Wow, it certainly has been some time since I last posted. The last months have been a whirlwind of life challenges and successes, and a period of tremendous personal growth for me and my family. All in good time, I will share a lot of what I have learned, through stories that are mine to share. For many reasons, some stories just are not mine to tell, and therefore will remain untold here.
Honestly, I am thinking the focus of this blog may change a bit. I have thought often of sharing some of my life these past months here and all too often thought "Well, that simply doesn't fit with the theme as stated." However, so many times my title was very appropriate for the situation or thoughts I had wanted to share. "From the Glider Rocker to the Finish Line" really says it all - my life is complex, and a good part of my life is focused on bringing me, my children, and my family through the trials of life to that "finish line." Obviously, the "finish line" takes on many meanings! So, look for such changes to come - along with hopefully a design change that will make this blog more user friendly, and, honestly, more fun! I look forward to growing with the blog on a more regular basis.
As for the active part of my life, I have to say it has been pretty quiet. I have endeavored to support my children in their active pursuits, primarily dance and soccer, but my own training has taken a back seat to many other "big" life challenges. I am finally getting into a position to perhaps begin to train for my half marathon in May, although I *may* defer a year.
In September after my last race, I discovered I had a pencil size lump on the apex of my left shin. It was tender to the touch, and with a minor history of skin cancer, off to the dermatologist I went. On September 26 they took a biopsy of the spot. Within a week or two, the site NEVER healed and, in fact, grew to a size over that of a quarter. Finally, on October 26 I had surgery. The plastic surgeon was enlisted because of the complexity and the planned skin graft. After the surgery, I was told "Good News! We didn't have to do a skin graft!" If only I knew the true meaning of that. See, I had a 4-5 inch incision stretched to close over the top of my shin bone - and THREE kids to care for, who also had little feet, hands, and in one case, heads that would continually batter the site. Within a week the stitches had dissolved and almost the whole incision opened and WOULD NOT HEAL! I will spare you all the gory details, but let's just say it was horrific and I was terrified of infection. It was not until around Christmas that I finally noticed healing beginning after wearing pressure bandaging for a month! It is just this week that I finally called the surgeon for a last check with the hope that I can get back in the pool to swim. I miss the pool terribly - more for my mental health than anything else! I hope to swim Wednesday - please, let me swim Wednesday!
So, in short, I am back, well, almost back. Life has changed dramatically for me in the last six months, and I continue to fine tune my current life to try to get back into my personal fitness training. I look forward, however, to bringing this blog back to life, albeit perhaps with a more wide variety of topics!
Showing posts with label blog goals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog goals. Show all posts
Friday, January 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
A Look Back at Where I Have Been - It is NOT Pretty
I have been doing a lot of reflecting these past few days trying to convince myself I have come a long way and am ready for this weekend. It was interesting/scary/outright terrifying to really take a hard look at where I have been in roughly the last 15 years.
I went from 150something pounds, less than 10% body fat, a size 6/8, training 3-4 hours a day (yeah, single, no kids!) and feeling like my body could handle almost anything that came my way (except for perhaps those 26.2 miles of a marathon!) to, at my heaviest, 225 lbs (ouch, I actually WROTE that), Lord knows HOW much body fat, a size 16/18, aching feet and knees even when I got up in the morning from carrying all that weight, not being able to hoist myself up on a wave runner when fell off (that had to be one of the MOST humiliating moments of my life), depressed and introverted. It was at this time that I sat in a reproductive endocrinologist's office hearing her say "You know, if you just lost some weight, you might just get pregnant." I got angry, I was humiliated, I thought to myself "I have PCOS you B***ch, that is why I am fat, that is why I can't have a baby!" And, that night, I just cried. Looking back, it was partially the PCOS, it was the fertility meds, but is also was just such a deep hatred of all that was going on and of myself that led to a whole host of poor choices that manifested itself in my obesity (WOW, I just WROTE THAT!) and poor health (and don't forget self-loathing). There are so many things I can look back at and say "hmmmm, that was an issue" or "that was seriously a poor habit/choice." Those individual items are all posts on their own, and will be forthcoming.
But that Dr's words haunted me. I joined WeightWatchers at work and lost 22 lbs. And, suddenly, I found myself pregnant with my first little girl. I don't think it was purely a function of weight, but I do think it was one of the factors. I gained 60 pounds with my pregnancy. But once she was born, I focused on providing a healthy home for her. We were active (not training type active, but "family" type active), we ate right because, well, what I ate fed her through breast milk. And, surprisingly, by her first birthday, I was 12 pounds under where I started my pregnancy. By the time she was 18 months old, I was down to 160-something pounds. And, truly, it was all from a lifestyle change - not intensive training. That was 4 years ago.
In the last three to four years, my weight has gone up and down with two more pregnancies. But each time, for the most part, I have returned to the same lifestyle I had developed as a result of caring about my child's eating habits, and, for the most part, I have been able to control my weight within ten pounds.
I started training briefly after my second daughter turned one year old, saw some results, but quickly became pregnant with my son. Again, I picked up training when he was about 5 months old. Today I am down to 160-something pounds, verging on the 150's. I am once again a size 8. And, I FEEL good. But really, my training makes me feel great and strong, but is not the reason for my weight loss - in fact, I am gaining a bit as I gain muscle mass. The key has been lifestyle changes. Portion control, quality of food, looking at food as a fuel rather than a social event, controlling alcohol intake, cooking, and having a "family active" lifestyle. These elements are all the things I hope to share! All in good time, one post at a time.
For whatever reason, I felt it was time for me to put this out there. I know I talk a lot about my triathlon training - that is MY thing. It just IS. But that is not what this is all about - you don't need to do a Tri. [but if you want to learn more about it, bring on the questions, because YOU CAN do a Tri, just ask - and just believe it!]. But I want to share what I have learned, what I have seen, what I have suffered through and enjoyed, hoping that I can inspire others to have that "family active" lifestyles. Frankly, training for an event can come and go, but your healthy "family active" lifestyle is forever.
So, in short, I confess: all of the above. Thoughts and comments are more than welcome.
(WOW, I can't believe I just WROTE all THAT!)
I went from 150something pounds, less than 10% body fat, a size 6/8, training 3-4 hours a day (yeah, single, no kids!) and feeling like my body could handle almost anything that came my way (except for perhaps those 26.2 miles of a marathon!) to, at my heaviest, 225 lbs (ouch, I actually WROTE that), Lord knows HOW much body fat, a size 16/18, aching feet and knees even when I got up in the morning from carrying all that weight, not being able to hoist myself up on a wave runner when fell off (that had to be one of the MOST humiliating moments of my life), depressed and introverted. It was at this time that I sat in a reproductive endocrinologist's office hearing her say "You know, if you just lost some weight, you might just get pregnant." I got angry, I was humiliated, I thought to myself "I have PCOS you B***ch, that is why I am fat, that is why I can't have a baby!" And, that night, I just cried. Looking back, it was partially the PCOS, it was the fertility meds, but is also was just such a deep hatred of all that was going on and of myself that led to a whole host of poor choices that manifested itself in my obesity (WOW, I just WROTE THAT!) and poor health (and don't forget self-loathing). There are so many things I can look back at and say "hmmmm, that was an issue" or "that was seriously a poor habit/choice." Those individual items are all posts on their own, and will be forthcoming.
But that Dr's words haunted me. I joined WeightWatchers at work and lost 22 lbs. And, suddenly, I found myself pregnant with my first little girl. I don't think it was purely a function of weight, but I do think it was one of the factors. I gained 60 pounds with my pregnancy. But once she was born, I focused on providing a healthy home for her. We were active (not training type active, but "family" type active), we ate right because, well, what I ate fed her through breast milk. And, surprisingly, by her first birthday, I was 12 pounds under where I started my pregnancy. By the time she was 18 months old, I was down to 160-something pounds. And, truly, it was all from a lifestyle change - not intensive training. That was 4 years ago.
In the last three to four years, my weight has gone up and down with two more pregnancies. But each time, for the most part, I have returned to the same lifestyle I had developed as a result of caring about my child's eating habits, and, for the most part, I have been able to control my weight within ten pounds.
I started training briefly after my second daughter turned one year old, saw some results, but quickly became pregnant with my son. Again, I picked up training when he was about 5 months old. Today I am down to 160-something pounds, verging on the 150's. I am once again a size 8. And, I FEEL good. But really, my training makes me feel great and strong, but is not the reason for my weight loss - in fact, I am gaining a bit as I gain muscle mass. The key has been lifestyle changes. Portion control, quality of food, looking at food as a fuel rather than a social event, controlling alcohol intake, cooking, and having a "family active" lifestyle. These elements are all the things I hope to share! All in good time, one post at a time.
For whatever reason, I felt it was time for me to put this out there. I know I talk a lot about my triathlon training - that is MY thing. It just IS. But that is not what this is all about - you don't need to do a Tri. [but if you want to learn more about it, bring on the questions, because YOU CAN do a Tri, just ask - and just believe it!]. But I want to share what I have learned, what I have seen, what I have suffered through and enjoyed, hoping that I can inspire others to have that "family active" lifestyles. Frankly, training for an event can come and go, but your healthy "family active" lifestyle is forever.
So, in short, I confess: all of the above. Thoughts and comments are more than welcome.
(WOW, I can't believe I just WROTE all THAT!)
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Where do we go from here?
I know, I have been gone a LONG time. Let's just say adjusting to three little kiddos has been, well, a tough adjustment. We have had a lot of changes at home other than our little/not so little addition, too much to go into here, but they have really taken a lot of time to iron out.
On a good note, I have returned to training, with a 5K anticipated in July, my first official tri in July, a second in August, and possibly a third in September. And......wait for it......a half marathon on the registration books for May 2012! With all that, I figured I had better get my butt in gear if I want to survive this season! But, more on that later (much more!).
I want to start my return with some thoughts on what this blog is about - essentially, why am I here? I have done a lot of blog cruising for about a month. I wanted to get a feel for what is out there, what do people blog about, what do I want to blog about, and who else blogs about what I want to blog about. Make sense? Well, it did to me at the time. Also, I needed to figure out why having this blog was important to ME! Not that my current readers or future readers won't shape the life of the blog, but for me to stick with it it must be something that is important to ME and furthers MY training and life, otherwise, I just won't be able to put my heart into it and it won't be all that interesting to anyone.
So, to start, what is it that this blog IS?
On a good note, I have returned to training, with a 5K anticipated in July, my first official tri in July, a second in August, and possibly a third in September. And......wait for it......a half marathon on the registration books for May 2012! With all that, I figured I had better get my butt in gear if I want to survive this season! But, more on that later (much more!).
I want to start my return with some thoughts on what this blog is about - essentially, why am I here? I have done a lot of blog cruising for about a month. I wanted to get a feel for what is out there, what do people blog about, what do I want to blog about, and who else blogs about what I want to blog about. Make sense? Well, it did to me at the time. Also, I needed to figure out why having this blog was important to ME! Not that my current readers or future readers won't shape the life of the blog, but for me to stick with it it must be something that is important to ME and furthers MY training and life, otherwise, I just won't be able to put my heart into it and it won't be all that interesting to anyone.
So, to start, what is it that this blog IS?
- I want to be able to chronicle my journey to something I think is pretty great: achieving some fairly aggressive goals for taking my life back through physical fitness while juggling the everyday commitments and struggles of being a parent and being a working parent. I firmly believe that there are many many parents or even adults without children struggling with exactly the same things I struggle with daily, sometimes more so than I do, and I think I am beginning to find ways to deal with those struggles and I would like to share them with others.
- I want to write about and share ideas on items I am passionate about: finding health and fitness as a parent, with my family, and having that become a lifestyle that we live by without thinking about it.
- I want to motivate other people to take charge of their health and lifestyle and feel good about it in a way that is theirs to choose and suits their individual circumstances. I want to empower people with knowledge and the self confidence to do it now rather than later (or even before it is too late).
- I want to be held accountable. This is selfish, but writing here helps me be accountable. If I write it, I visualize it. If I visualize it, I WILL DO IT!
- This is not a self promotion, or worse, a delusional attempt to be someone else. I have seen some great blogs in my research, but I have also seen some that are an attempt to become something that one is not. Or attempts to live in the past, being someone one used to be. I have seen a lot of half truths, or worse, bold faced lies and I refuse to go there. If I can't be myself and be honest with myself, and therefore my readers, then this blog has no worthwhile take away message for anyone.
- This blog is not a judgment on others as to how they live their lives. I am in NO position to judge anyone for their choices. In my life, I have a rule: I don't judge others unless it has a direct impact on me and my children. So, for instance, I don't judge a drug addict, unless it impacts me or my children. If someone brings drugs into my life or my children's life, I have a right to be judgmental and prevent it. Otherwise, it is their choice and they must live with the consequences. Same here, I strive to be non-judgmental in my opinions. As I write this, however, I realize what a difficult task that will be.
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