Just Working On My Fitness, You’re My Witness (Part 2)

Early on in this blog’s existence, I wrote a post with the above title that had a list of goals that I said I would provide updates on about my progress. As demonstrated by the years that I didn’t post, I didn’t keep that promise. Now that I’m recommitted to this blog, I hope to occasionally post about my health and fitness.

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I have struggled feeling healthy and comfortable in my skin for most of my life. As a kid I was active and then during middle school I was less interested in playing outside and ate too many sweets and fried foods. I didn’t start working on my fitness until 10th grade when my oldest sister and I started to run short distances at Mt. Trashmore in Virginia Beach. The first time we ran a half mile, I remember telling my mom in her kitchen when I returned home how exciting it felt to reach that goal. It was so funny to feel my legs shaking from the fatigue. We were told that doing anything for 21 days creates a habit and so we wanted to make running a part of our daily lives. I haven’t gotten into a habit of running everyday, running that half a mile was so exciting and initiated the many years of races that include 2 marathons, 5 half marathons, and too many 10k and 5k races to count.

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I felt the healthiest during two points so far in my adult life- my junior year of college when I went to my college gym often with my friends and after I trained for my first marathon in October 2013. I ate a regular diet and got down to my lowest healthiest weight and smallest jean size.

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In January 2014, I moved to CA for 6 months and that was a huge health turning point for me…for the worst. It’s embarrassing to say, but I gained 40 pounds in those few months. It’s crazy to look back on a year that I trained and completed a marathon to the next year feeling so out of shape and unhappy. I was depressed, missed my friends and family on the east coast, was bored with the never-ending sun and warm weather (I crave the change of seasons),and felt very uncomfortable in the entire situation. When I returned to VA that July, I weighed the highest amount I’ve ever seen on the scale and my clothes were so uncomfortable. It was a wake up call that it was good I moved back and that I had a lot of work to do to get back to how I felt and looked prior to the move.

I’ve now been back on the east coast for about 7 years and while I’m definitely not nearly over 200 pounds anymore, I have not been able to get to the same weight and fitness level I was before CA (outside of the NYC Marathon training in 2018). I can’t seem to get out of this 5-10 pound range I’ve been in for awhile. I have read books and listened to podcasts about ignoring the scale, but weight loss and feeling good in my own skin is still important and feels inter-related to me.

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Living through the pandemic has made me super aware that I want to live a long time and take care of myself while I can. So, last April, I started taking weekly fitness classes over Zoom with two of my sisters. In January of this year, I started scheduling 5-7 time slots per week in our apartment building’s gym. It felt pretty safe to do so since only 2 people could be in the gym at one time and most of those times that person was Pete. My workout plan so far this year was to use the building’s Peloton for bike and weight classes 2-4 times a week and go on a run or two or an online barre class. My goal was to plan my meals out better at the beginning of each week and cut out dessert Mondays through Thursdays. My goal is to feel strong, less sluggish throughout the week, and more comfortable in my clothes (outside of my joggers which I love and always feel happy wearing…lol).

I know that nothing is a quick fix but I do feel like I should have seen somewhat more progress than I have experienced so far…so I’m hoping the next few months to make little tweaks to my diet and become more aware of food and how food and exercise affects me. Below are some of the ways that I hope to do that:

1. Workout 4-5 times a week – through runs, Pure Barre Go, the Peloton and some weight training
2. Keep my fitness challenges up – I started with 30 squats per day in January and now I’m up to 60 per day and next month I’ll go up to 70. I also have a 10 minute walk per day goal and a plank challenge I also want to complete in May (I’m clearly obsessed with challenges cause I’m competitive…mostly with my current self lol).
3. Drink more water – when I get distracted with work or out running errands, I rarely have enough water. I want to figure out how to actually drink what I should be everyday.
4. Actively try to get into a better sleep routine – I’ve never been good at going to bed earlier and prioritize it.
5. Become more aware of what foods are affecting me negatively. I may try to meet with a GI specialist or nutritionalist to see if there is a solution for some of stomach issues I’ve had the past couple of months.
6. Learn to be comfortable and happy with how I look and stop being so critical.

I think the main thing out of all of my goals that I hope to achieve is the final one. It’s funny to me to go back and look through photos and remember feeling like I was huge but I really wasn’t. Time provides a lot of perspective. I definitely want to feel healthier and be smarter with my choices, but I hope that being a little less harsh to myself will overall help me feel better and nicer to myself.

How do you move past the moments that you feel unhappy with how you look? What tips have you learned to help yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally on those days? Any key pieces of advice you have for fitness and wellness?

Hopefully in about 6 months I will post a blog with some positive updates to share. Keep your eyes out for that! (Keep me accountable!!)