i am lotus

Some of you may remember the post waaaaay earlier this year where I admitted to you something that really was no surprise, considering I have mentioned how gross and lazy I have been on a regular basis.  Yeah, I’m talking about the one where I basically said, “I smell like forty ripe asses rotting in the sun.  Oh, and I have fat rolls that have fat rolls and their fat rolls are bigger than their fat rolls’ fat rolls.”  I’m not sure if that even makes any sense, but I wrote it out anyway, because I like the way it sounds.  You do too, you just don’t know it.

The point is that I had gained quite a bit of weight (enough to aggravate my joints and make my fat pants tight on me) and I wasn’t caring enough about myself to bathe regularly.  Unless you’d say once every week or two is regularly.  I guess it is, since I regularly waited that long to scrape the accumulated layers of sediment off of my body. (I swear I found a tiny, fossilized animal in one of the layers once. It was from the Cretaceous Time Period. I’d be rich if I hadn’t dropped it down the drain.)

By May, I was carrying a good amount of weight…

By the end of May, I was sick of myself.  I made a lot of changes (that really needed to be made) and turned my life onto a healthier track again.  Instead of drinking the local liquor store and grocery beer aisles dry practically every other day, I stopped drinking entirely for a whole month.

I hated every fucking one of you bitches that talked about drinking on Twitter during that time.  I wanted to stab you in the face.

Hahaha, just kidding!

No, really.

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, in all honesty.  And during that month, I dropped junk food and excessive carbs, as well as late night eating.  You know what else?  I started moving.  And I had some support: people who motivated me by talking to me about what they were doing, listening to what I was doing, and just being there.  They lifted me up when I was dragging, and they celebrated my successes with me when I was floating.  That kind of support from friends is instrumental for me.  Thank you so much Leslie, Haley, & Karen.   I got my ass in gear and I started doing The Shred – downloaded it right to my computer and did it almost every day.  I added in some Yoga, too.

And the real killer for me?  I went to bed at a decent hour more often than not.  It was like a sign of the Apocalypse.  Or flying pigs.  Or that monkeys streaming out of your butt thing.

But mostly, it was a whole heap of positive change in my life that both cleared my head and dropped pounds of fat off of my body.

I lost 15 lbs in just a couple of months.

Then I started traveling.  Oy!  Chicago first, then NC, and before I knew it I was drinking and eating excessively again, and not exercising.  And sleeping? Hah, what was that?  I was up into the wee hours again.  For some reason, I love the wee hours.

I was still making half-assed efforts to exercise once I got back home, but it wasn’t adding up because I was being really inconsistent, and the other bad habits were still hanging on, blossoming even.

By mid-September, I was saying, “hello again!” to the last 8lbs I had dropped.  (And by “hello again” I mean, “awwww, shit, you again? Damn.”)

But I was in a funk.  The sloth in me was in charge.

By mid-October I had reached a point again where I realized this crappy way of whipping myself back and forth has got to stop.

I called on the cavalry again:  I’ve got Haley, Leslie, and now Mishi motivating me in a Skype chat regularly (thank you, ladies! I love you.).  And I’m trying this novel concept: moderation!

I cut way back on drinking, but I still have one drink most nights.  Junk food is out again, and healthy food is in.  But “cheats?”  Oh yeah, they’re around about once a week.

I’m *trying* to go to bed at a decent hour (most nights, and sometimes I’m actually successful) and I’m moving again.  I’ve been doing different things to keep it fresh -  Shred, Yoga, Dance, Walking.  I’ve lost that ugly 8 I gained back, and then some.  I’m feeling better again… lighter, smoother, and quicker.

Just this week, I started pushing myself to jog and run.

And then a little birdie named Leslie got on my proverbial shoulder and whispered in my Skype Chat ear: “Fiiiiive Kaaaaaay?”

And I said, “What, me? Surely not.”

But later in the day I said, “Why not? I can do that.  I am *going* to do that.”

And that’s where I am right now.  In total, I’m down 21lbs (and counting!) from my May 09 top weight, and I’ve built some muscle.  It’s time to tone, train, and build endurance.  I have a plan, some tools, and at least one friend to do this with.  I’m about to bust crazy and go for something I’ve never attempted before.

And I’m not talking about going one whole day without saying, “fuckbuckles!” (What, you don’t say that every day?)

It’s time to train for a 5K, my friends.

I plan on leaving a little piece of my funk behind me with every step.