I wanted to call this post “FUCKING YOGA!!!!!1!!!1!!!” but I figured that was unbecoming of me.

Every time I have done yoga in the last year (which is twice), I’ve hurt myself. The first time it was just major soreness and really tight hamstrings, so it was painful, but not what I’d call an injury. I had a personal training session last week and it fell on a day where it precluded me from strength training in my normal classes, so I had to improvise. I had a “fun workout” day in the training plan for the week, so why not yoga! I’ll tell you why not. BECAUSE YOGA HATES ME. Some freaking dead pigeon pose and I’m unable to walk.

I was in so much pain the next day that I can hardly even explain it to you. My right hamstring was screaming. Normally, tight hamstrings are helped with running, and I had 3 on the schedule, so I walked one to work it out and ran two at a good clip. Major mistake. Maaaaaajor mistake. Even with the steam room and some gentle stretching (aside: it was my first time in the steam room and I had major claustrophobic feelings and until I figured out you have to breathe through your mouth, I thought I was going to suffocate! Fun!), even with a full mile walking as a warm up, I was injured. In bold. And italics. It hurt worse than it had before, and was a lump of sad muscle. It hurt not just to get on and off the potty, the pressure of the seat on my leg hurt! WTF?!

So, I skipped my long run on Saturday.

I’m going to pause here because I probably need to revise that sentence.

I skipped my long run on Saturday and was terrified that my ability to run 6 miles would suddenly evaporate because I missed the long run on the plan and I am only holding onto the magical ability to run by a tentative thread (also, sanity!).

As a person who could never run, this thing I can do now is like the holy grail, a unicorn, dragon, and IDK, the cask of Amontillado all combined into one unattainable, mythical thing. It’s that moment where you’re balancing eleven plates and they’re all spinning and if you whisper wrong or have the cojones to say out loud “I am spinning eleven plates!” they will all fall down and break into a zillion pieces at your feet. Best thing to do is just keep going and pretend you don’t notice so as not to scare away the luck.

So they crash, right? And I’m in abject terror that it will take a long time to heal and I will be set back forever and what if I can’t ever run again and I have to start over from the beginning, and what if this is it and OH MY GOD HOLD ME SOMEONE.

I had to remind myself that I am not the person I used to be. A setback is just a setback and not a lifestyle change. 6 miles is not my longest run, and I will be able to run it again, even missing this one. I reminded myself that I am training for a 5K. A PR in a 5K, but still. 3.1 miles. I could probably run once a week until Thanksgiving and PR on a 5K what with my current best time. I have similar feelings about the weight – like I’m going to eat too much one night and wake up 250lbs again. I have to constantly remind myself that I could eat a dozen doughnuts today and chase it with a pizza and I would still not wake up 180. (I’d have puked waaaaaay before 180 what with  my current stomach and sugar capacity, but let’s just say even if I aimed for competitive eater and got it all in…) This all happened so fast and is so new that I spend so much mental energy trying not to let those spinning plates know that I notice them. Nope. Just standing here. Doing nothing. La la la.

So a lot of ibuprofen and ice and epsom baths and texts to Erin later, I’m out the other side. And I missed ONE RUN. (Please, feel free to roll your eyes at me here.) I halved Monday’s distance, but I ran. My hamstring is really tight, but I’m not in screaming pain.

I ran the slowest, hardest mile I’ve run in a long time today for my Cardio-point test (where they put the mask on your face and you run and the computer finds your anaerobic threshold and heart rate zones and where you’re burning fat vs. carbs), and I got some fabulous feedback that I’m pretty darn metabolically efficient. There were a few “I’ve never seen results this good” and “You killed it!” type phrases thrown around, and I have to be proud of that mile that took 15 minutes, but ended at a 5mph with a 10% incline and told me that I had the aerobic base of like, Jane Fonda in 1980. (I jest. A little. Maybe.)

If nothing else, I have another tool in my toolbox for when I pull something or hurt something and have to take an extra couple rest days – or heaven forbid a rest week – and I can pull out my printout that says (I paraphrase) Your cardio fitness is so fucking good I can hardly stand it! And maybe it’ll make me feel better about missing a long run. Probably not, but at least it can try.

(Me, now. And she’s not leaving.)

I like assignments. Since I’m not someone who ever ran things before, having mother runners to tell me all the secrets of running that it would have taken me years of wedgies in race photos and chafing and bathroom break embarrassment to figure out on my own was awesome enough. When the same mother runners told me how to get from my slow, plodding 5K to across a 10K finish line, they had my undying loyalty. Now I’m working on my second plan from Train Like A Mother, the 5K “Own It” plan that propels me to a PR.

Somewhere during that 10K plan, I became a different runner. If you peek at my Daily Mile entries early on, there was a lot of complaining and tiredness and runs marked with little sad faces. It only took me one horrendous 6 mile “run” where there was a ton of walking and just dead stopping and even some tweeting at mile 1.5 that I could not possibly continue and why on earth did I do this running thing anyway? A banana before a 2-3 miler is fine, but I need a little more in the tank for anything longer, and once I started fueling like someone who meant to run instead of walk and bitch, I started really running.

All of a sudden somewhere around week 7 or 8 of the 10 week plan, I was just faster. By a lot. I listened to the Motoactv lady say, “You’re almost finished, just .93 miles to go” and I would think, “Ooooh, less than a mile! Better speed up!” where in all my previous plans from Couch to 5k to Bridge to 10K to “Run Randomly On Your Own” I would have heard almost a mile and said, “OH MAN A WHOLE MILE, REALLY??? NOOOOO.”

I’m a few weeks into the 5K plan now, and I can almost guarantee that I’ll PR the culmination race on Thanksgiving like a boss. Now that 5K isn’t my long run, I look at 3 miles like something I can choose to fire up and run fast because my body has been conditioned to the point where I can either run a lot longer than that at a moderate pace or put it all into those 3. I have running versatility and the knowledge of my own strength and power to choose how I use it.

I am so proud of that woman I was who got on the treadmill and banged out the 55 minute 5K. She just kept running even though those initial 60-second intervals were harder than giving birth if we’re being totally honest. But she did it, and now she can do so much more. I wish I could go back and thank her.

Dark leafy greens are supposed to be some kind of holy grail of awesome, what with their overload of vitamins and minerals in exchange for barely any calories. It’s actually really easy to incorporate them into your every day diet, and I find that weeks where I’m eating more baby spinach, I’m losing significantly better.

I get the big giant clamshell package of organic baby spinach from Costco, but you can get large and small quantities at your local regular grocery store, you’ll just pay $1 or so more. This is one thing where you absolutely want to buy organic, even if you normally buy only conventional. Luckily, at least at grocery stores here, I only ever see organic, so you won’t have a choice!

Any time I would normally have used lettuce, I use this baby spinach instead – so salads, tacos, sandwiches, everything. It goes in omelets, it finds its way into soups, I throw it into anything that isn’t sweet. Or, actually, no. I throw it into sweet stuff, too.

Case in point: The Green Smoothie.

These make awesome breakfasts, and the best part is that you can basically throw in pretty much anything and it’ll work (whatever ripe fruit is on your counter, carrots, flax, protein powder, chia seeds…). This is my go-to smoothie, but feel free to change it up. If you have a favorite combo for your smoothies, post them in the comments!

Keely’s Green Smoothie of Joy

A couple very big handfuls of baby spinach
1 cup greek yogurt
1 (generous) cup frozen berries
1 frozen banana (great for bananas about to go past edibility – freeze them peeled, though. Trust me.)
2 packets of stevia

1. First I blend the spinach into oblivion with the yogurt. Whatever you use as your “liquid” ingredient (yogurt, milk, water, whatever), should go in with the spinach first. Doing it this way will allow the spinach to be liquified and blend completely rather than if you throw everything in together and ending up with little bits of spinach floating around your berries. Unless you have one of those uber-blenders like a Blendtec or Vitamix, don’t skip this step. If you have one of those blenders, you’re probably not reading this anyway because you’re already a smoothie expert.

2. Gather your other ingredients, pop them in, and blend the living bejeebers out of them. (As you can see in the picture, the blender contains a spring-green liquid – no spinach chunks!)

3. Pour into glass. (There’s enough to fill this 12oz glass plus some left over for any errant children running underfoot to share some.)

4. Drink. And then RINSE YOUR GLASS and your blender! I emphasize this because if you are the kind of person who would just pop them into the dishwasher to be run on the next cycle, you will be very sad. They will not come clean. The smoothie mixture is akin to cement mixed with superglue mixed with detergent kryptonite mixed with tar. If allowed to dry, you basically lost that glass forever. RINSE.

Let me know if you try your first green smoothie! And if you’ve got a favorite blend, post it! I want to try it!

My friend Elizabeth asked in the comments of my last food post: “Here’s my question: how do you defeat the “OMG my jeans don’t fit, I’ve gained so much weight, I’m so depressed – OH $#&% IT I’m going to eat ten cupcakes because who #$%&ing cares at this point anyway!” line of thinking? Gets me every time!”

I don’t know if I’m really the best person to answer this because I passed that jeans don’t fit exit and drove until my car ran out of gas and then I walked even further. I watched the signs, the ill-fitting clothes, the having to buy new clothes, the having to buy new new clothes, the wearing maternity clothes because that’s the only thing that fit, I can’t have ten cupcakes for dessert without a balanced meal of an entire pizza with breadsticks first. There were so many places I could have turned back, but I didn’t.

So if you’re already asking the question when you’re just in your own “fat pants,” you’re way ahead of the game.

I wish I had some magical wisdom to impart, some mantra you could make into a gif and pin to your Pinterest board (though if we’re being honest, “Thinspiration” Pinterest boards have the potential to be more damaging than anything Cosmopolitan has ever put out.). In any case, I don’t. I have nothing but the sad truth of the matter. In the beginning, you just have to make yourself do it.

What a rip, right? Make yourself do it? That’s it?

Well, yeah. That’s it. I could tell you that nothing tastes as good as thin feels, but if I ever say that out loud I hereby give anyone reading this permission to slap me upside the head. And really, what the fuck does that even mean? Frankly, there are a lot of things that taste just as good as thin feels, and if you’ve not had them then I feel really bad for you.

If you really want to lose weight – be it 15lbs or 100lbs, the starting is the hardest. The starting is where you have nothing but the work you’re doing and the stuff you’re not eating to keep you sad company. Oh, and you have the weight. You have the pounds you’re trying to ditch, but they’re stubborn and they’re fighting to stay around, because you’re pretty cool and they want to be with you so badly that they’re writing BFF in their notebooks with hearts around your name. And they’re bringing the refreshments.

So if you can manage to shake them and read those early signposts like your jeans being too tight and that dress not zipping instead of waiting until you’re at the “Last Chance Gas – 107 miles” signs with your new new new new new pants that are in a size you didn’t even know they made, you’re going to have both a harder and an easier time of it. Harder because it’s easy to put it off. You can rationalize that you don’t need new pants. That you’ve only got 10lbs to lose. You’re totally not fat, you feel pretty good. Easier because 10 is a smaller number to lose than 100, but that’s really paltry consolation. 10′s still hard.

Once you hit the sweet spot where you’re starting to lose and things are fitting better and all of a sudden you’ve got All! The! Energy! and why didn’t you do this sooner? That’s the point where success breeds success and you get to coast a little more. Even Sisyphus got to go back down the hill occasionally.

I’d highly recommend not waiting until you need to lose 100+ pounds before you read one of those warning signs as the one you must heed and turn back, but even if you do, that first step is the hard part. The part that you have to make yourself do.

And really, fuck that “Imma start on Monday” nonsense that goes hand in hand with the “I messed up and ate a cupcake so I should REstart next Monday” and the “I’ll start in the morning because I already ate three donuts today” up until you stumble out of bed and have a half a box of toaster strudel before you remember that you were starting that thing, but it’s probably good because you should eat all the junk in the house first so as not to waste it until you forget and buy more and and and it’s 3 weeks later and you’re up 3lbs, but you sure did start 6 times. This healthy nonsense must just not work. Start NOW. Make good choices the rest of the day and build on them tomorrow. Once you build the initial momentum, it rolls almost by itself.

So what are you waiting for? A bigger sign?

I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t answer these questions when they were initially posted because as proud as I’ve been of my progress, am I a real runner? Does anyone want to know about the best run someone who isn’t really a runner ran? And then I hit the awesome jackpot and found out that Dimity McDowell of Run Like a Mother and Train Like a Mother fame was going to be signing books at lucy just a few towns away, so of course I went!

Not only was meeting her amazing because she and Sarah Bowen Shea have been such huge inspirations – quadruple-handedly starting a revolutionary movement among moms who run, but she’s the kind of person who can meet you and make you feel like you’ve known her for ages. I felt supported and valuable to the tribe – and I felt like a real runner. She said I was middle of the pack now, MIDDLE OF THE PACK, PEOPLE! I want to put that on a t-shirt and wear it every day. I realized that if I had heard about a person who was where I am coming from where I started, I’d have been inspired, so I decided to own my runner-ness (MIDDLE OF THE PACK RUNNER!) and answer the questions.

I’ve been a little frustrated. It’s small, nothing really consequential, but frustrating nonetheless.

You see, I am a person who until February of this year was eating fast food multiple times a day. In the interest of full disclosure, in one trip I wouldn’t be able to decide whether I wanted a Big Mac or a chicken sandwich, so I would get both. As value meals. And eat them. With apple pies. Unless I couldn’t decide between apple pies and a McFlurry and you know where I’m going with this.

When I started on this journey and cut out the fast food completely, I mentioned to the trainer I was working with that I’d picked up a big bag of baby carrots and another of snap peas from Costco for snacking so that I’d have plenty of ready food that wasn’t junk to help me through. (And bless her, she’s an amazing trainer and an amazing woman, and I am so thankful to her for everything she did, but…) Her response was that carrots and snap peas are like the candy of the vegetable world, lots of sugar. Maybe try broccoli instead.

And just this week I talked to another trainer that I was gifted a session with – a trainer with a track record of success story after success story after success story under his belt – clients who have lost mind-boggling amounts of weight. After seeing my “before” picture and my “now” standing in front of him, knowing that I have been having mega-success in this weight loss and even having lost 5.7lbs the week prior, I mentioned the green smoothies I like for breakfast and what’s in them – including 1 cup of frozen berries. “You should only do 1/2 cup.” And also I should be only having 1 serving of fruit a day.

So let’s just back this truck up and consider for a moment these statements in the context of both me personally and anyone trying to lose weight and better their health.

Really, I am still only 8 months out from consuming 3260 calories and 133 grams of sugar in an average dinner (Hello, McD’s nutritional info! Eep!) The 52 calories and 6 grams of sugar in a cup of carrots are not something I can really get all worked up about. Especially in the beginning when what those carrots replaced were 500 calories of french fries.

In light of losing almost 80lbs in 8 months, I feel like what I’m doing is…you know…working, so being told I should only eat 1 serving of fruit a day makes me a little aghast. Really? How much faster could I possibly be losing here? (Truth be told, I took a big break from May-August and maintained, so it’s a lot faster than it seems, and it seems fast without the break.) It’s almost as if when confronted with a potential client, we must tweak their plan, even if their plan is functional.

Maybe the ideal athlete or person losing weight eschews all baby carrots in favor of kale. Maybe I would lose 11 pounds per week if I ate nothing but chicken breast and organic broccoli, but who does that? Who wants to do that? Not me. Frankly, we are dealing with enough unrealistic societal standards in terms of youth and beauty and thinness without adding additional ones for those wanting to make healthy choices for themselves. Incremental changes work. Responding with a thinly veiled Well, that’s not good enough to a person standing in front of you who has made a change for the better does not work, and frankly is the same sort of shaming that occurs when that same fat person eats the McNuggets. McNuggets are bad, fat person, but your choice of vegetable leaves a lot to be desired. And put down that apple while you’re at it.

REALLY?

In light of this, I’m instituting What I’m Eating Wednesday. Honestly, second only to “Do you eat anything?” the question I get asked the most about my weight loss so far is “What are you eating?” Starting this Wednesday, I’ll be talking ingredients, recipes, meal plans, anything relating to what and how much goes in (a lot goes in, y’all!). If there’s something about what I eat that you’d like to know, just ask! I’m happy to make it a post.

Also, I know I’m ruining the suspense, but what I’m eating includes a lot of fruit. Also butter. And thus far does not include kale, though if anyone can make a convincing case for it being edible, I’ll certainly try it.

In any case, what I’m eating + what I’m running and lifting have done this (and that “after” is like 15lbs ago!):

I have been mad jealous of Erin’s sparkly skirt since she first posted about rocking it at a mud race. I had a 7 day old baby when she posted the first picture, and I wasn’t the paragon of awesome fitness that I am now, and had zombies, aliens, or an escaped zoo lion attacked, I’d have been the first one eaten.

Now, however, there are at least three or four people who will bite it before me in such a scenario, so I clearly deserve a glitzy skirt as well. Even so, I don’t think I’m ready for this jelly, so the skirt does double duty of being awesome and not forcing anyone to look at what’s under it instead. (FYI, this fabric is sheer, so the skirt is meant to go over capris, shorts, etc.)

Since I make stuff, I have a really hard time justifying paying $25 for a bit of elastic and confetti dot fabric, though I give major props to those who can start and run a business selling such awesome gear. I know that most people will happily fork over the dough for some blingy runwear, but if you’re like me (poor and/or crafty), I’ll show you how to make your own for about $5. (I’m sorry about the crappy iPhone photos – I’m trying to teach the 4 year old to take pictures, but it’s slow going!)

DIY Glitzy Running Skirt

You will need:

1 yard or less (depending on size – you can do some complicated math after you measure or just buy 1 yard and call it good) Confetti Dot Fabric (Wait for a sale or use a Joann’s coupon to nab this for super cheap!)

Waistband Elastic, black preferably (I used 1.5″ because that’s what they had!)

Sewing machine, thread, measuring device

Directions:

1. Measure yourself where you want the waistband of your skirt to hit. Usually a couple inches smaller than that number will get you a comfortable fit. A good way to customize for yourself is to cut the elastic to your waist measurement and then overlap it 2 inches and pin. Try it on and adjust in or out from there.

2. Once you’ve determined a comfortable waistband size, sew the overlapping ends. I sewed the living crap out of it to make it really secure, though the sparkle fabric weighs about the same as a butterfly eyelash, so it’s not under a lot of stress. (You can match your thread, I used contrasting to show the stitches.)

3. Measure your hips. A good rule of thumb for running is about 4″ of ease, so you’ll take your hips measurement (h) and add 4″ to it for cutting your fabric. You’ll need to cut two long rectangles from your fabric. I cut the selvedges off (the bits on the edges with no little mylar dots) before cutting my rectangles so that none of my skirt was unsparkled. First, cut a strip of fabric around 5.5″ tall that is the width of your hips + 4″ measurement. Depending on your size, you may need to cut two strips and sew them together along one end.

Then, cut the rest of your fabric into strips around 8-9″ tall. You’ll need at least twice your hips + 4″  measurement, so you’ll be sewing strips together, and it’s best at this point to leave it longer than you think is necessary just in case.

4. The easiest way to do the next part is to use a gathering foot for your sewing machine. There are two settings on a gathering/ ruffler foot – one that determines the depth of the gather and the other that determines how frequently the foot places a gather. The setting I used was #2 depth and #6 frequency (I believe that means every 6 stitches it puts the gather). That worked out to need just about 5 inches beyond twice my hips + 4 measurement (this is why you wait to cut it!).

Place the longer piece on the bottom, wrong side up. The shorter piece goes on top, right side up. The bottom piece should go to the right just a small amount – too much and the part that sticks up between the layers will be too tall and flop over. Sew the pieces together. Trim off any excess long piece.

If you don’t have a gathering foot, you just have a few extra steps. First, go ahead and cut your long piece to twice the length of your hips + 4 piece since you’ll be controlling the gather instead of your presser foot. Next, set your machine to the longest stitch it has. On your longer piece, run one long row of stitches about 1/2″ from the top without backstitching (you’ll remove these stitches later). You’ll find that your fabric bunches up slightly as you go – this is okay, good even. Using the threads from these basting stitches, gather the fabric even more so that the piece is the same length as your hips + 4 piece. Lay your gathered piece just over the bottom edge of the hips + 4 piece, both right sides facing you, pinning in place. Using a regular length stitch, sew the pieces together.You can remove the basting stitches at this point.

5. Fold in half long-ways, right sides together. Sew the short sides together and voila, you’ve got something that looks like a skirt! Set your sewing machine to the longest stitch length it has and run one line of stitches along the very top of the waist without backstitching (you’ll remove these stitches later!). You’ll find that as you sew, the fabric starts to bunch up. This is good! When you take it off the machine, use these basting threads to gather the edge a little more sew that it is the same circumference as your waistband. It may help to pin the skirt to the underside of the waistband at this point to help get them the same. (The picture below shows the basting stitches gathering the edge slightly.)

6. Using a 3-step zig-zag stitch, attach the skirt top to the underside of the waistband, stretching the elastic ever so slightly as you go. If you forget to 3-step zig-zag, any stretch of the elastic (like, when you put it on?) will break your stitches and your skirt will fall off the waistband halfway through your race and someone will step on it. Or step on you after you trip over the sparkly fabric around your ankles.

7. If you’re anything like me, you flew by the seat of your pants a little when you were cutting, so at this point you should probably trim up the bottom nice and even(ish), and put your awesome skirt on to make sure you like the length. If not, trim to where you feel the fastest.

8. Let loose with phrases like “shake your moneymaker” while you admire yourself in the mirror in your fabulous skirt.

There’s no denying that it’s great to fit into smaller clothes sizes – especially when you go from fitting only into plus size to being able to fit into clothes at any store. Vistas of awesome open up (don’t get me started on the infantilization of plus size clothing), and self-confidence takes a big jump.

However, some of the best changes don’t come with corresponding size numbers that drop predictably as you drop the pounds. Sometimes you reach a size where things are uncomfortable as a matter of course, where you don’t realize how awkwardly you (don’t) fit into normal spaces until suddenly you do again. So, here is my (by no means exhaustive) list of how far 36+ lbs have taken me. I’m sure it will grow as that number grows – I can’t wait to see what other awesome it will include!

• A regular bath towel fits around me
• My butt fits into my molded plastic office chair from Ikea
• My butt also fits into our deck chairs
• I can get my wedding rings over my knuckle – they’re not comfy yet, but they go on
• I’m no longer wearing any maternity clothes
• I can sit in the bathtub without any part of me touching the sides
• My Freehand (baby carrier) buckles easily around my waist
• When I take an iPhone self-portrait, I can take it straight on instead of only from way up high. Come on. You know what I’m talking about.

And!! I’m not up to #13 nationally from #19 last week! There are a bunch of us sitting neck and neck with 4 weeks to go, so now I just have to have better weeks than the rest of them!

I keep wanting to update – there are so many things I want to say! Life, it keeps popping up and being inappropriately taxing.

So, the challenge continues and I am rocking it. I am currently sitting at #1 in the club and #19 nationally! The new rankings that include our weigh in today go up tomorrow morning, and I am always anxious in this 24 hours between weighing in and knowing where I stand. As of today, I’ve lost 36.3lbs, and today’s weigh in puts me 1.3lbs below my starting pregnancy weight for Wiley, so I HAVE LOST THE PREGNANCY WEIGHT FOR ALL CHILDREN.

SERIOUSLY.

In other news,  I now fit into clothes at regular stores, so I took the opportunity to try out something I’ve been wanting to try since doing the first incarnation of my Couch to 5K – a skirt from Skirt Sports!

My workout clothes were starting to fall off, and my grandma sent me some birthday money, so off to Boulder I went for a try-on. I could have fit (even at my largest size) into the XXL, but no stores carry it, and I wanted to try on in person. I felt optimistic enough to think that I might be able to make it into XL, so I went! I tried the Gym Girl Ultra, the Happy Girl, and the Lotta Breeze Capri. I CAN’T WAIT to try their new Adventure Girl skirt for when I ditch the treadmill – anyone have one??

First, they were all SO COMFORTABLE. As soon as I had them on, I knew I could run in them – they made me WANT to run in them! I think that in another 30lbs, I’ll feel better in the Gym Girl, but for now my best bets were the Happy Girl and the Lotta Breeze. The Happy Girl is just a smidge longer – enough to just give you the tiniest bit more confidence if you’re not used to showing leg, and yet still short enough to be a running skirt. I ended up going with the Lotta Breeze, because I felt the most comfortable in it with the way my body is at this moment. I’m so much stronger, and my legs have some pretty rocking definition (especially the calves!), but I’m still not anywhere near where I want to be. I love that the skirts didn’t feel like skinny people clothing just graded up to a larger size. It seems like they really have an idea of what a woman’s body requires in terms of flattering, so I’ve seen them look awesome on tiny people as well as the more zaftig among us, namely me.

I had to take a fitting room picture because I couldn’t believe that I was there buying a running skirt in regular old XL and looking…dare I say…good in it. What do you think? Does it make me look fast?

As important as looks are, it wouldn’t be worth the (slightly hefty) price tag if it didn’t perform, and I’m thrilled to tell you that I haven’t run in anything else since buying it! My biggest problem with the other things I’ve run in is that they tend to fall down unless they’ve got a drawstring as tight as it goes – I have no idea why. It is hard enough for me to knock out a couple miles without having to hitch up my drawers every eleven steps. I was worried because there are no drawstrings, but my worry was unnecessary. Not only do my capris stay up, they stay exactly where they’re supposed to. The capris stay in their spot and don’t creep up or down, and the waist fits perfectly and I’ve not had any problem with it rolling (hello, problem that fat people have) or sagging or falling. I’ve run every other day, so in this short time they’ve gotten a lot of laundry action, and they’re still just as awesome as when I brought them home.

I love that I can run without expending extra energy on whether or not my sweaty wedgie is at a critical level or not. Honestly, I need all of my energy to keep my feet moving and not fall down. I’m now up to week 4 in the Bridge to 10K, so I’m doing three intervals of 18 minutes running with 2 one-minute walk breaks between them, and between my Lotta Breeze Capris and episodes of True Blood on my iPad, I’m making it work.

PS: I bought them at Outdoor Divas in Boulder, and I cannot recommend them enough. I feel like this stray fat person who accidentally walked into a sporting store, and I’m still worried half the time that I’m not going to fit into anything and that people are looking at me like what is SHE doing here?? I know this is me and not anybody else’s problem, but it haunts me. The staff at Outdoor Divas was so kind and helpful, and when I came out of the fitting room a little nervous and unsure as to whether or not I could really rock these capris, they were honest and one even said it made her want to try some on, herself! Love them, and will definitely be back.

90 Day Challenge Stats:

(Feb 5th – April 10th)

Pounds lost: 36.3

Miles on my shoes: 102.45

Bra Size: 42DD – 38C

(I added this last one because OMG.)

I didn’t update last week because we had a friend visiting.

Our friend RSV is such a nasty houseguest that he brought along his gross buddy Bronchiolitis who brought along his PITA buddy Oxygen Tank. They all wanted to play with my kids, my 2 year old especially. They’re all bitches.

So, the weigh in just before we were descended upon by the sicks was pretty good. I lost straight up 4lbs, and went in the national rankings from #169 the previous week to #104. At the club, I went from #5 to #3.I got measured by my trainer, and in the month of the challenge so far, I’ve lost 4.7% body fat! Insane!

This week, I only missed a strength workout because of a very long day spent at our pediatrician and then Children’s Hospital (plus my dinner that night of cookies and two microwave chicken nuggets courtesy of a 7-11 snack run and the hospital meals for my two kiddos who eat solid food – I got the leftovers). My weigh in was pretty rocktastic with a loss of 5.3lbs, and moving in the rankings from #104 nationally to #52! I’m still 3rd in the club, but I’m less than 1 percentage point off of #1, and a little elementary school math tells me that unless she’s 5’2″, she doesn’t have all that much to lose! And even if she is 5’2″, I’m still going to beat her.

I can tell there is less of me. The baby carrier that I had to practically bisect myself to buckle (that really was so tight that I have no idea how the buckle even held, or how I held my breath that long) now buckles easily. It’s still on the outermost setting, but I’m not having to harm myself putting it on. The bath towel goes further around me, and I closet shopped and now all my old workout wear fits – just plain old XL instead of XXL or XXXL or HEY FATTY, THIS SHIRT’S FOR YOU! It’s hard to know how many sizes I’ve lost because I was wearing clothes that were too tight, so who knows what the right size was. The stuff that wasn’t too tight was 75% made up of maternity, and my kid is almost 5 months old. So yeah. There’s that.

I ran today’s 25 minute end of week 6 in my brand new running shoes. I loved my old ones, but the tread was sad. Well. It would have been sad if there were any left.

I tried on eleventy pairs and had the gait testing and all that jazz to make sure I’m in the right kind of shoe for me, and wouldn’t you know that I ended up in the updated version of my same shoe? I went from the Saucony Progrid Guide 3 to Guide 5. I am nothing if not predictable!

(We all got new Saucony’s yesterday!)

I’m in pretty desperate need of some new music ideas. I have been hitting skip on my songs a ton – which means I have to turn around my phone and see how many minutes I have left. Never a good idea. Today I skipped at the end until The Donnas brought me home, and maybe I need more of them in my life. I have too many things that aren’t quite fast enough. I do not want to be not quite fast enough.

90 Day Challenge Stats:

(Feb 5th – Mar 7th)

Pounds lost: 18.7

Miles on my shoes: 51.43