The Skin I'm In, For Now

Since I currently have nothing better to do than wait for a hurricane to hit the east coast, and since the temperature is currently plunging into the 50s, I've decided to start going through all of the winter clothes that have been packed away since I moved. I went through all my spring and summer clothes a few weeks ago and took off a huge tub to the Goodwill of all the things I couldn't wear any more. I started that process when I realized that I could take off every pair of pants I owned without unbuttoning or unzipping them and figured it might not be the best first impression to have them falling down, or off, at my new job. I've replaced a lot of my work clothes for smaller sizes, some of which are also starting to get too big, but one thing I realized I haven't replaced are my pajamas. It's actually pretty comical just how big they are and it's a good thing I only have to sleep in them because I'm not sure how well they'd fare if I had to do any kind of activity in them. That really ought to be on the list for my next shopping trip.

 

This may be my own personal crazy, but I have discovered a sort of sentimental attachment to some of my clothing. There were many things that I added to the tub without a second thought, but as I start going through my winter clothes I have this mixed sense of sadness and joy when I find something doesn't fit. I know that rationally I should only be happy that my clothes are ridiculously big on me, and realize that continuing to wear them makes me look sloppy and unprofessional, but there are some pieces that I really like and spent a lot of money on and I find myself hating to have to get rid of them. It's not that I want to be able to fit in them again, more that I wish they would shrink so I could still wear them. Yet I find myself trying on sweaters and thinking, "It's not so big, I could probably still make it work..."

 

I was my old size for several years and had become uncomfortably comfortable at that size. I was used to that size. I had amassed a wardrobe for me at that size. It wasn't the most stylish or fashion forward wardrobe, but I had managed to acquire things that fit me relatively well and that I was comfortable in, for the most part, until I started to grow out of this wardrobe. If you aren't familiar with plus size clothing, and have never ventured to the small dark corners of the store it's usually relegated to, sizing usually goes up in 2s from a 14/16 up to a 24/26 or 26/28 in most stores. In a few places and in catalogs you can find bigger sizes but to my horror I was getting to the point that the biggest size in the store was no longer big enough for me. That was always my benchmark. As long as I can still buy the biggest size in the store, I'm okay. It was when I started having to go online to buy a 30/32 or a 3X/4X, sometimes even 5X that I finally scared myself enough to realize I had to change something, and that is when I had a scary talk with my doctor.

 

I haven't told many people, but the conversation that I had with my doctor the week before I started CrossFit involved options for weight loss. It was a discussion we'd had many times before, but this time I had narrowed down my options to two and was seriously considering one that had scared me for years, gastric bypass surgery. I was terrified of how big I had gotten and how futile my attempts to lose weight had been over the last year and I finally felt that surgery might be my only hope. Luckily the doctor and I decided that I should first try the second option I presented, joining Brickhouse CrossFit. One week later I embarked on this journey that has made the prospect of weight loss surgery not even in the realm of necessity for me.

 

It is sometimes difficult for me to see the changes that have occurred over the last six months. I am often acutely aware and at the same time oblivious to how far I have come in this short amount of time. I am definitely not a skinny girl, or even a fit girl, yet, but I sometimes still feel like a fat girl. Like the morbidly obese girl I used to be. I look at myself in the mirror a lot more than I used to because I have to remind myself that I'm not that girl anymore. That I'll never be that girl again.

 

I realize the changes when I try on clothes that used to be too small and are now ridiculously big. I rejoice over the fact that I can sit at a booth in a restaurant now without having to make my whole group move to a table because the booth table is fixed to the floor or wall and I just can't fit. I smile inside and out when I can sit in one seat at the movie theater with the armrest down. I cried a little when I didn't have to ask the flight attendant for a seat belt extension on my last flight.

 

These are the things that I need to be holding on to, not the clothes that the old me used to have to wear. I'm currently only one or two sizes away from being able to buy "normal" women's clothes from any store I want, and that has been a goal of mine since the first time I had to buy men's jean shorts in middle school because there weren't any others in my size. Never. Again.

 

Here's to the next six months, and the rest of my life, being happier and healthier with every step.

 

 

 



 

 

Giving More

 

Today I dropped into a class outside my normal time at the box (where I'm still relatively new). Even though I've only been doing CrossFit for 6 months, I've worked out at a couple of different boxes and worked with multiple coaches, so I'm pretty used to having to give a rundown of my life at the beginning of many a WOD. I'm sure that I'm a a bit of a pain to coach, especially right now when I have to avoid pretty much all squatting movements, but I'm also allergic to latex and can't use the stretching bands, and I still have to scale a lot of movements, so I can't always just get the rundown of the WOD and hit the floor running. I don't mean to be a pain, but sometimes I feel like that.

 

It's also humbling to be in a new class and work with a new coach and train with new people. It's hard to come at the workout from your head space of 6 months of training, knowing where you were on day one and seeing your current capability as a vast improvement, only to have others think that this is your first class ever. It kinda knocks you down a peg and makes you realize that even though you know you've made a ton of progress, you obviously still have a long way to go.

 

One of the things I've struggled with over the last two months is motivation and drive. I've found that I can do so much more than I thought I could many times over the last few months, but usually when I've done the most work I've had someone else pushing me or cheering me on. An external motivator can be a very powerful thing. When you have 10, 5, even 1 other person standing around you, telling you "you've got this" or "pick up the bar, do one more" it's easy to keep going because you have all that added strength to tap into. You want to please others and don't want to let everyone down. When all eyes are on you it's much harder to slack off. I still get support from my new coaches, but there's always a time for everyone when no one is watching you.

 

The trouble is holding yourself accountable and finding all that motivation from within. Sure you can try to think back on all those times that you did have everyone cheering you on, or imagine there's a coach at your shoulder counting your reps, but in the end it's all you and the bar (or kettle bell, or rower, or pavement - or whatever it is you're up against). Today my WOD was a triplet, 3 rounds of 500m row, 25 kettle bell swings (1 pood), and 15 sit-ups. I set my mind to keeping a 2:30 pace on the row, doing the kettle bell swings unbroken at 1 pood, and doing the sit-ups unbroken, and to finish the whole thing in 15:00. The kettle bell swings were the part I really wanted to focus on, but in the minute leading up to the countdown, and all through the row I kept wavering. "Can I really do all 25 unbroken every round?" "Maybe I should do 15 and 10" "No I can totally do 25." Back and forth. Determination and doubt. Ultimately I didn't make it unbroken and my time was 17:52, and I've been really hard on myself all day because of it. Seeing the picture at the top of the post on Facebook today made me regret not doing it even more. I know I had more in me, but when I had the kettle bell overhead on the 15th swing of the first round and my arms were starting to burn, I let myself give up.

 

I've started to think of how many times I've given up on little things, not only in my workouts, but in my food choices, and in life in general. I've got to stop giving up. The more times I do it, the easier it is to do it again and suddenly the little "give ups" become big ones and before I know it I'm staring down failure. October has been a pretty good month for me overall and I've hit several PRs and "firsts" but deep down I feel like I could have done more and I wonder what more I could have done if I hadn't given up so many times on so many little things.

 

I'm really excited about November and my goal is to work on my internal motivation. To keep trying new things and going for one more rep. I can only be accountable to myself now and really the only person I need to worry about letting down is myself. I'm the one that will be stuck with the regrets at the end of the day, and who wants to sit around beating themselves up about what they could have done, but didn't?

 



We Are the Dreamers of Dreams

"Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

You hear all the time, especially on reality competition shows, "This is my dream!" It doesn't always hold a great deal of weight when it comes from a 15 year old to hear that being on American Idol has been their dream "all their life" but if you think about it, what was the last thing that you focused on and worked for over the course of 15 years, or 5, or even one year? You watch 16, 17, 18 year old kids realizing their "dreams" by winning Olympic medals and "retiring" in their 20s from a sport they've been training in for the better part of their lives. I wonder what goes on mentally when you achieve your dreams at such a young age. Are you done dreaming, or do you get a new dream? Will the new dream mean as much as the original dream?

I've thought that I've had dreams in my life. When I was very young I was a gymnast. I watched young girls competing in the Olympics and I was going to move to Texas, train with Bela Karolyi alongside Kim Zmeskal and Keri Strug, go to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and realize my "dream." It obviously didn't happen. I think that I was a pretty good gymnast and that I maybe could have made a go of it. It wasn't that criticism kept me from pursuing this course, or a lack of courage, but many more factors come into play for a child to follow their dream, and this one just wasn't meant to be.

As I've grown older, I worry that I've stopped dreaming and the things that I would have dreamed about as a child become merely things that I'd like to do. I think dreams require much more effort and planning. They require focus and determination, practice and intense study. Dreams are much more than a want, they are a deep desire and need to fulfill a wish. A wish that you had the courage enough to speak out loud. They require a willingness to "map out a course and follow it to an end" regardless of the costs.  That's how you achieve a dream. Doing something that you merely want to do is a much less ambitious goal because it's easier to stop wanting something than it is to stop fulfilling a need. When you stop fulfilling your need to dream it leaves an ache in your soul similar to the ache you might feel when you fail to satisfy your need for food, but much more potent.

I sometimes feel like a failure for not having realized a dream. I know that I'm still relatively young and that there's still time for me to dream. I'm sure that many people count themselves lucky, and feel they live blessed lives, yet they may have never realized a dream. They have somehow found a peace in the life that they have made for themselves and have decided that this is what they had dreamed of, even if they didn't know it. I haven't yet found a way to reconcile the conflicting emotions that I feel over living a life I hadn't imagined for myself. I look back on things that I had planned that didn't pan out and wonder if I these were really dreams of mine that didn't come true, or if they were only things that I had wanted, but not enough to see them through? Did I fail to realize these dreams, or just decided on new ones? Did other factors intervene and throw up roadblocks I couldn't get around? Did I listen to the critics that said I wasn't a good enough musician to teach others, did I let the constant rejection from jobs I'd applied to cause me to doubt my merit as a teacher? If these were really my dreams, why didn't I stay the course? Why didn't I fight harder?

I have been thinking lately that I may have a new dream. I'm a pretty open book about my feelings and about discussing my shortcomings. I am open to sharing my successes and failures. I think I'm more open about my life and what goes on in my mind than I've ever been in my life and I think a lot of that is due to finding my courage and my voice over the last few months and beginning to feel like there are people that are willing to accept me as I am. For some reason though I'm afraid to have a new dream. I'm scared that I won't be strong enough to see it through and I'm reluctant to speak it out loud, make it real, and then not be able to achieve it. Maybe feeling this deeply about this potential dream means that it really is a dream and not just a want. If it was only something I wanted, would I be this worried about making it known to the world? Would I be worried that people might think it's stupid or criticize me for dreaming it?

For now I'm going to hold this dream close and work on my courage to let it become real. In the meantime I'm going to keep working on this dream and also on becoming happy with me so that the realization of this dream doesn't become all that I am. I think that I need to be able to stand on my own and be fulfilled enough with what is in order to allow myself to reach for something more. To be able to set a course and follow it to an end, even if that end isn't the one I'd planned on, and be okay with the outcome. I'll keep you posted. :)

This post's soundtrack brought to you by John Mayer:

 

Celebrating the Small Things

I've begun to notice subtle changes in my attitude, activities, and way of being. Subtle on the surface, but when viewed as a whole they amount to a monumental change in who I am as a person. Tonight I celebrate the small changes that make big change possible.

I am an escalator climber. I used to think there ought to be a support group for people crazy enough, or impatient enough, to climb a perfectly good moving staircase. I used to think that the inventor of the escalator probably died a small death every time someone climbed an escalator and considered his hard work a futile waste of his life. I used to dread the "Escalator Temporarily Stairs" and deemed this a decidedly inconvenient occurrence, far too common in the DC Metro system to bother even having escalators in the first place. Then, one day as I was standing behind the long line of people on the right side of the ascending staircase, running late for CrossFit, I looked to the left, thought "warm-up?," and merged into the world of escalator climbers. Sometimes, I even take the regular stairs at a semi-jog. And I don't really get winded or have to stop. This is huge for me.

I am also a standing commuter. This really wasn't a conscious choice in the beginning. It just happens that I frequent inordinately busy Metro stops at the most hectic times of the day and there are never seats. Also I have lingering personal space issues and don't particularly relish the thought of being smashed up against a random stranger. I'd much rather stand. So I do. Even when there are seats, I usually stand. Young strapping men will sit and I feign an inner indignation that they didn't offer the seat to a lady first, but really, I would rather stand. My balance is getting pretty awesome. My lower back doesn't bother me. Old me would probably have shamelessly sat on the not-washed-since-it-was-installed Metro "carpet" before I would have stood on a moving train for 30-45 minutes everyday. Sometimes four times a day. Huge.

I walk all the time. Everyday. Sometimes as much as a mile or more. In March, before I started CrossFit, I had to go to Charleston for work. It was the first time in several months that I got to hang out with a bunch of my fellow interns so when everyone wanted to go out to bars and on a walking ghost tour, I did my best to tag along and keep up. It was incredibly difficult and one night when we were walking over a mile to the downtown area I had to give up on walking and take a bike taxi (who I felt REALLY sorry for, even though he said we weren't his most difficult ride that night). Now I look forward to walking and even walk the mile plus to my CrossFit box when I have enough time. I used to get winded and have these weird pains in my ankles and knees when I had to walk from my office to the hospital canteen. I walked the Drumstick Dash 5K last year in 1:44:00 and finished dead last because I had to stop so often and was in so much pain. I walked the 4 on the Fourth this year in 1:29:00 and finished dead last, but I didn't have to stop at all. I can't wait to do the Drumstick Dash this Thanksgiving and NOT come in dead last. I may even run some of it.

Watching the  2012 CrossFit Games (again) this week, I heard this quote during one of the commercials:

 "The reward for doing well is the ability to express your fitness in everyday life."

I think that for some people CrossFit is a means to perform better in another sport. For others it is their only sport. Right now, for me, CrossFit is my sport and I am able to express my fitness by simply living my everyday life in a much more active way and it feels awesome to break down barriers and approach the world with much less restriction and limitation.

Connections and Community

I've been thinking a lot in the last few days about what I want to write. I was afraid when I started this blog that I would eventually spill out every ounce of wisdom in me and be left with nothing else to say. I don't think I'm quite tapped yet, but I haven't been able to formulate anything particularly noteworthy as of late. So I've just been thinking. This may end up a little free form and rambly, but it's starting to ache a little to continue to mull things over, so here goes.

I've been feeling a little isolated lately. More than just lonely. Disconnected. An anthropology professor I had once said of college freshman that their success or failure depends on their ability to become part of a community. Most freshman enter college without ties to a sense of community. In high school they most likely had their identity tied to something and some group of people - sports team, band, church group, yearbook staff... And save the odd exception, most of this gets left behind as they move on with their lives. They start out from scratch and eventually (ideally) a community will form, or they will assimilate into an existing community. From my understanding, this is the purpose of living in dormitories. To build community.

My freshman year was textbook, according to this professor, on the surface. I was in marching band in high school, this was my community, but I went to a college that only one other person from my graduating class was attending. I joined the marching band in college - a built-in community of 400. I was living in a dorm, in a suite with 5 other girls. More community. I spent most all my time in the music building which was full of like minded individuals with whom I should have shared a common ground. I liked to hang out in the basement lounge (when I should have been practicing) because I felt less alone when I was around people. I didn't like being shut up in a windowless room for hours on end - hence why I didn't remain a music major for very long. In my mind I was a part of this community and I "knew" a lot of the people in it. It didn't really matter that most of them probably didn't know me, except as that girl that was always in the lounge. As much as I tried to tell myself that I belonged, I didn't really...

It wasn't until my second semester that I really put myself out there and rushed a music fraternity. To my shock and suprise I was accepted and it was then that I really found my community and my place in college. Even when I changed majors and left school for several years, that community was still there. When I went back to school most of the girls I had known in my first two years had graduated and moved on with their lives, but the core of our sisterhood was still there and that common bond we all shared made it easier to step back in and still feel at home.

It seems like I've repeated this cycle several times in my life thus far. Leaving home to go to college, leaving college and moving home, and now leaving home again to move out on my own. Each time I have the "freshman year" feeling of disconnect as I face an unkown world and try to find my place in it. In the last four years since I graduated it was much harder to find a place as all I really had in my life were work and my family. I've never really been connected to my any of my work communities. It always seems like work stays at work, for the most part. It wasn't until I started CrossFit that I had that feeling of community again and felt like I had a place to belong again. Even more than I had in college; I was an active part of this community, but here I find myself a freshman all over again.

Right now I've got that first semster feeling, that I'm hanging around like-minded people, but not really belonging to the community. Part of this could be my reluctance to let go of the life I have just left behind. It is even harder now that I've been back home to visit. Being back in the community where I've spent 2/3 of my life makes this new place feel even more foreign. I felt so at ease in my old box, as if I'd been there all my life. There was a calmness in my workouts, a familiarity that felt like being wrapped in your favorite blanket. A feeling I just haven't found here, yet.

I've been thinking a lot about how I feel in my new life. Mostly I feel uncomfortable and alone. I work in a small office, in a cubicle, and for most of my day I don't talk to anyone. I go to CrossFit in a place where I still feel like a visitor  and I still don't know many people. Then I ride a train with a bunch of strangers and come back to my apartment buidling (full of more people I don't know) to my empty apartment where I have no one to talk to. I really only realized this weekend how much I don't talk any more and how much I do alone. I lived alone for a few years in college and I got used to doing things alone and I told myself I didn't mind. That there was something liberating about being able to go to dinner alone, or go to a movie all by yourself. I've realized though that going out to eat and to the movies is my equivalent of sitting in the music lounge. It feels better to be around people, even if they don't know me.

I'm trying to find contentment with my new life. I'm trying to play the cards I've been dealt. I'm hoping that eventually I'll feel like I'm a part of a community again, but I wonder if being content is the same as being happy. I've talked with others who have made changes like this before and their advice is that when you come to terms with the fact that this is your life and become happy with where you are, that things will start to get better. But still I wonder if "what is" is the same as "what's meant to be"? At what point do you settle for being content with the life you have and stop longing for the life you've envisioned for yourself, or the life you wish you had?

I've been thinking a lot lately. I don't have many answers yet.

The Fear Factor

A friend of mine posted this picture on Facebook the other day:

This got me thinking about my own fears, and how many of them over the last few years have involved getting hurt. In some ways I have considered these completely justified fears for someone who has gone through an extreme amount of pain and injury, but rationally...who fears pain? Other than me?

I don't think anyone (sane) relishes pain or looks forward to it, or seeks it out, but I've come to realize that pain is inevitable. In CrossFit, it's the closest thing to a certainty there is. At some point, pretty much everyday, you're going to do something that's going to give you pain. Not always lasting, not always excruciating, but something's gonna hurt. If it doesn't, you're probably not working hard enough. Right? The trick is coming to terms with this fact and also learning to read your pain. Is this soreness pain, muscles screaming in protest of the work you've just forced upon them? Or is it the "yep it's cold and rainy and you're getting old so everything's gonna ache" kind of pain? Or maybe it's the "yeah I was totally not using my legs and hips on those kettlebell swings and now my lower back hurts" kind of pain? The pain is there to tell you something, but you have to listen.

So, being a rational, intelligent person, knowing that pain is inevitable, there's really nothing to be afraid of, is there? I know I'm going to hurt, but the likelihood of "getting hurt", especially under the watchful eyes of skilled and certified coaches, is relatively low. Still the fear creeps in. It tells you that you can't do something, or that you shouldn't do something. It keeps you from progressing by building walls and setting boundaries that you allow yourself to live within. (As a side note, I think in some cases this is a good system. I'm terrified of driving fast, so I don't. This fear sets a limit in my life that keeps me from speeding, which is universally accepted as a bad practice.)

This is how fear lies. It tells us we can't until we find ourselves walled in to the point of paralysis. "I can't run, I have bad knees." "I can't do a handstand, I weigh too much and I'll break my arms." "That seems like a bad idea, I'll probably get hurt if I try..." This leads to a plethora of missed opportunities and chances not taken, and a lack-luster life spent feeling like you'll never succeed or be good at anything.

You know what feels completely amazing? When you shut down the fear and turn off the voices that have been telling you "you can't." Calling out fear on its lies and proving them false. Lifting heavier than you thought you could. Going unbroken on 21 kettlebell swings when you usually start out planning to break them into 3 sets of 7. Running farther than you've tried before, even if you got lapped by everyone. Twice. Kicking up into a handstand and hanging out there for a while. Not only without breaking your arms, but feeling STRONG while you held the position.

Was some of that painful? Sure. My lungs were burning after the kettlebells and after running 400 meters 3 times. The handstand didn't hurt at all and it was a movement I was most afraid of trying. Did I get hurt? Absolutely not.

Fear is a Liar. Pain will tell you the truth. It will tell you just how hard you worked. It will tell you what you still need to work on and how far you need to go to get there. It will even tell you when you pushed too hard or pushed incorrectly. Listen. When you lay in bed at night, sore in a million different places, completely exhausted, pain is screaming its truth. "You are awesome. You worked so hard today and it's making a difference. You are getting stronger and you are capable of so much more than you ever imagined." Listen.

Shut out the fear. Embrace the pain. Break down your walls and revel in the awesomeness that's waiting on the other side.

Life Changing Days

If you'll indulge me a slight deviation from regular programming... (get comfy, it's a long one)



I meant to write this post yesterday, on October 5, but as life tends to do, I ran out of time and it's now after midnight on October 6 - which isn't as significant a day, though I guess you could say it was the first day of looking at the world differently. October 6, 1998 to be exact.

Though I'm now a total CrossFit junkie, in high school and in college I was a band nerd. Alright. I'm Still a band nerd. Music is something that's in my soul, a first love that will always be a huge part of who I am. I like to play music, listen to music, sing music. I haven't played in several years now and I really miss playing in a band. There's something about music that you can't really explain to someone who doesn't already get it, and it's something that I think is probably different for everyone. I'll try, but it may not make much sense.

The part that I love best about playing music is being a part of a bigger whole. I was never the best musician as I lacked the discipline to practice consistently and the confidence to play as well as I could have, but I never aspired to be a professional euphonium player. (All of you who just asked "What's a Euphonium"? That's why Google was invented.) It's not like there's a huge demand for professional euphonium players in the world. I wanted to teach music and be a band director and help other kids find the feeling that I found when I was a part of the whole.

Euphoniums are, I feel, the forgotten section. No one really notices you until you screw up. You rarely get the melody, you aren't really the coolest or most well known instrument. Euphoniums are big and bulky and heavy. Who would willingly choose to haul that thing around when you could play a 5oz piccolo? But I loved the sound of a euphonium. Mellow, deep, full. Melody can be over-rated. Give me a nice contrasting counter melody or an interesting harmony. That's what the euphoniums do. Or hold out whole notes. Or hit the 1s and 4s. It's not all exciting, but important nonetheless. I digress.

Back to what I love. I love to play a piece and feel the swell of a crescendo or feel each beat on the timpani pulse in my chest or hear a contrasting line soar over the rest of the band and to feel the tension of a discord and the relief of the resolution. To have all of that give you the all over goosebumps. To see a crowd of hundreds of people leap to their feet and cheer as you play as hard and as fast and as loud as you can during a halftime show. There's something about those moments in music that you feel and can't express and there's those pieces of music that will always give you those feelings. Which brings me back to the beginning of this post.

This last week I've been listening to a lot of the instrumental music that I have on my iPod, which sadly isn't a lot and they are probably not the most "music major" quality kinds of pieces, but they are the ones that I love the most. Several pieces are from film and TV scores - the themes from Jurassic Park, Band of Brothers, The Pacific, others are just pieces that I've always enjoyed like Jupiter from The Planets and Eternal Father done by the US Navy Band and Chorus. But the one that has the most meaning is one that I played in high school and college, On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss. It's a fairly simple piece, only one page, lots of whole notes in my part as I recall, but I always really liked it from the first time we played it in band class. This piece holds meaning for me mostly because of a very important performance, after that day when I started looking at the world differently.

I've been listening to this piece over the last week because I've been thinking about Josh. Josh was a tuba player in my high school band; my marching partner during my junior year season. An all-around great guy who could fix anything with duct tape. I started looking at the world differently on October 6, 1998 because on October 5th, Josh passed away. It was sudden, and tragic, and sad, and as he was the first person close to me I had ever known to die, this day changed my life. I began to question things and realize my own mortality in a way that hadn't occurred to my 16 year old mind the day before.

Being in band is like being part of any kind of group. Every member is important, every part is integral to putting forth the best and most complete work. Even though euphoniums are sometimes only playing whole notes, without them the sound would not be as full and as rich. Without Josh in the band, we were less. Without him in the world, we were less. Though our pain and sorrow could never equal that of his parents and sister, the band became a second family for me, and many others, and we mourned our loss as only we could - with music. We performed several pieces in a memorial ceremony in Josh's honor, one of them being On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss. The piece is based on the hymn It is Well with My Soul which I hadn't heard until it was sung at Josh's funeral. As I sat on stage in a black dress with Josh's family on the front row of our high school auditorium, playing this song I'd played many times before, each note started to fill with more and more meaning. The music swelled and gave me goosebumps, the timpani pounded in my heart, and tears filled my eyes as me and my fellow band members paid tribute to the friend we had lost.

I didn't finish playing the piece during the concert that night, I couldn't, and as sad as it had made me, I never wanted to play it again. It hurt too much and brought up too much feeling. My freshman year in college, I had to play it again. Of course the band director didn't know the back story, but there I sat in rehearsal after the piece was passed out, bawling my eyes out (to the horror of my stand partner) as this familiar piece began to pull up all my memories of Josh again. But just as any memory of those we have lost, at first it is painful as you long to have them with you again and you are still dealing with the fact that this can never be. As time goes on though, memories start to bring you joy instead of sadness. Which is why I can now listen to this piece and smile when I remember Josh, even if it's sometimes through tears.

Failure's Not Flattering

Today was a rough day. They happen. I am still struggling to get my act together in all aspects of my life, and I'm not doing such a great job. It should be easy. Eat, sleep, work, WOD, lather, rinse, repeat. Not much else that I really have to worry about. Oh, but I also have to pay bills, and do laundry, and keep my apartment clean, and deal with an injury. What's that called again? Oh right, life. This is what everyone goes through. No one lives in a perfect bubble of a world where curve balls and speed bumps don't exist.

I clearly do not take well to change and get easily overwhelmed. This blog is part of what is helping me deal and work through it, but some days are just more difficult. For one reason or another things don't align just right and you're all out of sorts and before you know it you're having a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad day. It all rolls down hill and ends up leaving you feeling like a Sam's Club size jar of Weak Sauce gasping for breath, dizzy, and having to sit out of part of your workout. Feeling like a failure.

I don't like feeling like this. Who does? I haven't felt like this in a long time and I'm not happy with the person I am when I let that feeling creep in. Well, to be honest I have been feeling like this since I moved, but BEFORE that I didn't feel this way and I've got to find a way to get back to feeling strong and awesome again. Maybe I shouldn't try to focus on so many changes at once, but I feel like if I drop even one of the balls I'm not gonna be as good of a juggler in the long run. I worry about only focusing on one thing to the detriment of all else. Right now I kinda feel like I'm doing everything halfway and getting nowhere.

The funny thing is that tonight I got more "good jobs" than on nights where I thought I did much better. Really? THAT was a good job?? I've got to stop being so hard on myself. Realistically I know that any work is better than no work. Showing up to workout tonight was half the battle. I always say, "as long as I'm trying, failure's not possible." I didn't fail tonight. I came, I warmed up, I did some work, I tried. I didn't get through everything and had to take more rest than usual, but all that I did do was way more than I would have done if I went home instead.

I've got to stop wearing my failure face and be more proud of myself on the nights that I struggle the most. I'm gonna take a few beats, catch my breath, and then reflect on the things I did well, instead of the things that were less than spectacular. Like tonight, when I couldn't do any more wall balls, or sumo dead lift high pulls, I did 1 minute AMRAP after 1 minute AMRAP of burpees. For many of them I was able to jump back onto my feet at the end. Burpees were one of the hardest (who am I kidding, they are still one of the hardest) movements for me. Getting down to the floor, shooting my feet out, jumping back up, fluidly? Not so much 5 months ago, but slowly I'm getting there and mastering the little steps in this one very basic movement is something I always go back to when measuring my progress. I still remember the days when I could only do them holding onto the weight bench, and how terrified I was when Amanda took my bench away. I need to bottle the feeling I got when I did my 30 birthday burpees and hold onto it tightly every time I feel weak in some other area.

I know I'm a long way from where I'd like to be, but everyday I walk through the door of the box it means I'm still on the journey, thus NOT a failure.

Food for Thought

Today I thought about food. All. Day. Long.

I'm pretty sure it's because I was hungry. All. Day. Long.

This is my problem. I'm pretty sure that I have a food addiction and most likely a deep down addictive personality. That's scary to think about. I don't know a whole lot about food addiction, I haven't really done any research, but I think I understand addiction fairly well. I got a very real understanding of how it works when I was on intense prescription pain medication after the accident. I don't remember exactly what dose I was on (I'm pretty sure it was a lot), but I wasn't able to take morphine because it made me itchy and Demerol made me sick, so I was on Oxycontin and Oxycodone in both drip form (initially) and pills later on. I was in some serious pain, and that was some serious, scary medicine. Eventually as I was healing I didn't need quite so much medicine, so the doctors started stepping down my dosage, and that's when I learned what withdrawal felt like.

For me, I knew it was time for my medicine because my arms started to twitch and I couldn't control it. I would shake them out to get the feeling to go away, but it often wouldn't. It was this weird discomfort that only went away after I took my medicine. The last thing in the world I needed was to get addicted to narcotics. With my parents help I started to ween myself off of the medicine, going from (something like) two pills twice a day, to one twice a day, to one a day, to a half a day, and so on. When it got really bad it would feel like I had little bugs crawling under my skin and I would hug myself tightly to try to make it go away. I've heard that this feeling is your body searching for the drug in your system. I'm glad that I was able get myself off the medicine as quickly as I did, because that experience was not fun at all. Even now though, almost 9 years later, every once and awhile my arms will still get that uneasy twitchy feeling when my legs start to hurt.

With food it's never been that bad, but I did experience headaches when I first did my Whole 30 challenge and cut out sugar, grains, and dairy. I'm sure that others have that experience when they cut out caffeine. I've never been much of a coffee or soda drinker, but that's what I've heard. What I see as the addiction from a food perspective is how much it can take over my thoughts. Before I used to drive down a street that had pretty much every fast food place known to man. As soon as I started my drive home I would start to think about something I wanted to eat. At every place on the street I had a "go-to" favorite. Baja fish tacos at Long John Silver's, McDonald's double cheeseburger and a sweet tea, Bojangles fries and a sweet potato pie, Taco Bell cheesy gordita crunch. I would go back and forth from one bad choice to another all the way through my 30 minute drive until I finally decided on the thing I wanted most, and I really wouldn't be satisfied until I got it. And this was all before I had dinner. Disgusting, right?

During the first two weeks of my Whole 30 challenge I still felt like this and actually changed the way I drove home so I wouldn't pass these places. It really did help. Once I got the "drugs" out of my system, that voice that told me how much I wanted those bad foods slowly got fainter to the point where I had to strain to make out what it was saying, not that I wanted to hear it anymore. I wasn't always focused on what I wanted to eat because I ate good foods often that fulfilled me and fueled me. I would still "think" that I wanted something bad, like a cupcake...but I wasn't obsessing over these foods like I used to. I was doing really well until I started to add bad foods back into my diet.

Your body has a memory. You can train it to forget, but deep down it always remembers. When I took the sugar away, for a while I still thought a lot about eating sugary things, the same way that my arms will twitch when I'm in pain because my body wants medicine. Eventually the thoughts quieted down, until I made a bad choice. The first time I put sugar back in my body it was all "Oh hey, we remember this! Must. Have. More!" Sigh. The strange thing is, my body's memory is sometimes better than my own. When I started putting bad things back in my body I felt terrible. I got headaches, and stomach cramps, and felt weak and dizzy, and just completely and utterly crappy. If this was the way I was feeling all the time before, I never really knew it. The food drugs were keeping me in a constant state of suck that became what normal felt like for me. I didn't realize how crappy my old normal felt until all of those feelings came back. Unfortunately I don't always remember (or think too much about) how terrible I felt the last time I ate something I shouldn't have.

This is I guess part of the addiction. I only think about the immediate satisfaction of shutting down the sugar voice, and not about how I'm going to feel later. Even though I know that it's not good for me as a diabetic, it's basically poison, I will eat it anyway. It's a vicious cycle.

The best part of doing the Whole 30 challenge was that it gave me an acute awareness of how food was having an effect on my body. Just like when I realized what the pain medicine was doing, I began to correlate the headaches to the sugar, or the stomachache to the cheese that I ate. The worst part about a food addiction though is that you can't avoid all food. I could avoid alcohol, or tobacco, or pain medicine, but I have to eat. Sometimes, like recently, I get to where I know that if I'm not prepared or if I don't plan ahead I won't have the foods that I need to eat or be able to make a good choice. So I make no choice instead. I don't eat, or I barely eat. This is just as bad as eating bad food because it freaks my body out and thinks it's starving and I think about bad food all day long. All the way to the Metro..."Ooh, I bet Starbucks has some good muffins, maybe I could get something at the corner bakery, or if I take a left here there's a Burger King and I can get an ice cream, Oh. You know what would be really good, Safeway cookies - but I don't want to eat a whole box, maybe I can just buy one or give the rest to a neighbor." Seriously. That was my internal dialogue on the way home today.

I don't always shut down the voices. Today I did. I came home and made bacon and kale. I've still thought a few times about going back out for one of those things, but as of yet I'm still holding strong.

October 1st is the start of a "Back to Basics" plan for me. I have a goal of losing 100 total pounds by New Years Eve. 3 months away and a little more than 10 pounds each month to lose. They say if you fail to plan, you plan to fail (or something like that). This is true for me.

Here's my plan:
1. Find things to make ahead for breakfast so that I will eat breakfast.
2. Pack my lunch.
3. Drink more water.
4. Take my medicine and fish oil every day.
5. Hit mobility and hit it hard.

Here's to an awesome October and to shutting down the little voices.