A is for Activity

As promised, the completed couple for the letter A.

Much to the surprise of my teenage self, I actually love being active. That is probably the most positive aspect of this whole journey. My weight has gone up and down and up and down but learning to love activity is something that I think stays with you when all is said and done. Thinking about it like this, this is just one of the problems with diet culture. You are not taught to love something tangible. The ONLY thing to love with the diet itself is the dropping of numbers on a scale. But when that's gone it's ALL gone. Learning to LOVE something never leaves you. When you love something or become passionate about something it becomes part of who you are.

There are times that I forget that I love activity. Usually this is as a result of injury or periods of inactivity. At the start of both of these things (i.e. the week AFTER an injury/ illness/ need for rest) I still remember that I love to be active. The longer the inactivity lasts the more the memory of enjoying activity fades until you get to the point when you're ready to get back to activity. And then. The HORROR. Everything bloody hurts. When I was younger and happier to be inactive, that would've been the end of me. The hurt, the ache, the moments of terror as you're attempting to place butt cheek to toilet seat the day or two after leg day would have chased me back to inactivity. But now, the love of being active has become part and parcel of who I am. I'm not always perfect, but I ALWAYS come back and I just wanted to address a few things.

Decadance #2K16

1) First and foremost, to get joy from activity you MUST find the thing(s) you love to do.

If like me, you have been inactive for a good deal of your life, this may well take some trial and error.  Things I know: I LOVE horse riding, I LOVE rock climbing, I LIVE to dance, I LOVE LOVE LOVE yoga. Even through ALL the injuries, I LOVE to run. There is nothing more freeing than lacing your running shoes, putting your headphones in and just going where your feet take you.
Things I also know: I HATE pilates (don't @ me with the similarities to yoga, I just don't like it), I HATE spinning (I'm sorry Heather, I tried), I HATE anything labelled legs, bums and tums.
And that is absolutely okay! If everyone LOVED everything or the same one thing, there would be no world records, there would be no phenoms it would just be everyone doing the same thing and it would lose its specialness.


2) Secondly, consistency is key.
Now, I know I am a pot calling the kettle black here. I spend my life falling on and off bandwagons. But in many ways this is why I know this is true. I feel (painfully) the impact of not having gone to the gym in a few weeks or disappearing from yoga for months at a time. I know exactly what it is to be an all or nothing kind of person and I am really trying to change that. For example, I was doing a yoga thirty day challenge at Sweat Studios. This would have been the fourth time I have completed it. But life, and weather, got in the way. My challenge isn't due to end for another 5 days. However, in those 5 days I would need to do 3.5 classes a day in order to finish the challenge on time. With my health the way it is at the moment, three and a half classes a day would finish me off. What is the point in doing something JUST for the sake of doing it if it'll a) kill me and b) truthfully set me back in the routine I am trying to establish. No.

3) Thirdly, it is NOT a competition.
There are people who thrive off competition. I honestly consider myself to be one of those people. However, as mentioned in my last blog post I am learning how to deal with my anxiety in a productive way. The anxiety I place on competition, not just with others but with myself also, is seriously damaging. I look at pictures of myself at my fittest or flit over progress charts and beat myself up. Sometimes it's gently- 'remember how amazing you felt'- more often it's scathing- 'ugh, you're so fat and useless sort your f*****g life out for f**** sake'- ALL of it is rooted in the past. I don't live there anymore, therefore all of that is unhelpful at least and damaging at worst.

 "I understand Tough Mudder is not a race, but a challenge. I put teamwork and camaraderie before my course time. I DO NOT WHINE- Kids whine. I help my fellow mudders complete the course. I overcome ALL fears." 

4) Fourth, and finally, be active for activity's sake.
We live in a world where EVERYTHING is an equation. Whether that is 'if I go to bed RIGHT NOW I will get 6 hours and 42 mins sleep' or 'if I walk to work I can have that donut I've been day dreaming about all my life'. We are stuck in cycles built of guilt and when activity comes into these equations we stop having fun. If everything is simply a part of the equation, is there really any joy? I am trying to eat mindfully, but honestly whilst I'm sorting my mental health out I simply cannot entertain equations of food and exercise. I have to eat to fuel my body so that it functions properly, not deprive it because of some deeply ingrained guilt as to my weight. I have to exercise because I am doing something I truly enjoy which also has the benefit of being incredibly good for me.

But most of all, be grateful for this opportunity
to be active. In one of my very first blog posts I wrote about running my second Race for Life. I ran for everyone who could not run themselves.

I ran for the people sitting through their third round of chemo wishing for the days when their body wasn't attacking itself. I ran for the service men and women who have lost limbs or have suffered hidden traumas that prevents life from going on as it once did. Most importantly I ran for my mum, every race I have ever ran has been for my mum, because she wishes she could run herself. My body isn't perfect, there are a LOT of things wrong with it, but whilst I have air in my lungs and power in my muscles I'm going to use it and be grateful for this body every single step of the way.

***** Update: I started writing this on 05/04/2018 and since then I have inspired myself in to doing another race for life. This is predominantly to get myself out of the negative mindset telling me I CAN'T do it. I bloody can. I have. ^^^ see photographic evidence of the finish line above^^^ I've got about ten weeks and whether I run, jog, walk or skip my way around the 5K course I am going to remember just how capable I really am. If you would like to help with Cancer Research UK's fundraising please see my fundraising page HERE. I'll update everyone of my progress between now and then. Good vibes only*****

2017...believe it or not. (Part two)

Okay, so I'm organised. I've sorted through my possessions, have the beginnings of a weekly fitness plan and my laundry is well underway. Yay! So now it's time to think about actually making it happen. It's all well and good saying 'on Monday, Wednesday and Friday I go to spinning, Tuesday and Thursday Weights and ballet both evenings and yoga at the weekends' and quite another thing to get those things into practice. I'm also aware of the fact that I'm contending with about ten days of overindulgences and less than beneficial habits so I'm actually very grateful that the way the New Year has fallen means that there are bank holidays and I get another day to sort myself out before regular scheduling activity returns.

So without much further ado.

Stage three: Think about positive habits.

Kind of related to getting organised but more focused on the end goal. So for me, I want to get back to running fit this year- I'm not suggesting I take on any marathons any time soon (perhaps never- I may simply not be built for long distance) but I want it to become a habit that I stick to again. I'm at a weird period where I remember the endorphins and fun that came with my runs; being outside, taking in the fresh air and just reaping the benefits of the greater cardiovascular health; but I know the pain and lack of capacity that will come from starting again. But no matter- every expert was once a beginner. With the knowledge of your goals, you then have to think about how to make it happen. So, running- crack out the Couch to 5K app and do it. I want to make sure I have a greater variety of fruit and vegetables so produce a list of seasonal fruit and vegetables and try and increase my intake so that where I had one type of vegetable at lunch I now have two, where I had two at dinner I now have three OR take the time to find an interesting use of a vegetable so that's it's not just the same boiling, steaming, roasting that happens day in, day out. My family have decided to split meal production a bit more evenly so now my family get to experience my weird and wonderful dreams for vegetables too! (Mwahahahahaha). Drink more water, download a water tracking app or tick your glasses off on your calendar every day. (Most importantly for me) Sort out my atrocious sleep schedule. I'm writing this at 01:44...I should be in bed and I should not then be waking up at 10am (if I'm lucky) and repeating tomorrow evening. Nope. Must stop. I think it's much easier to try and do something new rather than STOP doing something you used to do and the logic is that you're actually adding something to your life rather than restricting yourself or denying the way you feel. But with the knowledge that the healthier I eat, the less I crave the things that make me feel unwell. All I need is some consistency (which is what is so great about a New Year) to let these new habits sink in and chances are I won't think about pick n mix or if I do I'll be able to approach it with the clarity and perspective I need to say 'no, you're not 15 any more. You cannot eat that without impunity and wake up feeling fine the next morning'.

Which brings me on to:

Stage four: Create a rewards scheme.

For most of us, we prefer the carrot over the stick. If you're like me (or the whole world...let's be honest now) our single most reliable reward is food. That stick of chocolate after a job well done, a piece of cake on a birthday, the unacceptable number of sweet treats that oozed from every corner of my house over Christmas given as a reward for...something. I've said it before and I'll say it again, from cradle to grave food is there. Now, if you've had an unhealthy relationship with food, like I have, food can no longer be your reward system. It just can't. Now (this can take some imagination) it is vital you find something you love that you can reward yourself with for hitting a goal or a target on the way. Not only that, you need a variety of different rewards at different levels of rewardiness to delineate between 'I went to the gym today' *well done me, I'm going to crack open the Laura Mercier bubble bath* and 'I annihilated my second tough mudder' *well done me, I'm off to the spa to have someone soothe those aching muscles*. Having these mini rewards keeps the steps along the way attainable, and when you have a longer journey ahead of you, you NEED something that can keep you going when it honest to god feels like you're just trudging along. Hard work will (maybe) eventually be its own reward but even then it can be extremely hard to see your own progress. When I was at university, progress was easy because I was surrounded by loads of people who could tell me I was looking better/ behaving differently. When I looked in the mirror and saw no change, people I hadn't seen in months would walk past me at the train station because I was that much slimmer. That's a heady feeling. It keeps you motivated even when motivation is hard to come by. Obviously when you don't have a cohort of students to inform you of your progress you need to become your own monitor and do it in an objective way. Keep a diary detailing your weight loss or your inch loss, or better even how fast you ran that kilometre or how much of a heavy thing you lifted. Write down personal bests and take stock of things that are easier now than they have ever been before. Celebrate every victory no matter how insignificant it may feel now. 

And finally.
Stage five: Be kind to yourself
I have not been very nice to myself in the last trip round the sun. Honestly, if I saw a person saying some of the things I've said to myself to any other person I'd give them a strong piece of my mind. So why can I say it to myself/ about myself? Be kind to yourself. Accept that there will be days when you're not feeling up to much or your motivation cracks and you feel bad habits slipping back in. We're only human. So, I'm going to be kind today and bring my old progress jars out of retirement. I've spent far too much time feeling like there was no point dealing with them simply because I didn't feel like pounds I'd already lost was progress. I'm going to release my jars from their prison, give them a clean because they're a bit dusty, and take all the beads back out and put my current total back in. It may not be as high as it was, sure, but it's still a hell of a lot of hard work and determination and I'm done seeing the negative instead of the positive. 

Changing priorities

This afternoon I went with my friend Elspeth to see the latest in the Bridget Jones' Diary franchise and I had a bit of an epiphany. Yes friends, Bridget Jones brought around a real psychological evaluation that I'd like to share with you all.

Let's begin by briefly discussing my state of mind for the last...year. It has not been pretty. If I am honest with myself I started beating myself up on the 14th September last year when I attempted the New Forest Marathon. Having come in to this with an incredibly positive mental attitude (despite having lost weeks of training to illness) I was certain that there was no way I wouldn't be able to achieve this and so, when I couldn't, I don't think I ever really forgave myself. Gone was the celebratory marathon and Tough Mudder themed tattoos (unfair on the latter as I did actually complete that and still consider that to have been the greatest fitness success of my life), I stopped running and slowly but surely I stopped caring. My nutrition went down south, my love for activity decreased and I just became overall complacent. Flash forward a year and two days and this has changed very little.

Bridget Jones is remembered for a number of things: big pants, sliding down a fireman's pole and singing 'Like a Virgin' in a Thai prison (to name but a few) but my single most pervading memory from the books is her obsession with weight and caloric intake. Bridget can proudly tell you the number of calories in a small banana and complain about being 9 stone 10 (b***h). First thing I thought of here is, God I hope I never get so obsessed with the number on the scale that I am at that level. Followed by 'F**k, I already am'. You see, I started September with every intention of rejigging my life. I've been doing the yoga 30 day challenge at Sweat Studios and I was meant to be eating well, hydrating well and therefore feeling ALL of the benefits. What has actually happened is I have done the yoga but I have forgotten to hydrate adequately, meaning that I've spent much of the last week either missing classes or feeling like death warmed up because I have such a headache; I have apparently thrown the nutrition handbook out of the window meaning I feel sluggish and overfull ALL THE TIME, and have gained weight. Last time I did the challenge I was dropping pounds on a daily basis. Anyway, that bit is really unimportant. The important bit is the obsession. See, the thing is I really shouldn't KNOW that I've gained weight. I should NOT be weighing on a near hourly basis seeing if I've shifted the pound I gained at breakfast or hoping that a good bowel movement will get me closer to my weight this time last year. I have lost the plot.

I am missing the opportunity to see my body work at its peak because I am completely overtaken by a number on a scale. I go to the gym to lose weight. I go to yoga and operate in blistering heat to lose weight. All I have thought about for months is weight. And as, obviously, that has not been moving in as expedient or consistent a manner as I would like, the way I have been thinking about my weight has become increasingly negative.

And then today, Mark Darcy stepped in. As many of you know, I am studying to become a lawyer and human rights is absolutely where my interest lies. And I'd kind of forgotten that. I'd become swept up with all of my obsession with weight and with the negativity that has been following me around like a bad smell and, quite frankly, I've been fucking things up. Not badly. Not enough to hold me back, but enough for me to notice. And then I remembered the way I was when I was younger and all I wanted in the whole world was to stand on a stage in the West End and play the role of Fanny Brice in Funny Girl or Eponine in Les Miserables. Every thing I did then was in service of my ultimate aim. Which is why, on the drive home, I gave some thoughts to my goals now. Career aspirations obviously include completing my legal degree with as high a degree classification as I can achieve, get a place studying for the BPTC, get pupillage, change world. But health wise, I just don't think that my 'weight' can be the priority. Right now my 'weight' is not serving me. It is holding me back. My aim is to be healthy. To go to bed feeling well and waking up feeling well and able to start the next day. Not feeling like I've put poison in my body that wracks my stomach with cramps at night and waking up feeling like I've been hit by a bus. To be fit. To give my body challenges that it has not achieved (or even tried) before and feel like I can do it. To not feel so lethargic. To not go up the three flights of stairs to my bedroom and feel exhausted at the end. To condition my body so that it is in excellent condition for as long as possible. Not my weight. My weight does not determine any of those things.

So kids, for now at least, I am banishing the scales. I will still record what I eat as a method of accountability but my focus has to be on getting the most from my activity, eating healthily and regaining my balance. But most important of all, finding the positivity that drove me on all that time ago when I first started this. And until then (and perhaps even then) my 'weight' can only hold me down.

I overcome all fears

Three weeks ago today, I woke up in a cottage in Cirencester having just taken on one of the hardest physical challenges of my life. The day before, I became a Tough Mudder. I had spent about 4 and a half hours running over hills and through dense woodland, climbing over walls and scrabbling through mud whilst being repeatedly thrown into water and a final bit of electric shock therapy at the end all for good measure. I crossed the finish line hand in hand with my brother, was handed my orange head band, finisher T-shirt and a cider. This was, hands down, the proudest moment of my life.   Four and a half hours earlier I had stood with my group of mudders and enthusiastically shouted at the top of my lungs my pledge to 'over come all fears'.

This morning, I woke up in a hotel room in Bournemouth to the sound of sea gulls and early enough that it was still dark outside- a sight I'm still not quite used to after a summer of early sunny mornings. I absentmindedly put on my trusty ronhill running tights and the T-shirt I acquired yesterday to face what is, undoubtedly, sure to be another of the hardest physical challenges of my life. Today, I run my first marathon. And here's a secret that I'm not altogether proud of- I'm scared. The week and a half after tough mudder left me struck down with a chest and ear infection that wiped out what remaining training time I had for the run and has tormented me all week. I've worked and reworked out how fast I need to do it to atlas complete it within the six and a half hour time limit (14.9 minute mile just in case you were wondering) and I've been plagued by memories of coming in last at races for school. I have been reassured by my friends and family, my personal trainer Heather is I'm sure sick to death about hearing me blabber on about it and is probably waiting on tenterhooks today for me to tell her it's done so we can resume work as usual.

This morning, I have done everything I can to ensure success. I had an early night last night and I'm waiting for the butterflies in my tummy to bugger off which probably won't happen until I step foot over the starting line and am actually doing this. Honestly, some days I look at myself and think 'what the hell have you done this for?!' and then I remember, today I will do what others won't so that tomorrow I can do what others can't. I do this for the challenge because, deep down inside- even when my confidence is wavering- I believe that I am capable of achieving anything I put my mind to. I do this because I know countless individuals who wish they could strap on a pair of running shoes and take in what will prove to be some of the most breathtaking scenery in the country but can't because of illness or injury. I do this because people tell me I am an inspiration and I believe that people who have the possibility of effecting change, no matter how small, should lead by example and be unyielding in their own determination.

I do this, because I overcome all fears.

Finding my joy.

Sorry sorry sorry for the absence. I've been busy doing exciting things---->  They say that life starts at the end of your comfort zone. After the last few weeks I have come to know that this is one hundred percent true. It used to be that the things that made me happy were lazy Sundays or Lord of the Rings movie marathons (I reckon that last one would still make me pretty f***ing happy). Now the idea of sitting still for more than an hour when I could be up, out doing something, anything makes me itch. It's why I make sure that my rest days are ones where I'm working or I know I would go cray cray with wanting to do something.

A few weeks ago I released a Facebook status.

I don't know why I didn't write a blog post the minute my feet once again touched solid ground but it's taken me almost a month to figure out exactly what that first half hour back on a horse meant to me. My first thought as I approached this beast of a horse was that he was absolutely massive. Of course he is, he (his name's Max btw and he is my new BFF-don't tell my cat) has to lift a (then) 16 stone unsure human as she tries to remember how to rise in trot without damaging her crotch. I took to the mounting block and then freaked out. I haven't told any one this so you're all the first to know. He's so tall, what if I fall off? What if I can't do this? What if I can't even swing my leg over his saddle? He kept moving about, wasn't close enough, was too close. All the excuses. I was once again the girl I was when I first went running back in July 2013. And then it happened. I threw my leg over, was sat on and we moved together. The tears happened almost instantly. Pure, unadulterated joy. When the half hour was up and I'd figured out how to get off of this enormous creature- I cannot stress enough just how large Max is- I stroked his face and thanked him for the most amazing gift. In that half hour, and every subsequent half hour, he has given me a part of life that I'd only ever really dreamed of getting. For months I'd thought that getting back on a horse was just so far off, and yet here I am with my booked in weekly 8am Sunday lessons (I am NOT a morning person, so you can work out for yourself how much this means to me) and loving every moment of the connection and every moment that I can feel my body getting stronger, more capable and increasingly up to the challenge that is horse riding.

I was thinking to myself on my way back from ballet this evening that a couple of weeks ago I would have said ballet and horse riding were my main joys. And they are. I clearly love that damn horse and I love rediscovering the awesome- actually kind of ridiculous- things I can do with my body that made me good at ballet in the first place. I was telling myself that the slog in the gym and running was remedied by the treat of ballet and my time with Max. Until today. I'd had a hell of a yoga class (this hot yoga is like on steroids or something, I have never sweated so much) and left with such a sense of achievement. With every run, I grow stronger and fitter, my endurance and stamina continue to grow and I get to think freely and just be with myself. In the gym I love competing with my own personal best, I love how competent I feel. Everything I do, activity wise, feeds into something else and my enjoyment and achievement of each activity enables a greater commitment to the others. When people say that I must be so proud of all I've achieved over the last 2 and a bit years I comment that it's not just a pride of the achievement. I have such an overwhelming sense of competency, of capability and that is not something I think I can truthfully say I've felt before.

This competency was tested with my latest challenge, rock climbing. To say that I've never been able to climb a rock is an understatement. I was always too afraid to lift my feet even a foot off the ground. But at my induction not only did I get to the top of the wall first time but, according to the instructor, I attacked the challenge with a gusto and a conviction that he had never seen in a first time climber. That is what this journey has given me. I haven't just grown to love activity- really love it this time- I am no longer afraid of the limitations of my body. Instead of automatically thinking I can't, I know that if I try anything with enough conviction it can be done.

There are 99 days left until I do Tough Mudder. One of my managers at work made a comment upon discovering that I was doing it that I must really hate myself to go through such an ordeal. I know that there are countless people out there that see obstacle runs and marathons and triathlons as some kind of punishment that only we masochistic individuals sign up for. Maybe that's true. But what I can tell you for certain is that, for me, completing Tough Mudder will be the culmination of 2 and a half year's hard work. Hard work that has shown me that I can do amazing things, if I only step out of my comfort zone.