Weigh In Wednesday: “Walking the Walk”?

Yes, there it is.  It’s time to start holding myself more accountable for what I am putting into my body. My weight is up two pounds over the last two weeks.  And unfortunately, is back up to the place I was six months ago.  I’ve managed to erase eight pounds of hard work and sacrifice, and I’ve pretty much done it in the last two months. And it is completely 100% my fault.  Granted, two of these pounds are totally related to my sister’s visit, but I knew what I was doing.  Did I have to get the two scoop ice cream when we went to the dairy farm?  No.  Did I need to get the italian ice with the custard mixed in?  No.  Did I need that third piece of wood fired pizza?  No.  I could have still had all of those things but in smaller portions. I am unhappy with myself and my choices.  And reading this post today on Roni’s website this morning really stopped me in my tracks:

But here it is: does it bother you in the least that so many of the “fit blogger” community never actually walk the walk? I follow several of them and their blogs are FULL of ads for this “healthy” snack food or this fitness device or DVD or sports bra or whatever…and full of giggly posts about their new gym schedule and cutesy pix of their vitamins lined up on a pretty plate or whatever…and then posts about going out drinking with the girls, eating appetizers, weekends on the couch binge-watching TV shows and chick flicks, rationalizations about moderation, etc. They have a ticker that hasn’t budged in years as they yo-yo the same 10-ish pounds, never actually getting “fit” or losing any weight.

While I don’t agree with the judgement reeking from this email from “Martha” that Roni received, I see myself in it.  And I find myself judging myself in the same way.  My blog is three years old as of yesterday (Happy Blogoversary to Me!) and I am sitting here exactly 1.5 lbs less than the day I started it.  Granted, I don’t have any ads on my site and I’m well out of the Fitbloggin’ circle (I have only been to one conference) but I am definitely one of those struggling with finding the right path to health and wellness.  One minute I am proud of making a clean meal for my family or giving up artificial sweeteners and soda, and the next I’m eating Milanos and drinking too much white wine. But am I not getting fit?  Am I not healthier than I was when I started this blog three years ago?

And then I see this story and the ensuing comment discussion about Rachel Taylor and her experience shopping at Old Navy recently.  Comments like this:

Lauren Chu fiona64 • 14 hours ago

Uhm, if you’re going to cry and feel bad because someone pointed out your size is huge. ( Which it is; it’s no secret that she’s obese ) then someone giving real blunt advice and saying “well you can fix that problem” is not rude at all. Society is trying to fix the obesity problem by making everyone believe it’s okay and beautiful.. when it fact it’s unhealthy and a negative life style.

I find myself reading that and feeling like a failure.  Why haven’t I “fixed this problem” already.  It’s been three years.  How hard is it to stop eating and drinking so much?  It sounds so simple.

But I think it is not all that simple.  While by any measure or indication on the scale or in the mirror, I am overweight.  My sister, the one who recently visited, weighs 50 pounds less than I do.  While I don’t want or think I need to lose that much, it’s a bigger number than I can even fathom.  I am overweight.  But does it then follow that I am “unhealthy and have a negative lifestyle”?

Since I started this blog I’ve kept up with running, something I had just started (and nearly gave up on) at that point.  I increased my mileage to take on 10Ks and even two half marathons, something I never imagined I could do.  I started taking bootcamp classes and increasing my muscle mass and activity level.  I started taking yoga classes.  And now I’m training for a triathlon, another fitness event I never dreamed possible for me. I would argue (and can actually prove based on how my clothes fit) that even though the scale has not moved for me, and while I still have to work on my self control and will power, I am still making positive choices in my health journey.

Even if my weight yo yoed up in the same ten pound range over the last three years.  Even though I still drink and eat too much.  Even though I relapsed into eating sugar again.  I’m still better off than I was three years ago, and this blog (and the encouragement of the fitness/healthy blog community) is a big part of that.  I am stronger and more active than I have ever been in my life, even when I weighed less.

So I would argue that there is a complicated spectrum to health and wellness.  And that we’re all, every day, looking to find that balance between health, weight, appearance and lifestyle that we can live with.  I’m still striving to find that balance. And I probably will continue to struggle for a very long time.  But hopefully, if I keep trying, I can continue to move forward in the journey.

So on this Wednesday, as I commit yet again to trying to drop these extra pounds, I will use once again all that I know about healthy eating and exercise to move (mostly) forward.  I am going back to using Wednesdays for weigh ins for the accountability of it.

Age:  44
BMI:  29.5
+/- :  +1.2 lbs (2 weeks since last weigh in)
Pounds to Current Goal:  16.2 lbs

Happy Blogoversary to Me!

Happy Blogoversary to Me!  I started this fitness blog one year ago today.

At that point I’d been running for about ten months and was flagging a bit in my fitness efforts.  I had just signed up to live blog at FitBloggin’, and it felt silly to be attending a fitness blogging conference without a blog.  I read lots of fitness and food blogs, but didn’t write one of my own.  So I went over to WordPress.com and decided to start this one.

I had trouble figuring out a name.  I wanted something to do with running but everything I wanted was taken (in my usual over confident style I was looking for names like Chunky Runner or Fat Girl Running or something like that).  I nearly gave up until I came up with Mostly Forward.  It felt right.  I felt like my overall fitness trajectory was forward, but I had a lot of backwards int he journey.  Hence, Mostly Forward.

I had big hopes for the blog.  I had hoped to find a loyal readership.  I thought people would really connect with me and my struggles.  I don’t feel like that has happened.  After FitBloggin’ 2012 I really felt like I had found a great community and strove to be a part of it.  The conversations, the challenges, the interacting.  I saw all of these people who really got a lot from each other in terms of support through their struggles.  Not complaining, but it hasn’t been that way for me.  My blog helps me put my thoughts together and give concreteness to my journey.  But my blog seems pretty solitary.  I don’t get much feedback from others here.  Which is probably because I am not great at the Twitter thing or marketing myself.  I’d like more interaction with other bloggers, but it hasn’t happened.

That being said, I am glad I’m blogging and recording the steps I’m taking to move forward.  My blog is for me, after all, not anyone else.  I don’t write in a certain way, using certain key words, or talk about products because I’m being asked to do so (not that I would mind that per se….).  It’s just for me, a place to sort out my thoughts and keep me on the right path.  And that’s OK.

I have moved forward.  A year ago I was struggling to keep up with the running, I’d gained a few pounds and didn’t have a great feeling about who I was or where I was going.  This year my running is on track, I’ve started boot camp, I’ve shed a few pounds and am working towards a goal of losing more.  I feel like I really am moving forward, and it feels good.

So Happy One Year Blogoversary to me.   Cheers!

Can’t Believe I’m Missing Fitbloggin

I’m in this one…but I won’t be in the next one. 😦

Before I attended Fitbloggin’ last year, I didn’t follow any fitness blogs except for Ronisweigh.com.  I had for a while followed a very few weight loss blogs, and that was actually the initial reason I was reading Roni’s blog….it started out as a weight loss blog, not a fitness blog.  In fact, fitness came after she’d lost most of the weight she’d set out to lose.

When she posted on her website about the chance to get a free ticket to Fitbloggin’ in exchange for an hour or two of live blogging, I knew I wanted to go.  It honestly made no sense, when I think of it now.  I didn’t follow any other blogs, knew no one else attending, and the only real attempts at fitness I was engaged in at the time was running.  I did enjoy that, at least, but didn’t really do much in the way of reading about it or training in any formal way other than the 3.99 app on my phone.  But Baltimore was driving distance, the kids would be in school, and I really wanted to step out of my comfort zone and learn more about the online weight loss/fitness community.

Fitbloggin’ opened my eyes to a whole new world.  Not only did I meet so many wonderful bloggers, but they were engaged in so many different elements that I found interesting.  Yes, there were weight loss bloggers.  There were also fitness bloggers, food bloggers.  There were classes and types of exercises I’d never tried before.  There was food I’d never tried before.

I really felt for the first time that the journey that I was on wasn’t filled with failure.  Just because I’d lost weight and regained it didn’t mean I still wasn’t healthier than I had been.  Just because I ran slowly didn’t mean I wasn’t a runner.  Just because I’d never tried CrossFit or Zumba before didn’t mean that I couldn’t.  I could do new things.  I could hang out with people I always thought would judge me for my looks or my body size.  I discovered that while I always worried about people making assumptions about me, it was really because I was terribly busy making assumptions about them (she’s so skinny she won’t talk to me, she’s such a fast runner she must think I’m an idiot, she’s so well put together that she can’t possibly have anything in common with me).   It really was an amazing thing to discover that if I stopped judging people in my head, I would be open to so many more experiences and people that I might be closing myself off from.

I was crushed when, at the end of the blogging conference that I enjoyed so much, it was announced that the next one would be in Portland, OR in June, 2013.  I knew there was no way I could get there.  It was so far away, it was during my husband’s busy time at work, it was when the kids weren’t in school.    All of these great people that would never all be in the same place at the same time…..all of that fun we had together, all of that camaraderie that I was leaving with….I wouldn’t get it back.

In the months since, I’ve faithfully followed so many of the bloggers I met at Fitbloggin’.  I’ve taken on new challenges and pushed myself to become more active, more fit.  I haven’t lost a huge amount of weight, but I have gained a lot more confidence and security in myself.  I put together our town’s 5K since Fitbloggin’.  I started bootcamp classes that I’d always shied away from.  I’ve finally committed to a training program to improve my speed in running.  I’m doing the RWRunStreak and actually enjoying it.

So when all of those people converge on Portland in ten days, I won’t be one of them.  I’ll be sitting at home, watching those Twitter feeds scroll by and looking at all of the photos posted to Facebook.  I’m not going to lie, I’m really sad about it.  But I’m going to try, really try, to rather than just embark on a path of insane jealousy of anyone lucky enough to go, to really soak up all that I can from afar.  I’ll try to remember that the best thing I took away from Fitbloggin wasn’t the swag (although that was honestly pretty damn awesome), it wasn’t the classes, it wasn’t the workshops, it was the sense of being connected to a community of like minded people that was so much larger than myself.  And that connection won’t stop just because I can’t hop on a plane in ten days.  It’ll still be there.   And I’ll still get to be a part of that community online, even if I can’t be there in person.

Yay, Me

Today is race day for me.  I don’t normally race two weekends in a row, but last week’s race was a postponement from a few weeks prior.

But here’s the kicker:  you know what I caught myself saying yesterday to myself?

“It’s only a 5k.”  Whoa.  How far I have come, my friends.

I haven’t run a 5K race since November’s Veteran’s Day race.  After that I did a 5 mile Thanksgiving Day race, a 10K in early January in NYC, and then last week’s 4 mile Sweetheart run.  How is that for freaky?

Although I have been running since September 2011, I let myself fall out of training over last summer, due to heat and travel and frankly, laziness.  It’s hard to get yourself up out of bed at 5am to run, which was the only time good runs were happening in my world.  By September, I was so far off the grid that when I ran a totally flat 5K on 9/9, I struggled just to finish.  I didn’t walk any of it, but when I crossed the finish line it was at 40:03, my second slowest ever (my slowest being my first 5K, which included three monster hills….so this was probably on par).

I knew then that I had a choice.  I could either let this running thing go, or I could not.

And I chose not.

A few weeks after that, after some regular runs and a little more commitment on my part, I attended FitBloggin’.  That totally re-energized my commitment.  I had been thinking things like I was too fat to run.  That this was silly, my slow 12:25 miles were for losers.  That I shouldn’t bother at all because I was so slow and so chubby.

But it was at Fitbloggin’ that I realized runners come in all shapes and sizes.  That it didn’t matter sometimes if I was dead last.  Because dead last means you finished.  And finishing is a damn sight better than all of those who don’t even bother to try.  I was inspired by these women who looked like me who were conquering all sorts of amazing fitness goals.  I learned that it didn’t matter how long it takes you to get to a healthier place, but that every step along the way is a step in the right direction.  Kind of like the title here, “mostly” forward.  Sometimes you move a little backwards.  But as long as you’re moving mostly forward, it’s good.  It’s life.  It’s good.

So today I will run a 5K with 2500 other people in New Haven.  I will enjoy every minute of my in the back of the pack race.  And at the end, they’ll hand me a beer, which I will use to toast myself.  Because I did it.  I finished.  And I will keep finishing again, and again, and again.

Yay, me.

Wednesday Weigh In

All I want to say is:

“REALLY?”

Up 1.6 over last week’s weigh in.  This is what the last month looks like in My Fitness Pal:

I mean, you can’t get any more maintain-ey than that.  Except I’m not trying to maintain.  I’m trying to lose!

Oh, and for those of you keeping score, that last little dot?  Yep, higher than the first dot.

I honestly don’t get the gain this week. I truly don’t. I worked out like never before at FitBloggin’, ate healthy foods (and never too much of it) and basically had a great week. The only guess I can make is that the new workouts worked muscles I haven’t been using and that has caused me to retain some water in them. Because fitness wise?  I feel strong and like I am definitely making progress and moving forward, noticably.

So, it is what it is.  I am going to have to move past it, because I think it is totally not a representation of this week for me.  Sure, sometimes the scale is “feedback not failure” (as I learned in one of my WW meetings a few years back).  But this week?  It more feels like one of those quirky weeks that sometimes happen and there’s no rhyme or reason to it.

So, back to work.  Still sticking to the no bread rule pretty well.  The only one glass of wine on week nights rule?  Out the window last night.  And Sunday night, if you count Sunday as a weeknight.  I don’t normally, but then I suppose I would have to count Friday as a weeknight.  I mean, there aren’t three weekend nights, right?
Then again, if I could just do that four nights a week I’d be doing more than I was, so let’s go with that.

This week?  My goal is to try to find some new strength workouts online to keep working the muscles that I clearly wasn’t before FitBloggin’.  If anyone has any suggestions, leave some in the comments!

Downward

I’m looking at these pictures right now and honestly, they feel so very far away, even though they’re only 48 hours old.

I got up early on Sunday to run the 5K.  I have been super excited about this ever since I knew I was going to FitBloggin.  I started Couch to 5K a year ago this month.  At this point last year I think I was rocking running maybe 5 minutes at a stretch.  I was really wanting to run the Inner Harbor and having this final moment of FitBloggin’ prove how far I’ve come.

I had a little trepidation once I entered the conference room where we were all gathered. Sure, there were all shapes and sizes.  But as I overheard the Real Runners talk about their “easy 8 minute pace” I started all of my usual negative comparison behaviors.  I didn’t want to be last.  I wished I’d worked harder this year, run further, faster.  Shouldn’t I be running faster by now?  My last 5K clocked me in at 40:13, which was my second worst.  I started to worry that maybe this wasn’t going to be a great final moment.  Maybe it was going to make me feel bad.

Once we got out there though, the sun and the scenery won out.  I found my steady pace and forced myself to just keep going.  It was a mostly flat course, so I was able to never feel that “OMG I am going to die right now” feeling.  The herd was well ahead of me, but I kept pace with a few women (fangirl alert:  I caught up to Susan Ito and was near her for most of the second half!) and finished feeling good.  Strong.  Empowered.  Which is why I did something stupid and posed for this photo at the Reebok booth totally sweaty and nasty.  I didn’t care.  I ran the whole 5K at Fitbloggin’.  I was a rockstar.

I said some quick goodbyes (nearly crying but making myself not) and went to my hotel to get cleaned up and hit the road.  My five hour drive home went quickly and I spent my very tired afternoon bonding with my kids and husband.  I went to sleep satisfied and honored and feeling like a new chapter in my life had just begun.

But.

Then I woke up.  First thing I did?  Step on the scale.

UP THREE POUNDS.  WTF?

Still, I forced myself onto the treadmill and walked three fast miles (who was it that said the treadmill was a tollbooth, and no matter what you owe it three miles?  That made me do all three.  I wanted to stop but that kept me going).  Then I sat down to the myriad of work emails, new friend emails, all manner of Twitter and Facebook fun.

Plus laundry.

Plus a messy house (I work from home).

Plus….everything.

And suddenly, the downward spiral began.  I could feel it.  And wouldn’t you know, instead of being inspired to eat all healthy as I had been for three days, I was more inspired to eat….anything.

And by the end of the day I was drinking wine and logging in 500 calories of trail mix (not the healthy kind, the kind with M and Ms) and a few hundred more of McDonald’s French Fries.  Self sabotage, welcome back.  I had a feeling you were waiting around the corner for me.

I feel so far from all of that energy and inspiration that was FitBloggin’.  I know it’s silly and crazy, but I miss all of those people that I didn’t even know this time last week.  I miss feeling like I’m surrounded by people Just Like Me.  And all I want to do is eat my crappy trail mix and look at Twitter and my photos and get back to where I belong.

But I can’t.

So this morning, I got up and went for a run.  I ran a 5K around my neighborhood.  And you know what?  It was easier than the last time I did it.  In fact, it was easier than it has been in a while.  I didn’t stop to walk.  I didn’t even really want to.

I felt good.  I felt strong.  I felt empowered.

And so….today’s another day.  I’m going to try, really really hard, to (mostly) move forward.

Home From FitBloggin’

Holy crap, it’s over.

There’s so much I want to say about FitBloggin’.  Truly, as much as I’d loved the first two days, it was the third day that really put it completely over the top for me.  In the morning I did two absolutely killer workouts: the first with Fit Trampoline.  It was super hard.  It was super fun.  I usually hate tough workout classes.  I avoid BootCamp anything like the plague.  But this was different.  I don’t know if it was the people I was with, the lower impact of the trampoline, or what, but even though I knew I was working hard, I was absolutely loving it.  I went full out right to the end.  It was freaking awesome.

After that, it was Zumba.  Yep.  Back to back workouts.  I am not this type of person.  But I’ve never tried Zumba and I’ve always heard great things about it.  Plus, this session was being led by Mrs. Fatass, who everyone was raving about.

They were right.  Sue, along with Sam, led a high energy session of Zumba to oh, like 100 people all at once.  It was crazy.  I did all the moves wrong.  But it was fun and loud and I kept on sweating.  There’s something insanely motivating about having a room full of people of all different fitness levels going at a workout like that.  I didn’t feel self conscious or stupid or uncoordinated.  I just felt good.  I haven’t really ever had that happen except with running.  And so now my mind is more open about maybe doing some other things.  Thanks, Sue!

The workouts that morning changed my view of exercise classes.  Maybe it isn’t that I hate them.  Maybe it’s that I haven’t found the right ones yet.

I had somewhat of a dilemma at this point.  While I wanted to go to the nuts and bolts informational sessions in the afternoon,  because not only would they help me improve my blog traffic (insert my whiny “WHAT ABOUT ME” from previous post here), they would also help me with my paid website clients.  But as I spoke with my new friend Sylvia, she convinced me that I might get more out of going to the discussion session that afternoon called “When You Have a Lot To Lose.”  We reasoned that whatever information might be presented at the other workshops would be well recapped online, but that an emotional discussion sharing session couldn’t be recaptured in the same way.

She was so right.

It was that afternoon session that really pulled the whole conference together for me.  It showed me the real reason that all of these people were together here.  Sure there was learning to be had, and famous bloggers to stalk, but at the end of the day, we all blog for the same reason.

To connect.  To share.   To support.  To inspire and be inspired.

As I listened to story after story, I heard more and more pieces of my own.  This person was just like me in one way.  That one in another.  That one stole the words right out of my own thoughts at that moment.  We were all the same in some way or another.  We were all connected by a common need to be more, do more, but have all struggled within ourselves at some point or another, in some way or another, to get there.  To feel like our very best version of ourselves.  Most of us are just somewhere on the journey.  No one is ever really there.

It was what Oprah would call an “a-ha” moment.  It made everything make sense.  To use an overused phrase, a life changing moment.

By the time the reception rolled around later that evening, I was full to the brim.  I went from blogger to blogger and just connected.  Took photos, shared hugs, thanked them for sharing their stories with me, with the universe.

The three glasses of wine didn’t hurt either, of course.  I know I made that rule about having one glass a day.  But if you read the fine print I put in there “weekdays”.  I know myself that well, at least.  It was a Saturday, wooohoo.

Here are some photos with those that I stalked connected with Saturday night.

                   

(I will put names and websites on these, I promise, but hubby has made dinner and after four days away, it probably is a good idea to pay attention to him at this point).

More to come on the 5K and the final day….

A Bit Intimidated But Ready For More

Back in the hotel room, I’ve gone through Twitter with a fine tooth comb and my head is a blur thinking about the day.  The morning was all about the fitness portion, and the afternoon was all about the nuts and bolts of blogging.

First off, in my desperate need for a shower after six whole minutes of Cross Fit and about half of Cathe Friedrich’s workout session (I was LiveBlogging, that’s my excuse), I missed the one session I had totally been desperate to see:  Transition from Blog to Book.  My other blog originally started out as my retelling of my life story, one moment at a time.  I have always been told it would translate well into a book.  But alas, I needed a shower, so I guess I’ll not be figuring out how to make that happen today.

Anyway, after I was clean, I went to Emily Sandford’s session on social media.  I LOVED IT.  Holy smokes, it was freakin’ geek heaven. It tied everything together so well for me that I have been trying to teach myself as not only a blogger but a web designer.  The information was so pertinent and so useful, and clearly presented.  Plus Emily is very funny.  I mean, I was so excited I took pictures of her slides!

I also went to the Business of Blogging discussion session today.  And as much as I felt like I was in my element in the social media session, this one left me feeling very intimidated.  So many bloggers who have been building businesses from their words online.  Nearly everyone in the room seemed to have been at it for years.  And while I’ve blogged consistently for three years now, I still felt like a total novice beginner.  And then I began to question why I blog.  I mean, I blog mostly for me, and while I’ve always hoped my work finds an audience, I’ve never really worked to build that.  One of the comments today in this session was “We don’t exist without an audience.”  My other blog, three years in, sometimes only gets 10 pageviews in a day.  So does that mean I don’t exist?  I’m still mulling over that discussion in my head.  I mean, all of these people were able to build these big audiences?  My inner teenage insecure girl was screaming “What’s Wrong With MEEEEEEE?”  That being said, I’ll have to revisit my notes and see if I can do more.

I don’t know if it was my feelings of inadequacy or the fact that Roni was speaking to a woman I met last night at the mixer, but I finally decided it was time to introduce myself to Roni Noone.  I told her how I have been following her blog for five years, how she has been so inspirational to me with her struggles and her honesty.  She was just as nice as I had ever imagined she would be, and even posed for this photo with me.  It made me feel slightly less inferior when she retweeted my Instagram of it.

Unfortunately all of my newly found pals had disappeared while I had my star struck fangirl moment, so I was left all alone to go hunt down dinner.  I walked around the Harbor area for a while and decided that if I was in freaking Baltimore, I should be eating seafood while looking at the water.  Which is why I ordered Maryland Crab soup and the biggest glass of wine I could have without having the whole bottle.

It was a little weird to eat all alone, but hey, if you had something like this put in front of you, you’d forget that it felt weird and enjoy, right?  Well, that’s just what I did.  The mussels and crab soup were delish! I did end up breaking my no bread rule with that garlic bread though.  It sopped up the wine and garlic sauce so nicely.

After dinner I went back to the Ignite Keynote session.  I’m glad to say I met up again with my new friend Heather Hurd of my morning workout, so most of my inferiority complex was able to stay well at bay.  The other girls at the table were super nice too.

The five minute speeches ran the gamut and were alternately inspiring, hilarious and educational.   I left fully recharged and ready for tomorrow to begin.  Tomorrow…I am ready for you.

LiveBloggin’ At FitBloggin’

Woohoo!  So I’m a real, live, LiveBlogger here at Fitbloggin’!  I just pressed publish on my LiveBlog and it is all live and readable on the real, live FitBloggin’ website.

Workout with Cathe Friedrich by ME!

In addition to my livebloggin’ duties today I did my first ever Cross Fit workout, partnering with someone I’d never met but have now bonded so much with that we each commemorated the moment with sweaty pictures of ourselves together.  Heather, we rock!  I wore my fancy new Reeboks that I got in my swag bag yesterday.  Comfy!

I started doing my official LiveBlog duties for the Cathe Friedrich workout session and actually got a little bummed that I wasn’t getting in the awesome workout.  So I started alternating between taking pictures like a crazy person and doing the workout.  Hoping I burned a few calories.

The rest of the time here is mine to do with what I want….my official duties are over.  Time to go find something to eat and figure out what else to do next!