FatGirl vs World

Some people are lucky enough to be celebrating big dramatic changes in their lives, such as Ms. Healthy Loser Girl having lost 100lbs, or Michael's new found residence in Onderland. And then of course there's Sheryl's accomplishment of reaching lifetime status at Weight Watchers.

Some of us can only count our minor achievements and little changes and only hope that they add up to the large changes we're hoping for ourselves.

I am a big NY Giants fan, if you haven't already figured that one out.
And football is best when there is a beer in my hand.

However this past Sunday I'm starting what I hope to be a new tradition:  I ran on the elliptical while watching the game. I ran 14km in the first 3 quarters. 

Feeling semi-victorious, I went to a bar for the 4th quarter. Normally I down many beers (when you're friends with the bartender you never really know how much you drink), a plate of chicken tenders, and a side of waffle fries.  Yesterday, I had 2 beers, ate the tenders, and felt sick after 5 waffle fries.

Not just uncomfortable, but sick.

I can't imagine that I did that to my body week after week.

And maybe this is one of the little changes:  knowing that the behaviors I've had in the past are not something I want to keep doing.  I'm not depriving myself of something if I no longer want.

Apparently, butterflies represent profound change.  They are "a symbol of transformation because of its impressive process of metamorphosis."

"Herein lies the deepest symbolic lesson of the butterfly. She asks us to accept the changes in our lives as casually as she does. The butterfly unquestioningly embraces the chan[g]es of her environment and her body."

From another site:  "The Greeks likened the butterfly’s constant flitting from flower to flower to the restlessness of the mind: constantly changing from subject to subject. Indeed, the Greek word for butterfly is ‘psyche’ from where we get our word ‘psychology’ – the study of the mind."

From Wikipedia:  "In some old cultures, butterflies also symbolize rebirth into a new life after being inside a cocoon for a period of time."

So thanks to these little flying pieces of art my mind has been preoccupied with thoughts of change, of transformation, of rebirth.  I know there's a bigger picture somewhere in all of this. I just can't see it yet.

So I've been writing lately about how my body hasn't been cooperating with me lately--last month it was my back and lately it's been my hip.  This morning, as I was running, my knee started acting up.

For a good five minutes of running I let myself feel sorry.
Then I told my knee "Not today!"
I stopped and stretched a bit more.
Then I relied on my buddhist training that reminds us not to turn away from pain, but to turn toward it, and so I thanked my knee for sending me the signals of pain, that I'd correct my form, but I was pressing on.

But my knee still hurt. I either had to stop or figure out some other mental resource to get me over the hump to the point where there would be pain, but it wouldn't be at the forefront of my focus. 

And then I remembered a friend of a friend.
Instantly I felt the pain dissipate from my consciousness. It was present, but it didn't hold me back.
The friend of a friend is a badass by all definitions.  Not only was he a Marine that saw combat in Iraq, but he is an amputee that competes in the Warrior Games.  He has his aims set higher than just about anyone I've ever met.  I thought about him not because I thought "well if he's an amputee and he can compete and run, then I should shut my trap" but because of something he said to me almost a year ago.

Now, as a Fat Girl, you're not always accustomed to sincere compliments from hot guys, so when he said to me that I was a really cool chick, I sent him an email to thank him for saying it.  His reply?  "Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise."

In that moment when my knee was crapping out on me and I doubted whether my body was capable of this, I told my knee that I am a runner, and I wasn't going to let any minor injury let me think otherwise.

---

In other news, a coworker was at the gym with me this morning.  She is a very fit person -- tackling the elliptical on the highest incline and bending and flexing in ways I can't.

At one point halfway through my run, she told me "I am in awe of you."

Later she was doing plank exercises in perfect form and all I could think of was, "You're doing something I can't do and you're the one in awe of me?"

I mean, all I did was stop my elliptical, dismount, and kill a cockroach.  Just sayin...
Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses.

Upon watching Drop Dead Diva, I began thinking about the following things. I was wondering what your take is on it. 

What do you do to honor the person you left behind/are leaving behind as you shed the pounds? 
How do the two people (past and present) exist within you? 
Do you think when you've reached your goal/goal weight, that the past version of you will be gone?

The Rules:

1. Answer this question: If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?

I know, this is the schmoopy sincere answer.  I think if I could change one thing in my life, I would have tried to be more compassionate to my parents (especially my mother).  They did their best.  Maybe if I hadn't fought them so much they wouldn't have felt like they failed so much. 

2. The second thing you have to do is, pick 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform the person that they have gotten this award.

I'm really bad at doing this. I love all the blogs I read equally.  I'm going to cheat and say that if you want this award, the first six to lay claim to it get it :)

3. The third and final thing is, thank the person who gave you the award.
Thank you, Carly. You totally didn't have to :)
But I'm glad you did.  I like how you call things like they are.
You say what's on your mind, which means that more often than not, you know what is on your mind. That's pretty admirable.

As often the case is, life is filled with peaks and valleys. 
Do epic shit one day, suffer the consequence the next.

Today I was hoping to add another 8-10km to my personal 100 miles/160km in September challenge. But once I woke up and started moving around,  I realized that it just wasn't going to happen today.  No matter how much I stretched I knew my hip would not cooperate.  It was tight, it was moody, it was determined to slow me down.

And sometimes you just gotta listen to what your body is telling you or risk sidelining yourself even further.

I hopped on the recumbent bike (not a fan, as it isn't that much of a caloric burn, but it was something) and did that for an hour.  I did some weights, but i just wasn't feeling it.  It wasn't the workout that I wanted to be doing.

But as a dear friend reminds me -- just because you're struggling doesn't mean you're failing.  Struggle is part of the process.  It's how you deal with the adversity that determines your success or your failure.


QUESTION TIME:
What happens when you have to adapt to the situation at hand -- either in terms of diet or exercise?  
Are you comfortable with rolling with the punches or do you revert back to old/bad habits? 
Do you reach out for support or do you keep your struggle to yourself?

I think just about everyone who reads this blog can empathize with the statement that our bodies either have in the past or currently place limitations on the things we want to do.

It might be something simple like not being flexible enough to be a pretzel-shaped yogi, or not strong enough to benchpress a Prius.  But for some of us, the requests we place on our body are small ones -- things like "Please don't crap out on me" or "Just give me one day without pain."  And some of them are big ones, such as not fighting us on this whole weight loss/health gain adventure.

Today I asked my body to do something it's never done.
It might not be much for another person, but it was big for me:  3 minutes of running on a treadmill at a 7mph pace. Nonstop.  AND I DIDN'T DIE! I know! In other words: epic.

After doing that I added 10k on the elliptical towards my 100 miles (160 km) in September personal challenge.  That brings me up to 27 km just in the first 4 days of the challenge.  Not bad, right?

So since I burned lots of calories and didn't eat much (i'm up currently consume 1900 and burn 2900 and i won't be eating any more today -- with 4 more hours left in the day I think I'm okay), I decided to get dolled up and take myself out to dinner (turkey burger with no bun, broccoli and mac & cheese).

I also spent some day sunning myself at the pool today. It was fantastic -- a light breeze, a few clouds, and it wasn't hot as balls! And i did so in a bikini!

You might not notice, but I'm noticing the tiny little changes in my body. And I'm loving each and every bit of it. I thought I'd take another picture to chart the progression:

So, Nancy's wedding is November 6, 2010 -- that's a little over two months.

I'm currently at 192.2.
I'm not going to focus on what weight I want to be at (so long as I don't gain), because I fit in the dress.
I do want to focus on a few things:

1. I think in the month of September I want to run (on the elliptical) 100 miles (or 160.9 km).  I'm going to write it down each day on my calendar at home.  If I run a little over 8 km 20 out of 30 days, I'll be good to go.

2. NO DRINKING. I've covered this time and time again. Drinking, the hangover, and the recovery are so contrary to where I want to be. So I'm just not going to do it.  Plus, when I was on the good date, it would have been advantageous if I didn't drink at all, or stuck to 1 glass. 

3. More cooking for myself, eating in, making grocery lists and meal planning.  I don't want to go so far as to be rigid, but I know I do better when I have a battle plan.

4. Use body measurements.

5. Become accountable to a team and/or another person who has similar goals.

The more I lose weight, the more I love touching my own body (especially my stomach).
The more I lose weight, the more I want to be touched, and allow others to touch me.
The more I lose weight, the more I see who I was always meant to be coming out.

---

And I'm going to copy/paste my haiku on an avocado just for @FatGirlsCanRun and @halfofjess
Green, supple, fleshy
omega three flavor bomb
good with tortillas

@FatGirlsCanRun's haiku:
Buttery green bits
encased in ugly green shell
rock my chicken NOW

I'm on a boat! Correction, I'm on a horse!

I used to help my friend Erin muck stalls at the stables where she used to board her horses.  As a "reward" for a day of hard work, I'd get to ride her horse (man, if only I got to ride the stable owner's beautiful Friesian named Kye).  I'm only good for a walk or a gallop (as a trot hurts my back). Either way, she was constantly yelling at me (in a nice way), "KEEP YOUR HEELS DOWN."

It's not so important when you ride once every few years or so, but it is when you ride every day. It's also important for the horse, because that's what it's been trained to respond to.

I was reminded of horseback riding this morning when I realized that while my left foot automatically points forward (from years of rehabbing sprained ankles) my right foot does not. While I might think it is pointing straight, it is not, and I need to turn my heel out a bit.  It has helped ease the strain on my knee and prevents my toes from tingling. Every 5 minutes I'd have to remind myself to keep my heel out.

This past week while I was with Emily, she kindly showed me some exercises that I could do to help tone my arms and to work on my core.  While doing tricep extensions, she constantly told me to keep my elbows tucked in towards my head.  In other words -- not like the woman on the right.  She told me it was okay to go slower or to do it one arm at a time (using my other arm to keep the working arm's elbow pointed toward my nose) if I did them correctly.  Not doing an exercise correctly pretty much negates any positive effect.

While doing plank exercises, she also kept on reminding me to keep my hips/butt tucked in and core engaged (versus piking them) and adjusting me into the correct position. Another reminder I'll have to keep in my head when exercising.  While messing around with the Tree Pose, she showed me that my hips were way out of line and I was over rotating. She suggested I might fare better with a modified tree pose and build up my strength/flexibility to a more recognizable form.

The point of all of this is that for as much as wellness is a physical practice, it is a mental practice as well.  Our minds must be engaged while we are moving as to avoid injury, as to practice proper form, and to allow our mind and body to connect in a meaningful way.

So too our minds must be engaged while eating -- even if it's just to say "It's okay that I'm eating this cookie" or "I'm craving lasagna for dinner." Our mind is our most useful tool in changing the way we eat and what we eat.  Sure we might have some lingering issues here and there, but for the most part they are external. Junk food is no longer the assailaint from within. Overeating is no longer suffocating our body's natural mechanisms of feeling full.  Our mind, with its adjustments and reminders, is there there to assuage our fears that "OMG this is the last ice cream I'll ever get to eat and thus I must eat it all!" (There will be more ice cream, it is not going extinct), or that "OMG eating a whole pizza will fix my unhappiness" (If you're able to identify you're eating because you're unhappy, that's half the battle).

That brings me to the cosmic shift portion of the post:  the Epiphany.

I've often mentioned the Epiphany in passing, both on the blog and on twitter, as well as with friends.  The Epiphany goes something like this (with permission to amend as needed):

Until someone realizes the importance of their own health and well-being, no one else can force them to care. Until someone realizes that how they treat their body (food, exercise, care, kindness and forgiveness) is a practice of love and a statement to the world about how they feel about their own value, they will continue to see diet and exercise as a cycle of deprivation or guilt followed by punishment.  They will feel any sense of self-worth to be misguided, selfish, or entirely absent.
The Epiphany is that it is not about deprivation, guilt, or punishment.  The Epiphany is a deep and abiding sense of self worth, of value, of presence.  The Epiphany is the sonic boom or the quiet whisper simply of "I matter."  The Epiphany can be broken down into various "I matter" phrases -- such as "my feelings matter" or "my health matters."  When your heart/mind/soul beings to stick up for yourself, it is only natural that your body does as well, as they are all interrelated.

The Epiphany makes other things seem silly -- like whether I've shaved or not, or whether I'm wearing the trendy workout clothing.  The bottom line, no matter what is that I owe it to myself to listen to my body and mind and pay attention to what it needs.  I know it's not easy for everyone (especially those of you whose lives resemble three-ring circuses) but once the Epiphany happens, it doesn't have to be some song and dance or a big parade every time.  Sometimes all you need to do to honor yourself and your needs is simply admit to yourself that you matter. Your existence in this world matters. What you put in your body matters. How you allow people to treat you matters.

It's not license to be a bull in a china shop. But it is license to have time every day (even if it's just 5 minutes) where your focus is on nourishing your heart/mind/body/soul. You're worth it. Believe me, you are.