Tales of an Ambitious Slacker: The Turn Around: Fig Newtons and Coors Light

I handle fame by not being famous...

I am not famous to me.

~Bob Marley

Wednesday HUMP day sounds funny, but like an out and back run it marks the turn around to the work week. This week is an extra special week, it is my last day at the office since tomorrow and Friday I am offsite for some kick a$$ training. Also, today I got to be kind of famous, the picture below was featured on the front page of the Lens section of our newspaper. I am frosting a Dobos Torte cake that will be sold at this weekend's Jewish Food Festival. I look very serious because chocolate frosting is serious business.

In other news I have completed my basic training plan for the Nike Women's Marathon. It is only 20 weeks away and I have chosen an 18 week plan. It is pretty basic and was ~~stolen~~ borrowed from the NY ING Marathon training page. I am going to have to revamp it a bit and add in some speed work 2x per month for June and July, 3x per month in August and September and only 1 in the month of October (race month). I plan to place these on weeks that I do not cover more than 10-12 miles for my long run. I have not set a race goal yet, but my brain keeps shifting towards hitting the 5 hour mark. My last marathon was 5:35. This is a huge dent in my time, but I also think it is feasible if I have a quality training cycle. Again, no goals are decided, just thinking out loud.

So where am I today? Well it is June 1st, I love how the head of the month feels like a fresh start even when it falls in the middle of a week. I have not been exercising much, I only ran about 20 miles in the month of May and that includes my half marathon. My weight ballooned in May too. Sure I had gained 5-6 pounds from February to May, but the month of May added a few extra. I hit my top weight Sunday. I shouldn't have been surprised since my diet on Saturday consisted of Coors Light, Fig Newtons and more Coors Light and Fig Newtons. I decided I would ignore the scale Sunday and try again Monday after the cookie and cheap beer weight settled. Sure enough, there it was, 9 pounds. N-I-N-E. Wow, so that is how people get fat, they watch the scale climb as they continue to make poor food choices and not exercise. LIGHT BULB!

So I haven't exercised, but I have changed my eating...ok, so for 3 days I have changed my eating. Tomorrow and the rest of the weekend will be extremely difficult to be as good as I have been for 3 days, but I will do my best. I have offsite training, my training groups graduation, a birthday party and my synagogues food fair all lined up. Although in my three days of "being good"--without crazy dieting or food fad games--I have brought the inflated 9 pound gain down to 6.5, which is much more manageable. I am fearful to set a goal or deadline for getting back down to my happy 180-182 for fear I will fail, so for now I'll just keep trying. I will say that I would be amazingly delighted if I met that goal by my birthday, but I won't push it. While some people gain weight during marathon training, last year I hit a fantastic low (for about a week) of 177, so I know once I start training earnestly, the weight will come off a bit easier than right now.

Consequences. Positive consequences to not working out regularly? Lots of family time, lots of sleep and working too late, but getting a lot done. Negative consequences? ~~Nine pounds~~ 6.5, achy lower back, comfortable size 10 turned into "buttons about to pop off" size 10 and working too late.

Lessons learned?

Gaining weight is not the end of the world.
Losing weight while a confidence boost can be a little too ego boosting.
Because I can lose weight, I have procrastinated on the 5-6 lbs I gained in 3 months and let it turn to 9 in a matter of a week.
The best way to gain weight is to eat comfort food: Chili Colorado burritos and chips with cheesy gravy dip is good. This meal 4x in one week, not a good idea.
Gaining too much weight takes too much effort to recover from.
My Fibromyalgia flare ups used to be more frequent when I hit 200 lbs or above. Now that my body is used to the lower weight (180-182lbs), 188+ seems to be my new flare up thresh hold. Not a big fan of the lower back pain and joint pain I have been feeling these last few weeks.

Finding a balance. Geez, every time I think "I'm HERE!" "I get it!" something derails me. Ok, let's be honest, I derail me. I had a great year last year and this year it is all about finding a new balance. I started the year strong, I had a great schedule (or so I thought) and life happened. Now that I am off that schedule I see that while 1 1/2 hrs two nights a week for Krav Maga didn't seem to affect the family dynamic much, I now can't think of going back to that schedule because I enjoy evening family time more. I was also running a few times a week at 5:30 AM and I will probably go back to that here shortly, but I am really enjoying the sleep I get. I am less drained each week not waking up early too, but I don't know where else I can squeeze in workouts without taking away from family time. The downside is I am not exercising and my mental and physical well being doesn't feel as strong as when I am working out.

I am not a rare species. What do you full time working parents do to fit it all in? I am clearly not as young as I used to be and 4-5 hours sleep just doesn't cut it anymore. Guess those 9:00 PM trips to the gym for a 2-3 hour workout then sleeping until noon the next day just isn't in the cards for me anymore. Ah, the good old college days.

Why I Kick A$$: Duh, I am famous. Local paper is a pretty big deal around here.

Thankful Three