Monday - it was a good day

Day off today.  EDO also known as earned day off.  We work an extra half an hour a day that we get to take off as a day every 3 weeks.  Works for me.  Tomorrow is my day off for working this coming Saturday. I picked up my Mom and one of my nieces and we headed downtown.  We had lunch and did a bit of shopping.  It was nice.

I met my sister and niece at the gym for a 4:30 Group Power class.  It's really hard to get used the the new name with the new gym.  To me it is Body Pump.  Meh, I'll adjust.

I came home and made supper and caught up on Twitter, Facebook etc.  I found a very interesting post from someone that I just started following.  It's funny, it was a link to a person who's page I used to "like" but I found she posted WAY too much so I "unliked" her page awhile back.  I read this and it really hit home to me.  Her blog is gokaleo.com and you can like her page on Facebook "Go Kaleo".  So here's what she said:

 How I overcame 3 decades of obesity.

I stopped:

-hating myself
-dieting
-reading diet books
-believing most of what I read on the internet
-shaming myself for enjoying food
-putting my life on hold 'until I lost weight'
-judging other women's bodies

I started:

-practicing self-care
-being physically active doing something I enjoy every day
-eating foods I enjoy in appropriate amounts
-making sure to get enough protein every day
-focusing on what my body can DO rather than how it looks
-being gentle with myself when I made mistakes
-perceiving those mistakes as valuable learning opportunities
-focusing on BUILDING a healthier body rather than TEARING DOWN the body I already had
-looking for the beauty in other women

She seems to figured this out.  I have not.  Two of the things I struggle with is self hatred and comparing myself to others.  This has to stop.  I am a work in progress.  I will get there.  Onward and upward.

Oh and I got the sweetest email from the coordinator of the Run for the Whales in Maui!  It seems I'm a little too eager for the race.  Online registration hasn't opened yet.  Ooops.  She said to check back when it gets a little closer to the Feb 2nd 2014 date.  I will do that :-)

Sunday musings

I woke up this morning with a sinus headache.  Boohoo!  I was hoping I could somehow avoid the dreaded Fall cold that's going around.  Maybe I can still fight it off.  I was planning to try a Hot Yoga class at the gym today but I think I will skip it.  I've literally done nothing so far today (except have breakfast and coffee) and it's almost noon.  I have booked a flight to Calgary for November 1-3 to visit my BFF so that's exciting!  Also I looked into races that I could run while in Maui.  I found an awesome one!  I'm so pumped.  There seems to be a problem with online registration but I have emailed the representative so hopefully I can register soon.  No medals unless you place 1st, 2nd or 3rd but T-Shirts and a breakfast after so I'm happy with that.  And how amazing will it be to run right beside the ocean in Maui??!!  Yup I'm so in.  Hopefully my darling husband will be on board.  Maybe I'll sign him up for the walk!  Here's the link if anyone is interested mauiwhalefestival
I'm thinking of doing the 10K.  It would be my first, and it would be incentive to keep me running over the Winter.

I went to a Group Power class yesterday.  It was good!  I almost didn't go, because none of my family was able to come and I was running a bit late.  But I'm so glad I did.  It felt so good.  My goal is to do that class 2 times a week, run as much as I can (damn treadmill I hate you but Winter is almost here) and yoga at least once a week (hopefully more).  That's my plan.

101 days to Maui Trip!

Both sides......

I've looked at life from both sides now....... I know, I know, it's corny to quote a song but it's very true. As a side note, my sweet Mom used to do this all the time when I was growing up and it drove me nuts!  She was always singing a song when something reminded her of a song.  Now I totally do it too :-)  I've also realized it's not a bad thing that I have a lot of my Mom's qualities.  She's an amazing woman.

Now back to the subject of this post.  I run blog posts through my head for days before I finally get to my computer and get them posted.  Does anyone else do this too or is it just me?  Monday night I had this post completely done and then I fell asleep and I must have accidentally deleted it before I hit publish.  I was not amused.  I, not unlike other bloggers I follow and admire have gained some weight. I feel like I'm in good company.  These are people that I have followed in their journeys and admired their successes.  We are human.  We lose weight and unfortunately we gain it too.  Not always, but seriously look at the statistics.....it happens.  I've been at both sides of this weight loss journey.  Here's some thoughts.

I have been a Weight Watcher at goal.   I have been a new member looking at 50 + pounds to lose.

I have had a closet full of nice clothes that all fit me and I felt good in them.  I have had a closet full of clothes that didn't all fit me and what did fit was bulky and bought to hide my flaws.

I have felt in control of food.  I have felt like the food controlled me.

I've been able to shop in any store I want for clothes, even Costco (not a big deal to some but it was HUGE to me!).  I've been very limited with the stores I could buy clothes in.

I have felt very fit and even ran a 5K without stopping.  I have been out of breath running up the stairs.

When I went out it was fun to get dressed up.  When I went out I agonized over finding something that didn't make me look horrible.


I fit into a size 10 comfortably and even a size 8 in a pair of lululemon yoga pants.  I fit into a size 18 and even a size 20 pair of capris (even though I cut the tag out when I got them home).

I have felt very good about my body.  I have felt very ashamed of my body.

I have cried tears of joy over my weight loss success.  I have cried tears of sadness over my weight gain.

I was a normal weight.  I was overweight.

I was happy.  I was sad.

So you see, if you were me which side you would want to be on.  I need to do this.  I'm still struggling but I'm slowly starting to pull myself out of this.  I did end up joining the gym.  It's a beautiful facility with great classes and 3 locations in the city.  2 of which are relatively close to me (I live in a fairly small city, I'm sure some of you would laugh if you knew how close the far away location is!) and one is clear across the city!  But the one that is far away (it took my 15 minutes by car the other day.....in traffic it will be longer) is the one that my sister and 2 of my nieces go to.  I went to a weight class there with them on Monday (our Thanksgiving day).  Similar to Body Pump, they call it Group Power. I don't know if it was the combination of being in the front row and being with people I knew but I really pushed it, and now I'm so fricking sore!  I used to do that class faithfully 2 times a week, sometimes 3.  I have a long way to go to get back there but it's a start.  I also went to a Step class last week too.  It was good too.  They have lots of yoga classes and even hot yoga that I'm dying to try.  I'm still working with my confidence and the fact that I feel like everyone is judging me.  I know they probably aren't and like my sister said "most people are too self absorbed to even care!"  I know she's right.  I just have to suck it up and continue to get my butt off the couch.