Wednesday, October 20, 2010

D-Day aproaches....or is that B (Breast) Day?

It is October 19th today....one month until D-day for the Breast Cancer walk!  Four more weeks of training....four more weeks of fundraising...I'm hoping that this whole experience isn't anti-climactic from all of the build up for the past six months. It's hard to believe that we started training in April.  Have I trained enough?  Absolutely not!  Will I survive?  I'm pretty sure I will due to one thing only....I have an internal tracking device that focuses on only one thing during any walk.  Once you release me from the car, I have only one goal....to get back to the car.  I will walk until I find it....I'm not even sure if I'm truly conscious during the whole time....I'm more like a racehorse running back to the stable. 

Eric and I walked 6 miles to get breakfast on Saturday.  We walked from our house off of Pepper Drive in El Cajon to the Omelet Factory which is on the far side of Santee.  It was actually a great walk....full of time to talk on the way there.  Once we ate and started back, Eric noticed a small and subtle difference.  I don't talk as much....and I walk faster!  Why?  I'm pointed towards home....my mind becomes settled on one goal and one goal only....when do I get to stop?  It may be a weird and disturbing quirk...but I'm counting on it getting me through the three days.  My goal will then, of course, have to change to....where is my tent? 

I also have another weird quirk when it comes to hills... I don't talk at all.  I'm only thinking two things...      a) breathe and b) take the next step.  I can walk for miles upon miles on flat ground.  Hills kick my butt...still.  I sound like an asthmatic on the way up.  I become a great listener...or at least have the appearance of a great listener.  I'm not really listening.   My mind is just reciting...breath...and take...the... next...step.  Loree has accepted this about me and doesn't tell me anything on hills that she wants me to comment on.  This is the sign of a true friend.  She accepts me for who I am...a lousy conversationalist at a 45 degree angle.  Thank God for good friends!

I'm excited to take on this journey with several good friends - Loree, Gloria, and Stacy are a great support system and a continual source of encouragement.  This walk has brought us closer.  Loree and I will be even closer still since we will be sharing a tent.  Once again... she is a good friend.  She already knows that I snore.  Even if she hadn't shared a room with me before, remember that she was next to me at my last Yoga class.  I haven't done a corpse pose since....

Life is good....I was a little down during my last post.  I think I've recovered.  I will most likely struggle with my weight my entire life.  We all have our crosses to bear.   I wear mine on my sleeve...or in my pants size, I guess.  It could be worse.  Dogs and children could hate me....(Loree, no comment here.  That kid has grown up and you no longer have that dog!).  I could be friendless...something I have never experienced.  God has blessed me with an abundance of amazing people to spend time with.  All in all, in spite of my ever present battle with weight, I have a great life.  And heck....if I ever get down to size...what will I write about?

 Love you all!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Gimme the Easy Button!

Five weeks have passed since my last post.  Enough time has passed for me to have yet another paper due...the paper related to my last post.  You know, the one about my fabulous weight loss....or lack of, as it seems.  Have I mentioned that I'm a stress eater?  Have I also mentioned that I'm in two classes, one of which is Nursing Research?  The Nursing Research class requires me to find two research articles a week, critique them and add an amazingly brilliant comment to six classmates posts.  My other class is a Community Health class - this would be the one that I wrote my weight loss paper for.  Now....I am supposed to write a synopsis of my past four weeks...and how I did on my goals....  I'm not sure if I go with an honest "I stink and will be fat forever" or something more like "I realized that my goals were very ambitious and chose to rewrite them to state that I will do a daily search of the most successful appetite suppressant" which I must add.... I would have met!

It's funny how we all want an easy pill...something akin to the easy button!  I wrote in a post today that if we could liquefy motivation and put it in a capsule, we would be rich!  Take a pill and you will suddenly be self-disciplined and able to make any change that you desire!  Hand it over, bud....I'll pay a months salary for it!  But the pills that I researched all came with either horrible side effects (think....Anal leakage!) or a list of reviews telling how much money they had lost on an ineffective product!  Regardless of what products abound, motivation still must come from within.  Mine is buried deep inside me...somewhere under a chocolate cookie and Taco Bell burrito, I'm sure. 

Tommy has decided that we should do P90X.  According to the infomercial, in 90 days I will have the cut, hard body of a 20 year old.  Apparently this product effects gravity and time travel!  Unfortunately, in my 20's, I was not a hard body....I was more of a fluffy body.  Not fat by any means but more voluptuous and curvy.  I am still voluptuous and curvy...or is it more....bumpy?  I went from curvy in the right places to where in the heck did that roll come from?  Soooo....with P90X, I will loose my 20 excess curves and become fit, healthy and slim.  Ahhh...then comes the catch....you know there always is one!  I have to actually do the exercises....not just watch the video...Not looking as likely!

I am continuing my training for the 3Day walk although I need to kick it up a notch.  I'm heading out today to buy some new shoes....I have learned that you don't go cheap when you're walking 60 miles.  Cheap shoes do many blisters and painful feet make.  I am also continuing with my fundraising which I think is part of my eating issues.  I've never been good at asking for money regardless of the cause.    So, I throw it out, get no response and eat a cookie.  Apparently, now my weight issues are the fault of Susan G Komen.  And we all thought she was this incredible, intelligent women that has raised awareness and funds for an incredibly worthy cause...

So what are your thoughts?  What has worked for you?  I no longer trust Internet reviews as for every negative review, there is a product developer writing a positive one right underneath!  I do...however...trust you!  Since I can't find the Easy Button, help me find the "with some effort, it may work" button.  I know that I have it in me somewhere....I have been here before and temporarily conquered the fat women inside me.  My thin person has seen the light of day at least three times in the past ten years....before my fat side swallowed her up again.  She's in there....I need to get her out before she disappears all together!  Life is good....fat or thin...but in the end, I'd rather be thin!  

Love to you all!