Independent Inspiration

Well, it's been going well. I don't know how many folks still read here, but I thought I'd give you an update. Afer my last whiney post I've been firmly back on the excercising wagon. It helped that I took the Troublemaker to a strip club for his birthday this week. I didn't need to be thin for that event, but I really, really needed to feel good about myself. Excercising and sexy red pumps did the trick nicely.

HEADLINE: ACCOUNTABILITY

The day before the outing I hit a goal marker for me. We have a treadmill that has a speed program. I wind up going a distance of a mile and three quarters. It goes like this:

2 minutes slow walking - warm up
2 minutes medium walking
2 minutes slow walking
3 minutes running
1 minute medium walking
2 minutes running
1 minute fast walking
4 minutes running
1 minute fast walking
2 minutes running
1 minutes medium walking
3 minutes running
2 minutes slow walking
2 minutes medium walking
2 minutes slow walking - Cool down

That's 14 total minutes out of a 30 minute program spent actually running. If I put the treadmill at the lowest speed setting I can walk those running segments. I have to walk very fast, but I can do it. When I started out I walked all of it. It's enough to raise my heart rate.

Over time I've slowly been bumping the program up just a little bit and trying to run longer and longer periods of time. At first if I did any running I called it good. Then I ran every other segment, and half the middle four minute segment that makes baby Jesus cry.

Three nights ago, for the first time, I ran the full 14 minutes that are called for. I very nearly died, but I did it. 14 minutes of running.

Then the next night was Strip club night and I didn't excercise.

Last night I was hung over and exhausted and miserable and had to talk myself up by telling myself at first that if I just GOT ON the treadmill it would count. Then I said, hey, it's all good, why not just do the walking version of the program?

Of course, when I got on the treadmill I sort of started into the program on automatic and even though I was hung over and exhausted and I lurched around and looked sad, I ran all the running minutes again. I just kept telling myself I'd done it before so I could totally do it again. And you know what? I was right.

I've been excercising almost every day. I do the half hour treadmill program and then I do a half hour on the recumbant bike on a hill program. While I'm on the bike I do weights on my arms. Then I do the 90 crunches and I'm up to 20 wimpy, halfassed pushups.

I don't even care about the stupid scale. I can see the difference in the mirror. I can feel the difference in my head.

HEADLINE: INSPIRATION or WHAT KICKBOXING CAN DO

One of my big heroes right now is P!nk. She's kind of crazy and strange, but she's powerful and looks like someone who lives in her body. I'd like to live in my body. I'd like my next letter to my body to not feel like it was a message in a bottle.

Here's her interview with Ellen in November of last year. She looks tremendous, but more than that she looks strong. I like that she looks strong.



Of course, maybe the reason I like the way she looks there is that it's doable for me. That's what I look like when I lose weight. I don't get "skinny", I get "fit". So what her body is doing? I mean, she's thin but she still has thighs and a big head and a nice butt big shoulders? That's what my body does. In fact, I actually preferred the way she looked a year before this interview, when she was a little heavier. Her butt was cuter then.

In the interview P!nk says that she runs for an hour a day and then does yoga for an hour a day. Then, of course, she has tours where she sings and dances for hours a night. I can't do that, but lordy I would love to get to the point where I do the program listed above and then turn around and start it over again. Run for an hour. That's madness. I love it.

At one point, when I was about 25, I was kickboxing and lifting weights three times a week and dancing every night. I was hot. Really hot. This is what I see when I think of myself in my head. This is why the mirror is always so disappointing:

That's what I want. I want me. I want me at my best, not perfect, but seriously awesome anyhow. I don't want to be a stick figure, I want to be STRONG. That, that photo is me. I'm going to try and get as close as I can.

I inspire me.

When I reach this look again I'm going to die my hair red again (don't care how poor we are) and get a tattoo. Because I want to mark the day I stopped making excuses. I want to mark the day I decided I was done being old and sad.

In case you want some musical inspiration: Later on Ellen, singing U + UR Hand, the song that gets me through those four minutes of hell on the treadmill.