It's Day 10 of training and I completed my three miles this morning. I also realized there is a fine line between giving yourself a pep talk and calling yourself names. I will illustrate with the conversation going on in my head at 5:30 this morning:
Usual Me: Ugh, 5:30 already? I really do not want to get up.
Abusive Me: Loser. Get your ass out of bed and to the gym already.
Perky Me: Come on now, you can do it.
Usual Me: But I'm exhausted.
Abusive Me: Because you're a big fat moose of a loser.
Perky Me: You know that not only will be you glad that you went, you'll be disapointed in yourself if you don't go. And it's so much better to be glad that you went.
Abusive Me: Yes, because you're slow and huge and not losing weight because you're a quitter.
Usual Me: It's taking forever. No matter what I do, I'm not seeing any results.
Abusive Me: Except for getting huger.
Perky Me: Now, now, you know you didn't gain weight overnight, you can't expect to lose it overnight either. You've been out of shape for years, it's not supposed to be easy right away. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it and we wouldn't be facing a national obesity crisis.
Abusive Me: Still freakin' slow though.
Really, what mode do you automatically default to when you're trying to get yourself to do something? Perky or abusive? A combination of the two? That's really where I was this morning. Trying to be stern with that part of me that wanted to crawl back into bed and get another hour of sleep. But stern would easily turn into "Loser. Big fat loser. Do it, you big fat loser."
As I said, I did get up (more or less on time) and I went to the gym and I ran. Ran the whole three miles too. The carrot I dangled to get that done was to be able to walk during tomorrow's four mile run. To which I am not looking forward. I realized last night that it was rather dumb of me to set up my training schedule to get up early and run three days in a row. It was truly one of those smack the forehead moments. What was I thinking? So next week I will start switching what is current my Tuesday cross training day with my Wednesday run. That way, while I am still getting up early, I will run, cross train, run, run. Rather than cross train, run, run, run, die. Or bail, particularly since the last day in that schedule lands on Fridays.
Really not looking forward to tomorrow's run. I've gotten better about doing a warm up and a cool down to head off exercise-induced headaches (it's a rare day when my head doesn't hurt in some way, shape or form), but a headache came on late in the morning anyways and it's still with me. Plus my right foot is still sore. It feels like when you step hard on a sharp rock in your bare feet and get a deep down bruise. I'm sticking my head in the sand as to whether it could be a sign of a stress fracture. So far, it only starts to ache if I'm on my feet for a bit. For example, at mile two of a three mile run. There's no real swelling, it's just tender, and it's not throwing off my running stride. The shin splint I had the other day was exponentially worse than this. It's just worrisome. Maybe I did bruise it and just don't remember.
I remembered last night around 10:15 that I had plans to go to bed early. Funny how that works. The Biggest Loser still is not thrilling me. Too much screaming last night. I had been leaning a little towards the Red team but after last night, nope. She has to be throwing the weigh ins (I don't blame her, but I'm with Jillian -- fess up!) and now every time I see the husband on the screen I want to tell him to trim his goatee. It's really rather bushy, isn't it? It's getting to be where I can not stand anyone except for the Gray team and the Black team. I stayed up for that? *yawn*
I think I'm done for the day.
Cheers,
the CilleyGirl
That is almost exactly what my inner dialogue was saying to me this morning when I went to workout early!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is just my personal opinion (of course), but I honestly think that the breakthrough between diet/weight loss and lifestyle change (truly enjoying the exercise and the food choices that are best for the body) come at the same time that abusive self shuts up (for the most part, we all still have that part of ourself, I think).
ReplyDeleteWhen I was REALLY heavy, abusive me made a lot more appearances, and I would often find myself saying those things outloud to other people, because I KNEW they were thinking them anyway, and why not just get that stuff out in the open, right?
Now that I am thinner & fitter, I find that abusive me rarely needs to show up, and part of that is likely because, well, I AM thinner and fitter, and calling myself fat is silly now, and part of it is because I really really like myself, like exercising, and I think that those are the keys for me.
Did you ever check out the four day win? I think you would like it.
I did start to read the four-day win, but couldn't get it finished before it was due back at the library. I'm going to check it out again and finish it. It made some really good points.
ReplyDelete