What's Your Motivation?

Well, here we go again for another round in blog-land. Sorry it's been so long, but lately I've been having trouble thinking of things to write about. When I first started doing this, it was easy because I had so many things on my mind that I wanted to share. Now, I find myself starting a post, only to feel like maybe I might be repeating myself and becoming...*gasp*...boring.  God forbid.  That's not to say I have slowed down or stalled in my fitness efforts, I just struggle to find new things to say about them. Of course, life is full of little fits and starts, surprises, realizations, epiphanies and whatnot. Unfortunately for me, most of the time topics come to mind when I'm nowhere near my computer, and by the time I sit down to start a post, whatever was in my brain has already fallen out. Thankfully I have enough to put a few words out here and there, so here's the latest.

Lately my mind has been on the things that have kept me going during the time I've been undergoing this strange but wonderful transformation in my life.  That is, what motivates me to do what I do. What is it that I do exactly? It changes from day to day, really, from the basic to what some might consider difficult or extreme.  I watch what I eat. I make sure to get enough rest, and I run a couple short routes during the week. And once a week, I get up to run hours before the sun comes up, just to have time to get in as many miles as possible before I have to endure life-sucking UV rays and heat. I am not by any definition a morning person, yet on those days when that crack-of "Oh My God, Are You Kidding" alarm goes off, I get up, get going, and gladly git 'r done.  Did I spell that wrong? I don't know, I'm from California. But I digress... The truth is, what I do is not easy, and there is a whole lot of planning, effort, and occasionally pain involved. That's why most people generally don't do what I do. And that's why for most of my life, I didn't do what I now do. So what made it possible and keeps me going now? Here are a few things.

It started out, as I previously posted, simply with the desire to lose weight and be healthy. I had that desire for many years, yet kept making excuses because I knew it would be very difficult to get where I wanted to be physically. I tried quick fixes here and there, but I always failed because I didn't change my habits regarding food and especially exercise. Until that silly encounter with the hotel bathroom mirror. You've heard that story before, but I just need to mention it in this post because that was, of course, my first motivation to start making serious changes. It is a moment that is seared into my mind so indelibly that I can never hide from it, and even now pushes me to keep moving forward. In that instant, in seeing that I looked so bad, so unhealthy, and so very very sad, I knew it was time to take notice and stop making excuses. It was the first driving force of motivation, and it got me off and running, so to speak.

After the initial "aha moment", though, I still found myself struggling to keep making the right choices and to stick to the plan. Old habits kept their power over me until I realized it was simply the feelings of enjoyment they gave me that were my downfall, not the habits themselves. If I could enjoy a healthy lifestyle as much as the unhealthy one, I would have a better chance to succeed. But how? As a lifetime of habits are hard to change, the replacements must as appealing as whatever they are replacing in order for the changes to stick. When I first decided to make the changes in my life I was the ultimate couch potato. I was sitting almost all of the time, spending all day at my desk at work and then heading straight home to sit in front of the TV from the time I got there until the time I went to sleep. So, when I first started going for walks, I wasn't used to being physically active. I found it difficult, uncomfortable, boring and a little embarrassing. I needed to make going for walks fun, or at least slightly less than horrible to make it worth it to get out and get going. How could I make it something to look forward to?  I needed distractions and I needed them now.

The first thing that helped motivate me was music. I know I'm not the only one. It seems that nearly every person you see jogging or working out has a gadget strapped to their arm with ear buds firmly in place. Why? Because listening to music helps distract you from the fact that you are tired and sweaty, that parts of your body are bouncing and flapping, and that you are surrounded by much thinner people doing the same thing as you but looking much more attractive while doing it. I put together playlists of everything from my old favorites to the latest and greatest, and looked forward to taking time out from life to enjoy them. I don't listen to music while running much anymore, but count it as one of the larger motivations that helped me get moving in the early, most critical days of my transformation.
Another motivation to get me off the couch and out the door has been my love of spending time in the "great outdoors", or at least our local version of it. From the beginning, I've mapped routes in places that have nice things to look at, like beaches, parks, and hills with views of the city. I've changed my routes and occasionally re-map them from time to time to increase distance and difficulty (and to find ones with drinking fountains and bathrooms), but tend to stick with routes that have some sort of nice view, even if it's just so I can take a picture of it when I'm out, post it on Facebook and say, "I'm out here and you're not. Nyah, nyah, nyah."

I've been at this fitness thing for nearly two years now. Wow! I've come such a long way that you'd think I would no longer need to look for motivations to keep going. I've got a reasonable plan and routine in place, stick to it fairly well, and enjoy it very much. Most days I feel good and don't have difficulty keeping up with my routine. And yet, there are those mornings that I just want to stay in bed, or if I plan to run after work, I'd really rather just stay in, watch TV and relax. It's not every day, but more often than I'd like to admit. What's the harm in missing a run here and there? Now, the human body does need to rest and recoup after running, in order to recover and repair any damage done. But if too much time is taken off, it's so easy to slip back into old habits. This is one of my biggest fears, knowing how I used to be and how easy it could be for me to go back to that if I gradually let my guard down. I can't let that happen and need motivation to keep me focused when I'm faced with those days when my get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.

One of the things that helps me with this is to have friends who are runners. Talking to them about my progress and listening them talk about theirs (while never EVER comparing myself to them) helps me a great deal. You see, having someone to encourage you who understands what you are doing and why you are doing it is a very powerful motivation! I was really surprised to find how many people I know are runners. In my workplace alone I count a great many co-workers as fellow runners. They motivate me to keep going at my own pace, and I know that I couldn't have gotten as far as I have without having them around to talk to, commiserate with, and laugh about the inevitable pitfalls of participating in our chosen sport.

Another motivation to keep running is signing up for races. I run race distances up to half marathons, and have found that few things can get my butt out of bed at the crack of dawn for training runs on Saturday faster than knowing I've shelled out a sizable sum of $$$ to join an upcoming race. When you sign up and pay, it becomes real, and for sure you want to be ready when the day of the race arrives. You want to finish the thing of course, and you sure as heck don't want to come in last. For me racing has been a huge motivation to keep running my regular routes, looking forward to race day and seeing what I can do when I get out and cross the starting line.

Finally, for me the best motivation of them all has been: RESULTS. This doesn't come into play until you have been going at your chosen plan for some time, but once it starts to kick in, it really goes a long way toward keeping you going. What kind of results? For me it has been losing the weight, of course. Every time I get on the scale and see the number has dropped, it boosts my morale and makes me excited for the next time I can get out there and walk, jog, and now, run. And whenever the number goes up....OOOOOPS...it boosts my resolve to get back on track and stop slacking. Even at this point when I'm reaching the end of my weight loss quest, that still motivates me the same as it did from the first few weeks I was at it. Losing weight is harder now, but I still have the same desire and am still working toward it because I look forward to the day when I can finally say, "I did it! I made it! I reached my goal!" And more than any other motivation, that is what gets me out on the road on a weeknight after a long day at work, or up early on a Saturday, out the door in the dark, and off down the LA river to the marina, the beach and back.

What it comes down to is this. I have accomplished some pretty crazy things this past couple years, but it hasn't been easy. I'm still always fighting to stay on track and find motivations to keep going.  The ultimate result and greatest motivation for me now is that I'm at the point where I am capable of doing more than I ever thought possible before. Yup, folks, it turns out the sky's the limit, and I'm proof that all you have to do is decide to reach for it. You may be like I was, wanting to lose weight and be healthy. Maybe you want to see what you are capable of, or just want to learn something new. Whatever you want to do, just decide to stop putting it off. Get started, do the best you can, find your motivations, and you will be surprised at what you can do. I know I was!

Thanks again for reading! Until next time...  :)

It's Only A Half Marathon

It has been an interesting 18 months to say the least. So far in my posts, I have gone over my motivation to lose weight, and some of the steps I took to get started. That was the hardest part for sure, I think, just getting started.  Like I mentioned previously, I managed to put it off for a long time, I am something of a professional procrastinator in all areas of my life, but this one was particularly difficult to break through.  So when I did manage to find something of a "plan", i.e., reduced food intake combined with activity and exercise, the next obstacle I had to overcome was my tendency towards complacency. I had to make sure that I stuck with the plan and didn't lose momentum and slip back into my old habits.  Because 25 years of bad habits don't just go away, no matter how successful you are at breaking them.

My first few months went well, I was actually surprised at how well I was doing.  I had failed at the attempt to gain control of my eating habits so many times, that I always had a fear in the back of my mind that somehow I would slip back into my old ways and lose all the progress I'd made. It had happened multiple times in my life, actually.  For example, when I first moved to Long Beach, I joined a gym, saw a personal trainer and got some advice about fitness and weight training. I went regularly for about a year, lost some weight, and felt good about myself.  When I had to move across town, I quit the gym, didn't join a new one, and gained the weight back.  Then, about 6 years ago, when pregnant with my daughter, I developed gestational diabetes.  The doctor put me on a strict diet to control my blood sugar, the diet also happened to involve a lot less food than I normally ate, so I ended up losing nearly 50 lbs by the time she was born. 50 lbs! That's huge! I felt like I had a new chance at life. But as the months passed, I somehow lost the motivation to keep eating right. I went back to my old habits and over a period of 4 years, put back nearly every one of that 50 lbs that I had lost.  Now that is pretty devastating, to say the least.  I did double time in convincing myself I hadn't gained "too much" weight. Before I got pregnant, I was a size 30, and went down to a 26 after I lost that weight. Then, even as I gained the weight back, I managed to keep stuffing myself into those size 26 jeans, and stretched out my shirts so that they would still fit. So I could tell myself that I wasn't really getting bigger. But the scale doesn't lie...

So over the past year or so, as I was on my way to losing weight again, that was always in the back of my mind, the knowledge that I might slip. But something was different than in all my previous attempts. I can't really put my finger on it, but I think it just boils down to being tired of failure. Each day that passed that was another success just fueled my fire to keep going, to not look back at how I failed in the past, but to look forward at what might be possible.  So I kept going.  I think the key for me was taking things slow and steady.  Like I said before, I set small goals, and once I met them, made more small goals, and so on. It might seem like that's not an effective approach. But, the funny thing about small goals and accomplishments is that the more time passes, the more the results add up.

I remember the first day I went for a walk. I went to the beach at Belmont Shore, on the east side of town. I got down to the water's edge, looked at my clock, turned on my music, and just went. My goal was to keep moving for one hour. And I did. The next time, I went to the same beach, walked the same amount of time. And I went further than the first time. The third time I went I actually made it to the San Gabriel River. That became my first route. I think it was just short of three miles, and I did it over and over and over, 3-4 times a week, for months. After a few months of beach walks I started mapping out some routes around my neighborhood. I used Google Maps to estimate distances and went from my front door, just walking the sidewalks in my neighborhood. About 4 months into this, I was up to walking 5 days a week, both at the beach and near my home. I began to track my times, noting that I was getting faster and faster, and kept working to increase my speed. I added difficulty, by incorporating a route with a hill so steep, I got winded just driving up it. That was Signal Hill. It is about 4 miles from my front door to the top of Signal Hill. The first time I did it, I had to stop several times, and when I reached the top, I called my husband to come and get me. But I made it. 

When I was first starting my walks, I tried to jog. I made it about 100 yards before I had to stop, literally. I couldn't breathe, I was gasping like a fish out of water. But just a month or so later, I discovered I could jog about half a block before things started to go black. Then, a whole block. Then, a whole song. I could jog three whole minutes before I had to walk again. I added distance to all my routes. 4 miles, 5 miles....6 miles! Wow! I couldn't believe it! Gradually, slowly, day by day. I did my Signal Hill route once a week, and then one day, instead of calling my other half from Hilltop Park to come get me, I walked back home. 8 whole miles, with that monster hill to boot!  Wooooot!  In October, 10 months into this, I ran my second 5k race. And I literally ran it. About half of it. In November, I did my first 10k, a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot. I ran the first mile and walked the last 5. 

Then I set my sights on the unthinkable: A half marathon. That's 13.1 miles, y'all. And it wasn't just one half marathon, but three. The Beach Cities Challenge. I have a co-worker named George, he's this skinny little Filipino guy who runs marathons. The old me would tease him about being a crazy runner, but during this transition time he has been a great help to me, offering advice and encouragement. So one day Georgie told me he was going to complete this Beach Cities Challenge, which was the consecutive completion of three races: Long Beach Marathon, Surf City Marathon, and OC Marathon. But the half marathon races also qualify for the challenge. For some reason, the thought of this just seized me and I couldn't get it out of my head. So around December I thought I would shoot for the the OC half in May to start my challenge. I went to El Dorado Park on the east side of town to train, and began to add more miles. I got up to 10 miles walking, and felt like I could do anything. I did the 10 miles a few more times as the weeks passed, and one day, as I finished mile 5 out of 10, I decided to start jogging just to see how long I could jog. I jogged the entire second half of that 10 mile distance. Forget starting my challenge in May, I registered for the Surf City half marathon in February! George and I went together to race that day, he ran the full marathon and I did the half, running 9 miles out of the 13.1, finishing in 3 hours and 9 minutes. Then we had to call AAA because I left the lights on in George's car and the battery died. But that's a story for another day.

Since completeing my first half marathon, running has become like breathing to me. I've reduced my runs to 3 days a week, but with longer distances. It frees me, strengthens me, calms me. If I go too long without it, I feel like I am missing something. I continue training because I still have more races coming up, but also because I love it! I added an app to my phone that uses GPS to measure distance, speed, even calories burned. It has been an indispensable tool to my success, helping me train by keeping track of my pace, so I know if I'm on track or need to step things up a bit.  In May I did the OC half, I ran the entire distance and finished it in 2 hours and 46 minutes. In October I will run the Long Beach half marathon, and complete my Beach Cities Challenge. This will be a huge day for me, completing a goal I set for myself back when I was still barely getting started. I'll get a big, gaudy medal to add to my growing collection. I'll only wear it once, but treasure it forever because it won't just represent miles, but the difference between the girl who got winded jogging 100 yards, and the girl who runs half marathons. And who knows what's next? After all, I've got to keep reaching for something. As long as I keep reaching, I keep my determination to keep doing what I'm doing. Could that full marathon be in my future? It is a huge leap, a huge concept. And yet, the fact that I'm even considering it is a big step for me, because it means I've stopped beating myself up over my past failures, and given myself permission to believe I can do the things I thought were impossible just a short time ago. And that is the best reward of all.

All About Me...

So this is my very first blog post ever. It's going to be totally lame because I haven't figured out how to do all the cutesy stuff yet, like add pictures or fancy backgrounds and such. I am also exhausted because I've run 18 miles in the past three days, 10 of them this morning, and right now everything in my brain is kind of mushy and all I can muster is bluh.

The reason I decided to do this is mostly because over the past 18 months I have been on an epic journey to better myself through improving my health. As of late, a lot of people in my life have been asking me, "how did you do it?", and I'm hoping that writing this in exhausting detail will answer those questions. Also, I like to write, and I hope that if people are actually reading this, from time to time they will be able to put up with random streams of consciousness about nothing in particular that I need to put in writing. My Facebook friends know what I'm talking about.

To start at the beginning, for the vast majority of my life, I was really really fat, and one fateful day 18 months ago, I realized that I needed to do something about it or suffer the consequences. What would those be, you ask? The most well publicized of course, are high risk for heart disease and diabetes and other really bad health things that make you dead before you want to be. But personally, it was the "little things", like knowing that every time I went to a restaurant I was going to have to ask for a table with chairs because I couldn't squeeze my giant ass into a booth, or hoping when I went to the movies that it wouldn't be the old fashioned bucket seats because I would again have issues squeezing in the aforementioned giant ass. It was not being able to go on roller coasters because the bar wouldn't go down over my gut. It was asking for a "seat belt extender" on airplanes. It was getting winded going up a flight of stairs. It was going to the "plus size" store and grabbing stuff off the rack, never trying anything on because it was just going to look like a Hefty bag anyway. I could go on and on, but I'm starting to get depressed.

Many of us go through life wishing we could be better than we are. I always wanted to be fit. Not thin. Not skinny. Just "normal". You see, from the age of 12 I was heavy. First pudgy, then chubby, then just plain fat. But, knowing it would take a lot of work and discipline to become my ideal, I told myself for many years that it was impossible, that I had too much going against me, that I was destined to always be fat. I deluded myself by deciding I was doing all right the way I was and didn't need to lose weight. Even as I got bigger and bigger, I found ways to look in the mirror and be satisfied that I "wasn't really that bad". I was able to mask a large host of flaws until one fateful encounter with a full length hotel bathroom mirror and really bright florescent lights. It was one of those experiences where there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, no hiding from the truth. I was nasty to look at as well as feeling nasty because of my physical limitations.

From that moment on, for the first time in my life, I didn't run and hide from the truth. I faced it head on. I took the bull by the horns and attacked it. And at first it fought back with all its strength. But so did I. And the harder I fought, the easier it got to beat it. I won't go into detail in this first post, because I will do that over the course of many posts. Also because I'm really tired, irritated and my kid is hungry. Long story short, over the past 18 months I've lost 100 lbs, started an excellent fitness routine and completely revised my relationship with food. Please read the posts to come in the next few days/weeks/whenever I get a chance, I will go into more detail and hopefully be able to help people who are just like me, who know they can be better and just need a kick start and a little encouragement to get on their way.