She's Back!

Tom left for work super early, so I got up with the kids for the I'm scared visits and Charlie's just becuase I'm cute visits and I still got up with Tom to shower and make breakfast. The extra 45 minutes I could have gotten was not worth missing this quiet time to have a cup of coffee, a vitamuffin top, and write a little.

As you can see from http://thismommyruns.blogspot.com/, I ran and completed my first half marathon. I have been able to keep my weight steady, a few pounds more than I would like (about 3 lbs) but I am still running about 10-12 miles a week for fun, doing pilates and enjoying running when I want to rather than when I am supposed.

That said I am eager to start up again with TNT. I miss the structure and I really do respond well to a coaching environment. I think once I get these next few races under my belt I will feel more confident that this running phase is not just a passing fad for me. I have had so many of those, but rather a lifestyle change.

My doorman Tony said to me the other day when seeing me returning from a pre-dawn run, "I thought you were done with the training?" Without thinking I responded, "I am, this is just for fun and for life."

Progress.

Summer Vacation

I am going to focus the little time I have for blogging on http://thismommyruns.blogspot.com/ until I complete the race.

Not that I was ever prolific and not to say that if I feel like puking out some emotional diatribe, I won't post.

Have a great summer!

You can find my training notes at...

Run, Jenny, Run

On October 2nd, I will run and complete the The Hampton's Half Marathon as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Team In Training. I believe that there is no physical or emotional way I could reach this goal with out the expert training and community of support created by Team in Training and I am deeply thankful for this opportunity.

I am completing this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers. So many people in our lives have been touched by cancer of all kinds. Team in Training is allowing me to keep a committment to be healthy for my boys and myself while also taking part in a community committed to a cure.

All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. Please make a donation to support my participation in Team In Training and help advance LLS's mission. We need your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

I hope you will visit my web site often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. You can also follow my fitness journey on twitter via @66Days.

Thanks for your support!

Goal setting

This week I registered to join Team in Training working towards the Hampton's Half Marathon on 10/02/10. I know myself and the only way to keep up this work (the fitness piece) is to set goals. I am driven by deadlines and to be honest, fear.

I am afraid I will gain back the weight
I am afraid I will not finish the run
I am afraid I will fail myself
I am afraid this will not be the last time I lose this poundage

All these are fears are normal and manageable.

This is a life change, the scale may tick up or down a lb here and there but this is the last time I will lose these 25+ lbs
I will train hard and push myself
I will seek support when I need it
See #1

Fear is a great motivator, as long as you do not let it debilitate you.

Courage, Jenny, Courage
Run, Jenny, Run

Erev Day 66

Here I am on day 65 of my 66 days of looking very closely at my diet, exercise and general habits. I eat better, I drink less and unless I am traveling for work or on vacation, I work out 6 days a week. I do something to push myself almost every day and feel badly if I don't.

On the subject of feeling badly, the only thing that feels crummy, other than occasional muscle soreness, is the time away from my boys. In order to get to work out, I have to leave before they get up and often have work things or am forced (by work mostly) to exercise at night missing bedtime.

It's a bad feeling to talk to your child on the phone when you slept in the same house as them but did not see them awake. I just can't think of any other way to do it. I am so happy to have lost 15 lbs in the last 65 days and am working hard towards another 10 - 15 lbs until I am at a healthy BMI and am set to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I only regret sometimes the toll it takes on all three of my boys. Tom is often left alone with them so that I can work out. The benefits are for everyone, including him, that I am healthy, but I can't help feeling a little guilty.

Perhaps it is just a sad day for me. I miss my boys but not the old me, and I like these muscles that are forming and the endurance I have been building. I guess it is a trade off. I was not fat and happy, so something's gotta give.

I keep telling Max as soon as he is old enough, he can come running with me.

Monday is Weigh In Day! Day 43 of 66.

Down 4 lbs this week after being up 1 lb last week for a total of 13. 5 lbs in 43 days.

Wearing a suit that I have not been able to put on in two years.

Excited for core fusion tonight.

Feeling really good.

Maybe even on the cusp of a habit?

Half way to 66

Today is day 33 of my 66 day renewal. My eating is much better, except that I drank too much wine at a gala last night and feel crummy today because of it! I am exercising regularly and have lost ten + pounds. I weigh in again on Monday and am curious as to how I am doing. My body feels stronger, I sleep better and my clothes are fitting better. I have only skipped a workout when I was sick and make sure to do something 6 days a week.

Is this a habit yet? How about half way to a habit. It no longer feels like work but rather the toolkit I need to get healthy. I love my @66days twitter feed, I have sourced some of the most interesting voices in health and wellness and relish checking in on what they have to say.

Until Monday ... here's to half way!

Day #30

So I am down 10.5 lbs and working hard at keeping the momentum going. I got past a few historical hurdles, in fact.

1. Sickness: Traditionally, when I get sick during a "health kick" and I give up. I feel like I have become weak, eaten comfort food and really what is the point. This time I stuck with my goals and my nutrition and am healthy again after a nasty viral/bacterial infection and am still on program.

2. Open bar event: Anything that has an open bar and passed hors d'oeuvres has been a major pitfall for me. This past Saturday night I managed to eat and drink within reason at a family bar mitzvah. I have to say I was super proud.

So here I am making progress and I am anxious about continuing my success and keeping it off and staying strong and ignoring the voices of  The Resistance as Seth Godin calls it. The Resistance is what I fight everyday.

I have a ways to go (at least 15 to 20 lbs) but I am motivated and well on my way!

Day #9

So, I'm back in the fight to be healthy. It's really a no-brainer. Every other piece of my life is in place and then there is my health. So this is day 9 of my renewed focus on finally dropping the weight I gained over the course of two pregnancies. One has only to look at pictures of me from our vacation to South Africa to understand. It was weeks before I got pregnant with Max and no, I was not at triathlon ready shape, but I was healthy. That is easily 25 or so pounds from my current state.

I am energized and excited by the goal. But, I have also been here before. I have gotten 15 lbs away from this goal since Charlie was born and then found a reason to give up and gain again. Not this time. I need to make this part of my life again, fitness and eating right. 

They, whoever they are, say it takes 66 days to make a behavior become second nature, or a habit. This time, I am going to tweet and blog my way fit. I hope the public forum will lend a new added layer of accountability. Whatever works, it is time. I owe this gift to myself, and my little (and big) boys.


Weigh-in week 1: - 4.5 lbs

Business Travel

I have a moment or several hours as the case is, as I fly across the country to San Fran for business. I know I should spend this time writing, luxuriating, relishing my "me" time but tonight I am a little sad. I miss the boys a lot. 
I know I'll land and get in the zone, get my game face on and focus. But ...
Right now am watching "This Is It" the Michael Jackson movie, after a false start of the Time Traveler's Wife (which was just not as good as the book, even in the first 5 mins,) and feeling a little down.
My sister LOVED M.J. I remember that, as a child, she had this red leather zipper covered jacket and would listen to Thriller and [ugh, rough air] Off the Wall over and over.
I was worshiping Young and Dylan ... Mer loved Jackson. 


Anyway.

Beautiful Boy(s)

It took me only two nights to start and finish David Sheff's Beautiful Boy. I cried most of the second, that being last night, and it is sticking with me. More than anything, for a mother of two delicious boys, it is a gut wrenching book not simply about crystal meth addiction, but rather the paralyzing fear that no matter what you do you cannot keep your babies safe.

Harrowing. Being a parent on a day to day basis is more about routine and consistency and then along comes a book like Beautiful Boy that reminds you that underneath nursery school, play dates and snuggling up for books before bed, is an electric current hum buzzing "all is not predictable." One week it is staples in the head to close a wound, next week Motrin for the fever ... but honestly, when they go off and are faced with choices whose consequences are literally life or death, as Sheff excruciatingly details, there is so little you can really do to predict the outcome. 

Control is something that governs discrete portions of my life. High performing at work, relentlessly demanding the best for my kids, devouring research and news both personal and professional, yet struggling to get to the gym, enjoying too much cheese and wine and forever seeking balance. I know we have a predisposition for addiction  somewhere swimming in the soup of our gene pool. The boys are still so young but I know I will look up from my routine life and they will be at risk, put there by the very nature I have worked so hard to create in them: curiosity, confidence and creativity ... and I will reflect on Sheff's experience, hopefully, and do what I can to safely scaffold my own Beautiful Boy(s) as they seek to explore and escape routines and predictability. Gulp. 

Ring Ring

How did we blow each other off before email? When I started as a working journalist, even as an intern 1992 for PrimeTime Live, we dialed and dialed the phone, hoping to catch the target answering our call by mistake, if they were indeed dodging us. I knew what time of day to call to get someone, or once caller id came out, I would dial from a phone with a blocked name. If I got through the call could be hostile at worst or awkward at best but it built great phone skills and taught me to dance as fast as I could!

In this day of email, more than 15 years later, I am working with philanthropists who despite their best intentions are harder to reach than a news magazine bad guy. One thing has changed the game significantly and that is email. We say the tough things electronically, we say everything and nothing depending on the recipient.  We read into jotted lines what we most want to see ... sometimes I really miss that ambush call.

Routines

I blog like I workout, floss or drink water. When I do it, I feel better, am dedicated and filled with a sense of satisfaction at fulfilling something that I set out to do. WHEN I do it ... is key.