its my turn to take back the power.

for most of my life ive kept 2 things inside pretty well. the first not totally being comfortable in my own skin and second my knee pain. now let me clear somethings up. this is not a pity party or in no way am i fishing for nice compliments. this is simply my story and how i finally took charge of my own body issues!

i am comfortable with who i am, amazingly grateful for the people in my life and for the things i am able to do on a daily basis. but somehow i have managed to surround myself with beautifully skinny girls (who i wouldnt trade for the world) and just dont feel 100% comfortable all the time. i in no way feel overweight, i just dont want to be the heavy girl at the 5k anymore for example. i want to be able to go to any store and not worry about them having my jeans size. or have people look at me and go youre a runner? i want to look as great as i feel. i have the training part down, i can rattle off my plan, mileage for the week, and all the times of my races at the drop of a hat. i got it dialed and it works wonders for me. so why havent i lost any weight in the last 3 years other than the few in the beginning? it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why a runner doing 20+/- miles a week with 2 days of cross-training isnt losing weight...its the nutrition.

 

so it all came to pass about a month and a half ago at a work happy hour as i sat there with my iced tea drooling over the alcohol and and cheeseburgers with fries everyone was eating and not having to worry about working those off. i was never blessed with that type of metabolism, i mean a lot of it is in the genes people. now some of these beautiful ladies work rockin hard to not have to worry about that friday night happy hour, i just wondered why working just as much as they did didnt seem to be making a difference. it was also a day where my hair sucked, i wasnt loving anything in my closet, and couldnt eat a french fry without feeling bad. it wasnt a good day to say the least. the next morning i got up to complete my 12 miles (which felt great) knowing they were all loving their beds as my alarm went off at 4am to beat at least a little bit of the heat. i knew something had to change and i was the only one who could really and truly make that happen.

monday morning i went into my boss, the pain still a little raw (it was written all over my face) and asked for her nutritionists phone number. she had raved about joanie forever. telling all of us how great she was and that she worked with anyone. she changed your food yes, but not to a crazy calorie counting diet plan or something we send to your house or you can only eat these 3 foods. she was real. finally realizing it was the nutrition meant i needed help, someone that could work with me and my likes/dislikes and being a runner. you see its often frowned upon for runners to go on diets because we cant totally cut out any one food. but there had to be an answer somewhere.

source

so i called the next morning and by wednesday afternoon i was sitting in her office going over bloodwork and talking all about me and my body. she listened to everything and gave me quite a few faces when i told her about the things i was eating. we worked out a plan and she made a "highly recommended" suggestion that i go to the grocery store to stock up on my new things that night! its made up of lots and lots of fruits and veggies, whole grain foods, lean meats/proteins, and things with the lowest sugar/fat possible plus how many of each i should be eating per day. she had lots of great suggestions about particular brands and broke everything down for me. i literally took home a book of information comparing darn near every brand of cereal for example with all its nutritional value. i got on the scale and didnt love what i saw at 170.5 pounds. we did measurements of literally every part of my body and she gave me an "approved joanie" list of things to buy. i headed back to work that day actually feeling great about the step i had taken and was ready to make the change. now i wasnt looking to be a size 2 (or 4 or 6 for that matter), that was never in the cards for me. but i wanted to feel good about myself, and that the work i was doing on the pavement showed!

source

friday afternoon i went to see her again and we talked all about how my couple days had been and what i had been eating. she was seriously impressed with my willingness to try new food (except spinach, kale, beans, or oatmeal to name a few) and could tell i was committed. she made me get back on that scale and i was terrified to say the least. turns out i had lost 3 pounds just changing my diet in 3 days!!! i was ecstatic to already have some changes. now yes i know most of it was water weight and flushing out the bad stuff from my body, but i took it!

things fell into place with joanie quickly, not that it wasnt and still is a struggle some days. the pizza on fridays, donuts/pastries on saturday mornings, lunch dates with friends, and the offers of lets go get fast food after the et race were abundant. i have never been to so many birthday parties with delicious looking cake in such a short time. i have had days (quite a few actually) when all i really wanted to do was eat like i used too. the problem was i didnt used to eat awful, especially during half marathon training. but now comparing i didnt eat great either.

i can make my own healthier version of things
like mac & cheese! you dont have to
give up everything to be healthy!

i can now say from july 18th to september 5th i am down 14.5 pounds and 27 inches!!! i have a few weeks left with joanie and am hoping to have a big update friday when i get down to 155 pounds because then we can measure again. keep your fingers crossed:) i feel wayyy better about myself and things are fitting so much better than they used to. my body feels happier when i run having these healthy things and a better balance inside it. i know for a fact i made the right choice going to her!

now that i had the nutrition part under control something else had now reflared up, knee pain. i havent had the best luck over the years. it started when i was 12 and developed osgood schlatters disease in both knees, its common in young athletes actually. basically your body is growing and the impact of sports is putting too much pressure on the tendons in your legs which is causing pain in the knees. most grow out of it, which i did. until freshmen year of high school when i got patellar tendonist in my left knee along with knee cap falling on top of it and to the outside of my leg. the arches in both my feet also fell at the same time. i had to quit everything cold turkey and went to 6 weeks of physical therapy. it helped a lot but i was told i would always probably have some knee pain when exercising, i just had to decide what i could really deal with.

so i took that for a long while and usually icing a few times helped until about 3 weeks ago when i got a bad tightness in the backs of both my knees and the front hurt a lot and quite often. with my past track record of knee pain i decided i should go to a sports doc asap. my mom luckily had a great one that worked on her foot last summer that was also a runner so i knew he would get it. luckily again i got a same week appointment and was into see dr hanson quickly. we took xrays and did ligament tests which i passed all of them. we talked about my changing to minimalist shoes and everything was fine till he had me hop on one knee at a time and it hurt real bad in my right knee. he told me i needed to get into see his friend ron, a physical therapist quickly. there was 8 weeks till my race and he knew ron could fix me in plenty of time.

those just dont look right!

about 5 minutes later i called ron and made an appointment for that next tuesday. i was still cleared to run by both guys as long as it didnt hurt. the 8 miler that weekend wasnt my best run ever, but i couldnt back down now. tuesday came quickly and it seemed like ron had all the answers. he listened to all my stories, did some general tests, had me run on the treadmill and knew immediately what was wrong. he didnt even need xrays to tell him what he already knew. basically it was everything but my knees haha! it all came down to my hips which oddly didnt surprise me. i had hip/knee issues as a kid too. when i was 6 months old i wore a brace to pull my knees apart because they were a bit bowed in and couldnt even go around my moms hip when she would hold me. luckily the brace worked and i never had to have surgery. but now its allll coming full circle lol.

we worked mostly on my form that day and i found out that my glutes had terrible strength. i needed to build them up quickly so i could stop using my hips so much to propel me forward but the rest of my body. we worked on shortening my stride and upping the tempo. i was totally out of breath and my entire lower body was sore, except my knee. ron told me this was his favorite thing to treat and i might even get faster. i didnt really believe that until my next 2 runs!

boom!!

ive been back once after the initial and dang do my muscles need work. i am at a 1 pound weight on each leg when the average is 7-8 pounds. ron says he can fix me in 9 sessions like i said and i might even be really mad at him when this is all done. he told me ive had knee pain for so long and people have always told me it wasnt fixable, he tells me it is and were gonna do it together.

gotta do my own work!

for the first time in a long time i feel really in control of my own body. i feel skinnier in my clothes and people around me are starting to seriously notice. the support i have received from friends, family, and richard has been amazing! my knees are feeling better and i improved my 9 mile route time by 10 minutes from year ago! i know these things are working together and i couldnt be happier with both results:)


ps if you live in the las vegas area and would like information for either one of them, please let me know! i would be more than happy to pass it along and let them hep you on your journey:) also if you have any questions, i would love to help in anyway i can!!

the grocery store.

i love the grocery store.  i am surrounded by food with endless possibilities.  most of the time i walk up and down the aisles singing with the incredibly entertaining store music swaying back and forth as i go.  i make a list as to not forget anything however more things always jump in the cart as i wonder, but im ok with that.  it is also one of the few errands i actually enjoy going by myself.  going with other people always makes for a good time, mostly because everyone shops different.  i know that sounds weird, but think about it.  i prefer to go up and down each aisle (skipping the dog, kid, toiletry aisles) to make sure i get everything i need, and some other things i probably dont.  i start in the produce/deli section and work my way to the other end.  some people go straight for the items they need and run out as quickly as they can.  others sit and read the label of every single thing they put in their cart.  

i have been grocery shopping with richard many times before.  i always got very excited about going, while he dreaded every minute of being in the store surrounded by so many people all of which were in his way.  we shop on two complete opposite ends of the spectrum.  for starters he grocery shops at walmart, i grocery shop at albertsons.  he runs through, skipping whole aisles then having to run back to them.  i take my time and go up and down each one.  when we decided to move in, i often wondered how the grocery shopping would work.  would we go to both stores?  would he do his own and mine on my own?  would we find a new one altogether?  or most importantly...which one of us was going to cave/compromise on this one? 

as it stands now...we are two store grocery shoppers:)  however we both go to the other persons.  the first week we embarked on this adventure we started at walmart, which i absolutely despise, i am a target girl all the way.  my plan was to actually buy quite a bit more there then i probably ever would again, i mean we were literally starting from scratch.  we needed everything from sandwich bags to salt and pepper shakers to lunch for the week.  we went during the middle of the day on a monday hoping for less crowds so we could take our time, which worked out pretty well.  however i think it still drove him crazy that i went up and down every aisle:)  my plan was to only buy the things i needed here and still go to albertsons when we were done.  richard was doing his full blown grocery shopping though.

coming from two different households you have two very different perceptions of what you need/and want in your kitchen.  for example, we bought two different kinds of butter, brummel and brown for me and stick butter for him.  two different gallons of milk, 1% for me and whole milk for him.  two different breads, white for me and wheat for him.  two different kinds of macaroni and cheese, the blue box-the only kind that really matters-for me and the disgusting velveeta kind for him.  two different kinds of snacks, cheeze-its/100 calorie packs for me and chips/popcorn/cookies for him.  

as we approached the registers you could see the big question on both our faces...how do we split all of this up?  one spice for you, one box of sandwich bags for me?  so i decided i will pay for the together stuff and he can pay for his stuff.  he had paid extra the nite before when we made the target/walmart run.  however he stepped up and said no, we are splitting the whole thing down the middle:)  once the cashier was finished ringing us up ($140 later),he asked how were paying, when we told him to split it, he looked at us a little funny.  we told him we had just moved in together and this was our first grocery trip, after a small chuckle which turned into a huge laugh, he looked at us and said, see how long this splitting everything lasts with a goofy grin. as  we smiled and told him this was a partnership, we plan to keep it this way, a friend of his came over and asked how long we had lived together.  when we told him 2 days, he gave us the same small chuckle to a huge laugh and also said, good luck.  we both looked at each other with a little surprise and realized there was nothing else we could do but join in the laughing. 

once we got home and put away all of our new groceries, i decided i was really hungry.  we had already decided on making pizza for dinner, but i hadnt eaten lunch yet and was starving.  so i began opening cabinets and the freezer and the refrigerator to find a startling fact.  we had just spent $14o on groceries and had nothing to eat!  it was all "starter food" we decided to call that week.

later that evening i went to albertsons, which is literally across the street, and did my own grocery shopping.  as soon as i walked in a gave a huge sigh of relief.  the lighting was so much nicer, there was not nearly as many people, the music was on, and the best fact, i was not in walmart.  yes, i had just spent quite a bit at the first store, but i had nothing for me.  as i wondered through the aisles, i began to realize how much i really needed at the store.

when i finished shopping that evening i went home to an empty apartment.  this was the first time we had spent apart since we had finished moving two days before.  i know its silly, but i kind of missed him.  i put away the groceries and flopped down on the couch with a grin on my face.  "i live here," i thought to myself, "with my boyfriend."  and i settled in for a night of monday night tv, anxiously waiting for richard to come home from work, having that grin on my face the whole time.