 http://www.mamapop.com Okay maybe I haven’t sinned but there are some things I need to confess and it’s high time I pulled up my big girl panties and tried to put some sense to the thoughts going on in this crazy brain of mine.
Before I begin, I wanted to take a few paragraphs and talk about my friend Meegan (RedStar5) a bit. I’m mildly obsessed with her (in a good way) I love her and she needs to have some mad props thrown in her direction. We’ve known each other pretty much since the beginning of my LCJ. You know how that works, you some how find your way to their blog or vice versa. A comment gets left here and there and before you know it a friendship blossoms. You friend each other on facebook, and twitter and over time you come to realize that this is the one person that may actually get you in ways other people don’t. Stories are so similar (and yet so different) you feel like you’ve known each other for a lifetime…
Meegan is my lifetime.
The sad part of this friendship is I live in my little city of Tacoma way over here in the very corner of the Northwest and she lives in Halifax (That’s Canada for all you geographically challenged readers!). That puts about 2700 miles between us. No girl’s night out for us (sad)…that is until she came to my neck of the woods (Vancouver BC) this past weekend. We’ve been planning the get together for the past four months and finally Val (SeattleRunnerGirl) and I hopped in my Dusty and drove north to spend the most awesome not enough time 2 days with her. I won’t go into too much detail because she’s agreed to write a guest post for me about #FoL (Festival of Love and we have the shirts to prove it! – there’s a dirty joke in here somewhere) but on a more personal level I feel like I found a long lost family member…a sister, a mentor, a confidant. It’s been a very long time since I’ve felt that connection with someone and it was awkward to feel that with someone I’d never even really had the opportunity to physically meet in person until just a few days ago. It was solidified that I am indeed very blessed to have Meegan in my life and I’m even more blessed that the friendship will continue for a lifetime.
The reason my heart swells when I think about her is because she’s not afraid to ask me “why “on so many things that I talk about. I’m not used to people asking me why, delving deeper into what I’m saying or what I’m doing. And to be honest with you, it’s a little mind shaking because many times I don’t know why I’m saying what I’m saying or doing what I’m doing. I mean I think I know, but then she gets my mind thinking in ways I’ve never really examined.
Here is where I get to the “confessional” part of my blog. I’ve been sick (as the entire world probably knows by now) and took a week off from the gym / running. It played havoc on my psyche. I had to put in on my blog that I was going to let my body rest because if I didn’t I would have continued to go to the gym or run despite the crud that was invading my body…
It was hard. In fact, I didn’t even take the entire week off. I made it as far as Friday afternoon and finally gave in to needing to break a sweat regardless of how I felt. Thankfully my body had recovered enough that doing a short run wasn’t too bad but I missed it…
Just like I missed playing video games
(addiction)
Just like I missed eating until I could make myself sick
(addiction)
Just like I missed working 65 hours a week
(addiction)
The amount of times I workout during the week has become another way of identifying myself and how I feel about who is looking back at me from the mirror. I’ve gotten down to 155lbs and can I let you in on a little secret? Part of me feels like that’s not enough. I could do more. I could go down to 150. But in the beginning of getting to goal weight, I wanted to be 160 and felt really good about how that felt on my body when I reached that number. But now I’ve seen the scale dip down to 154 and my brain is starting to think in unhealthy terms that maybe I should just shoot for 150…
I never wanted to be 150.
I don’t want to be 150.
Who I think I am is wrapped up in how many classes am I taking at the gym and how many miles am I running each month and to be totally honest with you, I’m not so sure I like it too much. Yesterday morning as I was putting on my running clothes, upset that the rain hadn’t stopped I sent message to twitter about the rain keeping me from running (because even as well as I was feeling I knew running in the rain was a bad idea). Meegan sent me a text to my phone:
“Do you think sometimes the fitness compulsion is replacing other habits of ours (old habits) like food etc and the reason it’s hard not to move is because it’s the new compulsion which is okay because it’s healthy? We have to find balance even with the active stuff and it’s HARD XO“
(okay seriously I wish I could just shrinky dink her and put her in my pocket)
We chatted via text a little bit more and the rain stopped. I should have crawled back into bed with my sleepy husband and my two sleepy dogs. I should have been okay with the run I took on Friday. I should have unstrapped my shoes and just taken a deep breath.
Instead I ran.
She got my mind thinking a lot. I felt it while I was running. Too much concentration going on with the conversation inside my head and not enough concentration to what my feet were doing. My weight loss journey is over. I should be happy and proud to say “Yes I’ve lost 115 pounds” but in reality I feel like being able to say “I lost 120 pounds” is something even bigger and more impressive. Fuck seriously Tara? Yes, seriously. I wanted to be happy with the scale saying 160 but now that it says 155 I freak out if it creeps back up to the 158. Serious? Yes, I am being serious. I feel like if I don’t go to the gym for multiple hours every day then people are going to think I’m weak…worse off I think I’m weak.
Serious Tara?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
I like to nip things in the bud before they become a serious fucking issue with me. I don’t like to pussy foot around with my journey. I’m here to live. I’m here to love myself and right now I’m about to make a confession:
I work out too much.
I’m making a formal commitment to stop that compulsion before it becomes an addiction. I’m through with addictive behavior. It hasn’t done anything for me but cause chaos. I don’t do well with chaos. I do well with getting to the root of the problem and implementing actions that creates peace in my life. Sometimes, however, I need someone to take me by the shoulders, give me a good shake and say “HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!”…
(Thanks Meegan.)
That being said there are going to be some immediate changes to my work out schedule. Here’s what it looks like at the current moment:
- Monday: 5a – 730a Stairs, boxing, swimming
- Tuesdays: am run 530p – 745p Sculpt class, bootcamp
- Wednesday: 5a – 730a Stairs, boxing, swimming
- Thursdays: 430a-6a Godfather 530p – 745p Sculpt class, bootcamp
- Fridays: 5a – 730a Stairs, boxing, swimming
- Saturdays: Long run in am
- Sundays: Rest day
This adds up to about 15+ hours every week doing something physical…not including the random weight lifting I do in my living room or random short runs I try to fit in when the weather is nice. Considering I’ve never upped my calories and have continually eaten around 1800 calories, you can see where this is starting to be a problem. I’m not going to give up all my classes but I am willing to give up a few here and there and cut back from 15+ hours to something more “normal”…
- Monday: 515a – 730a Stairs, boxing, swimming
- Tuesdays: 640p – 745p bootcamp
- Wednesday: 515a – 730a Stairs, boxing, swimming
- Thursdays: 430a-6a Godfather
- Fridays: 515a – 730a Stairs, boxing, swimming
- Saturdays: Long run in am
- Sundays: Rest day
This will bring me down to about 10 – 11 hours per week. It adds a Tuesday sleep in and a Thursday night at home. I know logically you (proverbially speaking) don’t really care whether I work out 3 hours or 20 hours a week…but that little voice (the one that has so much control) is screaming at me “Everyone will think you’re weak”. I know logically you (again proverbially speaking) don’t really care whether I relax a little bit about what I put in my mouth and how many calories I’m eating…but that little voice (the one that has so much control) is screaming “Tara, you’re going to get fat again”. I know logically you (yep proverbially speaking) won’t think any less of me and will in fact probably think better because here I am once again making the necessary changes on this ever changing journey but that voice…
The one that has so much control.
Says I have no right to motivate / inspire in my own chaos.
Oh this journey of mine.
Every changing.
Ever evolving.
But at least I get to sleep in on Tuesdays.
 Ohhhhhhhhhh Yheaaaaaaa bayyyyyybeeeeee! I’ve been very quiet about this little piece of deliciousness because well…every time I think about Ragnar I A) squeal like a little girl B) shake my head in disbelief and C) hold my breath until my face turns blue. I can’t, however, hold in this little bit of “oh my GOD I can’t believe I’m going to do this” any longer!
Don’t know what Ragnar is?
I didn’t either until Sharla planted a little seed in my brain. The seed? “Wouldn’t it be cool to run a 187 mile relay race?”…well yes in fact it would be cool but absolutely insane ridiculous impossible….wait a minute?
Tell me more.
“You and 11 of your closest friends running 200(ish) miles, day and night, relay-style, through some of the most scenic terrain North America could muster. Add in crazy runners, inside jokes and a mild case of sleep deprivation. The result? Some call it a slumber party without sleep, pillows or deodorant. We call it a Ragnar Relay. It’s really quite simple. Get a bunch of friends together (or we can help you find team members who’ll quickly become your friends) and start running. Okay, there’s a little more to it. Your relay team will consist of 12 members (or 6 for Ultra teams). During the relay, each team member runs three legs, each leg ranging between 3 – 8 miles and varying in difficulty. So, from the elite runner down to the novice jogger, it’s the perfect relay race for anyone. How do you cover 200(ish) miles? Only one runner hits the road at a time. The rest of your teammates are on support duty in your race vehicles. Teams require 2 vehicles, with runners 1-6 in van 1 and 7 -12 in van 2. Van 1’s runners will cover the first six legs. It’s a relay, so as the each runner begins, the crew in the vehicle can drive ahead, cheer their runner on, and meet them at the exchange point to pick them up and drop off the next runner. After the first 6 legs, van 2 picks up the slack and starts putting in the miles. A day, night and day later, you’ll have made it all the way from start to finish!”
(That’s from the WEBSITE)
So now you know why I A) Squeal like a girl B) Shake my head in disbelief and C) Hold my breath until my face turns blue. When we first starting putting this crazy ass preposterous outlandish idea together we had six runners that were ready to sign on the dotted line…so we began looking for another six to complete our twelve runner team. It didn’t take long to find another six runners, but unfortunately they came and went for a variety of reasons. Again the core six of us began to search for another six runners to complete the much needed twelve “man” team because there was no way in hell we were going to run this as an ULTRA team of six….
We had a team of twelve again.
For about a month.
Again for whatever reason those six other runners didn’t pan out and as the deadline for early registration came closer and closer a little whisper began to speak loud and clear to me: Maybe this core team of six is supposed to run the 187 miles…maybe we are meant to go ULTRA!!! So I put it out there to the rest of the team and before I could take back my words and act like I never even had a fleeting thought, we officially became:
T.O.P
(Team Optimus Prime)
ULTRA TEAM!
 - 187 miles (Yes I said 187 miles!)
On July 22 the six of us are going to do something absolutely CRAZY amazing. We’re going to spend 24 hours running…and running…and running from Blaine WA (yep, near the Canadian border) until sometime July 23rd when we’ll cross the finish line in Whidbey Island 187 miles south of where we started.
Did I mention the farthest I’ve ever run is 13.1 miles?
I’m officially Ragnar Relay Race runner #1 hence forth nick named “Rag1” Each runner will run three portions of the race. I run 1st, then 7th and finally 13th. You’re probably already doing some math calculations as to the length each of us will have to run in order to cover 187 miles in 24 hours whenever we finish. Mine breaks down as the following:
First leg = 12.4 miles
Second leg = 7.9 miles
Third leg = 10.9 miles
31.2 miles!
So there ya have it. For someone who just started running just a short year ago (I was up to 2.8 miles this time last year), this is almost incomprehensible….almost. There is something in my heart that says this is going to be one of the hardest coolest things I’ve ever done. I love my team mates more than words can express. I put it out to them that we should do this Ultra style and they came through with flying colors!
I want you to love them too.
BRANDON
MAC
SHARLA
*my other two team mates aren’t bloggers (sad I know)
TEAM OPTIMUS PRIME
(definitely more than meets the eye!)
 40 years.
14, 600 days.
350, 400 hours.
That’s how long I refused to stand up and take control.
The reason I put these numbers out here is for a perspective of how I’ve been feeling the last week. I’ve been really sick. So sick, it’s caused me to take a break from the gym, from running, from doing anything that would cause me to break a sweat. This has caused major havoc on my emotional state of well being. It’s been difficult for me to be nice to myself. It’s been difficult for me to not have moments of panic that I will wake up some morning having gained all my weight back. You can tell me all you want how illogical this thinking is (because I already know that) but it still happens.
I’ve found myself fighting the urge to binge. I’ve found myself crying in the middle of the library because I missed a friend so much I couldn’t get my shit together. I cried in the car while eating two Luna bars because I wished they would magically turn into a greasy McDonald’s super sized meal with a side of Jack in the Box. I thought about pushing down a little kid when her mom picked her up to soothe her, so that I could stand there with my arms open with snot running down my face and say “mommy, pick me up instead”…
I’ve been sick for week and I’ve not been very nice to myself.
I’ve put myself down.
I’ve thought mean things.
I’ve allowed myself to say and do things that I wouldn’t allow someone else to do to themselves. I’ve convinced myself that in the course of a week, I’m going to ruin all the hard work I’ve been doing. I’ve convinced myself that I shouldn’t eat because I won’t be able to offset the calories by going to gym. For the last 7 days (168 hours) I took myself down to a deep and dark place.
This isn’t about what happened during the last 168 hours.
This is about understanding that this journey is a LIFETIME. Some days there will be awesomeness. Some days there will be sickness. Taking a week off from the gym makes me neither lazy nor weak (no matter how strong that EFT voice is). Taking a week off makes me in tuned to what my body needs even if it’s not what my body wants. The emotions that I’m feeling are real but they are also carrying around the sickness that I’ve physically carried in my body for the last week.
As the clouds of sickness begin to break up even just the littlest of bits I can see with clarity that the way I feel about myself is based purely on being sick. To take care of myself is just as deserved as running miles / beating down the boxing bag or making good food choices. Sleeping for 12 – 14 hours a day is not a sign of being lazy, it’s a sign of being sick. Having a desire to eat what I consider comfort foods (mashed potatoes and creamy soups) is not because I don’t have the will power to make good food choices, it’s because I’m sick. Taking a week off to trade in my work out clothes for pajamas and fluffy socks is not because I’m giving up, it’s because I’m sick.
In the grand scheme of things 7 days is a blink in my lifetime.
This is for the rest of my life. This journey. All the good with the bad. All the healthy movements with the stay in bed days. All the good food choices with all the comfort food choices. All the bright eyed and bushy tailed days with all the days that I just can’t stop crying. All the good feelings about myself with all the not so good feelings about myself. This week has been hard on my emotions. This week has been hard on my physical being. This week has just been plain hard.
Next week better watch out cause I’m gonna kick its ass!
 I am sick.
This post is more for me than for you. I’m about to tell myself that I need to take the entire week off from going to the gym / running. That means no boxing. No stairs. No boot camp. No Godfather. No running. It means allowing myself to relax and not get mad that I got sick…super sick. I don’t know why I get so mad at myself when I’m not running at mach speed all the time. I don’t know why I feel like I’m letting everyone around me down when I don’t feel well. I know it doesn’t make sense logically but it’s what goes on in my mind. So I’m here to make a public announcement: NO GYM / RUNNING / BREAKING A SWEAT (except for the fever I’m running) for the rest of the week.
Here are some things running through my head:
- I’m going to gain weight.
- I shouldn’t eat so much this week.
- I should have taken better care of myself.
- Laying around the house makes me lazy.
- I’m not as sick as I think I am.
- I should just push through.
These are just thoughts and thoughts have no control over me. It’s okay to take a week off and let my body heal. It’s what I would tell someone around me that was sick. So here I am taking the advice that I would give to a friend…
Relax.
Heal.
Come back kicking ass!
Okay not the gun kind of bullets.
Though that would be kind of gangsta like!
This is not a post of life changing proportions. This is not a post that you’re going to come away feeling like you can go out there and change the world one bite at a time. This is just a catch up post. A bulleted post. Once of my favorite kinds…
- As I write this a very good friend of mine is on a plane. Meegan (redstar5) is currently somewhere up in the air coming to the Vancouver BC area. We’ve never met in person. We been in contact for some time now having “met” via blogs / twitter but never once had the pleasure of hugging or high fiving each other after a job well done. That’s about to change. In a few short hours, Val (SeattleRunnerGirl) and I are going to hop in the car and drive north to spend the weekend together with Meegan and for the first time in over a year I’ll finally be able to hug her and say thanks in person. One of the coolest things about making my weight loss journey public is I’ve met some incredible people along the way. Something even cooler is meeting those people in person and being given the opportunity to say thanks for all you’ve done for me…
- I wanted to make a big post about getting to my third and final weight loss goal. When I started out on this LCJ I set my first big weight loss goal as 170. It was the higher end of the spectrum of where doctors would consider a “normal” weight. I did what most of us do when we decide to lose weight and don’t know how much to lose: I googled it. So I shot for 170. Once I hit that Godfather said we could definitely go for 160…so I did. It would take a long time (4 months) and all the while I was getting closer, he said if you’re going to go for 160….you should set your sights on 155. I had a hard enough time wrapping my brain around 160 that having a weight in the 150’s range seemed ludicrous….That was until I saw my number drop to 159 for the first time at the beginning of this month. Then I thought maybe I could…
- I’m not sure if my body will naturally shed more pounds. I stopped counting calories a long time ago and haven’t really changed anything in my work outs that would warrant additional weight loss. The only thing that’s changed over the last couple of months is my running distances and I suspect that as the days get warmer my mileage will get longer…will the number continue to drop? It may be time to see a nutritionist and make sure I’m eating enough of the proper foods to keep me where I’m at right now cause baby 155 feels fantastic!
- An update on my #100daychipquest challenge. It’s been 9 days without coffee (not so bad), 9 days of not eating out of pots/pans while cooking (a little tougher), 9 days of mindful prayer (absolutely awesome) and 9 days of being vigilant in throwing away some food each time I eat (fuuuuuuuuuck). It’s been
excruciatingly painful tough but so far so good. I won’t go too much into it because there is a longer post about it somewhere in my brain but just know that this is bringing up some pretty intense feelings for me and in those feelings some great learning opportunities.
- In general, life is good. There are days when I’m up and days when I’m down. Days when things go just as I planned and days that go awry. Days where I feel like I can do whatever I set my mind too and days where I’m lucky I can remember to put on clean underwear. But at the end of each of these days I have survived without too much damage and that my friends is the point of this Life Changing Journey…
I used to be a death knight…
Five years I played World of Warcraft.
Five years I sank into a chair for hours and hours each day creating a reality that was so far away from what my real life represented. It was WHERE I wanted to be because there I could create a character that represented WHO I wanted to be.
Strong
Fast
Beautiful
Killing demons and saving lives
I played day in and day out. I would get up hours before it was time for me to go to work and play until the very last minute before I had to leave the house (sometimes no shower included). I would wake up on a Saturday and for 8 – 10 hours I would sit in the same place and create a world in which I felt better about myself inside a stupid laptop than I ever did in my actual environment.
I SANK into the chair, but even worse I GREW into the chair.
LITERALLY.
Today I sit in that same chair and take up half the space that I used to. I remember the days of sitting for so long the sides of my hips became sore from pressing into the arms of the chair. It never dawned on me that maybe…just maybe something was wrong with the amount of time I was spending building my death knight into the perfect version of me.
I was safe from the demons of my real life because I was wielding a big sword, wearing a plate of armor and killing the demons of another reality. I know it sounds hokey but if you’ve ever been addicted to video games, this all makes perfect sense to you. It made perfect sense to me. Why spend time out here in my real world, looking around at what life had to offer me (at that time it was sadness, distrust and a overwhelming feeling of failure) when I could spend it playing a game that over time became everything that I was…
It’s scary out here.
Sometimes people hurt your feelings and they mean too. Sometimes people hurt your feelings and they don’t mean too. Sometimes you fail at what you’re trying to do. Sometimes you make one bad choice which leads to two…three….and then you feel out of control. Sometimes you get so overwhelmed by the emotions inside your body you can’t seem to catch your breath. Sometimes you trip and fall and the hardest thing to do is to get back up. Sometimes you look in the mirror and want to pound so hard against what is looking back at you, it breaks into a million pieces and finally you feel what your heart is feeling…broken.
It’s hard to be broken.
It’s hard to not run away.
It’s hard to not want to sink back into that chair.
When I stopped playing that game, I had to stay here in my real world. I had to sit with all the pain of feeling like a failure and now on top of that looking back and realizing what a waste my life had been for the previous 1825 days. I had to live with being broken and find the courage to not run back to what was safe but to stand with my feet firmly planted…
I had to kill some demons.
I learned to pick up those millions of pieces of my heart and slowly mend it back together. I had to learn to forgive those that I felt hurt me in the past and more importantly learn to forgive myself. I had to open my heart, mind and spirit and trust that the world actually isn’t out to get me. I had to get out of that chair and move and save my life because living in a world as a death knight was not living…in fact it was dying.
It hasn’t been an easy road by any means. I was scared. I was distrustful. I was angry. I was morbidly obese. I lacked the self confidence it took to look people in the eyes when they spoke to me. I didn’t believe in myself. I didn’t believe in the world around me. But sinking into a chair and living in another reality wasn’t what was going to fix what was broken. Living in my reality, in the moment, taking all of everything, loving myself, knowing it would be worth it and more importantly that I deserved this is; that’s what fixed it.
Guess what I discovered finally fixing what I felt was broken out here
instead of hiding in a level 80 death knight?
I am:
STRONG
FAST
BEAUTIFUL
KILLING DEMONS AND SAVING LIVES
(Funny how that happens)
I’ve run a lot of races since I began running back in February. My first “running” race was 10 months ago and since then I’ve crossed more than a dozen finish lines. This time there was no fancy inflatable start line. There was no fancy timing chip attached to my shoes. There weren’t hundreds/thousands of people stretching and sprinting to warm up…
There was a chalk line.
8 of us.
And a clipboard.
Some people had already started running before I even pulled into the parking lot at 5:30a. I guess when you’re going to get up and run 100k (62.1 miles) you want to start as early as possible. I see my friend Kristin pull up and we hang out for a bit before it’s time to take off. No fancy count down. Just a guy with a timer. It’s probably one of the most relaxed group of people I’ve ever been around before a race. They know each other (my guess is that when you’re an ultra runner, your group is pretty small so there is plenty of opportunity to get to know each other on a more personal level – lucky!)
Because I’m running the half marathon (4 times around Green Lake) I pull out in front fairly quickly because my pace is faster than those awesome runners going around Green Lake 19 times! It’s dark. I can’t take in the beauty to my left that is Green Lake for another 30 – 40 minutes so it’s just me and my iPod.
My last official half marathon was the Seattle Marathon back in November. It had 17,000 runners. I was constantly surrounded by people. There was a lot of action happening at all times. People on the sidelines to look at, signs to read. I even had my own sign:
This time there was no sign on my back. There weren’t thousands of people lining the streets. The first time around the lake there was no one there to give me any encouragement. Just the same guy with the clipboard as I yelled out my number so he could hand write my time. I wanted to finish in 2 hours. The course was flat and I just focused on running strong and running consistent.
I thought I was there to run…
I was there to heal as well.
On my third time around the lake I was making good time but getting tired. I normally do a 9 min run / 1 min walk routine but lately I’ve been trying to run a little longer before walking for a minute. This time I walked at mile 4, mile 7, mile 9, and mile 11. It was during that minute walk on the 7 mile mark that I began to doubt whether I would make it in the 2 hour time I’d set out as a goal. I won’t lie to you: I’m still thinking about what transpired Saturday and that little voice was ready as soon as I began to doubt myself.
“you won’t do it”
“you’re running too slow”
It was about this time something horrific happened: My headphones on my iPod petered out. Yep, my music stopped at I still had 6 miles to run. I began to get really mad. I’m trying to run and figure out what the hell happened with my music. My mind is telling me I won’t make it anywhere near the time I wanted and my mile times are getting a little slower…
Then something magical happened.
Through all this chaos, another voice interrupted my thought process. Many of you know I’ve returned to my relationship with GOD and I don’t blog about it much because a) it’s personal b) not everyone wants to read about it c) I’m still figuring out what all this means. Was the interruption from GOD? I believe yes. I’ve become very comfortable with the idea that I am being given messages and it’s important to be open to receiving those messages with an open heart. As I’m trying to get my iPod to work and trying to remember to keep my feet moving and not trip I hear this:
“you don’t need music”
“look up and see what’s in front of you”
“talk with me”
I look up and right in front of me is the most amazing pink sky as the sun is coming up. I take out my headphones and a beautiful cacophony of singing birds pierce my ears. I’d been so focused on what was right in front of me and looking for a reason to be upset with myself that I’d forgotten that there was so much around me to take in. I breath in deeply and take in the cold air and clear my mind to listen to whatever messages are coming into my heart.
I begin to think about starting the race in the dark and now running as the sun is coming up. It is the epitome of what my life was and is like. I lived in darkness for so long I’d forgotten that there was anything else to life. I’d stopped caring about myself. I stopped loving myself. I stopped living and that was seeping out to every aspect of my life. Over the past fifteen months I’ve slowly allowed the sun to rise on my heart, on my spirit, my soul and my body. I can’t help but start to cry as I’m running because at that exact moment, in that split second my heart exploded with love. Love for me. Love for the person who sent the words that I took in as hurtful even if that wasn’t the intention. Love for all of you that read this blog and send me daily love in return. Love for my husband who has stood by me every day for the last 9+ years. Love for anyone and everything that has been a part of my journey…
A part of my rising sun.
The tears stop flowing. I begin to have a conversation with GOD. Thankful for all that is in front me at the moment. Thankful for all that is behind me. Thankful for all that is coming to me because I am no longer afraid to move. I come to accept that whether or not I finish in 2 hours is not the point to this race anymore.
Everything that has just transpired was the reason for the race.
I clear my heart and mind and just run.
2:02:04
And of course I end this post without another magical moment of life changing proportions. I ended my race and returned to my car to find my phone had been blown up by all the tweets and messages sent to me while I was out growing my heart and earning another 13.1 finish. There was one particular comment I’d gotten from Jules over at Big Girl Bombshell and I can’t make this up: It was the first thing I read when I got back to my car…
If people say something about you… Judge you as if they know you. DON’T GET AFFECTED! JUST THINK: dogs don’t bark if they know the person…AND THAT goes both ways… Being part of this community..we have our friends..we have our support networks..AND we can be left on the outside ALOT! But all in all, especially in a journey for our “chip” we take WHAT we need and we LEAVE the rest….
AND as for YOU Tara…… my #fgm thought…. Perhaps the tweet came to you as a gift….often when we put a MAJOR change or struggle out there to deal with this once and for all… GOD responds in a manner that we might not understand! AND you went with it… I would BET that you have the most profound race ever today…. xoxo
Yes, yes I did.
 I am not in a good place right now. I don’t even know where to begin so I’m just going to let my fingers click across this keyboard and see where I end up. I want to quit the #100daychipquest challenge. I’m really mad at myself and I feel stupid for letting someone I don’t even know get to the very core of my emotions but that is exactly what has happened. One of my goals for the next 100 days was to consciously throw away food because I am in a continual state of panic. I know I don’t need to explain what that mean again especially if you’ve been reading this blog for a while. I’m on day three and up to earlier today all was going well. I was consciously deciding to let food go and sit with the panic that was resonating inside of me. I cried, I prayed, I let my emotions run amok in my body but not once did I resort to over eating or throwing food away only to grab more to soothe the emotions I was feeling. I was taking pictures and posting them on twitter to prove in fact that I was throwing away food and sticking to my goal. It helped me. It was keeping me accountable. If I was taking a picture and posting it I wouldn’t be able to sneak in one last bite. You wouldn’t know but I would know and I was in this to be successful not hide and lie about what I was doing.
Today after posting a picture I had the following conversation with someone via twitter
Them – “not to be rude, but you throw a lot of food away…Very wasteful“
Me – “I can’t tell if you’re being serious so I’ll just pose this question: do you know why I’m throwing it away?
Them – “yes I know, but isn’t there any less wasteful solution? If I’m missing something please explain“
Me – “No actually, I don’t need to explain. Your definition of wasteful and my definition of saving my life are different and that’s okay”
Them – “You can save you life by making less food or ordering kids meals if you know half of your plate is going to the garbage“
Me – “Its okay to disagree with what I’m doing. If I was interested in other alternatives I would ask. You think you understand but you don’t and that’s okay too”
Them – “As I said in my 1st tweet I don’t mean to be rude. Just wanted to let you know it breaks my heart to see all that waste“
Me – “Funny because it breaks my heart that I’ve never been able to eat without panic and I’m finally trying to change that”
This person has no idea what it’s like to live in my body, my mind, and my emotional state of disarray. I thought long and hard about taking the steps to let food go and to not go chasing after it once it’s left my sight. Why the fuck do I want to order off the fucking kids menu?!? I’m a grown fucking woman thank you very much. I’m so pissed right now I just can’t even get my thoughts together. I feel stupid for thinking this was a good idea. For thinking maybe just maybe I could get this under control and 100 days from now I’d be able to eat something calmly and without fear. I’m so mad with myself. A person I don’t even know has caused me to become that small kid sitting at the dinner table, tummy bloated, because my mother didn’t know how to portion control and forcing me to eat everything or a) sit at the table until it was gone or b) have it for breakfast the next morning…
Do you know how shitty cold liver tastes in the morning?
Or how lonely it can be sitting at the table for hours?
Your opinions are yours. You are entitled to them. But don’t use negative words like wasteful and breaks your heart…want to know what’s wasteful? The farms in the midwest only growing corn to feed the mass production of cows that feed the mass production of obesity in the United States. That’s fucking wasteful. You want to know what breaks my heart? For once I would like to sit down to a meal and fully enjoy it. To taste the textures and the warmth of my food. To stop for a moment and think about how a particular food is taking me back to a time of clarity and love. To put my fork down and know without certainty that I am in control and there is no need to panic anymore because my world is safe…
Instead I eat without taste. I eat without enjoyment. I’m usually thinking about whether or not the person sitting with me is going to leave food on their plate and how in the world can they do that and even more fucked up will they let me eat it? I’m thinking about what life would have been like if for just one fucking second my mother gave a crap about what she was doing when raising a sweet little girl with so much wasted potential…
It’s the night before my race and I should be full of excitement.
Instead I’m angry and deflated. I don’t want someone I don’t even know to have this kind of power over me. Its easy to say “just let it go Tara” but I can’t. Its so fucking frustrating. I feel like I don’t deserve to inspire people. I feel like I don’t have a right to care about what other people are doing to take back their lives because in my own life I’m wasteful. I’m stupid. I’m careless. Thoughtless. Without feeling towards others. Logical Tara knows this is not rational thinking but logical Tara can go jump off a fucking cliff right now. This is emotional Tara writing this blog. Watch your words. Keep opinions to yourself. You have no idea what is going on in my head and how I got to where I am today. I’ve fought tooth and nail to lose this weight and gain this life. It would be wasteful and heartbreaking to let you get to me…
But you did.
 http://www.webstaurantstore.com When Geneen Roth (Woman Food and GOD) was 11 years old, she stopped believing in GOD. She found comfort instead in Hostess Sno Balls. You know the fluffy pink balls of delicious goodness we ate as children (and probably many of us still eat as adults).
By the time I was 11, I didn’t believe in God either. I tried to. I can’t remember exactly how old I was (probably the summer my brother Kevin left) but as soon as I heard there was something called Vacation Bible School, I was all over that shit. It was only a week but for many summers I went not really sure what was supposed to happen but loved the idea that adults were happy to see me and the little snacks they gave us on the way home were an added bonus. Nothing magical happened. I stopped going.
By the time I was 11 I also didn’t believe in my mother. I spent too many hours (days, weeks, months, years) wondering when she was going to come home, and I spent just as many hours (days, weeks, months, years) sitting at a restaurant table alone while she drank in the bar. As a young child ( 7 or 8 ) I remember my mom owning her own bar (talk about enabling your addiction) and every night she would come home around midnight and fall asleep in an alcoholic stupor. In the morning when I got up to get myself ready for school there was a bank bag just inside our front door. Some one would close the bar down, cash out the till and bring the bank bag to the house for my mom to deposit the money. You see where I’m going with this right? A young child with no parental supervision discovers that a bag full of money “magically” appears every day…
I learned to steal.
Where did I find my comfort when the adults in my life failed miserably? Cans of Pie Filling. Every morning I would take a $20.00 bill from the bank bag and stuff it as far down into my jeans pocket as possible. There is would be a beacon to me as I sat through elementary school. As soon as last bell rang and school was out I was going to do what I did almost every day: walk to my neighborhood convenient store and buy either Cherry or Blueberry Pie Filling, and then sit in the safe haven of my room and eat it. Don’t ask me why I choose pie filling. I’m sure if I were to delve deeper it would have something to do with remembering a somewhat happier time (around age 4) when my brothers would pick the cherries off of our trees and my mother would spend hours canning them. Summer time. Back door wide open. Breeze coming through. Standing in the kitchen watching her and loving her as much as any confused kid could love their mom.
Those days were long gone by the time I started stealing.
I didn’t believe in anything.
Except pie filling.
There was something so comforting about waking up in the morning, stealing money from my mom and then coming home to an empty house with a can of pie filling. Opening it up with a can opener (and when that broke, a knife) and smelling the sugary sweetness as it filled my nostrils and brought a sense of calm to my anxious little body. I remember the metallic taste on my fingers as I used them to scrape the inside edges hoping to get every last drop of that gooey syrup. In each can I found love, attention, maybe even a little hope…
Eventually the bank bag stopped showing up. My mother lost her bar (for the better? who truly knows?) and the $20.00 daily beacon of comfort was replaced by government cheese and food stamps. I still stole money when I could. It wasn’t as easy as having a bank bag practically dropped into your lap every morning but it wasn’t too hard when your alcoholic mother can’t keep track of important things like her purse. The cans of pie filling were replaced by things larger in quantity. Penny candy and lots of it (yes, when I was a kid there was still such a thing as $.01 candy) or bags of marshmallows that I would then “roast” over a candle flame in my room (some parental supervision would have been especially helpful at this point).
As a child I never found comfort in any adult in my life. The comfort came in the form of what I could put in my mouth. When there was a question in my little mind that there not might not be enough food (since bank bags can magically appear / disappear surely so can blocks of government cheese) panic began to settle in. All my life I’ve been afraid there will not be enough food to comfort my sad existence. Even as an adult, where I make my own money and have never been without I am afraid food will not be available to me. You can walk me into a food store and tell me that for the rest of my life I can have whatever I want, when ever I want and I still think it’s going to all disappear one day.
There is no real point to this blog tonight.
There won’t be a catchy last phrase that I’ve come to use as my signature closing. There won’t be any words of wisdom about how you should stand up and take control (though you should). This is just a story about me and why I function the way I do. Getting a better understanding on how my brain is wired so that when I get up in the morning I am that much more prepared to fight another battle.
In case you’re wondering: I can’t stand the sight of canned pie filling.
You can’t blame me can you?
So I have this friend. You’ve heard me mention him before. He’s the brainchild behind the hashtags #7daychip #30daychip and even the #100daychip. It’s been quite the feat to earn the three #7daychip(s) and I’ve yet to make it to the #30daychip mark (though as of today I am on day number 20 and I am more than tickled pink to have gotten this far).
However, just the other day Brad put out a little challenge (and if you know me you know I love a good challenge) of stepping up to the starting line and instead of focusing on getting to the seven day mark and then working towards the thirty day mark, why not just set your sights high and embark on the illustrious ONE HUNDRED DAY CHIP…
 http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs5/i/2004/294/e/4/Reaching_The_Finish_Line_by_valorfive.jpg Yhea, why not?
So I’m tossing my 20 days aside and stepping back up to the starting line. But here’s the kicker: I’m adding some new goals. My main goals for this last trip towards my first 30 day chip were to combat the negative thoughts that commonly run through my head, to thank my food and to eat mindfully. These are all great goals to have and the last twenty days have shown me that I am capable of doing them all. Now it’s time to kick it up a notch…
My #100daychip goals
1. Consciously throw some food away at each meal
2. No eating out of pans/dishes before/during a meal
3. Take time to pray everyday.
4. NO COFFEE! (64 oz of water everyday)
Let me break each of them down for you (and really for me).
1) Every time I eat a meal or snack on something I am going to allow food to be taken away from me (like at a restaurant) or consciously throw food away. I don’t care if it’s just one bite it will be thrown away. I need to understand that eating out of panic isn’t going to solve my problems. Sitting with the panic and knowing after a few (hundred) times that the world hasn’t ended and food is still available to me is what is going to solve the problem.
2) I eat out of pans/dishes even when my plate is full of food. This is unacceptable. Wait, let me rephrase that: it is acceptable for other people. However, I do it for all the wrong reasons. I fill my plate with food and then I return to the kitchen (“hey I’m gonna get a drink of water”) knowing full well I’m going to eat out of the pans/dishes. I’m panicking. What if someone else comes in and puts more food on their plate, then there won’t be any left for me so let me just solve that by stuffing my face with as much food as possible before returning to my plate….You see how this is unacceptable right? I’m not eating out of them to taste something (needs more spice yadda yadda yadda), I’m doing it purely out of panic and purely without being mindful. I’ve usually eaten enough food before I actually dig into what’s on my plate that I’m sort of full but then I “clean my plate” because…well you know “What if”…
3) I’m gonna start praying everyday. Probably don’t need to explain that one. Quiet time between me and GOD has been super helpful and comforting so why not make it a habit.
4) Yep, I went there. NO COFFEE! Don’t ask me why. It just feels right. My coffee consumption has been getting a little out of control. When I drink coffee I don’t drink water. This is not cool. It’s kind of like lent but instead of for baby jesus, it’s purely for me. Tea is fine (I’m not that crazy people!)
So there you have it. My goals for the #100daychipquest. I officially start tomorrow (March 22nd) and will cross that finish line with those of us that are banding together. Maybe you should think about what you want to change over the course of the next 100 days….
We’ll be right there with you!
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