Fat Girl Learns To Run

Russia, Next Stop ---------- Day 190

The Olympic competition has officially ended with Canada winning over the U.S.A. in men’s ice hockey.  It was a good game but I wish it ended differently.  During the past 16 days, I watched a lot of the Olympics on TV. Since the Olympics were in Vancouver, there was only a 2 hour time difference which made it possible to see many of the events Live.  We won’t be so lucky when the Olympics are in Russia in 2014.

Regardless if an athlete won a medal or if they finished last in their event, all of them had to put in hours of training to even make it on the team.  In order to compete in any event, an athlete needs to be in good physical condition.  Many of the sports required the athlete to wear skin tight clothing, like in skiing, which would emphasize any extra fat that was on their body.  I didn’t see any extra body fat on any of the athletes.  I don’t even want to think about what I would look like in one of those ski outfits.

Listed below, in no particular order, are some of my memorable moments of the games.

· Last night U.S.A. won the Gold in the 4 man bobsled competition.  I liked that their bobsled was called “The Midnight Train.”  I also found it interesting that their skin tight outfits only went to their knees and their calves weren’t covered.

 

· There were some athletes that were really hyped to do well.  One of those athletes was Shaun White.  He lived up to his billing winning the Gold in the Halfpipe.  The outfits for this sport were the coolest looking ones in my opinion.  My favorite reaction of any athlete was from Shaun White after he knew that he won the Gold no matter what his next run would score.  He was like this big excited kid when he asked his coach what he should do on his next run. What I admire the most from Shaun White was that on his last run he gave it all he had and even scored higher.  I later found out later that in a previous time when he performed the double mick? that he really hurt himself.  Shaun didn’t have to go all out but he did.

 

· The sport that was the craziest to watch was the short-track skating relay.  There are all these skaters going in circles that just made me dizzy.  I can’t talk about this sport and not mention the amazing Apolo Ohno.  He has now won 8 gold medals in the Winter Olympic games.  I also need to mention the fact that two of the Olympic athletes were also on Dancing With the Stars; Apolo Ohno (who won the mirror ball trophy) and Louie Vito (he competed in the Halfpipe).

 

· The last outdoor event was the men’s 50K (30 miles) cross country race.  This event reminded me of being the winter equivalent of the marathon in the Summer Olympics.  In most of these types of skiing events, the commentators would reference that there is always this rivalry between Norway and Sweden.  In this event, Norway received the Gold and Sweden received the Bronze with Germany receiving the Silver.

 

· The most tearful moments of the games were when the Canadian ice skater, Joannie Rochette’s mother died suddenly before she was going to compete.  I don’t know how that girl held it together to skate after the death of her mother.  She apparently put her heartbreak aside and ended up winning the bronze medal.

Moving About ---------- Day 189

Today I spent the day with my son doing various things outside the house.  We were on the go for about 9 hours.  At first I considered doing some of our errands on Sunday but then had second thoughts.  Since we already spent most of the day out of the house, I thought that we might as well get all the things done on our list today and then tomorrow we don’t have to go anywhere.

About an hour after we got home, I checked on my son and he was in bed ready to go to sleep.  As I mentioned before, guys just can’t handle running errands.  It just beats them down.  My son was running around with his friends all day yesterday and never complained about being tired.  There must be something about going into stores that just sucks the energy out of men.

What I have realized in the past two weeks is that I am not going to lose weight if I just watch what I eat and don’t exercise.  Not feeling well for the past weeks limited the amount of exercise that I have done.  I have moved about during that time like I did today, which is better than just sitting around, but it doesn’t burn the calories.  It is okay if you are trying to maintain your weight but not if you are trying to lose weight.

Well, I have to run to do one more errand before the day is over.  My work is never done.

Food Love ----------- Day 188

I saw this woman on TV who had gained about 100 lbs in about 6 months.  When she was interviewed, she said that when she lost her job she just started eating all the time.  The woman said that eating was the only thing she felt control over and it made her feel good.  Since she didn’t work, she didn’t get out of bed until 10:00 a.m. each morning.  There was no reason for her to get up early.

The woman’s problem was emotional eating.  This type of eating happens when something is out of wack in your life.  In this woman’s case, unemployment left her with such a large void in her life that she filled that void with food.  When I look back at my own life, my story is similar to that woman.   There was a void in my life and I used food to make me feel better.  Eating made me feel better for a short time but didn’t solve my personal problem.  One day, I looked in the mirror and realized what the void in my life caused me to be very overweight. 

I decided one day that I needed to do something about my weight issue.  Since I have started this journey, it hasn’t been easy.  There are still issues that I have in my personal life which makes it difficult for me to keep motivated.  If I didn’t have those issues, my weight loss would have progressed faster. At least I keep plugging along.  There are those days that I just don’t care anymore and just want to eat a whole pizza by myself and have a big piece of chocolate cake. 

When I have those thoughts, I stay motivated since I never want to go back to where I once was.  I want to go forwards and not backwards.

Cough It Up ---------- Day 186 & 187

I started reading a book this week that is about intuition.  When I am in the process of reading a book, I subconsciously think about it during the week (unless it is a boring book). As I was walking to the Opera with my girlfriend after dinner on Wednesday, I realized that my chest hurt from breathing in the cold air.  I have had this cough for about 2 weeks that just won’t go away.  At first I thought of it as just being annoying but now I think there is more to it.  My gut was telling me that it is time to see a medical professional about this cough and to skip my group run on Thursday.

After work today, I went to one of those Take Care Clinic at the Walgreens (which I must say is a great concept for dealing with minor health issues) by my house.  It turns out that I have bronchitis and was prescribed some drugs to take to get rid of it.  I missed not going to my running session but I needed to take care of my health.  As soon as I got home I took some of the medicine.  So far my coughing has been under control.

Yesterday I didn’t get home from the Opera until late so I didn’t write a post.  If I know that I am going to have a late night, I try to write my post the day before.  Since I haven’t been feeling well, I didn’t have the energy to write more than one post in a day.  By the way, the Opera that I saw last night, The Damnation of Faust, was just excellent.  I kept on saying after the Opera to my friend Erika that I can’t believe how good that Opera was. There was beautiful music by Berlioz and it had this sexy, tall, dark and good looking guy playing the Devil.  What more could I ask for?

Kick it up a Notch ---------- Day 185

I have usually set a goal of doing 3 miles on my treadmill whenever I use it.  Depending on how I feel determines how much walking I do to my running.  This distance was fine when I was in the 5K program.  Now that I am in the 10K program, I decided that is about time that I increase my distance during my treadmill sessions.  Starting today, I decided to set a goal of 4 miles per session.  This was going out of my comfort zone but I need to kick it up a notch if I plan on running twice the distance that I did in the last session. 

When I got home today, I didn’t feel very energetic but I had to do some serious running to be ready for Thursday night.  For me the hardest part is running those few minutes in the beginning.  I always feel like stopping but I push through it.   Thankfully, my treadmill tells me exactly how far I have run and how much more I need to run.  I was happy when 4.00 for the distance appeared on the treadmill screen.  The interesting thing is that my legs don’t hurt when I actually run but once I stop, I definitely feel them.  Taking a bath in the evening really helps with the soreness in the legs.  All in all, I was glad that I reached the running goal that I set for myself today.

Mental Exhaustion --------- Day 184

I remember showing up the door of my aunt’s house in Germany for a visit holding my son who was 7 months old at the time.  The first thing my aunt said to me was that my son was me (it sounds better in German).  That moment happened about 18 years ago and for some reason I have never forgotten it.  There have been many times as my son was growing up where I thought that he is so much like me.  I guess that is why we get along so well.

There was this time he came into my home office and I just looked at him and said, “The answer is no.”   He was taken back at my statement but I just had to look at his face and body language to know what he was going to ask me.  One of the funniest things I remember is telling my son I knew things because I had eyes in the back of my head.  My son was small at that time and looked under my hair to see if I had eyes underneath there.  I think I kind of freaked him out saying that to him.   I forgot that little kids take you literally and are not familiar with some sayings.

Last night my son came home about 6:30 p.m. and stopped in the office (I always seem to be in there) to talk to me.  I just had to look at him to know he wasn’t feeling well.  He then confirmed to me that he didn’t feel well, had a sore throat and was exhausted.  He had spent most of the weekend working on a history project with other classmates.  I told him that when you push your body past what it can normally handle (be it studying or working), your body fights back and makes you sick.  It is your body’s way of telling you to rest.  Just as too much physical activity forces you to slow down so does too much mental activity.

Then he tells me that one of his classmates working on the project had strep throat and he is afraid that he is getting it. After hearing all of these, I told him he is staying home from school on Monday.  When I saw him tonight, he isn’t doing any better.  I think a visit to the doctor is necessary tomorrow.

 

Chipping Away ----------- Day 183

This weekend I was able to make great progress on my photo project. My first pass through the stuff was to separate all the items into major groupings and throwing out stuff that I knew that I didn’t want to keep.  There will be many more passes through the stuff.  Since there is so much stuff to sort, I took a hard look at everything and asked myself if it was worth it to keep all of this stuff.  I decided that some of this stuff had to be thrown away.  There is 10 years worth of stuff and I don’t have the time to devote on organizing all this stuff.

I found a box of old photos that I took to my parent’s house.  I don’t know who all these people in the pictures are so I asked my parents to sort them for me in envelopes and write the names of the people in the pictures on the envelopes.  This seemed like a fine plan to me until my dad called me later in the day.  He said that when I come over next week that we would go through the pictures together since it would easier for them. So much for trying to pawn off some of my work.  I give my parents a pass since they are old.

What I have learned so far from this project is that I never let something get so out of hand again.  Since I did let it get out of hand, I just have to keep on chipping away at the project and it will get done.

As I have been watching the Olympics while working on this project, I just need to comment on how I am fascinated with Ski Cross.  When I see four skiers going downhill at the same time, I can't take my eyes away from the action.  Speaking of snow, I wonder how much we are going to have by tomorrow morning.

Side Effects ------------ Day 182

I made the cardinal sin yesterday; going to the grocery store when I was starving. When I was in the store, I had a taste for a frozen pizza but which one to chose.  I decided upon a spinach and cheese pizza.  Then I wanted something sweet.  I had a difficult time deciding on what to buy.  I didn’t want anything where I would have leftovers.  I also didn’t want anything that was too sugary.  This indecision made me walk around the store (which wasn’t a large store) going from one treat to another.  I finally decided on a dark chocolate candy bar with hazelnuts.

When I came home, I couldn’t wait to eat my pizza and chocolate bar.  Now eating this food was bad enough but I was also eating about 9:00 p.m.  I am usually in bed at this time but it was a Friday night so the time really didn’t matter too much.   When my pizza was baked, I enjoyed every bite.  It was really good.  I guess everything tastes better when you are hungry.  After the pizza, I immediately ate my candy bar.  I usually only have a few squares of a chocolate bar if I have a taste for chocolate.  Not tonight; I ate the whole thing and it was delicious.

My plan was to get up in the morning and then run.  I didn’t feel that well so I thought that I would have breakfast first and then run a little later.  After eating a whole pizza and a candy bar, no wonder my stomach didn’t feel right.  When I was running on the treadmill, my stomach was feeling upset again.  I guess all that movement from running shook up things in my stomach. 

By the afternoon, I was feeling normal again.   I definitely learned that eating food that is not in my normal diet and eating later in the day is going to have some effect on my body.  When I came home from running on Thursday, I was also eating later around 8:30 p.m. The difference was that I made a better dinner choice.  I ate two poached eggs, a small slice of bread and a cup of milk.  I guess that once you eliminate certain goods in your diet and then put them back; your body rejects them.

TGIF --------- Day 181

I am so glad it is Friday.  It has been a crazy week between work and the Olympics.  When I came home tonight, I realized that l had no energy left.  This means that my evening, what is left of it, will be spent vegetating in front of the TV.  After a good night’s sleep, I will be back to normal.  I need my energy so I can get back on track with my running schedule.

So it begins again ---------- Day 180

Tonight was my first group run for the 10K training.  It was good to see the coordinator of the training sessions, Laura, again.  I was happy to see Shannon from my 5K group there again who was also running the 10K this time.  The 1^st clinic was just an overview of the program and then we headed out with our group to run.

We were running 2 miles tonight so we just ran around the park instead of venturing out to the lake.  The path was mostly dry but you had to watch for the ice and snow on the ground and run around it. The weather was about 40 degrees so I wasn’t cold running.  I guess all the layers of clothing helped.  I did have a little trouble breathing properly since I am still recovering from my cold.  It is distracting when you keep coughing when you are running.  All in all I was able to run the 2 miles without stopping.

After the run, I saw other group leaders that I ran with last year.  We don’t always remember each other’s name but we remember each other’s face.  It just makes it more fun when you know the people.  I have missed running with my group and it feels great to be able to run with them again.