Wonder if what you say helps / Forging relationships / Revisiting an old enemy

Gah, I so need to catch up on blogs. So much is happening to everyone out there. Struggles and triumphs. Losses and gains. Frustrations and exhilaration. At the same time there is so much happening to me over here as well.

I’m taking another day to post because 3 really kick ass things happened to me yesterday / today and I just want to sit with all their goodness for a few moments before I move on to catching up with everyone out there.

Kick ass something #1

I’ve been a pretty avid follower of Jen (Prior Fat Girl) since I started this LCJ 4 months ago. Unfortunately I am one of the unlucky ones that can’t access her blog anymore due to some mystical creature sprinkling evil “Access Denied” dust on her website. I can access it through my phone but its rather tedious and does not make for safe driving conditions as the only free time I really have these days is in my car.

I miss reading her blogs on a daily basis.

She is one to definitely understand this just isn’t about losing weight but about facing fears and digging deep in the past to make room for a bright future. She puts her crap out there for the world to see and doesn’t really care who sees it. Her journey is hers alone and not for anyone but herself to work through. She is brutally honest with herself and in doing so has forged a path for the rest of us to walk along.

She does this really cool thing where she invites all us girls to take pictures of ourselves after working out. I have been sending her pictures of my running during the c25k program. You know the ones with my little signs stating how long I ran for.  Yesterday I was catching up with her blog and read how on Saturday she had completed a 5k. It was awesome looking at pictures of her crossing over that finish line. I can’t wait until that is me (June 12th). It just so happens however on Saturday I ran a personal best in distance (3.22) and sent her the following picture:

This was taken right after finishing. I’m crying and sweating and trying to get the salty sting out of my eyes.  I get home late last night, get my bag together for today’s gym date. I’m tired. I’m sore. I”m nervous about seeing Superman. I look down to plug in my phone for the night and there is the beacon of light I needed to get that motivation / determination back into my head.

Jen sent me an email.

I won’t go into details about what the email said but it was enough to stop me in my tracks, take a deep breath, read it 5 or 6 times and promptly push save so that I can read it again (and again).

It’s like the high school football quarterback throwing the pigskin around with the freshman during tryouts. I am the freshman and so many of you are the quarterback. Coming here and leaving me comment or taking the time to send me an email encouraging me to keep going has been a tremendous amount of help.  If I don’t say it enough, Thanks! What you provide to me now will be given out ten fold when I am the quarterback and the new freshmen on campus want to throw the football around.

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Kick ass something #2

After 3 weeks of working with Superman, an intense session with my therapist yesterday and a talk with my husband, I’ve decided to go ahead and commit to seeing a trainer 2 x week.  Seems silly that I would need a therapist to help me get to this decision but it goes so much deeper than just making the decision.  For the first time in my life I finally feel there is enough self worth to stand up for what I need. Feeling that and knowing how to do it are two different things.  I didn’t need to convince my husband that I was worth it, I needed to convince myself.  I didn’t need to convince my husband that spending the money was okay, I had to convince myself.  I told him I felt guilty about spending the money to which he replied: “I never feel guilty, so I don’t want you too either”…

Sometimes the worst battles are the ones you’re having internally.

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Kick ass something #3

Speaking of Superman. I met with him today and it was pretty awesome. Today = upper body.  I got to work on this machine:

Minus the chair…I got the bouncy ball! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! He had to help me on a few things but I went to the end like a trooper. Then he took me into the boxing room! KICK ASS for sure. The boxing room has 12 bags (3 rows of 4). He strapped me up and said two full body swings into each bag. Oh man nothing to rile a girl up like being told to beat the crap out of some bags.  After that he had me start at bag 1, kick it’s ass, run to bag 12, kick it’s ass, run to bag 9, kick it’s ass, run to bag 4 kick it’s ass and repeat until he got tired.

Right, until HE got tired.

And then repeat the entire boxing process (each bag twice, then crisscross) . It was AWESOME! I think that Superman is warming up to me. I could be wrong but he did swear in front of me (I swear like a sailor and told him so in the beginning) while quoting a line in a movie so I’ll take that as a move in the positive direction. He’s very much a “all business” kind of guy. I’m an “all business” kind of girl so it’s a good match.

The very last thing we did…

That’s right, the dreaded brick wall. Last time I did this, it brought me to tears. Today, I was going to win this damn fight. However I’m full of anxiety because I’m remembering how it went last time.

The last time I did 6 knee pull ups (4/12)

Today I did 15 (4/22).

You lose brick wall, you lose!