My new found ninja status had me feeling all ninja like. I practiced that cool hand thing they do and wound up flipping somebody off. Totally unintentional. I swear. No more ninja hand gestures for me and no more power to my uncle's comment. Bye Felicia. Adiós.
Do you hear voices in your head? No? Just me? Never mind. Let me share with you the conversations we have. Me: I want to eat that pizza and cookies and chips and pie. Voices: Do NOT eat that crap. It's bad for you. Me: But I really want it. It tastes so good. Voices: Okay, eat it. I'll make you feel guilty later.
Here comes guilt. Oh and look who tagged along.... Thunder thighs. Awesome.
I did the best that I could to tame those voices by trying to eat better. Nothing helped. Then I went to my source. My brain. There were some serious cobwebs in there. I cleared the cobwebs and hit the restart button again and again. A few more times adda. Do. The. Trick.
I was looking for a lifestyle change. Not a diet. For most people, cutting out everything they enjoy is the ONLY way, for me it was sabotage. (Cue Beastie Boy's song 'sabotage') If I was going to change my lifestyle for good it was going to require some compromise. Nothing radical. So, I went with what I knew. I ate McDonald's just not super size. I had diet soda instead of regular. I ate fried chicken and removed the delicious crispy skin. (Salivating).
At home I bought those cute 100 calorie snack packs. Sneaky marketing makes you think they're somehow 'diet'. They're not. Shocker. (And genius) So, if they're NOT diet..*scratches head* what's the point!?!! Portions, duh! My medulla oblongata was putting it all together. Finally! My food choices didn't become healthier over night. It took a while to get there. But portions were easy to change. I ate one slice of pizza, not 3(or 5). I ate chips, not the whole bag. And so on. I started to see food in a different way. And because I saw it differently, I ate differently. Happy dance.
Let me tell you about the word 'active'. It's way different than say 'exercise'. Just the mention of word makes me sweat. But active was gentler. Like exercise's little sister. I had to incorporate some sort of activity into my life. I knew I wasn't going to get up and start running and crazy stuff like that. I am crazy. But running?! Never. I knew I just needed to get up and MOVE. Period. Again, nothing radical. I popped in the tae bo and Pilates DVD and watched. Observed.
Then I DID something radical. I created my own workout. Called 'Tae Pilates'. Get yours today for a special price of 9.99. But WAIT there's more. For a limited time you can get my bonus DVD 'crunches, push ups and more'. . . Ok... The DVDs aren't real. I know you're disappointed. Sorry.
Every single day for just 30 minutes I did my Tae Pilates workout with crunches and push ups. 'Activity' The proof was in the puddin as I like to say. My body was transforming. Like a transformer but less obvious. But more importantly my inner being was changing. The real excitement came from knowing that I got to this point because my brain was using this formula : eat better (portions) + activity = lifestyle change. Was this formula perfect? Nope. Far from it. I was eating less junk, but not healthier. Not yet. Small steps, Danielson. [Wax on. Wax off]
This is how it was for a long while. I tried not to change too much too quickly. At least that's what I told myself. Deep down I was missing home. My mom, my sister and all my family. But I kept to the formula.
A year of living in the East coast was 365 days too many for me. There were positives though. We visited many tourist destinations. New York, Washington D.C., Atlantic City. Went to the ball park to watch the Phillies. And my kids met lifelong friends. But now, we were homebound. For good. As I've shared my passion for moving in my previous post, I'll spare you the details.
Behold! The sight of our majestic Sandia mountains brought tears to my eyes. Home sweet home.
After a few short weeks I had the need to visit the Dr.'s office. I got on the scale and I couldn't believe my eyes. 130 lbs! Holy crap! I thought to myself 'what if I ate healthier AND stayed active?!' Mind blown! Honestly though, what if?
For me, the hardest part was over. Not the weight loss. Remember that was the physical part. Mentally, I was on track. For the most part.
Six months or so before my 40th birthday I decided I wanted to run a half marathon. Talk about crazy. Perhaps it was taking me a bit longer to adjust back to the altitude. Remember my triathlon adventure? Apparently my memory was suffering as well. I had not done any long distance running. Hell, I had barely done any walking. Yet, my mind was made up. Now all I needed to do was start running. So, I did. Wasn't easy. I managed a walk/run combo for a few weeks and gradually worked up to mostly running. But still only managed HALF of a half marathon. What was I thinking? 13.1 miles? Yeah. Clearly in over my head.
The months leading up to the half (crazy) marathon were November and December. Yep, holidays. Yep, food. Yep, busy times. Yep, yep and yep! Hubby took some vacation for the holidays and I in turn took a holiday from my running. Plus, I was enjoying the holiday family traditions.
I eventually made it back outside to resume my half ass training plan. The race was fast approaching! Would I? Could I?! Should I?! I would never know unless I tried. A week before the race, when most people are tapering after a vigorous half marathon training plan, I was out to tackle 10 or so miles. Call me crazy. I would be happy to agree.
On race day I prepared myself for the possibility of having to crawl the last few miles so I wore pants so my knees wouldn't get all scratched up. Then before I actually made it to my corral I had to pee like a hundred times. Didn't help that I drank 15 gallons of fluid the day before. Oh and the lines for the porta potty? 26k people racing and they have 10 pottys. Brilliant planning.
Waiting in my corral I started to feel what animals might feel like in a corral. All trapped next to other animals waiting for one thing. The signal to get the hell outta there. Who is the genius that came up with corrals for racing OR for animals anyway? And yet there I was. Among my fellow runners. Elbow to elbow. Foot to foot. It was exhilarating, I won't lie. The lying would come later at mile 11. I kept telling myself that I wasn't going to die. That I would be OK. All lies I told myself. All lies.
The great news is I didn't die. Obviously. The good news is I didn't have to crawl. But I was perfectly fine with doing it if I had to. I finished my first half marathon in 2 hours and 48 minutes. I couldn't have been more proud of myself. Inside and out.
The moment I crossed that finish line I knew that I would be back for more. Not to be better than anyone else, but to be a better version of me!
Next up: Training sucks
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