The voice

There is a voice in my head.  Not a schizophrenic voice, but an insistent one never the less.  It reminds me where the tasty food is in the house and, if there isn't tasty food, how much money I have and how to get it.  It remembers every cupcake I walk by and how many pieces of candy there are. 

I was talking to a friend today about this voice.  Now I am speaking out about it.  This is the voice that needs silencing.  I do not need another serving of Chinese food, and if I don't eat the chocolate and someone else does, that's ok.  This voice tells me lies all the time.  It tells me I NEED to eat the treat before someone else does - that if I don't there might not be more.  It tells me to stockpile excessive amounts of food, for just in case.

My friend call this voice a monster.  He wasn't wrong.  But it is a smart voice - it can calculate how to get the most calories and fat and sugar for the $7 in my pocket and it knows how quickly I can get them.  What the voice doesn't know is I have an ally.  I can choose to hear new messages about food - I can choose to hear that fruits and vegetables are good and filling, and I can choose to listen to that message, instead of the one about how if I don't eat carbs I will be hungry.

The voice is the master of guilt.  If I eat too much chocolate, to many chips, another brownie, the voice lets me forget about it.  But today, the voice wanted me to feel bad for eating salad and peanuts.  "too much" the voice said - but the voice is wrong.  These are the foods that are good for me, not snickers and ruffles.

So lets talk about those messages that play in our heads.  The ones that let us justify what we are doing, the ones that don't leave us alone.  Lets talk about it and then lets learn new things to talk about so that eventually, we can find a way to quiet or weaken the voice.

What does your voice say?  How are you working to overcome it?

hungry/full

They say in north American culture we don't know if we are hungry or full, thirsty or not.  I do sort of agree with this - but not completely.

I know when I am thirsty.  I have felt thirst, the kind that needs water to fix.  Absence of this feeling, to me, is not thirsty.  That being said, the meds I take give me a dry mouth.  So, even though im not thirsty, I drink a ton of water trying to correct this.  Note: it never works, and chewing gum is more effective but not my fav habit. My mouth gets tired of chewing.  It doesn't get tired of sipping water, and since water is free and easily available, I usually just keep a big bottle of it nearby. That being said, I know a lot of people who likely are dehydrated - they don't drink as much water in a day as they lose.  And yes, I know we get water from our foods as well.

Hungry though is a different story for me.  Physical hunger I don't know that I have ever felt - at least not in the way other people describe.  The growling stomach? For me that normally means i'm feeling nauseous.  Putting food in sometimes helps, sometimes makes it worse, but I usually try food anyways.  The gnawing pit?  I've never felt that.

For me, hunger is when I think of food and it sounds tasty.  The more kinds of food that sound tasty, the hungrier I must be.  Chocolate cake sound good? well that's normal, so I must not be hungry.  Bread, peanut butter, eggs, apples, etc etc all sound amazing?  I must be pretty hungry.  Unfortunately, this usually means I eat everything on the 'sounds good' list, plus whatever else I see next to these items in the kitchen that also strikes my fancy.

The downside to this system is that doing things like browsing pinterest can convince me im hungry.  Look at 25 pictures of tasty looking food, recipes you would be interested in trying.  All these things sound noms?  Must be hungry, lets go eat something.

On the flip side of the coin I also know that I don't listen to 'full'.  It takes us 20 mins to know when we are full and in that time, most of us, myself included, just keep eating.  So full becomes uncomfortable, feeling ill and painful because we have eaten too much before the signal arrives to stop eating.

One of the things I am learning is to think before hand how much food is enough and eat till that point.  It usually coincides with full - not with ill.  Im also learning to put food on a schedule, eat a certain number of times a day and that doesn't seem to coincide with hungry but it does mean I never get food ideation - which usually avoids eating ALL THE THINGS.

That being said, there is another kind of hungry.  It is not helped by any system out there that I have found yet.  Emotional hungry.  I feel, therefore I will put food on top of it to not feel.  That is the one I struggle with more often.

But I am looking at the new food system and wondering - could I do this for stress?  could I do this for fibro?  could I use this for something else to manage my life better.  Can I make a plan to avoid the two extremes in any situation (too busy/bored, stressed/bored, etc) and teach myself balance?

It sounds like a great idea.  I just don't know what the action plan would be.  I need someone to teach me balance.  I need a life coach ;)

Ill end with more good news.  I'm down another 2 lbs total this week.  I am also close to saying goodbye to the 170's.  Squee!

Fighting

Most relationships don't end, in my experience, over huge issues.  The problems are not - usually - over cheating, or any of those catastrophic events people hear about.  In my experience, they end over whose turn it is to do the dishes and the importance of saying thanks.

They end because someone stops feeling loved, appreciated and like the relationship has meaning or value anymore.

If you want to hurt me, break your word to me.  And do so for no real reason, not because something happened but because nothing did.  I can forgive you sleeping with someone else.  I can't forgive the 10th time you 'forgot' something you said you would do, the 16th time you ignored me or the 30th time you choose to play your xbox in the middle of a fairly important, are-we-going-to-make-it discussion with me.

I have a busy life - I have 3 jobs. 120% course load.  community involvement commitments.  an active social life.  a disease that steals my health, energy and patience.  I don't have time, or the desire, to pour my energies into something that is not returned, to not be valued.

I don't have time for passive-aggressive bullshit.

Look at the people in your life.  Are you treating them the way they want to be treated?  are you taking the time to honor and respect them, to listen, to be a friend?  Have you reached out recently to find out what's going on?  There are people in your life right now for whom a few mins of your time, a hand to wash the dishes, a shared meal, would mean a lot.  Even a phone call helps.

Who are you going to be in the world?  How are you going to treat people?  Choose wisely, because, as the meme says, a good woman can be lost.

STRESS!!! And a win

This has been a long week for me.  I look something like this:

 

Its been a bad week.  The kind of week that involves multiple days of tears, the admission that I think its time to find a new job and the occasional discussion about why I should or should not put mass amounts of food on top of my feelings in order to keep them under control.

 

 

The good news is that I mostly won the battle against food vs feelings.  I didn't eat a ton too much, i did eat some.

 

 

The bad news is the stress screwed up the fibro largely - a lot of hip and back pain, the loss of the ability to reach the floor again (ugh, I hate that one!) and generally feeling crappy which never helps the situation any.

 

 

The good news - someone I know just had 5 kitties arrive at her door.  The cuteness im picturing in my head just made everything else i was thinking of disappear

 

 

The bad news - the rest of this post may have just been chased out by thoughts of kitty cats.

 

 

The good news - I lost 10 lbs in total.  Today I got to move my little marker to the next wall and do a happy dance.

 

 

The bad news - i'm feeling like if I hadn't put a chocolate cupcake and a few other slips on top of my emotions, that would have been better

 

 The good news - the center is paying me 10$/lb lost this weekend as an incentive to stay on track despite turkey and maybe even lose.  Ill take it.

 

 

Actually, that may be enough rambling for today.  I'm thinking about kitties now.  I want kitties - especially since we have a great foster program up here where everything is provided and all you do is love them.  I can't though as I'm allergic.

My old friend prednisone

 

When I was first diagnosed with fibro it was because of prednisone.  I had taken a 5 day, high dose course because a virus had given me sad, painful, hard to breathe asthma lungs.  Taking this medication, I felt normal for the first time in ten years - no exhausted all the time, decreased pain.  So I took the prescription in and asked the doctor to explain me why and how this happened.  She finally figured out what had been going on with my body the whole time and started me on the path to where I am today.

I end up on this drug every year or so, usually because of asthma lungs.  Once because of a really good allergic reaction to some kind of mutant mosquitos we had up here.  And, although the side effects are not the greatest (insomnia anyone?), its one of the more fun drugs to be on as I get a few days of normalcy and really catch up on things in my life.

Friday, while still battling the head cold-from-hell, I woke up with the sad painful lungs.  And proceeded to tell myself all day I was fine and didn't need to do anything about this.  Just ignore the fact its hard to breathe, oxygen is no longer necessary.  After fighting through my shift at work, I gave in and went to a surprisingly quiet, you-are-next-in-line, walk in clinic. (Clinics here have a 2-4 hour wait normally...if the doctor even shows up).  The doctor walked in. 

"That was you I heard in the waiting room?"

Yes.....

"How long have you had asthma?"

Oh, crud.  Ok, I know where this is going, since the next question was did I feel like I needed prednisone?  And by the time I made it to the pharmacy, the pharmacist asked if I want the meds, or the ER.  Yea, I guess the sad lung sound was a little prominent.

So I get a course of meds.  To be honest, 36 hours in, its not working as well as I might hope.  I may have to go back to the clinic tomorrow.  Not sure yet.  But this does mean its not likely I'll be losing much weight this week - prednisone is noted for this.

However, if I'm going to be awake all night, I plan on finding new recipes on pinterest tonight.  I made a great couscous for dinner, with lots of veggies, salad and a half a rainbow trout.  It turned out delicious and I'm looking forward to the leftovers for lunch.

Lucky number 7

Today I went to the weight loss center.  Officially, with them, my weeks end on a Monday and that's where they tell you how much weight you have lost that week and in total, etc.  I don't love ending on a Monday, it feels very awkward for me.   And since you weigh every time you go in (to, amongst other things, check for water balance and make sure you aren't eating too much sodium), I am picking my Friday weight as my week end in my mind.  And, this Friday, I had officially lost 7 lbs.  Which is awesome.

This journey isn't all about number though.  Its about health - and as much as I would like to celebrate healthy, this week has not been a healthy one for me.  I have been battling the head cold on steroids someone kindly donated to me.  Yesterday, while trying to do my walk to the bus depot and back, I was seriously struggling - a) to even complete it (it took me twice as long as usual) and b) to breathe.  So some nice strong inhalers are back in my life until I can breathe without pain and this week is about being gentle to my body, giving it rest and nutritious foods.

This journey is about support.  I cannot do it completely alone - I need to be able to talk about my wins, my losses, and my struggles and I need to be able to dialogue about how to make new choices.  In terms of the center I go to, they are great.  Today I stayed and chatted with my favorite woman there about food, how to eat out and not go too far off track, about what do to do avoid sick germs and what how to take care of my body when I am sick.  We share tips for cooking, preserving healthy foods and ways to add flavour into recipes without too many calories or fat.  I learn from her, and she is learning from me as well (I already have her making her own frozen veggies).  We chatted long enough the next client had already come in and was waiting...oops.

This blog is part of my dialogue.  It is a way for me to record my thoughts, and see where I have been and where I am going.  It lets me look back along the way, and talk, safely, without getting too off topic to everyone at once - and maybe even to reach out to others as well who might be in a similar place in life.  I welcome your comments - interact with me, challenge me, dialogue with me.  Making change, truly making change, means changing not only my way of thinking, but who I am socially as well, and I know this is going to mean changing how I interact with people in some regards - especially around food choices, activities and events.  So welcome to my journey, please have patience with me.  I am simply a woman in the process of becoming who I want to be.

Blame your friends.

No - not really.  I don't actually blame my friends, family or anyone in my life.  But I remember, over a year ago, reading some interesting research that if your friends were overweight, you were more likely to be overweight as well.  Social learning and all - basically it said since peer groups learn from one another their eating habits and also overweight peer groups tend to focus social events on food and thinner ones on exercise based events.

Anways...I do have a point with this...

And I want to write this and hope that no one will be offended - I don't mean to hurt anyone, its simply an observation about my life which I have made.

I have a lot of enablers in my life who give me the excuses to allow myself to stay or become large.  From the partner who tells me that he is sure a few chips won't hurt, to friends who gift me with sweets, to family members who tell me to give in to my cravings.

None of these people want to or are trying to hurt me in any way.  But I need to learn what messages surrounding food I want to listen to and now.  I'm, right now, choosing to listen to the ones that will help me meet my goals, and those aren't the ones that I am getting from my social support network.

This is why I am paying for the weight loss center.  To get new messages in my life surrounding food and to learn new habits.  And guess what?  It's working.  The weight is coming off.

The weekend

I spent the weekend demonstrating cake.  CAKE.  Many hours of standing in front of cake, smelling cake, cutting cake.  And NOT eating cake.  Yes it was as frustrating as it sounds because it was GOOD cake.  And I did not even bring any home.

Weekends are hard.  the schedule changes - I don't have class, I have work.  Everyone around me is in weekend, relaxing mode.  I am in 'well...days are less than 14 hours out of the house long, I guess I can call this a break mode'.  And weekends are when I am less motivated to cook, or cook something decent.  I want fast, easy and tasty then.

But I was good - I didn't eat cake, we didn't go out to eat, and although we bought a grocery store chicken, I stayed in line with my plan.

By Monday I was frustrated - I had an I don't want to be doing this moment.  I am tired of menu planning in advance. Of spending too much time thinking, and I was tired of not having me time.

Turns out that was my body's ways of saying 'Tuesday you will be sick'.

Its moments like these when I pull out my fav quote "Courage does not always roar.  Sometimes courage is the voice at the end of the day saying I'll try again tomorrow"

I will again tomorrow.  Today?  I'm eating veggie soup, and likely going to not eat all the food I'm supposed to.  But I will also not be doing a lot.

On making a committment

I promised some good news today and I absolutely plan on delivering.  Im down to 179.2 lbs.  From 181.6, or a loss of 2 lbs.  So yay - early indication is that plan get-weight-under-control is working.

This plan?  Its going to take commitment.  Three times a week visiting the diet/nutrition center.  Daily food journaling (at least the journal book they give you is cute).  Planning your food in advance so that you get the right balance of everything in the right serving sizes.  Carrying water. Buying the right food to be able to plan.  Learning what is and isn't part of the plan.  Well, to be fair everything is part of the plan but when you get 1 100 calorie freebie a day, asking yourself if it makes more sense to have a whole snack pack of chocolate covered pretzels or 1 timbit?

Does it help to have had an early success?  Yes.  Does signing a contract to do this thing help?  Sure, as does telling people and making yourself accountable to them.  Will there be bad days where I don't want to do this?  absolutely.

The same thing happens with walking, exercise and fibro.  There are days where moving feels beyond me - so I tell myself to walk to the front lobby.  Its down stairs so then it feels hard to choose to walk back up, so I walk to the end of the block.  Now theres a hill behind me to go back home, so I walk down to the main street, and so on and so forth until I've walked to the bus depot to get to school. 

Losing weight is going to mean making myself have a system like that - where I take one baby step at a time.

Today's baby step was learning an important lesson in flexibility.  Surprise - grocery day was now moved to this morning.  Ok, I can roll with that - lets just stop at the diet center on the way.  Go out, do groceries, Jussi is starving and doesn't want to wait for food.  So I checked what I had said I was going to have for lunch (a starch, a protein, a veggie serving, a fat), calculated who made something that would fit into those rules and off we went to Pita Pit.  It wasn't the meal I had planned out, and it was the burger we would have normally gotten but it did work.

Take life one victory at a time.

Transitioning meds

This, I prewarn you, I is a fibro-centric post.

I'm in the process of switching the med that has given me the most relief from my fibro.  Why?  Mostly because I'm pretty sure my doctor is an idiot.  But to get to what I think is going to work, first we have to try her way.

Understand, normally, I do think doctors do have a skill and knowledge base that comes from studying the stuff for a long time and that they may possess information we have considered or have access to.  I'm not saying that we need to follow the advice blindly, just that we need not write it off immediately for not being the answer we think is right.

But, when I went to her reporting an increase of fibro symptoms, daily headaches, and a whole host of 'clearly this needs dealing with' things her first response was to increase my SSRI (Lexapro, escitaopram, celexa pick you name, this thing has so many).  Ok, this wasn't the answer I was hoping for but lets try it.  If a little works, more should work better, I get this logic.

Now granted, I have information, that while in my file, she likely hadn't considered.  When I first went on the SSRI (not for fibro at the time), I went through 3 nights in hospital, many many tests to come up with what exactly was causing my depression/insomnia/anxiety triad and what could be done for it.  Welcome to the world of Canadian mental health research.  It was actually one of the best things I could have done for myself.  The end result was that they knew before I started the meds what med was best for me and that I would likely only need a low dose - but for the rest of my life.  I was missing some brain waves, getting 7 mins sleep a night and basically that messed up my brain chemistry.

Ok, so despite this information (which I pointed out to dear dr.), lets up the dose.  Tried that this summer, got vertigo as soon as I tried.  OK, lets go slower on that increase.  Nope, still can't tolerate it.

Which led us to where I am today.  After completely tapering off that med (wait, what?  Why?  See previous me thinking my dr is an idiot.  If you cant take more of the med, obviously its the wrong one, lets take it away and see what happens if we put you on an older, less effective SSRI, with way more side effects), I was getting the zaps (SSRI discontinuation syndrome) pretty badly.

Last night I said enough is enough.  I couldn't move without being zapped, and was no longer safe to drive or function like a human being.  I started the new med a few days early as obviously the first drug is out or basically out of my system (it had been 5 days since my last low partial dose) and my brain was not happy.  Oh, and the mood swings had me dancing, crying then angry in the space of one song.

Honestly, I'm already not a fan on this new drug.  Dry mouth, its affected the bowels.  But i'll give it long enough to adjust before I go back in, demanding my medication and a new avenue of trying to control the fibro.

At least from this I have learnt exactly how much the first SSRI was doing for symptom management.  The fibro went wild as the medication came out of my system.  My muscles burn.  Badly and with every step.

Im Back!!! with another step

That's right I haven't stopped moving, a min of 15km walked a week. Usually in 3 5km walks. I think this is vital. But now its time for the next step. Losing some of the excess weight that is also part of the problem. I walked into a local weight loss center. Im going to do this. Tomorrow I get my measurements - I'm not looking forward to this. At least my weight was where I thought it was. Not heavier. Am I ready for this? No Buts lets do it and see if I can get down to goal weight #1 (its about 30 lbs away) for the end of Jan.

Almost to 100km

Wow, 4 days since i updated and what a 4 days it was...

First of all, I just updated my run tracker for the past little bit. I keep an excel spread sheet with how far i've walked/run and how many calories it burned. It also calculates my distance travelled for the day, week, month and year. And since I've started tracking (which is about when I sstarted this blog)...I've gone 89.16 km on my feet. I'm actually on track to break 100km this week. How crazy is that?

Secondly, on monday i went for a walk. Not just any walk though - a 3.5 hour, 10.5km all over town and to two canada day festivals walk. Entirely without any assistive devices (NO CANE!!). This is a huge accomplishment for me, especially since today I can even still walk enough to do my paper route - which is a 5km walk in itself. Thats right, this plan does work and even accounting for everything fibro does to your body, you can and do get stronger if you keep at it. That is a real eye opener for me.

I am frustrated however as I have not lost any more weight recently and feel that losing more would really help my exercising in terms of making it easier to do more and to get stronger. I'll take any helpful advice out there going. I like to think I eat a pretty healthy diet, and reasonable portion sizes but I seem to be stalled out. Feedback and support is, as always, appreciated!

Stress

Its been a stressful week here in my world. I did complete another 2 week 2 runs and even an extra week 1 run in there. So I am keeping up with it. If fact, this week the world wants to show me that I should work on committing to run as a solution to stress. I am not sure its working, but I do know that I am stressed out.

The latest in the line of stressful things is not mine to talk about, save to say I got some news that is currently adding osme anxiety to my life, etc, and well, I/we are dealing with it as best as is possible given everything.

The rest of it however is mine to share. I am exhausted from working the 3 jobs and juggling those hours. Somoene was also so kind as to share with me with me their head cold as if i really needed a virus at the moment and it is adding some difficulty to my life. I also had a fairly large fight with my boyfriend after he broke a promise to me. That was really tough and upsetting for a few days and im not completely over it to be honest.

Anyone fighting with this disease knows that stress really flares this diseas and I can tell you that is true. So running has been...well lets call it a challenge this week. I have had to reschedule my runs just to make it work but make it work I did. So that gets to be my success in what has otherwise been a bad week.

Change is afoot

Thats right! I started week two. This means 6 intervals of 90 seconds running, 2 mins walking, plus warm up and cool down. That is harder than it sounds, especially when you dont run until the evening when I am already tired and sore. But i did it. J suggested changing the route slightly (he came with me tonight) to that in one area there was less of a slope which seemed to help a bit. But no, i did not complete all my intervals. One i stopped a bit early (i had a wicked side stitch) and one i kept tripping over my own feet so i walked for a few seconds to reconnect with my feet.

I did notice another change as well - I caught site of my mostly naked reflection on a surface and you know what? I am less wide than i used to be. Which was nice to notice.

I am still having a number of people email me regarding this program im doing. Some from people who want to run with me (but none of whom have actually committed to running when push comes to shove, but i do understand that its hard to work out the scheduling) and some from people telling me that they think the program is hard and encouraging me. Encouragement is always welcome and accepted - its nice to hear and to use to motivate my sometimes lazy rear end to get out there and get moving. It helps to know that someone out there expects me to be doing this and to keep me accountable when i lack the willpower to do it myself.

On getting up early

I work - sometimes a lot of hours. And the kind of work I do is not easy on my body - alot of standing in one spot on hard surfaces, or mopping, or scrubbing. A lot of things that Fibro hates. So i know if i leave my run until after my shift, I wont physically be able to do it. If i want to run, I have to run before i work. I dont have a choice. For some days, this means setting my alarm early enough that I am able to get up, get moving, run, shower, the whole nine yards before I have to be at work.

It isnt my favourite way to live - i love sleeping in as much as the next person. But it is something that i have to do so I do do it. I have also found that early in the morning, especially on weekends, there is much less trafic which means i can run on the lawns or road as i need to without interferance. And it is cooler - which I am guessing for the summer time is going to be a big things.

This of course, is because I ran saturday morning. Early enough the garage sales were still setting up and early enough that I did not want to be functional, let alone running.

I may never be the kind of runner who gets up at 5 am to go for a long run because i love it that much and it is the greatest start possible to my day. I may however become the kind that gets out on the road at 7:30 am because I know i need to and well...thats enough for me.

On motivation

I meant to run yesterday but apparently there are only 24 hours in a day and all my 24 were booked up with things that were far more time sensative - like working, and running meetings and preparing for the above. So i got up today and sore from work (wednesdays i mop an entire hardware store. it takes 5 hours. it sucks). and i DID NOT want to run.

Also - the app i used did not want me to run apparently. It broke twice before i even got out of the parking lot and wouldnt time properly. It took a lot of trouble shooting to get it functional, But i went out and I did it. I ran - depsite the whole not wanting to and the app breaking things and sometimes, you do it against your own will.

I know its good for me, that it will give me the body i want and the strength and the cardio health i want. But the journey to get there? Sometimes it isnt fun. Im just saying.

Im back - aka another run

I'm back and no I didn't give up. I did however move, start 2 new jobs in addition to the one i have and attempt to live the lifestyle of the insanne. Basically I have to take a 2+ week break, in which i didn't give up exercising but rather got my workout in in the format of mopping, carrying boxes, scrubbing toilets, dancing and a whole bunch of other things. Sometimes you have to let life get in the way and just remember that if you are at least moving, than that is better than nothing. Sometimes there have to be priorities that are not running and after the effort of this move, I had to keep a couple of things to be more important than sticking with the program in the front of my mind. Like - having a place to live and unpacking enough clothes that i would not have to show up to any of my jobs completely naked. And possibly even buying enough food to feed myself every so often.

But i did go back to the program this week. And though I took a few steps back, I wasnt where I first started out at, even if I did go back to week 1 and again. In some ways, it feels as if i will never get out of week one but you know what? That still more running than I was doing a month ago and I am working hard on being kind to myself. Kindness is just as important and letting myself live the kind of life is just as important as working hard to get to the life i want.

I am also, now that I am in the new place, in a lot more control of my diet and that should be helpful as well. bring on the fruits, veggies and homecooked meals. In fact, in the aforementioned shopping, most of what we got was pretty healthy and a lot of raw ingredients. They say in a lifestlye change, 80% of the change you want to see in your body, your health and your fitness is controlling what you eat and I can believe that. So this month, that is also a focus on mine, know that any food changes i make I want them to be sustainable, lifelong changes.

Really the point of this is to change my whole life. To find the kind od fitness, health and balance I ultimately desire.

And always remember this quote “Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.”

Week 2, run 1

I tried week 2 today and i guess you could say i survived, though that may yet be debatable. I ran/shuffled my way through all the intervals so thats good enough for me. And I took a friends dog, Grover with me - he showed that my pace was roughly that of a fast dog walk today. I also learned that I am not sure I love running with dogs - I love walking with them, and I for sure love this dog to bits but he stops to pee very often when i am just trying to keep moving. I think i need to give him a bit more info on the fact we are doing a couch to 5km!

Some days are about perserverance and doing it despite whats going on in life. Today was one of those days - in which the goal is just getting through it one step at a time, and nothing past that. Its been a fibro weekend in which i have done too much and my stress level is too high so I have been exhausted. Getting up and getting to the doggy to take him out was a bit of a stretch, let alone actually running.

My mind is in a million places right now, I am moving on Thursday and I am just plain tired. So did i run today? Yes. Barely, but that is ok - sometimes you just have bad run days and its important to accept them for what they are. Sometimes you have good days and thats great as well. The important thing is to keep trying and to remember that ultimately, you made the effort to move and that alone is a win.

Week 1, run 5

One of the reasons I started this blog was when i first thought about doing this I went online to find out if it was doable or had be achieved by someone with fibro. And, try as I might, i couldn't really find an answer to that question. OK, i knew whatever I found online wasnt going to be my final answer, only I could know if it was doable for me personally but I still wanted the insight that i might get from someone elses experiences. But other than questions, I couldn't find any tales of people learning to run with this disease.

So often, we are told things we can't do. Or questioned why we cant do x because "you dont look sick". I have heard both and neither makes sense to me. Lately, what i have been hearing about though is negative things about me attempting this. Reasons why I can't or shouldnt do it or just general put downs about making this attempt, thinly disguised as jokes. Some people dont even bother to disguise it at all. Is it envy because I am trying something another wouldnt think of? Maybe. Is it that others can't understand why I would even bother? I think there is some of that but honestly, I dont fully understand the problem.

First of all, to get to this point, I spent almost 6 months working up to this first run - to being able to walk/jog for half an hour and for most of that to be walking, only a cumulative total of 8 minutes jogging each time i go out. I went to bootcamp and to various exercise classes to get to this strong. I went on walks outside to get myself used to it. I didnt know when I started that I wanted to do a couch to 5k. I just knew i wanted to increase my fitness and work on managing this disease.

I have looked into the face of my future. I have seen people with my condition unable to function without assistance, unable to walk, cook or preform daily activities. And that future both terrified me and was something i wasnt willing to accept. I looked into the research of the best ways to treat and slow down the progession of this and study after study, paper after paper, everything came down to exercise. It isnt a cure, by any means, and medication is needed to support but the real differences in quality of life, in abilities, came down to exercise. So...Exercise I will, until i physically can't move anymore. Im running so hard from my future, literally.

I finished another run today, in the cold. I dont love the cold although you do sweat less. I am even getting to the point that by the time i think "please, dear god, let this interval be over" the magic little voice comes on at tells me to slow down to a brisk walk. So next week, I will move on to stage two and push myself harder. My pace might slow again, but at least i will be running longer. I can even actually sort of listen and pay a small amount of attention to my music now, not just have my huffing and puffing drown it out. And that, my friends, is progress.

Week 1, Run 4

Another day, another run down. I was supposed to show someone this plan today but they rescheduled on me. So I may or may not be running with someone on Friday, we will see. But I have known all along this is my journey, as it should be. I am doing this for myself and in a lot of ways it is easier not to be committed to doing this with anyone else - i can hit the road when i am ready and not schedule it too heavily other than the day. Today I ran earlier than ever because the weather is so ick i had to run while it wasnt raining and i didnt want to chance the early morning break being the only one we get.

I am at a cross roads. My pace is definately getting better and I know this is good, and with that I am assuming I am getting stronger as my recovery time is getting shorter after the run is finished. I am still very grateful for the 90 sec walk intervals. I can get through the 60 sec run intervals and only the last 5 or so secs of each one do i truely want to die. Does this mean next week I should start week two? This is where I am unsure.

The pros for this is i am getting better at this and I have taken a lot of itme off my original pace - over a minute. I could slow down to try week 2 next week. The cons are that i still am not finding week 1 easy. Is this supposed to ever get easy or just less hard?

I mean, I can always try week 2 then drop back down to week 1 if its too much. Which might be what I do. We shall see. For the moment, I am taking heart in the fact I am still doing this, and still improving and that has to be worth something. It is also teaching me the value of doing it for myself.

Week 1, run 3

I took friday to rest, and that was good. I had a run scheduled on saturday but that didnt happen. I hiked on saturday (7km), i did a lot of things on saturday, but of all the things i did, running was not one of them. Because of the 7km hike, i was ok with that. I told myself i had dont a lot of walking and that was good for my endurance and it technically was a workout, though at a different intensity level. I told myself, its ok, just commit to running on sunday and monday and all will be fine.

I didn't run on sunday. I did some fishing on sunday, and a small amount of hiking (not enough to count). I did a lot of junk food eating. I got a sunburn from being outside. I spent a lot of time helping someone out. But I was with someone for the day and I was not as in control of my schedule as I wanted. I missed both running and an online webnar i had actually been pretty interested in attending. In short, Sunday I was really disappointed about a few things and i wasn't very happy about some others and, well, maybe thats enough said about sunday.

I did however run today. My pace is getting ever so slowly better. The temperature was the coldest I have run in so the asthma attack was worse this time. There is always a bit of an asthma attack, but when cold is one of my triggers as well...it just makes it a bit worse. I think I am doing well. I am proud of what I am doing - I am running all of my intervals and not stopping early. I am pushing myself and working to the point of being decently sweaty and a little short of breath but still mostly able to talk a few words at a time. This should be somewhere about 80% of my max, i think. I know its an intense workout for me. So I think what I am doing is pretty good for me, especially when you factor in the asthma, fibro, and fact that I am not in shape.

I did learn a few things this weekend though. The first is that if i want this to be a priority to me, I can't rely on anyone else to feel the same way or to make time or space for me to do what i feel i need to. That no matter how much a person supports me, if i dont force this time into the schedule, it wont happen and that i need to be more assertive about doing this. I learned more as well about what i need support to look like. I need support from my partner to look like allowing me the space to put the workout in the schedule. If I run with someone, I need them to tell me that yes, this is harder than it seems, not (after the first interval) that it isnt too bad. I was to be validated that yes, this isnt easy but it is worth it and that may mean someone agreeing about a difficulty level they dont experience. Ok, this, especially in the beginning, might be easier for other people. It isnt for me and i need to hear that echoed. I need the fact that I am starting this with a few strikes against me to be acknowledged and to be decently praised for doing it.

I will try running with someone again, even though my pace may slow them down. I am meeting with someone who wants to start the program to run with them on wed. But this time, I will be clearer about what I need from them and about my level of workout. I thought I had been, but with every step i learn something new. And thats ok, because I am improving and the race is truely only with my own body. And I sure dont mind running alone.

week 1 Run 2

Needless to say I was sore all of today. Thats was more than expected though. But, looking at my schedule and knowing i wanted to get three runs in by saturday - and that i work tomorrow and besides that have a fairly physical day planned out in terms of gardening, today was day 2 for me. It was cold enough here i went out in a sweater - except for when i went out for the run because boy does that make me sweaty. I feel a lot like the cartoon - huffing, puffing, sweating and not exactly the prettiest thing to look at. But isnt that the point of doing a couch to 5k? That you start off as couch (potatoe im assuming is the implied image) and end up somewhere where you could never imagine yourself being?

I really didn't want to go out today. It was cold, I was sore, I'm still lazy LOL. It took me a nap before i was even ready to do it but that is not unexpected either. And I keep thinking, this far into my journey back to health (this isnt my first step) I should take a picture to see whats changed as there was a picture of me taken near the beginning of the year that was a bit of scary to see. You know the one, the candid shot where someone has caught all the worst parts of you and you look at it and can't believe you look like that?

So the message of today is that I did manage to complete this run. My pace was even a bit faster although it sure felt a lot slower today. My app/gps system says i went further and moved faster and i will trust the system for now. I even didn't die during the run though at points it sure felt like it. Jogging and wondering "when will this minute end?!?!?". I'm doing this, I'm committed to doing this but....at what point does this become fun and lifestyle like?

Getting Started: my journey to C25K and Week 1, Day 1

Everyone has to start somewhere right? For me, Couch to 5K is a way to get stronger, convince my body that I am in charge. So although I am admitting at the outset that this is not going to be the promised 9 week journey to running a 5 k, its likely going to be decently longer if not doubled, i will get there. I am a little more overweight that i want to be (ok, a lot more), but have been making an effort to attend exercise classes and get a lot of walking in - minus the walk that ended up with a torn ligament. That one set me back a month and is part of what led me to decide to do this. I mean really, who falls and tears a ligament walking on pavement? The other factor was my schedule - its hard to make too many classes a week with a schedule thats all over the place so it made more sense for me to find things i could do at home. This is yoga, couch to 5k, and possibly, once i get adjusted to this, the drop 10 workout. We will see how i feel about that once i become more used to this whole idea of running for the first time in forever.

So i dont come to this without challenges. Asthma. Fibromyalgia (!). A recently torn ankle ligament that is not completely healed. A general laziness. A hatred of running - I thank a gym teacher in 8th grade for that, i was fine with it before him. A belief that i look REALLY silly running. A desire to do this anyways which I am hoping is ultimately going to be what gets me though.

But I am also setting this up to be smart in the beginning. I found an app for my phone that does the music thing, beeps when i need to change pace, tells me when im halfway done, etc, the whole nine yards. its , and although im only on the free trial part now, and part of it is paid, I will see how it works out. I may change. I also enlisted the help and support of some friends to kick my butt into moving when i dont want to. I hope.

So yesterday was the first day - and I did survive. I was sweaty, out of breath, but i did do all the running intervals and the walking ones as well. There wasn't a lot of difference in my pace, just my exertion level, which im ok with. Today, I am sore, some of which is in the weirdest places (I think my sports bra is not nearly supportive enough for one), and I may take some advil but I am still walking and depending on weather, considering if not attempting to do it all again today, at least going for a good long, push myself walk to try and get some of this stretched out.

Wish me luck!