What does the title mean? It means that I finally decided to do Couch to 5k . I tweeted and Krissie delivered. Her post about how to get started was very informative and helpful.
I needed a fitness goal, so when she mentioned that she would be running the half-marathon in November in Huntington (my old college town) I thought to myself "I should do the 5k". That was two months ago. What have I been waiting for?
The 5k isn't my main incentive for starting this, it's motivation to start doing something...anything. I need a goal to work towards because "I should exercise because I need to lose weight, get healthy and feel good" apparently is not enough to pry me away from my to-do list and just do it. Having a schedule in my mind, is a no excuse zone. When Josh is involved there is even less excuse.
Yesterday afternoon I headed out on a mission: get a better sports bra, a stop watch and (totally unrelated) sunburst mirror for my studio.
Day One: 20 minutes. 5 minute brisk walk followed with 60 seconds jogging and 90 minutes walking, alternating the two.
It was 7pm. I put on my new bra (a tight xl mind you), exercise pants, baggy t-shirt, old sneakers and we were off. The walk started out up the hill on our road, I was panting. This is hard, I can do it, this is hard, I can do it. I am fat. This is hard, my legs are weak. I'm breathing heavy. I'm sweating. 5 minutes is up. Jogging begins. Downhill. I'm flying. My legs are moving at a pace I'm not familiar with. They feel okay, my breathing catches up. I'm still going. Somehow I'm jogging. I'm okay.
Round three of 60 second jogging and I'm moving in a fast shuffle, flailing my arms around saying to josh or me or the universe "I'm still going! I'm moving!". He yells from ahead "20 seconds left" "okay, I'm doing it, I'm moving" and then walking. Relief. It repeats and before I know it we are finished and headed home. 24 minutes total. Walking fast and jogging.
It was not pretty, it wasn't fast, but I pushed myself. I thought of Krissie, I thought of my future, I thought of myself doing this. I just needed to start somewhere, no perfect situations, no right times, not the right anything. Just put on your shoes and go outside. I need to believe that I can do this, and I do. Day two is Wednesday.
******
Eating.
Six weeks ago I started reading Women, Food and God with Josh and we're still only halfway through. The content is heavy and if you're open and ready, it will change you. Not overnight, and not without constant reminder. Roth speaks a lot about what we use food for: comfort, happiness, contentment, nostalgia, fear, sadness, joy, everything that we believe about our selves and our lives can be found on our plates.
It's a lot. And it couldn't have come at a better time. I will never diet again. Ever. Hear me blog? I am no longer a dieter. How scary and relieving is that statement? Scary because- does it mean I've resigned myself to being fat? No. Relieving because I have been using diets as a crutch. My diet tells me what to eat, what I should eat, what I shouldn't eat, when I should stop eating, when I should start. When my diet doesn't allow me to eat chocolate cake I can eat 2 slices today and always go back to diet tomorrow. Dieting gave me hope and direction. It was something I could trust when I couldn't trust myself. I punish myself with dieting as much as I punish myself with food. Balance was lost.
When I diet, it is either all or nothing. I have restarted more times than I can remember. I binge and say "tomorrow I will be better", "tomorrow I will diet", "tomorrow I will starve", "tomorrow I will only have protein shakes", "tomorrow I will only eat 1,200 calories". Tomorrow came, and sure I may lose ten pounds here, or 20 pounds there, but I set myself up to fail because I was looking to food to solve every problem I have. Fat being one of them.
I will lose x pounds by x date. Every year, like clockwork I need to lose weight by a certain time. I never do. I never will.
So what happens when you need to lose weight, but you stop dieting? You learn to listen to yourself, and it isn't always pretty. Sitting with the desire to overeat is painful and uncomfortable when you've depended on it for so long. If you're looking for food to do anything outside of nourishment, you will fail, every time.
One sentence that I repeat to myself every single day "if you eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, you will naturally lose weight" every day. In and out. Many days I follow this, and occasionally my old habits sneak right back up on me.
So what is HUNGRY? When am I full!? I fear hunger and I think a lot of us with weight issues do. We fear the next meal, we order familiar meals at the same restaurants knowing it will a huge amount of food, we fear missing a meal or an opportunity to gorge (because we have to diet again tomorrow, right?), but food is not going anywhere. If it does, we will be okay. It is okay to get hungry. I tell this to myself every day. I will not die if I miss a meal. I can get by on less.
What is full? I always thought that full was a feeling of pain, but then I realized that it is the absence of hunger. The absence of hunger.
I'm not micro-analyzing every meal anymore. Am I getting enough fiber, vegetables, protein, fruit, folic acid? I trust that I will lead myself to spinach when my body needs it, or a banana or cheese or tomatoes or whatever else.
So how do I stop eating when I'm full but the food is delicious? I still haven't mastered this. Over the weekend while painting I got hungry and asked Josh to go to subway for sandwiches. I had a foot long and without realizing it I ate the whole thing. It wasn't the end of the world and made note that next time I will put the second half in the refrigerator as soon as I get home. Sometimes it just hard to stop and we have to know that about ourselves.
Instead of saying to myself "oh no! I ate the whole sandwich, no dinner for me!" I let it go. I said to myself "eat again when you're truly hungry and stop when you're full".
We had mexican food on saturday. I sat down and ate about seven chips with salsa, I wasn't counting or restricting, just being slow and mindful. My giant burrito came and I opened it up and ate about half of the content (carnitas, salsa, cheese, avocado, lettuce etc.) and then I felt myself go into over drive. I starting breathing and counting. I stopped to think, to readjust. No judgment. I just needed to check in. I was full. I covered my plate with my napkin and I was okay with the decision to stop eating.
I'm okay with not racing to weight loss anymore. I know the finish line is there and I'm okay with knowing it will take a year or two instead of months.
Follow me on twitter: @thetokenfatgirl
Oh sweet friend. I am so proud of you. So proud. We are going to be ready for Marshall. It will be a great time. And you have inspired me too. Nothing is harder than getting started. I mean that. And knowing you are pushing through that will keep me running today. You wait and see!
I read the first 3 chapters of the book, and then I just couldn’t do it anymore. It just kept smacking me in the face. I’m not ready for that right now. I’m looking forward to getting back into it, but for now I’m just sitting in the notes I made.
We are doing this, girl. I can’t wait to hear about W1D2!
Thank you, Lorrie. Thank you for writing this post and sharing your thoughts. As I was reading I thought to myself “Lorrie has just typed out the exact thoughts and feelings I have been having lately.”
I too am tired of the guilt but even more so I am tired of the worry…the anxiety over the next meal and the meal after that and the meal next week.
Because of your honesty and your post I know that I am not alone.
Thank you.
Congrats on the C5K! I know what you mean about being afraid to be hungry. I would (and sometimes still do) feel worried about getting enough food during social events that I would eat huge amounts beforehand in case, heaven forbid, I get hungry. I used to do the same when spending time with friends who didn’t have an irational need to stay satiated. I would pack candy or granola bars and shove them into my mouth when my friend would go to the bathroom or something.
lorrie, this is something i really needed to read right now. thank you for always being an inspiration, even when you think you’re not. this was such an HONEST post, and i identified with almost every situation you mentioned (namely my need to make excuses so that i can tell myself it’s okay to binge).
i am excited to do the c25k program myself, and i’m hoping that doing so might help me to stop overthinking exercise and just get outside (or to the gym) and do it. i’m so proud of you for getting out there, getting started and pushing through (especially with the hills!) – keep up the great work and please keep writing about it!
thanks again for sharing all this! ily! <3
I’m very much in the same place as you…doing c25k and reading Women Food and God. I wasn’t sure it “applied to me” when I first started reading it but I can’t stop thinking about it every day. Cheering for you over here!
Congrats on starting C25K. I started it once and didn’t make it past week 3 I believe. I took a few months off and was compelled to start again. The 2nd time I chronicled it on my blog making it all the way to my 1st 20 min run (which was amazing because I never thought I could do it). It’s such a great program and while I stopped following it, it has definitely shown me that I can do anything I put my mind to.
That book sounds interesting, and probably something that a lot of women should read — I just added it to my library hold list.
Congrats on the 5k thing! I love to walk, but I’ve never been a runner.
Yeah for you and the 5K. I had the same feelings and excitement and fear when I started training and doing 5k’s. 4 years later and I’m hooked:) Keep it up.
I love your thoughts on dieting. If only we could learn that lesson early in our journey. Sigh.
-Single Girl
Between you and Krissie I think I’m gonna have to order this book and start reading.
I’m so proud of you dude!
An inspirational post. Thanks for sparking a great inner conversation to start in a lot of people. Myself included.
Congrats and best of luck on the running program!
And I was nodding my head in agreement on so many things you said about food. No more dieting and just being more in tune with the body sounds great to me!
I know exactly what you mean when you ask “What is hungry?” I constantly have to to ask myself “Am I really hungry?” I’m often just turning to food for other reasons and interpreting it as hunger.
Exercise is such an important part of over all fitness! I’m a very social kind of person, so I love, love, love the Les Mills exercise classes (you can find them all over the place). The music is fantastic and the teachers are always so inspiring. And I get to work my butt off with 20 other people also killing themselves at it. I lost 95 pounds going to their BodyAttack class regularly. It’s tough work, but I’m so addicted to working out now–and I used to hate exercise!
Great post!! I think eliminating the deadline was one of the biggest thing that helped me get started. I was in a Weight Watchers meeting and an attendee had just received lifetime status. As usual, the leader asked the woman to share her tips for success. She said, “It’s taken me a long time. Three years to lose this weight. The first year I was so frustrated it wasn’t coming off faster that I kept starting and stopping, losing and gaining. But then I realized that time is going to pass no matter what. These three years would have passed whether I was losing, gaining or maintaining. I made the choice to continue losing at whatever pace my body chose, and here I am today.”
This was the BIGGEST revelation for me. Never once in my 26-year life had I thought to diet without some sort of “end point” in mind. Because the truth is, it’s terrifying to think that your restrictive diet doesn’t have an end point. That’s why restrictive diets don’t work–they are inherently short term.
Taking off the timeline makes it real. Permanent. There is no point in time when you’ll abandon your healthy lifestyle and resume “life as normal.” What a concept!
In the past three years, I’ve lost around 50 pounds and have 30 more to go. I’m totally fine with that. I’m fine if it takes me two more years to get these 30 off. The time will pass anyway, and I’d rather be doing the work to make the permanent change.
Good for you! I did C2K starting this past March, having never run before; those first 60 seconds of running seemed to take an hour to pass…but it’s a great program (I just ran a 7-mile race this past weekend. I didn’t even finish last, although my kids thought that was a distinct possibility).
Interesting that Geneen Roth has a new book; I read her books in the 80s upon advice from my therapist at the time (I was in high school) to help me overcome an eating disorder. That took 20 years to overcome, actually, but I don’t diet anymore. Ever. At all. I will have to check it out.
Good luck; can’t wait to see updates on the running.
This is a great post. You sound so liberated!
This was a great post and I will come back later to read it in more detail. I just got Women, Food and God and you’ve really intrigued me. I can’t wait to start reading it now.
I was fat and very sick, then i found juicing,not just throwing crap into a juicer but i have spent 17 years developing my own juice that even cured my colon cancer back in 93, there is always hope for us fat people you can not eat your self to happiness and good health, if you flood your body with good nutrition you will lose all your craving, and you well look like you did when you were 15.
I love Geneen’s books, and love her tips and you’re right, it’s not easy. I haven’t mastered it, not by a long shot. I am reading a book written by Frank Bruni called “Born Round” — he’s the food critic for the NYTimes and talks about his struggle with weight issues. It’s fascinating and he basically says he finally concluded — eat the food, don’t eat too much, and exercise. It’s what we know but what we wish was simpler.
I started the couch to 5k just two weeks ago. Right now I am running 90 seconds, which just a few weeks ago I could not have done. It is getting easier. I will be excited when I can run 30 minutes. Hoping it continues to well for you – Anna Beth
Hi Lorrie,
Congratulations on your run! I really love your blogs. I know what you mean about cantaloupe too, (or rockmelon, as we aussies call it) – i feel the same about watermelon actually – I hate it in a fruit salad!
Hey,
Just wanted to say thanks for your blog! I started the C25K training this week too.
My blog is at
http://losinghalfmyweight.blogspot.com/ if you want to keep up.
Would also love to chat with you a bit more about the ads on your blog – how you do it, how it works, etc?
I wish you well and know that you’ve got company far and wide!
Jayme
I just started the couch to 5k as well and am on week 6/7. It does get easier, it gets harder and then easier. Way to go! It is great to have a goal and to feel motivated and strong. That is how I feel now since 6 weeks ago I couldn’t run for more than a minute at a time. It is empowering.
I love training for road races. I am a horrible and slow runner, but having a goal keeps me moving. You can absolutely train and complete a 5K! Just go slow – that is my mantra!
Lorrie,
I really like your blog! I am in the early days of my own couch to 5K efforts. It is so motivating to have a goal in mind! I see that you’re a big reader too–I highly recommend the books by John Bingham for inspiration and wisdom about becoming (as he says) “an adult-onset athlete.” Have a good week!
I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes because this is EXACTLY how I feel as well. You’re not alone sister…
this entry really spoke to me and I completely understand what you’re talking about. when did food become the enemy? the cheating lover that we can never say no to?