“Holding a grudge takes up too much space in your mind - it's like they are living in there rent free.”

         One of my friends had the above status on her Facebook page this week, and for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about it.  It completely resonated with me! Maybe it’s because the last few weeks have been kind of stressful at work, or maybe it’s because stress and anger often send me running toward the nearest bag of M&M’s. 

         I have shared in previous blogs that I really care what people think.  It is this caring that sometimes has more than one person or event taking up room in my brain as I relive each moment and how I could have dealt with it differently.  It is the one thing that makes my position at work a little difficult.  I have no problem presenting in front of a large group of teachers or parents, or doing a demonstration lesson in a classroom full of students I don’t even know, but if even one person is mad at me, or sends me a nasty email, it really upsets me.  It is one of the main reasons I would never want to be a principal.  I tend to dwell on things much longer than is truly necessary, which is not a healthy thing to do.  Ironically, I actually found myself getting upset this week that people were worrying and complaining about small things when life could be so much worse, and here I was getting upset about them getting upset.

         This got me thinking that often these things don’t just stay in my brain.  I often let these squatters move on to other part of my body like my hips, stomach, and toosh in the form of the extra food I eat to “make myself feel better.”  What is it about food that makes me think that by stuffing some ice cream or Doritos in the hole, I am going to feel better?  I often end up feeling worse because not only do I feel guilty about the unhealthy food I consume, but I continue to dwell on what made me run to the food in the first place. 

         On my journey so far I have been working on my exercise, on making healthy food choices, and on not letting the scale define me, but I have my work cut out for me when it comes to dealing with stress and anger.  I need to find a way to remind myself that I can’t please everyone and in the process I can evict all those freeloaders taking up space in my brain and other places they shouldn’t be.  I wish I had the answers to this one, but this may be an uphill battle.  So while I continue to run and bike my way to flabulous, I will be working on healthy ways to manage stress, so I can continue in the right direction on my journey to a healthier me.

        Most of you who have been following me on my blog and/or on Facebook know that besides spending time with my family I spent most of the summer either running or biking. I decided that I needed to bump up my exercise by adding a few days of biking to my running repertoire, or I was never going to lose those last stubborn pounds. And boy did I exercise—I ran and biked along the California Coast, around Murrieta and Lake Elsinore, and even swam and tried pilates.  Despite all this hard work, I did not lose one pound, one ounce, or even a measly fraction of an ounce.

          Last week I started back at work after having the summer off (one of the great perks of being a teacher).  While I went from school to school meeting with colleagues, I couldn’t believe how many asked me if I had lost weight.  As I began to think about this I realized that I had once again been deceived by the power of the scale.  I had to remind myself that in weight loss, as in life, there are many ways to measure your successes.

          One important sign I had completely ignored was that I had moved into a new size and even this new size 10 was not tight on me.  This should have been my big clue that while I had not lost weight, I had lost inches.  I was reading an inspirational article last week that gave me the best visual of the difference between muscle and fat—a pound of fat is about the size of a softball and the same pound of muscle is more like a baseball.  I have actually kept measurements from several points along the road to flabulous, but for some reason I always let the scale define my success.  This practice has got to stop.

          So if I change the way I measure my success in weight loss, maybe I should also change the way I view my successes in the exercise department. I have been a little down lately about my running.  Besides being sidelined by injury, I have not been able to improve my mile time since hitting a little over nine minute miles (for my three-mile runs).  Now I don’t plan on winning any races, I just want to finish my workouts faster.  It all comes down to laziness—I want all the benefits of running…just faster. The day I can run a two-hour half-marathon I will feel like I have won the lottery!

          Again, I feel I am focusing on the wrong thing.  Progress should not be tied just to time—my dad tried to tell me this six months ago, but I ignored him. After I ran my first half-marathon at Disney I spent the next two weeks limping and walking backward down stairs to avoid the burning pains in my thighs. Now when I run my half-marathons, I am itching to run two days later.  Shouldn’t I be proud of that huge step forward in my running stamina?  You would think so, and yet I continue to focus on the time.

          As for the improvements in my eating habits, I still have bad meals and even bad days, but here, too, I need to measure my successes in different ways.  I may still have an occasional bag of Cheetos, scoop of ice cream, or bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but overall, I eat far healthier than I once did. I eat just about every color veggie and fruit, giving me a variety of vitamins and minerals, and I almost always choose whole grain carbs over processed ones.  I am eating smaller portions, fewer unplanned snacks, and I have cut almost all artificial sweetener out of my diet. I think this is a huge success over my past eating habits.

        So as you strive to make improvements in your eating and exercise habits, be sure to look at your successes in multiple ways.  It is not all about the scale, and it is not just about the time.  And try not to focus only on the times when your eating is not under control.  How much better are you feeling?  Are you more energetic than in the past? Are you feeling fewer aches and pains after you exercise?  Are you sleeping better?  Making life changes is hard and these changes are just that—life changes.  It took us a lifetime to build up these bad habits…allow yourself a little more time to undo them.

         The heading to my blog page states, “The Flabby to Flabulous Files: Running to Better Health…One Step at a Time.”  Lately, despite my love of being outdoors pounding my joints on the pavement, I have been sidelined.  Running has been my go to recreation for the last year and a half, and I hardly know what to do with myself these days.  I bike with Sean, but I just don’t get the same high I do from going out for a good six mile run around the streets of Murrieta.  How can I run to better health if I can’t even run?

          I must say, I have been kind of down lately about the whole situation.  How can I inspire others to live a healthy lifestyle of good food choices and days full of exercise if I don’t even feel inspired myself these days?  Without running I have felt kind of lost. 

         As I have stated in previous blogs, one of the things I like to do to keep myself on track is to read inspirational articles.  I subscribe to several email sites like Hungry Girl that send daily messages, and every month I get my Weight Watcher and Woman’s Day magazines. This week I read a great article on ways to keep your diet on track. Their #1 “Diet Derailer” was boredom. 

         This got me thinking that maybe my three weeks off of running wasn’t such a bad thing.  While running is definitely my favorite form of exercise, maybe I need to really explore some different forms of exercise in addition to running.  Maybe the variety will not only keep me from getting bored…it may actually keep me from getting injured. I have been doing some biking and swimming, but maybe I need to try something more exotic like Zumba.

         And if I need more variety in exercise, maybe my diet could use a little shaking up as well. I have my go to meals like steel-cut oatmeal with bananas, but I have decided I need to broaden my horizons in the meal department as well.  I have been collecting new recipes over the last few weeks that I need to try.  Yesterday I even went to the grocery store and picked up some veggies and fruits that I don’t normally purchase.  Hopefully these too will keep me from getting bored.

         So I think the message of this week’s blog is twofold.  First, keep things in perspective.  Three weeks off of running is so small in the scheme of things.  Be happy with your small steps forward, no matter how small they are, but don’t sweat the small stuff.  Secondly, in order to stay on my journey to flabulous I need to add variety to my weekly routine.  I will try new ways to keep my body moving, make new recipes, and buy new foods or even new spices to keep things fresh.  Finally, be thankful for all the support you get from family and friends.  While variety is the spice of life, it is our tried and true friends that keep us going when times are tough.  Remember to thank those around you that keep you going in the right direction.
      

In memory of my football loving, organic gardening, semi-pro chef friend...we will miss your charming smile and sense of humor.  You will truly be missed!

        Wouldn’t life be wonderful if everything went exactly as you planned.  If it did, I would have had my kids on their due dates, I would be an amazing basketball player, and I would be a rich and famous movie star hobnobbing with the fabulously wealthy of the world.  Anyone who has ever seen my signature knows I was destined to greatness. 

         As we all know, life steps in and throws us some nice curve balls just to make sure we are paying attention. My oldest son was two weeks late in one of the hottest summers I have ever had to endure.  To the embarrassment of my sister, and the amusement of my high school friends, I was still on the JV team my senior year of high school—you could do that in the old days. And no, I am not an undercover movie star.  I am truly a teacher, one of the most noble professions around…just ask Matt Damon.

         I have learned that we don’t always know what it is we need, and sometimes we have to be pushed in the right direction.  My son came out perfectly cooked with ten fingers and toes and so developed he could hold his head up by himself in the hospital. Despite my lack of talent in basketball, I still like to go out and throw that ball around with my kids every once in a while.  Besides, my future as a WNBA star was over the day I stopped growing at 5’6”.  I truly did want to be a movie star but my life is even more rewarding now.  As a teacher I get to mold our future, our children.  Nothing could be more important than that despite what you hear in the media.

         Now back to the whole reason I decided to write this blog. Life has once again decided to throw me a little test.  Two weeks ago my nagging Achilles decided to flare up keeping me from running and biking. Now I know this doesn’t seem like a major catastrophe, but running has become more than exercise to me these days.  I actually feel better emotionally after running out in the fresh air.  It really starts my day off on the right foot, and the rest of the day I am filled with more energy.  The other thing is, as my friend Betsy so aptly puts it, “I run so I can eat.”  No exercise + yummy food = a setback on my road to flabulous.  Finally, running is a social event for me.  I can’t tell you how many friends I have made through running and how much I enjoy running when I have one of those friends next to me as I clock the miles through the streets of Murrieta and Temecula or any other city that will have me (thanks Sean, Steph, Kay, and Mary).

         It is how we deal with these setbacks that defines who we are.  While I have been a very unhappy camper about my running hiatus, I have been somewhat reasonable with my eating, which has meant very little change in the scale, thank goodness.  I have continued to plan out my running year including two mud runs and two half-marathons before the end of the year.  In other words, I am not giving up on myself.  I may be on a small detour, but very soon I will be back to running three times a week, biking three times a week, and making sure I keep my body moving and active all day long.  Thanks to my friends and family who always push me into greatness, I will be back on the road to flabulous in no time!