But 5.3 at a decent pace of 9.56 minutes per mile. I was surprised at my pace because it’s been a while since I’ve run because I’ve been obsessively working in the garden. I guess yard work is good for maintaining endurance. You know what else it’s good for? Weight loss.

I’ve been trying so hard to get under 130 pounds for years. Years, I say. No luck. In December I even topped over 140. Honestly, kind of way over 140. Shut it. I’ve run upteen marathons, have been lifting weights and watching what I eat. Yet nothing. Nothing has worked. Not a thing. I’m a freak.  But give me a shovel and a sledge hammer and set me loose in the garden for 12 hours a day and I end up at 128. Who knew it would take 3 weeks of digging and rock breaking? I’m exhausted but I’m so stoked that I’m volunteering myself for slave landscaping labor so I don’t gain it back. Because the second I even think about training for a marathon I’ll gain ten pounds. I’m sick like that.

Oh well, the running workouts have resumed. I have a trail run scheduled for Thursday afternoon and an 11-12 mile run scheduled for Saturday morning. Go me, I’m just determined to gain that weight back. But maybe I’ll just start on the vineyard AND run at the same time. Just maybe that would work. And some leg torture. I kind of miss the videos.

I am so tired right now, I have no desire to even get out of my office chair to brush my teeth and go to bed.

This time I’ve made the photos a little bigger and added a description if needed. I also tried to put them in order. Please note, I did not always eat everything on my plate – nor did I have tortillas or chips with my fajitas. (I had to make that little disclaimer.) I think I ate too many berries with yogurt or low fat cottage cheese – It saved me, though, when I needed something sweet. I also did not lose or gain any weight. Which sucks, royally. But I am not deterred, next week I’m following the spartan diet with smaller portion sizes. How do you think I did?

I went out for my 20-mile run yesterday and only ran 8. This whole week I’ve had pain in my left foot – in the EXACT spot where I had a stress fracture before, and I’m a little freaked out about it. My philosophy has been that if I don’t post about it and ignore the situation completely, then my foot will magically get better. When I went to the doctor before and was diagnosed with a stress fracture, his response was “stay off it for six weeks”. I’m not at a point right now where I want to do that because I AM running a marathon in three weeks. So I guess I’ll keep pretending that I’ll magically get better. Is it better to run a marathon under-trained or with an injured foot? Woe is me.

But on to other things, this is the week I eat like a Spartan and become strong, thin and kind to all things big and small. So, just what do Spartans eat? Whole grains, veggies, a little fruit, low-fat dairy, lean protein and lots of coffee. I know for a fact that Spartans consume huge amounts of coffee, I don’t make these things up but we’ve all got to play by the rules.

I’ve started off my Spartan week with some yogurt, a handful of granola and a few almonds – plus a huge cup of coffee. Who am I to upset the Gods? If you’d like to join me in Spartan week, just take a picture of every meal and snack, or write it down, and post it next Monday, that way we can all be a loving and caring Spartan family together.

Oh, and FYI – this week of Januaryathon looked like this: Runner Susan = 21 miles and LOSER Amy = NOT 21 miles.

Hello. My name is Susan, and I’m a carboholic. It’s been 2 hours, 3 minutes and 49 seconds since my last bowl of pasta.

Yeah, I got some changes to make. I’m working on a new and improved diet nutrition plan, doing some grocery shopping and next week I’m going to take pictures of my food again.

Of course, the biggest change is going to be not having pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The next big change will be not eating out 4 or 5 times a week. Michael and I don’t travel a lot or take elaborate vacations; our entertainment is dining out and drinking wine.

And speaking of adult beverages, I drink about 4 or 5 glasses of red wine a week. That’s an easy fix; I’ll have 1 or 2 on date night only. And diet coke? Done. Gone. But the coffee? No way! No one is touching my coffee. I’d promise seriously naughty things to the person who kidnapped my coffee.

I also need to learn how to cook protein things other than chicken breast. I get so tired of chicken. Chickens are gross. Any animal that can live with its head cut off doesn’t deserve my constant digestion. Give me a slab of bacon over a chicken breast any day. How does sushi rank on healthy food scale? We are leaving for some delicious raw fish very soon, and I’d like to know that some tasty food could remain in my diet.

I saw this on Dooce today and it pretty much sums up how I feel about food. You could randomly substitute ranch dressing, chocolate syrup or cheese in place of bacon – it’s all the same thing!

On New Year’s Eve I was lying on the couch watching BBC’s You are What You Eat, because that’s what losers do on New Year’s Eve, and I decided to take a picture of everything I ate for one week. Here’s my food from January 1 – 6. It’s everything I put in my mouth with the exception of the water I drank. Also, it’s in no particular order. Fire away, tell me what you think. (that last blurry thing is halibut over pasta)

Yes, I spoke too soon. How can I amaze myself when I can’t even get my self out the door to run in this weather? It is warming up to 50 today, so it should be perfect right after lunch. That’s my plan.

My other plan seems to be eating everything I can get my hands on. I haven’t stopped being hungry since the marathon. I must get his under control because I need to lose ten pounds before February 17th. I can’t believe I ran a marathon looking like I swallowed a buffalo.

The whole nutrition thing is so tricky. I need a plan that will work with the whole family. My sister is following the RAVE diet, RAVE stands for: no refined foods, no animal foods, no vegetable oils, no exceptions & exercise.

This plan sounds good, but I don’t know if it’s a plan the entire family follow. Especially the no oil part, we love our olive oil in this house. And Michael is a big meat eater, and loves any opportunity to slap some raw meat on an open flame.

Emotionally, I’m really drawn to the idea of not eating animals. Preparing a whole turkey this year was tough. And I could live without the guts stuffed in a bag and then re-stuffed back into the turkey. Seriously, who eats guts? I like my meat cut up into little pieces and placed under plastic wrap so it has no resemblance of an animal. And the books I’ve read on how animals are treated and slaughtered is very sad. So I choose not to think about it while I consume my steak.

Intellectually, the books I’ve read such as the Paleo Diet, which suggests a diet similar to that of our Stone Age ancestors which is high in lean protein with plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables makes so much sense to me. Our bodies are primarily made up of protein and water, we need those to survive. I’m also a big evolutionist. But to get a healthy animal you’d pretty much have to raise it in the backyard and slaughter it yourself.

I don’t know. What’s a girl to do? There are so many options. Of course portion control is a part of it losing weight, but I want a plan that is healthy as well. Perhaps all this writing is just a way to avoid running again. Anyone know of a get rid of your back fat diet?

It’s a shame our bodies are not made of chocolate cake. Life would be so easy then.

Yes, I know, I have NaPoBloMo failed you . . . blame it on the travel, cooking, gorging, pooping and my current stationary status, the last of which is also due to the first three mentioned items.

I cooked real food this holiday, with my real oven, all the way from scratch, it took all day, and people ate it and nobody got sick. I consider that a success. Those two cooking lessons are paying off. Maybe I should take a few more. A few more that do not teach me to make things like this wonderfully tasty brownie cake. With two sticks of butter. And a cup of heavy whipping cream. But I used splenda instead of sugar. I don’t know why I can’t lose weight.

Although, as a side note, free-range turkeys are not as tasty the ones pumped full of chemicals. Next year, chemical pumping will be a requirement when turkey purchasing.

Anyhow, back to that stationary status thing. It is ending tomorrow when I will run 15 miles in the dark. Cold. And freezing rain. I am so dedicated I amaze myself. I have a half marathon coming up on December 9th and I must be ready, I don’t want to waste the NY marathon mojo I’ve been touting about.

This running everyday thing is making me fat. I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either.  But the more I run, the more I eat. Which is just plain wrong because running is supposed to make you skinny. Any suggestions on how I can stop stuffing my mouth with a fork every 2 minutes?

Yesterday I was supposed to run 17 miles. That didn’t happen. After getting back from LA at 12:30 in the morning, I just couldn’t do it. So I ran five-miles instead. Today I knew 17-miles was a little bit of a stretch for me at this point in my lame training attempts, so I opted to run for time instead. My goal was 2 1/2 hours, which I accomplished, and I covered a bit over 12 miles. I felt really good for the first 2 hours, then my calves started to cramp and I added a lot of wogging in to the mix, that brought my pace down to 12:06 minute miles.

Yes, we all know it’s true; I have a lot of catching up to do training for the NY marathon. So just what am I going to do to get back into marathon condition? Well, Septemberathon of course. My goal is to run everyday in the month of September. They could be long runs, short runs, mini runs, speed runs and just plain any type of runs, as long as the workouts are at least 30 minutes in length and I continue with my Sunday long runs. Hopefully this will be easier than the MasterCleanseathon I attempted a few months back. Yeah, I do stupid things sometimes. But the Septemberathon idea makes up for that, so just go ahead me genius now. Actually, you can call Ali, of Just One More Mile, a genius. Ali just completed Julyathon and Augustathon and is on running day 63 to what could be Septemberathon! The girl has inspired me, nothing stops her and I am in total awe of this accomplishment.

Wow. I think those could be the longest paragraphs I have ever written. It must be my newfound geniusnesses. Or my modesty, I can’t decide.

There is a feeling that people rarely talk about. The one when you know you’ve stumbled onto something magical and life-changing. It’s an elusive feeling, one frequently spoken about only to close friends and in hushed voices. My sister told me about the feeling, but I didn’t believe her.

No, I’m not talking about multiple orgasms (hmmm, post for another day), but the deep satisfaction that can only be described as cleaning nirvana.

I’ve spent the last 9 months battling mental illness from an onslaught of what my sister refers to as “dog hair tumbleweeds”. I’ve spent hours and days trying to figure ways to outsmart the tumbleweeds, but my efforts were in vain. The tumbleweeds actually multiply at the speed of light. As much as I love Donkey, he is a hair nightmare. Who knew that a Swiffer Sweeper Vac was the cure? I took my sweeper vac all over the hardwood, the tile, under the sofa, behind the toilet and every other hard-to-reach place.

I was in heaven. You may even say I climaxed when I took the cordless sweeper vac directly into Donkey’s kennel and it cleaned up every single bit of dirt, hair, dust and half-eaten piece of dog food.

That, I tell you, is the love I’ve been looking for my entire life.

Good: I’m finally feeling somewhat like my old self.

Better: When you don’t feel well you don’t eat as much and you lose weight.

Best: Off the drugs. Nasty, sick-making drugs.

Bad: I’m so behind on work that I have to play catch up before I can start my blogging again. I’ll try and do that over the weekend.

Watch this space and thanks for all the well wishes!

I arrived at my 9:30 WW meeting ready and excited to weigh in, because according to my scale I was down 1.6 pounds. I start taking off my jacket and shoes only to find out that there was no scale at the meeting. I was pretty ticked off. There was almost a whole lot of smackage. Now I have to find another place to weigh in **soon** because I’m certain that mysterious 1.6 pounds wants to finds me.

No running with Deana this morning because it was raining and 36F/2C outside. But, I did power lift with Cindy – squats, leg press, calves, curls, hanging abs and some reverse deadlifting machine thing. Booty agility camp stuff is in the plans for tomorrow if we aren’t iced in.

I am still bacon and punctuation deprived, just in case you were wondering.

This was my third full week at Weight Watchers and with the help of my genius tech savvy sister, I figured out why I wasn’t losing. I wasn’t entering my activity points correctly. I was only giving myself 1 point per day when I was actually earning 4-9 points per day. That meant I wasn’t eating enough food. WHICH IS ALWAYS GOOD TO HEAR, because I was freaking starving. So this week I ate my points. ALL OF THEM – and I lost a whole whopping half a pound. I was hoping for more, but oh well. And since I did lose a whole whopping half a pound, there was no smackage. But if I don’t get some bacon pretty soon, there might be smackage next week.

I fully realize that if you don’t attend WW you won’t get this. So pretend, just for me.

The next 600-pound person who walks into Weight Watchers and says “I love this diet, I lost 7 pounds this week” – I’m going to hurt – Seriously.

I’ve been diligent, I’ve been measuring nearly every bite of food that enters my mouth, but damn it, I’m going on my 3rd week and I’ve gained 1.2 pounds. Why am I a freak? Why?

I’m not giving up, I’m adjusting my points and food balance a little and we’ll see what happens next week. And if I don’t lose, there will be smackage. Lots of smackage.

I’m really depressed about my failure to do the cleanse, and about the constant issues I have with food. I mean, it’s food! It should be there to be eaten and enjoyed…but it’s never that simple.

Before I go on, a warning. This could be long and boring, but it was cathartic for me to write, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who struggles with eating issues.

I was going to do another video blog today, but I’m just not in the mood. I’m also not sure the internet needs another video of me looking green and gaggy. I finished off Day 2 of my cleanse by not doing the cleanse. I had a combination of the remaining lemonade stuff and raw vegetables. I also had an egg for breakfast. Oh, and coffee. Because if I’m going to go off the cleanse, why not go all the way and add toxins to my body?

However, the coffee did its job, and I was able to make it through the day. Eventually, I am going to have to be weaned from the nipple of Mother Caffeine, but today is not that day. The coffee cleared my brain and I spent the day pondering all the diets I’ve tried over the years. And these are just the ones I can remember:

• Acupuncture
• Atkins
• Barley Grass supplements
• CortiSlim
• Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type
• Ear-banding
• Various ephederas
• Hoodia
• Metabolife
• Somersizing
• South Beach – 2 times
• Weight Watchers – 3 times

I’m sure if I try harder I could list more. That’s pretty pathetic considering I’ve tried all of these within the last nine or so years. It wasn’t until I got pregnant that I had to worry about my weight. When I gave birth to my daughter I weighed 225 pounds. The weight gain was tough on my body because I only weighed 112 when I became pregnant. In nine months I had doubled my weight, and stretched my abdominal area beyond recognition.

Three months later I was down to 160, in six months I was down to 130 and in a year I was down to 104 pounds. I maintained that weight for several years, but I credit this to a series of hardships including moving across the country, a totaled car, many sleepless nights with a newborn baby, the loss of my grandmother and while I’m not proud of it, I lost the most weight during the time I was on the “divorce diet”, where I got down to 97 pounds, which is what I weighed most of my high school and early college days. Looking back now, that was probably too thin. But it was the last time I can remember not being obsessed about my weight.

I gradually worked my way up to 117 pounds and I stayed at that weight for another few years. I complained and I whined and I felt sorry for myself because I was so overweight at 117 pounds. And as much as I complained, I never did anything to change it. I continued to eat fast food for lunch everyday and did very little exercising. I was a lazy on/off exerciser.

A few years later when I married Michael I weighed 124 pounds. I remember being embarrassed to have our wedding pictures made. I couldn’t believe I let myself get heavy. That didn’t stop me, I continued to gain weight and when I got up to 136 pounds. I knew I had to do something so I continued with this myriad of different diets.

Michael’s obsessive need for fitness and cycling inspired me and I decided to take up running again. I figured that if I could run a marathon the weight would just fall off. I ran White Rock that year, but sadly, I did not lose any weight. I was, however, a lot trimmer and even better, I got hooked on running. I immediately started training for my second marathon, Austin Freestyle, and late into the training I got bronchitis and got down to 127 pounds. My weight fluctuated, but I was able to maintain around this weight for a while, although I still was satisfied with my weight.

I believe I started this blog when I was training for my third marathon, Chicago. I was around 130 pounds and I remember on the day I ran, I weighed around 136 pounds. The next year I ran the San Diego marathon and I weighed around 130 pounds.

I’ve had a lot of life changes in 2006 – I left my job, started a business, and had personal and family concerns. But my weight has always been the center of my thoughts. And I hate this. I hate that, post-holidays, I’m now over 140 pounds. I hate that I actually researched gastric bypass surgery. I hate that I obsessively complain to coworkers, family, and friends about my food issues. I’ve spent the last ten years letting this obsession interfere with practically every aspect of my life.

I’d love to be able to say that I have made a decision, one way or another. But I haven’t. Just as my issues with food aren’t simple, neither is learning how to resolve them. Michael continues to inspire me. I will keep on running. I have a lot of thinking to do before I make the next move.

And for those of you who made it this far, there is a reward: Hot raunchy lesbian monkey sex on a bike. There…that should please the Google-searchers. Because you can’t google a video!

It’s late at night, so the lighting is bad. Which is good, because I look like crap. I started day one yesterday, not today, sorry for the confusion.

I was right. My friend Kate confirmed that I don’t sound like myself in video, her exact words were “Not just elf. Elf on crack.” And my sister’s sentiment: “BTW, the video blogs freak me out.” Yes, it’s nice to be loved.

Keep in mind as I document this cleansing thing:

1. I’m using Kenza’s toy video camera – it has no lighting, zooming, tripod or focusing features. It’s a toy and it is what it is. Just know in real life my eyebrows are perfectly trimmed and I have a deep, sexy voice.
2. I have no video editing software, so if I say “ummm” a hundred times or pick my nose, so be it. I’ll try not to wipe on the camera. Sadly, I see no real video camera in my near future.
3. All of my clothing is rated G and I never wear t-shirts with profanity written on them.

I keep asking myself why I am doing this . . . because the thought of not having solid food in my mouth for ten days is quite painful. Have I mentioned in the past how much I love food? And chewing. But it’s gotten to the point where my skin feels like it is stretched to the max and is going to explode. Not a pretty picture. Anyhow, all I have left to do is get the laxative tea and purified water. Tune in tomorrow for the gory details.

I call New Year’s Eve “amateur party night.” People go out and have no clue what their alcohol tolerance is, drink way too much and die. And since I drink everyday, I’m a qualified a professional. And since I no longer need practice, I’ll be at home and passed out asleep by 10PM.

Be safe out there. Happy New Year.

______

UPDATE – the cleanse will begin January 2nd.

I am completely overwhelmed with the comments from my last post. And not only by those of you who left comments on my blog, several of you de-lurked and emailed me armchair psychiatry. All of your kind advice and suggestions are very much appreciated. Never in a zillion years did I think I could find such kindness from strangers in this open public space. It’s odd, but I really don’t even consider you strangers. Hell, I even dream about many of you. Is that wrong? Well, sometimes it is.

I wasn’t prepared for emails like this, and I’m not quite sure how to handle the kindness, but to say the least, it is quite humbling. From my friend Sherry:

I don’t have anything to say, other than this. . . I do so admire you. And as I feel my adoration for you, I feel better about me, after all you’re my friend. I admire you because you’re courageous. You’re unwilling to keep the status quo in your life even though it’s painful. You keep asking the hard questions of yourself. Your desire to grow is greater than the pull to stay small and insignificant. So, until you’re ready to carry the immense admiration that so many obviously feel for you for yourself, you can rely on me and all of your other fans to bear the burden of your incredibleness.

I have fans? Would that have anything to do with my dildo-cam lingo? Anyhow, go me.

I have so much to sort out right now, personally and professionally, but I wanted to say thank you. I know for a fact that without all of your support, I would not be training for my 5th marathon.

*Anyone bought this book? No One Cares What You Had for Lunch, by Margaret Mason. Any good?