Found motivation?

My last post was a result of me trying to look cute for dinner last night and not finding anything remotely flattering in my closet. I think part of that problem is that I really haven't bought very many new clothes in the past year. Maybe some of the clothes that are just a tad tight are from when I was really skinny. I need to find a way to be comfortable in my skin. I'm not comfortable no matter what I weigh. I always think that if I'm just a little bit smaller, I'll feel just a little bit better. But I don't. I felt the exact same way when I was 15 pounds lighter. I do admit, I feel better now though than I did when I was 15 pounds heavier. Realistically, I'm happy when my weight is... okay, I'll say, between about 140-143. Right now I'm more like 147-149. It's just a few pounds, but it makes a difference in the way I feel.

Anyway, Erin and I decided to make a plan. We're making a google spreadsheet that has our goals for now through September 8th. September 8th is the DMB concert in the park. If we meet our goals, both of us, we get to buy a new outfit for the concert. The goals are for me to fit into a pair of work pants that are just a tad tight and her to fit into some jeans that are too tight. We have decided to go about it the following way: We will
1. Not weigh ourselves.
2. Go to the gym 5x a week
3. Not eat fried food
4. Not eat sweets
5. Be healthy for the most part and try to limit alcohol
6. Have one day where we can cheat a little but we don't have to

There's a 7th one but I forget it. I did well today though. We had Mexican for Luis' wedding shower lunch and I ordered the healthiest thing that I could find -shrimp fajitas. It's pretty normal for me to seek out the healthiest item on the menu and order that but what I am proud of, and if you know me, this is huge, i didn't eat a single chip!!! I am a huge chips and salsa fiend. It's really mainly the salsa; the chip is just the vehicle. I just put the salsa on the fajitas and that was good.

And I finally did my second 3 mile run of the week.

Melt off already

I was under the impression that if I cut down on my drinking, the excess 10 pounds would just fly off. Umm, no, still here. I'm so fucking sick of people telling me that I haven't gained weight. I HAVE. It's my fault and I can fix it, but I am larger than I've been in a long time. My clothes, while they still technically fit, are uncomfortable and I feel like I'm busting out of them. Maybe I should join Weight Watchers? I don't know. Something needs to be done. My self esteem is going down the toilet.

Tummyache

I was really, intentionally going to go to the gym tonight. Got home from work, ate a relatively healthy dinner, laid on the couch for a while. And then went to the bathroom. And didn't get off the toilet for an hour. I don't know what the deal is but my stomach freakin' hurts. It might be period related, but lately the ol' tum-tum has been hurting a lot. I have always had stomach issues, but they're so on-again/off-again, that I've never really figured out what is actually wrong. It could be stress; I was a bit stressed out today at work. Like I said, it could be cramps. I could be something I ate, but I didn't really eat anything weird. My mom wants me to get tested for celiac disease. I don't think it's that. I didn't even eat any wheat products today. At least I have a valid excuse for not going to the gym. I guess I'll do my runs (no pun intended) tomorrow and Thursday instead of today and Wednesday.

Disordered thinking, again

I've always been sort of opposed to the idea of a cheat day. That is, a day where you throw all of your common sense about food and nutrition out the window and eat what you want. But maybe it does work. Instead of beating myself up on a somewhat regular basis about not eating 100% perfect all of the time, maybe I should just designate one day out of the week where I can screw up and it'll be okay. Yesterday was my one day. The day started out good. Met up with Adina and Lauren for a five mile run around midtown. The run was fairly hilly but it felt shorter to me than last weeks. Perhaps because I know the area or perhaps because I got a good amount of sleep on Friday night. After our run, I went home, took a shower and got ready to play kickball. There was a pick up game in Hammond Park. It was eh. Kickball is cliquey. Sometimes I feel like I'm in high school. I've found, however, if I sort of ignore the more "popular" cocky people, there are a lot of cool people out there. In any event, I brought two of my friends (umm, what's the chance they read this? Pretty much nil, right? Cause I'm about to be a bitch.) and they sucked! One of them just sort of lacked athletic ability which I can't say much about considering my own kickball skills (I did get someone out though on 2nd base!) but the other one, I don't know what the deal was. He was actually more athletically inclined, but did not grasp the rules of the game at all. Have you never seen a baseball game? It was just really, really weird. I was embarrased for him and somewhat for myself. So, I guess they were too because they left and after that, we played one more game and everyone got sort of tired.

I promise this is going to eventually be about dieting and cheat days, here it comes:

We went to this bar afterwards, Charlie Mopps. Nothing on their menu was remotely healthy, so I just had a beer. That's my problem, I don't order anything and then I pick off other people's plates. So I picked at some fried green beans, some chips and salsa and some tator tots. At this point, I'm kind of annoyed at myself, but not too bad. I went home and was sort of bored and Chris called and we ended up going out to dinner. Mind you, I wasn't that hungry. Even so, I proceed to eat beefstake tomatoes with goat cheese, salmon tartare and clams in a butter sauce (we shared all of these) and a crapload of bread. (I know, I know, I shouldn't really be going out to eat with Chris anyway, but that's not the point of my story. The point, my friends, is the shit load of food that I ate.) I went home after that and called it a night.

I woke up this morning feeling bloated and guilty. I pulled out my diet books. I don't know what to do. Either give myself permission to have a cheat day or feel guilty all the time. It's fucked up, but a lot of times I wish that I still had the willpower that I used to have. I could ignore the bread basket, I could not pick at Terry's tator tots until she took them away from me. But I also was thisclose to having an eating disorder. I don't know which is worse. Not eating or stuffing myself full of crap until my pants don't fit.

I think that I'm always going to have issues with food. I don't know if it ever goes away and I'm scared that if I didn't have an issue, that I'd gain weight.

I like that shirt

Oh no, the person on What not to Wear is wearing a shirt that I own. I mean before she gets the makeover. In my defense, I don't wear it often.

Speaking of clothes, I haven't bought anything that's not workout related in a really long time. Maybe it's because for the past two years I've worked in a business casual environment and just haven't had the need for so many jeans and t-shirts. But lately I haven't even bought work clothes.

I know what's fashionable. I know that I can pull off most styles. So why don't I? A part of it has to do with not having much money but I think a bigger part is that I'm unfomforable in my own skin. I can blame it on gaining weight lately, but I was uncomfortable in my skin when I was tiny. I don't know how to be comfortable. Wearing workout attire for the entire weekend doesn't help though.

But that shirt is cute.

Quack?

After looking at my latest race pictures, I've come to the conclusion that I have very bad form. Truth be told, I run like a duck. I turn my feet outwards. I thought about it while I was running tonight (3 miles in fucking rainforest humidity, bitches) and looked down and lo and behold, there were the duck feet. I don't think that I walk like this, why do I have such bad form when I run? And is it really bad to run like that? I tried to make my feet straighter and that felt harder and unnatural. How important is it to have good form? And how do I get it? I've been very lucky in the fact that aside from a self-diagnosed, on again/off again IT band syndrome, I've run a lot of miles relatively injury free.

I'm on the Team in Training mailing list apparently. It appeals to me somewhat. Mostly the idea of having a group of people to motivate me. I'm not half bad at motivating myself, but the half that's not bad isn't exactly good. Pretty much the only reason that I did my long run on Saturday morning was because I'd made plans to do it and weaseling my way out of them made me feel guilty. The thing about TIT (wait, that can't be right - TNT?) is that I don't think I want to do a full marathon right now and all of the halfs are about a month after the Silver Comet. Plus, there's that raising money thing.

I'm tired. This duck needs to go back to her nest. Umm, pond? Where do ducks sleep?

Where's my motivation?

I fell asleep after work. After finally dragging myself out of my bed and putting on my gym clothes, I got in my car and drove. To Target. I just was not feeling the gym. I need to change my training schedule. It's not working for me to try to fit in two Pilates classes, a circuit training class, two short runs and a long run. It's too much and unfortunately, what's being dropped is usually one of the shorter runs. I can't train for a half marathon and only run two days a week. Sure, it's early now and I am capable of running the long runs without much training, but later on in the program, I am going to need to up my mileage.

Maybe I need to do it in the morning. I know that I hate morning work outs with a passion but maybe I can learn to like them. Or at least learn to live with them. If I ignore a morning workout, at least I have two other times in the day to get it in - lunch and after work whereas if I ignore and after work workout, I'm kind of screwed for the day.

I don't know why I'm so unmotivated.

The Waiting Game

It's been going on for six or seven years now. Sean and my psuedo-dating, fuck buddy, best friend, whatever you want to call it relationship. What's changed? Why suddenly am I almost willing to move back to Maryland to see if this would work out? Maybe because I know that's not an option right now. He's in Kuwait for a year. I have a year lease anyway. I have a job, a life in Atlanta and suddenly I'm willing to risk it all for something that may or may not work out. It's a moot point anyway. He's too far away. We both agreed that one of us is just going to end up getting hurt if we try to start something that's so long distance. So now we just wait, I guess. Maybe these feelings are stronger now because I just saw him and had a great time. Or maybe they're stronger because they actually are. A part of me feels like this has been going on for so long that maybe it's meant to be. Maybe there's a reason that neither of us have really had a serious relationship in that time; that almost every time we see each other, it's like we never were apart. Maybe the love of my life is staring me in the face and I never even realized it. Or maybe not. Maybe the reason things have never progressed beyond the psuedo-dating, fuck buddy, best friend phase is because they never will. Maybe the only reason I'm willing to risk it now is because I know I can't.

And so I go on with my life. But still I wait.

Back in the game

I woke up yesterday morning and texted Adina that I didn't want to go run. But then the guilt set in and I convinced myself to get up. At this point, Adina was not answering her phone. I got dressed and went to her apartment anyway, thinking if she wasn't there, I'd just drive to Lauren's by myself. I got there as she was leaving. I saw a car literally about to speed away and even though I wasn't sure if it was her, I laid on the horn. It was, she stopped and we were on our way. Lauren lives far! We got there after stopping at QT for some Propel and were on our way. Our run consisted of a 5 mile loop basically around Lauren's neighborhood. It was very interesting. We managed to get chased by no fewer than six dogs and have a man in a pick up truck yell to us, "They aint nothing but pets." Ummm, yeah what does that mean? Pets can still bite plus I hate the word aint. We also saw horses, cows and a dead snake and a dead rabbit. I think it was a combination of things, but I basically felt like my legs wouldn't move. Could be that I did a circuit training class the day before, could be that I had gone out the night before, could be that my Ipod batteries were dead and this is by far the longest run that I've ever done without music! We made it though and in decent time given that we had to walk for a bit when a dog decided that he wanted to join us.

It felt good to get back into it though.

Finally, a post about running. Sorta.

I'm running the Peachtree tomorrow. I got a number from Lauren. (I'd link her blog, but Safari doesn't let you do that in which case I'd have to switch to Firefox and I'm lazy). I was excited about it today. People at work were talking about it. Two other people that I work with are doing it. Jamie's doing it. Erin's doing it. Eric and Amy are doing it. So I was excited. My triumphant return to running, right? Umm, not really. I called Erin to see what the plan was. She's in time group 9. I'm in 8. I could, if I wanted, run with 9 but she really didn't seem into it. She's going with her boyfriend. I called Jamie. He's in my time group. He was non-chalant. I really think he was nervous and trying to play non-chalant. I finally convinced him to at least meet me at the MARTA because God forbid I'd actually run the thing with him. I understand it, somewhat, not wanting to run with anyone else. But jeez, we can't start together? And then there's the question of the after party. I want to go. No one else does. Erin's going tubing. Jamie suddenly has set hours for beer consumption and Eric and Amy are going to a friend's house. It's not the actual drinking that I want to do, it's the party - I just ran a race and even though I'm hot and sweaty, I'm pretty damn cool and so are all of you- atmosphere. Lisa from work is going. Worst comes to worst, I can meet up with her there for a while. It's just the whole thing that I don't have anyone to do things with. I used to at least have Jamie. Now I don't even have him. I'm just annoyed.

Yep, that's not about running at all. Maybe I'll have a real race report tomorrow though.