2023 round up

2023 is the least amount of running I've ever done.  Running every day guaranteed 365 miles a year, and I always had days where I ran more than one mile.  Last year I didn't do a recap of my year in running, only a recap of my runstreak (which was fun to look at again), but looking back I ran 640 miles in 2022. I actually started walking a lot more in 2023, in fact, I would say the second half of 2023 was more walking than running.  Once again, I did not do any races, which makes 3 years in a row that I have not raced.  I signed up for a half marathon in April with the intention of forcing myself to run, but it didn't, and it was the first ever DNS (did not start) run I've ever done.  

Here's a run down of my monthly running and walking:

 January - 14 days running, 3 days walking - 46 miles

February - 8 run, 5 walk - 39 miles

March - 6 run, 5 walk - 39 miles

April - 12 run, 0 walk - 36 miles

May - 12 run, 0 walk - 36 miles

June - 8 run, 2 walk - 28.8 miles

July - 7 run, 3 walk - 29 miles

August - 1 run, 16 walk - 38.6 miles - August was the month we went to Hawaii, and somehow, I only ran 1 time while there.  Somehow I just couldn't force myself to go for a run.  I did go on a couple hikes with Damian though, so that was nice.

September - 3 run, 6 walk - 18.6 miles - September was the only month I did not take a picture during any of my runs or walks.

October - 3 run, 12 walk - 31miles - In October I got COVID and went to the Lake by myself, and it just so happened to be on my birthday, which turned out to be the best birthday I've had since I can remember.

November - 1 run, 5 walk - 11.8 miles - Obviously my lowest mileage month

December - 4 run, 9 walk - 39 miles

391 miles total in 2023 - This is by far the least amount of mileage I've done in a year since I started running.  It is honestly a wake up call, although, I've wanted to start running more, but I just haven't been motivated.  I haven't actually run or walked more than my average for the last half of 2023 this month, but I am truly working on it.  I guess time will tell.  I hope that come January 2025 when I do a recap of 2024 I look back and see my mileage increase each month.  

In the past I have never counted my walks in my mileage for the year, but in the past I didn't walk a lot, and if I hadn't counted walks this last year, I'd have like 20 miles. 😉Just kidding, but not . . .

I also ended 2023 the highest weight I've been since 2012.  Again, I hope in January 2025 I look back and see that I took a turn this year and did better. I cared more.

I need to remember that I lost my parents, I did not lose myself.  I do not want to be them, both of them were overweight and had different medical problems, and while my Mom's death didn't really have anything to do with her diet or her weight (my Dad's did), I still want to be healthier.  Only my Mom's mom lived beyond 80, I want to be that person. I want to live past 80 and beyond.

Right now I am planning on running (at least) Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday.  I know that's only 3 days, but it's doable.  I want to increase my miles again.  I am currently only running 2 miles, and I am still walking 1/4 of the time during those runs.  I honestly have been kind of working on heart rate, when I get to 140 beats per min (or close) I walk until I'm 125 beats per min.  Actually, looking at the MAF calculator, I only need to be down to 133.  I also have been walking on my treadmill at work, so I'm hopeful that will help (it's not going to be included in my daily/weekly mileage because I get on and off it so often while it's running, and it's set at a pretty slow pace, just enough to keep me moving.   

Stories

 Have I ever mentioned that when I was younger I wrote stories?  I think I have.  I quit a long time ago.  I don't really know why.  I used to blame it on a guy. He was my first "real" boyfriend in high school.  He was everything to me, and really damaged me emotionally, although, with age, I look back and think he only did it because he was damaged.  He isn't a bad person.  I don't know him well anymore, we are "facebook friends" now, but I did see him a little in my 20s and he turned out okay, and was definitely not the manipulative asshole I thought he might be when I was younger.  

Anyway, he (I believe, unintentionally) damaged me when I was young, and I quit writing.  Or so I thought.  Looking back on it, I think I quit writing before I started dating him.  So I don't really know why I stopped.  I get the urge every now and then, but never really do much.  The few times I've tried to write a story, I think it is so amateurish and silly, that I stop.  Maybe I never got past that early teen stage of writing, so now my stories are all based on that mentality.  

How many people love to write, and then one day just stop?  How many people think of stories, but never put them to paper?  My Mom used to tell me she thought I was going to be a reporter when I was young.  She also said once that she thought that someday I'd write a biography about what happened with that same boy.  Honestly, that story isn't that great.  It sounds weird to say it, because I truly don't believe he meant harm, but he was emotionally abusive to me, but again, I truly don't think he grew up to be that way.  I think he was going through his own crap and didn't know how to handle our relationship, so pushed me away a lot.

Anyway, I think that many of the bloggers that are still out there are probably writers at heart.  Blogging hit it's peak, maybe about the time I started doing it, and is definitely on the decline.  Many of the people I used to follow are gone, even ones that had a lot of followers. 

After my Dad died, we went through the stuff in my parents' house and I found a box titled "Memories."  I had always wondered what happened to the stories I'd written when I was little.  I went to a young writers conference when I was in 6th grade, and maybe even 5th (I don't remember how often).  When I went through that box I found my stories, but when I went through it at my parents' house, I didn't really remember what was there.  Anyway, I was just looking at it and found a story I don't even remember writing (I remember the others).  Honestly, it was terrible, I definitely liked to write in dialogue.  That particular story was 90% dialogue.  Anyway, looking at my stories, was kind of fun.  

Oh, I wrote terrible poetry.

Growing old sucks

 Last week while I was watching the TV I noticed that an area on my jaw was hurting.  It felt like pain I've had from infections from teeth, and I know I have a problem tooth in that area so I called the dentist.  He put me on an antibiotic and I've been taking it since Friday.  Unfortunately, I still have a sore spot on my jaw and that has me worried that maybe it isn't dental, but I do have a dentist appt this coming Friday, so we'll see.  

Why am I telling you this story? Because I'm pretty sure the antibiotic has caused some bloating, which means weight gain.  If you look at my page for countdown, this week I was back up to 173, which is higher than I have been on my weigh ins since my first one, although, I guess not a ton higher.  But it's frustrating.  I was actually up to 174 on Monday but we went out to eat on Sunday, so that definitely affected it.  I have been very good this week, so not seeing the number drop (yesterday I was the same as Tuesday) is frustrating.  Even just a little.  

Another thing about these pills . . . I decided to start intermittent fasting again. Of course I decided right about the same time as I started taking the antibiotic.  Well, the first day I took them I was so nauseous I was gagging, coughing.  Then I remembered the pharmacist saying to eat with food because they're very harsh on the stomach.  Well, I'm supposed to take them 4 times a day, which means first thing in the morning and last thing at night.  So much for intermittent fasting. . . 

This pills are awful, even though I eat something every time I take one, by the time I've taken the 3rd pill my stomach is rolling.  They also leave a metallic taste in my mouth.  Next time I ask/need antibiotics, I will definitely request not these.  

I guess it's just frustrating.  I was frustrated, but was able to talk myself into believing it was okay because I was below where I "should" be, but not this week.  

Anyway, I hope you all are doing better than me.

Get out of your head

 I'll admit, my first week went better than my second week.  I have noticed I can do pretty good for a week, but then it starts to crumble and I give up.  So this is me, forcing myself to not give up.  Last spring when I was doing intermittent fasting I was also logging my food and weekly weight.  I didn't feel like I was being successful at the time, plus Maddox's sports being so late, so I stopped. I had quit using Myfitnesspal because it changed and I didn't like it as much, so I was logging my weight in a notebook without calories attached.  This time around, I've gone back to Myfitnesspal, and it really is unrecognizable, but it's not as awful as I thought.

It's been freezing cold here, and that is literally.  Western WA doesn't often see freezing temperatures but this week it hasn't been above 32degrees since Thursday.  Well, that definitely stopped me from running.  I know that I've run in freezing temperatures before, but I just didn't want to, and I guess I haven't completely solved my lack of motivation (see previous post) issue.  Yesterday was supposed to be the coldest day but it was sunny.  I gazed outside and decided I did not want to freeze my bum off, so I told myself I'd run today.  Instead, I read an entire book.  It also doesn't help that my sister went out of town for the weekend with her husband so we didn't do yoga pilates (I gotta quit calling it yoga, it is definitely more pilates than yoga) yesterday, and my morning schedule last week was crazy, so we only did it 2 times during the week.

Well, this morning, I was well on my way to finishing another book in a day, but I finally decided to get off my a....butt and go for a walk/run.  While I was run/walking I was thinking about how frustrated I am about letting myself gain 25 lbs (10-15lbs in just the last 6 months) and also that it doesn't just melt off after I've been good for a week or two.  I've been weighing myself daily, and writing it down, and I've been discouraged because the last 4 days I've fluctuated in the low 170s.  I was feeling that same amount of discouragement I felt last spring.  When I got back I was looking at my old food logs, and while I wasn't losing quickly, it was a steady decline.  In March I weighed in at 162, and my last weight recorded at that time was 159 in May.  Only 3 lbs, but still 3 lbs in a little over 2 months.

I did create a new page on here, called Countdown to August 2024.  I thought it'd be fun to have my weekly goal weight on the page and I'd cross it off as I got to it.  As I was calculated the 0.5lbs I was supposed to lose weekly, I got to August and realized that 1/2 a pound a week wasn't enough to get to where I want to be.  I increased it to 0.75 a week, and that was still not good enough.  I didn't want to go to a pound a week because I didn't think that was realistic, so after more calculations, 0.81 lbs a week is where I need to be to be 150 by August.  

Well, the first week it dropped quickly, and I was happy, but remember that just before weighing myself on 1/2 I had been in e. WA with family eating junk, and was likely carrying a lot of water weight.  I went from 175 to 172.4 in a week, 3 1/2 lbs is amazing in one week, but now I'm freaking out, because I'm fluctuating in my daily weigh-ins.  Friday I was 173, yesterday I was 171.2, and today I was 172 . . . granted, according to my calculations, next Tuesday I'm supposed to be at 173.38, but I definitely don't want to see the number go up in a week.  Although, maybe I should look at it as an experiment in food and drink for this second week to see what I need to tweak.  But it is very discouraging.  My brain automatically goes to, what if I can't get lower than 170?  I seem to always get stuck at these numbers, and in my head I was stuck at the 160 mark in the spring.  

Maybe it's the daily weigh-ins?  But I also like the accountability of the daily weigh-ins.  When I was doing this 10 years ago, I weighed daily, but I could make myself only look at the end of the week number.  I'm struggling with that this time.  

I need to keep reminding myself the slow numbers are okay, and to look at the trend, not the daily fluctuations.  And also, my January 30th goal weight is 171.76.  I've already had two days lower than that at 171.2 both times.  

So yeah, this is my "get out of your head" post.  Just eat well, and exercise. 

I got a small "walking pad" for Christmas

that I put in my office at work. 

a post of TMI

 Hello!  Two months since I last posted.  Not surprisingly I've been very inconsistent with diet and exercise.  The only thing I did stick with was pilates/yoga with my sister, and literally it's because of my sister.  Accountability partners are really good, I just wish I had something better for my diet and running.  Anyone else notice that when people stop posting, it's usually because they've usually stopped trying?  I vowed I wouldn't do that, and yet I did.  

This post might be all over the place, so I apologize. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  😉

Maybe I'll do a recap of my holidays later, but it's doubtful.  I also typically do a recap of my year, which I started in the middle of December, but didn't finish.  I do like having that recap because it shows what I've done, or in the case of 2023, what I didn't do.  But tonight I have a few other things on my mind I want to talk about.

I am going through menopause, maybe perimenopause, I don't know if there's a difference in how your body is, but I have many, many symptoms of the dreaded menopause, and have had for a few years.  It started with night sweats 3 or 4 years ago, but this last year it's gotten a lot worse. 

• I've lost hair
• my sex drive has gone way down
• even during sex, it's pretty dry down there,
• I've gained weight with no change to my diet
• insomnia (although that has been off and on for most of my life, but much worse lately)
• I haven't had my period in forever
• very irritable
• fatigue, but unable to go to sleep
• dry skin

And at least one thing I didn't know was a symptom of menopause

•  lack of motivation.  

My sister found a book a while ago on Kindle that, at the time, was free, so I downloaded it.  "Menopause: Let's get to point, period" The name is ridiculously long, so I'm not going to type it all out.  It's a fairly short book and is an easy read (Oh, and if you have Kindle Unlimited, it's still free to borrow.)  Anyway, I found out from reading that book that loss of motivation is a symptom of menopause, and that has bothered me.

I have wondered most of 2023 why I'm just not motivated.  Why can't I just go for a run?  Why is it so hard for me to follow through with anything?  Running is my thing.  I am a runner.  But am I because I don't run?  I just don't want to do anything.  I don't want to eat well, I don't want to exercise. I just want to stay in bed all the time.  It has bothered me, but not enough to actually do something. 

I went to Hawaii in July and August and I hated how I felt there.  I felt fat and ugly and just gross.  I didn't even want to run and that trail is my #1 top running location.  I love that trail.  Did I go for a run? Yes, just once though.  I came home and had a little motivation to lose weight, but it didn't last.  I have continued to feel fat and useless and have continued to gain weight.  

I am a big supplement fan.  I take quite a few (my sister calls me Grandma Curl - mom's mom - because she was well known for her mass amounts of supplements).  Anyway, I started taking collagen, krill oil, a liver support pill, calcium, tumeric, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, glucosamine chondroitin, magnesium, and a multivitamin.  There are a couple supplements I've found that combines some of these, like Provitalize, and I also take Nutrafol, which is supposed to help with hair loss.  

So what does this have to do with menopause? Well, a few of these (collagen, magnesium, provitalize, and nutrafol) are supposed to be good for menopausal symptoms.  

This last fall I was googling something about menopause and saw that Red Clover is a supplement that is well-known in traditional medicine for it's benefits, especially for menopause (it can also help to lower high blood pressure, and cholesterol).  But one of the things I saw was that it's good for motivation (of course, I can't find that article now, but I saw it, I know I did), so I started taking it.

I noticed a difference at 2 weeks. So much so that I shared it with my sisters (2 older and one 3 yrs younger than me).  It's been a gradual increase in my motivation, but I can definitely feel it.  No, this is not a commercial, it's just something I've been thinking about.  It feels good to want to go for a run again.  It's nice to feel like I can take control of my eating and drinking.  

And this is where I go to a different topic, but I'll try to bring it back around to this🠉.

When my Dad died, my sisters and I decided to go to Disneyland with some of his money.  We were going to set some aside in the estate account for us to go and had decided to go Spring Break of 2024.  New Year's Eve weekend we did our family Christmas celebration and we started to talk about going to Disneyland.  One of my sisters decided she wouldn't go to Disneyland (she didn't say why, but I believe it's a political reason 🙄) so we were brainstorming other places to go.  Someone mentioned another cruise, and then my sister Nancy suggested a cruise to Mexico.  In looking for a cruise, we discovered that cruises are sold out for the first week of April (our spring break), so we were looking at other dates.  We found a 4 day cruise in August to Catalina and Ensenada, so we decided to try to go on that.  My immediate family is going to go to Disneyland right after because my kids have been excited about it, and Asher will be almost 5, which will be a great age for him.  

Anyway, in thinking about going on a cruise to Mexico in August, I realized I'm going to feel awful, again, in a tropical area in my bathing suit again like I did last August in Hawaii.  So what does that mean?  I need to be motivated and focused to lose some weight.  It means cracking down on exercising, eating well, and not drinking so much wine.   

We came home from our family Christmas on the 1st and all the way home I was pep talking myself into what I needed to do.  On these trips we also have a lot of junk food.  My Mom used to make a chex mix she called Scrabble, and it's high in sodium, plus cheesecake I make, cookies, and just general Christmas junk food.  So driving home, I'm thinking, "I need to know what I weigh.  I need to weigh myself tomorrow.  Yes, it will likely be higher than it would have been without this trip, but I need to just do it."  So Tuesday morning I got up and weighed myself for the first time in several months, only to discover I was just 2 lbs lower than I was at my starting weight in 2012. In 2012 I was 177, on the 2nd I was 175. 

How frustrating. It took me 3 years to lose it before and I was younger.  Now I'm asking my menopausal, old body, to lose 25 lbs in 8 months.   I don't know if I can do it, but I'm certainly going to try.  Doing the math, I have to lose 3 lbs a month.  That's 0.75 lbs a week.  When you break it down like that, it sounds doable.  A couple things I didn't do well, and why it took so long last time, and why I don't do well now at all, is that I always give myself a weekend pass.  I can eat and drink whatever on the weekend, and that usually starts on Friday evening.  That has to end.  

I ate very well this last weekend, but I did eat a little more, and drank more, which caused a weekend gain of 1lb, which is better than past weekend gains, but still not great. (Past weekend gains had me gaining everything I had lost through the work week, so I was essentially starting each week at the same number.)  Friday morning I weighed 172.6, this morning I weighed 174.  Honestly, that's still a full pound in less than a week, and I "only" need to lose 0.75 in a week, but if I let that mentality in, I will not succeed.  And I need to succeed.  

So motivation, it's a big factor.  I have to stay focused, and determined.  This red clover definitely helps. I've also been running a little more. Although, I also get frustrated because I used to be "half-marathon ready" at all times, and now I'm barely "5k ready" and if I did race a 5k, it would likely be my slowest pace ever.  I just have to get over looking backwards at where I was, and look forward knowing I can get there again.  

I do not want to feel the way I did last summer.  I want to feel more like I did in 2015.

April 2023

October 2015 (marathon)

(It was very difficult to find a recent full-body picture of me.)

I think I'm going to add a page to my blog.  Maybe a progress page counting down the days to August (we don't know what day we're going on the cruise yet) and the weight I've lost.  If I quit updating, you'll know I'll have given up and I'm doing nothing.  I wish I knew how to make a counter and add it to this page, but I don't know how.