Fashion Statement

Last year, when I was working my way through the Couch to 5K and Bridge to 10K programs, I managed to chafe my way through, not one, not two, but three pairs of sweat pants.

Yeah.

Okay, so I'll admit it. I am fat, and my thighs rub together when I walk or run. I guess ordinary cotton sweat pants aren't up to the task, and in a relatively short amount of time, the fabric starts to pill. Then it wears away, and eventually I end up with a hole or two in the crotch of my sweats.

At first, it wasn't a huge problem. When I was working my way through C25K, the longest run was only 30 minutes. The chafing didn't seem to be so bothersome. Unfortunately (for me) as I started doing the longer runs that approach an hour in the B210K program, the rubbing started to become really annoying.

As I started to lose a little bit of weight, my sweat pants started slopping around. Once they started slopping around, they'd drag my underwear along for the ride, and I felt like every few steps I was having to pick cotton out of my copious ass. By the time I'd finished B210K, I'd worn big holes in my third pair of sweat pants (my that last run did feel drafty) and I ended up with stinging red patches on my thighs where the outermost layer of skin had been rubbed away.

It didn't feel so bad until I'd got into the shower. Then those little stingy spots made me yelp.

It dawned on me that it was time to buy some Proper Running Clothes.

Yeah, right.

I figured the chances of anything fitting me were going to be about zero.

Still, we found the name and address of a local running specialty store, and we paid them a visit. I felt awkward and embarrassed there, because everyone in the store (customers and staff alike) were clearly fit runners. There I was, the obese middle-aged slob, trying to buy a pair of shoes, because my old ones were just about dead.

I found shoes. Then it came time for the tights. I told the guy to bring me the biggest size they stocked, and I found one style that actually fit.

I couldn't believe it. These pants were supposed to be capris, but because I'm so darn short they reached to my ankles. They were the stretchiest damn things I'd ever seen, and without too much bouncing or wiggling, they pulled up over my copious ass.

Wow, something that fits. I bought three pairs of the running tights (all they had) since I knew I'd be running commando in them and I didn't want to double-wear nasty running tights after I'd run in them once.

Commando, for my UK and OZ friends, means that one is going without underwear.

Umm, yeah.

So I realize that I'm making a serious fashion faux pas here. I am old, fat, and my ass goes on forever, so I really don't have the body for running around in public wearing stretchy running pants that don't leave anything to the imagination.

But, those pants sure are comfortable. They are stretchy, yet they provide a little bit of compression so my fat doesn't feel like it's slopping all over the place when I run. Best of all, they are made out of extremely slippery nylon and spandex, which means that my thighs (and other parts down under) aren't chafing anymore.

Still, I'm not really keen on being seen in this get up. I've been running with a sports bra and a t-shirt, which I try to pull down over my copious ass. Unfortunately, as I run, the shirt tends to ride up and my butt hangs out for all the world to see.

So, to avoid being spotted by too many commuters on their way to work, I started running in the morning, early. That worked for a while, but pretty soon I started noticing that the industrial park I have to run through to get to my favorite jogging trail is often occupied by early-morning truck drivers. These guys are driving big semis, and are mostly young and macho.

It made me want to hide.

So every morning I'd try to sneak through the industrial complex, and about half the time I'd get caught. One morning it was because a driver wanted to turn left into the driveway I was crossing. I suppose it's a good thing that he saw me, as I otherwise would have been crushed flat by his semi. The worst part?

He waved at me!

Yeah, he waved at me. I couldn't very well ignore him, as he was being courteous, so I waved back. Lucky for me, I was already red-faced and sweaty, so he couldn't see that I was blushing because I was so embarrassed. I honestly wished that the ground would have opened up a hole and swallowed me right down.

So this carried on for several mornings. I'd run through the industrial area, and I'd get caught each morning by someone different. Sometimes, it would be the semi-drivers. Other times, it would be some random guy in a pick-up truck waving and giving me the thumbs-up gesture.

The worst, though, was the young (and gorgeous) African American guy who had parked his truck in the middle of the street. He got out of his truck and was walking to the office warehouse as I huffed and puffed my way down the sidewalk. I was on the return home, so I was especially hot, red-faced and sweaty. In short, I looked ugly, fat, and out-of-breath.

What he did next, totally surprised me.

He stopped dead in his tracks, turned around and started walking back towards me. He stopped, and started clapping and shouting encouragement at me. I don't remember what it was exactly that he said, other than something like, "You are doing good momma, keep doin' what you gotta do!"

I didn't know how to respond. Dropping dead of embarrassment was at the top of my list. Instead, I mustered up a smile and thanked him (breathlessly of course) as I ran by.

And now, I figure I just don't give a shit if anyone sees my fat ass. Too bad for them if they don't like it. They can always turn and look somewhere else.

Long Time No See

So I realized, recently, that I haven't touched this blog in well over a year. I'd pretty much forgotten about it, because I was so busy dealing with other things. The other things mostly consisting of things like:

• The Kid, who has been downright awful. (Think out-of-control teen on steroids)
• The Job, which went thermo-nuclear busy last January and continued like that for most of the year.
• The Wife, who I finally got to take a solo vacation with between the Christmas and New Year's holidays.

The Diet kind of took a back seat for a while, especially since I've been fooling around for close to two years with my thyroid medications. I think I'm finally in a halfway decent spot with that, and I feel mostly human.

I didn't finish Bridge to 10K that I was writing about back at the end of 2010. Shortly after I wrote that post, I got a horrible cold, which kept me away from running for a number of weeks, and then I started with a new thyroid medication that wasn't working out very well for me until we got the dosage right. I finally did get back to the Couch to 5K and Bridge to 10K programs this year, and finished them exactly a month ago.

I can can now run four and a half miles in a single stretch, though I'm still terribly slow. Since I finished B210K, I've been running three to four days a week at distances between three and four and a half miles. Yesterday, I ran a measly two and three-quarters miles, because I took The Kid with me and she pooped out early.

As for my weight, it's been up and down. I'm about 19 pounds heavier than I was at my low in 2010, but the weight is finally trending downward again now that I'm back to running. I'll update those statistics in my sidebar later. I'm a little discouraged that I got so close to just being overweight back in 2010, but just never quite made it.

Maybe this year will be better, though to be honest, I've really stopped trying to lose weight. At this point, I'm just doing my runs three or four days a week, and we'll see where that goes. Just the fact that I can do it at all is a good thing.

So Bad Me, But Good Me

So this has been kind of a good news/bad news kind of post.

The bad news is that I've been busy and I haven't been posting much on my blog. I just looked this morning and realized that it's been nearly an entire month since I've written anything. Seriously, bad me.

In my defense, I spent more than a week caring for a relative who had surgery, so it hasn't been as though I've been twiddling my thumbs and doing absolutely nothing.

On the plus side, my weight is down a few pounds from where it was a month ago. This morning's weight, after running and going to the bathroom, was 220.4. That's down four pounds since last month.

Now most people would be pretty damn unhappy with losing only four measly pounds in a month. Normally, I would be too, except for one thing: my goal for the holiday season was simply to maintain my weight.

Now I know the holiday season for most people starts with Thanksgiving, but that's not how it works in this house. The holiday season starts around the middle of October. The Kid and The Wife both have birthdays, which of course are accompanied by dinners out (The Kid always wants to go out for Mexican food, which is the worst possible thing I could eat) followed by tons of birthday cake. Next comes Halloween, and the gluttonous amounts of candy that get brought in by The Kid, even when we don't buy candy to pass out, like we did this year in deference to my diet.

My birthday comes in November, and then we have Thanksgiving. Both tend to be gluttonous feeding frenzies, and then comes December with Hanukkah and Christmas. The entire month of December seems to be one giant excuse to eat nothing but crap, so the fact that I've lost a little bit of weight with all this terrible temptation everywhere pleases me to no end.

The other exciting bit is that I am now just two pounds from being obese. Now I know most people don't see obesity as something to celebrate, but if you are on the downward trend from morbid obesity, becoming obese is an accomplishment.

I'm happy about my weight loss, too, because my doctor has changed my script for thyroid medication twice, and each time it's changed I feel like I'm thrown for a loop. Every time the dose has been increased, I've felt better, but now my labs say I'm taking too much medication, so they are dropping my dosages. With each drop, I've felt more and more out of gas, so I'm not sure things are trending exactly in the right direction.

Blah.

I'm still working my way through the Bridge to 10K program, and this week is my 17th week of running. This week's run consists of three 15-minute runs, separated by a minute of walking. I have to say that this morning's run seemed a lot harder than last week's workout of four 10-minute runs.

I did make it his morning, so I'm happy about that.

So even though I've been naughty about blogging, I've been good with weight loss, so I guess that's all good. The fact that I've lost four pounds during a period when my goal was simply to maintain makes me pretty darn happy all the way around.

Back to Where I Left Off

Over the summer, I was diagnosed as having a thyroid problem. I started taking thyroid medication, and in what seemed like an instant, I dropped about 20 pounds. I was super motivated, I was back on the diet and exercise bandwagon, and the weight seemed like it was falling off.

And then, just as quickly as it started, the weight loss stopped. I've been stuck on a plateau for about two months that just wouldn't seem to break. I tried reducing my calories, increasing my calories, doing more exercise, doing less exercise, but nothing seemed to help.

Then, just as mysteriously as it started, the plateau broke, and I'm losing weight again.

At the end of October, I completed Couch to 5K. I wasn't sure that I'd be able to finish, but I did, and now I'm working on the Ease into 10K program. Although there is a Bridge to 10K program designed for folks who completed Couch to 5K, I decided to go with the longer 10K program, simply because my running speeds are so slow I figured working on shorter runs and doing them at faster speeds might help.

On Saturday, I ran for about 34 minutes. I covered just under two miles, and my average speed was 17:50/mile. Slow. The first mile I ran 17:01, which was quite a bit better, but I just started to get tired and slowed way down.

I'm still working at it. The longest run I've made was 37 minutes at an average speed of 17:43. Hopefully, I will speed up at some point.

I had originally thought that I might be able to hit a 10-minute mile before the end of the year. Now, I'm simply hoping that I'll be able to make a 15-minute mile by then.

As for my weight, I was happy to see 224.4 show up on the scale this morning. That's the lowest I've been since April 2009. Once again, I am within a stone's throw of being merely obese instead of morbidly obese.

So now, I am back to where I left off of my diet, more than a year and a half ago. I hope I will be able to stick things out this time.

I Completed Couch to 5K

Well, I did it.

On Friday, I went out and did my third run of week 9, thus finishing my final week of Couch to 5K. I was surprisingly nervous about the run, even though I absolutely knew I could do it. I'd done an extra run last Saturday and went for 34 minutes, plus I'd completed the 30-minute runs on Monday and Wednesday.

I guess I was worried something bad would happen and I wouldn't graduate.

But I did. I finished my 30-minute run and all was just fine.

Of course the truth is that I'm not sure I've really graduated the program since I'm not really anywhere near running 5K at this point. This morning, I went for an extra run, and I covered 1.95 miles in 34 minutes. That's a blinding average speed of 17:38 minutes per mile. (Can you hear the sarcasm?)

On Monday, I will start the 10-week Ease into 10K program. Although I could have jumped right into the 6-week Bridge to 10K program, I figured that going with the longer program will give me a few more weeks of short intervals so I can work on increasing my speed.

At this point, I have three goals I would like to achieve:

1. Complete Ease into 10K and be able to run for a full 60 minutes without stopping. Unless I get sick, injured or have to repeat a week, I expect to meet this goal on January 17.
2. Be able to run 5 miles without stopping. Given that I can't even cover two miles within 30 minutes, I have a feeling this goal will take much longer to achieve.
3. Be able to run a 10-minute mile. At this point, this goal seems really far off, but it's on my radar. Right now, I can't predict when I might be able to do this, but maybe I'll have a better idea in January.

Couch to 5K - Week 9

Perhaps I am being a little premature in declaring victory here, but this morning I made my second of three 30-minute runs that are scheduled for this week. I wasn't worried about completing the run this week, because I already knew I could run for 30 minutes. Last week, I was running for 25 minutes, and on Saturday I went for a "just because I feel like it" run.

Okay, well maybe the word run is a little overstating things. I'm huffing and puffing along at roughly 3.25 MPH, which is a speed most fit people could out-walk.

But I digress. I went out on Saturday and I jogged for 34 minutes. I felt like I could have gone on even longer, but my left knee was hurting intermittently during the run, and I figured discretion was the better part of valor. I kept going until I was almost home, and then I walked the rest of the way.

Yay me.

So this week's 30-minute runs haven't seemed so bad. I am fully confident that I will make Friday's run without any problems, though the weather isn't supposed to be so wonderful. The forecast is for rain, likely starting early morning. I suppose I could get up really early and try to beat the wet weather, but I don't have any reflective clothing, and I don't want to get run over by a sleepy commuter on his way to work.

So, I'll run at sunrise and hope the storm front stays away until after I run.

Knowing my luck, fat chance. I'll run anyway, and perhaps I won't stink as much if the rain washes all the sweat away.

In other news I'm within about 3 lbs of my lowest recorded weight back in 2009. Even though my weight is just a bit higher, my percentage of body fat is lower than it was around the same time. Back then, it was 48.6%. This morning, it was 47.1% That is an improvement, I guess.

I'm still discouraged that I'm not seeing more progress.

Next week, I am going to start the Ease into 10K program. Even though I'm still not able to run 5K in 30 minutes, I figure the best thing I can do is increase my workout time. The 10K training program sets a goal of running for an hour without stopping.

My personal goal is that I would like to be able to run 5 miles without stopping.

Another Wednesday, Another Run

I'm still on my C25K week 7 holding pattern, so I walked for about 5 minutes, ran for 25, and staggered home. By the time I made it back to the house, I was dripping with sweat. When I wiped my face, I left a huge wet spot on my shirt. It's amazing how sweaty I get during these workouts.

I've been doing a good job sticking to my diet (counting calories mostly, while trying to keep carbohydrates and fat under control) but I'm still not seeing the losses I'd like to see. I feel like I should increase my exercise again, but I'm just so tired most of the time I don't know what else I can do.

I'm running three days a week, and walking the other four. On the days I run, I cover about two miles. On the days I walk, I'm doing about two or three miles, depending on the day. Regardless of whether I walk or run, I come home red-faced and sweaty every time.

Everybody has told me that the running should be getting easier. This is now the eighth week I've been doing it, but honestly it doesn't seem easier at all. Every morning I'm glad for having done it, but I certainly don't enjoy exercise while I am doing it. I dread going out and am relieved when it's over.

Maybe this will become more fun after I lose some more weight.

I hope so!