I have escaped the holidays with no weight gained! As an adult, that is honestly a first for me. Even back in my thinner days, I'd put on 5 or so but then I would be working out right after so it would come off instantly.
That's my victory for the week, lol. I did a bunch of
walking while home in Chicago. We went to the Brookfield Zoo Holiday
Magic light festival on Friday and I got plenty of steps in there! It
was so pretty - I think we might make that an annual event.
I can't wait to really start using our new Y membership. I found some classes that sounds interesting to me and that will work with my schedule. I can't wait to use the indoor track to do some actual running. I still haven't ventured into running outside in the freezing cold and on snow packed country roads.
I did get some Kohl's gift cards for Christmas that I plan on using for workout gear. I normally just work out in old shorts and t-shirts so being around the house in them is no big deal. Being in public is another thing entirely. My future BIL bought me my long coveted gym shoes. I know I will have a hard time bringing myself to actually wear them outside of the house as I want them to last forever, lol. He got me the New Balance 890 v3 Rainbows in yellow:
He also got me an arm band for my iPhone. Now I have to load it up with tunes so I can take that with me to run. He said he tried to get me the wrap around the neck/head earbuds I wanted but couldn't find any. That's ok, I will have to find some for myself. My ears are weird. The Apple stock earbuds fall out easily as do the skull candy ones with the rubber tips.
So it was a good Christmas for me. I hope you all had a good one (if you were celebrating) as well!
Here's a pic I love from the trip home. I had another good hair day, lol.
ETA: that was weird - I came back to check something and my first two paragraphs were jumbled. odd.
Shoveling counts as my cardio for the weekend right? I sure hope so because if not, well than I am in a very lazy rut right now.
I miss the warm weather.
Like, really, really miss it.
I have horrible lack of motivation syndrome going on right now.
I'm still doing well with managing my portion control so that is the one good thing. If it weren't for the sweets I know I'd see loss every week on the scale but as it stands, I'm simply maintaining my loss. I know that is still a positive thing but I know I need to do better. There really isn't an excuse.
I had a work event this week and I took these selfies to share with some friends and it surprised me when I uploaded it to facebook how many likes it got. K says that I need to shut up and do a better job realizing that I actually have been working hard and doing a good job and it shows. It's still foreign to me. It's weird to acknowledge the fact that you look better than you did a year ago. A year ago I looked like hell. At least I have the desire to continue this journey. There's no going back for me. I do not want to be the fat girl anymore.
Of course I'll share these here too:
Cross posted from my main blog There's No Crying in Baseball
I've
spent the last few weeks picking out the races I want to run next year.
I for sure will do The Color Run again. This is their 2014 Kaleidoscope
Tour. I am not sure when/where I will run it though. I might have to
shoot for Milwaukee or Green Bay because the Chicago date is 6/8/14 and
Amarillo is 6/7/14. The following weekend is my sister's wedding on the
13th so that might be tough.
On
top of that, the other June race I want to run is the Run for Their
Lives PAWS for Chicago 8krun/4k walk. PAWS is the city's largest No Kill
humane organization. I really love their organization and their
mission. I would love to be able to do some great fundraising for this
one. Last year it was the 9th of June and I'm guessing it will be the
same weekend. I think I'd rather do PAWS and move my Color Run to a
different city and date.
In
early 2014 I think I will aim to do the Shamrock Shuffle 8k. I believe
it will be held on March 31st. Somehow with a Wisconsin winter I will
have to figure this one out. We rejoined the Y and they have an indoor
track so I think that's what I'm going to end up using.
I
will probably run the Ugly Sweater again since K said he'd do it if I
want to again. My SIL said that she wants to do it for real next time
and not bail again. So we will see on that one.
I
feel like I need another run in there somewhere. After the Ugly Sweater
I could throw in a Turkey Trot or a holiday run but come January
10th-ish 2015...I will have the Disney Half Marathon!!! I can't believe I
am going to do it. But I am going to try my best to make this a
reality.
I better start both saving and running even more. And investing
in paper bags to breathe into. I foresee a ton of hyperventilating in
the next year.
It's only fair that I share some pictures to illustrate what prompted me to embark on this journey.
The first set of pictures fits into The Fit portion of this blog title. I apologize for some of the fuzziness of some images. I had to scan in and sometimes take picture of the pictures to get them in.
This was me ten years ago. Obviously not stick thin, which is fine with me. A little meat, softball quads and curves....but no fat, just fit. If I can get anywhere near this I'd be happy.
Oh, and politics aside - as I'm neither R or D - the last one in the first bunch is funny to me. My roommates in Orlando brought him from their home state of Texas. He was quite entertaining ;-) I love my boobs in that picture. My goodness.
In September of 2012 we visited my grandparents for a week. When we got back from vacation and I was dumping my pictures onto fb, I took a good look at a few that I thought would have been great. Except I looked terrible.I hated, hated, hated how I looked. I felt horrible about myself. I felt ashamed and depressed. How I could actually look like that in reality was so disconnected to the person I felt like I was inside.
Anyway, below is a little time line highlighting the lows I felt when I hit rock bottom (or top in this case??) on the weight scale. I suppose this is The Fat portion of the blog title.
September 2012
March 2013
First was our tour of Lambeau Field early in the month. I think I purposefully hid my chin with my scarf. Ugh, anything to hide that!
Then came Easter later in the month. Another, "Omg I thought I looked ok" moment. I'd love to say it was the dress that's the problem, lol. Unfortunately not.
Mexico for Mother's Day 2013
At this point I had already decided I needed to get serious. I was down about 10 lbs at this point.
June 2013
A random day that I was trying to see if I could notice any difference.
June 16, 2013 - The Color Run Chicago
July 2013 - Dallas
September 2013
Labor Day Weekend Door County
Color Run Encore
November 2013 - Ugly Sweater Run
So that's the visual post about where I was and am. I have a long road ahead of me I know. I just have to keep on trucking.
To be fair, this isn't really the start of my weight loss journey. However, I'm hardly near the finish either. I'm somewhere in the "mid-early" stages.
Some key things to remember throughout the journey of this blog - I refuse to censor myself. There will be a lot of swearing some days I'm sure. I also have a dry sense of sarcastic humor. Sometimes that masks pain and hurt and disappointment. Tone is hard to convey but I'll do my best not to be too crazy.
I think I'll break up these introductory posts over a few different days. Today I'll tackle the written part of my long back story short. Apologies if keeping it short doesn't happen. I'm wordy.
Who am I? Some of you might know me in real life. Some of you I've "known" via the internet for years - or maybe just months. But for those of you that haven't read my other blog and don't know the basics of me here you go. I'm a 29 years old. My husband K and I got married in July of '07 and we've been battling infertility for the entire duration of our marriage. I am a Chicago native but have been transplanted in Wisconsin for the last 6 years, 2 months, and 23 days. Not that I'm counting or anything.
From the time I was a young kid I was always involved in sports. I played softball through college - over 15 years in total. To say I was in shape would be an understatement. I was in the gym or on the field every single day for years. I was never a size 2. I never will be. At my lowest, I hovered around 150 lbs on my 5'4 frame - but it was a very muscular, toned 150 lbs.
When I hung up my cleats I didn't just drop off the face of the working out world. I jumped into an internship working for Disney down in Orlando. I was a lifeguard at one of the hotels and I continued to train, swim, lift weights, etc.
I came home months later nearly 10 lbs heavier. I thought to myself, "Well, I'm home now, I'll just drop it asap." But that never happened. As hard as I tried, it wouldn't come off. And I kept gaining. And my period all but disappeared. For almost a year. I went to doctors left and right. All they would do was give me a pregnancy test and check my thyroid. Both came back negative every single time. I know now that this is the onset of my battle with PCOS.
What is PCOS and what does it have to do with my path? Well, it has ruled my life for years now. PCOS is short for Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. I won't bore you with the details but just know some basics. It's the number one endocrine disorder that causes infertility in women. Some women have PCOS w/IR - insulin resistance. That would be me too. It sort of mimics how a diabetic doesn't break down insulin well. Some women have PCOS and are thin and stay thin. Some are are heavier and stay heavier. Some start out thin and end up...not so much thin. That's me again. Some women have PCOS but yet have no problem getting pregnant. That would not be me.
When I look back at who I was when I met my husband, I loved who I was then. Yes I was young (we have been together for over a decade now) but more importantly, I felt very confident in my looks. It's not that I thought I would be gracing the cover of People Mag's Most Beautiful People edition - it's just that I felt secure in my body. I felt confident in the clothes I wore and how I looked in them. Having worn the fit and the fat shoes, I can tell you that people do treat you differently depending on your size and what you look like. The worst part for me is that in my head I don't feel as big as I technically am. I still picture someone thinner. I can put an outfit on and think it looks flattering and then see a picture of myself and cringe.
So what made this attempt at getting the weight off different than all the rest? Simply put I just don't want to be fat anymore. A little over a year ago (Sept '12) K and I went to visit my grandparents in Texas for a week and i was shocked at how I looked in some of the pictures. I managed to talk myself into thinking that I was just bloated and there were bad angles. Easter '13 came and went and when I saw those pictures I cried. I looked terrible. I was embarrassed. That week I decided to make the change. I signed myself up for the June Color Run in Chicago. I had never run (or walked) a 5k before. That run turned into 3 separate 5ks this year! Last weekend was my final of the year. I'm currently down 23 lbs from my starting weight of 254 lbs. Ugh, that number was tough to write "out loud." But I have to make myself promise to offer full disclosure on here.
Up next I'll try to round up some pictures to help illustrate my story.
