5k and A New Day.

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Sunday.  It should have been a great day.  I should have been really pleased with myself.

Should have...

Last year, my grand ol' city of Kalamazoo became host to a new marathon - Borgess Hospital's Run for the Health of It.  The company I work for decided to sponsor any of us who wanted to get involved, so I decided it'd be a great idea and a great example of my new-found healthy lifestyle to take part.  I had a hard time coming alive that day, but I pushed myself through it and I finished in 52 minutes.  I was disappointed that day because I knew I did over 3 miles regularly in a little less than that, but I was pleased that I'd decided to partake.

It's so interesting looking back.  One year ago, I was about 285lbs and had lost about 30.  I was in better shape and feeling really good about myself.  I walked along with my friend Erin, each of us with our pump-you-up tunes channeling into our brains through one earbud so we could chat along the way.  We huffed it!  We did the math, and we walked an average of 4.13 miles per hour and I was really pleased with the steady pace, even uphill.  It's really weird to think that I did the same thing today as I did a year ago, but about 90lbs lighter, and about 10 minutes faster.  It felt good to improve and feel how far I've come.

But.

After all of that, I couldn't stop thinking about how my lack of diligence has caught up with me and I spent the better part of the day feeling so very disappointed in myself.  I know I've put on a couple of pounds.  I've had a rough month, which is no excuse.  But instead of my exercise enhancing my weight loss, it's helped me juuuuust about break even.  I've realized that if there are easy, yummy things around me, I don't say no very well.  I'm just fine when I can control the foods around me and how they've been prepared.  When I'm not in as much control as I'd like, though, I find myself either eating without even realizing what I've consumed, or almost having an anxiety attack about how what I'm going to do so that I stick within what I know I should consume.  I've had a few awkward moments at restaurants when I pretty much have an anxiety attack over what I'm going to eat because it seems like there isn't anything reasonable for me to eat.  True story.  Ask my Mom.

What am I going to do about this?

I've gotta celebrate!  I've come so far!  I'm perfectly capable of making good choices, but I realize I'm still in a phase where I have to log my calories the majority of the time, because while I am a better eater overall, I still have times where I eat thoughtlessly and end up eating things that I shouldn't.  Work in progress here, people.  Work in progress.  And while this is nauseatingly overused, tomorrow really is a new day.  Today was a new day, too.  What did I do with it?  What shall I do with tomorrow?

I decided that today, I would reboot - get back to my good, ol' healthy eating standards and let my body get back to normal and recover from all of the things it's not used to processing.  I already feel better.

And what surprise awaited me on this day of getting back on the horse?  A phone call from my gym.  I work out regularly at my local Snap Fitness, and they started a weight loss challenge in the beginning of March.  We had to do the final weigh in last Monday, the last day of my gym membership.  I was really sad that I wouldn't be able to afford to keep it up, but it turns out  I will have 3 more months of gym membership.

For free.

Yep - for free.  I won!  Diligence pays off, and just because I may have flubbed up for a while...  Well, I am human, and I mess up sometimes.  Thank God for reminding me, though, that just because I screwed up, it doesn't mean that I am a screw up.

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A Firming Affirmation.

Lovely Generic Photo of Snap Fitness

I met someone on Thursday night.  It was all niceties and happy conversation at first, then I let them start bossing me around.  And it hurts a bit.

Yes, I had my first go-round with a personal trainer.  She set me up with a workout plan at the new Snap Fitness that popped up near where I live.

It.
Was...
AWESOME.

It kicked off with us having a chat about my regular workout habits, and discussing what I wanted to get out of it.  The girl who I worked with seemed to really, genuinely love doing this.  I can't remember verbatim, but when I told her how excited I was to get to do all this, she said how great it is to get to work with people who have that mindset.

She started asking me about my exercise habits and what I'd like to get out of the workout we came up with.  I told her I wanted to burn calories, get stronger, and that I'd noticed that I lost weight more when I was doing things that worked my muscles, too.  She seemed really pleased with my answer, and very happy that I understood that I needed more than cardio.  She said that it was great to have an understanding that working muscles was essential to making your body burn calories more efficiently all throughout the day.  I told her certain areas that I wanted to work on, and she happily said, "I've got you covered."   I really love how it became very apparent she'd realized the type of workouter (made up word, yes) I was by my answers to her questions.

Apparently, I'm quite strong, and she seemed happy about that, too.  She seemed very excited to have me try out some five station circuit training thing that she does on what I call "the jungle gym."  You know the thing I mean...  It's got the handles on ropes, and a pull up thingy, and dudes are always doing stuff at it grunting awkwardly loud...  I'll be on that, yep.  And, she's going to have me bench press.  Bench press!  Ha!

As for the workout, though, I basically warmed up with a bit of cardio, then she walked me through different machines that worked my arms, back, core, thighs, and glutes.  The plan is to warm up, work muscles, then get 30-50 minutes of cardio in.  It was really well-rounded, and it was very interesting to see what parts of my body are weaker than others.  It's so funny how muscles in what seems to be the same part of your body have such different strength.

Afterwards, I was a bit surprised that one of the most rewarding things about the experience was all of the affirmation I got about what I'd already been doing and my overall mindset and ideas about things.  It feels really good when someone who knows what they're doing confirms that you're on the right track.  She loved that I was the type to say, "I've just got to get in 30 minutes" but wind up doing 45.  She seemed pleased that I did the full 10 minutes of cardio when she said to warm up with 5-10.  There were quite a few things that I did during the workout that seemed to really impress her, and got her excited to find ways to push me later.  Which, of course, makes me want to push myself even more.

So, I did on Saturday morning.  My muscles were still pretty fatigued from Thursday, but I just had to get it in.  There were a few things that already seemed easier.  I was more sore while doing the exercises, but I feel less sore now than I did before I worked out.  How about that?  And it felt good, once again, to get some nice reactions from the trainer.

I have this problem with not listening to myself enough.  I hear so many different people's stories, ideas, opinions, tips, tricks, and suggestions.  And for some reason, I feel that if I don't do it, I'm somehow being ungracious or rude, even if it's something contrary to what I think or would like to do.  So it feels really, really great to get affirmation from people who are trained in things like fitness and healthy eating.  I need to listen to myself, and not be so darn afraid to stick to my guns.

And I need to work on my shoulders...  Those girls are weak.  For real.

I'm so giddy to go back again.  I can not wait.