You Know You're an Athlete When...

...you're driving down the highway and *almost* pull over when you see two teenagers running - one is running properly, good shoes, good form, the other is wearing loafers, pronates and has terrible form.  Were I not wearing 3 inch heels and a dress and traveling alone, I just might have stopped!

Wait.  Did I just say athlete?  Am I an athlete?  Are you?

This word can be empowering when you refer to yourself as such.  But have I earned this word?

A few years ago my parents were visiting for the weekend and I had a 5k race in Dothan, AL.  They came with me, and kept Elizabeth busy while I ran the race.  Stephen was in school at that time and pastoring a small church so Saturdays were study/sermon prep days for him every week (for 5 years - seriously do NOT miss that!).

I remember after the race my parents were so excited for me.  They've only been at a few finish lines of mine through the years as we live 5 hours apart.  This race was great.  I finished faster than I anticipated.

We got in the car and had a few errands to run on the way home.  Mom looked over at me and said, "We're so proud of you.  Our daughter is an athlete!"

I remember laughing and saying, "Mom, I am so not an athlete!"  But inside I was flattered.  And wondered.
Well.  Am I?

I mean, I don't LOOK like one.  I definitely have some well defined muscles, but definitely also still have some flab to get rid of.  I don't look like a waif of a person who lives on carrots and runs 10 miles a day. (Kinda glad - I like to eat!).  

So do you have to be skinny or look really "fit" to be considered an athlete?

Here's the definition of an athlete according to dictionary.com:

athlete
noun
a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.

Um.  It doesn't even say you have to be fastest (or even fast), great (or even good), or come in first (or even last!).

It literally means someone who is trained or gifted (and we all know in this case for me it's definitely TRAINED - LOL!) in exercises/contests involving physical agility (check), stamina (check), or strength (check check).

I don't really call myself a runner anymore.  I can run, and I do run, and I enjoy running, but it's not my main focus.  As you know if you've followed my journey at all, running has been AMAZING for my confidence, and test of my physical stamina.  But it was not helping me obtain the weight loss goal I had ultimately set for myself.  Not in and of itself.  It is a great complement to my current strength training program and as I said I enjoy doing it.  

But I really like the term athlete better than runner anyway (for me).  I like the fact that I'm physically strong.  I enjoy being somewhat agile (well WAY more agile than I was at 285 pounds right?).  I look forward to spending time on the ball field, or even just playing catch with my daughter, and love being outside now.

All of this from the girl who wanted her car started in the summer with the AC on full blast before I would get in it.

My my.  How times have changed.

On another topic, I finished my first week of my second runthrough of T25!  It was AMAZING! 

Here are a few observations from my first week:

1) this program is NO JOKE!  I mean, I knew that, but boy did Shaun T remind me!  I kept thinking it would be easy after P90X3 but it was not!  

2) I did EVERY SINGLE WORKOUT THIS WEEK! EEEK! So proud of myself.  

3) When my quads wanted to give in I kept on going.  Last year, if you remember, I strained/tore my quads during T25.  Which was funny as I was a "runner" then.  But truly runners end up having weaker quads and stronger hamstrings due to the fact that your legs go in a forward motion only.  I was unable to run full speed for MONTHS and it was during softball season!  It was sad.  So this time, when my quads were on FIYAH! (think this girl is on fire, but insert my quads are on fiiiiire! ahhaha) I PUSHED THROUGH.  Last year I would just stop and take a break until it eased off. Not this time.  This time I imagined myself speeding around the bases on the softball field.  FELT THE BURN.  

Results from my first week:

- lost 1.8 pounds (now at 174).

- lost .25 inches from arm, 1 inch from my waist, and half an inch from my calves.  My thigh says I gained .5 inch but I'm not totally sure I measured them in the same spot (lol).  Not stressing over that as I felt the buuuuurn!  

Remember that I also started my Simple & Sinister kettlebell workout this week which I'm doing in conjunction with T25.  It's kettlebell swings each day (I did around 80/day) along with turkish getups (holy wha???).  Did all of these with my 20lb kettlebell.  

My shoulders are shaping up nicely. :)  May do a shoulder/arm pic next weekend for ya.

OH - and you might be an athlete if...

You ask for heavier kettlebells for Mother's Day. :)

Have a great week all!

Clara

WholeFOREVER (but not really)

Dude, right now I'm killing it!  (in a good way of course).  I cannot believe I did not blog at ALL in the month of March!  Bad blogger!

March started off with a BANG! I decided to eat whatever I wanted the entire day of my birthday.  I became very, very ill. To this day I'm unsure if it was an actual bug that had me puking all night and the next morning (only to be stopped by zofran and phenergan) but truly I'm sure WHAT I was eating did not help one bit.  Let's back up a bit.

My daughter had asked me to run a 5k race at her school with her that morning.  So, I didn't sleep in on my birthday.  Because running 3.1 miles with my favorite person trumps sleeping in ANY DAY!  She had  never run a 5k without stopping before.  Her plan was to do that.  I wanted to help!

That morning, we lined up and a few of her friends were at the front. Here's how the conversation went:

"Elizabeth, we need to go nearer to the back, sweetheart."  ~Me
"But Mom, I want to run with my friend!" ~Lizzie
"Hi, friend, how fast did you run your last race?" ~Me
"Oh, 24 minutes.  I'm hoping to beat my time today." ~Friend

"Back of the pack, Elizabeth, if we finish in under 40 it will be a miracle." ~Me

She hadn't been training at all so I told her if you want to cross the finish line without stopping you HAVE to go slow.  Period.  Or we won't be able to run the whole way which was her main goal.  She was bummed but determined.

Well, my baby girl made me SO proud.  She does a few hours of dance per week and is a pretty active kid, so I'm not shocked she was able to run 3.1 miles without stopping but her little red cheeks at the end reminded me we need to run together more often, overall.  We passed many adults who had to walk, but didn't go crazy fast of course.  We finished in 38 mins and change.  As we put our results into the little age group buckets, I realized, CRAP! I'm in the 35-39 age group...I should have TRAINED!

We stuck around for awards because there were door prizes.  No inklings that we would actually win anything...well...

We both got 2nd place in our age group!!!

Shock and excitement for my baby to get a medal in her first race!

10th 5k race ever, slowest time since 2012 but FIRST MEDAL!  HAHA!

Before we left for the race that morning.

Best start to my 35th year EVER.

We then ate lunch at Zaxbys (mistake #1), and headed home.  Showered, relaxed some, then headed to Augusta to do my favorite things (shop and eat!).  We had a ball shopping.  We bought a snack while out shopping and were eating it while shopping (possibly where I picked up the pukey-bug).  We ate a humongous dinner at PF Changs.  With my free birthday dessert.  Oh my geez. My tummy was rumbling!  There may have also been ice cream.  At this point I blacked out I think.  (lol)

Went to bed feeling AWFUL!  I knew I was going to be sick.  Sure enough it started around 2am and every hour after that until 10am when a friend brought me some meds.  I finally slept and took me a little over a day to get better.  Funny part is I also had a fever which is why I thought it must be a bug.  But who knows. Managed to keep the rest of the house feeling ok so that's a plus.

Didn't exactly get right back on the healthy eating train, but wasn't being crazy either.  But my weekly "treat" time was becoming a bit of a problem (wait, didn't I do a treat yesterday?  ah, I'll have another one today!)  Coupled with my lack of workout motivation with the program I was in...yeah.  Recipe for a few pound weight gain.  I had gotten down to 170 and was ecstatic to find the 160s again.  So super excited.  and then found myself at 184 AGAIN.  GAH! Me and the 180s!

So I made a rash decision pretty quickly...to do a Whole 60.  A full 60 days of Whole 30 eating.

A day or so into it, I was like CRAP!?  What was I thinking?

And then I began to feel AMAZING again.  My skin brightened and my head cleared.  My gut felt clean again and I honestly felt like I had experienced a healing.  It's amazing what good, whole, clean food can do for you.

Not everyone is going to have the kind of results I have with this way of eating.  And that's completely fine, to each his or her own.  But me?  This has truly changed my life.  Revitalized my love of good, whole food.  Made me a chef in my own right!  Tonight we ate grilled pork marinated with all natural seasoning, topped with my made from scratch bbq sauce, side of roasted sweet potatoes and cole slaw made with my homemade cole slaw dressing (whole 30 mayo, almonds, pineapple, raisins and half and half cole slaw/broccoli slaw).  Every bit of it was CLEAN.  And it tasted like a treat meal!  Every day, something I eat feels like a treat.  Just check out my facebook page where all of my food is posted.  It's amazing.

And let's just look at some results in pictures.  I took pics in Dec 2012 when I started my first challenge with my beachbody coach, Nate.  I remember looking at them and being so disappointed!  Check out the difference in these pics that were taken from December 2012 - April 2014.

First pic from Dec 2012 (225.6 pounds), after a year of Paleo/Whole 30, April 2014 (175.8).

Flexing.  Look how my arms are shaping up!

The rear.  Eeeeeek.

Front view.  Do you see Abs?  I do! I do!  Almost!

Side pic.  I seriously stared at this comparison.  Wow.  NOT sucking in here either time.  And Abs!  ABS!!!

Amazingly, I once weighed an additional 70 pounds heavier than the pictures on the left!  Crazy right?  Too bad I wasn't taking pics of myself then like this.

I urge you to TAKE PICS even if you don't want to share them now if you're doing a healthy journey.  One day you may look back and be brave enough to post them.

Sort of feels like I'm in a WholeFOREVER right now.  But it's NOT a drag.  It feels amazing.  I feel so stinking happy, glad, whatever, to be where I am at.  Looking at the "after" or as I prefer to call them "current" pictures I know there is still some work to do.  Another probably 15-20 pounds from here, not just 10.  Or I may just do redistribution of the weight.  If I replace 10 pounds of fat with 10 pounds of muscle, I may not be meant to weigh much less than I do right now.

Overall, I feel good, I looooove my food, and I'm jazzed about what's next.  OH about that!

I finished P90X3 a few weeks ago.  Did not order the "I crushed it" shirt because honestly, I did not crush it!  BUT I did finish.  And then launched into a 21 day kettlebell challenge.  So far it's unintentionally been my only workout each day as everything has gotten in the way of me running lately.  Truly everything in bloom is killing my allergies.  Anyway, I'm on day 18.  It has been awesome! I see amazing changes in my shoulders! Literally it's an interval swing challenge. You can find the book to follow it and get it on your kindle for $2.99 right now on amazon, click HERE.  It's been so much fun and a nice change.  I will be on Day 21 on Monday when I start my FAVORITE program again...

Guess what it is???

T25!!!

I'm so super stoked.  New challenge group and everything.  CANNOT WAIT. 

Planning to CRUSH the month of April.  So far, I'm totally doing it already! Cannot wait to see what a Strict W30 tied in with T25 and some kettlebell workouts and running here and there do for my physique.  Dare I imagine bathing suit season? 

I've rambled enough.  Hope you enjoyed the long awaited update.  I'll be back sooner rather than later, at the least, at the 30 day check in point for my Whole 60.  {I'm still weighing a few times a week but not letting it change what I'm doing in any way. Just taking note - I'm back at 175 this week - so already 10 pounds down since April 1!}

Peace out my friends!  Do something healthy for yourself this weekend!

~Clara