Welcome Back Welcome Back Welcome Back

(humming the Welcome Back Kotter theme song, of course)

Not really sure why it's taken me so long to update. It seems if I forget to update one day then I feel like I have to write the happenings for TWO days and I don't feel like taking the time. All of a sudden two became four and four became... well you get the point. I'm stopping this madness now before I get to far away from my promise, so here comes the update:

I have been keeping up with the low carb lifestyle pretty good. Haven't had any cravings. Haven't gone hungry at all. In fact, I am finding it hard to remember to eat. I set a calender reminder on my Blackberry to remember to eat something every 3 hours. For the first few days it really helped... then I started ignoring it.

Turns out not eating inhibits weight loss, who knew? (I did. But I still did it anyways.) So as great as I was doing the first week, focusing on eating, drinking tons of water, and ignoring my regular daily life, I found it hard to do all of those things and be a functioning member of society.

I helped my mother-in-law run some errands and do some work on a rental property. We were there seven hours and I neither ate nor drank anything the entire time. Fail.

The next day was about the same as the first and I realized that NOT EATING made me crave things I shouldn't be eating. Mainly sugar. In large, concentrated amounts. I would have sold a finger for a regular, full calorie, caffeine loaded Coke with a side of cheesecake.

Needless to day I found myself face to face with the ice cream freezer door at my local grocery store, where I almost lost it all. Thankfully, through God, because it was no will of my own, I was guided to Breyers CarbSmart Icecream and it literally saved my life at that moment. It's fantastic. Flavors are limited, but none the less I was thrilled it existed.

Around the same time discovered my ice cream savior I stumbled upon a little website with a couch to 5k plan that sounded so reasonable I thought even I could do it. After all I am walking a lot more than I used to. My 30 minute walks are about 2 miles so to stretch it to 3.1 miles seems like no biggie. The only slight problem is that I am not a runner. I am not a jogger. I am barely a walker.

It wasn't too far after this realization that I decided, against all common sense, that I COULD be a runner in 9 weeks. The website said so. Although in hinds sight they're probably talking about a couch potato who is maybe 20lbs overweight. Not a girl with almost no athletic ability, who never played a sport in her life, with the fitness level of a 95 year old, and who may or may not be 120lbs overweight.

I read the warnings. "Don't start out to fast you'll get hurt, then discouraged then not want to do anything" and I thought to myself "not me".

Day one starts out like this:

Brisk five-minute warmup walk.
Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking
for a total of 20 minutes.

HA! I can jog for 60 seconds! It's just 60 seconds right?

It gets much worse.

The time I should have spent stretching... I did not spend stretching.
Instead I spent an hour making a complex music mix, which composed of a 5 minute long warm up song followed by 60 seconds of a high energy song (for jogging) and then 90 seconds of a lower energy song (for walking), repeating for a total of 20 minutes, then a 5 minute cooldown. Cool right? If you're curious get it here.

So me and my unstretched muscles started out, and quickly realized that 60 seconds of jogging is longer than 60 seconds of anything else. ever.

I didn't make it 60 seconds. By my count I made it about 40.
I finished the 20 minutes though... barely. Substituting jogging segments for a walking and jogging about 10 seconds at a time.
It. Was. Miserable.
I was so hot that I got home and sat on the floor of my shower, with the water as cold as it would go for 15 minutes. After I showered I laid on the floor of my living room. Wet. Naked. On a towel. With the fan on. For about 30 more minutes.
I called my husband and admitted defeat. He kind of giggled and told me that maybe a 90 degree day wasn't the best day to start. Was it 90 degrees??? Oops.

The next day I hurt. I hurt bad. My feet. My shins. My body. I haven't been on a walk since. This is exactly what I was told would happen if I started out too fast. Shame on my pigheadedness!

Ugh.

Also, while I'm confessing. I ate cake. At a baby shower on Sunday. I didn't ask for it but it was brought to me and I "didn't want to be rude". It smelled wonderful. It looked beautiful. I had never craved it until it was in front of me. Then I devoured it. It tasted incredible at first... and then I felt sick. I'm not sure if it was a psychological thing or just a rush from the sugar/white flour that my body hasn't had in almost two weeks... either way it was a miserable feeling.

On the way home, I called my husband to confess. I heard a little disappointment in his voice... it made me even more ill. He asked me calmly why I ate it. I told him and then I heard him pause. He told me it was one piece of cake. Not to let it ruin everything for me and that it was Ok. Even though he spoke words of understanding the feeling that I had let someone down overwhelmed me...

It's kind of silly... I never felt that way when I let my self down...

This is getting a little too Dr.Phil for me so let me say that at the very moment I am wrapping up this blog post, I am also getting ready to put my walking shoes on.

I ate a great breakfast this morning.

Steak and two scrambled eggs, sautéed zucchini, and 24 oz of water.

I feel good.

Here's to looking good and blogging more often :)

xox