Three Years of Imperfection

Last weekend was challenging, for a number of reasons. First was Saturday’s run.  What made it challenging?  Um…this…

The picture was taken at 10:30am, after Jamie and I finished our run, but it was like that when we started around 9:30—80 degrees with a dewpoint of 71! That was some hot, juicy air, and it was positively miserable to run in.  But we did!  I ran four (hot, sweaty) miles, and then I went in for a 10 minute break before Jamie and I headed back out to do his five.  We realized after about a quarter mile that we’d forgotten his energy gel (Gu), but it was so hot, he asked if we could just run 1.25, then turn around and go back to the house to get the Gu (and cool down!) and then do the same route again to finish out 5.  I thought that was a great idea!  The mid-way break was absolutely essential, and he took the time to stop and stretch a bit before starting up again.

He was so mad at me when he realized I’d taken that picture.  He was all, “That’s not going to end up posted somewhere, is it?”  Um, yeah. 😉  It was really hard to finish those last 2.5, but we did it, and Jamie even found some energy to pull ahead of me at the end.

I think he does that on purpose. 😛  I was actually surprised that he allowed me to take a post run picture.

He was really tired and sweaty, but I was proud of him for sticking it out for FIVE miles in that humidity!

It was so humid, in fact, that later that day, the storms came, and the rain did not stop for the next twenty-four hours. Ugh. We got over 2 inches of rain at our house in a 24-hour period.  Sunday was really bad…a constant downpour until the late afternoon.  I would’ve loved to just hang out in the house after church all day, but I had an appointment: I was the “official” photographer for a piano recital!  I have a friend who teaches piano, and she asked me to do pictures at the recital.  I was super nervous, because lighting in a place like that is always an issue, and I’m such a novice when it comes to those things.

The good news is, the individual shots turned out well, once I figured out how to use the manual setting with the fill flash at a lower exposure compensation.  Below is the composite I did to show my friend how the final shots would look.

That’s is actually her son, who doesn’t play piano at all, but just posed for me while I was getting ready; when she saw this, she was horrified at the way he was holding his hands over the keys, lol!

They had cookies at the reception afterwards, and well…you know I do love my cookies.  These were extra special—dark chocolate sea salt!

She said they were from a local bakery and were made with all natural ingredients or organic or something.  I didn’t really care, I just shoved them in my mouth as fast as I could. 😉  Unfortunately, three of those big, honking cookies found their way into my belly before I gained control over myself.  (Don’t tell the kids that I ate one of their cookies on the way home, thus the reason why they had to split one instead of each getting his own. :o)

The next morning, the scale gave me a slight reprieve, despite the cookies I’d eaten the day before.

That’s down .8 from the prior week, and I won’t complain, because it’s going in the right direction.  Unfortunately, that means that I didn’t meet my mini-goal of being down to my original Lifetime weight (at Weight Watchers) on the three year anniversary of gaining that distinction.  And of course, it’s nowhere near my lowest weight, 113, which I hit about six months later.  It’s not even close to my new, supposedly more-attainable goal of 120.

And, to top it all off, it has not been my best week for food choices.  You might remember last week I mentioned that Jamie’s hockey coach dissolved the team, which means we are once again put in the position of actually trying out for teams.  (Tryouts suck, in case you didn’t know.) Last week, I said I was experienced in this (it’s our third time doing it) and that it wasn’t really bothering me as much as it did the other times.

Yeah, well, I lied.  Hockey has consumed me for the last week.  We’ve pored over all the team listings, added countless tryouts to the calendar, and endlessly hashed out which teams our son might have a shot at making.  It has been stressful to say the least, and at this point, any chocolate within grasping distance hasn’t stood a chance. :/

But, that’s okay.  The reason it’s okay is because, although I’m struggling, I’m still three years into this maintenance thing, and I haven’t given up on it yet.  The truth is, I’m still succeeding at weight loss.  It’s not perfect, but I’m so much better off now than I was 80 or even 30 pounds ago.

I posted this on Facebook yesterday, my actual 3-year anniversary of making Lifetime.

I’m doing the #tbt thing because today is an important milestone for me: 3 years at “Lifetime” status with Weight Watchers. That means that I’ve not only lost 80+ pounds, but I’ve kept it off for three years! Has it been easy? Hell, no! It’s been damn hard. But you know what else is hard? Being overweight. That was hard AND miserable. Staying at goal is hard, too, but there are a lot of great things that go with it, like feeling good about myself, not cringing when I see myself in pictures, and being able to accomplish things I never could have imagined. The struggle is never ending, but so are the rewards. Thank you to all my family and friends who continue to support me every day. 

That picture shows me in the various stages of my weight loss over the last 15 years.  I received 38 supportive comments and 159 “likes” on that post—that’s more than either of my post-marathon pictures, lol! 😉 After reading all the wonderful comments, I felt a lot better about myself, because it helped me realize that no matter how far I feel from my goal at this moment, I’ve still come a long way!

Last night, I had a hard time sleeping (hockey is keeping me up at night right now), and when the alarm went off at 4:40am, I realized I had only gotten about 5 ½  hours of sleep, and that just didn’t feel like enough. So, it was another one of those rare times when I skipped a run.  And of course, as always happens, the guilt and disappointment ate away at me all day.  That, on top of the hockey stress, had me very cranky by the time I got home.  I wanted to just go to bed, but instead, I told Jamie I was going for a run.  He immediately said, “Can I bike ride alongside you?”  I was surprised, because he has to run 5.5 miles tomorrow morning, and he’s had extra work this week due to the tryouts, but he assured me he would be fine.

So, down the road we went, a mile and a half down and back.  As I ran, he rode his bike leisurely, and we talked about hockey.  I gave him options, and he gave me his opinions.  I ran at a moderate pace to start (10:50ish), but for the last mile, I really turned it on, and with Jamie’s encouragement, I managed to finish with a 9:41.  Considering I was running directly into 15 mph winds at that point, I was pretty pleased.  Jamie even said he was proud of me. 🙂

There are so many things different about my life now that I’ve lost the weight, and that run was a perfect example.  Not only did it help me clear my head and improve my attitude, it also gave me a chance to bond with my son while giving both of us some physical benefits.  That 200+ pound girl you see at left in the picture above could have never done that!

No, it definitely hasn’t been a perfect three years, but “perfect” isn’t required.  Just commitment.  And I’m happy to say that I’ve got that one in abundance. 🙂  Happy “Lifetime-Birthday” to me! 😀

Thanks for reading!