Operation Maid of Honor

My best friend of 15 years just got engaged, and I’ve got a whole new push to get in shape.  It’s not that her wedding is solely an external motivator, but it’s giving me an extra push to make good choices, knowing that I’ll be standing beside her in a year or so as her maid of honor.

I’m so happy that she’s happy and is moving to the next phase of her life, but it made me so sad to think that my life is essentially on hold.  I’m still morbidly obese and am still looking for a job, still living at home, still single while everyone else is in relationships, getting married, having babies, getting established in jobs, buying homes, buying second homes…it’s sad, really.

So I’m working on fixing myself and my situation one choice at a time, and it helps a teensy bit to compartmentalize my efforts into one “mission.”  I’ve never been a planner but would like to create a game plan for each week as part of this Operation Maid of Honor.

This week I completed Couch-to-5K Week 5 and it was so scary.  Until now, each day has just included intervals, and I’ve done ok with them.  Wednesday (I do my program MWF) included two 8 minute intervals, and I had to take a water break in between each one.  Friday, i.e., the day I was sure would be my last, consisted of a warm-up, cool-down, and one 20 minute run.  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to do the entire thing all at once, and I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to finish at all.  However, I stopped for water after about 12 or 13 laps, stopped to walk a lap after 17 laps (17 laps = 1 mile at my gym), and stopped for water again after about 21 laps.  I did a total of 23 laps running (not counting walking) and calculated it to be around 1.35 miles, which I’m pretty jazzed about. 

My inner calves have been killing me the entire 5 weeks, and they seemed to be getting a tad better as I was focusing my stretches solely on the areas that hurt, but today they’re killing me almost as bad as that 1st or 2nd week when they flared up so bad.  Also an old pain is coming back…my left lateral quad muscle is in pain most likely because I was running funny to overcompensate for my calves.  So yeah, I’m a big ball of painful annoyances.

Onto eating – I’m trying to take pictures of everything I eat, but I’m a very forgetful person, so food pics are going to be sporadic while I’m trying to get back in the swing of things and start keeping a better blog.  So far today I ate a couple of the Kashi waffles with almond butter, flax, banana slices, and lite butter maple syrup.  (Pic taken on my Blackberry because I forgot my camera )  

For lunch, mom and I went to Moe’s and I got an Art Vandelay vegetarian burrito, chips and salsa and queso.  It was bad enough without the queso, but we split it and it was amazing and it was worth it.  For dinner I’m planning a salad and a slice of leftover key lime pie.  Hopefully I’ll remember to take a picture of that!