Tag Archives: Monthly Goals

Overdue

Posted on by Renée
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It really has been almost a month since I blogged. With good reason. Seriously it’s been a wild crazy busy couple of months and the stress level has been pretty high.

I meant to update at the end of October – remember I had some goals?

1) I will not only log into MyFitnessPal every day, I will actually log the food I eat as well.
2) if I am out, for whatever reason, and I am unable to log electronically, I will do it the old fashioned way and the enter when I have a chance (I am volunteering at the Amsterdam marathon this month and will be away from the computer at that time)
3) the whole month of October I will be beer-free
4) I will go to the gym twice a week. No excuses.
5) I will run minimum twice a week.
6) I will continue to not eat the chocolates from work, the entire month of October. (not cutting out chocolate in general, just not mindlessly stress-eating from the candy jar.

I did fairly well with MFP – though I keep missing a day here or there and messing up my days in a row. Prior to going to Cornwall in September I was maybe one or two days shy of a year when I forgot to log in. I think the point here though is, logging in at least plants the seed and makes me think about what I’m going to end up entering in my food diary. Food logging isn’t the worst habit to have, in fact, I am sure that it stops people from further damage (if there is damage).

I was not beer-free the whole month, however, there were a lot less excuses for it. I had beer after the Amsterdam Marathon (where I was a volunteer, not a runner) and I had beer when I went to Brussels to the new Hard Rock Cafe with a couple of friends (one who was here for just 48 hours, purposely to go to HRC).

Running – I wanted to run minimum twice a week and it averages out to that – my mileage was 71KM which is amazingly the most I’ve run all year in a one month period.

It looks like I didn’t mention the gym in my goals and I thought I had – I wanted to go at least 2 times a week in October. I didn’t manage this every week but I went way more in October than I did since I joined my new gym earlier in the year.

November was pretty mental. Like really mental. My brain was playing a lot more tricks on me than usual – basically there is something going on at this very moment that I can not share yet (possibly next week) but it’s something that has had me waxing and waning between self-confidence and self-doubt. The times when I’m not feeling super confident seem to be the times that I’m most vulnerable to eating junk or not going to the gym or not sleeping enough. It’s definitely been a rough month yet I still have some running, cycling and gym under my belt. I’m treading water and it’s going ok but eventually I need to do something else…

I’ve got some other things I want to talk about like my weekend away at the spa hotel and the 15K I did last weekend, but those are for the next post.

September: That’s a Wrap!

Posted on by Renée
10

79.2 KG

That’s what the scale told me this morning.

My first thought was to curse at it or throw it out the window but it only took a couple of seconds to come back to reality. You see, I did this, not the scale, and I wouldn’t throw myself out the window now would I?

We all know how mental September has been. I’ve made a point to tell everyone I know. It was an absolute blast – from my birthday to meeting new friends local and abroad, to a 10K in my home town to biking in England (and having a kind of scary accident ) to Fitbloggin.

Food has not been entirely off the rails but I reckon I’ve had more beer this past month than in several months prior. More beer = more wheat, right? And for someone who claims they are off wheat, well, it’s a little hypocritical.

So this little number on the scale, it’s 2.2 KG higher than the lowest number I saw in September and dangerously close to that 80KG mark that I really despise. This means it’s time to refocus and have some goals:

1) I will not only log into MyFitnessPal every day, I will actually log the food I eat as well.
2) if I am out, for whatever reason, and I am unable to log electronically, I will do it the old fashioned way and the enter when I have a chance (I am volunteering at the Amsterdam marathon this month and will be away from the computer at that time)
3) the whole month of October I will be beer-free
4) I will go to the gym twice a week. No excuses.
5) I will run minimum twice a week.
6) I will continue to not eat the chocolates from work, the entire month of October. (not cutting out chocolate in general, just not mindlessly stress-eating from the candy jar.

I would like to see that 77 again this month, though I’ve trained myself to not weigh very often, and I don’t want to start that jumping on the scale 12 times a day habit again. Goal would then be to weigh-in on November 1st with this result.

Did you have a crazy month? Are you ready to crack down again? What are your goals for October?

December Goals Part I

Posted on by Renée
15

In the spirit of a complete attitude adjustment, there are a few things I want to focus on this month that are not scale related. Part of those goals is to revamp the blog a wee bit and include my food and recipes a bit more (though I will never claim to be a food blogger and if I do include photos they will be of non-professional quality). Most of it involves fitness. Other goals are simply hopes, dreams and aspirations that will last more than just the month of December.
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Since I have joined in on DecGTD I made a running goal of 50 miles. Yes, I said miles; though I always speak in metrics, for GTD I even converted the amount of KM to miles -that’s how excited I am to be a part of it! (In case you are getting used to my KM postings, the goal is 80 for this month). It may seem like a hefty goal but it’s literally only 20KM per week, I can get this done in 2 to 3 times a week, easy as pie.
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To accomplish this goal, I need to prepare myself a bit for the cold weather. Last year I really don’t recall it being this bad, maybe a few times when I went out but nothing like it was last night. As soon as possible I will need to procure something for my head – a cap with a hole in it (sounds dirty!) for my hair or one of those head/ear wrap thingees, whatever they are called. I have underarmour tights, but I don’t really have a good undershirt to wear. Also I think I may need a better jacket – yesterday I just went out in two jackets, a long-sleeved undershirt and a normal shirt over that and the wind still pretty much cut through me like a knife during the first part of my run. I would also like to get the YakTrax that Brandon mentioned on twitter and DailyMile, especially if we are going to continue to have a lot of ice this winter. I don’t want anything to stand in between me and my running!
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Another goal I have is actually concerning races. In December I want to decide on SIX races in 2011 that I will participate in. I talked about doing the marathon in Berlin next September, but to be honest, my brain is not ready for that yet. I would prefer to do a Half-Marathon before a Marathon. Call me a wuss but after I spoke to my friend M who recently ran the Amsterdam marathon (who is basically the one locally who got me into running) and a colleague of mine who ran the Berlin Marathon two years ago I am scared shitless. So, first a Half. I also want to do at least one race outside of the Netherlands, but I haven’t decided where yet. I was looking into a few races in the UK, but I am not sure I want to fly over for “only” 10K (for example, I was looking into the Great Run of Manchester or one in Edinburgh, but both are 10K). This weekend I will be looking into other alternatives; I’m open to Germany, Belgium, France – all easy to drive to or take a train). So for the Netherlands I’m considering the Utrecht Half Marathon and the Marikenloop (and I’m already 99% sure of both of those – Hubs even said he would do the Half as well) most likely the Zuidas (but 16K instead of the 6K I ran last year) and definitely the Zevenheuvelenloop, maybe the Nike Women’s Run as well. In any case, I will commit to minimum six races.
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I’m also going to do a race on New Year’s Eve day. If you would have spoken to me several years ago these words never would have come out of my mouth or from my brain to my fingers to the laptop to any previously existing blog of mine. Not only did I not even remotely jog, I certainly wouldn’t have done something fitness related on the biggest night of the year. I would have been all about the parties, probably still hungover from Christmas and have spent too much money on cigarettes and eaten too many pies, cookies, cakes and other “holiday” treats. That’s why this time around I want to end the year on a note that truly represents who I am: a RUNNER.
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I still need work on getting to the gym and I really want to sort that out this month. It’s still quite hit or miss and that has a lot to do with the work/stress situation but I do not want to use this as an excuse anymore. I may need to start packing my bag and schlepping it with me to work as much as I don’t want to. It will take a bit of extra planning on my part, because I will need to eat something in the train before I arrive at my home station. I also need to figure out the buses or maybe take my bike. I know there are possibilities; I just have to make it work now.
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More goals to come – and like I said some will be long term. I just want to get them all down and make a plan to succeed.

Time for a Change. Again.

Posted on by Renée
4

It’s December, a new month, a new chance. My record is on repeat here -I say this every month.
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So it’s time for a change. Again.
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Clearly after an entire year of being upset, accepting, non-caring, positive, negative and still not really losing any weight I really have to shift what is really important to me.
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There are a lot of things that are important, to name a few:
1) Good Health
2) Fitness
3) Getting enough Sleep
4) Feeling Happy
5) Getting a grip on my finances
6) My Family
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(all things equally important here or rather not in any particular order)
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Notice how I didn’t put my weight? The thing is, and we all know it by now, I am not super excited about weighing 80KG but I can no longer continue to fight with myself in the manner that I have been.
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So it’s a new month. It’s time for new goals. I am excited to announce that I am doing DecGTD or December Go The Distance.. I’ve been following Robby’s blog for a while now and I noticed October’s and November’s Go the Distance but never had the cojones to join in. I mean, I know myself, I’m terrible with challenges and such, but this is different. This is not a challenge.
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I’m focusing on running now. That’s what I do. Like today in sub-zero temperatures. I initially didn’t want to go after being hit with a brick wall of freezing cold wind and then I remember just this time last year I was completely debilitated, unable to even get out of bed, let alone walk anywhere, let alone run. I missed my first race I had signed up for. I cried just about every day from the pain I had in my back. All I wanted to do was go outside and RUN and I couldn’t. I vowed then I wouldn’t make excuses or take advantage of what my body is able to do and to be honest I haven’t completely kept up my end of that deal. I have let the work stress once again take over parts of my life and that simply has to stop. In fact it stops now.
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I just think about people like my mother-in-law who would give anything to walk, run, ride a bicycle. But she can’t. She can’t hardly even talk because of the stroke she had around ten years ago. I think about the runners that joined Dean Karnazes who suffered through cancer, who lost limbs, who had strokes, etc who run, no matter what, because you never actually know when there may be one day you simply can not run anymore.
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So, yeah. I would love to lose weight. And I’m still going to follow Weight Watchers, because, hey, maintaining is actually better than nothing right now. There are worse situations right? I’m just going to focus on the other things that are important.
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Next step is to make some goals and those will be posted very soon. I already have a running goal of 80KM this month. Yes, people. 80! I’ll be signing up for some races as well, and I may also be joining Fran in the Utrecht Half-Marathon on the 25th of April!

No(more excuses)vember

Posted on by Renée
8

I love it when a fresh month starts, don’t you? And funnily enough, today is the 1st anniversary of this particular blog (I have had others but this is the one that has actually lasted this long – the others either petered out or I got way too much spam). So the 1st of November and the 1st Anniversary… a good sign or what??
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I actually wanted and tried to get my shit together a couple of weeks ago and have had the wonderful challenge of too much work to do and too little people to do it. I know exactly what my weak spots are – get too stressed = emotionally eat. The good thing about recognizing these moments is that, while I may still stick my hand in the candy jar, I stop much sooner than I would have a few years ago. Baby steps.
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So a few weeks ago I also planned out some dinners and some exercise time. I’m happy to say that both went about 80% to plan. This is a good thing. Having a plan really helped. I’m sure I’ve said it about eleventybillion times before – planning is a major part of all of this. Some people like to be spontaneous and not be stuck to a certain schedule, but I know myself and I know that planning makes more sense for ME.
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I did get to the gym twice – I went and did my circuit one day and I went to spinning the other day. My intention was to do that again last week, but as it was I got home every night at 8pm or later so that wasn’t going to work at all (gym’s open until 10pm). I can’t say I loved spinning… but I liked it and I feel challenged enough to go again until I can do all of the specific movements required. Maybe eventually I will love spinning… but I did find it extremely hard and I did feel like I was going to pass out during the first 10 minutes! It was really intense! I had asked a girl beforehand who I could see was also attending the class if I needed to bring my towel in and not only did she answer my question, she also took the bike next to me and explained a few things and told me to take it to my own pace (which is what the instructor also said) and then even checked with me occasionally to see how I was doing. Turns out she even lives around the corner from me and usually goes to spinning on Mondays. IF I can get myself out of work on time today there is a possibility I will go tonight to check out that class (different instructor). (latest update is, nope, it’s 8 pm and I’m just home)
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I wanted to go running as well and I did do that – I went with hubs to do some interval training and I went with my running group at work as well. I also went last night and will probably go again Tuesday or Wednesday. Friday is my night race – which I am looking forward to, except for the fact that I didn’t realize it starts as late as it does (10pm!). Usually I’m passed out by this time on the couch after a whole week at work, but I’m going to arrange that I have Friday off so I can sleep in a bit!
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I was trying to think of some goals for the month and I’m not quite there yet, but they include the usual… running, eating well, and dare I even ask for some weight loss???? I weighed in this morning again and of course I am back up to 80.8KG because for some reason my body likes being there. *sigh* there are a few things I want to focus on for sure:

1) drink enough water
2) take multi-vitamin every day
3) food journaling
4) make the decision whether to fully stop Weight Watchers online or not (Credit Card expires this month so I’ll have to set my account up with the new credit card if I’m really going to “go back” and commit to it).
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I originally signed up for Drop Dead Gorgeous by December but to be honest, while I have not given up on myself, I am just not a challenge person and I prove this again and again by joining and then promptly not participating in the challenge. One good thing can be said from signing up though – one of my goals was to finalize (as in make it legal) my marriage in the Netherlands and we have a date set for that of the 19th of November. Hubs and I got married in March 2009 in Las Vegas and we have yet to take our papers to the Town Hall where we live to register, but on top of that because it’s considered an “international marriage” we have to register in The Hague as well. So we literally need to take a day off to do this. And it’s a good excuse to see some friends too. The date has particular meaning – it’s the day we actually committed to be in a relationship exclusively with each other AND it’s the birthday of my friend Michael who sadly died in April 2009. Happy and Sad times. That about sums up my life in a nutshell.
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November will be a good month. I’m ready to have a really good month. Please, universe, can I have a good month?

So Far September

Posted on by Renée
7

I did not mean to go this long without a post. In fact, I was writing up a post about my trip to Rome on my “regular” blog and I haven’t even finished that one yet. It’s been a little bit busy since I got back. My intention is always to post at least once a week to keep people interested, but also for myself so I don’t easily forget about my accomplishments.

A few things:

1) I wanted to set some September goals, but here we are at the 12th already! So basically my goals are:
a) complete 5K in Arnhem (Bridge to Bridge) – DONE (and kicked ass, thankyouverymuch)
b) complete 16K in Amsterdam on the 19th – bring it on
c) clock at least 85 KM this month running
d) go to the gym. really. just once.
e) write that letter to my grandmother

2) Our trip to Rome was AWESOME. I mean really and completely awesome. We did so many things and I haven’t even been able to sort through all the photos yet and put them online, but there are at least a few (nearly 100!) here if you want to have a look. I absolutely loved Rome and plan on going back. Oh and the food? OMG. Awesome. Seriously. I did not worry about eating while I was there. Pizza. Pasta. Ice Cream. My birthday weekend was definitely one of the best so far. The Highlight? Going running around the Colosseum. Epic. When was the last time YOU ran around the Colosseum in Rome?

3) I have been food tracking but once again the numbers are all over the place. It’s really, really frustrating. I am going to a Dietitian tomorrow, but honestly, it may be time to just accept that I may possibly weigh 80KG for the rest of my life. If I am hungry I’m going to eat. I refuse to walk around completely empty and light-headed, cranky and headachy, in the name of trying to drop a few kilos. Trust me I am not eating anything crazy. I always get my fruits and veggies in. I eat lean meats, fish, my dairy servings. How can you go wrong when you actually snack on roasted vegetables? What I really hate though? Is that people eat way worse than I do and they consistently lose weight. It feels very unfair. But I know. Mom always said “Life is not fair.”

4) In case I failed to mention it, I am doing two more races in November. One is nearly 10K and the other is 15K. They are both closer to home (compared to the 2 races I’ve done in Amsterdam and now 1 in my city) and they both include a buttload of hills. Next year I want to do more races, maybe a half and …

5) Hubs and I decided we are going to do the BERLIN Marathon next September. Berlin, people. Need I say more? It’s only one of my favourite cities in Europe and moreover an amazingly cool city to run in. Last June (2009) we were there for the second time and we’d already started the C25K, so we decided to do two of our runs that week in Tiergarten. Of course I could run a marathon in the Netherlands, but why not combine my passion for travel and running in the same trip? We are going to have to get on a training plan STAT.

For a little glimpse of what this Runner Girl eats:

Last weeks food also included: 2 cookies, 2 mini-Nuts, 2 home-made Curries (that Hubs tailors to my dietary needs)and a Mexican dinner including Mojitos (and beer and wine… oops). For the rest, I eat like those photos show you. I also ran 25KM this week (Sunday to Sunday). Last time I weighed, the result was 80.5KG, up a kilo from the last time I posted here (but down since I returned from Rome).

Ask me what’s in the photos, I love to talk about the kind of food I eat!

That’s my update for now, but I have a few other posts up my sleeve which I can hopefully get to this week as well.

August Recap

Posted on by Renée
8

Here’s the verdict on August:

1) Food journal every single day. Whether online, on paper, on post-it notes, whatever. Every day journaling. Everything consumed.

Didn’t fully happen. I did journal a lot though, which led to my ultimate frustration, point counting, numbers, being hungry, etc.

2) Gym twice a week.

Garrrrrr! I went once. This has to stop.

3) Running: 85 KM this month.

I ran almost 95KM this month!!!

4) Add some really good things to my victory log

I added a few things – but I would like to be more focused on the good outcomes of each day.

5) Read another book

Picked a book. Carried around said book. Didn’t read book.

6) Take my measurements (but don’t get on the scale!)

Got on the scale and took measurements. Bones of Contention. Shifting focus.

7) Make at least one new recipe I’ve been meaning to try for the last bazillion years.

ha! well, *I* didn’t, but Hubs did. Does that count?

8 ) Write to my grandmother

Good Intentions…

9) Make appointment for my new tattoo

September 18th for my consult! YES!

10) Visit both of my girlfriends who just had a baby.

Had plans with both, one had to cancel, the other one I got to see and meet her new little fella!!

September goals are coming and a recap of my conversation with Thor – whom I recommend you follow on twitter – and Ellie, my Weight Watchers leader.

Apparently Complaining is Good For You

Posted on by Renée
8

I didn’t get the memo otherwise…

This whole past week has been on long bitch session. Every single day fighting with my body and it’s hunger. Thinking about how long it’s been since I actually lost any significant amount of weight. Today I even did my measurements and there is no change. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? I really have no idea. Maybe I’m measuring totally wrong. I don’t know. I specifically went out yesterday to by a new measuring tape (since I can’t find my old one) and then no change. I don’t get it. I’ve run. I’ve biked. I’ve walked. I’ve gone to the gym. My clothes are fitting fine. I bought new boots yesterday (and it’s been years since I could get a pair of boots over my calves. All of these things are GOOD THINGS. That I am not complaining about. That I am PROUD of.

However, I have EVERY RIGHT to be pissed that my numbers haven’t changed. I KNOW that it’s not the be all and end all. I think I rock and am totally awesome 90% of the time. The other 10% is important too. I AM STILL IN AN OVERWEIGHT BMI CATEGORY PEOPLE!! That means where I’m at now, with my weight, and fat percentage is not completely healthy. I am about getting healthy here and with a BMI of 29, I am officially NOT healthy.

After tracking all week – with the exception of the 3 glasses of wine I had on Friday night – I discovered that I was over ProPoints by an ENTIRE DAYS WORTH of points. That’s not normal. Or at least it doesn’t look normal. The only thing that was outside my normal, healthy way of eating last week was the BBQ I went to. I just guessed at the points and maybe I overestimated. Better to think “over” than under, right?

I have to say, from all my complaining, I got so many great suggestions via Twitter and also email. I can’t tell you all how much I appreciate that! And as I complained that I am not losing weight, I did get on the scale on Saturday (my new weigh in day) and I lost 900 grams (2 lbs). You see? I lost 900 grams from all the bitching and moaning I did this week! Hubs set up our scale so I could look at a few other numbers as well.

I don’t fully understand it, but my scale measures body fat, moisture, Resting Metabolic Rate, Basal Metabolic Rate, Muscle Mass Percentage and bone weight. I’ve amateurishly pasted together two photos for your viewing pleasure (hey, I DID say amateurishly):

To break it down:
weight: 79.5KG
Moisture: 48.6% (“good” is 40-60% “excellent” is over 60%)
Fat: 33.5%
Muscle:31.2%
RMR: 1517 calories needed if I just laid in my bed all day
BMR: 2478 calories needed based on my activity level to maintain my current weight
Bone mass in KG: 8.7 (don’t really understand this, since when Hubs did his, it said 120KG???)

So, this explains why I am often hungry. My body requires a lot of calories to maintain my current weight. And just to be clear:

YES it’s real hunger.
NO I’m not thirsty, but I do still drink about 3 litres of water per day
YES I eat a protein rich diet
YES I load up on veggies and I eat the recommended amount of fruit servings a day

I think it’s also important to note that I do not have cravings. Not for anything at all. Not for sweets, not for chocolate, not for cakes, not even for burritos or pizza. When I want junk it’s for purely emotional reasons. I am totally aware of this. I don’t make excuses either, but I don’t need to, because I rarely do it. At the BBQ for example, I wanted the things that I eaten for the “emotional” reason of not having had those things in so long, but I STILL ate those things in moderation. So. Yeah. Again, maybe I overestimated the ProPoints on those items, but it’s hard to tell. Usually I don’t even eat cookies, for example, so I don’t even know how many points they actually have.

I mentioned it before, but in case you are just joining me, I think part of the reason I’m hungry is also because I am up and awake for many, many hours a day. My stomach schedule goes something like this:

5am – out of the bed after 2 snoozes, usually hungry
drink water and prepare lunch and snacks, shower, start getting ready for work

6am - eat breakfast. I used to eat things like eggs/egg whites with veggies, then the dietitian I saw at the gym told me I shouldn’t do that, that I should eat Swedish Crackers (knackebrood) instead. So I started eating that with light cream cheese and cucumber or with a slice of chicken on top. This week I got several suggestions for oatmeal with peanut butter and banana and that I would be “filled up for hours” and while I find it extremely tasty there is no real change in hunger.

8am – not quite at work yet. Start to feel a bit hungry on the train. Drink water.

9am – arrive in the office, have a milky coffee drink. Hungry.

10.30am – really feeling hungry now, take a break and go get a very large herbal tea.

11am – ravenous. Have a piece of fruit.

11.15am – Oh my god, is it lunch yet???

12.00 noon – about to fall over or kill someone who is in my way to the lunch room. Eat one or two sandwiches depending on what else I have to eat (a salad maybe), usually load with twice the amount of veggies as the bread weighs. Feeling much better now.

somewhere between 2 – 3pm – starting to get that feeling in my tummy again. Drink water or have another tea.

4pm - yep it’s that time again… fruit with cottage cheese will help.

5pm - leave the office. And I’m hungry again.

5.30pm – on the train. If it’s not too busy and I get the chance I’ll eat my Fage 0% Yoghurt, fruit (blueberries, strawberries and a mandarin) and almonds. If it’s really busy and I don’t have a seat to myself for a while, I’ll wait and maybe eat just a mandarin, drink water (though I hate to do this at this stage in the day, because I drink so much I’m in the loo every 45 minutes. My commute is two hours. That means I’m bursting anyway by the time I get home), or chew some gum.

7pm – home. and…Hungry!!!

8pm - dinner. Usually something with rice, meat (chicken, turkey) or fish, and a vegetable. Sometimes couscous instead of rice. Hubs cooks and has Weight Watcherized his recipes.

If we run, we have a snack (was a peanut butter sandwich, but I’ve gotten some new great suggestions now), we run, we eat later, like 9 or 9.30pm even.

10.30pm bedtime. If I’ve eaten at 9.30 I will wait until 11pm.

So, if you’ve gotten through all that, I thank you :) You can see for yourself I’m getting around 6 hours of sleep each night.

OK. How about something different now?

I had a goal this month to run 85KM. I have definitely achieved this goal with my run today. I had a “meh” run on Friday – I was just tired and my legs weren’t having it – and I really wanted to go out and do 16KM so my brain could register that I CAN DO THIS. Our 16KM run that we are participating in is in just 3 weeks. Between now and then there isn’t tons of training time, so I wanted to be sure that I could do it under two hours. For the challenge I’m participating in on Nike+, I was 4th place on Friday; I’ve now moved up to 2nd place.

I think I’m fairly awesome. I wanted to quit this week. Like seriously give Weight Watchers the old Fuh Q but I decided against it. I didn’t even want to try my run on Friday and I got out there and did it anyway. I tried many of the suggestions that people gave me. I decided actually that I’m not going to quit. I may not track points for a while but I’m not going to give up on myself. Weight Watchers still teaches me about moderation and portion size and I need that. For the fabulous Drop Dead Gorgeous by December challenge I took the following photo:

I WILL never give up!!!!

A Charm

Posted on by Renée
18

This is the third time I’ve attempted to make a blog post.

Two days ago I I wrote a whingey little baby post. I may as well have filmed myself lying on the ground having a temper tantrum.

One day ago I wrote something that was a bit more grown up. I meant to post it and I didn’t. It’s irrelevant now.

Let’s see if I can do this today.

So, yeah, I was a bit annoyed/angry at the Social Media world, particularly Twitter, which I have two profiles for. Why do I? Well I don’t want to talk weight loss, food, etc. on my “normal” profile. Main reasons are 1) I don’t want to alienate non-WL people and 2) there are colleagues on the profile (like BigWig colleagues, but also regular dudes). I don’t think they need to be blatantly directed to my blog, do you? Nah. Didn’t think so.

My twitter profile that connects me to so many WL, healthy living and runner people is who I reach out to in the good and the bad times. So, for example, in the good, it would nice to be acknowledged for that. When I say I ran my 100th run since I got my Nike + it would be nice to get a “WHOO HOO”. When I explain how many kilometers and then calculate what that is in miles for people who don’t know they can google that information how to translate that into their own “language” , it would be nice to get a “Great job!”. When I demonstrate, for the visual people, what that means in distance from here to Dijon, France, it would be cool to get a “WOW” back. When you have followers that have 3,672 followers themselves, well, you become invisible. Unless you are a cool kid. Which I am not because I bitch too much and don’t blow smoke up people’s arses. I think my posts about my running just got lost in all of the other posts and therefore no one really had a chance or took the chance to say anything.

So that’s my whinge. Done and Dusted. Don’t take offence, I’m not talking about the people who regularly interact with me. I love you guys. I just sometimes feel like I did when I was in High School and I don’t want to feel that way. Twitter is just interwebz people (*ahem* Renée), it’s not High School, regardless of the cliques out there.

After going through that whole thing, all the emotions attached, etc., I realised.

It doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. I KNOW for myself how fecking cool it is to have run already 685 kilometres. I know what my leg muscles look and feel like now and I know that I am MILES (no KILOMETERS ;) ) ahead of where I was one year ago. So yeah, ROCK ON Pinky!!

What is in my head, where these emotions come from, is the damage leftover from surviving my childhood. We didn’t get a lot of “great job” and “I knew you could do it”‘s. No. In fact my parents still don’t really get that kids need that (and yes, at 41, I am still someone’s kid who is hoping deep down for just a tiny bit of praise) I want to get to a point mentally and emotionally where it doesn’t matter anymore!.

I will probably still rant and rave from time to time, but at least I know who my real tweeps are out there, eh? I’m glad there are several of you who put up with me.

So without further adieu (haha! a little French for you since I “ran” to France):

100 Runs so Far (since June 2009)

I went and got the Mustard ;) (get it? Dijon? hahaha. Yeah a real comedienne)

A few other updates.
1) I’m not tracking! DOH!! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME??
2) I did not manage 30 days without the scale (challenge FAIL!) AND I gained weight. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME??
3) I have not started reading my book yet even though I picked it out. Garrrr!
4) I have not written to my grandmother.
5) I HAVE made my appointment for my tattoo consult.
6) I have 30 KM to run to reach my goal this month (but I have 9 days so it will happen)

I need to get it together. I am so affected by stress (work stress) and this is the result. Me. Flailing around and not being in control.

I signed up for Jess’ Drop Dead Gorgeous by Decemberr challenge. Not that I’m not already drop dead gorgeous, but, you know… I guess I better fully read the rules of the challenge since it starts tomorrow, eh?

What do you do when you don’t get the acknowledgment that you admit you need? Do you suck it up and find it within yourself?

How do you handle all of your followers/ followees? Do you ever feel invisible?

No time for chit chat

Posted on by Renée
4

I had this great post written for you guys (on my work laptop) and really have had no time to put it all together. Here’s some highlights of the last week:

Food at the Festival: could have been worse. could have been better. did I have a great time? YES! We did stay a wee bit active as we rented bikes to go to and from the festival instead of driving. Approx 8 KM Friday, Saturday, Sunday. did not run or go to hotel gym.

Gym: Haven’t been.

Running: Ran Monday. Was a GREAT run, felt good! Twisted my knee a bit after I got home. Hence no gym and no further running. Knee is feeling better now, but had it in a compression bandage for a few days.

Food: Tracked until… Wednesday afternoon. Haven’t tracked since then. Not on paper or online journal anyway. Was thinking about it this morning and realised that I don’t track as well if I’m out of my schedule OR if I have stress. Wednesday I worked from home (out of my regular routine) and I had quite a bit of stress at work this week. I also have been very hungry, but I put that on hormones (which also were a bit “elevated” let’s say this week).

Reading: Picked a book – Club Dead (3rd of the Sookie Stackhouse series), haven’t started reading it yet.

Writing: No letter to grams yet.

Scale: Been very tempted. Why I’m tempted during a more eating, stress, hormonal period I will never know.

Victory Log: did have a sweet victory on Thursday; am going to update that right now.

Appointment for my tattoo: Am going to make that damn appointment! I’m running out of cash though so I’ll do it for end of the month (after the bankroll comes in).

What else? Going on an epic bike ride now, will only have my blackberry but I’ll try to get some pics!

Have a great weekend!