Dear Bathroom Scale

Dear Bathroom Scale,

It’s been five weeks since we’ve seen each other.  It was hard for me at first, when I looked at your empty spot in the bathroom.  Even harder sometimes when I thought of you under the bed collecting dust.  There were several times in those first few weeks of our separation that I just wanted to get you out from under the bed and put you back.  I wanted to forget that I had banished you from my life, and I wanted everything to be normal again.  But I’m stronger than that.  So I left you there.  I’m not going to say I’m sorry for what I’ve done because I’m not.

When we parted, all you were doing was causing me pain.  It felt like an endless cycle of frustration every time you and I were together.  A girl can’t live like that.  There has to be something else.  She can’t give anything that much power.  And yet there I was, practically every day, hoping that somehow you would change everything.  Wishing that just once you would show me something that I could be proud of.  But you never did, so I had to say goodbye for a while.

I think the time we have spent apart has been good for me.  I’ve done a lot of things in the last 5 weeks, none of which had anything to do with you.  I learned the art of celebrating non scale victories and I can see two tiny little dimples on my tummy where I think my abs are trying to break free.  I did that all on my own without your help.  And that spot of yours in the bathroom has been taken up by something else.  Looks like I might be learning to live without you.

Originally we were only supposed to take a break for 5 weeks.  This amount of time was intended to get me past the marathon training, plus two weeks to get my eating and regular exercise back on track.  We’re quickly approaching the time for our reunion.  I don’t know how to feel about it.  I want to see you, but I’m afraid that we’ll just end up right back where we were 5 weeks ago.  And all that frustration and hurt will come rushing back, erasing all the victories over the last month.  And what if you have bad news for me?  I’m not sure I could handle it.  So I’m at a loss.  Part of me wants to build a healthy relationship with you.  Part of me just wants to leave you under the bed for ever and ever. So what do we do?

I think I want to try to make this work.  I really do.  I think building our relationship is important.  So let’s go forward with the reunion.  But don’t expect that same old me.  I’m going to be on guard and probably a little shy.  And if I don’t feel like you’re not giving me what I want, then I might just put you under the bed again.  And it might be like that between the two of us for the next couple of months.  But let’s try this relationship again and see where it goes.  I think both of us have had some time off and we can make it work.  I have faith and I’m willing to try.

                            All the Best,

                                                         Jackie

This Girl Is Not a Quitter

In this week’s edition of Marathon Worries….

I thought a lot about quitting over the weekend.  Trust me, I had the time, since I was stuck on the couch recovering from the flu.  Which in turn mean that I was not able to get my final long (20 Miles) in.  And in my fevered and weakened state it seemed easier to me to quit than to figure out a way to succeed. So there I sat, in a slump, sick, and bummed out because I was on the verge of quitting the one thing I’ve been working on for so long.  4 days of thinking almost drove me crazy.

I could quit now.  I could call the game and walk away.  But I’m not going to.  A year ago, when I was doing the half up there, I promised myself that I would come back this year and do the marathon.  I don’t want to make another excuse.  Lately I feel like that’s all I do and I’m getting kind of tired of it.  Instead, I just want to go out there, do it and be done with it.  Is that so bad?  No excuses, just dedication and trust in myself.  I feel like if I can succeed at this, then I’ll break the barriers to all that has held me back.  It’s time to throw the excuses away.

I’m not quitting.  I have to try. I believe I will succeed.  This girl is not a quitter.

Team Challenge Race Weekend!

Boom!  Race weekend complete.  Yippee!!!!  Such a wonderful weekend with my Team Challenge Family.  The last 48 hours have been so full of experiences and emotions, that is might take me a few posts to talk about them before.  But first things first, let’s talk about how amazing it is to be a part of Team Challenge!

Wait, you’ve never heard of Team Challenge before?  Oh, you’re probably getting them confused with that other fundraising running team.  Yeah, that’s not us.  Those people are purple and green, we’re blue and orange.  Think of us like Peet’s is to Startbucks.  We don’t cover as much territory, but our product is still amazing.  Instead of racing to find a cure for blood cancers, we race to find a cure for Crohn’s Disease and Colitis.

Uh oh, there’s that questioning look on your face again.  What the heck are those?  Ahh geez, I’m not a medical doctor, so explaining them to you is hard.  For full info check out this website.  The short version is that Crohn’s and Colitis are two diseases that are autoimmune.  Crohn’s attacks your entire gastrointestinal track and Colitis likes to hang out in your colon.  They make you spend mass amounts to time in the bathroom with stuff coming out either end – sometimes there’s even blood involved, have super bad stomach cramps, make you feel like you have the flu all the time, and at times generally makes you feel like people are playing with knives in your stomach.  Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun does it?  Well, it’s not.  And I’ve watched Momma Bear suffer with it my entire life.  There’s no cure, it’s chronic, and it sucks.  So me and about 3000 other people get together to run a couple of 1/2 marathons a year to find a cure.  And if we’re lucky we raise about $5 Million dollars along the way.

I’ve been with Team Challenge since 2008, first as a participant, and then moving up the ranks from mentor, to captain, to coach.  It’s been an amazing experience, and this is certainly never a place I thought I would be when I started 5 years ago.  I’ll never forget my first training when I could barely run once around the track without wanting to throw up.  I was terrified that I was in way over my head, and that there was no way that I would be able to run 13 miles.  I thought about quitting, but then I figured since Momma Bear never quit, I probably shouldn’t either.  So I stayed with it.  And in time, the miles weren’t as hard as they used to be.  After awhile, I even kind of started to enjoy it.  And I’ll never be able to explain how amazing it was to cross the finish line that first time.  In fact I liked it so much, I signed on to do it again and again.  Each time learning just a little bit more about distance running, and all the things that go into it. I also found that what I enjoyed even more was helping people achieve their goals. So when the coaching gig came up, it seemed a little too perfect to pass up.

After 8 seasons with Team Challenge, I was pretty sure I could coach the team and get them to the finish line.  Sure it was a little scary.  I mean what if I didn’t know what I was doing and all these people died because of me?  Ok, I wasn’t that fatalistic about it, but still!  These people trusted me to get them across the finish line happy and healthy.  So I swallowed some fears, jumped in, and loved every freakin’ minute of it.  I don’t need to go through 17 weeks of training, but I can tell you that there are moments when you’re coaching when you see things happen.  Someone meets a milestone and they smile, they tell you they can’t and you convince they that they can, they take your advice and it works, they succeed over and over again in achieving what they set out to do.  Those are the moments that I’ve collected for the last 17 weeks.  Those are the moments that I’ll carry with me forever.

Yesterday was the biggest moment of all.  Seeing everyone out there on the course, cheering all those orange jerseys on, was the best feeling ever.  I got to run with people from all over the country, get people through those tough miles, wipe away a tear or two, share in a laugh or two, see all of my team strong and happy when they crossed the finish line, and be a part of something truly magical.

If I take anything away from race weekends, it’s the belief that magic really does happen.  It happens when people set out to accomplish something amazing.  It happens when people place their trust in others and themselves.  It happens when you ask someone to donate $5 dollars and they donate $500.  It happens when you can send a kid to camp for a week or help fund a new research project.  It happens when you get tired, and you pass a cheering team calling your name so you start running again.  And it happens when people get together because they believe they can change the life of someone they don’t even know.  Don’t ever let anyone tell you that 650 people can’t make a difference.  Just tell them you believe in magic of people.

More race weekend adventures tomorrow…

Define Brave

Yesterday when I was talking to one of my BFF’s on the phone, I was lamenting the fact that I wanted to be the cool, calm, and collected girl who’s brave, and has the courage to say what she wants, when she wants to.  The girl who is awesome at all times, and doesn’t let the little fears in her life hold her back from getting what she wants.  I even named her, coming up with a complete alternate personality.  We decided to call her CJ (Cool Calm Collected Jackie). We kept talking about all the things that CJ would do since fear and ego weren’t holding her back.  Seems like she has a pretty great life.  CJ is a girl who goes out and gets what she wants.  Life is hers for the taking.

I kept thinking about CJ the rest of the day.  Wondering if she really was a figment of my imagination, or if somewhere deep inside, CJ actually exists. Ok, the truth is, I know she does.  There have been times in life where I was cool, confident, and collected.  Not a lot of times, but times.  So I know she’s there.  And instead of wanting to be like CJ, maybe I just need to take the leap and add CJ into the real, every day Jackie.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be brave. To have the courage to go out into the world, set your eyes on something you want, and to do your best to make it happen.  I wonder if the reason most of us aren’t willing to take chances is because we are held back by fear, and worry that our egos are too fragile to handle complete, total, epic failure.  So instead, we sit in the world and watch our lives pass us by.  After all, that’s a lot safer.  The risks of failure and rejection are nill if you don’t take any chances. But what do we gain from this way of thinking?  Not a lot whole lot!  Mostly it just causes this girl to sit on her couch at home watching 30 Rock and eating cereal (yes, there is a little Liz Lemon in all of us).  And what do I do when I’m on the couch?  I sit there and think about all the things I wish I was doing.  The things I want to learn, the activities I want to take part in, the life I want to be leading.  I ask myself “Why aren’t I at a singing lesson right now? Why aren’t I playing softball or kickball on some team?  Why aren’t I at a bar flirting with the bartender or anyone on the bar stool next to me? What exactly is preventing me from getting off the couch and doing all the things I want?”

Putting yourself out into the world seems a lot easier when you’re talking about life in the abstract.  It’s the actual doing that takes courage.  And how does one find that courage?  Do you find it when you abandon fear?  Do you find it when you drive fast and take chances? Do you find courage when you understand that we all fail from time to time, and that rejection is just part of the game?  When you find all of those things, can you finally dive into the deep end and start living?

I know what CJ would say.  She’d tell me to stop stressing about all this and just start doing.  Start living.  Or else, she’s never going come alive and will always be a figment of my imagination.  The girl I wish I was, instead of the girl I am.  It’s time to be brave.  It’s time to find my courage.  It’s time to make CJ a reality.

GULP!

What does being brave mean to you?  How do you find courage to do the things you want?

June Goals Wrap Up

What? It’s July already? But I just started getting to work on my goals for June. Ok, not really.  In fact I’ve been working at some of them all month.  So let’s see how I did:

Goal #1:  Jillian Michaels Body Revolution 4 Days a Week:

Epic fail at this, and I. do. mean. epic.  Every morning I set my alarm to get up and do the video(s).  It’s a freakin’ 30 minute video, this should not be hard.  But, every morning, there I was snoozing my way through my workout.  Waking up failing at my day before it even started.  Ugh!  The good news is that somewhere in all of this, I did find time to read a different book on weight lifting that I’m excited about.  I think part of the reason for the goal above, is that I’m staring down the calendar and running out of days before Hawaii. When a gril knows she’s to be seen in a bathing suit, something terrible happens to her mind.  Sometimes she even gets a little crazy and starts crash dieting and exercising.  No this girl!  I give myself permission to look the way I do now a month from now.  If I lose and tone between now and then – great.  If not – then I so be it.  Set another goal, and move on!

Goal #2: Focus on Eating More:

I know this one took y’all for a surprise since I usually complain endlessly about the fact that I want to loose weight.  Turned out that for most of the months of April and May I was putting myself into starvation mode my working out and not eating enough calories.  Since I’m not that huge of a fan of food, getting more calories in was a bit of a challenge.  However, I have increased my calories by 200 each day and seem to be getting them in.  This, with exercise, has proven to work, since..drum roll please…I lost 3 pounds.  Woo hoo, finally the scale is moving again.  Yippee! So long starvation mode!

Goal #3:  Bucket List:

Yup, it’s true.  If you look above, you may notice that there’s a new page on the menu bar called Bucket List.  I finally took the time to begin creating one.  This bucket list is by no means finished, but it’s a good start and I can’t wait to start checking things off.  Creating the list has been a really good reminder for me to realize that there is very little in life worth waiting for.  If you want something, then go out and try to make it happen.  There are several things on the list that I could start doing right now.  And let me tell you, I intend on getting several of those items checked off soon.  I’ll keep ya posted!

So that’s it for June.  Not my worst showing ever.  I think I did ok.  Now onward to July!

How did you do on your June Goals?

Better Days

Even though this song is usually played at a different time of year (that crazy New Years thing), I think there’s something to be said that any night can be a night that things start again.  There’s always a chance to make a change and make a better choice.  Doesn’t have to be just because a year is coming to an end.  Every once in a while it’s important to remind yourself that new beginnings can happen any time.

Another song to add to the soundtrack of my life.

The Good, The Bad, The Obsession

Do you have a body apart that you obsess about?  What’s the one part of your body that you wish you could change more than anything?  For me, it’s my arms.  I hate them, always have.  No matter what, I can always find something wrong with them.  I’ll never forget the day I discovered that I had “teacher arms”.  Ugh, thank god I never had to erase anything off of a blackboard.  The horror!  Tank tops and sleeveless dresses are my enemies.  I’m pretty sure that all of us have some sort negative obsession about a part of our body.  It might be natural, it might not be.  But no matter what, we can’t easily walk away from it.  We focus on it, we target it, and we speak poorly of it. Wishing it and all its ugliness away.

Now let me ask you something…do you have a body part that you love?  I bet you do, but I also bet that the answer didn’t come that easy to you.  Your probably thought about it for minute.  Why is that?  Why is it that is was probably easier to answer my first question about the body part you hate than to answer the question about the body part you love?  Is is because the part you love you rarely pay attention to?  Do you throw it aside because all your energy goes into focusing on changing the bad instead of celebrating the good?  No way….none of us do that, right?

It’s an interesting dynamic isn’t it?  That we always focus on the bad before the good.  Years of conditioning and comparing ourselves against others, it’s not surprising that we tend to disregard the good and concentrate on the bad.  We are in a constant battle to improve ourselves,  and we forget that there is so much that is already good. This perhaps is one of the hardest lessons to learn.  That we are the sum of all our parts.  The good and the bad.  Perhaps the focus should be on celebrating the parts of us that are good and concentrating on how change the dialogue about the bad parts.  ‘Cause really, they aren’t all that bad.  And maybe with a little more positive self talk, then the bad can start to become good. This obsession over change will turn into making a healthy choice, and accepting that there will always be certain parts of our body that are imperfect.  With that comes the realization that the body parts you obsess over are also the ones that no one else is paying attention to.  At the end of the day, most people we come across are focusing on the beauty and not the beast parts of us.

So as the weather warms up, perhaps it’s time to break out a tank top or two.  Show off a little bit of those arms and see how it feels.  I doubt anyone will notice and it will only be me who feels like I’m the elephant in the middle of the room.  But you know what I think will happen?  With every day I wear a tank top or sundress, that’s one day closer I am to total comfort and celebration of my arms.  So I’ll take the risk to focus on the reward.

Phase of Life Issue

The sun is shining on this beautiful day in San Francisco (yup, that’s the view from my office!) and it’s clear to me that perhaps spring has finally sprung.  Thank god.  Something about spring and the warmer weather always make much happier.   And after the last week, that’s the best news ever. It’s been a rough couple of days.  I kind of ventured into a bit of dark place and it took me awhile to come out of it.  This happens every once in a while.  What can I say? Balancing my chemicals isn’t always the easiest thing.  Typically I do pretty well at it, but there are times when I just can’t muster up the strength.

I’ve been trying to think back on what it was that triggered things off this time and I can find two specific reasons. The first is that as much as I want to live by the rules I set in Monday’s post about the scale, this week I couldn’t.  In fact, Monday’s post was probably just me working through it.  Alas, I failed, BIG TIME.  Ok…so yes…the numbers do mean a little something more than I would like to admit.  And after working my little buns off for the last 6 weeks, I expect, and I kind of feel like I deserve, to see some weight loss.  But nope, not a damn bit of it.  So I let it get to me.  And I got frustrated and I got bummed out, and I couldn’t be that girl who wanted to say it was ok if the scale didn’t move, cause it’s not.  I want it to move DAMNIT.

Luckily I’m not a girl who likes to accept things without a fight, so I decided that it was time to enlist some help.  I made an appt. with an nutritionist and I’m hoping that we can find some answers together.  Maybe I’m not eating the right foods.  Maybe I’m not eating enough?  Maybe I’m doing everything right and this is my set weight?  Who knows, but it will be nice to get another point of view.  I’m actually really excited about it.

Also I seem to have the career blues a bit, actually a lot!  It’s time to move on and do something else.  Put that new degree to work. But the whole thing of being over educated and under experienced for what I want to do is challenging.  I feel like there are some limitations to finding a new job such as salary, working full time and therefore not being able to do an internship, the economy (me and everyone else in the world wants a job), and finally, just plain old fear.  What if I’m not good at what I want to do?  What if I don’t really know what I’m talking about?  All these things and more come crashing down every time I submit a resume.  And then there’s the change thing.  Which I’m never very good at.  I’m so comfortable at work now, and I love every one I work with. Why would I ever want to leave?  It’s so nice and comfy here – like the best couch on earth. Why the heck would I change that.  Oh right, head…hitting the ceiling…yeah, I forgot that part… So I’m soldiering on.  One of the May goals is to network.  By Monday, I want to have an event to attend.  And I’ll keep submitting those resumes and find new things to do at work so my head doesn’t explode.

No answers come quickly to the big life questions.  And I’m willing to accept that the two above are pretty big and life changing.  But as most of you are aware, patience is not my strong suit.   So it’s matter of working through it I suppose.  Understanding that the dark place doesn’t last forever, and if it does, it’s time to get thee to the pysch ward (kidding…).  I believe that this what they in the Biz (the psych biz that is) refer to as a “phase of life issue”.  Ok, I’ll go with that.  Ups and downs, good and bad phases, peaks and valleys.  Call it what you like.  It happens to all of us.  I believe this is what they call life…correct me if I’m wrong…

 

P.S. the spell checker feature on this thing is broken.  Please forgive any typos or idiotic mistakes.

Puffy Happens

I might be a bit late to the party on this one, since I know it was a big news a few days ago, but I still think it’s worth mentioning.  Just wanted to give a shout out to Miss Ashley Judd who wrote an amazing op-ed piece earlier this week slamming the media for their scrutiny of women’s bodies.

For those of you who don’t know, Miss Ashley appeared last week at an event with a “puffy face”.  And she caught hell for it.  Seems she had a sinus infection and was on some steroids to get rid of it.  There’s this thing called moon face that y’all should know about.  It happens when people are on prescription steroids.  It causes your face get round and “puffy”.  It’s a medical side effect.  Ask anyone who has been on steroids for an extended amount of time, and they’ll tell you that besides going bonkers, this is usually their least favorite side effect.  It happens, it’s a reality, and it something that no one, including beautiful actresses are immune to. Puffy happens to the best of us through no fault of our own. But with no real evidence to back it up, all the sudden a puffy face becomes plastic surgery. A woman can’t possible age that gracefully, so clearly, she must have gone under the knife. Really? Really!

“If this conversation about me is going to be had, I will do my part to insist that it is a feminist one, because it has been misogynistic from the start. Who makes the fantastic leap from being sick, or gaining some weight over the winter, to a conclusion of plastic surgery? Our culture, that’s who. The insanity has to stop, because as focused on me as it appears to have been, it is about all girls and women. In fact, it’s about boys and men, too, who are equally objectified and ridiculed, according to heteronormative definitions of masculinity that deny the full and dynamic range of their personhood. It affects each and every one of us, in multiple and nefarious ways: our self-image, how we show up in our relationships and at work, our sense of our worth, value, and potential as human beings. Join in—and help change—the Conversation.”    –Ashley Judd

She’s right, the conversation has to change.  For so long we’ve been willing the discount brains, talent, and success for beauty.  Beauty reigns supreme.  It’s an unrealistic image that is perpetuated by the media, society, men, and women.  We do this to ourselves.

As a former fat kid and still struggling weight conscious adult (notice I didn’t say fat), I’m amazed at how much value I put on my beauty.  I’ve been made fun of, shunned by the boys, mocked openly in public for my appearance, and the greatest embarrassment of them all…asked when the baby was due.  No matter how I excel at my job, marathon training, education, or other success factors, if I don’t look good, then I have little value. It’s a message that I have believed in for so many years.  And it’s time to decode and reframe it.

I’m never going to be movie star beautiful, but I can be beautiful in so many other ways.  We give so much value to what other’s think of us, and not enough to what we believe about ourselves.  Our definition of beauty should only be based upon our belief systems — not what the media, our friends, family, men, or other women think of us. So I’m going to make my own definition for me and nobody else. It’s time to find out what it really means to beautiful by my own understanding.  I may take myself apart from the inside out, and it will be by own terms and by own definition. I’m fairly certain that I can come up with a definition of beauty that is based more than on how much I weigh or don’t weigh, how I’m aging, or if I’m meeting society’s standards.  Maybe instead, this time I should meet my own standards instead of trying to live up to everyone else’s.

Check out Ashely’s article: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-appearance.html.

That was Yesterday

I spend a lot of time cheerleading for others and a lot less time cheerleading for myself.  The cheerleader in me needs to find a positive spin on pretty much everything. The coach in me needs to find a way to “reframe” things. The athlete in me needs to be a competitor.

I don’t want to turn the blog into a confessional for every time I feel like I fail. That’s probably not productive for me, and it makes for lousy reading too. But it’s also important to be human. The other day, a dear friend told me not to sugar coat everything, and she reminded me that not every post has to have a positive spin on it. This stuff is hard. Dealing with body image, training, dieting (we really need a new word for that), and all the other life stuff is challenging. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be positive – sometimes it needs to be real, and sometimes it needs to be from my very raw heart.

I’ve spent all day trying to figure out how to put a positive spin on how much yesterday sucked, and I just can’t do it. So I’m not going to try. There’s no need. Some days are just bad. Some days suck. Some days you give up on yourself. That was yesterday. I gave up on myself so bad, I walked out of the gym. I wasn’t into it and didn’t want any part of it. So I said screw it.

That was yesterday. Today is today. Today is better than yesterday. I’m leaving it there. There will be plenty of other days to ramble on about how today is the only day that matters and that I can’t do anything about yesterday so it’s time to let it go.

Like I how slipped that positive spin in there anyway? Damn! Habits are hard to break. Where are my pom poms?