Week 13, Day 3. Has it really gone that fast?

It's 9:31pm and I am writing a quick post to say that I am determined to catch up on my sleep tonight. I feel totally back on track with the program, and the only thing that is making it difficult is my sleep schedule.

So, I took two Advil PMs and my plan is to peruse this magazine (which is probably going to be published at the end of this post) before I visualize my success.

Today I had a great day, I ate clean, except for a cup of coffee (convinced myself I needed it because I woke up groggy). At 5:30pm, I did Amy's Peak Your Physique class, and I really tried to squeeze everything I could out of my body.

Tomorrow, Amy already gave me a plan for my before-breakfast workout. Tomorrow I am totally going to make this happen. 6am wake up!

Week 13, Day One! Visualization.

Today was a good day. I went to bed thinking about my goal...fitness competition...and I woke up thinking about it, too!

Unfortunately, I got really terrible sleep.  I took a nap earlier in the evening because I was so tired, and off course I couldn't wake up out of it. So, I didn't fall asleep until maybe 2:30am, and I let mt alarm go off from 7am to 8:20am. I see a familiar habit starting again. 

I used to constantly wake up with just enough time to wash my face, brush my teeth and run out the dour for work.  It's not something I want to slip back into.

So tonight, I am going to make it easy for me to accomplish this goal:
Run up fraser hill 20 times before breakfast.

In order to do that, I need to GO TO BED!  It's probably the thing I do the least-go to bed on time.

This visualization exercise just had me so excited and filled with energy, not just for this goal, but for all my wild dreams.

For example, today I started thinking about finding ways to make $16,000 do I can go on a STAR trip with Martha Beck.

Anyway, before I go off to bed, here's what I'm able to imagine my abs looking like soon:

I hope that image inserted itself in the right place.

Soon, I will be able to envision my abs looking like this:

Oh, and I also need to work on running a little more because I want to run in the Women's Resource Center's 5K on September 18th and I want it to be the best time I've ever had. Since I have 3 weeks to work toward it, and I've been doing more hill work, I should be able to do it. My fastest time might be 28 minutes, so it's not like I am a speed demon by any stretch.

Alright! Those are my goals. Goodnight!

Week 12, Day 7. Waning motivation? Amy says no way!

I really haven't been blogging.

The past week and a half has been incredibly stressful. I've been trying to get paperwork finalized for moving into a new apartment, I've been working more at Green Bowl, and some situations that are work-related have had me gripped with raging headaches every weekday since I wrote last.
I also had contact with at least one person whose very presence fills me with shameful, guilty, and frustrating feelings.
All that threw me into a funk that I am just now dragging myself out of.

I happened to mention to Amy that, lately, I don't always feel so confident about the reality of my goal (seeing my belly muscles/being bikini-ready).

I mean how many times have women heard, "Real women don't look like that" or "Don't compare yourself to the women in the magazines"?

But but but...I WANT to look like the women in the magazines! My own version of it, at least!

So, in the back of my mind, I've had this default setting that I'm probably not going to have the results that I dreamed of.  Occasionally I would get these flashes where I KNEW I was, going to succeed at this, because I was accomplishing my goals and seeing results.

But all of that kind of melted into thin air after the past couple of weeks I've had. I was really feeling down about myself in general. Money was tight, and that always makes me feel like a failure.

Yesterday, I found myself in a state that my therapist would have called depressed. I was really feeling like a loser. All my thoughts were about how pathetic my life is, and that things will never get better.

Because of Martha Beck, I can never have those thoughts again without realizing that I'm telling the story of my life from a professional victim's point of view. And, other people might write it very differently.

So I started looking at the story of my life very differently. As Martha Beck suggests, be the Hero of your story! As I began to tell my tale from a  perspective of luck and abundance, I started to feel so much more capable and full of life.

For example, my first story of myself would have gone like this:

Poor girl, grew up in an abusive home, barely scraped her way through college in hopes of having a better life, only to work for low paying jobs that required her to work hard for the rest of her life, never really achieving anything more than almost mediocre.

My hero story sounds like this:
Determined from the gate, this young woman did not let hardship get in her way. She fought her way through undergrad with painfully little support and began working in a field that she loved. Despite the low pay, she continued and excelled at that work by finding a fantastic part time job. Once she got comfortable making ends meet, she started the work of discovering more about herself. She began setting goals and achieving them. She shared these successes with friends and began to notice that the people that filled her life were loving and supportive. She continued to meet people who stunned her with generosity, helping her along heer way. She went on to set wildly improbable goals, like competing in a fitness model competition and pleasantly surprised herself at the outcome of these goals.

The stories are both of my life, but told in very different ways. The victim story inspires me to lay in bed until it's over. The Hero story inspires me to have faith in myself. Find out what I'm capable of!

That brings me to today.

I mentioned my failure to believe in my goals to Amy, and she blew me away.

But before I say what Amy did, I have to say what she supported me through these past two weeks. I went from having a razor-sharp focus and unbeatable drive to accomplish this goal to self-medicating with food on a couple of different occasions. This is THE OPPOSITE of what I was going to accomplish. Eating my feelings was so far off the map of getting to see some definition in my abs.

Just, no.

Then I did it some more, probably because I was telling myself what a loser I was for succumbing.

Amy was awesome. Once, it was a celebration, twice, it was hmmm, what's going on here, and three times it was, "Betsy needs some help."  So, she helped me. She talked me through my next headache-induced meltdown. I realized I didn't need to self-sabotage. I COULD fight my way through this!

And I wasn't going to let myself blame my failure to follow though on anybody else. That's another victim story.

So, now I can say what Amy did today. She brought up visualization. I can't believe I haven't been doing that. It's one of the most basic pieces of achieving anything. So I'm starting that, morning and night, and maybe a midday recentering as well.

THEN, she brought up the possibility that I enter myself in a fitness model competition fo sometime in 2012. I was stunned. My original goal was to compete, somehow, someway. But I scaled it back because I thought, "I'm just not capable of that. That's crazy."

But here we go! I'm all about it, and it will give me a deadline to work toward, so I will have a much harder time falling off or forgetting what my goal was.

I think I did forget my goal this past week. I couldn't remember why I shouldn't have coffee, or why I should really stick to my meal plan. I forgot why I was doing this.

But here we go again! I'm all fired up and I love competition!

Tomorrow my goals are simple. Get up at 7am. Visualize. Eat. Prepare meals. Stop at grocery store before work. Eat on time. Take Kerry's class after work. Do strength training routine. Take shower. Eat. Be in bed by 9:30pm. Visualize. Sleep.

Week 11, Day 4. That was a rough one.

I haven't written for a few days, and it definitely shows.

I've had a really rough couple of days, and if I had been writing consistently, it probably wouldn't have happened.  Well.  I can't say that for sure.  But let me express what the last few days have been like.

I started on a downward trajectory sometime last week.  I just didn't think I could hang on until Sunday for my cheat day.  I think I've identified (and eliminated) one major multi-faceted trigger that pushed me over the edge.  Sunday I was very disciplined and tried to do my cheat day right.  I ate kind of what I wanted, within bounds, and yet, I went home that night feeling deprived.

I woke up Monday, and I just wasn't feeling like doing the work.  I was tired of being tired.  I've been getting interrupted sleep lately.  So, Monday I'm sure I exercised but not like I usually do.  I skipped my Kerry class too.  I just didn't think I could do it.

I still followed my diet plan.  Every day was getting gradually harder and harder to stay on my plan.

It was very much like sinking slowly.

I have a lot going on right now, and I was just drowning in it all.  I'm going to be moving August 26th, but the paperwork isn't finalized, my current place isn't clean enough for prospective tenants to visit (and if no one takes the lease by Sept 1, I will have to pay rent there AND at the new place), I didn't have the energy to do my dishes or in general clean up after myself.  My bills are mounting because I need to have a security deposit and first month's rent for this new place, and since my car broke down last month, that meant putting off any bills I could (car's still not fixed.  Running on 5 cylinders until I can pay someone to unstick the spark plug, which could take $1500).  I had this trip coming up for work that I anticipated being gone for a week, which would mean spending money I didn't have, and having to work THAT MUCH HARDER to stay on a plan I was barely clinging to in the first place, AND cramming the work I need to do for next week into this week, which is already overwhelming.  To make matters worse, the trip logistics (how was I getting there, how was I paying for the hotel, when am I going/leaving) was causing me an enormous amount of stress.

Then finally it happened.

On Tuesday, I woke up and ate my breakfast that I look forward to every day.  I had a relaxing morning and told myself, "Today it will all be fixed.  I can do this."  By three o'clock everything came crashing down.  My brother's girlfriend had gone into labor early in the morning and I was dying of anticipation to hear the news.  At three thirty, I could take no more.  I had a raging headache (I never get those) which was directly related to trying to organize myself for the trip, and I just had to get out of the office for a break before class.  So I did.

I went to Starbucks and ordered a Tall Mocha Coconut frappucino and a birthday cake pop.  I ate the birthday cake pop WHILE WAITING FOR MY FRAPPUCINO.  I drove back downtown, and on the way, finished my frappucino.  So, I stopped at Dunkin Donuts and got an iced coffee with cream and sugar. AND FOUR DONUTS.  I went back to the office, plunked back down at my desk and proceeded to eat most of the four donuts.

I have to say, I felt better.

Then I finished out my workday at 9pm and felt the urge to destroy again.  So, I drove directly to McDonald's *gasp!* and got a Quarter Pounder with cheese, and a LARGE fry.  I ate it at home.  Then I had some more taco dip.  Then I had some Oreos.

You see, my mission wasn't to eat to fulfill something.  I was eating to destroy all progress I had made.  I was self-destructing.

One of the interactions I had triggered powerfully negative thoughts that flooded my brain, and I didn't have the emotional immune system to fend them off.  They sounded like this:
"You don't deserve this."  Message: I don't deserve good things because of who I am.
"Betsy never finishes anything."  Message:  I am a quitter and a failure.
"You are spoiled."  Message:  I don't deserve the good things I do have, and I should feel guilty for having them because other people who are not me deserve them more.
"You are a brat." Message: I do not deserve to be loved or understood.  I do not accept you
"This is _____'s day, not yours!" (yelled at me because I've been accused of stealing the show, stealing friends, when I was never intentionally doing any of that.)  Message:  I am selfish and people don't like me.
"You are a troublemaker."  Message:  You intentionally cause problems for other people because you are selfish.
"You cause problems." Message:  You don't deserve to be treated fairly, and when you complain, it's nothing but you making life hard for other people.
"You are selfish."  Message:  And we don't like/accept you.
"Give her an inch and she'll take a mile." Message: I'm selfish and can't be trusted because I'm bad.
"Even so-and-so thinks you're a brat." Message:  Nobody likes/accepts you.
"Don't you think that's long enough (to stay here for a visit)?" Message:  You cause problems, are selfish, and we don't want you here.  If you were not here, the problems would not be here.

I'm sure there was more, but there was a general theme running through my head that I was nothing but trouble.  That I make bad decisions.  That I don't work hard.  That I am selfish.  That I don't deserve good things because I am fundamentally bad and a pain in "everybody's" behind.

This is where I invoke Martha Beck's "Everybody" theory.  We all walk around with an Everybody.  For example on that day, I was thinking, "Everybody hates me and thinks I do nothing but cause problems."  "Everybody" is the collection of messages that you've gathered from your childhood until present day that you repeat to yourself on a constant basis.

What's interesting though, is if I try to list 'EVERYBODY' who thinks "Betsy is a troublemaker", I will come up with maybe 5 names (of course, they all know me in the same context).  No one else in my life thinks that.  Therefore 'EVERYBODY' is not everybody at all, but a select group of people who think of me in the same way. 

So, I decided (with Martha Beck's help, of course) to choose my Everybody.  And I decided to choose the people who have said things like this to me:
"Betsy works hard at everything she does." Mrs. Joan Jannone (this was perhaps the most important thing anyone in my life has ever said to me.  I absolutely let it become part of my identity.)
"Betsy, I wanted to work with you because I saw your drive in class." Amy
"It's no secret that you work very, very hard."  Jason
"Betsy, I love you so much."  AnnaLisa
"You are one of my favorite people and I kind of judge other people by how you feel about them." (not putting this person's name on here because I don't think she'd appreciate it!)
"Betsy, you are like, one of the most trustworthy people I know."  Elise
"Even you, the most sunshiny and people-y person I know couldn't warm up that room."  Emma
"Betsy, you always made it ok to be me."  Karrie

Those are just off the top of my head.  Not to mention the countless people who have supported me throughout this journey so far.  People just offering words of encouragement and having faith in me. I needed to HEAR AND FEEL the messages that people were sending me that were based in love.  Cause the Everybody that I was hauling around on Tuesday did not love me.  In fact, that Everybody hated me and wanted to see me fail, because that Everybody did not believe that I deserved to be happy.

(Disclaimer:  This is not to suggest that I don't have moments where I absolutely tell someone what I think of them, whether it is nice or not.  I can be downright mean and exacting if the situation calls for it.  What it is suggesting is that those people listed above KNOW I do that and love me anyway.)

So that worked for a night.

Then I had the same trigger happen again.  And Wednesday night after work I went and got a Blizzard.  And ate some Oreos.

You see, I wasn't trying to satisfy an itch or a craving.  I was just trying to satisfy Everybody who said I don't deserve to have success in my life.  I was actively trying to destroy the progress I've made so far, because Everybody knows I don't deserve it.  Everybody knows I'm just a failure, and who am I kidding?

Somehow, through interactions with the positive people in my life who believe I do deserve good things, I was able to hear a better Everybody.  That Everybody didn't tell me how bad I was for falling off the wagon.  Didn't get disgusted with me for doing it twice.  Didn't tell me "I knew you would do that."

No, this Everybody said, "It's ok.  This is a lifelong journey.  You'll have days like this.  You can get back on.  You can do this."

So, today, I had a great day.  I'm in a different place mentally than I was on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I still cheated today.  I had a coffee at 5pm.  I had a raging headache and for some reason, I thought a coffee was exactly what I needed.  So I drank it. 

Now, I feel back on track.  I am done cheating.  I have no doubt about my ability to stay on my eating plan tomorrow. I am not listening to the hateful Everybodies who want to see me fail.  I'm listening to the people who love me and show me encouragement.  The people who are kind and understanding.  The people who would never want to make me feel like a problem.  And I'm trying to carry them around with me as my new Everybody.

And you know what?  It's working!

Week 10, Day 4. I HAVE A 6AM WAKEUP!

Ok, short blog tonight.
I saw 136.6 today! I was actually nervous when I got on the scale...scared that I hadn't gotten something quite right, and that I was stuck on 137 again. But no! There it was, the number I had hoped to see so many times, on Thursday! That means I should see 135 by Saturday, if not before!

I was so inspired by my number that when I went to the gym I did my Pilates class AND did some high intensity interval work on the Stairmill. I really wanted to increase  my likelihood of seeing 135 (maybe even tomorrow, but that's asking a lot).

Today Amy gave me a supplement (BCAA) for short. Something Chain Amino Acid. She also asked me if I could do Fraser Hill runs at 6am, before I eat and carry on with my day.

I know (or at least I believe it to be true-i hope I remember this correctly) that you get the most bang out of your buck if you do your interval cardio BEFORE BREAKFAST. I had been slipping. Amy hauled me right back up to where I need to be.

So tomorrow, I am waking up at 5:45am, getting to the gym by 6am, warming up, and running those hills. The only tricky part is that I have to be ready to give a presentation at 8:30am. So...I need to be done with my workout and stretch by 7am.

I will have to be able to eat, take a shower, and pack my food for the day all by 8:15am, which is the absolute latest I can leave the house.

Looks like I'm getting up at 5:30am.
Goodnight!

Week 10, Day 3. Overcoming obstacles and familiar fears.

These past two weeks have been  quite the challenge for me. My allergies have gone haywire, and the only relief I got was from sleeping all day, and that didn't even last.

But tonight, I felt like I had a moment in time that changed a little piece of my identity.

I got up this morning for work, feeling crappy as ever, but I knew I had a full day of things to take care of. I didn't run before breakfast, I just simply got up and got ready for work.

Sidenote:
This seemed really bizarre and way too easy. I mean, before I started this exercise and eating plan, it was all I could do to drag myself out of bed by 8:40 and get to work by 9:00 (ok, 9:05...if I'm being generous). Getting to work was one of the most stressful parts of my day, I would inevitably not have time to drink my coffee, so I'd spill it on myself while trying to lug 3 bags and a laptop out of my car and into the building. Oh, it was a nightmare, every single day.
Now, I hope to get my bear runs in before breakfast, which happens at 7am, when I eat on time. So bear runs should start at 6am. (Sidenote in a sidenote: I want to try them again and see if I can do a better job, now that Fraser hill runs have taught me what my heart rate should feel like!). So, my mornings have changed drastically, and most of the time for the better. Now, ask I want to incorporate is time to write down the dreams I had. I should have time for that tomorrow. End sidenote.

Anyway, my point is that I woke up feeling alright, but my day wore me down very quickly. I was just dashing from one thing to the next, and when I left work at 4pm, I was faced with a familiar, ugly set of circumstances:

I'm home from work, and I'm tired,hungry, and I'm also feeling a little under the weather. Therefore, I don't know whether I should eat or nap before class, because I can't do both. And, I'm not looking forward to class tonight, because I'm afraid it will be more than I can handle.

In the past, I simply would have eaten a big meal and feel asleep on the couch, missed my class and felt a huge sense of relief about not going. The nap would be the best nap if my life, naturally, because I did that instead of sweating my brains out at the gym. But that sense of satisfaction and relief would be followed by a hollow sense of failure. I would involuntarily run through the reasons I hadn't succeeded at losing weight, and choosing to miss that  class would only be one thing in a, list of many. I would then start bleeding into all other aspects of my life that I feel less than superb in, and in general start tearing myself down.  As you might imagine, this never helped anything.

So tonight, the decision was different. I was going to class. There were no two ways about that. I told Amy I would be there, and I was going. Plus, I want in such bad shape that I couldn't work out. I just wasn't feeling energized or 100%. My section centered around: Nap? Or food? Of course, my first inclination was to sleep. It would have been such a wonderful nap. But then I thought, "I'll have to eat. That way when I'm done with class I can just go straight to bed if I need to." That was it, no time to spare. I just cooked my food and ate it. End of story.

By the time I was heading to class, I was starting to get really fearful. I left with plenty of time, and once I got there, I was moving so slowly that I was worried I would make a fool out of myself in class.

But, I was definitely doing something different. I was going to a very challenging class when I couldn't be sure I would make it through.  That felt very different than just choosing not to go. I can't say I felt proud of myself before the class started. It was more like I resented myself for being there.

However, I talked to Amy and told her what I was dealing with as far as the allergies and how they were making me feel sick and rundown. I was terrified that I was making excuses for myself. (There was a moment in high school when Richard Simmons' book laid out what you are supposed to eat for breakfast...and he mistakenly said "unless you're a lumberjack or a farmer, you don't need that much food". And lo and behold, I WAS A FARMER! So I needed *that much* food. When I explained this to my friend at the time, she gave me a look that said, "You can't be serious right now, and if you are, you're going to be fat forever because you refuse to face the reality of your situation and what you have to do to change it." Ok, maybe I read into that look a little bit too much, but regardless, at the time, I was fooling myself into a lie so that I  could avoid the hard work. I was creating excuses. And creating excuses feels terrible, and I never want to be there again.)

I'm terrified that deep down, I'm just not cut out for succeeding at something difficult, and any people who would love to see me fail will get to, because I've made it so public.

All that because I wanted to skip a class.

I'm glad it came up though, because it gave me an opportunity to build confidence, to be assured in the fact that I CAN do this, that I AM doing it, and that I am not likely to fail. I'm kind of kicking ass at it, actually *wink*.

Amy reassured me to just do my best, and said, "We'll just see what happens". That's pretty much my attitude too. All I can be sure of in this project is that I will learn a lot about myself. I shared with her that I have a fear of using the relentless allergies as an excuse, and it helped just to have her know that.

So, class began. I was feeling anxious. I did everything the best I could and tried to let go of the anxiety and just be in the present moment, instead of predicting my future demise-which will most likely create my future demise if I keep thinking it.

Before I know it, we're 10 minutes in and already sweat is pouring off my face. That was different, I was sweating more than usual tonight. After awhile, I just got into the groove of the class and concentrated on leaving everything I had on the floor, like they do in Biggest Loser Last Chance Workouts.

In the last 15 minutes of this hour-long class, I really found out what I was capable of. Amy had us do The Dynamic three times in a row, I think. This involves so much jumping that if you had told me I would be doing it (before class), I would have been filled with dread. But here I was, in the midst of it, trying to squat low  jump high, do plank jacks and pushups, do jumps with weights...oh man, it was killer. And I know I left it all there because I started to work to the point that I wanted to throw up. So yay me!

After class, I was so sweaty I wanted to take a picture and frame it. What an accomplishment! I had even gotten over my irritation that my bangs were so thoroughly soaked in sweat that they had been slapping me in the face every time I jumped our did a plank jack. It felt so freeing to not be bothered by that anymore. I definitely came to class feeling irritable and left feeling light with not a care in the world.

I also left with a stronger sense of how capable I am, and a better sense that I will probably not let myself down.

This "giving in when things seem hard" thing is a really familiar place for me to be, and I'm proud to say that tonight, I won the battle for myself, and I have nothing but rewards for all that hard work! No guilt, no doubt, no despair or hopelessness.

Instead, I'm filed with hopefulness, I'm excited to see the scale tomorrow, and I'm motivated to stay on my eating plan. I am also more confident that I will see these belly muscles of mine! What an idea!

I must say, before I go, that Amy also showed me a few quick tricks around the gym that I am definitely going to  work into my schedule. She is fabulous.