Fat and happy and getting back up.

In our last episode, our plucky heroine forged ahead - alone, a little afraid - but determined, dammit.

Fast forward a couple years.

I'm still impatient and frustrated with working out.  I still haven't been so good at applying what I've learned to a lifestyle that's conducive to replacing this firkin keg of a tummy with a six pack.  But I'm better at life.  So much better that I'm fat and happy.  But not happy that I'm fat.

That's not embracing cognitive dissonance, is it?

Fat because I'm happy

I've been so happy though, that I don't always notice the outline of my navel against my shirts (all of which seem to have mysteriously shrunk in the wash).

Or the way my cheeks look extra full.

When you're this content with life in general, when almost every day is celebrated with stout and weekends call for a perfectly cellared belgian or flemish sour, when you raid your own raisinet dish with no shame, when your bearded half suggests we join Ben and Jerry to relax with some Trek...

...when it's this good, you don't notice how much more you've packed on a small frame until you see the pictures from his sister's wedding.

Or from the brewing competition.

Or the beer fest... or the other beer fest.

Getting Back Up

Just because I've tubbed up an eensy bit doesn't mean I have to be miserable and because of this, I'm embracing exercise in a completely different way.  I might not love it and it gets downright frustrating, but on the other hand, it's like brushing your teeth.  It's necessary if you don't want to feel gross.

And as much as I hate to admit it, I do feel better after I work out.

(Just like I hate to admit to my boyfriend when he's right and that I've been acting crazy and need to chill out [but thank goodness for someone who recognizes we're both human])

But I'm happy.

And I've worked though enough and learned enough that I know I won't feel any better after half a pint of half baked, or any worse without a pint of homebrew, but I will feel like a freakin superhero after I've killed some kettlebell HIIT.

Plus, my leather jacket is too snug and I want to wear my favorite shirtdress again.

Forgiveness

A large part of health is forgiveness and realizing we're human.

So I've barely worked out all month... Well, it's been a rough month and while that's no excuse, I'm still alive, so I can forgive myself and keep going.  It's not what you've done in the past, it's what you focus on going forward.

Of course we've all heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, so it's key to understand that in order to move forward after a hiatus or a misstep or a heartbreak you learn from it and apply what you've learned.

Acquiring the knowledge is easy for me.

Applying it, not so much.

But in any case, I went for a jog this evening, which is a step...

a few steps...

two miles, really...

in the right direction.

Knowledge is power

I'm just glad to know that after being away from it, I legitimately do know that I was better off during my crazy hardcore gym time. Granted I need to scale back rebooting myself and won't devote 4 hours a day like I did at my peak early this summer but having lived both lives for myself I'm happily returning with logical grounding and a better realistic spirit.

Being in shape is not just physical.

I'm trying to get in excellent mental shape too.

Without going through my whole life story, I'll just say I've had some rough times from the get-go, and I've had some amount of depression for as long as I can remember.  Throw in about 12 years of childhood bullying (creative, nerdy kids who get free lunch don't win popularity contests) and let's just say I'll be a regular at the Therapist's for some time.  But it is all good - everyone should have a neutral party to be totally honest with.  TOTALLY honest.  Otherwise it won't work.

I used to get frustrated pretty often when I exercised.  There are things I hate, like mountain climbers and lunges, because they're difficult for me.  I feel like I can barely master them and this makes me very, very angry.  Yoga makes me angry because I can't get my mind to be quiet, I can't sit still.

I couldn't ever figure out why all this should bother me so much, but then it dawned on me as I was doing laundry.

I like to be perfect at things.  If not perfect, at least completely awesome.  Perfect was how I stuck it to the bullies, got attention, reaped praise.  Perfect grades, mostly, but I won a couple ribbons at the county fair for baking and sewing, so there's that.

I am not perfect at working out.  I never have been, despite 3 seasons of cheerleading, 2 seasons of track, and a season of swimming throughout middle school and high school.  I'm not a natural athlete (unless you count loving to hike), so I've never put much into it.  I can't expect to be able to run for 5 miles, do 20 squats or a perfect minute of mountain climbers, or bliss out for an hour of yoga if it's not something I've done regularly.  You build up to it.

In hindsight, I think I've spent my life focusing on what I am great at to compensate for or hide my weaknesses, instead of working on those weaknesses and making them at least average.  As a result, I don't have a lot of experience honing and acquiring new skills.  It puts me outside my comfort zone.

All things considered, I do believe it's time to expand my comfort zone and embrace things I know I'm not great at*.  That leads to growth.

So what are you going to embrace?  What's holding you back?

*Patience is a huge one!  I'm very patient with others, but not with myself.  I want to be perfect now, have results now, get what I want Now, Now, NOW - instead of relaxing and enjoying the journey to get there.

Geek-A-Sauris Rex Wins!

One nicely mapped out adjustable excel guide to my personal endeavors for the gym and home gym alike completed! Not only is it designed well for using has a hand written map it's also loosely framed enough to be able to take my handwritten data collected each day and keep an electronic running record so I can program some basic charts and computations later on down the road! Hazaah! Geek-a-sauris Rex wins again!

Operation "Get With It"

As part of what I'm dubbing "Operation Get With It" I'm writing up a lovely excel spreadsheet to start tracking my progress from the ground up after being out of touch with exercise and the gym so long. My former trainer and all around good egg of a friend (Derek Nellis) wrote down itemized sets and numbers for me of weight/type of exercises I could tackle over 2 years ago. It gave me good focus and was cool to look back on beginnings. I'm ready to get back into continuing to help myself physically, since right now nothing is stopping me. Wish me luck on the reboot with hopefully some slow but positive gains. I miss feeling stronger and healthier. Cardio and strength training in T-3 is go!

Sad Panda Feels Outnumbered In Life

I've been completely off track for nearly 3 months now with the gym and all exercise in general. I feel like I know what the reverse of the phrase zero to hero is, I've gone from small hero to failing zero. I've gone from being an inspiration to people to falling down so far that I barely have the gumption to even get out of bed most mornings.

I hit a point of burnt out tired around mid July. I'd been training like crazy, pull 3 and 4 hour days between bike riding outside and the gym. I pulled 90 minutes on an elliptical one day and did an 11 mile bike ride later that same afternoon. I figured no big deal... take a couple weeks off to rest my laurels and get my head back on straight and give my body a little bit of down time. Then bam out of the blue I came down with an infected nerve in a tooth and no dentist available for 5 days of misery accompanied with oxy-c from my regular doctor (which made me ill feeling and slept most the time) just to get me through that time period they could get at my damn tooth. 2 weeks down route canal completed. Then I got back to exercising again for all of less than a week when a really nasty painful cyst appeared on my ass/upper leg that decided to spread. Staph infection treatment for three weeks.

Sigh... by this time I was really losing heart and slowly losing grip on what had become such ingrained focus and habit for me. I happily started back at the gym in a very light precept because I'd lost so much ability and stamina it wasn't funny at all. 20 minutes on an elliptical was doing me to the point of exhaustion. It wasn't a pretty feeling at all.

Only it got worse for me with my run of personal bad luck. On a checkup about the staph infection I got asked about what the doctor referred to as a rash on my face and I said "oh, that, that's just rosacea as far as I know" and he asked if I'd ever seen anyone about it. I said no and then he got this horrible worried look on his face and said it may not be rosacea because antibiotics would help that not make it freak out to holy hell and have my face bleeding and oozing puss. (Yes, it's a very severe skin problem at times) So he asked if I'd agree to having blood work and an urine analysis done, I agreed. Well leave it to clutzy me, I slipped and fell running to my car from the doctors office that day and, bam, that put me out of commision on the gym yet again! I literally went home and sobbed, not even from the pain but just cursing myself and how yet again things happened beyond my control setting me off the only little bit of personal focus I'd been able to manage.

Fast forward a week. Had multiple vials of blood taken, urine and off it was sent to a special lab somewhere because he said it'd be a couple weeks to get back the results. Well low and behold I'm feel better with my wacked knee, I get back to the gym 3 times... next morning I go down my staircase in the dark to get some early morning coffee made for myself. Well... clutz again I fell down the end of my stairs. Smashed both of my knees hardcore, completely tore open the old wound on my right left and messed up not only my knee cap but my chin on my left leg this time. Later that day it started turning many not so pretty purple and blue colors where it wasn't just bleeding through. I was NOT a happy camper at all.

Two weeks to get my knees to feel better again I did get back to the gym very lightly 3 times but this time I wasn't feeling better myself, I was very tired and just not with it. I met up with a boy I'd been dating who wanted me to go to Rochester, NY to a Barbershop convention and singing contest he was entered in so I did. He complained he thought he was coming down with something but I didn't think too much of it. I spent that first night with him and the next day was feeling very very tired, went through another night and next morning I was flat out sick, snot running, chest hurting, coughing up crap, the whole nine yards. Sunday I was glad to be back home by that night because I'd been having a fever run on and off that whole weekend and just collapsed. Next day I knew I had a checkup anyway to see about the results of my blood work ect. submitted previously. Two birds with one stone I figured.

Doc looked at me, and put me on a horse pill of an antibiotic and a steroid for my lungs because I was in worse shape than I though. Nice bought of pneumonia and a middle ear infection had set it. As if I wasn't a sad enough panda at that point, his look changed and he sat down. He said he was sorry but he didn't have good news about what he could understand of my results. My heart just sank deep into my gut and I hadn't even heard the worst of it yet.

He said he wasn't qualified to tell me much but wanted me to see a specialist if I'd agree to it but said it'd be out of town. I nodded and said yes, then he just said flat out he was worried about some of the readings and that it may tie into other issues like insomnia, fatigue, depression, irritable bowel syndrome and seizures ( from in my teenage years) and premature ovarian failure with the early beginning onset of addisons disease that I'd seen an endocrinologist for originally years ago. Hell I'm even starting to shrink in height with is scary in itself, I used to stand 5 foot 5 and a quarter inch and now I'm 5 foot 4 and a half inch even. He also mentioned that it was possibly going to be a very serious issue later on with my kidneys if it wasn't already but there wasn't anymore he could do for me personally since it wasn't his field. He said again he was sorry he didn't have better news but was hopeful that the autoimmune specialist he was sending me too would have some more tests they could run to find out better what was going on and start treatment for me.

Right now I have a very empty, extremely depressed, and scared feeling encasing me. Sure, the boy I'd been very hopeful about and felt good being around gave me the "I don't think I see you that way brush off" and that's made me feel like garbage on a personal but that's just small crap right now and not even worth worrying about with my time. Right now I'm really frightened of the unknown with my health. Seems like the more I want to figure out things and have them be better, the more obstacles I find and the worse things get. Right now I'm just very tired, very bleak and been fighting off dizzy spells from this pesky bought of pneumonia that's been kicking my ass, even tried to work yesterday and ended up passing out and was sent home after an hour and a half nap and food to get my grounding back.

I've gained weight, gone up a size since this summer, have no stamina, strength is shot to nothing for weights and I'm starting wonder if it's worth fighting through all the crap I've experienced and felt for years. It's hard lately to tell if the good parts that can be found in life are really worth it. I want to think it's the right thing to keep on trying to live and be a better person even when I get down and feel like saying fuck it and completely giving up. Usually I'm able to find a friend I can to relate too and sometimes even have something new enter in unexpectedly to help bring me around. Giving up and wanting the lights of life to be permanently out seems logical more often than it should, but when you come to the end of your rope it's hard to find something new to hang on to. I like to hope that I shall find what will make me truly happy for whatever time I do have left on this crazy non-nonsensical rock called Earth.

If anyone can find my lost cheer,energy and motivation... send it post marked. You have no idea how grateful I would be.