Workout Wednesday- Finding time for me

It is no surprise that I am not a huge work out fan. I try to like it, but really it is not that much fun to me. It is something that I need to do and something that must be done but I find it to be more of a chore than anything else. Here is the thing I do love about it though- it is completely my time.

During the day I try to catch time for myself, but as a mother of four with a family to run these moments are brief and fleeting. But when I am at the gym that is 45 minutes that I get all to myself.  When I am there I can take the time to think, to get lost in ideas and thoughts. Usually I find little time to relax, I know that sounds funny, to relax while working out, but there is no better place.

This is why I keep going every morning. Sure dragging three or four kids to the gym at 8:30 every morning is hard. Sometimes the breakfast dishes don't get done before we leave.  And many times morning chores are left unfinished until after we return home. But all of that is okay, because sometimes you just need a little time to regroup and to face what lies ahead.

So I may not like working out, I do like the me time so I will keep going and enjoy that me time.

Workout Wednesday-Couch Potato to 5K strike three?

A few months ago I wrote how I was starting the Couch Potato to 5K program in order to become a runner. I actually did pretty well. I got to the point I where I could run for twenty five minutes at a brisk pace. I know that isn't an earth-shattering record but for me that was fabulous.  I was doing really well then my grandma died, the holidays hit, and we bought a house. My running routine, heavens my exercise routine was shot for about two and a half months.

Finally things stabilized, we bought a treadmill, and I started the CP5K program again. I was getting back in the groove, I was doing better and that was fabulous. Then I broke my toe.

Yeah stupid toe.

So I was sidelined for about three months. At least this time my workout routine actually kept going and didn't suffer.

This week I was finally ready to tackle the program again. It was easier this time. I found the run the first day was fabulous. It was so nice. I knew this time I was actually going to succeed and get to the end of the program...then I sprained my foot.

So yes, I am out for the next few weeks and part of me is wondering if it is even worth going back to doing the running thing again.  Is that a sign?

Workout Wednesday: Keeping up with the Jones'

Keeping up with the Jones'. We all mock the idea yet it we all do it. Nevermore so than when we are working on weight loss. You make yourself go to the gym and happily (or not so happily) jump on the treadmill ready to have a nice 40 minute workout. When you look left, at the treadmill next to you, and see a woman running at 6.0 miles an hour, making your brisk pace of 3.8 look like nothing.  Or you are working with the free weights, proud that you can now do chest-flys with the 10 lbs. weights only to turn to our right and see another woman doing the same exercise...only with 20 lbs. weights. Thus, making our latest triumph seem mediocre.

None of us are immune, our insecurities about our bodies tend to make us slightly crazy, leading to extremes. We either start crash dieting and exercising or we give up and sit on the couch consoling ourselves with ice cream or potato chips, watching others on television working to change their lives.

I have been on both extremes. I have been overweight since junior high school and done the crash dieting, but never got smaller than a size ten. More often than not though, I found myself on the couch with my friends Ben and Jerry.

Fifteen years ago I bought a gym membership-thinking that paying to work out might make me go- it didn't work. Maybe once every three months I would drag my gym bag out of hiding and trudge to the gym for a week or so. But eventually I would give up knowing that I just wasn't as good as everyone else and knew, after only a few days, I would never accomplish anything there.

It took me years to figure out it didn't matter. It took me years to figure out that I was going to the gym for me, not for other people. Yes there are still times that I feel self-conscious, where I don't think my efforts measure up to Sally Jones our John Jones working out beside me but then I just have to keep pushing forward. I may not keep up with the Jones' but I am better and stronger than I was yesterday and isn't that what matters?

Workout Wednesday: Weighy tunnel vision

There is an article making the circles on Facebook right now, it was an article I read about a month ago in my copy Self. I remember after reading it the first time coming home and telling my husband I just read an article by a woman who got me. It was also an eye opener on how I view myself and where I put my priorities.

This is the premise of her article is the author was speaking with a friend and talking about how great her life was and all she could focus on was her weight.   To quote from the article: "I guess I don't understand how I can accomplish all this other stuff, but this one thing, the most important thing in the world to me, I can't."

"Your weight is the most important thing in the world to you?" I hedged. "Well, obviously, not the most important thing in the world. Hyperbole!" I changed the subject.

As the article continues she talks about how her focus and obsession with her weight has lead to some interesting places. It was eye opening to me for the path I was on. I have a fabulous family and a life. Yet sometimes I let my weight color how I feel about things. I have been guilty thinking "oh if only I wasn't so fat" or "This picture would be great if I wasn't in it."  But here is the thing, focusing on this one thing can lead me to miss the beauty in everything else.

Yes, I am bigger than I would like to be. My clothes don't fit they way I want them too or I can't fit in the clothes I want to.  But I am working on it, yes I slip and fall but I get back up and work again and with that I can slowly start to change the tunnel vision that I have and make sure that I don't fall into the pattern that the author of the article did.

Workout Wednesday: commit, stop, recommit, stop, repeat

Okay Workout Wednesday only exists because of my friend Elisha, who runs a wonderful blog over at My Thunder Thighs.  Elisha and I have been friends for six or seven years now and we have had similar struggles when it comes to our weight and weight loss. She has been a huge inspiration to me and we have big plans for the future.

Anyway she is the one that suggested/insisted that Wednesdays be the day I dedicate to writing about my workout journey.

I fall into a rather bad cycle of work outs. I get excited and I am all gung ho. I go to the gym five or six times a week, I track my food, I make good decisions with food-then something happens. I could be I get sick, or we go out of town, or we buy a house...anyway I fall off the wagon and I do it big time.  Then something, usually the way my pants fit or the number I see on the scale, or how I look in a picture, sends me back into action and back to the gym.  Where eventually something else happens...see the vicious cycle here? Right now I am well into a repeat cycle.

I make it to the gym four to five times a week right now, I try to be active on Saturdays making sure I get some type of work out in, even if it is just mowing the lawn, but I know just over the horizon is that new stoppage point. I need to find a way to over come that one, find a way to fight through the temptations for sleep or over indulging in food (my biggest vice). I need to find a way to talk myself out of talking myself out of going to the gym.

Let's face it, I know I will commit and stop and recommit again and again but what I really have to decide is what do I want out of the work out experience. Am I working out to lose weight or do I want to be strong and healthy enough to run a 5K with friends in September, or chase after my children in the park.  I think once I can really truly answer this question maybe I will be able to put a stop to the cycle.

What do you to to avoid the slumps or to pull yourself out of one?