I'm Overweight

I've been a good girl this week continually thinking of that metaphor of stepping on the gas. I did my PT exercises on Tuesday AND Wednesday. I did a half hour spin class on Tuesday night. Despite new pain in my foot and a slight uptick in shin pain I'm still not hurting so much that I want to stop. At this point I figure it's gonna hurt. I've got 4 weeks left until my half is over and then I can decide where to go from there.

I had a great day yesterday!

I slept in a little because it was my day off work. I got my 4.5 miles in. Get this - it was daylight!! Unfortunately it was also COLD again even though we had a few previews of spring lately. I'm getting used to the cold though...

Just for fun I followed the timed nutrition plan from 80 Day Obsession - I had shakeology and energize before my run, recover with fruit after, and a post-work out meal that fit the timed nutrition profile to a T. Early in the day I got a text that my daughter's soccer practice was canceled for the evening. This didn't go over well with her but it did open up the opportunity for me to attend my favorite one hour long spin class on Thursday night. ... That little voice inside me said "Do it. Step on the gas, girl!" so I did.

I took it "easy" in a base gear of 10 (I usually start at 12 for this instructor). I was expecting to feel tired since I'd already been for a run earlier in the day but I felt like I was flying. It almost felt too easy. At times I upped the gears or the RPM to give myself more of a challenge. All in all I just had a great great class. I took a stroll down workout-memory-lane, looking at some of my previous heart rate graphs from spin class. Below on the left is the graph for my very first spin class ever. On the right is last night:

You see, I love technology because it can tell you so very much about your progress. Notice that on the left my heart rate was consistently higher through the entire work out. In fact, the lowest my heart rate went in that first spin class is about the same as the highest it went in my class last night. That. Is. Amazing. !!! I thought... Maybe it's because I dropped my gear? Nope - I was in a base gear of NINE on day one and TEN last night - a full gear HIGHER and my heart rate tracing looks far far better.

Our bodies can do amazing things. I don't know that I'll ever run a full marathon. I may never run another half after this one (I'll let you know after race day). I do know, though, beyond a shadow of a doubt that exercise will always be a central part of my life. If my work with Beachbody hadn't cemented this, then it's certainly concrete now in training for this half marathon. My deity gave me an amazing vessel in which to exist. It's strong, it's resilient, dare I even say that I find it attractive. All 170 pounds of it.

Yep, you read that right. Why is it that no one believes me when I say that, technically speaking, I'm overweight?

Folks, as much as I love numbers, I don't let this particular one weigh me down (hah - how about THAT pun?). I jump on the scale here and there - I always fall somewhere between 165-170. No matter how cruddy I feel. No matter how alive I feel. No matter what I've eaten lately or how hard (or not) I've been exercising. The number is what it is. It is JUST a number - I refuse to let it be any more than that. In fact, if I could banish the scale from my life entirely I probably would. I'm not sure what mix of hormones gets released when a person steps on a scale - a few feel-good ones when you're down a pound or a whole slew of cortisol and other stress-inducers when you've gained. Why do we keep doing it to ourselves, though, is the question? Does the fact that a chart in a doctor's office tells me that I'm overweight have any bearing on the fact that in 4 weeks I'm going to run a half marathon successfully? Doubtful.

In coaching we talk about non-scale victories. Dropping a dress size, dropping inches, feeling more energetic, taking fewer modifications in your work outs. The truth is that the more important the variable is, the more difficult it will be to measure. That's true in a lot more areas than just fitness. Don't let numbers weigh you down.