Part I: Demons

Last week, my shoulder demon got the better of me, and I spent the better part of this week making up for my indescretions.  The last few days I had some similar challenges but I mananged to ignore my shoulder demon.

Shoulder demon: EAT ALL THE THINGS.  DOOOO IIIIIIIIT.  REMEMBER HOW AWESOME IT WAS LAST TIME YOU STUFFED YOUR FACE FULL OF THIS KIND OF FOOD?!?!?

Shoulder angel:  Yeah, it tastes good, but remember how awful you felt after the last time you listened to that jerk?  You JUST got back on track - do you want to repeat that agian??  It's ok to have some fun with your friends but remember, 'everything in moderation.'  

 

So when we had friends over to watch the game I had a moderate amount of our amazeballs home made pizzas (Buffalo 'wing' and Greek), with a large helping of a nice salad and two beers.  Even though I didn't have time to exercise beforehand I managed to get in over 10k steps from walking to/from work and prepping the house/food.

Then yesterday I had the day off and was it a crabby mood.  I briefly considered moping around the house all day, consoling myself with crappy dietary choices but I didn't.  I knew that it wouldn't really make me feel any better and then this coming week would turn into a repeat of last week, spent frantically trying to make up for progress lost on account of listening to my Shoulder Demon.  Instead I made the completely odd and surprising decision to go for a run, which brings me to...

Part II: Zombies

I genuinely dislike running and have for as long as I can remember.  

When I was a kid and we would have to run the mile for gym class I thought it was because I was so much slower than the other kids which made me feel self conscious.  Also getting all sweaty at school was sort of crappy because I would have rather died than use the gym showers.

In college I thought it was because I hated all forms of exercise - running was no different than anything else, and it was the most accessible form of cardio exercise so I just needed to suck it up because I didn't want to be fat anymore.  

Then in grad school when I found a form of exercise that I truely enjoy: cycling.

It started out as a means to get to/from campus without having to deal with the ridiculous parking situation, but ended up turning into something I genuinely looked forward to doing.  Even when I arrived dripping with sweat after biking through the heat and humidity of the southeastern US summers, or freezing cold biking through 30F winter weather (without any sort of proper winter gear).

Ok so back to running...  I knew I hated it but I still will give it a try occasionally.  At most I would go running a few times and then I'd give up again. Yesterday morning, I was laying in bed feeling thoroughly meh about the prospects of the day, puttering with my phone and out of the blue I remembered the app Zombies, Run.  I'd remembered a lot of people like myself saying that it actually made running fun.  I figured what the hell - won't hurt to try it.  Theweather is actually pretty good for running, I can take the dog (she loves it), and worst case I delete the app and move on with my life.

Well...  I can't believe I'm saying this, but it was fun.  The story broke up the 35 minute minute session and to my own amazement I actually ran MOST of the 3 miles.  WHAAAAAT?!?  The zombie chase parts were really good motivation to push myself - I sure as hell didn't want to get caught by the undead horde.

Part III: Dresses

In my very first blog post I shared a picture of me from my Cousin's wedding in 2009, i.e., from when I was in the best shape of my life.  I sort of think of that picture as a symbol of where I want to be as well as proof that I can do this because I've done it before.  

As I mentioned, I still have that dress hanging in my closet.  Two weeks ago I couldn't even zip it closed.  I didn't take a picture but, needless to say, it was bad.  Today I decided to try again. 

Well I can zip it closed now (barely), however it fits allllll sorts of wrong. But hey...  that's pretty awesome progress in a few weeks!  I have pictures, but I'm still figuring out how to add them into the body of the blog aaaaaand I have to get ready to meet some friends but I'll try and add them later.