Scarcity

I may be a little scarce over the next few days. My great-aunt, whom I used to help care for, passed away at 1 a.m. on Saturday morning. Her memorial is a couple weeks from now but I need some time to myself to mourn and process. I will be back.

Bummed!

I found out earlier this week via my new SCA friend that the Pennsic 5K was canceled. Boo! I was actually looking forward to taking part in it! I guess they feel that it presents too much of a liability.

I've not been exercising as much as I would have liked this week. I had planned to follow week 11 of the Jeff Galloway training program but kind of got sidetracked by life. On Monday I did No More Trouble Zones, Tuesday I ran the 30 min. (3/1 walk/run), Wednesday I did s short yoga/strength session (better than nothing, right?) and today I decided not to exercise because I was up late last night and wanted to try to get at least 6 hours of sleep (I think I got just under 6...). So, I kind of got slightly off track. I think I am going to do the other 30 min. run tomorrow, take Saturday off (it's my husband's birthday and his sister, her husband and their little girl will be staying with us all weekend and we're having a party for the hubster that night) and then run the 3.5 miles on Sunday. Then I'll try to get back on track with week 12 on Monday.

At the advice of my new SCA friend, I think I am going to check meetup.com to see if I can find a running group or something. It would be nice to meet some people from down here, get some exercise as part of a group and improve my running. I have been feeling nostalgic for my days in track in high school. I loved track! Now, I wasn't a runner at the time. I was a jumper - long and triple jump. And, man, if people did recreational jumping like they do running, I would be so all over that! I'm jealous of Holly, whose running group is holding a series of track meets this summer. I think that's so cool!

My eating also hasn't been stellar this week. I fully admit to emotional eating on my part. I have read all kinds of articles that are supposed to help you stop emotional eating but so far I've not been able to overcome it. I had a job interview last week for a job that I wanted very badly. They were supposed to be doing 2nd interviews this week and were hoping to make an offer by the end of the week. I wanted the job so bad I went out and bought a new suit, a new portfolio and sent a thank you card afterward (I've never sent a thank you after an interview before.). I sent an email to the person I interviewed to ask about the status of the job. He didn't bother to respond. I'm feeling pretty depressed about the situation because I wanted the job so badly and because I am so unhappy at my current job.

I need to catch up on the Summer Glow Boot Camp.

I am so busy lately! I have 2 baby quilts that need to be made by the end of this month because the babies are due at the end of next month. I need to finish my sewing for Pennsic because that is in 3 weeks. I spent time on my garden, doing laundry, taking care of the dogs and cats, trying to keep things picked up and clean. I need to take some me time but I don't feel like I have time for it!

Links!

There are a lot of great contests going on lately.

- Check out the HUGE July giveaway going on over at Nikes and Ponytails.

- There is a High Sierra Cross Sport Duffel Bag up for grabs on I Run Because I Can.

- Of course, there are a bunch of great prizes being given away as part of the Summer Glow Boot Camp!

- There is an Ocean Spring Harvest of Heaven contest going on at An Apple A Day.

Happy weight?

Sunday's topic for the SGBC was the idea of a happy weight.

Angela asked:

1) Do you know what your happy weight is? Without getting specific with numbers, try to talk generally about what a happy weight is to you. Do you know when you are there? Have you ever been at your happy weight? How did/do you feel?

I'm not sure that I do know what my happy weight is.

Sometimes it seems that my current weight is my happy weight. At this weight I can basically eat how I want to eat. I'm active. I'm fit. I feel good.

But at the same time, sometimes I am dissatisfied with this weight. However, my only real issue is that I would like to have less weight around my waist. (Hence my goal to have a smaller waist measurement.) To be honest, I know that only a few pounds one way or the other makes a big difference on my midsection, so... I would say that if I'm not at my happy weight, I am close to it. I would at least say I am in my happy weight range. Would I be happy 3-5 pounds lighter? I'm sure I would. Would I be happy 1-2 pounds heavier? Yes.

Another reason I would say this is my happy weight range (I think having a happy weight range is better than having a specific happy weight - less stressful to maintain and who needs more stress?.) is that I can do the things that make me happy and still maintain this weight. I can run. I can strength train. I can push my levels of stamina and endurance. I can enjoy a pretzel at the farmer's market. I can go out with friends. I can have a few drinks at a party. I can have pizza and cupcakes and cookies and ice cream when I want them. And I can do it without feeling guilty, without feeling like I am failing at something, without obsessing over every bite and feeling constantly under scrutiny. And THAT makes me happy. I am happy to be free of that. If the cost of being able to actually live life, not hide from it, is a couple of extra pounds - that is a price I will pay. Happily.

2) What about unhappy weights? Have you ever been there too? What was going on that made this an unhappy weight?

I have definitely been at an unhappy weight before. My current weight plus 8-9 pounds is an unhappy weight for me. You wouldn't think that 8-9 pounds would make much of a difference but they do. They show on my midsection and make me unhappy with how my clothing fits. The extra weight really shows on my frame and I feel sluggish and unhappy with myself. I feel unhappy with myself because usually if I have gained that much weight, it means I've let fitness and exercise fall along the wayside. I need to exercise and work my body to feel happy.

Make-up free?

That is Topic 2 for the Summer Glow Boot Camp.

In her post on Topic 2, Angela asks:

Do you ever go make-up free?

Do you rely on make-up too much?

Do you think you could go 1 week make-up free? Why or why not?

So, let's see... Do I ever go make-up free? Yes. I go make-up free all the time. I don't wear make-up that often, mostly for special occasions.

Do I think I rely on make-up too much? No, because, again, I don't wear it regularly. But I can see how someone could. And if I am going to a special event, I do feel like I have to wear it because I won't look nearly as good if I don't.

Do I think I could go 1 week make-up free? I have in the past, so... yes!

My answers make it seem as though I am very happy and content with my skin and don't feel the need to hide it under make-up. Unfortunately, that's not true. My lack of make-up lately is mostly because I don't have the time in the morning. If I got up earlier I probably would have more of a make-up routine! And I have worn make-up more regularly in the past, though I have never really worn a ton of make-up.

If I do wear make-up, my usual routine is concealer, powder foundation (mineral make-up), light blush, light eye shadow and mascara. Sometimes I'll go heavier on the eyes for an evening event. But that's about it. I can do my make-up in under 10 min.

Truthfully, I do prefer how I look with make-up to how I look sans make-up. This is mainly because I don't have very clear skin and my skin tends to take a long time to heal blemishes completely, so my skin tone looks uneven. I feel as though my skin is blotchy and broken out and I have dark under eye circles that I don't like. I wish I knew how to get rid of under eye circles! (Any suggestions?) The under eye circles don't bother me as much as the break outs though. If I didn't break out so much, I wouldn't have any sort of issue with my skin. The blemishes are what bother me the most.

I have tried a bunch of different cleansers and lotions and so far I haven't found anything that really does the trick for me in clearing up my skin unfortunately. I have discovered that stress does not help my skin at all and over-washing my face also had a negative effect.

One thing that I do think has helped my skin lately is taking a daily vitamin. I started taking vitamins daily about 1 1/2-2 months ago. I'm fantastically grown-up at 28 and take the gummy vitamins. What can I say? Gummies totally beat out traditional vitamins! Since taking the vitamins I have noticed that my blemishes seem to clear up a lot faster and I think I may be getting fewer of them. So yay vitamins! I have also read that Green Monsters can help with skin health. I've still not tried a Green Monster but I really want to!

So, in conclusions, I don't rely on make-up all that much but I do think it is a useful tool that can helps us enhance our appearance and make us more confident.

Dear Body

Dear Body,
I have so many things to say to you. I supposed I should start off by apologizing. I'm sorry. I know I haven't always treated you the best. It's not food or fitness that I am concerned about because I fuel you with good foods (And you can't pretend you don't like the occasional indulgences too!) and we've always worked together to stay active and fit. We're a pretty good team but I don't think I have really been holding up me end of the bargain. What I am most concerned about is the way that I talk to you and treat you. And I want to change that.

In the past I have put you down, belittled you, to our friends and loved ones. I wouldn't let us go out and do the things we wanted to do because I was ashamed of you. I looked at our face in the mirror and swore at you, yelled at you, cried about you and verbally abused you. I harbored resentment and ill will towards you. I was angry that you didn't look the way I wanted you to look. I was focused on the wrong things. I looked for your flaws, sough them out and then picked them apart. I was cruel.

Why? I don't seem to know anymore. There was nothing wrong with you or anything you did. You were, and are, a perfectly fine body, a nice body. It has been a long journey but I am glad that you have stuck by me in the way that you have because I wanted to tell you that I am proud of you. I am proud of how fit and strong you are. I am proud of all the things we can do together. I am proud that you are my partner through life. You are strong, fit, healthy and I love you. And I love that you are mine.

I promise to treat you better in the future. I promise to remember that we are a team. I promise to appreciate all the good things you do for me. I promise to recognize your strengths. I promise to look for the good in you. I promise to take care of you, fuel you with good foods, continue to be active and fit with you.

Together we will go a long way and I promise that from here on out our journey will be much happier.

Love,
Holly

* This was written as part of the Summer Glow Boot Camp. Topic 1 was to write a Dear Body letter.

Summer Glow Boot Camp

I am a little late to the party with this one but I am jumping in! This boot camp isn't focusing on changing your measurements or lowering your wait. The point of it is health and finding your inner and outer glow through treating your body right. I am down with that! It's all about being positive.

Holly was posting about the Summer Glo Boot Camp on her blog, Holly on the Run, and I had to check it out. So I trotted on over to Oh She Glows and was hooked after reading all about the boot camp. I couldn't resist something so body positive!

I do have some catching up to do, so expect to see some challenge-related posts this weekend.

I added a SGBC widget to my sidebar, so click on that if you're interested in it! (Somehow I messed up my Daily Mile widget in the process. Despite copying over the html text for the DM widget and replacing it, I can't seem to get it fixed. Silly widgets!)

In other news, I was very surprised this morning when I took my weight and measurements. My weight was down (nearly a pound) and so were almost all of my measurements. I was surprised by this because I haven't been eating very well this week (Did anyone notice I never posted a Food Log post? I haven't been keeping track of my eating at all. Oops.) and I only got in maye 2 workouts this week. Maybe my body needed the rest?

I've also decided to go with the Jeff Galloway training program to help me train to run a 5K. I think it suits me better. I am going to jump in at week 9, so I'll be doing 3 miles tomorrow. I'm not intimidated. I know I can do it.

Thinness vs. fitness, skinny vs. beauty

I have been a busy little bee this week. So busy in fact that I haven't had much time to get online!

Did you miss me?

Don't be bashful. I know you did.

I've gotten a couple of comments lately on... well... on my weight/thinness basically.

I have said before that I am in the process of learning to love my body and I have found that I'm actually not too bad at it! I regularly look in the mirror and like what I see now! I see a strong, fit person. I don't look for little flaws to critique. I look for things to enjoy about myself. Even on weeks I slip a little with my training (ahem... this week), I can look in the mirror and like what I see. That's huge for me.

However, I can still be thrown off by attention paid to my looks by others. Two weeks ago, a couple of my co-workers (young women that are younger than me) commented that I was so skinny and another co-worker (and older gentleman) commented that I eat all the time but still only weigh 110 pounds but if he looks at a snack, he gains weight.

Regarding the comments by the young women - At the time I was flattered but almost embarrassed. Later, I took a minute to really analyze my feelings. I was secretly pleased. Why? I don't really know. Because someone noticed I was thin? Maybe. Probably, But why should that make me feel good? Being thin isn't an accomplishment in and of itself. What can one say of being thin? There are plenty of ways to get thin that have nothing to do with health and wellness. Being athletic and fit, those are accomplishments. I would rather be known for being an athlete, for being strong, for being fit. The sad fact of the matter is that society is so focused on super skinny beauty ideals that I am far more likely to get a comment on my size than my fitness level. I'd say in a compliment contest, a comment of "You look so great!" should beat out "You look so skinny!"

I've also come to realize that I work in a department full of women who are focused more on being "on a diet" and "getting skinny" than their health or wellness. That makes me sad.

Regarding the comment by the gentleman - This one kind of threw me for a loop. (Not the eating a lot part because I do eat a lot, not necessarily quantity-wise but frequently.) This gentleman underestimated my weight drastically. He was probably just trying to be kind. But my first instinct was to laughed, correct him and tell him how far off the mark he was with my weight. (I didn't but that was my first urge. Okay, so I did laugh but I didn't comment on my weight.) Thinking about that later made me realize just how much people identify themselves by their weight. I made sure to take a minute to tell myself that my weight is just a number, it's not an important number, it doesn't mean anything, it's just a scientific measurement of mass. And it certainly is not a measure of my worth or my value.

Still, this was yet another time I was secretly pleased. Again, why? He commented on my weight. I am working to make my weight not matter to me, to make it just another number. So why should it matter to him? And why should I care if it does? It's not like he complimented me on my beauty, inside or out. Weight and beauty are not equated. They are not even linked. I would rather be a beautiful person than 110 pounds. I would rather be told I look beautiful than thin.

(I also found it odd that even he, an older man, was comparing himself body-size and shape-wise with another person. It's not just women that do this!)

In the past would I have chosen to be told that I look great or that I look beautiful over being told I looked skinny or like I weighed 110 pounds? Maybe not. In the past I would have eaten up those compliments but that's not what it's about anymore.

Do I like being thin? I would be lying if I said I didn't. But it's not my focus anymore and I am glad for that.