Winning, Running, Injuries, Foods and Godly Bodies
Today I discovered I won a $25 iTunes gift card!!!!! All because whenever I tweet about my C25K workouts using the @c25Kapp, I am entered into their weekly contest. I WON THIS WEEK. How awesome. Just the other day I was feeling like a lame for tweeting my workouts (I find tweets of every checkin on foursquare, miso, get glue really super annoying), but HEY HEY now there are some benefits to this here tweetin. I dunno what I am gonna blow my iTunes winnings on, but it will probably be a bunch of apps or something.
I’m on Week 7 of the C25K workout and I am able to do the full 25 minute run for realsies. I still have these negative thoughts before and during my runs, but they are less intense now. What helps motivate me is that I have been training on the same path all these months, and all I do is reflect on the times when I could barely run the path. Remember when I couldn’t run longer than 30 seconds? Well now I’m doing 10 minutes without blinking. My pace is pretty slow, but I am still running nonetheless.
I have an ankle injury. Each day I run, my ankle hurts for the rest of the day. Kind of like a sprain, but mild. If I try to rotate my ankle, the muscles on the top side of my left ankle hurts. It usually only hurts the day of the run though. I started stretching it but my ankle still hurts from yesterday’s run, to the point where I’ve got a slight limp. I’m pretty sure it’s because my weight and the increased impact from running is stressing it. I thought it wasn’t getting worse, but today is the first non-run day where it still hurts and I am still limping. I thought about icing it. Sigh. I need to be careful, I do not have health insurance for this.
My diet is way out of control. I’ve been eating junk. Ramen. Pizza. Drinking soda. Pints of ben and jerry’s. It’s been crazy. So. I’ve been stressed. And strapped for cash. Though, I’m sure if I put my mind to it I could afford my fresh food. I’ve just been so stressed lazy and have been looking for comfort. I gotta get off this carb-mobile and back to my veggies. I buy my veggies but let them rot in the fridge. I’ve gained a little weight but not that much. Maybe 5 lbs.
One of these days my diet AND my exercise will be on the SAME page.
My church has this series starting this weekend called Bod 4 God….where we talk about honoring God with our bodies. Now, when I think of this concept I think of sex and abstinence. But…no, we’re talking about health here. So for the next 6 weeks, my pastor(s) are going to be teaching what the Bible says about health, and how to stay motivated:
- January 30 - D: Dedication (Honoring God with My Body)
- February 6 - I: Inspiration (Motivating Myself for a Change)
- February 13 - E: Eat (Managing My Habits)
- February 20 - E: Exercise (Managing My Habits Pt.2)
- February 26 - T: Team (Building My Support Team)
- March 6 - Seeing Myself as God Sees Me
I don’t think I have ever been to a church where they spent this much time talking about physical health. I may have heard Joel Osteen do like 2 messages on health before, but…6 whole weeks? This should be interesting. I see my health related to my faith in terms of keeping myself alive. How can I perform whatever mission God has planned for me on Earth if I abuse my body so much that I take myself out before I really needed to? I think about this a lot. I also watch too much Terminator. I look forward to this series, as well as checking out the book that I am sure this series is based on.
Until next time….
This makes me reeeeeally miss being an athlete.
(Source: mylifeontherun)
I need a little pain
I’ve decided to skip my rest days on the C25K workout. I may take a rest day here and there but to be honest, I keep getting this itch to run at the end of each day. It feels good to run in the mornings, but right around 5:30 PM I really wanna go run AGAIN. By then it’s dark and I don’t run in the darkness. So, I’m going to run everyday.
If my muscles get too achy or my joints start to hurt, I’ll stop and rest. I want to prevent injury but I think in some ways these workouts aren’t kicking my butt enough. It could just be the former athlete in me complaining but…I dunno I just remember what my body felt like during conditioning season and this is not it lol. No pain, no gain. I need a little pain.
I’m sure I could push myself a little harder during the running intervals. In some ways I am scared to push too hard because I am afraid I won’t be able to finish the interval if I go too hard. Finishing the interval takes priority over speed, IMO. During the last running interval today I pushed really hard and probably could only run that hard for 75% of the way. I had to slow down because it felt like my lungs were at the top of my throat and…I like breathing lol.
I’m still trying to work on my running form. I know it’s horrible. My hands and arms are all over the place, crossing my body every which way. We won’t even talk about what my legs are doing. For now I just try to remember to keep my chest/torso as open as possible so my lungs have space to breathe. Again, I like breathing.
Everybody and they mama was out running today. It was a bit crowded. I imagine it would be worse on weekends in the spring and summer. I guess this means I really need to wake up early for my weekend runs during those seasons.
I ran with my Rihanna playlist today:
Music snobs can say what they want about Rihanna and her singing skills, I really dig the beats on her songs and they’re good for workouts and running. And dancing. “What’s My Name” is the jam.
Jedi Mind Tricks and My Running Program
As most of you know when I first started working on my health, I was extremely hesitant (i.e. LAZY) about working out. I had been very successful with reprogramming my brain on the right foods to eat, proper hydration, portion control and eating on a schedule but…..excercise? I was not budging.
I think part of my issues with exercise were that I have exercised a lot in the past and didn’t see much progress in terms of weight loss. It wasn’t that I thought exercising wasn’t important. It was more like, I knew exercise wasn’t enough, nor was it the key to total and complete health. I knew that I could exercise my butt off but I’d still be hustling backwards if I didn’t get my food habits and nutrition under control. I knew all this because as a former athlete who used to (love to) run suicides daily, I was never a beanpole. And I don’t care what greater America says, exercising 3 times a week for 30 minutes is not gonna get you anywhere unless you also turn into a vegan.
Focusing on my food helped me see the light though. Once I realized a life of fatty foods, dairy, red meat, breads, refined carbs and sugar were all a mind game…I figured this whole anti-exercise and running thing was a mind game as well. You see, I never ever thought I would be fulfilled eating arugula salads and seeds everyday lol. And I also never ever thought I would be able to fast for 40 days on juice and water. But I did those things and I loved the results I had from pushing myself to do them.
And then there was this pesky exercise problem. I never thought I could run for very long distances. I also never thought I could run outdoors.
I started to see a pattern.
I don’t know why this is, but I have always had a desire to conquer things using a “mind over matter” approach. I have overcome the most difficult things in my life because I knew external factors could be overcome by beating any defeatist mindset I had, while putting the right actions into motion. I was like this when it came to high school, getting in and getting out of MIT (both are extremely difficult lol), and I overcame a lot of personal drama in my life with this attitude. When I tell people about X struggle I overcame, they’re amazed and often shake their heads and say something along the lines of, “Whoa. I could never do that.” And my internal response is always, “Yes you CAN! It’s just a Jedi mind trick or two away!”
So I figured, why not apply this concept to one of my biggest struggles: my physical health.
A few weeks ago I was reading My Life On The Run, and she was talking about training for some C25K program, which is a 5K training program for Couch Potatoes like myself :) I had never heard of the program, but it sounded interesting. She and I were both very inspired by Ben Does Life (watch this video about Ben in a nutshell), and I thought about running a little more. Jedi mind tricks were stirring in the pot.
About a month ago I caught up with my girl Tina in person and she had lost so much weight simply by running. She was running crazy like 6 miles a day or something INSANE (to me). She talked about her running program and I talked about my food program.
Mind over matter, right?
A few google searches landed me to the Couch to 5K program. The workout includes intervals, which honestly, are really hard to do unless you are on a treadmill or maybe a track, and really pay attention to the clock. I TOTALLY agree with the concept of intervals and changing them up so you can improve your endurance, but….how was I going to do them while running outdoors on an open path?
This site had some podcasts that could help with telling you when to walk and when to jog/run. I though this was better, but I am picky about my music. And that’s when I found my holy grail solution: the C25K iPhone app. This app would chime and tell you when to walk and jog, and it lets you load your own playlists and songs. That’s really all I needed! It does more than that, but I was sold on these two features alone.
I spent a day scoping out a path to run. I’m still new to the City in many ways, so I spent an hour walking along the East River to see what it is I am in for if I were to be running. Was it scary? Was it crowded? Was it too deserted? I had to get any possible fears out of the way so I could focus on running. Everything checked out for a 4 mile route, so I was ready to rock.
I’ve been running for about a week, and I just finished my fourth workout. The first one was kind of rough. My endurance for running is horrible, but what I’ve learned in the past is that your body will adjust and improve QUICKLY, no matter how out of shape or heavy you are. All it takes is like a week or two of consistent workouts, and you’d be amazed how your body responds to support itself. The human body is so amazing like that.
The actual “hard” parts of the program only last 20 minutes, and then it’s flanked by 5 minute warm up and cooldown. I am anxious to finish the program so I can get working on real workouts that challenge my distance running and improving my speed. But for now, it’s all about building endurance. I don’t want any injuries to take me out!
Welcome to my Fitblr!
This has been a long time coming! Finally, a place dedicated to the documentation of me working on my fitness, nutrition, and (sometimes) my spiritual well being as it relates.
I am currently down 37 lbs than what I weighed in August. I am sort of a raw foodist. Okay not really? I’ve got to give you guys an update. Anyway, this here tumblr is where I am doing all my writing and updating and documenting. I’ll be adding some more pages and info as I have time to do so.
Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going
Ahh. So, where do I start?
Almost two years ago I moved from Los Angeles to New York City. And then I somehow managed to gain 40 pounds. Who GAINS weight by moving from sedentary LA to fast-paced NYC? Me, that’s who.
I was never a skinny chick, but I was at least a former athlete who played basketball and ran track. As 2010 went by, I noticed I was breaking all kinds of scale records for myself. My ankles were hurting after a long day out in the City. Then my ankles were consistently swollen. It was painful to walk.
In addition to general discomfort, I was growing concerned about my medical problems. Two and a half years ago I had to have surgery to remove a giant fibroid (benign tumor) from my uterus. After gaining significant weight my Freshman year of college (roughly 30 lbs), I developed plantar fasciitis. I also injured my tailbone in college (fell in the snow), and it never healed completely. Sitting for long periods of time (like travel) hurts. I have mild anemia, according to my doctor. I also believe I was beginning to develop sleep apnea due to my increased weight gain.
Basically, my body felt like it was falling apart as the years went by and the numbers on the scale got higher. While none of these issues were life-threatening, I couldn’t help but wonder when was enough going to be enough? Would I have to be diagnosed with diabetes before I took my health and well-being seriously?
Recently I felt like I had an unhealthy relationship with food. It wasn’t that I was pigging out with food as much as it was I felt as though I knew what to eat and what not to eat, yet didn’t feel like my body would be satisfied if I went the healthy route. It was a scary feeling to have your mind thinking one thing but your body insisting on another. I knew I had to do something about this. It was all a mental game, and I knew it. I just needed to get my body under control.
So, I went on a 40 Day fast. Cold turkey. I know, that’s pretty drastic. I don’t have time to go through why I think fasting is okay, but needless to say I had a lot of things to pray about, including my food relationship. And so I fasted for 40 days this past September and October. All I had to drink was water, fresh veggie and fresh fruit juice for 40 days and 40 nights. Occasionally I had a glass of wine in social settings. I lost 40 lbs while fasting.
I can’t tell you how great my body felt after 40 days of fasting. It was difficult to do at first, but once it was over? My body felt awesome! CLEAN is the best way to describe it. While I was on my fast, I watched a lot of food industry documentaries that really got me thinking about how food business has helped get me in the place I was at (in addition to my personal decisions). I have plenty of conspiracy theories developed from watching these docs, and I’ll talk about them at some point.
I was a raw foodist for about 25 days post-fast and I didn’t gain any weight back. I also lost a few pounds. I was loving my veggies and while other foods seemed like they’d be tasty, I knew they would make me feel crappy. Eventually as life got a teeny bit stressful, and I went on a week long vacation, I couldn’t keep up my raw foodist lifestyle. Either the food was hard to come by or it was too expensive to live this way. So I took a week or two off.
Going back to breads/rice, meat and hard alcohol did a number on me. My body was suddenly puffy all over. I wasn’t drinking enough water. My ankles were swollen again, but so was my face. It was almost as if my body was having an allergic reaction to rice/bread/tequila/vodka. I still wasn’t eating red meat, dairy (if I could help it), fried foods or fast foods though. My digestive system still felt like it was performing efficiently, which was good.
During my week off from raw foods, I decided to start working out. I went bike riding for the first time in over a year. I did some sets on the Santa Monica steps, which almost killed me. I powerwalked at the beach. I just wanted to focus on getting my heart rate up and going.
Now that I am back from vacation I am into running. I used not being able to afford a gym membership (as well as being too stubborn to rejoin my old gym) as an excuse to not exercise. But again I realized this was yet another mind vs. body battle I needed to overcome. So, inspired by a friend who recently discovered the joys of running, I decided I would run. I live by the water, so why not?
I’ve been running for less than a week, but I like it so far. I really REALLY want to go on another extended fast because my body feels grody again and I want to get rid of these toxins (WHEN will I ever learn?). But, when I fast, I don’t exercise….and I REALLY want to get in the habit of exercising, and I like my current training program. So, I am going to hold off on a fast, and continue my exercise regimen. Instead I will focus on getting myself back to a 90% raw food diet. I think that’s comparable to my fast anyway.
I gained about 5 lbs while on vacation, but I cut 2 lbs of that already. My first weight loss goal is to lose 40 lbs. Then lose another 40 lbs. Preferably I’d love to do this before June 2011, which is when I turn 30. I think I can do it. This blog is the documentation of my journey.
And that’s the story in a nutshell.
