Being Jaded611

Do you ever fight with yourself to the complete oblivion of everyone else at the gym?

Well that was me today.  I walked in and my favorite elliptical machine was in use, so it was onto the treadmill.  On the elliptical I was doing HIIT.  On the treadmill I could obviously do the same but it would require running.  For my program it’s 2 minutes of fast walking, followed by 1 minute of running for a total of 20 minutes.  No biggie right?

My body fought it every…step…of…the…way.  The last ten seconds before every running minute my brain would engage in an all out power struggle with my body.

Brain:  Ok, here you go.  You can go this.

Body:  Are you crazy?!  Do you hear yourself?  You’re hacking up a lung!

Brain:  Shut up, quit whining, and let’s go.

Body:  Wait, wait, wait….my foot hurts.

Brain:  Run.

Body: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It took everything I had to get through it.  Every running minute was accompanied by a mental image of me:  fit, buff, and legs exploding with muscles, chanting, "I get out of this what I put into it.  This is easy. I can do it."  I couldn’t punk out on myself (especially while wearing a "I love my bad ass attitude" t shirt.  How pathetic would that be?).  And I didn’t.  I completed my 20 minutes and all of my leg presses, hack squats, calf raises, biceps curls, and ab work!

As I limped to the bus stop on shaky legs I asked my husband, "This never gets easy, does it?".  But you know what?  On my way into the shower I caught a glimpse of my traps and shoulders and did a double take.  And then I smiled and proceeded to bust out every old school dance move for a full minute (Ho! Roger Rabbit!  Ho! Running Man!  Ho! Doing the butt! Do the Robot…Do the Robot).

There’s no greater feeling than seeing progress.

I was working when I got the call from my mother today.  She had just left the doctor’s office and was not happy.  As I continued to work with the phone cradled between my shoulder and ear I heard out her list of ailments: dangerously high sugar level, increased dosage of all her diabetic medicine, aching shoulder and a knee without cartilage due to the arthritis, she needs to lose weight, and blah, blah, blah, on the list went.

The computer blurred in front of me and as I dutifully heard her out I mentally ranted, “Ma, you’re only 50 years old!  No one should be like this at only 50.  Your sugar is high because you eat half a candy bar every day like its ok.  IT’S STILL A CANDY BAR!  PURE SUGAR! I won’t even mention the other junk you eat.  Your knee is out because of your weight.  You’re overweight because you think unless you have a gym you can’t exercise.  WALK!  We all have a choice in what we do, and you constantly make the wrong choices because it’s easier.  It’s not just yourself  you have to look out for Ma.  Think of Jesse, he’s only 14.  He needs you to stick around for a long time!”

As upset and frustrated I am with her I’m equally as annoyed with myself.  This is one of the reasons I chose to change myself, my outlook, my life.  The ailments and health woes that have struck the women in my family are crippling.  Now one pulled muscle later and I’m on the verge of completely falling apart.  My AM workouts are becoming non existant and my clean eating habits are…not quite clean. What kind of example am I? Trips and stumbles are expected on a life changing journey, but DAMN!  I’m on my way to ending up with a mouthful of concrete!  And you know what?  I have no one to blame but myself, because the choices were all mine.

Do you know what really woke me up though?  I inspired someone at work to take control of their weight.  Me.  Who doesn’t dream of being an inspiration?  As I chose to eat a donut this afternoon because it was “convenient” this person showed up with a chicken salad for me.  Man did I…feel…like…CRAP.  I felt like an imposter, talking the talk and half assed walking the walk.  

I get it now.  There’s never a perfect or convenient time for this.   I won’t always feel motivated to work out.  I won’t always want to eat clean.  Tough.  It doesn’t matter.  I get out of this what I put into it.  

So here I am coming clean.  I screwed up.  I’m embarrassed to be among my buddies here who keep on going despite how stressed they are.  BUT I’m not punking out.  No restarts, no do-over, I will continue from here.

It’s time to suck it up and move on.  

How?

How did I manage to pull a chest muscle on the week that I did NO strength training?  

The week began with a new haircut to celebrate my 8 lb loss (and to free my ever crying hair from the confines of the dreaded bun).  And it ended with an emergency trip to the doctor after experiencing severe chest pains.  The whole way there I silently prayed, "Please don’t let it be a pulled muscle…please don’t let it be a pulled muscle…"

It’s a pulled chest muscle.  Damn!

So, for the next few weeks there is to be no strength training.  NONE.  No legs, no abs, no nothing.  All I can do is cardio.  I’m annoyed, irritated, and mostly scared.  I don’t want to go back to square one.  Will just doing cardio keep those 8 lbs off?  Will I be able to lose any more?  

Sigh.  I hate cardio.

Guess I’m going to have to learn to love it.

Unlearning old habits is hard.  I mean HARD.  The biggest one I have?   Turning a positive into a negative.  Posting progress pictures is always difficult but it was tough seeing that I don’t look anywhere near as good as I feel.  

Now don’t get me wrong.  I know it takes time. I know this weight is a result of years of neglect and denial.  For all of my "Big and Proud!" and "You go Big girl!" mantras I was miserable.  Because try as I might I was not happy.  This big girl was uncomfortable in her own skin, and it just wasn’t ME.

So here I am, trying to conjure up all of those feelings as I look at my pictures.  I never was a patient person, especially with myself.  Immediately all of the negative thoughts crawl in and I wonder Am I going to make it through this?  Will I finish this time?  Why don’t I see more progess?  And as quickly as they run through my head I block it off and turn those thoughts around:

I’ve lost 8lbs, an inch off of my chest and an inch off of my stomach.  IN A MONTH.  
I can leg press 500 lbs and curl 20 lbs easily.  
My clothes are loose and I need new ones.
I can walk up the stairs in the dreaded train station up the ramp without becoming out of breath.

I have achieved this.  ME.  I’m a better version of myself than I was a month ago, and there’s no turning back.

My cheat days have taught me:

1)  That hash browns are the devil. I can’t seem to give myself just a serving. The power of Christ compels you!

2)  That eating a stack of pancakes will put you in a coma.  Eat at your own risk.

3)  That I still get shocked by the sodium content of ramen noodles.  And then I eat it.

4)  That a bowl of Corn Pops is just not satisfying anymore.  Damn you Corn Pops!  Thankfully, Froot Loops is still hanging in there.

5)  That my dog secretly laughs at me while I hold my stomach in pain after eating bacon.  His revenge for not being given a piece.

Well I’ve learned a lot more than that but the main thing is that they’re becoming easier.  Breakfast is the meal I look forward to the most, so it’s what I have.  Eating after that is much simpler.  Sometimes I don’t want to eat much.  Sometimes all I really want is just a good cup of strong coffee and a toast.  Now my weekly cheat day is a day to eat whatever I want, IF I want.  

I still haven’t gotten around to the best thin crust pizza in Brooklyn (Fascati’s Pizzeria on Henry St, closed for vacation) but it’s on my list.  Beware Fascati’s….beware!

It is 10:19 am, I’m exhausted, and trying to make it through my day.  

After a fitful night that resulted in virtually no sleep, I was awakened by my husband for the gym at 5:30 am.   Big props to him because #1) He got up  and #2) He sleeps like the dead and he still got up.  Laid in bed and listened to the inner struggle for domination for a few minutes (…need to get some more sleep…need to get my big ass up and go the gym…), before finally rolling off the bed.  I slept on the bus until we got to the gym, stepped on the treadmill and considered letting myself slide off and fall into a heap by the wall, just so I could curl up into a ball and go to sleep.

Desperate means called for desperate measures.  So away went the Dance cardio playlist and out stomped the Rock/Metal playlist.

With that being said, I want to give a HUGE thank you to Linkin Park, Disturbed, Limp Bizkit, and Papa Roach!!!  A little head banging did wonders for my sleep deprived soul, enough for me to check out the guys in the weight room and give them the “you want some of this?!” look (yes, it doesn’t take much to gas me up).

So thanks guys, for getting so hyped that you followed me off the treadmill and into the weight room.  Thanks for helping me bust out those last reps of my upper body workout, thanks for helping me tune out the personal trainer who was too busy checking himself out in the mirror and making appreciative grunts instead of paying attention to his client, and a big ol’ thank you for blocking out the MTV channel with Jessica Simpson prancing around and keeping me in my zone.

Is it time for bed yet?

Earlier this week my husband and I were wondering why we make noticeable gains with our lower body and not our upper body.  "Because my legs are carrying my fat ass all day," was my intelligent response.  "That’s what I thought too," he says laughing, "but I think we need to seriously think about why this is."  Ahhh…I hate the voice of reason.  He then proceeded to lay it out:  We don’t push our upper body as hard as we do our lower body.

And unfortunately he was right.  I love working out my legs…they’re my strongest body part.  Nothing gives me a greater rush than leg pressing heavy weight and watching some guy’s mouth drop open as he walks by.  Fat doesn’t necessarily mean weak, just out of shape.

While giving it serious thought, I came to the conclusion that my upper body limitations are self imposed.  I think I can only do 15lb dumbbell curls, so that’s all I do.  I think I can only do 70lbs on the pec deck machine, so that’s all I attempt.  And the more I thought I about it, the more I realized that this warped logic had extended its way to my leg training too…my leg press has been stuck at 360lbs for the longest, and it’s because it’s all I think I can do right now.

So, after a few mental bitch slaps I told myself to suck it up and get to work.  Pec Deck machine?  95lbs.  Leg press? 410lbs.  Dumbbell curls?  20lbs (I know, that’s a bit low but I didn’t want to pull a damn fallopian tube from all the straining ok?).  Major improvements all around (insert "party up in here!" noise) and I am pretty damn proud of myself!

"Do what you’ve always done and you’ll get what you’ve always gotten".  The power of perception is incredible.  If you think you can’t, you won’t.  If you think you can, you will.  We are all a lot stronger than we think we are.

But sometimes we just need to get the hell out of our own way.

There are two types of people out there:  The lovers and the haters.

The lovers react to your life changing decisions with geniune support, enthusiasm, and interest.  The haters, on the other hand, take the opportunity to throw your decision on the floor and stomp all over it.  Right now I have both in my life; the lovers offering their silent strength and the haters loudly voicing their doubt.  On a daily basis I hear

"Uh oh!  Someone’s on a diet.  Again."

"You have gotten so fat.  I don’t think this is going to help."

"A protein shake huh?"  (followed by a smirk)

"Here, have some candy….c’mon you only live once."

And well, that’s just my plan.  To live.  I find motivation in these rude remarks.  They just provoke me into action and motivate me into surpassing my self imposed limitations.  My diet is on track and my workouts get nothing less than 100%.

I have learned this:  Haters despise change.  Why?  Because it shakes their foundation and strips them of their weak excuses.  It holds them accountable for the lives they’re living.  Can we change a hater into a lover?  I’m not sure.  

But I plan on changing a hater into a believer.

You hear the term "morbidly obese" and tend to think that it applies to those so overweight they never leave their home. Someone who has given up on life and resigned themselves to watching tv all day, because they can’t move from their bed.  You never think the term will one day apply to you. 

 But pictures never lie.  I bit the bullet today and took my before pictures.  All I can say is…..wow.  I never truly realized how excessive weight can deform you, age you, and make you look worn.  As I looked at my pics I searched for the cheekbones I once had, for the pointy chin that gave my face a heart shape. But I’m so overweight that I all I can see is complete roundness.

I’ve never known what it’s like to be thin.  As a child I was always chubby, as a teen curvy, and as a young adult I could’ve stood to lose 20 lbs or so.  But now?  I don’t recognize this body.  I don’t even recognize MYSELF.  So, I’ve decided to put aside the mortification and embarrassment I feel and I’m posting my pics.

 I have a lot of work to do.

I finally had my “oh shit” moment yesterday. 

Now this is not to be confused with the “clouds parting, sun shining, angels singing” epiphany.  I’ve already had that; I know I am fat, and I will continue to be fat and uncomfortable in my own skin unless I do something about it.  No one can do it for me but me. 

That’s enough to get anyone started, isn’t it?  Not for me.  

After my epiphany I continued to mope, be depressed, and generally drown in my self pity.  That is, until my “oh shit” moment.

On my way home from work, I had just stepped off of the train.  I was walking up the platform towards the stairs leading to the exit when I felt it:  The motion of the ocean.  You all KNOW what I’m talking about….walking and having your excess fat jiggle and bounce around.  I was so shocked that I placed my hand lightly over my belly just to be sure.  My mouth dropped open and I let out a low and amazed, “Oh shit!” 

I reached the stairs, walked up (out of breath and wheezing), and proceeded to walk up the long upward ramp.  I’m pretty positive an 80 year old woman sailed right passed me.  Eventually, my wheezing was so bad that I had to stop, on the ramp, and catch my breath.  As I stood there, two extremely fit women practically floated up the ramp talking rapidly. My eyes, trailing behind them, narrowed into little slits and for the first time in a very long time, I got angry…….angry at myself. 

Angry for the years of neglect, the self pity, the self sabotage….angry for the time I have lost and will never get back.  Angry for letting the fear of failure paralyze me.  I realize now that there’s nothing I can’t accomplish.

So this is for everyone who has ever told me “…but you have such a pretty face!”, and, “…why did you let yourself go?”  Everyone who never believed in me and told me I couldn’t, everyone who looked passed me as if I didn’t exist because I wasn’t a size zero.

But more importantly, this is for me.  For the person I know I can be. 

So this is the beginning.  No overnight expectations.  No quick fix methods. 

Complacency is no longer an option.