Marathon Eve

Tomorrow is the big day! Grandma's Marathon in Duluth :) I am so excited/nervous/happy/scared/ahh!


It's going to be tough, and it's going to suck at times, and the weather report is calling for heavy rain in the morning. Running 26.2 miles in the rain isn't what I had hoped for the past 18 weeks, but I'll take what I'm given and do the best with it that I can! 


It's weird to think that 19 months ago I wouldn't even make it up a flight of stairs without being out of breathe. I couldn't run a city block if I was being chased by a bear. I literally did nothing good for my body or well being. And tomorrow I'm going to run 26.2 fricken miles. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago about the marathon. They said "wow, 26 miles is even a long ways to DRIVE let alone run." Dang right it is, and I'm gonna run my heart out. 


I think it's something like less than 1% of the population has run a marathon in their life. I don't know what the percentage is for people losing 120 pounds the healthy and realistic way, but I'm sure it's right around that percentage, too. I've learned a lot these past couple years. Not only about myself, but about the human body in general. Our bodies are capable of SO much more than we think and often allow it to do. We get this 1 body for our entire lifetime. I plan on taking my 1 body and pushing it to the limit, testing it, letting it know that it's alive and can accomplish so much with a lot of hard work and determination. The marathon is the ultimate test of the human body, and I can't wait to put myself out there and let the world know that I don't allow any excuses to get in the way of my dreams and accomplishments. 

With that said......... SEE YA AT THE FINISH LINE! 

Engagement!!

I can't believe it's taken 3 days for me to write about this! AH! Shows you how crazy life is right now. Not only is it 2 days before my first full marathon, but then I get engaged the same week?!


Marshal and I have been dating since February 20th, 2006. When I first met him, he was a scrawny farm kid that was entirely too smart at math and science to have any interest in me. For some reason though, he liked me, and liked me a lot. The first summer we dated, he worked overnights and I worked days, and I was dating a summer class. Even with our crazy opposite schedules, we still spent any free time we did have together. We went to the lake just about everyday that summer. Poor guy was always so exhausted from working overnight and then me dragging him to the beach. But, he put up with me for some reason.

one of our first "dates" - sledding at the St Mary's hill

The 1st summer we were dating. I'm huge, but look how cute Marshal is! 

That fall he went away to school. He went to Mankato because it's the onlly school around here that had the degree he really wanted in Engineering. We decided to stay together and try the long distance thing. He came home most weekends for the next 4 years, was home for long holiday breaks, and the summers. I looked forward to those Friday nights more than you can imagine... and dreaded the Sunday nights even more. We talked to each other on the phone once or twice a day, chatted online, and kept it going all throughout his time in Mankato. It wasn't even that hard. They always say long distance is so difficult. It was pretty easy for us. 


We both graduated, him from Mankato and me from Winona State, and he moved back home. He got a really great job at Colorware in Winona as their design engineer. If you aren't familiar with the company, you should check them out. (psst... he designed the iPad handle!) I got a job (not as great OR in my field lol) at Sprint and manage over 200 corporate and government accounts on the east coast. 


At this point I think we both knew it was coming to the point where we were ready for the next "step". We both went to college, graduated, had good jobs, and we finally officially signed a lease together as of June 1st.    I've been training for a marathon since February 14th which has pretty much consumed my life the past almost 5 months. I've been beyond exhausted (getting up at 3am to run 10 miles before working at 7am all day) and pretty damn crabby as well. Poor guy lol.


The week or so before Monday (the day we got engaged) we hadn't been getting along that well. There was tension and everything either of us said to the other one you could tell pissed the other one off. Monday night I was making dinner for Marshal and he came home from work a little later than usual. ( I later found out he was talking to his mom in the car in the parking lot lol ). We ate dinner in silence and then had an all our  bitch fest I guess you could say. We got everything out in the air, and it turns out both of us were being ridiculous about a lot of stuff. 


Sometimes it's good to just let it all out and air the dirty laundry. We both felt so much better afterward. I can't remember how exactly it came up, but he told me he had gone with his sister the weekend before to look at rings, but that the store had closed right before they got there. At this point... the sparkle in my eye started to form... I told him I wanted to get married on a mountain and that I had the spot picked out, and his response was, "Oh thank god you don't want a real wedding in a church". :) 


We decided to head to LaCrosse and look at Kay Jewlers. It was so odd. Everything in there was literally so sparkly my eyes hurt. I've never worn real diamonds before, and if you know me I'm the plainest of plain around. I immediately fell in love with this one ring. I can just about imagine what a giant nerd I must have been in the store, oo'ing and aa'ing over this ring. I wanted to wear it home!


There was a bigger one and smaller one of the same ring style, and the lady took marshal to the register to pick which one he wanted to get me. I told him to get the small one - I'm not a fancy lady that needs big diamonds, right? 


He came back with a tiny wrapped box with a bow on it. I opened it and ... it was the big one. :)

THE ring <3

Our first picture as an engaged couple!

one of the several hundred pictures I took with a huge grin on my face that night

Everything has happened so fast this week, I can't believe it's already Thursday night for cripes sake! This blog is the last thing I should be writing. I still have to pack and get my carbo-loading on aka eat dinner. I'M RUNNING A FREAKING MARATHON IN 1 DAY!!!!!!!!


Back to wedding business - We decided on August 4th of next year. The original plan was to do it at St. Mary's Falls in Glacier National Park, but I've been speaking to the park services and rangers out there and they would only give us a special permit to do it at St. Mary's Falls for up to 6 people, which isn't going to work because we want our families there. So, we're doing it at Lake McDonald instead. On the shoreline, in the morning. It's going to be amazing and beautiful, I cannot wait! 

We'll have a reception back in Winona afterward. Aka one big whoopin' party. My sister Dayna is going to be my Maid of Honor and friend April will be my Bridesmaid. She is also going to be the person that keeps me sane and sits next to me at work and listens to me babble about all the ideas and plans I have.

 Dayna & I, coincidentally at Lake McDonald - where we're getting married!! 

April & I in Minneapolis 

Here's my wedding planner notebook that already has several pages filled :-P

Even though this has been the craziest week of my life, it's also been the happiest. I am seriously the luckiest girl in the world. Not only have I found the one person I want to spend the rest of my life with, have a house and children with, but I've got an awesome family behind me, and I get to be part of a new family - his family. :) I can't wait for all the wedding planning and to officially be Mrs. Fitch! 

Po-po-portion Control

This post goes hand in hand with yesterday's on food addiction and overcoming it physically and emotionally. Portion control is a HUGE part of healthy eating and losing weight. I have lost all interest in eating cheesecake and apple pie and cookies, however I WOULD sit down and eat a 2 pound bag of carrots. I obviously have learned to control myself so I don't, but I crave healthy foods in large quantities, which stems back to my old eating habits. 


I always ate a lot of whatever was in front of me. I remember one time going to a chinese restaurant in town with a friend and we both ordered full meals (entree, rice, 2 crab rangoons, soup, and pop) and then we both ordered an additional TWO sides of crab rangoons, so another 6. Call me silly, but an entree, 8 crab rangoons, soup, rice, and pop is more than enough to sustain a sedentary adult.... am I right? There was no need for this at all, other than at the time it felt good and kept me entertained and busy for a half hour. 


Eating is such an emotional thing for people. Christmas - get together with family and eat. Halloween - trick or treating and eat tons of candy. Birthdays - sing happy birthday and eat cake and ice cream. Work - potlucks galore. It's as if everything we do, we get rewarded with food. Food has become the alternative to a pat on the back. 


My brother Dan has been super supportive through out my weight loss and getting into running. He's been running since before I was born (he he... he is going to kill me for saying that.) but it's true. When we get together for holidays, he always goes on my training runs with me. He recently went on the "big one", the 20 mile training run over Memorial Day Weekened a few weekends ago. Anyways, 20 miles of running leaves several hours of chit-chat time. I remember him saying this in regards to food, and it has so much truth. 

"Do you feel any more satisfied eating 10 Oreos, than you do just eating 1?"

I guess I had never thought of it like that. But it's so true. You crave an Oreo - fine. You can have just 1, without completely sabotaging the 2 hour workout you had done previously in the day. (Sidenote : running 1 mile burns roughly 100 calories. There are roughly 50 calories in 1 Oreo, so it would take a mile of running to burn off 2 Oreos... and that doesn't erase the crap ton of sugar....) Eating 10 of them isn't going to make you feel any better or do anything for you that just 1 would, except add tons of empty calories and sugar that your body doesn't need. 


Another thing that has really helped me keep my portion control in check is having assigned eating I guess you could say. I eat at the same (or close to) time everyday, and consume the same nutrients at those times every day. As anal as it sounds, it works. I also drink 130 ounces of water a day, which is a gallon. Water is soooo good for your body! Here is my daily eating routine. 
6:15am - 1 cup wide cut oatmeal, 2 turkey sausage links, 8 ounces skim milk.
9:00am - 1 orange
11:00am - lunch : 1 cup homemade chicken noodle soup, 14 baby carrots, 1 reduced fat string cheese, 1/2 cup of sugar free jell-o.
2:00pm - 1 apple and 15 almonds
5:00pm - dinner : 1/2 a chicken breast with veggies, or 1 cup of whole wheat pasta with homemade spaghetti sauce, or something along those lines, and 8 ounces skim milk.


The USDA recently moved away from the Food Guide Pyramid to something new called MyPlate. Below is a picture of the new MyPlate symbol and a few tips from the USDA on healthy eating.

Balancing Calories :

·         Enjoy your food, but eat less.

·         Avoid Oversized portions.

Foods to Increase :

·         Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.

·         Make at least half your grains whole grains.

·         Switch to fat free or low-fat (1%) milk.

Foods to Reduce :

·         Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals – and choose the foods with lowest numbers.

·         Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

My suggestions for portion control would be to set up an eating routine, measuring everything out, and having it ready to go before hand. A lot of times people get so busy and their lives are hectic and they just "grab and go" something bad for them. It's so much easier if you prep everything and are ready to go. I never leave the house whether its to go grocery shopping or get gas without an apple in my purse, some almonds in my car, and a bottle of water. I don't ever want to get stuck somewhere and have to resort to a chili cheese dog inside the gas station or something. I hope this information helps... :)

http://www.hulu.com/watch/247152/jamie-olivers-food-revolution-were-going-to-go-guerilla
I just ran across this video on Hulu. It starts out a little slow, but about 7 minutes in is really interesting. Depending on what these students chose to eat, (orange or candy bar), they have to do so many laps around the schools track to get rid of those calories. WATCH THIS!!

Would a Caveman Eat That?

A quick post before work...


This is the next "thing" that popped into my head. Addiction according to the dictionary is : the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something
that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, tosuch an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.


To be honest, before I started my "journey" I honestly didn't believe in addictions. I never thought I had addictive tendancies running through my blood stream, and never understood why it wasn't easier for people to just "quit smoking" or "quit drinking". When you think addiction, most people automatically think to drugs or alcohol.... even the Webster dictionary apparently. But addictions very much exist, and can be found in just about anything. My culprit : food. 


I read an article shortly after I started losing weight that really hit home to me. It was an article on CNN Health. It had big words across the top that read, " Fatty Food May Cause Cocaine-Like Addiction". 

Article Link

The article describes how fatty, unhealthy food is processed in a way that purposely leaves you craving more - much like the effect of cocaine on the body. The more of that food that gets in your bloodstream, the more your brain thinks you need to he "happy". One of the Medical Doctor's involved in the study said ""We purify our food," he says. "Our ancestors ate whole grains, but we're eating white bread. American Indians ate corn; we eat corn syrup." How true is that? 

I'm by no means an organic tree hugger or anything, but I think this article brings a lot of good information to the table when it comes to starting out eating healthy and knowing exactly what you're putting in your body. You only get 1 body - this is it, the 1 you were given has to last you forever. So why fill it with processed garbage that is ultimately designed to not only destroy your body but trick your brain into thinking it needs more and more to find pleasure? 

The closer to the ground food came from, the healthier it is in my book. Fruits, veggies, lean meat, whole grains. Those are the things the cavemen would have eaten. They wouldn't have eaten doritos or mountain dew or any of that very popular food these days. Here are 2 items in my kitchen I just found, and the "Ingredients" listed on both of them. 

Can you guess what the 2 items are? Pop-tarts and Carrots. Notice that the pop-tarts have 47 ingredients listed. 47! You would think the combination of 47 ingredients would make something much more prestigious than a pop-tart. The second item is, well, carrots. Plain and simple. There wasn't a big factory in New Jersey mixing together big containers of high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors and sweeteners to produce those carrots, and that makes me feel good about eating them. Several of those 47 ingredients were put in those pop-tarts to make you want more. The sugar hits your blood stream, spiking your blood sugar for a short time, and then you crash in awhile and feel like you need more. It's a vicious cycle. 

Addictions are hard. Just like working out, they make you want to scream, cry, kick your legs like a child, and sometimes cause you to act like a complete idiot. Once I came to terms of my food addiction, it was easier to kick the habit. Instead of living to eat, I now eat to live. I feed my body with nutritious, healthy food that powers it to work the best it can. This has especially become important the last several months with Marathon training. If I wasn't eating well and often to keep my metabolism in check, my body wouldn't be able to perform at its best and allow me to keep up the vigorous training that I've been doing. 

Questions Questions Questions

First of all, I'm a total skeptic of blogs. There are very few blogs that I actually take the time to read and even less that I actually enjoy reading. I guess I'm just not the blog type... not emotional enough to gush everything to the world so they can read it. But I've seriously had SO many people the past 18 months ask me about the "right" way to lose weight, that it's getting almost exhausting! It's not an easy 1-2 sentence response you can tell people. And most people want to hear "I still ate cookies and drank beer". Well guess what peeps - I DIDN'T. I didn't take any miracle drugs. I didn't take a magic pill that made me shed 120 pounds overnight. I didn't "cheat". I didn't "let loose" on the weekends at Applebee's. I didn't "reward" myself for a good week of losing with some cheesecake. I stuck to my guns, worked my ass off, and sweat more than you can believe. So if you're looking for some other kind of answer to my "Secret" weight loss, you might as well stop reading right now. 


Let me start from the beginning. As many of you know, yes, I did lose the weight. But how many people know the story from the beginning? 

 

September 2009 

The above picture is from a trip to Medora ND in September 2009. At this point i was at my heaviest. I'm 5'9, and weighed 270 pounds. I ate out just about everyday, drank all the beer I could get my hands on, and didn't know that fruits and vegetables existed. I had constant stomach issues, which were magically cured when I stopped eating all the JUNK I was eating. My BMI or Body Mass Index was 39.9. BMI calculates what weight range you're in based on height and weight. a BMI of 40.0 under most insurance qualifies for Gastric Bypass weight loss surgery.... if that gives you some kind of idea of how far I had let myself go.

The first weekend that November (2009) I went to my brother Dan's house for the weekend. Him and his wife and my niece and nephew live in northern Wisconsin. They own an Anytime Fitness and are obviously a very active family. They're very healthy - they are almost completely self sufficient. They have their own chickens to produce eggs to eat, have honey bees to produce their own honey, tap their own trees to make syrup, make their own bread, etc etc. They have rid their lives of processed crappy food. Love this. 

Anywho, I was at their house visiting. We were sitting in the living room and my brother mentioned we should watch a movie. The movie they picked? "Super Size Me."

I had heard of the movie before but never really know what exactly it was about. Its a documentary that follows this guy for a month. He can't eat anything but McDonalds for 30 days straight, 3 meals a day, and he had to try everything on the menu at least once. And, if he was asked if he wanted to Super Size it, he had to say yes. 

I couldn't believe my eyes watching this movie. His body literally shut down. His organs were shutting down, he became depressed, moody, and his blood pressure sky rocketed. He became lethargic and dreaded everyday. The only time he was happy was the first few minutes of eating his next meal of McDonald's. It opened my eyes to the addictive tendencies of fast food. Watching his entire body shut down and the doctor monitoring him during this whole thing that he needed to stop the documentary or he was going to kill himself, stopped me in my tracks. McDonald's was killing him! I ate that crap several times a week, without a second thought. Everyone else was doing it.... so it couldn't be THAT bad, right?? wrong. 

When the movie was over, I just sat there in disbelief. I finally understood it. I was killing myself, slowly but surely. My brother then said "How about this. If you run Grandma's Half Marathon in June, I'll run the Full Marathon." He told me think about it, which is exactly what I did for the next month. I asked my sister in law for tips on eating "healthy" - I had no idea what was healthy. People without knowledge in this area see a box of wheat thins that say "healthy snacking choice" or "Low fat" and think it's okay to eat. Well guess what folks... 98% of the time, it's NOT okay to eat. Look at the ingredients. If there are more than 5 ingredients, it's garbage. Processed garbage. Just because something claims its healthy, doesn't mean it is. 

My sister in law has seen every weight loss plan under the sun  since she's a personal trainer. She suggested starting by watching my fat grams. I had no idea what a fat gram was. I had no idea how to even read a nutrition label. But I learned. I scoured the internet, bought books, did the research, asked questions, and learned a ton. I kept under 20 grams of fat a day - to put it into perspective, 1 serving of Ranch dressing which is 2 Tablespoons (and lets be honest, if you're eating Ranch you're not eating only 2 Tablespoons), has 14 grams of fat in it. 14!!! That certainly makes the healthy choice of a salad no so healthy anymore, eh? More on the food thing to come.....

I went home to Winona the next day, and immediately went to the gym. I should mention I had a membership at Anytime Fitness since the previous May, and had never stepped foot inside. It was tough. It was terrible. I wanted to cry. I wanted to lay on the ground and kick and scream. I wanted the skinny girls and big weight lifter guys to not judge me. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to run away. It SUCKED. Working out when you're that big isn't easy. It's f*cking hard. I was determined though, I knew what I wanted and I knew how I had to get it. 

From November 10th - December 25th I worked my butt off. I lost about 20 -25 lbs or so in that time. This was before I started recording my weight every single day, so the first few months I don't have the exact  weights. For Christmas, I gave my brother an entry fee of $85.00 for Grandma's Marathon, along with a "voucher" that said "Pick the sister of your choice to do Grandma's Half Marathon". Funny because our other sister was 6 months pregnant at the time. he he. 

So this is how it all started. One little challenge to run 13.1 miles on June 18th, 2010. I know this is corny and lame sounding, but that challenge and that race saved my life. 

I guess once I got started writing here I realize now that I do have a lot to share. I've had 5 people in the past few days ask me for tips on weight loss and healthy lifestyles and running... so maybe this blog will help those of you that need the extra push or motivation to do it. I guess if you have specific questions or want me to talk about a certain topic, leave me a comment on here or on Facebook. Or if you want it to be anonymous, shoot me a message. I'm living proof that hard word and determination WILL work. This is me... 19 months later, 120 pounds gone, f o r e v e r ! ! ! ! !