This Is the Day! And you know, a win would just be lagniappe.

Stuck Between Reality and Reality

Yeah so I just printed out the triathlon training schedule recommended by my track club, and.....yeah.

I am surprised that I am so surprised that the triathlon training program doesn't say, "just keep doing what you've been doing!" No, this is going to require me to actually adjust my life. And I just got it to start behaving again!

But seriously. It's eight weeks. I can change my routine for 8 short weeks. Actually, the training program is 12 weeks long but I only have 8 weeks until I don my wet suit and run into the lake so....yeah. Even better. :)

I am a creature of habit. I like to get up at some insane hour when the rest of the world is slacking - ooops, I meant sleeping - and get a head start on being awesome. I like my morning sweat-a-thon. I cross-train so it's different each day, but it happens on my schedule and I like it. If I were not simultaneously typing and chewing at this moment, I would have my arms crossed in front of my chest, brow furrowed, and lower lip poked out to indicate that I am not happy about this change of circumstances and planning to hold my breath until it changes.

But I know I'll be much more prepared for the triathlon if I follow a program designed by someone who has actually done one before than if I just go about it my way like I usually do. Believe it or not, I am learning, albeit slowly, that I don't actually know everything! But we don't really need to dwell on that pesky little dose of reality, do we? No.

Anyway, the training program has me alternating endurance days with strength days, and some long runs and bike rides that I am a little intimidated by. I have a lot of questions, for example, why do I have to run for 75 minutes if the race only has a 5k? Why do I have to train on Sunday? I don't like to train on Sunday. I like to watch HGTV in my pajamas on Sunday. I suspect that most of my questions will be best answered with, "don't ask questions. Just shut up and do it. You have DVR. Deal."

So I'm stuck between reality and reality. The first reality is, I have a full-time job, a full-time kid, and a full-time husband. All three of them have expectations of me being present for a good portion of the day. I already spend a lot of time working out, and I'll admit I have a good bit of mental security tied up in those workouts. They work for me, they soothe me. I get lots of good cardio, I have time to get in all of my weight training, and I have this nice little routine that is comfortable and works for me and makes me happy and nice to other people. Is that so wrong???

So while I was sulking/figuring out what to move around so I can get all of my training in, I went to get my salad from the office kitchen, where a co-worker was sitting eating his lunch. I asked how he was, and he told me he was getting used to eating off of smaller plates. We talked about change, and how sometimes you have to show yourself the tough love through that initial grumpiness of change until your body gets with the program and becomes less grumpy. I got my salad from the fridge and went back to my office.

And I realized...I needed to show myself the tough love through this initial grumpiness of change until my body got with the program and became less grumpy. I preach all day long to people about change, how change is hard, how to change, how to engrain permanent change...and now its time to heed my own advice and, well, change.

Because the other reality is that I want to do well in this triathlon and in order to do that, I need to actually participate in triathlon training, which means singing from someone else's song sheet for a while. I can suck it up, I can change, I can be flexible. Okay, I that last one is mostly wishful thinking. I don't really want to be flexible.

On the bright side, there is one piece of information in the notes of the plan that give me some confidence: "This is a recommended plan. Adjust to meet your needs." Oh, don't worry. I'm going to make that my screen saver.

So I'll sing from their song sheet for the next two months, and you know, I think the change will be good for me. But I hope they don't mind if I sing the harmony.

Believing in the Unimaginable

Okay so today I am going for the obvious metaphor - the Saints overtime win against America's quarterback, Brett Favre, and his team du jour, the Vikings. As a New Orleans native, seeing the Saints not just win consecutive games but actually make it to the Super Bowl, a feat that I am still trying to process, is a very vivid reminder of the power of BELIEF.

As a kid growing up in the New Orleans area, the Saints were always part of the culture. We weren't die-hard fans with season tickets, but they were the home team and we cheered them on. Yes, even when doing so felt like a lesson in futility. I mean, the Saints were baaaaad. They were real bad. People used to call them the "A'ints." Fans wore paper bags over the heads at games so no one would know they were a fan. But to be honest, having a really bad football team was kind of fun in a way. They weren't good, but they were our team. Misery loves company, right?

And then, in the early nineties, magic started to happen. The Saints won. And then they won again. And then somehow, they were in the playoffs. On the school bus each morning, the airwaves were clogged with renditions on, "When the Saints Go Marching In," and people chanted the mantra, "I Believe." Everyone had "WHO DAT Fever". A friend of mine even broke out his mom's craft supplies and paint-penned a t-shirt, carefully painting a gold checkmark each time the Saints won a game. It was an incredible time.

Well, as you can guess, eventually they stopped winning, and things went back to normal. We stopped expecting them to win and started expecting them to lose. The Saints were the home team, nothing more.

That was twenty years ago. Now, over the past few seasons, the Saints have developed into a strong football team, and last night earned the privilege of playing in the Super Bowl. After screaming at the television for two hours and alternating between hiding my face with a pillow and sitting about three inches from the television screen, a field goal cemented what I never thought I would see happen. I mean, I said I believed, but honestly, the concept of the Saints going to the Super Bowl was, well, unbelievable. But it happened. My sister called me, hysterical, and it took about three minutes of us just screaming into the phone before actual words were uttered.

The parallels to personal wellness are pretty clear. I hear every day, and sometimes think myself, about things we can't do. They can't give up sugar. They can't workout in the morning. They can't get their husband to support them. They can't pass up wedding cake/birthday cake/German chocolate cake/whatever cake. They can't eat just one chip, and they can't even imagine just not even eating any chips at all. "Oh I just can't do that," they say. "That is just not going to happen."

Well, okay.

I once thought I couldn't give up sugar; I thought it was completely unrealistic to imagine myself never again eating processed sugar. But I have. It wasn't easy, but I did it.

I once thought I couldn't fit in a second workout at lunch. Too busy. But I do now, at least four days a week, and it has catapulted me to my next level of fitness.

It was never that I couldn't; I just had not yet.

Seeing the Saints make it to the Super Bowl has reminded me that just about anything can happen. So if you plan to tell me this week that you "can't" not have pizza with everyone else or you "can't" make time for some cardio or you "can't" pass up your co-worker's special whatever, think again. Because dude, if the SAINTS can go to the SUPER BOWL, you can put down the chips.

WHO DAT!!!

My Head Is Swimming And Soon So Will I...Be

I am pretty sure the title of this entry is rabid with grammatical mishaps. Moving on...

Okay, so I just signed up for my first triathlon, after being first politely encouraged, then pointedly asked, and finally badgered about why I had not yet done one. No reason, really. Unlike tri-fitness, endurance stuff doesn't scare me. Tri-fitness was something that I had never tried, something that I was actually pretty bad at, and a major challenge to my default settings. On the other hand, doing a triathlon looks like a lot of fun! I like each of the events individually, am competent in each, and there really is just no good reason not to do it.

So I am going to do it. I have roughly 10 weeks to get ready so I am already have a head start on procrastinating. Awesome!

A wonderful colleague of mine, one of the polite encouragers who regularly competes in endurance events, sent me her training schedule to help get me started. I opened up the document and began trying to figure out how I was going to fit this into my day. Well, okay, how I was going to fit it into my day without changing any of the other stuff I do. I googled "triathlon training programs," and found www.beginnertriathlete.com, filled with advice and sample programs for first-timers. But as I calculated the logistics of training, I started thinking maybe there was more to a triathlon than borrowing a wet suit and showing up with a bike.

I mean, I run daily. I bike daily. I used to swim 4 or 5 days a week until I got so wrapped up in tri-fit training that I ran out of hours in the day. But I only regularly run 3 miles, I bike indoors, and I swim pretty leisurely. Any swimming I've done in a lake has been with the sole intention of getting away from someone who had just announced plans to dunk me under the water, and while I do some intense bike intervals, there's a big difference between air-conditioned intervals and 15 miles of actual hills in actual humidity. So while I started my research thinking my biggest weakness in this training schedule would be over-confidence, I started to feel that confidence turn to anxiety as I added up the hours in the day and realized that most of them are already spoken for.

Now I am worried I will just not have enough time.

Pshaw. I'll find time. I love to run, I love to bike, and I love to swim. I've been craving chlorine for weeks now, and my suit, goggles, and cap are still in my gym bag from last summer. I just need to map out a plan. I've gone to work with my Speedo on under my clothes, changing in the car like a super hero on the way to the pool, and returning an hour later with wet hair and smelling faintly of chlorine. I've dedicated a drawer in my office to workout clothes and towels just in case a meeting gets cancelled unexpectedly and I can make it to Pilates or the weight room after all. Last week I said crazy was back...and I think things are about to get crazy!

In the meantime, I am entertaining any and all suggestions for first-time triathlon training, as well as manipulating the space-time continuum.

And....we're off! Race ya!

Losing My Religion

I was in church last week (yes, Dad, I went to church) thinking about the turkey breast I had in the oven at home and trying to remember whether I had put the meat thermometer in it or not, when I heard the minister drive down my alley. It was the sermon and I'll admit it, I had tuned out a little. I was hungry. I needed to go to Target and get flash cards for my personal trainer studies. I wanted to go get my jammies back on and watch HGTV.

But he was making some good points. The topic was recognizing the difference between being "spiritual" and being "religious," how people define those terms for themselves, and how we act in response to those definitions. The nitty and gritty of it was that the difference between being spiritual and being religious came down to how disciplined you are willing to be to actualize your beliefs into your life, i.e. not be a hypocrite. In short, saying you are "spiritual but not religious," is an easy way to explain that you enjoy having a spiritual life but aren't all crazy-preacher-on-the-street about it, it's also kind of a cop-out. I know I feel that way about wellness.

There have been times in my life when I have been "spritual" about wellness and manifested it by making healthier choices, going for a morning run, doing a split weight routine three days a week, and choosing low-fat frozen yogurt on my Chocolate Thunder From Down Under instead of real ice cream. Then there have been times when I have been "religious." I challenged myself to take the hilly running route, I lifted heavy and pushed the reps beyond what felt comfortable, I ate clean all of the time and never missed a workout. There have also been times when I've been an outright heathen. That would be Mardi Gras.

And there have been times when I have been the crazy preacher on the street. Some would say that would be every day but they have no idea just how crazy I can get about this stuff.

So I was sitting there, perked up a little and assuming the turkey would be fine, and I realized that I missed being the crazy preacher on the street. I spend so much time coaching people through the baby steps of getting well that I started taking baby steps myself. I had gotten spiritual and realized I wanted to be religious again.

I don't want to just run, I want to run up rocky hills in the rain. I don't want to weight train, I want to weightLIFT. I don't want to just preach to people about a healthy diet, I want to live my own message every day to the power of 150. Thinking about the distinction between those two words reminded me that I can, I have, I should, and that the hour I had just passed sitting on my butt in church could have been spent working out. I mean, can't we at least do walking lunges down the aisle for communion?

Eventually church was over and I did end up spending the rest of the day in my jammies watching HGTV and preparing all of my clean eats for the week and welcoming myself back to the world of wellness evangelism. Don't worry, I'm not going to thump your head with a Bible...I'm one of those wishy-washy church goers myself. But I might thump you with a tupperware full of spinach cuz crazy is back baby.

Amen.

Butterflies

Did I miss a week? I think I missed a week. I think I forgot to update this blog last Monday, which would make the first time in two years that I completely skipped a week. Sure, I've been late from time to time but I've never just completely blown it off. But last week I did.

And I don't feel bad about it. Weird.

I think that may be a sign of how 2010 might be. 2009 was an intense year; I fought some internal battles, won some external battles, stretched my limits, and had a few epiphanies. This year, I'd like to do all of the above to the power of 150. 2009 was awesome from a wellness perspective, and I anticipate that 2010 will be just the same, but hopefully with fewer sinus infections.

Goals? Yeah, I have some. Mostly maintenance from a body perspective, albeit with a few upgrades. Steady progress in the physical prowess department with a sprint triathlon scheduled for April and goals to increase my upper body strength so I can bench more and pull myself over the wall at the Women's Tri-Fitness Fall Challenge in November. But my main focus will be in empire-building. It's high time I start practicing what I preach and get certified. It's a goal I have had for far too long and I'm tired of talking about it. Finding time to study for all of the required exams will be challenging, but I'll find a way.

I had my first workout with Captain Awesome this morning after a week and a half of recovering from the one-two punch of traveling between Florida allergies to Louisiana allergies and back to Florida allergies in the span of a week. Translation: hell on earth. It was great to be back in the gym (kudos on the renovations, Steve, they look great so far) and even better to finally move my body again. Bike intervals, elliptical, a nice 3 mile run in the freezing cold morning air, and some chest, bicep, and hamstring work that woke up my system and reminded these old lazy bones that we're back in business. Everyone was in a good mood, there was great energy from the New Resolutioners, and it felt like coming home.

I have a great outlook on 2010, I just have a butterfly feeling like things are going to be outrageously great. I hope you'll join me in making 2010 the year that we not only elevate our own personal states of wellness, but uncover layers of happiness that we didn't even know existed. Cheers!

Now enough of this belly-rubbing. Get out there and move those lazy bones.

The Goal Is Flexibility! Just not mine.

Last Friday I sent out my Daily Dose, which I do each morning on Twitter and via email for twitterphobes, and since it was a Friday I had to think of a word beginning with "F" to complete the sentence, "TGIF: The Goal Is.....". I started doing that on Fridays months ago and now it's a thing and each Friday I have to come up with a new f-word. Unfortunately I can't use that one.

Last Friday I used "flexibility," and planned to write something about how we all have to be flexible during the holidays to stay on our healthy plans despite travels, well-meaning family members who made special food, and the like. But then I thought....wait a sec.....why do I have to be the flexible one? Why can't they accomodate me?

I felt a little bad about thinking that seeing that its the holiday season and I am supposed to be giving, not receiving. But I pushed that feeling aside as I recalled an article that a friend sent to me a few weeks ago that illustrated my point. You can read it here.

The article is pretty much a non-apology letter for being a stubborn clean eater in the midst of holiday food, and an explanation that being a health-food snob is not personal, its just food. As I read it, I wanted to take out a full page in the New York Times to proclaim my love for the author, Jennifer Merritt, who had obviously somehow managed to tap into my soul without my even realizing it. She laid out my thoughts so eloquently I felt like I should pay her a commission or something.

I'm here now at my parent's house, having arrived with my ice chest and taking over the beer fridge in the garage with my spinach, egg whites, turkey, soup, fruit, veggies, and whatnot. I sipped soup while everyone else ate pizza, I stopped at the grocery store to stock up on pears and oranges to snack on, and I bought a week's guest pass at my family's gym so I can stay on top of my workouts. And what I have to keep reminding people is that this is what I want to do. Indulging in sugar and fatty creamy holiday food would be like having the Grinch steal Christmas from me. I really honestly truly would rather eat fruit.

Its not that my family is super unhealthy; they're not. But you know what I mean, the holidays cast a spell on all of us that makes it seem like we're un-American if we don't maintain a diet of rum balls and eggnog for the rest of the year, and practically tars and feathers those of us who pass on the traditional seven holiday pounds gained. I used to embrace the calorie-fest of December and feel like I deserved to "treat" myself because, after all, it's the holidays. But over time, I began to realize that I wasn't doing myself any favors.

So, I am asking my family to give me a very special gift for Christmas this year: flexibility to let me do my weird food thing and maybe even try it out yourself. :)
I'll settle for the beer fridge. :)