Back on the wagon

If you've been following this blog for a long time, I'm sure you've followed my struggles with diet, exercise, and weight loss. The pictures and the post that I made about our trip to Walden were a huge wake-up for me.

Truth: I am at the highest weight I've been at since Angelica was born.

In 2010, I did Couch to 5k. I lost 15 pounds and was in the best shape of my adult life, even though I was still about 75 pounds overweight. I remember how good I felt. How energized. How much stamina I had to run and play with the hyper two year old version of Angelica. I was doing so well at that time that through diet and exercise that with my doctor's advice, we discontinued the antidepressants I'd been on (I have dysthymia and anxiety issues...it started as postpartum depression and I just never rebounded).

Then I fell off the wagon and stopped working out and gained back the 15 pounds.

Then in late 2011, I went through a spell of major depression. I'm sure the lack of activity contributed to that.  I lost the 15 pounds plus another 20 just because I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't function. Unfortunately, not eating is a bad way to lose weight because it kills your metabolism. I went back on the medication and I'm fine today.

So, here I sit, 40 pounds higher than I was at my low point in 2011. And those pictures at Walden were the wake-up call I needed to get going again.

On May 15, 2013 I started Couch to 5k again. May 15th being the one month anniversary of the Boston bombings. I remember on the day of the bombing, when I found out how much time was on the clock, and realized how a majority of them would then be approaching the finish line, I also realized how thick the running bug still runs through my veins. I may not have been participating, but I was still so involved in the culture that I knew how many runners would still be running, even working toward a PR at that point and I realized that I had a gift. I could run. If I had been there, running, and had been injured, I knew would tell every person I know who still had the gift to use it. And so I took my own advice. It was hard to get started again, but every time my feet struck pavement I thought of how grateful I am that I'm still able to, while so many others had that gift so abruptly stolen from them.

I'm a week in and it feels great. It sucks to start over from scratch again, but I feel so good about it. And I've learned my lesson. I have to stick with it, for body AND mind.

Who wants to cheer me on?



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