Running 3 miles and talking about my current trainer, Brad!

Not that I am a big fan Arnold, but I am feeling quote happy today and do enjoy this quote: “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger It is safe to say I am focusing on not surrendering. So as the “Post Plan” days have continued, I have been a little frustrated. It is hard to find things that I am not having reactions to- it seems like most things I try cause me to gain weight. Meats of various types continue to be OK so far. I still feel like my body is fighting me the entire way. I have 46 pounds left to lose this year. I know that it is crazy to put that kind of pressure on myself, but I just can’t help it. Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t do anything “half way” so to speak. It’s all or nothing; balls to the wall; do or die; do it and exceed expectations or don’t do it at all sort of attitude with me no matter what it is that I am doing. So other than trying to eat well- and figure out what that means for my body- what else have I been up to?

 

I continue to do personal training at the gym, with my third and most recent trainer, Brad. I was paranoid at first (I over think things a lot) about him being younger, in his 20’s out of school/ how could be possibly understand me or all of things I’ve been through? Would this just be another person who thought I was crazy? These thoughts ran through my head for awhile- and he took over somewhere in February where I was having some difficult times. I was coming off of a great peak with my second trainer, Matt. I had been seeing great results and went to no results and everyone saying the evil “P” word to me (if you don’t know what the P word is, read my previous posts, I rant on about it a lot). I also started to have serious issues with food (unbeknownst to me). When I had my “check in” or measurements done at the end of March, I had actually gained a pound (not lost any weight in two months) and was working out 5 days a week, 2 hours a day, and did not lose any inches from my body either. I was seriously frustrated and confused. I thought I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing.

 

As you may have read in my previous posts, a trip to my PCP encouraged me to pay attention to foods that affect my thyroid, and read "the plan." In the past two months, since approximately March 30^th or so, I’ve lost 26 pounds- that’s not the total for the year- that’s just in April and May alone. Holy Shit! That’s 13 pounds a month??!! I knew that I lost significant weight while doing the plan, but I didn’t realize that I lost that much in the past two months. In addition, I lost 2% body fat, 3 inches from my left leg, 2 inches from my right leg (don’t ask me why it’s not the same for each leg I have no idea LOL), 1 inch from my waist (who doesn’t like to hear that?), 3 inches from my hips ( ! ), and an inch from my chest, and 2-3 inches from my shoulders. Wow. I know (and several people are trying to break the news to me slowly, and are breaking out the P word again) that I can’t keep up this level of weight loss forever. 13 pounds a month is a ridiculous amount and I am happy to have been able to do it and grateful for the help that I had. How long will I be able to keep up this level of weight loss and how long will my body continue to fight me before I figure it out?

 

For the moment, I have good support and help in figuring out the answers to these questions. Aside from my friends and family, I have a great personal trainer. And while I was worried that Brad wouldn’t understand me, and that frankly, I was worried I would be an emotional mess and difficult to handle. (Me, difficult, never!) Up to the point before Brad took over, I had actually cried and had a few mini meltdowns at the gym and several at home (that my poor husband can attest to). But, alas! No more tears to be found here! I greatly underestimated him, and he is actually I think my favorite trainer so far. I wrote a testament early on in my bloggin career to how good Brenton was (he was my first trainer and had a lot of convincing to do to get me with the program so I give him a lot of credit). But, I will say, Brad has really impressed me. Brad is very approachable. He has taken extra time to show me how to do things correctly and make up workouts for me to do when I am not personal training with him.  He encourages me on and off the clock and I never feel like I am bothering him when I ask him a question. I will also say that he safely but effectively pushes me harder than any of my previous trainers and has helped me to realize my full potential.  I didn’t try to hard sometimes with my previous trainers, and if they didn’t catch me, I didn’t try to make it more difficult. (Don’t look at me like that! Everyone cheats sometimes!) I just went with the flow. I never thought I could run. I have written about doing sprints in the past- and I enjoyed doing sprints and have become addicted to having a “runner’s high.” I would never have tried or even attempted to do any long distance running. As Brad pointed out, I have been doing intense workouts full of “suicides” and “hurricanes” (and even if you don’t know what those are, you can imagine that they don’t sound good)  which have led me to be in great cardio-vascular health, and aerobically my body could probably handle it he said. My legs would not be used to running, and would probably ache but the rest of me could probably do it. This implanted the idea in my mind that maybe I really could run some distance. My workouts with him had prepared me to find out exactly what I could do.

 

 A few weeks ago I decided that I would see if I could run 1 mile. And I did, easily much to my surprise. The next week after talking to Brad, and having encouragement from my yoga teacher, Meghan, I decided to run and run and see if I could do 3 miles. You see, running is more of a mental challenge, in my opinion. Convincing yourself that you can do it, and will do, and are doing it, etc, is part of the challenge. The feeling afterwards of success and how energetic and amazing you feel after running is the reward. I did run the whole 3 miles. It was more like a jog to be technical and it did take me 39 minutes to do the whole three miles (not that I care about time at this point- at this point I just wanted to do it). But I did it. There wasn’t many people in the gym that day, and I had to keep giving myself pep talks as it went on. The first mile was easy. The second mile was the hardest because my legs started to ache.  After I finally finished the second one I knew I wasn’t going to quit so the third went fairly fast. During this 39 minutes (I wish you could have seen it, it was hilarious), I clapped my hands together, told myself “we’re doing this,” and sang Iron Maiden out loud in order to see the goal the whole way to the end. At the end, when I got off the treadmill, there was no one around to tell! None of the trainers or friends I have made were there and I felt like I was having my Rocky moment or my Titanic moment and I was literally jumping up and down and wanted to just yell at the top of my lungs “I’m queen of the world! ” It was definitely one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. I want to run a 5K, but for now am taking it one day at a time. Pittsburgh marathon someday? Who knows?

 

I will end on the note of saying that having positive reinforcement and visibly tracking results as you progress is imperative to keep up a high level of motivation. On my worst days, I still went to my personal training sessions and always felt better when I left. After seeing my results today, I didn’t even realize how much I have accomplished. There are so many things I might never have tried to do or thought I couldn’t have done if I didn’t have Brad pushing me a little further and a little harder each time, telling me I could do it.  He taught me that if something is easy, I’m probably not doing it right. And that the quality of the workout is important not how long it is. I have had many conversations with him my food issues, and “The Plan,” and he has always listened with patience and been somewhat in awe of all of the crazy foods that I am having issues with now. Thanks for believing. I have said it before, and I will say it again- having someone believe in me always makes me believe in myself. I give props to all of the people at galaxy fitness in Irwin- that place has been like my home away from home- and all of the people there have been nothing but supportive and downright cheerful in regards to my success. A shout out to (in no particular order) to Josh, Laura, Meghan, Nate, Janeen, Rachel, Forrest (and any of the other girls/guys at the desk who know my name before I even check in), and all of the members there in my yoga or other classes who take the time to tell me how good I am doing. Another quote on mental strength I enjoy goes like this: “You know that little voice in the back of your mind, telling you to stop? Well you can train that little voice. I taught mine to shut up.” – (By Unknown) All of your encouragement helped me to tell my voice to shut up. Thanks.