The Voices in My Head

4:30AM. The alarm clock wakes me up. Today, I get out of bed quickly and head for the bathroom, thinking, "That was a decent night's sleep. No one woke me up in the middle of the night." I calculate and realize that I slept for 6 1/2 hours. That's when the voice in my head, the one I've decided to name Fat Girl, pipes in.

FG: Six and a half hours!? You think that's good? You'll need more than that if you are going to get your to-do list done today, let alone get through the day without yelling at your kids!

Luckily, Skinny Girl was awake this morning, too, so the battle in my head commenced.

SG: Sure, it would feel good to sleep some more, but you have to be up by 6:00 anyway to get the kids up and off to school. You haven't been to spin class in two weeks. You need this.

FG: You can go on Wednesday. Your spin buddy is out of town, after all. And they may run out of bikes before you get there. You don't have one reserved, remember?

SG: Oh, brother. How many times are you going to buy that excuse?

FG: And what about your hair? If you go back to bed, you won't have to wash it today.

SG: What about your jeans? You want them to keep getting tighter? Maybe move up a size?

At this point, I am leaning towards Skinny Girl and begin getting dressed. Fat Girl gives up-- for a while. I am 20 minutes into spin class when she shows up again.

FG: I'm tired. Can't you switch to a lower gear? Maybe just stay for half the class and then go do some weight lifting? Or head home and get a head start on the day?

SG: Ugh. Would you please leave me alone?! If I made the effort to come, I might as well get a decent workout in.

This morning, Skinny Girl was louder than Fat Girl, but it doesn't always work that way. And they don't just put in their two cents about workouts. Oh, no, they have lots to say when I am grocery shopping, when I am home alone with chocolate in the house, or when I'm running errands a little too near the cupcake place.

That's why I've decided to give them such decisive names. I know that I should be aiming toward Healthy Girl instead of Skinny Girl and I don't have anything against fat people. I just thought I'd take a page from the spin doctors who come up with powerfully suggestive names in order to sway how we think of things. I thought of a few examples, but I try to keep this blog from being overly political, so I'll just leave it up to your imagination:) Anyway, I figured that calling that negative voice in my head "Fat Girl" might make it easier for me to find the strength to shut her up more often than if I called her "Relax and Enjoy Yourself Girl".

How do you stop the voices in your head? I'd love to use some of your strategies, so please share.

Commitments

Dear blog, I have missed you. I have missed writing blog posts, reading others' blog posts, and reading comments. I have missed having a forum like this to share my thoughts, struggles, victories, failures, fears, ideals, and ridiculous mothering moments. I have missed feeling connected to people all over the world who are trying to be the best mothers they can be and who are willing to admit that it's not always perfect.

I'm not sure how I'm going to get back into blogging without giving up something vitally important to me like eating, sleeping, or showering, but I really want to make time for this in my life. I'm not ready to make a commitment here, but you should know that I am determined to find a way. I don't know if I have any out there reading anymore, but I need this regardless.

However, I am here today to make a commitment to you, whoever you are. It is not about blogging, but about something else that is important to me. Something that needs to change. It is about my struggle with getting regular workouts into my life. There are several reasons that this has not been happening-- five of them live at my house and expect to be fed and clothed and educated and overseen during all of their waking hours. But there is more to it than that-- I have really been working to focus my energies (and time) on the things that are most important to me, and sadly, I have let exercise slide waaaaaaaay down that list. On a daily basis, it doesn't seem as important as at least half a dozen other things that I am trying to do with regularity, but I know it is going to be impossible for me to be healthy and live at a healthy weight if I don't make it fit.

I've resolved so many times to change. I set goals to exercise 3x a week, or 4 x a week or every single day. I set goals to lose 1 lb a week or 5 lbs a month or 50 lbs in a year. But life catches up with me and I have a bad week or two and then those goals are cast aside and it takes me weeks or months to recommit.

This year I am doing it differently. This year, I set a goal to run 500 miles. And to RUN a 5k. This is a huge deal for me, as I'm not a runner. But I want to be a person who runs. I know that running on a regular basis will help with weight loss, which I really need. I may not ever love running, but I know that if I work on it, I can build up my endurance. At the moment, it looks something like this for 2 miles: jog jog jog walk jog jog walk jog jog walk walk jog walk walk walk jog jog walk walk jo- walk walk walk walk jog.

When I went out today during Jared's lunch break, I saw a little montage in my head as if they were making a movie of my journey. Today I am an overweight jogger, bouncing and jiggling all over the place and gasping for air after a quarter mile, wanting so desperately to walk instead. But in my mind, I could see the weight dropping off, the jiggles firming up, my form improving and the distance I run getting better. This little image helped me keep going, although it was occasionally interrupted by the other movie-in-my-head where someone finds me collapsed on the side of the road unconscious and wonders why I went out to run without any ID or a cell phone. Yes, I am a bit dramatic-- why do you ask?

Here's my plan: I will run an average of 10 miles per week. During January and February, it will count if I run for half the distance and walk briskly the other half. After that, only miles run will count towards my total. I expect that at first, this will mean five 2-mile runs a week, but will eventually be three 3 1/3 mile runs or two 5 mile runs (could I do that?) in a week, which will allow me to do other workouts sometimes as well.

This plan means that although bad weeks will come, weeks where the entire household is ravaged by flu or weeks when I have too much to do, if I let them stop me from exercising, I'll be piling on miles to make up later. And instead of setting a "resolution", which has such connotations for "wish" that might never be met, I am committing to you that I will do it. I'm going to put a ticker on my blog so you can see my progress. Sadly, it's not much to brag about so far, but it's going to get better.

So please check my ticker once in a while. If you see me, ask me how many miles I've run. And if you pass me huffing and puffing on the road, just look the other way and let me keep my dignity:) My running in 2011 should look a whole lot different.