Day 21- March 14 - Not Letting Our Old Fears Invade a New Day

Here's something few people know about me: I have jogging anxiety. Weird, right? Especially when you know that I have a brother who's run TWO marathons. I have always admired joggers and wished I were one. They look so healthy and CAPABLE to me. I have this perception that if someone can run a mile or more, they've got to be really together in other areas of their life. This may be entirely untrue but, man, that's what they LOOK like. I know what you're thinking..."So get up and jog already." For me, it's not that simple but I know where it started. In the early 80s we were stationed at RAF Upper Heyford in England. I went to the middle school there and there were two gym teachers, one whose specialty was running and the other who specialized in sports. At the beginning of each semester, they would ask for volunteers to go with the jogging teacher. Only about 15% of us would pick jogging because, seriously, it's a rare person who's going to choose jogging over fun team activities. This left the rest of us to put our names into a LOTTERY. Can you imagine? We'd have to put our names into a hat and the names that were chosen would either be put with the jogger or the coach. For someone who was overweight, even then, AND was the first to the last girl to come in after a run, it was UNbelievably stressful to know I could face a whole semester of running every week. There was NO joy in being terrible at something and doing it in front of people you really wanted to be accepted by. That lottery would almost set the tone as to what that semester would look like for me. It was HORRIBLE. To this day, the thought of jogging in public gives me the screaming queasies. I'm doing my best to get over it but it's not something I can't undo overnight. I can, however, take a baby step toward healing. The stepladder sequence on the treadmill is helping me do that.

The stepladder sequencing (see Day 5) requires a VERY light (for now) jog at different points of the 30 minutes I do on the treadmill. I don't do this everyday but it's great when I don't have a class or I'm short on time. I've really had to make deliberate decisions about getting on a treadmill and not letting my old fears invade these new days. I'm surrounded by fit little mamas who are jogging the ENTIRE time but I can't focus on that. My time at the gym HAS to be my own. I can't be distracted by women with cuter outfits or better bodies. I just want to get better for ME by my own merit and sweat. Shoot, I want to do it for that pre-teen I was who felt she was never good enough to get healthy. I know she's cheering me on.

Meaningful Movement: 45 minutes of Leslie Sanson DVD with belt and walk/jog.

Foods that fit in a baby bowl, Day 21:
-Breakfast Hot Pocket
-Honey Nut Cheerios with cut banana
-Fruity Cheerios
-4 mini cranberry orange muffins
-4 mini cranberry orange muffins
-1/2 oven baked breaded skinless chicken breast with homemade mashed potatoes
-4 peanut m&m's