Have I Found My New Exercise??

The CASA ride was over the weekend and my friend, Amy, and I did it together. As a last minute thing, I decided to buy a new bike seat without testing it out first. Seriously... I bought it about 30 minutes before the store closed! But that was some of the best $50 I've ever spent!! ($50 for a bike seat?!)

Here we are before the ride started... Take note of how I look and how she looks so you can compare to later.

I had 2 goals for the ride. 1) Complete the 30+ miles and 2) Not be the last ones.  Almost as soon as we got to the starting line up, I realized that #2 was NOT happening!! We were, by FAR, the most casual riders there. We didn't have all of the fancy gear or snazzy road bikes. But we had determination!

I'd driven the ride a couple of months ago, but I guess I blocked out just how hilly it was once reaching a certain point. Holy hell. Those hills came one right after the other and just didn't stop!! Didn't help that we had a headwind either.

We reached the halfway point and took a break, both of us agreeing that despite the suck factor of the hills, we'd totally do the ride again next year.

On the way back, it was more enjoyable, I think. I guess it was because we got the sucky hills out of the way first, then we could enjoy the tailwind, downhill slope, and beautiful scenery!

When we got back to the park where we started, we both agreed that it was an awesome ride! (And a person best for length and miles per hour total for us both!) We will both look into rides again for the future!

Here we are after. Explain to me why I am a sweaty mess and Amy is not!!! Totally unfair.

To backtrack a little bit... My daughter taught herself to ride her bike the day before the race. When I got home, I was unable to resist the plea, "Mommy, will you come ride with me, please?"  So back on my bike I got.... And while the padded shorts and new comfy seat were GREAT, getting back on the bike after 3+ hours HURT. But not as bad as the following day when she asked me again. OUCH.

It's now three days since the CASA ride and I went for a hilly 11 mile ride with another friend.  I was surprised at how winded I was by the hills, though when I finished, I realized that my gears were a lot higher (?) and I was a lot faster. I was exerting more effort than I had on previous trips to the same place. I'm totally not making sense.

ANYWAY! The long and the short of it is that it was AWESOME and I totally cannot wait until the next ride! There's one on May 31st and I'm hoping to be able to do it!

(On the weight front... I got my 5lbs off and got my pedicure. Since the ride, I'm up 5lbs. I've been told that it's normal and in a few days the scale will be friendly to me again. I sure hope so b/c I'm super bummed about it.)

Bikes and bribes

At the beginning of May, I'm doing a 30mi bike ride with some friends in support of CASA*. I think it just might kill me. If the ride was 30 flat miles, I think I'd be ok. But there are hills. And while some hills may be small, they're still hills!!
So far, my knee is holding up with the training. (knock on wood) But it's about to get serious and I hope I can do it.


I go back and forth with wanting to make sure I'm healthy/not focusing on my weight and stressing about what I look like. Logically, I know that being healthy is most important. But I also know that with less weight, my heart won't have to work as hard when I exercise. Either way, I've got some work to do.

My current plan is bribing myself for losing weight. I'm in desperate need of a pedicure and I want some $$$ shampoo. Silly, I know. But both are wants, not needs and I'm hoping it'll help me drop some weight.




(CASA - Court Appointed Special Advocates - is a community-based program that recruits, trains and supports citizen-volunteers to advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children in courtrooms and communities).

Restart.

Nine months since I blogged last and I realize that I need to start back up with it.

In September I had my knee scoped to figure out what was going on. I heard it would take about 6mo to get back to normal and that's been pretty true. As I wrote last time, my knee has lots of degeneration and had a torn lateral meniscus, which was fixed. The surgeon "cleaned up" the falling apart cartilage, which left me with not much cushion in my knee. Think pain. Lots of pain.


As posted before, I've gained a lot of weight. Except now it's more. Because, you know, knee surgery kinda leaves you on your ass for quite awhile. Along with my weight increasing, so has my depression. Of course, that leads me to eating more and then my weight going up, then being more depressed... you know where I'm going with this. It's a horrible cycle.

I promised myself yesterday that I'd get back on track, just like I've promised myself several times in the last few months. But it's so very hard when you turn to eating as your comfort. Terrible, I know, but it is what it is.


Looking back, I find it interesting what I titled my blog. I thought I'd be the fat girl who finally made it to no longer being overweight. But I didn't. I'm fat again.

It's most definitely a journey, and not a fun one. I wish I could say I'm not one of those statistics that gets fat again, but alas, it's not true. As with my depression, I'm hoping to fight this and no longer be a fat girl--on the outside at least. It's not that I want to be thin... I think that ship has sailed. I just want to not be fat. I want to be comfortable with how I look and how I feel, but that doesn't mean I have to be thin. It also doesn't mean I have to be what I am now.

On the depression front, I have been seeing a psychiatrist to help figure out my meds. I knew that taking that step would lead to a lot of changing, which could lead to me feeling like shit. And boy was I right! Once things are figured out, I *should* feel better overall. But who knows. I'm not hopeful that I'll ever feel good at this point.

Loaded Question

Back in February, I hurt my knee. My "good" knee. I cut back on exercise little by little and it kept getting worse. Finally, it hurt to walk so I sucked it up and went to the doctor.

One xray and MRI later... I have a torn meniscus, signs of degeneration, a bone spur and signs of arthritis happening. Except that's not where I'm having the pain.

My orthopedic guy said no exercise if it hurts. I've been away from the gym for TWO WEEKS. I got a steroid shot and perhaps it'll feel better by tomorrow when I WILL go and do something.

My ortho guy suggested swimming and when I reminded him he told me that I can't, he suggested water jogging. WATER JOGGING.

While having dinner with friends, one asked WHY I workout. Well! I enjoy it. I need to b/c of family history with obesity, heart disease, etc. He asked if I'm exercising to benefit my health and I keep getting hurt, how is it benefiting my health?

I'm having to swallow a HUGE pill and realize that I might be stuck with a life of water jogging. And I'm not doing so well with that.

I Want To Give Up

For the last month or more I've been sick. Mono, baby! I've had zero energy and took two weeks off from the gym because I just couldn't do it. I've been going again, but I'm super sluggish with my workouts and probably barely burn any calories. The scale has been going up, too. I feel pudgy and jiggly and gross. I've been emotional eating like crazy.

I just want to give up. I know how I can get back on track. I just don't care any more.

Pain In My.....

A few weeks ago, I was offered a chance to work with my old OLY coach again, except it would be more like personal training since I can't do a lot of stuff with weights anymore because of my shoulder.

I was so torn. I LOVED working with my coach and I loved being at the CF gym, but how would it be going back and not being able to do anything that everyone else was doing? What about my friends who aren't really my friends anymore because I left? 

In the end, it was an offer I couldn't refuse. I've pretty much only been doing spinning and while it is a great cardio workout, it's nothing like what I really enjoy. Of course, my limitations make working out like I used to impossible, but I know my coach wouldn't let me do anything to hurt myself, but would push me just the same.

Last weekend was my first time back. I was sore for DAYS. By the time I was walking normally again, it was time to go back. I'll only be going on Saturday and Sunday mornings (there goes my one day to sleep in) but during the week, I'll repeat a workout on my own so I'll get 3 days in.

The discomfort of being back almost a year later was gone by the second day, despite the fact that the gym is now in a totally new location, there are lots of new people I don't know, and it's just not the same as it was. So far, I'm not upset about seeing others do things I cannot, but I know that's going to come soon enough. For now, I'm just happy to be back and happy to get great workouts in, despite being left sooo sore! (Interestingly, my legs are the worst!! I thought they'd be ok since I do so much cycling, but nooooo. OUCH!)

It's crazy to think that it's been almost a year since my surgery. I have days that my shoulder feels fine and days when it hurts. The cold weather makes it ache some days. And I can move just the right way sometimes and it'll be sore for days. A couple of times I didn't realize I couldn't do something and ended up getting hurt, but it is what it is. I try to be careful, but life happens. Hopefully I'll be building the strength back up and it will help. (After I attempted a weights class and ended up in pain for months, I stopped doing weights altogether because I was too scared of hurting myself.)

And my old CF coach was more than happy to have me back, even with the special arrangement. I love her. I feel like I'm back home and like I've never left.

The Big Black Dog