Getting Back in to it

Three weeks ago, I had a severe case of shin splints. The pain was so intense that I could barely walk. I iced, I swam and water jogged, I invested in new sneakers and went to Disney World; where magical pixie dust healed them. Ok, it is kind of scary that I do believe that could happen, anyway, back to my story.

I guess I have to say that I did not do any traditional workouts for those eight magical days. However, I did walk for about 6-8 hours everyday while pushing between 20-70 pounds of children in strollers at any moment. I think that might count as logging some walking workouts.

The good news is that by midweek, my shins were back to normal. We arrived back home last Saturday and I did not get any workouts in until today due to getting the household back into shape.

This morning I awoke to an organized house and felt overwhelmed with anxiety about getting back into it. Had I been bad by going away and not working out? Will I be able to pick up where I left off? Well, where I left off was not really that impressive. I decided to ease back into the workouts today with a swim/water jog. It was raining so I could not run outsie. I put poor Amelia in the torture room at the Y, oops I meant babysitting room where she proceded to cry for an hour. No guilt, no gain, I mean no pain no gain right?

I had a great swim, swam for an hour, 40 laps of breast stroke, 6 of kickboarding, 6 of water jogging. Not huge numbers to put up in an hour, but I feel good.

Tomorrow morning I am going to attept a longer jog/walk. I am looking to do two 5Ks by the end of June and drop ten more pounds by the end of June. I am thinking of joining weight watchers although I barely have time to work out not sure how I will fit that in with four kids home from school in 22 days. I am nervous about running tomorrow, but excited too.

I am very thankful to be on an amazing running team that has been a wonderful source of support and knowledge and am more dedicated than ever to completing this 1/2 marathon and raising money for breast cancer.

Please share you advice, tips and support. I am especially interested in fundraising tips and ideas. Feel free to share my blog with family and friends who have been touchd by breast cancer or are taking on a body improvement project themselves.

Raising Money for Breast Cancer

May 5, 2009
Dear Friends,
I have decided to run the Disney World ½ marathon. Yes, I mean 13 miles! The ½ marathon is in Walt Disney World on January 9, 2010. I am motivated to run because it has always been one of my goals to run a ½ marathon and also because I want to become healthy and fit again. With my run, I will be raising money to support the Avon Breast Cancer Walk. Cancer has always been a nightmare looming over my life like a dark cloud. My father passed away of cancer at age 54 and this year, two young women in my daughter’s Kindergarten class have been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I have joined a Training team. You can read more about the team at: http://allears.net/pluto/teamallears.htm. Please read my blog to follow my training progress at http://heffalumptopixie.blogspot.com/
The Avon Foundation is distinguished from most other donors that fund a single institution or scientific investigator by supporting a virtual national network of research, medical, social service and community-based organizations, each of which is making a unique contribution to helping patients or advancing breast cancer research. The Avon Foundation awards funding in breast cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, support services and scientific research, including prevention and therapeutic vaccine studies.
Checks should be made out to Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and should be mailed to:
Deb Wills, 3520 Sugarloaf Parkway, Suite F03-105, Fredrick, MD 21704 Please to be sure to write Team All Ears Amanda Gonzales on the check in the notes. If it is easier, you can give me a check and I will bulk mail them as I receive them.You can also contribute online by clicking below or visiting
http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/DebWills
Please be sure to put All Ears, A Gonzales after your donation. I understand that we are all suffering through a tough economy. Every donation makes an impact. Please consider donating $5, $10, $15, $20 or more.
Thank you for your support!
Amanda Gonzales

Frustrating Setback

Shin Splints! Ouch and Ugh! I am so frustrated. I know I have been going all out training it is a major flaw of my personality to go all out into something pushing myself to the limit. I think I hurt my shins by increasing my mileage to quickly. Perhaps it was not so wise to jog for an hour on Friday. I feel like I am again waging a war between my heart and my body. My heart tells me it is ok to jog for an hour and my body is crumbling.

I have stabbing pains in my shins when I stand, when I walk, when I sit, it kills! I was supposed to run in a 5K today and as much as I want to do that, I do not want to further injure myself. I will continue icing and look into new sneakers and hopefully squeeze in a swim today. I have to slow down.

I am going to buy the Jeff Galloway book and start slow this week limiting myself to only two mile runs this week and hopefully with new shoes my legs can recover and be ok.

Happy Mothers Day!

It Takes a Village to make a Pixie

I have come to the realization that it is easier to carry a baby for 9 months, go through the pain of delivery and the ensuing 12 months of little sleep than to get your body back into shape. Now granted, I am many pounds overweight and have not seriously and consistently exercised in about 13 years now, so I am coming from below rock bottom. However, you can't quit the pregnancy, if you are sick or in pain or uncomfortable you can't make it stop. However, when you are on a jog/hobble and every muscle in your legs feel like they are going to tear while they are also cramping and your stomach is upset and you are trying to push a jogging stroller up an incline, you can just stop. It is motivation to make me never fall out of this habit of exercising again. I do not want to ever have to feel the pain I have felt both physically and emotionally over the past three weeks again.

What has been helping me to get through these past few weeks is the support and caring comments from friends in the community both online and in my towm. Thank you everyone for your kind words, your encouragement, sharing your stories and tips and offering to help. It means so much to me. I am putting myself and my story out there in public to make myself accountable for my actions. I have tried hiding, trying to be invisible, feeling sad about my state of blobness for so long and realized that I am only hurting myself that way. I have never been a private person so I decided to make my personal battle public. So please help me!

If you see me running , toot your horn and say hi, it will help me push through. If you see me at the gym, say hi. If you have any good workout music to share, please let me know. If you have any diet tips or are going to a weight watchers meeting, let me know. The more support I have, the more motivated I will be.

I will be running those 12 miles in January for myself, but also for all the people whose lives have been impacted in some way by breast cancer. I am rasing money for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Please share my blog with any friends and/or family who might appreciate this cause.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE TO MAKE A PIXIE AND TO FIGHT CANCER!

A Fleeting Thought of Quitting

So, this morning I repeated the same routine I have for the past three days. I convinced myself the night before that I would be setting the alarm for 5am and jumping out of bed and either heading to the gym for a swim or to the roads for a run. I have been alternating running every other day and swimming. Every morning I hear the alarm and fumble for the snooze and continue to hit snooze in a semi conscious state until 6:30am when my husband laughs at me as I make the joke that I actually went for a run at 3am and that I am now just waking up after sneaking back into bed at 4:30am, but forgot to turn off the alarm. I apparently have a hard time waking up at 5am to go to work out. The result of this is that my morning gets shot as I work out after school dropoff and have to torture my youngest in the Y babysitting room while I deal with that guilt throughout my workout. Then I am recovering and stretching while the baby naps until preschool pickup.


This morning I decided to step on the scale, it has been almost a week since I did this and surely I have lost another 10 pounds by now. I have been exercising every day for 30-60 minutes. I have been vigilant about my diet and have avoided excess sweets and Excess alcohol. What drinks do skinny peaople drink anyway? I have eaten nothing fried and not induldged in anything white or containing too many carbs. I have worked hard!! I step on the scale and immediately step off and back on again. This cannot be right, no way. Then I begin to scream at my scale WHAT THE ^$%*&&*)(_(*)(*&!!!!!!! I HAVE NOT LOST ONE EXTRA POUND!!!!!!!!

How can this be possible, what have I been killing myself for????? At that moment I could almost smell an extra cheese and large peperoni pizza and a bottle of wine. Why am I doing this if my body is just goingto be fat forever. I thought everyone told me eat less and move more and the pounds will come off. I FELT LIKE QUITTING.

I regathered myslf and reminded myself of how good my heart has been feeling and how much clearer my skin looks and of the committment I had made and reminded myself that this is a challenge that I cannot and will not fail at. This is important, vital to my future health and ability to be there for my children as they travel their journey through life.

I went to the gym after dropoff, dropped the baby in the dreaded sitting room, went upstairs and ran the best two miles I have run yet. It felt good. It felt triumphant. Hopefully those pounds will start falling off soon, but I feel like I overcame a demon today and dug dowm deep and found the courage to keep going.

Maybe I just need a new scale???????

Teaching an Old Dog New Trick

I have discovered that even at the age of 36 which people still seem to deem "young", it is very hard to break old habits. I started on the journey to a better, stronger, healthier me about fourth months ago, when after 20 years of being a diet coke addict, I quit. Cold turkey, just said goodbye the delicious fizz and the phenaphylanines. It was hard for a few weeks and found I had to check myself often as it came naturally without thinking to order a diet coke since I have been ordering DC for so many years. However, I did it and now I drink a cup or two of coffee every morning to wake up.

Now I am breaking the habit of not making exercise a priority and it has been two weeks and a lot of work, but I am enjoying it. I wonder if I will ever walk again rather than hobble, but if hobbling will make me healthier, then I am ok with that. It is a challenge to fit it into the daily rat race, but I am making it work so far.

Now, two weeks into the exercise rehab, I am tackling the eating. This I find is the hardest of all. It is hard work and expensive and exhausting to be a Mommy to four young children and a wife and a CEO of the corporation that is our household. Finding the time to plan meals, cook them and stock the fridge with healthy food and snacks seems like mission impossible.

I had sort of hoped that once I started exercising the pounds would just fall off on their own and that I could still eat and drink in the same style I had always before. However, this is not happening. I spent a day wondering if maybe my mind can be taught new tricks, but not my body, maybe my body just likes being overweight and wants to be a heffalump.

NO! My Mind and body want to be a pixie. I am starting a war with my body and I intend on teaching this old dog a new trick.

This is a hard battle, but I know if I try hard enough, I can suceed, so bring on the battle body.

A Day Off

I awoke this morning with the hope that I would not hobble, I would stand tall and walk, strut actually, the newer, leaner, buffer me. Well, I awoke in the same fashion I do every morning with DD6 snuggling up next to me chatting about fashion and clothes. Where did she come from? I am the queen of all tomboys, the clueless one with no fashion sense. I am convinced that she will be working for Vogue by age 22, anyhoo. I stood up after the request for syrup with a tad bit of waffles and hobbled. I was also exhausted since DH38 was out till 1am watching the Celtics lose and I could not fall asleep until I knew he was home safe and sound proteced from the Marbehead wildlife.

So, here I am at 6am, hobbling to the kitchen with the hopes I will in fact make it a consecutive 6th day of workouts and core upper and lower body and swim till I feel I wll drown. When three cups of coffee did not work, I decided to take a DAY OFF. Now here I am at 7:4o pm still hobbling. Guilty. Is it ok to take a day off.? MyDH38 gets home tomorrow at 8ish am. Soccer starts at 8:30am and the sports marathon should end by 4, but I aim to be running by 9am. Let's see how long I can last until I have another day off. I really want to succeed, but I am told muscles need to rest.

I think it is good that I am anxious to get running again. Can't wait till 9am. Burning some new cds onto my shuffle tonight and need a super duper do it all runners watch.