What I ate and what I didn't

On the birthday I consumed:
one glass of champagne
a bite of a donut - I normally would have finished the donut even if it was horrible but I couldn't help but think 'it is sooo not worth it'.

Today I consumed:
I had this box of Belgian chocolates that came with a birthday gift. I gave all the chocolate away except for one piece. Had one bite and then threw the rest away.

Tonight I run. Whee!

Day One million and nine - 26!

Today is my birthday. And the only thing I have interest in doing this evening is going for a run (one month until a half-marathon) and then watching a movie. I'm not even craving a cupcake or baked brie. Again with this amazing progress: You guys! I DON'T WANT CHEESE.

Day 113 - OMG and Work and My birthday

At the start of the summer before I started the PCP I didn't think about work. I mean, I knew I had trips coming up but I didn't think that I would be spending so much of my life in Washington, DC hanging out in the airport. But that is where I have been. Hanging out in airports, train stations and in my car and oh yes! It is also birthday time. I bet if you ask someone what keeps them from focusing on themselves and their health, their first answer would be family and then work.
I also cannot believe it's day 113.
Also, also, I can run six miles without wanting to punch someone in the neck.
Also, also, also, I continue to be amazed by my progress.

Day 104 - Svelte and clothes and such

So this is me the other night. In a dress I haven't worn in like two years because it made me look very pregnant. And I'm wearing leggings because why not?
I'm finding that I'm losing weight in a very...uh...interesting way: My legs, hips and thighs and arms have lost inches at an alarming speed but what is in my stomach is still there. Though much less but still it's all very jarring to notice that I can't wear the same tights I wore last winter because they are falling off my ass but the mid-section. Murr.

There is more coming about how I really feel about 'Peak Condition' and how felt at the beginning vs. how I feel now and what I think Peak Condition means. But for now a photo of me looking 'svelte' as Mel Sidwell said. I'm about to go speak at a closing session of a conference. In a dress a size smaller than I wore before. Joy.

Day 96 - Too early

I'm up at an ungodly hour for a Saturday for a run and a workout. It's also freezing. Basically I'm miserable, sober and cold. But my pants are too big. So there is that.

Day 91 - With Ease

I should be jumping for joy right now and screaming done from the rooftops but I am not. And I'm really ok with that. I am NOT in peak condition and that is the whole point of this project. So I keep on keeping on hoping that by the end of this - which is approximately three weeks before my first half marathon - I'll be in kick ass shape.

Over the weekend I ran a route I've run hundreds of times but this time was by far the easiest. There are hills and random spots of gravel and trees and I did it like it was nothing. Instead of lumbering along on the straight aways I was all head up, back straight and clipping along. It was an amazing feeling. I wanted to get to this point so I'm happy with the progress; an ability to run without feeling suicidal 11 minutes in. It was - dare I say - easy.

Shockingly I did it without music just to the sound and time of my breathing and pace. Which allowed me to follow and listen to my breathing and pace. It was far off from the days of yore where I would jog along on the treadmill but could only do 30 entire minutes if The Hills was on. And to do it without music? Ha Ha HAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Last week I stopped at the gym for a bit as per our homework and saw the scantily clad college girls flipping through In Style while moving at a snail's pace on the elliptical. I'd bet they would later drink their dinner (PBR or Bud light? Tough choice) but claim it was ok because of those 30 minutes on the elliptical. I didn't look amazing while in there but there was this sense of empowerment knowing how far I've come in this process. But I still have a hell of a lot more to do.

Day 84 - 125 Days

Back in July when I was going through a 'slump' - in quotes because not working out and drinking every night is more like an utter fail but 'slump' sound so much nicer - Patrick offered to let me continue on with the PCP for 125 days instead of the standard 90. And I quickly said yes. There was no hemming or hawing and thinking about it, it is the right thing to do for me.

I continue to be disappointed in myself for letting my health catapult down a steep hill. I allowed my emotions to get the better of me (work, followed by having my heart broken followed by two family deaths within five weeks of each other) and neglected to pay attention to the rest of my life. I ended up depressed (duh) (also I have bipolar disorder and so I'm depressed pretty frequently but the aforementioned events helped none of that) and eating at McDonald's because I was tired. And then there was that time I immediately left work and high tailed it to Cold Stone and ordered a sundae the size of my ass which would contribute to the size of my ass. HA HA ohhhhh. Then there was my new found Jack Daniel's habit which came from who knows where but whiskey is delicious. And then I ended up at 250 lbs. Clothes came with not one X but two.

I had to suck in my stomach to get a size 16 on and even then there was a visible line of demarcation on my stomach and a nice pouch that was formed. Basically I looked like sausage casing.

There were other things but I think I've divulged enough and I'm thankful that you cannot see me so I don't have to actually hide under my desk though I feel like it.

I have no clue how much I weigh right now except that it's a hell of a lot less than 250 lbs. What I do know is that an extra 35 days will be good for me and then a half marathon in November. There was something else I was going to say here probably something wistful and hopeful but I can't remember it now.

Anyway 125 days. I'm looking forward to the pain.

Day 76 - TWO WEEKS.

I use travel as an excuse to be bad. To enjoy room service and cocktails and late night BLTs after a long day of meetings. I would be thrilled to be at the airport early in the morning because that was an excuse for a McDonald's breakfast sandwich. Nothing says 'Good morning!' quite like a hashbrown.

The other day I was running late after back to back doctor's appointments and missing breakfast so I decided that my indulgence would be a quarter pounder with cheese. A #2 piping hot with some perfectly salted french fries and a diet coke to wash it all down. I salivated while going through the drive thru and when I finally wrapped my mouth around that deliciousness....well...it left much to be desired.

It was eh. The cheese wasn't even fully melted on. My french fries were fresh but they were still not to my preferred crispness. I felt gypped! I've been eating fucking peas all week and the one time that I can enjoy myself I get sub par fast food. I wonder how I did it for so long when McDonald's wasn't an indulgence but a way of life. I was busy so I'd go to the drive thru. It was Saturday. The Yankees were winning. I had a hangover. And I never thought twice.

In no way do I enjoy counting grams though I've gotten pretty good at eyeballing if I'm away from home. I hate jump ropes. I hate planks. I hate feeling sore. I hate knowing that I can't do anything else until I've worked out. I spend a lot of time cursing Patrick. But at least I take note and I care and I watch.

If I hadn't started watching I'm sure that my full on neglect would have killed me sooner or later. Besides I like that I can take off my pants without unbuttoning or unzipping. It's the little things.

Day 69 - "Do you want a trainer or do you want a little kid?"

Saturday I didn't get a chance to workout until later in the day due to incessant watching of The Wire. Start watching that show and I guarantee that you'll suddenly find yourself too busy to go to the bathroom. I ended up working out while babysitting my eight year old cousin. First we did some jumps and when it got to the leg workout she started losing her form and struggling. This after she had MOCKED me for not putting muscle into my workout. She asked how many I had left to do and I said well you do it until 25 or until it hurts. And she replied, "but it hurts after FIVE!"

***
I feel like I've hit a wall. I still workout of course but the cooking and the eating has become a chore. I keep envisioning french fries with ranch dressing but instead find myself in front of a pile of kale. Kale used to thrill me but now I'm just eh.

Day 61 - Eh

1) Mel Sidwell and I have been discussing our relative illnesses via Twitter. Mine was a reaction to medication that I knew would be over and done with after two days. And today I'm perfectly fine and about to head to the gym. Whoo.

2) Patrick mentioned what we should tell people who ask how we're getting into shape the interesting part is that I've told like three people. I haven't even told my blog readers and my God there is rarely anything that I don't tell them. I figure I'll tell them come November.

3) Why November you ask? Well I'll tell you why; it's because I'm doing 125 days of FUN because I NEED 125 days of this because Rome wasn't built in a day and I didn't gain 53 lbs in 90 days.

4) Here's a quick story: My mother never invites me over for dinner. I mean NEVER. So she just texted me with an invite for dinner. The menu: Fried chicken and potato salad. Why mother I do love fried chicken and potato salad but OMFG...I...no words. The second I got that text I came here because it's infuriating.

5) The really tiny t-shirt I'm wearing in my most recent PCP photo is really very tiny. It's one of those American Apparel shirts that I would never have worn um like 61 days ago because it wouldn't have gone past my boobs. Yay progress! I'm looking forward to seeing how it fits come day 125.

Day 53: Two conversations about one thing

Conversation 1: Me and my mother

Her: "Oh, there's some of that salmon pate that you like in the fridge at the house"
Me: "I can't eat it. I'm still doing that thing where I weigh my food"
Her: "Oh", looking dejected, "well can't you just weigh it out"
Me: Incredulous. "Uh, no. That's not really how it works"

***

Conversation 2: Me and two friends

I'm currently on vacation and we had been out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants. North Carolina pulled pork was my indulgence (ok, I had a half a shot of vodka earlier in the week).

Husband: "Look at that. Do you see that Ben? She didn't even finish all of her food. I'm appalled"
Me: Taking one more measly bite. I ate all the veggies (corn) but left the cornbread and the roll because I wanted to just focus on the pork. Ok and my beer. I had A beer. Shoot me!
Husband: "I can't believe you didn't eat that. That's a shame"
Wife: (after getting up from the table) "Ignore him. You look really great by the way"
Me: "That's what I was trying to tell you, I haven't had anything that heavy in quite awhile and that was A LOT of food and I'm not really used to it"
Wife: "Oh, well that makes sense"

I'm kind of in shock by what I crave now. I seriously used to dream about cheeseburgers and now I look forward to my milk times in the morning and at night and all the new fruits I've discovered. Like how I kind of cry when I run out of blueberries and pluots. All hail the pluot.

Day 48 - Duh!

This morning my mother saw me and noted that I look thinner. I'm wearing a dress she's seen dozens of times and each time she'll say something like "whoa, look at those thighs". But today she said I looked nice and didn't comment on my legs except to say that I look thinner.

What I said back: "Oh, thanks"

What I wanted to say back: "NO SHIT. I best be looking better. It hurts to walk and yesterday during my run I wanted to cry and one should never wince when laughing!"

Day 41 - Houston, we have a problem

The problem is a loss of appetite. I don't know if it's a normal thing because I'm not stuffing my face every five minutes just because I'm sitting here bored out of my skull OR if it's because of some crazy aversion to carbohydrates. I think it's the former; that once upon a time, a long 41 days ago I would just eat and eat and not really think about it and now I'm conscious of everything I put in my mouth and so I'm just not eating as much as I was before.

I dunno. Other than that my ass seems to be getting smaller. But more on that later...

Day 35 - All About Me

Yesterday I had a conversation with Patrick where he said, "I know you're really busy..." and I am really busy. I'm "really busy" all of the time and the "really busy" BS is starting to get "really annoying". Of course that isn't what Patrick was saying. He was commiserating and letting me know how I needed to go about involving the PCP into my busy schedule. And after our talk I was pretty pissed off at myself. The talk went well. The PCP is back on track but it was that awful realization that as much of a narcissist I can be, I've never made being healthy a priority. I've never put it first. Work or writing or going out with a friend have come before going on a quick run. It's like I'll pull any excuse out of my "really busy" repetoire to avoid working out.

I really need to stop that.

I also really need to stop plastering a paragraph with "really".

Day 31 - Backwards and Forward

So, I'm finally home. Oh my hell. I've never experienced such pure orgasmic bliss as when I first stepped into the co-op roughly 20 minutes after my flight landed.

Screw going to get gas or seeing my family, I needed some cherries dammit!

So I've been eating SO much better, in turn I feel so much better.

Remind me to tell you later about how I measured out and purchased all sorts of non-refridgerated items before my time away and then remind me to tell you what happened to those four bananas.

Also, I'm going back. To day 21.

Day 24 - So this isn't good

I'm on a 9 day trip from Philly to Chicago and then finally home for two straight months. It hasn't been going as well as I had hoped. It's the total road to hell is paved with good intentions and I had the best of intentions. I brought fruit on the train. I brought chicken and quinoa perfectly proportioned for lunch and then...and then...conferency things happen. I end up snacking and not eating well. But working out counts for something, right? I didn't schlep all of my workout gear through two states to give up. And so I'm not. But I cannot wait to get home and get back to my routine. My body is even rebelling wondering why I'm not doing what I was doing before. Once again I feel like a bit of a failure yet I know that Sunday cannot come soon enough. 

Day 14 - Mad

I brought my stuff to workout. Mat, resistance band thingies, jump rope. Only to be presented with a room that isn't large enough and then a gym meant for people with a wingspan of less than 5 feet.

I went back to my room and cried.

A few sniffles later I realized that I'm glad this happened semi-early on and now I know how to prepare for my next trip. To make sure I find a place to work out. Open space. Anything.

Next week it's Philly. While dripping tears onto my iPhone I mapped out the route to the Whole Foods from my hotel.

That gives me a little bit of hope.

Day 13 - Aunt Flo and other exciting things

1) (Men look away if you must) I'm totally PMSing. Every time I eat a cherry I imagine it's a crispy french fry dipped in ranch dressing. It's strange but anger over hemorrhaging for a f*cking week kind of makes me better at working out. It gets out all of my frustration towards being a woman. Which, as of right now, SUCKS.

2) I cheated last night. I had a quarter of a mini-pizza and a beer and then walked around sullen for the rest of the night. Because I'm a CHEATER.

3) I have 9 count 'em NINE solid days of travel coming up. I'm less concerned about exercise seeing as how a jump rope can be easily transferred from one city to another but a bag of boiled eggs? My precious half gallon of milk? The veggies I so lovingly steamed? Not so much. I have no clue how I'm going to eat. The good thing is that on the second leg of my trip, I'm travelling with a good friend who cannot eat gluten, eggs, or anything for that matter. So whenever we travel we end up eating healthy and at healthy places anyway. I think I'll be fine. Also fellow PCPer Gwen Bell will be there. I'm sure she won't let me shove my face with french fries.

a) I'm really going to miss my ultra pasteurized organic milk
b) Also my cherries

4) I'm going to DC for work for two days. I've packed my cherries for this afternoon during the flight. Four plums. Two bananas. I'm equally impressed and disgusted by the amount of produce I go through in a week.

a) It's a lot better when I used to be a shit load of veggies and waste almost all of them.

Day 8 - Wine counts as a fruit, right?

So, Joe Biden is coming tomorrow. Whee. Who doesn't live Joe Biden? He'd probably be a great grandpa what with the purchasing of cute puppies just because and all.

Because he is arriving and he's the biggest celebrity to come to Upstate NY since...EVER...there was a whole tickets debacle. I'll spare you the boring details and the part where I get slightly annoyed and just go straight to the point where I get really annoyed.

Apparently Joe Biden is like Bruce Springsteen so there was this mile long line and rain and freezing cold temperatures and slow moving people. Once I got to the (almost) front of the line lo, there were no more tickets. Of course not!

I go back to the office and make several rounds of phone calls and find out that tickets had been procured while I was out in the rain with icicles forming on my eyelashes. But no one told me about the tickets while I was in the arctic circle and so I return wet after three hours to a bunch of warm and happy people.

And I missed my perfectly measured lunch.

Irritated would be the word I'm looking for. Sometimes my work stresses me out and so I reward myself - many nights a week - with a glass of wine. But tonight I can't have wine. I can look longingly at the stored bottles - always keep bottles around just in case you have unexpected guests - and then walk away with my glass of milk and a metric ton of cherries.

This is a really long winded way of saying that I need to find a new way to cope with my stress. Something that didn't go through fermentation.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

Day 7 - Me against the jump rope

Last month I ran three 5Ks in three weeks and ended up shaving six minutes off of my 5K time. Nowhere near my personal record and light years away from any time I wanted to see flashing in public. Regardless, three down.

At the end of each race someone would say to me "Oh, you make it look so effortless..." and I would give a closed mouth smile and shrug to prevent my lungs from catapulting out of my mouth mid-conversation. Little did they know the huffing and puffing that went on between miles one and two. Or the way I wanted to tell someone to go f*ck themselves mid-run because I was tired. Or the time I was in the middle of a 5K and thought screw it, I'm quitting. But I never did and by the end I would just smoothly run through the finish like it was nothing and promptly get home to pass out. In the shower later, I'd be all, I can't WAIT for the next one. You kind of forget all the pain during the actual process and at the end you feel all bad ass and want to rock out. Which is why I always ended with a smile on my face a swift stride.

That's how I felt during my jump ropes the other day; f*ck this. Day 2 I think it was, when I tripped and almost fell over my cat. At the end, I again felt all bad ass and like I could do that 470 more times. Today seemed to be my lucky day as I did 500 (WTF?!) jumps. Never mind the anxiety that went into my trying to figure out how to count that high while jumping and the cat - seriously, this cat is like permanently attached to my right leg - and how long it would take but mostly the counting.

So I went into the jumps and did 100 at a time and took a quick break to catch myself and re-group and then go back at it. Of course in the middle I was all, "eff this and eff the horse you rode in on" but that's only natural right? But at the end it felt awesome. Perhaps it was the sweat and the adrenaline and the general feeling that if I can get through the next 83 days, I can get through anything.

I briefly flirted with doing 500 more.

Day 3

Once upon a time I had this boring life where I never went anywhere. I lived in DC. I had a schedule and everything had its place in my life. Two years ago I moved back to Upstate NY for my career and was suddenly thrust from not going anywhere ever to never being home ever. In a conversation with coworkers with the same hectic schedule as I we women hemmed and hawed over the pounds gained since taking our positions. The men lose weight and we women suddenly found ourselves with an extra 20 lbs.

Except I found myself with an extra 50 lbs. (and several gray hairs, but whatever). In two years of traveling around the country to the point where I can recite my frequent flier number faster than my social security number. I was explaining to Patrick aka Fearless Leader that I have this job - this life - where I'm always on the go. Never home. Always have my carry-on bag strapped to my hip. That sort of thing.

There are a lot of events and receptions in between. Room service beckons me when I'm on the ground. I don't eat mindfully, it's usually on the run.

I remember when it was fun. It's not anymore.

So the short answer for starting PCP is that who gives a damn if I'm busy. Everyone is busy. And I can't use "busy" as my excuse for being lackadaisical with my health anymore.

Like I told Patrick when he asked if I was sure: "It's do or die. Shit or get off the pot time". But between you and me, I don't want to know what might happen if I don't get in control soon. I'm doing this because I'm starting to get a little terrified for me.

It's Heather Time!

Hey everyone, this is where Heather will share her journey to Peak Condition!