Archive for the ‘reflection’ Category
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Thankful
Since this is the week of Thanksgiving, I thought I would write about something I’m thankful for.
I’m thankful for the sweet girls I coached at Girls on the Run this year. They made me and the other coaches posters and signed them. They gave it to me at the “banquet” we had last week.
The last practice we had, we told the girls to write letters to someone who inspired them to be a “Girl on the Run.” A couple of girls wrote me letters.
It’s hard to believe this was written by a 5th grader! It was so well-written.
“You are the best coach EVER!” So cute. Another project the girls did was wrote nice messages or motivating messages on index cards for the coaches and volunteers.
They all went into a personalized container.
The coaches got together and gave me a special award for coaching when I didn’t teach or have a child at the school (this boggled their minds that someone just volunteered to volunteer I guess).
It was so nice of them to do. I turned beet red in embarrassment. Kind of like the bottle.
I am also thankful that I have things to remember the girls by.
What are you thankful for?
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The Real-ish Thing
Hello! I know I’ve been MIA for a few days but it’s because I’ve been really busy. I feel pretty stressed out actually. I think it’s work, and life in general… I’m to the point where little things like laundry is stressing me out. (Granted, the house being dirty actually stresses me out, maybe that’s a little OCD.) I’m just the kind of person that is wound a little more tightly than others. But I think anyone that reads this probably already knows that.
Anyway, on Saturday we had the Girls on the Run 5k. One of the girls I was paired with had not been in Girls on the Run for the full program and she was struggling. She started to complain before the first mile was finished. After a few walk breaks, I bargained with her: 5 minutes of running and a couple of minutes of walking. Towards the end of the 5k, that stopped working – so I said, “If you run to the end, I’ll buy you something nice.” Well, that worked! She ran through the finish.
Our celebration for the end of the season for Girls on the Run is tomorrow and I plan on giving her the gift then. It will be nice to see the girls one last time and congratulate them on what they accomplished.
I have a confession to make. I’ve been keeping a secret.
Well, I haven’t really been keeping it on purpose, I just haven’t mentioned it because I have a lot of thoughts about it.
“The Real Thing”™
I haven’t drank any of that for 2.5 weeks. I have also been avoiding all artificial sugars and sweeteners. I’m still getting ample amounts of the real thing – real sugar, not Coke, so don’t worry.
Before 2.5 weeks ago, I drank anywhere between 1 can of Diet Coke to two or three 24 ounce diet sodas. In addition, I added sweetener to my coffee (one or two packets), and often one or two packets to my breakfast, especially if I ate yogurt (plain yogurt is sour on its own). Needless to say, some days it was a lot, and I never really liked doing it. The habit started some time in law school, and I’ve kept it up since, more or less.
I’ve done this before – given up artificial sweeteners and sugars – I did it for a couple of months. I think vanity was motivating me more than anything, because after I noticed no advantageous effects scale-wise (in fact, kind of the opposite effect I was going for), I quit. One study reported that artificial sweeteners are linked to weight gain. This is big news for people consuming artificial sweeteners as a way to reduce calories, and therefore control weight.
As far as health risks go, I’m not convinced that artificial sweeteners are bad for you. Neither is the FDA, and several other sources. This wikipedia article has a pretty good synopsis of the controversy surrounding aspartame (the sweetener in Diet Coke), sources discrediting the studies that artificial sweeteners are linked to weight gain, sources discrediting other claims, not to mention a hoax that has indubitably played in the subconscious like any good hoax.
It was this evidence that always weighed in favor of continuing to consume artificial sweeteners. It is easy to find alarmist articles or web sites calling aspartame or other artificial sweeteners “poison,” and much harder to find actual science backing that up – and the same can be said for the opposite side. The campaign against aspartame has been hugely successful, however, it interests me that the alleged cancer connection to aspartame is more widely feared than soy’s alleged connection. Frankly, I do not know why that is the case. At the end of the day, I’m not sure who or what to believe. But I refuse to be capricious.
All that said, why now? Like I said earlier, I felt that I was consuming too much artificial sweetener, too often, and I didn’t like it. One thing I always noticed was that if I drank a diet soda on an empty stomach, it would start to growl very loudly even though I wasn’t hungry (I’ve never met anyone else who had this problem!). It led me to snack just to quiet my stomach. Since I quit drinking diet soda, I haven’t needed a morning snack. I knew that part of my problem was I drank coffee in the morning and after a little while I wanted a diet soda to get rid of coffee (spiked with sweetener) breath, so I gave up coffee too. The other thing motivating me is just a desire to feel better in general, and not feel so dependent on little packs of chemicals.
What am I drinking now? Tea and water.
You would think that giving up coffee and soda would be hard to do, but it actually wasn’t at all. I still think about getting it now and then, and I don’t see anything wrong with having it once a while. I’m just not ready to end my sweetener-free streak yet. Well, I will give an update on how I’m doing in a few months! Thanks for listening if you got this far!
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Name Your Motivation
I read a lot of fitness magazines. It’s kind of an addiction. I love the motivation I get from them – from the tips to the success stories, I usually feel good when I’m done. About every month, I read Shape, Self, Body + Soul, and Runners World. Every now and then, I take a look at the women’s “muscle” magazines. I know that women and muscle is still taboo – which is sad – but I think these magazines have a lot of great healthy living advice (and weight lifting workouts of course) too.
Recently, I was poking around on the Self magazine website and found myself inspired by the Editor in Chief, Lucy Danziger. I’ve been reading Self for a long time, but I don’t think the editor was always this ripped. Well, anyway, she is now. She’s training for an Ironman and in a video talks about how normally she works out for two hours a day. Then, her editor’s letter in this month’s issue explained that I wasn’t imagining things. She has lost 25 pounds, and was spurred into action by a realization when her father was hospitalized with a heart problem. She realized that her father’s father had heart problems and was treated in that same hospital. She realized that she did not want to be part of that family “legacy”.
One of the things she wrote that made me wonder was that it wasn’t about vanity; it couldn’t be. It wasn’t a strong enough reason to kick off and stick to her health goals. I found this interesting. Vanity—looking better, is a popular reason to want to get fit. They call it “getting in shape” not “getting in health,” right? Tangible results (losing pounds, inches, feeling firmer) are also powerful motivators, but are they short-term in nature?
I don’t think I’m going to be able to answer those questions – the diet and fitness industry is a billion-dollar one for a reason – but it’s interesting to think about. I, for one, find vanity to be motivating, and for tangible results to be hugely motivating. I also find eating cupcakes motivating. nom nom nom nom
That’s the thing with health goals – it’s difficult to say no to the cookie and yes to the treadmill. The positive reinforcement is further removed from the healthy activity than it is from the unhealthy one. It’s why binge drinkers continue to over-imbibe and suffer hangovers – the punishment is too far removed from the immediate pleasure in order to be a deterrent. No one said getting fit and staying fit was easy.
Jillian Michaels’ answer to the “How do I stay motivated?” question is: ask yourself why you want this goal (weight loss, fitness achievement). [Is it weird that I know this without looking it up? I have her advice memorized, I think…]Your reasons are your motivation. She makes no judgment about your reasons – just that they motivate you.
What motivates you?
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You are getting relaxed… Very relaxed…
Happy Friday!
Over at the chasingambulances household, things have gotten a little relaxed.
A little too relaxed.
Lately, I’ve noticed our dog Ada is looking a little heavier than usual. Sure enough, we weighed her and she has gained 4-5 pounds. It doesn’t sound like much, but that is about 6-7% of a body weight gain, so it’s enough to be noticeable. Mark and I feel terrible, but we think we know what has happened.
- Too much table scrap love. Sometimes I feed Ada just to see if she’ll eat something. (Disclaimer: I know what foods and substances make dogs sick, so of course those are off limits.) Over the three years we’ve had her, I know she hates vinegar and pickles, but she loves watermelon and blueberries. Sometimes I feed her just to see her happy. It’s that food = love thing.
- Not enough exercise. We haven’t been taking her to the park enough or on walks enough, etc.
I think these are small changes that have piled the pounds on her over time. We’re not happy about how this reflects on us as dog parents so as soon as we found out she was gaining weight, the table scraps have ended and we’ve been exercising her more. What we are surprised by is that these small behavioral changes that Mark and I (unconsciously) made affected her. Maybe those “small changes” preached by healthy living conventional wisdom is what it is all about.
I also noticed this week, that since finishing the marathon, I’ve gained about exactly the same amount as Ada has. And the same way – except I don’t get fed table scraps, I get fed standing in front of the pantry or fridge or too many lunches eaten out.
So I’ve exacted the same changes on myself as I have my dog. She doesn’t know she’s my weight loss buddy but she is now.
I’ve been laying off the sweets, the eating out, and too many (unhealthy) snacks and I’ve already seen a difference (at least, the scale claims it has). I’ve been using caloriecount.com to monitor my intake and calories burned. It’s a free website and pretty user-friendly. I plan on continuing to use it even once I get back to my marathon-running weight to take off the 15 or so pounds I talked about earlier.
Another announcement I have to make is that I think I may do a biathlon this fall! It’s a 22 mile ride followed by a 5k run. So, for this fall I have planned:
- Half marathon on October 3, 2010 – Lewis & Clark Half Marathon
- St. Louis Halloween 10k – October 17, 2010
- New Baden Biathlon, October 31, 2010
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My running autobiography
Since I’ve explained why I currently run in a previous post, I thought I would explain how I got into running in the first place.The allure of running dawned on me when my older brothers ran track and cross country in high school. I didn’t really do sports as a child with the exception of soccer. Even then, I was usually designated to the “full back” position. I’m not totally sure why this was – maybe part of it was that I tended to be the only girl or one of a handful of girls on a male-dominated team. My point is that I was pretty inactive by the time I became envious of my brothers and their running sports.High school
Running was simple. Running, I could understand. You win by going fast, you lose by going too slow. It seemed accessible. Not only that, but I knew from perusing my dad’s copy of Aerobics Program for Total Well-Being (no, I am not making this up) that running was one of the best forms of cardiovascular exercise (the best, according to the author, Dr. Cooper).I kind of wished I could just get on the cross country team, and have the coach whip me into shape, but I was too intimidated. Not to mention, running just a little was hard! In high school, I began running. I could not go far. I would head out once the sun had set and it was dark out. I would run as far as I could and stop and turn around and go back home. I think the first few times I could only do 1/4 of a mile.It was discouraging and so I didn’t keep this up for long. I would set out to take it up again at the start of fairly decent weather (spring or fall). Eventually, and I didn’t time myself or really track my distance, I got up to about a mile.CollegeThen I went to college. I did a 1.5 mile loop on campus when I felt like it. Campus food was terrible which resulted in weight loss, and made the running easier.I took a class in Zen meditation, and we got a project to take up an activity and meditate while doing it. I used running to do my meditation. When I had completed the project, I noticed my notes had more to do with my pace and time than with meditation; the project turned out to be an excuse to discipline myself into running more often.Break upAfter the break up with my first boyfriend, I used running to keep me occupied. One day I decided to double my 1.5 mile loop. I continued to work at running – but there was no method to the hobby. I just did it when I felt like it, but I also felt a desire to get better – run farther, faster, with less effort.Law schoolRunning was something I did on and off for a while. Until my heart was broken once again in law school and running became not only an outlet, but also contradictorally, an act of denial that anything was wrong. I had never run a race but I was running 4 miles 5 times a week and decided I wanted to run a half marathon. I knew a thing or two about running at this point, but not too much. I picked a beginner Hal Higdon plan.TodayI suppose from that moment on, running has become a stable part of my life. It’s not something I dabble in anymore, but something that if I don’t do, I’ll drive myself and everyone around me nuts. I’ve completed 4 half marathons, trained for 3 marathons and completed one. I’ve ran a handful of 5ks and 10ks. I’ve ran on my wedding day, in Mexico, and I even ran across state borders unintentionally.I’ve learned about health and about injury; about dehydration and glycogen depletion; running on ice or sitting in ice; fartleks and tempos; negative splits and shin splints; and about running through pain and running with joy.I think I like running.
About Me
My name is Michelle and I like to write about running, food, and fitness in general. Check out my About Michelle section for more!
