Sunday 4 December 2011

Failure???

Well I have failed......or have I? 
In respect to the goals I set for my weight I have not achieved any bar the first ever "dream" weight I set myself.  I fell below 72kgs and lost 20+kgs since I began but still am not within a healthy BMI.  But do I care....NO!  I am happy and at peace with my current weight.  It varies, it goes up, it comes back down but I am hovering and right now I am exercising when I choose and eating whatever I feel like and it is an awesome feeling to know I can do this without agonising over everything and that my decisions are smart enough to keep my weight even.  I know what my body needs by listening to my body and it is fabulous! 
There was however one goal I set myself that I remember thinking there was no way in hell I would ever complete - a half marathon, 21 bloody kms!!! Absolute madness!  I have always loved to run and was a brilliant short distance runner at school but put me in a long distance event and I always screwed myself up with wrong pace and therefore dodgy breathing.  And yet with that said I still loved to do it.  But for me following a set routine just worked out to be too demanding and so my training schedule soon fell by the wayside and I worked in what I could to fit in with my days with Bryce.  I hinted in my last blog about coming changes and one of these was imminent and in my heart of hearts I knew I would use that as my excuse as to why I never did it.  So on a Wednesday night I messaged my running partner to see what she was up to that weekend and asked her if she felt up for banging out an easy 21km...haha, simple hey?  I thought she'd tell me I was nuts and I'd have to resort to doing it on my own, little did I know she was even nuttier than I and had just completed 16km on her own that day!  She was in. 
So Sunday morning with stuff all training on my part for the fortnight prior we set off and two quick toilet stops and 2 1/2 hours later we had completed our half marathon!  I had done it.  No crowd, no fancy event, I didn't need it.  Knowing I could was why I had done it and finishing was all I needed.  And even better I got to do it alongside my running buddy Bree, someone I've met through 12wbt but that I know is now a lifelong friend.
There were many reasons I got off my arse and just did the run.  The most important being the death of my grandfather a fortnight before.  I can't say alot about it as I still really struggle to find words, but he passed away on a Tuesday we buried him the following Tuesday and it was the day after that I knew I had to run it, I knew I had to show him exactly what the granddaughter he loved was made of.  The night he died we grabbed an iced coffee on the way home as we hadn't had any dinner and the day after feeling miserable and tired my husband and I went to get takeout for our dinner until I got mad.  If I could have stood in front of myself I think I would have knocked myself out I was so angry, I was livid that I had even contemplated using my grandpa 's passing as an excuse to give in.  So instead we got changed and we took our son and our dog out for an 8km run and I cried and ran and thought the whole way I am making him proud, this is what life is for. 
Even in writing this it is helping me to understand further why I ran.  I needed to show him I am not a quitter.  If I set a goal I achieve it.  And that is why within a fortnight of him passing I ran my goal and at no point did I consider quitting.  I honestly didn't know if I could do it or not but at the end of the day stopping was never an option.  My weight goals have changed but had I not done this run then I would have failed.
For the rest of the Sunday I was excited but come Monday I was wondering what now......until Tuesday when I found out I was pregnant!  So now I get to tell everyone half of the mindset issues I have had this round.  We had been planning on trying for a baby come September this year and then after I had lost so much during round 2 I decided to put off bub till next year, however it didn't take long till I decided I didn't really want to wait.  I knew how much effort I have had to put in to get to where I am now and as much as I wanted to see myself at my trimmest and fittest I was concerned at having to "redo" all the work after the baby had come.  So we decided that as I was feeling content where I was now we would do the baby thing and then later I would be able to review where I was at and if I wanted to get lighter or just tone what I had.  Basically this was a way of giving me time to sit with the new me to work out where I really wanted to be.
So now my new goal is to maintain my weight and health whilst nurturing this new little life growing inside.  My beautiful friends in the Perth Crew have asked me to do a photographic journey as my pregnancy progresses and I have embraced this as a way to keep me honest and accountable.  And I also plan on capturing it here too, if I can get myself organised to write a little more regularly, but here is the first pic of me taken today at 5 weeks 3 days.
So for me the greatest thing this round has brought me is flexibility.  I now understand that goals can change and that is completely OK.  This program is fabulous but it has to be able to evolve.  If you can't work it in to your life then you really have no hope when a round ends or when you reach your goals.  At some point you have to take the leap and head off on your own.  I guess Michelle says it all the time, 12wbt is a family and now I get the underlying meaning.  We are her children and like all parents she is teaching us the skills we need to succeed.  But at some point we all have to spread our own wings and take flight on our own.  This round has seen me do that and I am happy to say I have not gone back!  It took me a month last year to put on the 12kg I had lost following the Crunchtime plans.  This time something has stuck and 3 months later I have managed to lose another 5kg with little real effort at all.  That makes me confident as to what is to come, confident that my life has now changed for the better!