I'm struggling to settled back into my "asleep before midnight" place, and am starting to battle that inner-monologue of, "You just can't do it. Just accept that being sleep-deprived and depressed is who you are." Which is completely untrue.

It's so upsetting to feel myself slipping back into this bad head-space, and so that is depressing me, too. I'm definitely trying to stay positive and try not to let the frustration/anger/sadness/apathy pull me too deeply into the "why bother?" place, but I also know that I need to get on top of this sleep thing and cut back the beer/wine intake over the next couple weeks in order to help me stay level.

Moving on to other subjects...

I restarted Female Body Breakthrough last week (which I will now refer to as FBB - also, I think I probably already mentioned this at some point.. whoops), and while I didn't get the third workout in on Saturday thanks to my late-night antics wiping me out, I did jump right back to it Monday evening like a champ. The moves are already getting easier for me, and I think I can add a little bit heavier weight beginning next week. I'm not rushing myself with the weight during this first "phase", though, because I feel like I've done that with other programs in the past and really ended up sacrificing proper form and therefore wasn't building strength like I wanted to. Anyways. The workouts are hard as hell, but feel totally awesome. At first they were taking me a bit longer to get through, but now that I've got the warm-up down without needing to check the book a million times, I've been able to shave about 8-10 minutes off the total workout time.

I'm really enjoying things this go 'round, even though it's obviously early in the program. I'm not making any promises to you or even really to myself that I'll finish the full 16 weeks, because I feel like I jinx and self-sabotage the moment I start saying things like, "I'm definitely doing ALL THE THINGS ALL THE TIME this time!" -- so, we'll just leave it at: I'm enjoying myself much more this time around, I'm loving how the workouts are making me feel, and at this moment I'm feeling positive about being able to stick with it for a bit.

January So Far

Well, I gained a few pounds. Since weighing in at the beginning of the month, I've gained about 3 pounds. Legit gain, as the scale has reflected the same number about 4 times now. (Yes, I know, I'm obviously stepping on the scale too much.) It's funny how much easier it was to maintain that positive body image thinking/talk when I was maintaining a 1-2 pound fluctuation between 189 and 191... now I'm seeing 194 when I step on the scale, I'm having a hard time keeping that positive monologue going. But I'm committed to my resolution of no fat talk, and have refused to say, "I feel fat", etc. Talking about it like that isn't going to change it - being smart with food choices and exercise will. So I'm officially back on those bandwagons. I'm hoping this will help with my mood, as well.

Last Monday Mike and I decided to give the T25 program a shot, and I realized one very important thing about myself: I have an extreme dislike of workout videos. If it's not Jane Fonda's Low Impact Aerobics circa 1986 (I really wish they would release this on DVD!!) or yoga, it doesn't hold my interest for some reason. But, I told myself I would go through the rest of the week to try all of the different workouts. I bet this will shock the hell out of you... that didn't happen.

Tuesday was a bad day... Monday had also been a bad day... and then Tuesday just added to it. I came home from work so defeated, I had to just go lie in bed for a while. I let Mike fix dinner for himself and the kids while I felt sorry for myself for a little while and then after we got the kids to bed, all I wanted to do was cuddle up on the couch and not think about life for a while. So that's what we did. I'll give it to him, he tried pretty hard to motivate me to get the workout done, but when I started crying he dropped it pretty quick. ...that's not to say I was being a brat, but more saying that's how overwhelmed I was with everything.

Wednesday was a terrible day at work and I felt like I might start dropping F-bombs and walk out the door at any given moment. I don't how, but I managed to get super motivated to lift heavy things when I got home that evening. I cooked dinner and then headed down to the basement for some muscular punishment. It felt awesome. I had to start all over again with weight and was only able to knock out 3x3's on my working sets, but it's a start. It counts. And it felt good, and I felt good about doing it. I also danced/jumped around a lot in between my sets, so bonus goofing off cardio was had. Thursday night I did some power yoga with my fav yogi, Rodney Yee (and by "with", I mean on my television), to stretch out my sore muscles... silly me, I forgot what a core workout yoga can be! While I succeeded in stretching out my quads, glutes, hamstrings and back - I also succeeded in giving my abs a pretty crucial workout and had some pretty decent soreness Friday morning.

I had dinner plans Friday night with some girlfriends and didn't get any purposeful exercise in, but it was good to have a full evening out without having to worry about kiddos or anything. And I did a little dancing with post-dinner drinks. Saturday my workout was cleaning my house -- that felt good in a number of ways! I felt productive, the house was clean (obviously)...well, mostly... laundry got done, etc. We took the kids for a playdate, and then I stayed in with my husband for the evening (who's currently fighting a nasty cold -- here's hoping I don't catch it). It's been a while since I've just sat around catching up on DVR'd TV on a weekend evening and gone to bed a decent time. It was really nice. Unfortunately, I slept like total crap. I tossed and turned all night. According to my FitBit I was up about 30 times throughout the night. Even with the crappy night's sleep, I felt pretty decent Sunday morning. I fixed myself a good breakfast, headed out to run errands, got dinner in the slow cooker, Mike put Nolan down for his nap and I thought to myself, "I think I should go for a run." So I did. It was only about 48 degrees outside - which is certainly much warmer than it has been around here, and much warmer than it will be for the next 8 or 9 days - but I threw on the little bit of cold-weather running gear I own, and figured with it being such a sunny day I'd survive. Wouldn't you know - I did. I will say that the first 10-15 minutes was pretty miserable and I seriously regretted not putting some knit gloves on. I can't remember exactly when last I ran, but I want to say it was at least October if not September. I went a little over 2 miles and did walk/run intervals just based on how I was feeling, how long it took me to get my breath, etc. When I was running I was averaging a 10-12 minute mile, which is pretty decent for me. According to my HRM (I use a Polar FT4, in case anyone was wondering), I burned about 465 calories. My heart rate was pretty high most of the time, which shows how out of shape I really am. But damn, it felt really good to be out there -- especially once I got moving fast enough to keep my body warm. I wrapped up my 2 plus miles and felt like I could have done it all over again, but decided it would probably be smart not to overdo it on my first day back out. I will say, I definitely don't think I could run in weather any colder than, say, 45. I definitely found it much harder to breathe in the cold air. I'm very much looking forward to the hot days of summer. Even when it would be 90 degrees at 8pm, it never bothered me to go for a run.

I did a LOT of stretching once I got back home, and I'm hoping that will pay off with my soreness Monday since I play on jumping right back into my lifting routine while I seem to have all this motivation to get exercise done. Thankfully my B lifts are more upper-body, less legs. Right now I'm planning to try to get yoga in on non-lift days. As I said above, I believe it will be just too frigid to run here for the next week or so. (Our high on Weds is supposed to be 15. YUCK!)

Friday evening, Saturday afternoon/evening, and pretty much all of today (Sunday) my mood has been pretty good. It's almost like I still feel the depression following me around, but it's not actively bothering me - which is very nice. I ate really well today, and all the exercise over the last few days I'm sure has helped immensely. It might also help that I haven't smoked or had any alcohol since Friday evening. I know with my return to work tomorrow that hiatus won't last long, though. The stress really gets to me during the week and sometimes I feel like a beer and a cigarette is the only thing that really help me "wind down" -- maybe lifting and yoga can take their place. I'll think positively on that while I'm feeling like I'm in a positive place and leave it at that.

One of the many fitness bloggers I follow posted a writing/motivation exercise recently that I'm thinking about trying - sort of along the lines of lifting/yoga/running taking the place of regularly drinking and smoking. She asked her followers to think about the person they want to become, to write down the answers to a few simple questions, as well as anything else they feel might be pertinent; what does that person do? how do they behave? who do they spend time with? As well as more health/fitness related questions: what do they eat? how much do they sleep? why type of exercise do they do and how often?

I thought this could be a useful exercise for me and something that I'm planning to work on over the next couple weeks as I find the time/have the motivation.

Positive thought of the day: I'm really proud of myself for taking advantage of my sudden motivation to go for a run today, and I'm also really proud of myself for taking the time to do so much playing with Nolan today without messing on my phone or trying to take care of chores or anything else at the same time. I know my kids really appreciate that, and I think I appreciate it more than I realize.