Finding My Running Legs – Introduction

Planning to run my first 5K has been an incredibly eye opening experience for me.  It has taken up way more of my time then I expected which is one of the reasons my poor blog has gone ignored all summer.  I have found it to be challenging but in the best ways.  I am incredibly proud of myself for tackling this goal.  Nothing has ever made me feel better about myself.  My journey to try and become a runner is still far from being over but with the Terry Fox Run only two weeks away I figured it was a good time to focus a little on the things I have learned so far.

It has been a long time since I have been this excited about something, which is great but has caused me a few problems especially when it comes to being able to share it with people.  I mean I can talk for hours about it but all that excitement has made it a little tricky for me to actually be able to get blog posts written that are coherent and I’m happy with.  A lot of it is coming down to the fact that I have a lot to say, which is not unusual for me but doesn’t create the most organized of post for my blog.  My solution is to just write a bunch of small focused posts that I will post each day between now and the run.  So for the next 14 days I will share a new lesson that I have learned on this path to find my running legs.

With far too much doodling on scrap paper I have found a way to break up all the things I want to share into four categories to try and give it some semblance for order.  These four categories are goals, my body, my mind/spirit and the outcomes.  I suspect even as I write this intro and do some of the planning for the blog entries themselves that they will also probably overlap at least in some of the cases.  It is my hope that some of it may appeal or help others but mostly I just want to write it all down so I remember it and can get it out of my brain.  I also hope that maybe having something to focus on besides the run will help keep some of my nerves at bay as we get closer to the run.

I hope that all who read this series of posts can find something that inspires and teaches as much as running has taught me.  We should all be so lucky to have something to bring so much positivity and joy into our lives.

To donate and check out my progress please visit my page here.

For more information on the Terry Fox Foundation and the run check out their page here.

Lessons Learned from the Calgary Expo

This year was my third time attending the every wonderful and exciting Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo.  I have to say that this year the word I have been using to describe the weekend has been epic.  As I looked through all my notes (yes I actually took notes so I wouldn’t forget anything and this year I was glad for it) I realized that this year I learned a lot of things about myself.  Some of the things I learned were not really new things or even all that relevant but since I captured these little tidbits in my notes it seems only right that I share some of them, not to mention they are easier to write about currently than an entry to sum it all up.   The lessons are in no particular order.

 

There is nowhere in this world more accepting that a comic convention.

I do not generally like being in big crowds of people because for the most part big crowds means I am more likely to hear people making funny of me.  Negative shouts or calls or other forms of insensitivity that some people think are funny seem to follow me in big groups.  Well the thing with a comic convention is that this doesn’t seem to happen.  I will admit each year I go and expect that it will but each year I am amazed all over again when it doesn’t.  The people that file into the convention for probably a lot of different reasons just don’t seem to pay that much attention to things like my size.  True looking around a convention I’m probably not as out of place as I would be at a different event but it still amazes me not to hear the negativity.  It doesn’t matter what size I am or what things I love people are all just friendly accepting and wonderful.  You can strike up a conversation with anyone and I have never ever felt like I was being judged.  It is truly a refreshing feeling for me.  It lets me relax and just enjoy the good things that come my way while I’m exploring and meeting people I admire.

 

Compliments are the way to change the world. 

This seems a bit silly to put in here because it seems like it should be common knowledge and practice.  There is nothing like a compliment to make you feel good.  I had two experiences at the Expo that left me feeling wonderful about myself and both came from compliments given to me while getting autographs.  The first happened when I went up to meet Mark Hadlow (Dori from the Hobbit movies). I went up and was chatting with him and he called me a doll and said he loved how bubbly and smiley I was.  The second happened when I meet get Craig Parker (Haldir from the Lord of the Rings). We chatted a little bit and after I had my picture taken with him, he asked how it was.  I said that it was beautiful and he replied without blinking an eye no I was beautiful.  I’m sure both of these guys say lovely things to fans all the time but I can tell you I walked away standing taller and feeling better about myself as a person because two strangers took a few seconds to say something nice.  Both of the interactions felt very genuine and made me feel special.  What I realized from these two interactions is that if we all spent as much effort on complimenting each other as we do criticising each other our world would probably be a much happier and more peaceful place.

 

If I relax and be myself people do respond positively to me.

I have always had a hard time meeting new people.  I feel shy and insecure about myself when I am meeting strangers.  I have learned that this is multiplied a lot when it comes to meeting the stars of my favourite movies (especially if they are ones I have had crushes on).  This year though for the first time I really learned that if I just calm down, relax and be myself the reactions I get are amazing.  I found this with each and every one of the actors from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies that I met this year.  I like the movies but I have never been all gaga over the stars (well at least not the ones who were here this year anyway).  So when I went up to get autographs I was more relaxed and just myself.  In each case I had these amazing interactions and conversations with them.  It felt genuine and wonderful and surprisingly easy.  There were the two interactions I talked about above but those weren’t the only ones I had.  The other interaction that most sticks out that really made me realize that maybe I’m not so bad was my conversation with Sadwyn Brophy (Eldarion in Return of the King).  We had a fun little conversation that I actually cut short because there were more people in line and I didn’t want to keep him.  I didn’t think anything of it until I was talking to another expo goer who said when she went to get autographs he looked bored so she didn’t ask for his or talk to him.  I assumed it was maybe later in the day or something but found out that she was actually in line only a few minutes after me.  By being my normal self I was able to interact with him and get him smiling and laughing with little effort.  Friends have often told me that they love the way I can draw people in and I always shrugged it off because it is not at all how I see myself and maybe now I’m reading too much into it but if all it takes is for me to be myself I guess I will just have to try and remember that for the future, especially if it means I get the interactions I actually want to have with the talented people that I admire.

 

Boys with accents make me melt especially when using words like love, lovely and beautiful when talking to me.

This is certainly not a new lesson.  Accents are one of the many reasons I love to travel.  Let me tell you though as I walked around the expo and sat in on panels I was reminded time and time again just how sexy accents are.  I also think some of it comes from the fact that in North America we don’t seem to use the same words that they use elsewhere in the world (of course if a guy I met from Calgary called me love I don’t think it would come off as good anyway).  Even though in a lot of cases it is just a generic term I still get all giddy when I hear it.  The main example of this was with Tom Felton.  During his panel he called all the girls either Love or Lovely when he thanked them for their questions.  It is obvious it is just something he says but when he said thank you love to me after his photo op I melted.  It is silly because although I think he is great in the Harry Potter movies I never had a crush on him really or anything (I was too busy think bad thoughts about Snape) but at that moment I was smitten and it was entirely the accent.

 

Saying thank you with a big smile will always get you a smile back. 

This is another one of those lessons that I already knew but not something I always remember.  This year I made it my goal to make sure no matter what the volunteers said to me I would smile and thank them.  I wear my emotions on my face and if I’m disappointed about something I struggle to not show it.  Last year at least a couple times I found myself frustrated with the volunteers.  I am not the type of person to express that frustration to their face but I know that it was written across my face which the volunteers don’t need to see. They do their best even if they don’t always have the answers I want.  This year I was determined though that no matter what I would smile and say thank you.  It worked wonderfully.  Even the few times the volunteers didn’t know and just suggested I walk further and ask someone else I smiled and thanked them.  Each and every time they smiled back and if they didn’t have answers they always said sorry.  I hope that they never felt any frustration from me and only felt the gratitude I have for them.  The thing I wasn’t expecting though was how good it made me feel.  Positivity begets more positivity.  When someone smiles back at you it is contagious and it makes me feel good and smile a little more.  The funny thing is after one incident with one of the volunteers I turned away from her and continued smiling as one of the golf carts carrying one of the stars (I’m not sure who he was but I know I had seen him in one of the autograph booths) and I caught his eye and suddenly then he smiled back.

 

Sometimes you just have to say F it and do it anyway.

This has been a philosophy I have adopted in the last little while.  It has led me to taking more chances and to pushing me to expand my world.  This philosophy is probably not always the best one to adopt (especially at Expo when money is involved) but I have to say that it has done me good. This philosophy was what I applied when it came to meeting all the Middle-earth gang.  I had no intention of getting any of their autographs except for Billy Boyd and Sean Astin but after Mark Hadlow was so nice to me in my photo op I decided I wanted to meet him and it went from there.  Sure it cost me a small fortune for a chance to talk with each of them but they are some of the memories that I will carry with me from now on.  The responsible side of me knows I could have spent that money on something else but the joy I got from each of those meetings is more than worth it.  I won’t ever regret spending the money I did over the weekend.

 

Having a plan is a good thing but being open to new things can be eye opening.

This one goes with the lesson from above I think.  I am a list maker and each Expo I have a plan with exactly what I want to do.  I learned my very first year that this approach may not be the best one to have the best Expo.  Not accomplishing my list often leaves me feeling sad and disappointed and in a world of line ups and delays it’s pretty likely that things aren’t going to go as planned.  This year I still made a list but I prioritized it better as well as leaving space for me to have other adventures.  As I mentioned above meeting all the Middle-earth gang was not planned and that turned out really well fo  me.  Another unplanned thing that turned out to be completely enjoyable and got me interested in something new was the Aliens Exposed event.  I didn’t buy tickets for this event until two days before.  I wasn’t interested because I have to admit that I have never actually seen more than clips of any of the Alien movies.  When I bought the ticket the only reason I did was because I knew in going to the Exposed event I would get another chance to see and hear more from Bill Paxton.  It is such a hormonal fangirl thing to do but I guess really that is who I am.  LOL.  The funny thing is that after seeing more clips and listening to all the actors talk I can’t help but want to see it.  I may have even ordered the quadriolgy so that I can watch it.  It is not the first time I have discovered something geeky late because of something I have seen or heard at Expo.  Most of these new things come from sitting in panels because I have a blank space in my schedule and I want to sit down.  I owe the expansion of not only my DVD collection but my likes to Calgary Expo.

 

Packing your own food as a way to remember to eat was not as successful as I hoped.

This year as I continue down the path of a healthier lifestyle I was determined more than ever to try and keep things healthy while at Expo.  In the previous two years I have gone and I have often just forgotten to eat.  Whether I was distracted or my feet were just too sore to walk to get food it was far too easy for me to skip eating and just grab fast food on the way home.  So this year I went with the plan that if I brought food and had it with me I would have no excuse.  I picked up healthy snacks (fruit, veggies, cheese, and stuff for sandwiches) and prepared food to take with me.  It did mean that when I did finally realize I was hungry (often way past the point where I should have eaten) that I had something healthy to snack on which is good but sadly it didn`t help me at all to remember to eat.  Saturday and Sunday which were my busiest days I ended up coming home and realizing that I had barely touched the food I brought with me.  Of course the good thing is that I could eat the prepared food instead of fast food when I was uploading the day’s photos.  Apparently when running around being an over excited fangirl my hunger signals just get lost in the shuffle.  Next year I will plan food the same way but I think I’m going to have to actually schedule some breaks for food so that I actually do take the time to eat something.  Come to think of it this would probably help with my end of day mood as well.  Hopefully I will feel less exhausted and just content from whatever the day had brought me.

 

Too much of a good thing can be overwhelming, so I must remember to take breaks.

This goes along with the lesson above as well.  As much as I really want to see and do everything it is quite exhausting.  Saturday was my busiest day with 5 photo ops, 7 autographs, 2 panels and Aliens Exposed.  When it came to the end of the day I was exhausted but more than that when it came to my last photo op of the day I don`t think I even really acknowledged it was happening.  I live for those moments generally so it`s a little sad to realize I had one that fell a little flat.  It is just becomes a reminder that although I want to do everything if I`m not going to get the excitement and joy out of it maybe it would be better off waiting for another time when I will be able to really enjoy it.  I’m still learning the ins and outs of taking care of my mental wellbeing so this is sort of a big lesson to take with me for next year.  I can do everything I want I just can’t do it all at once.

 

I am blessed to live in a city full of people willing to work hard, volunteer and come together to give me (and everyone else) the chance to fulfill dreams and fantasies.

This last lesson is also not really new to me.  I have thought it each year I have gone to the Expo.  It amazes me that there are so many people willing to volunteer and help out.  I have to admit that I don`t know that I could ever give up my time and volunteer for the Expo even though I often think I should.  I know it makes me sound selfish (which I openly admit to being a lot of the time in other situations) but as much as I think it is a great idea to volunteer I don`t think I could ever do it.  Maybe as I learn to find more balance in the schedule I create this will change but for now I would much rather attend than help.  That being said I do know and value the amount of care and work that goes into this show.  I completely realize that because there are people out there that are less selfish than me, I am able to have the experiences I crave.  I am filled with gratitude for that.  This year I found that my experiences with the volunteers and staff were amazing.  I had volunteers who went out of their way to help me (even one girl who ran after me to give me an answer she had found out after I had walked away).  It was wonderful and I just want each and every one of them to know that I think they are great.  Without the wonderful volunteers I wouldn’t get to spend the next year dreaming about all the cool things I will experience next year.

 

Thank you to everyone who was a part of the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo this year.  Thank you to the guests who came out and were willing to meet all us crazy fans and to the staff who organized everything.  Thank you again to the volunteers who were willing to answer questions and point me in the right way.  Thank you for giving me a weekend of amazing memories and moments.  It is not every day that you get to find a wonderful blend of reality and fantasy that creates an epic adventure full of memories.  Keep up the good work and I can`t wait to see what you have in store for us next year.

Turning Negative into Positive: Reframing Weight Gains

I am trying to live a more positive life and shed the negativity that I feel has held me back in my past.  My weight loss journey is full of ups and downs and used to be full of negative emotions usually stemming around setbacks on the scale.  The reality of my weight loss journey (and I suspect I’m not alone) is that gains happen.  It took me a long time to come to terms with that simple fact.  It took me even longer to figure out a process that allows me to work with the weight gains and turn it into something I can learn from.

Once I accepted the fact that gains happen I was able to let the frustration of the gain go, especially as I began to see patterns in the gains that I could predict.  This has proved to actually be very liberating for me.  It has allowed me to look at it more objectively.  It gave me the room I needed to step back from the emotions and really look at what is going on.  I think the process needed for this will be highly individual but I thought I would share mine.

The first step I always take when trying to figure out what is happening is to look at my trackers – my food tracker and my Fitbit.  These two things have been incredible tools in helping me evaluate the things I have done.  They keep me honest.  I mean it’s hard to argue a weight gain when you look back and your food tracker shows you had desserts every night and ate more points than you are allowed. 

When it comes to my food tracker the most common sign I know that I’m going to be up is that I either didn’t fill it out at all or I only half-filled it out.  These are two signs that I have usually decided that I don’t care what I’m about to do – it is my rebellious side sneaking out (and yes she exists even if she doesn’t show herself very often). 

My Fitbit is still a tracker I’m learning about.  I haven’t had it long enough to develop the patterns that I know will either equal a weight gain or loss.  If I have a gain though and my steps are down I figure it is probably a safe bet that I should have tried to find more time to move during the week.  There may be outside reasons/excuses for my steps being down(-30 degree temps for example) but sadly my body doesn’t care about the excuses – it won’t do what I want it to if I don’t do the things I know I need to.

Often looking at the trackers is enough to satisfy my need to know why I had a gain.  When I first started this process once I had an answer I would stop looking.  I discovered the problem with this is that I would repeat the mistakes over and over again.  I knew I needed to change this so I added the second part to my process.  After looking at the trackers now I sit down and take time to reflect.  Not only do I look at the mental side of my week (stresses, mood, ect) but I also try to figure out what triggered whatever my trackers are showing me.  This step is where I have really begun to learn about my body, my habits and my triggers.

The art of reflection is a powerful skill but sadly not one that comes easily at least to me.  I have found though that if I put in the effort to reflect on anything that it has always paid off for me.  My tool for reflection is a pen and a paper.  My journal is a spot where I write everything out in my brain  and then I can actually look at it with a little distance.  It is a scary twisted book but the ramblings on the page allow the novelist in me to look at myself as a character I need to fix.  This way of doing it won’t work for everyone but I would be lost without it.  I’m a firm believer change can’t happen without some sort of reflection.

This week is the perfect example for how I use my process.  I knew even before going to weigh in yesterday that the scale was going to be up.  I can generally know what the scale is going to tell me and it is usually because my gains are now predictable.  First I looked to my trackers and not only was I down on step totals each day but my food tracker is blank except for Monday’s breakfast.  Mentally my mood was down this week and I didn’t have any motivation. 

The reflection part of the process was a bit more challenging because I ask every kid’s favourite question, “Why?”  When I first start to write the easy answers spilled onto the page – I was scrapbooking, it was too old outside – and although these are logical reasons to me I can’t accept them and call them excuses.  (My definition of an excuse is a reason that I have no control over.)  The reality of my life is there will be more scrapbooking retreats and winter lasts forever so unless I’m willing to accept more gains I need reasons that I can actually fix.

Digging a little deeper I was able to find a clearer, more fixable issue.  In stepping back and looking at all aspects of the past week I realized that going into my scrapbooking weekend I gave myself permission not to care.  I didn’t want to have to worry about tracking my food (or even paying attention to the food choices) or trying to get my 10000 steps.  This would have been fine if I could have limited this attitude to the weekend.

The problem is I have a hard time starting up again if I shut off.  I came to realize after last weekend that I actually subconsciously write off the whole week because I have thrown away the weekend.  Looking back on past experiences I’m not sure why I didn’t see this sooner but it makes perfect sense and is something I have done quite often.  This is a problem that I can find a solution for and prepare for though.  Luckily it is also a problem that I have time to work on before I’m presented with a similar situation again. 

The quick solution though to get me back on track is to pull out some of the tools I regularly use.  So even before weighing in on Saturday I pulled out my meal plan template and recipe books to plan food for the upcoming week.  I did a proper shopping trip on Friday night to stock my fridge with yummy, healthy fresh food.  I also promised myself to do better this week so that no matter what the scale says next week I know that I did the right things.

Before I end this little blog entry I should put a caveat on this process though.  My process doesn’t always work.  There are times in my journey where I have done everything right and still had the number on the scale be up.  These are still frustrating to me but because I can look back and see when they happened over time (because of my obsessive tracking skills) I was able to find a solution to at least some of them (damn hormones!).  The times when the process doesn’t work for me at least though I can step away from it knowing that I have done what I can to ensure that I have the success I want.  Not finding answers doesn’t mean the process failed it just means that maybe the answer is still waiting to be found later.

Working through the problem (ie weight gain) has become something I have gotten pretty good at.  It has taken time, practice and lots of patience to figure it all out.  I use the tools I have at hand and make them work for me.  They will show me the truth of what is going on versus whatever story I may tell myself.  The one thing that I stand by though is that turning negatives into positives is powerful, liberating and motivating all at the same time.  It has always proved to be worth the effort in my opinion.  We might not be able to avoid the negative side of life all the time but at least we can find a way to make it work for us.

Keeping Stress at Bay

Stress is such a huge trigger for so many people I know who are dealing with weight issues. I think stress eating is one of the topics I seem to talk the most about with people.  It fascinates me how each individual reacts and deals with stress.  For myself I’m trying to make sure that stress and stress eating will not define or derail my weight loss journey, which is much easier to think than make happen.

This last week put all my stress strategies to the test.  It was one of those weeks where things out of my control started going on around me.  Although I didn’t have control over them happening they were adding to the stress and tension I was carrying around.  First was the news that my Nan had to go back to the hospital again, and at 94 years old no matter the reason this is not something I take lightly.  This news was followed by discovering my car had scratches on it in about the same spot that I had fixed in December.  This left me thinking and feeling like the repair shop had ripped me off.  Next was finding out that we were being reclassified down at work which means that my title changes and I become red circled.  Essentially it means that I will not be getting a raise for at least six years (if my math is right).  Finally the last event was going to the repair shop and being made to eat a little crow when they showed me that the damage on the car was actually new damage.  So not only did I feel bad for thinking they had ripped me off but it also meant someone else had hit my car.

Historically a week like this last one would have sent me into binge mode.  I would have turned to all my favourite, fast, fatty and bad-for-me foods.  Things like chips, pizza and wings would have been at the top of the list of what my brain would tell me I was craving.  The weigh-in that would follow such a week would have been a nightmare and very much dreaded.  I’m sure others can relate to this where everything just gets derailed and you are left trying to clean up the wreckage after the fact.  This would generally lead me to even more frustration and feelings of disappointment in myself.

The reality of this past week for me though was actually quite different this time around.  I spent a great deal of my time acknowledging what was going on.  I made choices that helped guide me successfully through the week.  They were based on strategies I had come up with prior to all of this.  Preplanning these strategies quite literally saved this week for me from being a train wreck and I figured if there was ever a topic I should write about my stress strategies is probably an important one.

Strategy 1 – Writing

                I always deal with things better when I see them written.  It takes it out of my brain and calms me down.  It gives me a little space from the problem and lets me look at it like I would a character in a story I’m writing.  It helps me to work the problem rather than get lost in the emotion of it.

 

Strategy 2 – Reading

                When I had written my emotions and thoughts out but was still struggling I decided to pick up a book and tried to lose myself in the words.  Fiction has often saved me from things going on in my life by giving me a place to escape to; a world that I can always shut down if it is not going my way.  This week I found that wasn’t working all that well either.  I had a hard time focusing on the words and found reality kept pulling me out of my imagination.  Luckily I had one more strategy ready to go.

 

Strategy 3 – Distraction

                For this last strategy I turned to one of my favourite computer games, Sims 3.  The mindless distraction of controlling a digital person was a great way to keep my mind off wanting to eat the entire chip aisle at Safeway.  I can lose hours playing the game which normally isn’t a good thing but when I am trying to protect myself from my old habits I’m not going to complain.  It ate up time that would have been used for stressing by keeping my hands busy.

 

The results of these 3 strategies for me this week were amazing.  It was a huge boost to my confidence because it validated the work I had done on planning my strategies ahead of time.  I was put to the test and I survived.  It was proof I needed to know that the changes I’m making are sticking and becoming a part of my daily lifestyle.  It also left me feeling like I had some control instead of feeling like I was just spinning out.  Of course the most obvious benefit for me (but not the most important) was the fact that it also left me with a weight loss this week, which is always a huge bonus.

 

I wanted to share my strategies because stress control/management is not something unique to me.  All week I watched fellow co-workers deal with the news of reclassification in different ways.  It is around us all the time and I think whether you are dealing with weight issues or anything else stress sneaks in to affect us all.  So I end this entry with a question/challenge – what are you strategies for dealing with stress?  Share them with me so we can all learn from each other.  If you don’t have any strategies in place I highly suggest taking some time to come up with some that will work for you.  Stress in inevitable but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing.  It can be controlled and overcome with a little work, support and practice.