A short update

Wow, it has been AGES since I my last blog post. :( I am still alive and kicking, but I have had a lot to do, and even though I've thought about blogging, I never got around to it. Last month I was pretty much stressed out all the time, and of course that led to a weight loss stand-still. Thinking back, the main reason was most likely that I didn't exercise much. Turns out those workouts really make a difference! Both because I burn more calories and because I feel better and more relaxed when I work out regularly.

I've been trying to get back into a good exercise routine, but it has been harder than I thought. I wanted to try my Zumba dvds, but there was always some excuse or other. Which is just ridiculous because I love to dance, and I always feel good after I've worked out. I've run or hiked a few times, but all in all I have been kind of lazy....

Right now I'm starting to feel a little under the weather. It might be psychological, a lot of people I know have been ill, and when they talk about it, I automatically feel a little sick myself. Since we're going away on vacation next week, I really want to stay healthy for that. Don't know if it is chickening out, or just being reasonable, but either way the result is that I haven't wanted to do hardcore workouts (or, to be honest, any workout at all) lately. I have been trying to keep moving, though, to burn some calories even though I'm not actually getting in shape.

Excuses aside, I think my main problem is that I miss a program and rules and structure. When I was doing C25K, I always ran 3 times a week. Come rain, come snow, come splitting headaches, I was running regardless. The program demanded 3 workouts a week, and so I complied. Right now I'm just lacking a sense of direction, I guess.

So, to remedy this, I'm going to make a plan of what I want to accomplish on a weekly basis. It is probably going to be one session of Shred, one session of Zumba, and one session of running (most likely 4X4 intervals). I might wait till after my vacation (or at least until I'm feeling better) to start, but I WILL do it. I miss that great feeling after a good workout! :)

One more goal accomplished!

This weekend I officially completed C25K! :) The last couple of weeks I haven't been able to run much, due to something that felt scarily like tendinitis in my right foot. This means that I've only been able to run once a week. Not the best way to prepare for my first ever race, but it is what it is. I would much rather play it safe, take it slow and run slower in the race, than risk injuring myself!

The last two weeks aside, I have run three times a week and followed the C25K plan to the dot. Before I started out, I wasn't entirely convinced that I would be able to make it. But I've been able to do each and ever run, and often times I did a session of shred afterwards, too.

It feels GOOD to have accomplished a new goal. It is strange to think that, only a couple of months back, I was only able to run a minute, and now I can do half an hour! I could probably run further if I wanted to - while I'm tired when I'm done, I'm not totally beat. In fact, usually I speed up the last minute, from my snail pace of 6 km/h to a whopping 7-7.5 km/h.

Last night, I was in a hurry to get home, and had to run parts of the way. I marveled at how easy it was, and how much further I could run without getting winded. This probably sounds obvious, of course you'll be able to run faster and further when you've been improving your running for a couple of months. However, there was something magical in seeing my hard work from the tread mill seep into my 'real life'. I can actually feel the effects outside of the basement (where the tread mill resides), too, and that makes it all the better. :)

I have never been able to run this long before - ever! Not even as a teenager, I've always hated running up until now. I wish someone had told me about the C25K back then, I wonder if it would have made a difference? If perhaps I would have made the effort, and if it would have changed me into a more athletic person. And if it could have kept me from gaining all the excess weight in the first place. I'm not sure, though. I just don't think I was ready back then. But I was ready now, and that's what counts at this point.

Speaking of goals, and running: I've decided to change my goals for the 3K race. I'm tossing out the goal to not finish last, replacing it with being able to keep a pace of at least 6 km/h on average. I've thought about it long and hard, and I know that a good goal needs to be something I can control, not something that depends on others. Even if I did my best run ever, I can't control how fast the other participants run. And I can't control who signs up. Maybe all the slower runners decide to stay home? Should I fail my goal just because of that? No!

Also, I want to be at peace with finishing last. There is no shame in being the slowest, someone has to be. I thought that a good first step to not be scared of 'losing' would be to not include it in my goals. I'm probably going to keep it in the back of my head, I REALLY don't want to finish last. (I have a very unrealistic, but yet very terrifying image of everyone else finishing way ahead of me, waiting at the finish line and laughing at me, thinking how stupid I was to sign up for the race when I obviously can't run).

But I don't want to give into those fears, so I'll try my best to focus on more positive goals. Besides, there is more positive energy in trying to reach a goal, rather than trying to avoid an experience I don't want to have. To quote one of my favorite book series (the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning) - Hope strengthens, fear kills.

Feeling your feelings

Lyn from Escape from obesity talks a lot about feeling your feelings. This has always been a struggle for me. When things got rough, I always put my feelings aside, ignored them and tried to live my life as if the bad stuff never happened. I am sure that's part of the reason why I am overweight - I've stuffed myself with junk food and candy to avoid taking a good hard look at all those feelings looming beneath the surface.

Dark feelings looming beneath the surface
Image by nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net



Lately, I have tried to do something about not just my weight, but my old-but-not-forgotten feelings as well. I have started going to Rosen therapy, which is a form of massage therapy that helps you get in touch with your feelings. I am also starting psychoterapy to work through some of the dysthymia (low grade depression) and anxiety that I've been batteling for far too long. My first day is tomorrow, and I'm scared to death - don't know quite what I'm scared about, though!



Anyways, when the twin terrors (as I've been told they are called in the rest of the world, in Norway, of course, we only call it the terror) hit, I woved to not let this experience add to the already overflowing collection of suppressed feelings. Instead of my initial reaction, which was to just stuff it all away, I decided to feel it all and work through it right there and then.



Healing
Image by m_bartosch / FreeDigitalPhotos.net 



Consequently, I spent most of last weekend couped up in my living room, glued to the TV. I watched and listened to every single of the horrors that were told. I bawled my eyes out thinking of what those poor kids and their families had gone through. I even blogged about it. It feels like I was able to process at least most of the sorrow, and I'm hoping some of the shed tears were from old sorrows as well.



But there was more to this event than just sorrow. A lot of shock and fear, too, and those are not so easily dispelled by tears. Come Sunday, I was ready to let go of these feelings, too. I thought the best way to do that was through exercise. So I ran. First, I did the Cooper test at my old gym, to see how much I'd improved (I'll talk about that in another post). Later, I did a session of C25K.

It felt so GOOD! It was really what I needed to free some of the shock that had frozen my body and mind. Running, and I'm sure most kinds of exercise, can be the best form of healing. Often, we think of exercise as a means to reach our goal weight. But lately, I've started to value exercise for its own sake, for the good feeling it creates in me. I LOVE how strong I feel after a workout, how much more I appreciate my body, how it reduced my stress levels.

Even though I officially quit the challenge half way through, I DID succeed in losing 1 kg in 1 week. Half of that (the part prior to July 22) was due to hard work on my part. The other half - well, you just don't have the stomach to eat much when you're bombarded with heart gripping, real life horror stories like that.

Well, actually I'm sure it could have gone the other way, too. I could just as easily have turned to food for comfort. So it was just pure luck that my reaction led me away from food. Or was it? Could it have been that I didn't NEED comfort food because I was actually feeling my feelings instead of suppressing them? I hope it's the latter, because that would give me a new kind of power over binges. I'll never know for sure, but nonetheless I will continue to work through my feelings instead of hiding from them. I believe that will make me more equipped to reach my goal weight and stay there. Not to mention that I'll have a better life alltogether. Now, that is something worth fighting for! :)