Zumba zumba zumba!

Today there was a fundraiser for Haiti... and it involved Zumba! A Zumba party was scheduled from 1:30 - 4:30 today, with donations accepted at the door, all proceeds going to Haiti. I hoped to be able to do the whole party, but gave myself permission to stop after 2 hours... and I made it to 2.5 hours and then my back started to spasm a little, so I listened to my body and came home and laid on some ice for a while. I burned a lot of calories and took a lot of steps. It was cool to be part of something like that, people being healthy, for a great cause.

My dad is on his way to my house, he went to my sister's for the weekend. His original plan was to drive all the way to his house tonight, but he hit some bad weather and I asked him to please stay overnight to give his back a break... he agreed. So I am hoping for a healthy dinner, hopefully delicious!

Hope you are all being healthy!

Week 2 biggest loser...

My results this week in the biggest loser competition at work were not impressive... I gained...0.8 pounds. But, I am not too discouraged, and to be honest kind of expected it. While I ate well and exercised I knew that the big loss from the previous week would mean less this week and add PMSing to the mix and I expected to be a little bloated...so I am not too discouraged... That being said... my choices for Friday night were not healthy... I gave in to the craings I had been having all week and ordered and ate chicken wings and pizza... and moderation was not part of the equation... Yesterday I had my track meet in the morning, bought some new workout sneakers, and then hit the gym. I did a light workout to break in my new sneakers... and ate better yesterday, although leftover pizza was in the mix... but today... is all about health... eating well and being active... I am going to be attending a zumba party. The party is scheduled to last for four hours... the last time I did a zumba party, I managed to do all the songs, and lasted for the entire four hours... My goal today is to do at least 2 hours and see how I feel. This party is being put on to try to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Everyone who goes is asked to make a donation and all the money goes to Haiti. So it's a good cause. I do hope to lose weight this week... and will get up in the mornings to go to the gym and will hopefully get some evening workouts in too. We'll see....

The night before surgery...

Don't worry, I am not having surgery... but... someone who found my blog, is having surgery tomorrow... with the same doctor who did my surgery... so Mimi, I am sending you lots of happy thoughts and hoping that people who read this will also send you positive vibes!

I remember the night before surgery... I was nervous... my parents drove me to Boston and we checked into a hotel (along with two of my sidekicks, Sara and Phil), then headed to the hospital for my pre-surgery MRI...where my sister was meeting us, and I promised myself I wasn't going to cry... to not show people how nervous I was... but the MRI was so painful... that I cried... and I felt bad for feeling so weak... Then we all went out to dinner, and I remember there was a toast of sorts, to a new beginning for me, for a healthy knee... and I grinned, while feeling scared... I didn't want to be optimistic and be disappointed.... I remember hos hard it was to sleep that night... and getting up so early was somewhat of a relief... I arrived at the hospital somewhere around 5 a.m. and my parents and my sister stayed with me until they were about to put in the epidural... when I asked everyone to leave... because I was pretty worked up... the epidural definitely took effect pretty quickly... and they wheeled me into surgery and my last thought before I was unconscious, was, oh good, there is no observation deck above the OR, nobody will be seeing my bare ass! (Which my mother would interject here by saying it would be nothing to be emBARE-Assed about... and would then slap her knee, cracking herself up!) Then I woke up in recovery and the surgery was over...

Of course it wasn't that easy... the following hours and days were hard, but... what one of my friends told me was true, the best side of surgery is AFTER surgery...

So, Mimi, I am thinking of you and wishing you well tomorrow! I know you are in good hands!

Hearing from Mimi and a few other new blog buddies this week has been nice. It's kind of funny how I had moved away from the blog a bit and hadn't heard from people, then as I have begin to write more, more people have reached out to me. It is REALLY gratifying to hear from people. I so appreciate that people have expressed gratitude for my blog and what I have shared. It is a process for me, the writing part... and it is therapeutic. I need it.

On another note, this week has been a little stressful... while I was thrilled with the 10.6 lbs weight loss last week, I am feeling the pressure to put up a big number this week... and am worried I won't. I have been eating well and working out, but am not feeling any more svelte than last week... but one of my students this week watched me walk across my classroom to get something and she asked me if I was losing weight. She said she could tell. I try not to talk too much with the kids about losing weight. Middle school girls and boys are so body conscious in middle school that I try not to bring it into my classroom very much. However, I do share with them what I do for activities each day and explain that I do activities to get healthier.

It can be so hard to do things that are good for ourselves.... like working out. I truly feel better after working out. I feel stronger, healthier, and proud of myself... not to mention that I feel less stress and usually sleep better... yet.. it can be so hard to force myself to go to the gym. I did not go to the gym this morning because my back kept me awake last night, and I promised myself I would go tonight, after class. Well, I went to class... and it was a good class, I am excited about it... but leaving class, I felt really tired and cold, and just wanted to go home... so I started arguing with myself. Tried to justify not going even though I had promised myself I would go.... so then I compromised with myself and agreed I would drive home, taking a route that would put me really close to the gym... and decided that I would call my partner for the biggest loser competition and that surely he would inspire me to go... well... he did not answer his phone... so I left him a message that I was on the fence about going to the gym...then I thought, maybe my friend Sue hasn't gone to the gym today and if not, maybe she will meet me there, because I wouldn't be able to let her down... she opted not to go to the gym, but encouraged me to go... and I hung up, as I approached the gym... I said to myself... I go to the gym to get healthy, notbecause other people want me to go, or because other people are going to be there...and I have made a promise to myself to be active and healthy, and yes to lose weight.... so ... I went to the gym... and got onto an elliptical machine and told it I would go for 45 minutes...and bargained with myself the entire time I was on it... tempted to not go the whole time because I am going to go to the gym in the morning... but I stayed on... and after 45 minutes the machine automatically gives you 5 more minutes to use as a cool down... of which I used two and a half.... in order to complete 4 miles in 47 minutes 30 seconds! I felt really good afterwards... and did think of Mimi... because before surgery, I couldn't have gone 5 minutes on the elliptical.... and I am SO LUCKY to be able to exercise... this I must remember....

Keep on keeping on...

I am relaxing... not something I do often, especially lately. This morning I was very happy to spend some time with my friend, Sara. We worked out together this morning and both had GREAT workouts. Sara did 5 miles on the treadmill and I did 5 miles on the elliptical machine, in 62 minutes. Sara ruptured her Achilles last summer and has been recovering well, trying to get back into condition to be able to train to run a marathon. Up to this point she has been able to run 4 miles on the treadmill and today she ran 4, walked for a bit, then ran the rest of the five miles! Awesome job my friend! I was thrilled with my workout too. NEVER, never, not even before pvns crept into my life, did I do 5 miles on the elliptical machine... NEVER... so I am feeling great... also tired...ha ha... but that will pass. I may let myself take a nap this afternoon. I went to the gym with the intention of doing 5 miles, but had also had some internal dialogue that if I couldn't make it to 5 miles, it was okay... I think it is important to not beat ourselves up if we don't meet every goal we set for ourselves... but... it is also interesting to me to be more conscious of my own internal thoughts... that I didn't necessarily believe that I would be able to do the 5 miles. When I walked the half marathon in October, I remember thinking that at some point my body had more will than my mind... and then there were times my body wanted to quit and I had to will myself to keep going... and even now I just said to myself, "well, what's the big deal about doing 5 miles on the elliptical when you walked 13.1 miles in October...." Well... I trained a lot for the half marathon and had built up slowly to being able to do that distance... and since that time have been active, but I think my longest walk since then has been 3.5 miles, same for my gym workouts, haven't gone beyond that for a while... last week I did go up to 4 miles and did that twice last week... and really wanted to do 5 miles this weekend... so... I need to be happy with my accomplishment today... and know that I am working toward my larger goal, to be at my goal weight by the half marathon in Oct. 2010. so I feel good. Really good.

This weekend I had the chance to speak with Rico... with whom I had not spoken in a long time. (Even though we kept tabs on each other through status updates on facebook, it's different than talking...) As I started losing my mother, Rico stepped up/stepped in and helped me through that process, one he knew too intimately after losing his own mother. He was very helpful to me... after my mom died, I think it was harder for Rico... and he retreated a bit... I missed him, but also was glad that he was protecting himself. It got too close for him... easy to relate to, too easy to identify with... and I don't know this, but maybe it was like going through the process of losing his own mother a second time... so talking to him Friday was good. He gives me way too much credit... telling me that I have handled things better than he did... by being active... told me he was amazed that I am still working on my masters and that I have maintained my social connections and am coaching...

Perspective... while Rico sees what I am doing as well... I don't see it as anything other than surviving... I NEED to be busy, to exhaust myself to the point where I can sleep at night... and there are benefits to what I am doing, working out and eating well obviously has health benefits... working on my masters has longer term benefits, it will help my pay increase... coaching keeps me from focusing on it being winter and how much I hate winter... and my friends, well... I need them... and they make me smile and also give me space when I need it...

One day at a time... that's all I am doing.... that's all I can do... but I am finding that it is easier to smile these days... easier to find things to be happy about... and I want that to continue...

I couldn't believe my eyes!

Today, as part of my school's Biggest Loser competition, we weighed in to see how we did this week.... I couldn't believe my eyes! I lost 10.6 pounds! WHAT??? I know! I couldn't believe it! I told her I didn't believe it and she had me step onto a second scale and it said the same thing... I was hoping for 4-5 pounds as I have really really worked hard this week, but 10 pounds! Double digits? I never thought that would happen!

The Biggest Loser...

The NBC show, The Biggest Loser, has inspired some staff at my school to begin our own version. I am determined to win! Our first weigh in was last Friday and we will weigh in every week. I am hoping for good results this week. According to the scale at my gym I have lost most of the holiday weight I have gained... I hope the scale for this competition agrees... I have been working out a lot... A LOT... and am feeling great. This week has been very stressful... but I have still managed to work out... so I can remind myself if I can do it this week, I can do it every week.

Working out for me is healthy, but as I have mentioned here before it is something that helps my mindset as well. As Mom got sicker and sicker...and eventually died, I felt a growing sense of not having control of things which increased my anxiety. I know that I could have opted to ask my doc for some anxuety meds, but there was also a part of me that felt that meds would somehow make me less present during my mom's illness... and no matter how much I hated the process of losing her, I needed to be there, in those moments, fully. Working out kind of became a way to expend some of that nervous energy and still continues to be an outlet I need if I hope to sleep at night.

Writing has often been my outlet... but since losing my mom, I haven't written as much on my blog... partly due to the land of facebook.... I am a facebook addict and in some ways facebook is a daily blog of what you are doing, a shorter version. But I have also not been sure of what to write about... My blog began as a way for me to express my thoughts without burdening people in my life. And recently I have realized that one of my fears is being a burden, to anyone. I think that it is a part of who I am, who I have been for a long time. I feel guilty about leaning on people, for putting my problems on their shoulders. Rationally I can tell myself that if the shoe was on the other foot, I would really want my friends to lean on me... but then I justify not leaning on people because none of my close friends really know, really understand what has happened... and I am thankful for that. Could I share everything with my friends that is in my head? Yes. But I don't want to... for a lot of reasons... because I get upset when I talk about it, think about it even... and don't like for people to see me that way... because then I feel like it is my job to make them not feel that way... and try to expend energy into lightening the mood...

My friends have their own lives and issues and don't need mine to add to the mix... and I feel that when I have tried to lean on people, people pull away... now sometimes it is because of circumstances in their own lives that keep them busy... but it has felt very lonely... and I do feel like I have only myself to truly depend on... don't get me wrong... I have friends, good friends... but I just feel like the way for me, right now, to cope with the thoughts in my head and the emotions surrounding losing my mother is to workout, be active, stay busy to reduce my thinking time... to not have time to sit around and think about things so much...

But I am also trying to give myself permission to stop, from time to time... and just let myself be. To relax... which I am not good at lately... but I am working on it. I am really trying to do some nice things for myself and I do feel that working out IS good for me, even if it is a necessary part of my day if I want to sleep...and I am losing weight, even if it is slowly... and I do have goals surrounding my weight... I WILL walk the half marathon again next year. And, I will walk it at my goal weight, which is currently between 80-90 pounds away...

I will get there... and the Biggest Loser competition at work is a good motivator.... I am a bit competitive.. and want the satisfaction of kicking a little ass!

Perhaps this is a post that demostrates why I haven't posted in a while... my thoughts are scattered and I feel like I babble when I try to write much... but I think it will come... I just think that like many other things... it's a process...

2010

I am so happy that 2009 is over! I remember New Year's Eve 2008, very well... It was hard... knowing that the new year, 2009, would be the year I would lose my mother. So I am happy to say adios 2009!

Ironically, however, I recently purchased something that will remind me of 2009... for a long time... I bought a new truck... well it is a 2009, but has not had an owner until now... I am very happy about this. My other truck was great, but was getting to that pont where I think it was going to need some work... and was starting to make me wonder how much longer I would be lucky enough to have it working well... so I decided that getting something new would put my mind at ease... and I am very happy! It is bigger than my other truck, well at least on the inside, I have an extended cab, which means I have room for more poeple. Yahoo!! Road trip anyone?

I am also looking forward to 2010 as a year to get healthy and am excited to report that my sister has given me a present to help me out with that goal... ever watch the biggest loser? Notice those things they wear on their arms? Well, they are called bodybuggs... and they monitor your activity level and calculate your activity, including calories burned and I can also enter on the computer what I eat so I can calculate what my weight loss should be. So I am in the process of setting that up and hoping to wear it tomorrow. It should be interesting. Apparently I am supposed to wear it almost 24 horus a day, but we'll see how comfortable I am wearing it to work.

As for my knee in 2010... I am hopeful that it's health will continue. I am planning to walk another half marathon and keep zumba-ing my butt off.

Happy New Year!