There is No Comparison!

It has taken me a little bit to find the right subject for my next rant, er, blog. I haven't posted something inspirational in awhile so here it is...grab it while its hot off the presses folks!

Yesterday I ran my 5th 5k race.  When you go to one of these races you see many different people from all age groups...but MOST of them are in better physical shape than me...by the way they look anyway.  It can be unnerving to look around at the very fit-looking people and try to compare yourself to them.  Because so much of running and really anything athletic can be mental, it is so important not to get worked up 15 mins before the race thinking..."I can't do this.  Look at all of these skinny people."  It remains paramount to focus solely on the outcome, the results, and not the looks of things.  Because looks can be deceiving.

I had a goal yesterday - to beat my 5k time from October (40:04).  If I made it under 38 minutes I would be happy.  I also set a stretch goal for fun, of under 36 minutes for the 3.1 miles.

I experienced that same down feeling I have at the beginning of every race when I look around and start doing comparisons in my mind where I wish I had never signed up for this thing - here was my mental gibberish from yesterday.

"I wonder if she's in my age group - gosh I hope not.  Wow, is that guy 75 years old?  How embarrassing when he passes me!  How fat do I look right now?  I'll bet everyone is looking at me and thinking, we'll see her in 50 minutes!  Wow, that girl has no shoes at all...really?  And that guy there is wearing converse?  And he clearly pronates - get that kid a running shoe!"

So I go from comparing myself to other people with the negative light on me to then picking on other people in my mind...more from concern for them than anything else - I mean that kid really didn't need to be running in converse...seriously.

At the end of the day the comparisons mean NOTHING!  Not a thing.  All they do is unnerve you, make you unsure of how you will perform and you begin to lose ground in the mental game before your foot hits the pavement.

The race was hard.  Every race is hard.  It was foggy and humid, not a good combination.  I had stomach/gi issues probably from all the travel the 24 hours preceding the race.  And I was easily the fattest runner out there.

So hard physically, and hard mentally before the starting horn.

That's alot of cards stacked against me.

But who is dealing the cards anyway?


For starters, I ended up beating my stretch goal.  My 5k race time was 35:40.  That is a full 4 minutes and 24 seconds faster than my race in October.  Did you hear that?  4:24 faster!  In less than 6 months of training.

For further comparison, here are all of my 5k times:

June 12, 2010 =  45:25 (some walking)
June 26, 2010 =  44:27 (all running....slowly)
September 18, 2010 = 42:27 (some walking)
October 16, 2010 = 40:04 (all running)
April 9, 2011 = 35:40 (all running)

So, I have cut almost 10 minutes from my 5k time of less than a year ago.

Who do I think I am comparing myself to other people at the race when I'm a walking billboard for amazing statistical and physical achievement in the last 20 months?  Sure, if you look at all 197 pounds of me not a person at that race (except my awesome friend Jen who ran it as well) know my story.

No one there could tell by looking at me that just 2 short years ago I couldn't give my daughter a bath because bending over was so painful for me.  That I hated eating in public as I knew people were staring at me.  That I would rather hide and eat in my car than around other people.  That I would sit on my bed and cry when nothing in my closet looked good on me.  That walking out to my car or the mailbox was a feat that inspired rest breaks.  That my resting heart rate was 117.  And I was facing cholesterol medication at the age of 30.

They don't know that about me.  But I do.

So I learned an important lesson during that 35 minutes yesterday.  A very simple thing, and yet something so poignant that I will carry it with me for the rest of this journey.

The only person I should be comparing myself to is.....ME.



Going forward, I will only compare myself to my own accomplishments and capabilities.  I won't use that new measurement as a way to let myself make excuses for poor performance...not at all...but rather a true measurement of where I am and how I've done compared to what I have proven I'm capable of.

Which I'm thinking right now, is more than I've given myself credit for.

I'm down 88 pounds.  In just 12 pounds I'll be a member of the 100 pounds lost club.  I'm picking back up on my 10k training and plan to run one in the fall.  I've got goals!  And just like the one from this weekend, I fully intend to reach them.

If you're stuck in a rut of comparing yourself to others I urge you to think about changing that behavior today.  The only loser in that kind of comparison is you.

I know that because yesterday, before that race, I was a loser.

And today I'm a winner.

~Clara

 How's that for comparison? 

Busy...but Still Kicking!

Life has been incredibly busy this last few weeks.  I was training my replacement at my old job and the day after finishing there started my new job!  I'm feeling incredibly blessed in my new role and honestly feel like it was made for me.  Doesn't hurt that my commute was cut more than half and my gas bill even more than that!  Life is good.

That said, I've kept up with my running and taken this first week of April to get my head clear before posting. 

I'm happy to say that even during these crazy times I have managed to burn lots of calories and not eat more than my allotment. :)  I'm planning on having an awesome April to make up some ground I lost in March.  And even with being absorbed with my new job I've managed to only miss one run and that was due to the weather.

Progress.

So in other news I have a 5k race coming up this Saturday.  I haven't run in a race since mid-October of last year.  My time was 40:04.  I've run the 5k distance around my neighborhood in about 36 mins more recently so I am hoping to at least make that at the race on Saturday.  Since I've increased my distances and reached 4 miles many times now, I'm hoping that 3.1 will be a good experience on Saturday!

Main goal - 38 minutes or less
STRETCH goal - 36 minutes or less.

What fun is a goal without a stretch goal attached to it?  Really, anything under 40 minutes will be wonderful.  But 5 months of training as I have been *should* equate to a significant improvement in my time.

I'm excited to see how it goes!  Will check in Saturday night.

In the meantime, what goals are you setting these days?  Any main goals and any STRETCH goals?  If not...get on the ball!  I want to hear all about them. So I can cheer you on when you reach them.

Peace out,
Clara

Silver Lining

Let's get straight to the month end recap, shall we?  

I finished the month at 197.4, so I lost a little under 3 pounds this month.  That's pretty slow weight loss for me, and at first I was a little disappointed it wasn't more.

And then I got to thinking...I turned 32 on March 1st and ran 4 miles that morning.  I would never have been able to do that the year I turned 30.

I fell the following week while running and twisted my bad ankle.  For 10 days no running and no Zumba.  Many calorie-burn opportunities lost.

I gave up chocolate for Lent.  This is huge for me.  It has been tough as my daily dose of dark chocolate keep me satisfied and cures my cravings for just about anything.  I have eaten some very strange things since giving up my favorite food.

I changed jobs!  Yesterday I left my last job and today I started my new job!  The pressure of training someone new and starting over again has been lingering all month.

There are reasons I should have, could have gained weight this month.  But I did not. 

Would I have been glad to lose more? Of course.  But remember I'm not on a crash diet here.  I'm just living my new healthy lifestyle and in "life" we have ups and downs and we have unexpected circumstances.

It is our decisions during these unexpected circumstances that can make or break our goals and plans.

I, of course, chose to make, not break.

So the silver lining?  I lost almost 3 more pounds for a total of 88 pounds down.  I am solidly in One-derland now.  I am back to running and full activity. 

And I'm gonna rock April to get myself back on track.

Silver's my new favorite color.

~Clara

Feeling IT

So lately I've been feeling IT.  I mean really feeling IT.

What in the world am I talking about?

IT = motivation!  And for some reason I'm all over it this weekend.  It's like the last 3 weeks of challenge have brought some much needed clarity.

Maybe its the clarity from my chocolate fast. I've given up chocolate for Lent. While I've been quite miserable without it in some ways, not having it has actually led me to refocus on some things about myself I really needed to realize...and work on changing.

Or maybe it is from having that fall last week and re-injuring my bad ankle.  I didn't run again for almost 10 days...and that just about did me in.  I absolutely longed to run.

Or maybe it was because I've had terrible tooth pain on and off for about 4-5 months...and then the root canal I had on Thursday that seemed to immediately relieve the pain.  I almost felt that feeling after you've had the hiccups for a really long time and then you stop hiccuping...but you feel like you should at any moment hiccup.  That welcome calm definitely made me feel better overall.

No runs, no chocolate, annoying mouth pain, can you just imagine how grumpy I've been?  But all in all as the fog clears and I begin to snap back into my routine I've come to realize that nothing I am going through can compare to the suffering going on in the world today.  NOTHING. 

And that motivates me.  Wait, how?

Well, the way I look at it is this.  I can't fly to Japan and help.  I can pray, and text my money to the red cross, but I can't physically help them.  Not right now anyway.

What I can do is make the most of the life and body I have been blessed with.  Take every opportunity to make my lifestyle healthier, more active and more balanced.  Be healthier so I can be with my family for years, be there to love them through all of the challenges in their lives.  I can LIVE for right now, for today, for the best.

Because you never know when things will change.

When you will fall and reinjure yourself.  Or be in pain.  Or suffer a catastrophe.  The better care you take of yourself TODAY ensures you are that much further ahead should disaster strike.

Please know I'm not at all making light of what is happening there.  I'm devastated for the pain and suffering going on all over the world, and specifically in Japan right now.  But I do think it is cause for us all to look at our lives and how we are living them.

I don't want to regret all the time I spent abusing my body.  I want to make the majority of my life about taking good care of this one physical life.

Today I'm thankful that I ran a 5k this morning and will go for a family walk later this afternoon. 
I'm thankful that I'll be able to go back to Zumba tomorrow night and get back to my 4000 calorie burn for the week this week. 
I'm thankful for my loving family.
I'm thankful that everything I need is within reach. 
I'm thankful for the new job I'll be starting in less than 2 weeks. 
I'm thankful for the friends I could not live without.
I'm thankful for having a second chance to change my blueprint.

And most of all...I'm thankful for IT.  That motivation that will keep me moving forward for as long as I'm blessed to be on this earth.

~Clara

Moving Forward

"If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." Martin Luther King, Jr.


This hasn't been my best week ever.  It also hasn't been the worst, but it has been kind of rotten.  I re-injured my bad ankle on Tuesday morning while running.  I was doing speedwork and distracted by a new song on my ipod while running through a grassy/tree filled area.  My foot must have slipped on a root and I rolled my ankle and ended up on the ground.  I didn't even realize what had happened until I was on the ground it happened so fast.  My poor Dixie was terrified, she just crawled up to me and licked my face.  She looked so concerned.

Pretty quickly I realized I had rolled my ankle.  My right hand and knee were also hurting but not terribly.  I got up, dusted the mud off of me and started to try to walk it off.  I walked a few painful feet then the pain disappeared.  I was elated. Maybe it wasn't so bad?  I walked about another half mile and decided to jog just a little bit to see how I would do.  Yeah, too early for that.  Pain shot through my arch.

The sad part is that this was just my 3rd run without my brace.  So I guess the brace will be part of my running for alot longer than I anticipated.

I had an incredibly grumpy day on Thursday.  It was one of those days that I was already a bit bummed, had a weigh in for the Biggest Loser Challenge and was back up to 200.8 (likely due to not running).  So my brief visit to One-derland was over.  Usually, when I lose weight, I teeter a little bit for a week or so until I'm solidly at the new weight.  I realize that but would be teetering a lot less if I had been able to do my regular workouts this week.  So, my grumpy day really came from starting off without a run and then posting a gain on the BL challenge message board - which I'm leading my team this time by the way. What a loser, gaining weight when I'm the leader!

Yeah, doesn't sound like me, does it?  Because its not me.  I was in a funk.

Then Friday morning I gained the perspective I so desperately needed.

It's an early day for me to go to work, and luckly its also jeans day.  :)  I put on my brace and some capris and headed off to work. Not long after I arrived, I started talking to one of our housekeepers who thought I was wearing cute socks at first when she saw the brace. Then she started telling me about a fall she had when she was 12 years old. When she fell, she pinned her leg behind her back slipping in some water and crashed down onto some concrete. She wore a cast for two years and has never been able to run or jump most of her life.  My friend also walks with a limp that I had not noticed until that day.

That conversation rocked me - I realized that my sore ankle would heal soon and I would be back to running. But my friend at work will never run much less walk several miles at a time.

It's all about perspective.

So take today and be thankful for what you CAN do. I will be thanking God for the blessings I have as I head out for a 4-5 mile walk in a little while. Yeah, I'd rather run, but I'm so thankful that for now, I can walk.

It's all about moving forward folks.  And that's what I plan to do.  What about you?

~Clara

ONE-derland!!!

It's true.  I've arrived.  At One-derland.

It was a journey of many miles.  And One-derland is still just another stop along that journey.  But once you are there, you plan to stay awhile. 199.2 this morning.

It will be a week or so of going up and down a few pounds like I do before my body drops another few pounds, so I'll likely cross back over 200 a few times until I'm solidly 198 or below.  Good thing is my next "official" weigh in on the BL challenge on Sparkpeople is next Thursday so I have some time to get there and stay there.

On the exercise front, I didn't get as much activity in this week as I would have liked as my week included a few changes to my plans.  But all in all I'm still happy with the results.  I'll just kick myself back into gear this week and get moving from there. 

My work schedule is soon to be changing at the end of this month, and I'm looking forward to reworking my exercise schedule.  I think it is healthy to do that every once in awhile.  Running has been going well.  I've backed off on distances a bit this week, partly due to time, but also I'm weaning my ankle off of my light brace.  I've had two runs brace-free and they have both been great. Just 2 miles each time, but I'll go for 3 or 4 tomorrow morning.  That's another semi-new development - trying to run 4 days a week.  Seems to be working for me so far!  I'm really hoping to hit 10k distance by the end of April. 

I'm also motivated alot by my closet right now - I have about 6 pairs of pants that are the next size down.  I would love to be in them by April - will open up a whole new wardrobe!  I think 185 is the magic number for a few pairs.  That's also my 100 pounds down mark so I'm excited to get there in just 14 pounds!  AHHH! :)

I bought some clothes today - a great long sleeved fitted red blouse, a red skirt, red and silver sweater (yes, I was in a red mood or I should say lots of red on clearance today) and also a skirt for my little girl all for $26.  Now, I did have to then purchase a silver tank top for $14.99 online to go with the red skirt and red/silver sweater, but still...an outfit for less than $25?  Yes, please!

The red sweater is significant here...because it is a size SMALL.  I had to write that in big letters.  I've purchased 2 tops in the last month that were mediums.  I am not *trying* to be a size small here, lets clarify that.  My goal weight is 165 for goodness sake.  That is hardly small...So the few mediums were even funny to me as I never imagined I would land there.  Well this sweater is 3/4 sleeve and super cute - I figured I'd try it on (it also was marked down to $6.99).  It's adorable!  With the silver tank and then my new silver pumps it will be quite the outfit.  I'll post a picture when the tank top arrives, ok?  As a photo memory of my Onederland achievement.

Thanks for sticking with me this far...here's to breaking more records!  The cool part is my next goals are closer together - since I'm getting closer to goal, I need that to keep me motivated as the weight loss will likely begin to slow.

Here's a list of my next goals for kicks:

185: Celebrate 100 pounds down! (14 pounds away from right now)
180: Celebrate the weight I was when I got married 11 years ago (19 pounds away from right now)
165: GOOOOAAAL! (34 pounds away from right now).

Then we'll reassess.  Sound good?  Good.

Night all!  I'm off for sweet dreams of shopping, shoes and smaller sizes.

Clara

The Results are In! And Everybody Hurts...Sometimes...

So today I turned 32 years old.  Two years ago when I turned 30, it was really depressing.  Partly, I think, because I was also almost 300 pounds, had no clothes that fit me and felt terrible about myself.  Today was pleasantly different.  It felt pretty good actually.  I ran 4 miles this morning.  I wore a cute dress to work.  I'm stronger and on my way to being in better shape than I have ever been in my life.  How cool is that?

As you may remember, I had a birthday goal of reaching "Onederland."  As I approached the scale this morning I was pretty sure I was not going to reach my goal of 199.8.  Some water retention coupled with a bad choice at dinner Friday night really had me wondering...

Well, the results are in. {insert long drum roll here please}

200.2 pounds today.

Just .4 away from my goal of 199.8.  I'm pretty happy with that!  I may not have "achieved" my goal perfectly, but I did lose 6.6 pounds this month which is pretty good for me. Overall I've lost 84.8 pounds.  Not bad!

So Friday night - lets address that.  I had some things happen at work that rocked my world a little bit - and pushed me into a bit of a funk.  My husband and I had a date planned and I wanted to just pick up a meal from the Chinese restaurant and share it at home - so eating the fat loaded food wouldn't be that bad since I was only eating half a meal.  He really wanted to eat at the restaurant so off we went - and thus I overate.  I can't blame him.  I know better.  So, since I have lost almost 85 pounds and I totally know better, what the heck happened?

It could be a few things.

Self-loathing and self-sabotage for starters.  I have struggled with these my entire life.  It's like I get in my own way of being successful, healthy, happy because I doubt I can get there.  Or I doubt I deserve to be there.  Which is completely ridiculous and I have to remind myself of how far I've come.  I get almost this "what's the point" attitude when I'm in a funk or feeling down.  Emotional eating was *always* an issue for me and is a huge part of how I got to be, well, huge.  I'm allowed to say that, just in case you were wondering. 

I know consciously how successful my journey has been. How hard I have worked to get to where I am today.  How amazing it is to have done it the more challenging way, slow, steady and with determination and dedication...and tons of sweat.  It is nothing to shake a turkey leg at, that's for sure.


But I am beginning to realize that I will always always fight obesity in my mind.  I will always struggle with feeling like I deserve to look good and more importantly, feel good.  I may always see myself as larger than I am.  I was that person for a lot longer than the person I've become in the last 18 months.  I need to respect and understand that a complete change of outlook on things takes time.  While I have come a long way mentally, I'm not totally "fixed" yet.  I may never be.

Once I reach my goal weight its not like I plan to stop exercising or drop running or not pay attention to my food any longer.  The way I eat and my exercise is now part of my lifestyle and I will always need to, and want to do those things.  I've come to terms with that and I'm good with it.  You don't lose weight in order to get temporarily skinny, then stop being healthy as soon as you get to your goal weight and gain it all back.  That, my friends, is an utter waste of time.  But we've all done it, right?

I think I needed this to happen on Friday night so I could refocus and see a new perspective.  I can't be perfect all of the time.  But I'm WAAAY better than I was.  And the changes I've made - while permanent - don't make me perfect in any way.


So keep that in mind regardless of your battle or struggle.  Makes me think of that song "Everybody Hurts...sometimes."  I may seem to have figured it all out with my successes and the amazing "aha" moments I've had along the way that I've shared here on this blog and with you individually.  But I am still human.  I am still a girl with a compulsive eating disorder.  I am still unsure of myself, lacking confidence in many things.  I still hurt sometimes, and in turn, hurt myself by reverting back to old behaviors.  However brief these episodes are...they are still a painful reminder of what I did to myself in the first place.  I never want to lose myself like that again.  And I won't.

The good news?  I am no longer a slave to that lack of confidence.  99% of the time I make way better choices than I did during that meal.  Today I'm that much more determined to continue on this path to reach my goal.  And determined to continue to inspire you to go after your goals.  I am just like you and if I can do this, you totally can.

We are not that different, you and me.

I'm off to get some rest...need some good sleep if I'm going to reach Onederland in this next week!

~Clara