Day 61

I have got a cough....again. I just can't believe it. As soon as I felt that "feeling" in the way back of my throat, I started taking zinc daily again. I am always taking vitamin c, so the combination of the 2 should give me a little defense. And hopefully it doesn't get worse.

Yesterday was a training day without sprints. I had hamstrings, glutes and calves. Today I had back, biceps, abs and sprints. However, I thought I would save myself some of the agony and left sprints for tonight. Maybe I will do them, maybe I won't. Or maybe I'll just do 20 minutes instead of the whole half hour. It all depends on how I feel. On one hand, I want my body to focus on healing. On the other hand, I only have 2 weeks of sprints (6 more sessions) so I really don't want to miss any.

Today at the gym, a gentleman that we see just about every morning, came up to me and asked me if I was a professional athlete or competed. HAHA! I laughed and said NO! "Because you do some pretty rigorous workouts. You do it just to keep in shape?" And I said, yes. It was a nice compliment. Although I would love nothing more than be within reach of competition shape. Because if I was, I would compete!

When my mom watches me at the gym, she thinks I'm killing myself. To her, and almost every other single person who knows me, I'm in good enough shape already, so why torture myself with these grueling workouts and deprive myself of things I wish I could eat? But they don't see me undress in front of my mirror, with the sun shining in on every lump and bump. They don't see my sagging butt or the saddlebags that exercise just doesn't seem to touch. They don't feel the hopelessness I feel at times, knowing how hard I work, the effort I put into my workouts, how hard I try to eat right, yet STILL have the same issues I started with years and years ago. Nothing frustrates or saddens me more.

True, I have seen changes in my body. All that I've done to improve my fitness and the look of my body HAS worked. It's just so painfully slow and the changes seem so small, that it sometimes makes me wonder if it is worth the trouble. This is what I go through, again and again. Self doubt. Frustration. It's an old reliable friend of mine that's always by my side. And it's just one more thing that I have to work hard at: squashing it. Even now, in the midst of some good changes, I allow myself to feel that doubt. I need to quit examining myself in the mirror every single day - that's what it is.

It seems like such a small and easy task, losing 4 pounds of fat. But it's nothing short of a miracle for me, seeing as how I have been trying to do it for months! I have lost, but I'm not entirely sure that it's been fat, since I see no improvement in the condition of my thighs. Sigh...

I saw a picture on Facebook the other day of a person holding a big blob of blubber representing 5 pounds of fat. The caption on the picture said something like: you could add this to your body over the holidays. It was pretty disgusting. And it was a LOT. More than I had imagined 5 pounds of fat to look like. And as I look over my flabby thighs and butt in the mirror, I try to judge, based on that picture, how much I would have to lose to see nothing but definition - no more jiggle. And it doesn't seem to me like it's even 5 pounds. Of course, the problem is that I can't pick and choose where the weight is going to come from when I lose it. If I could, I would have met my goal ages ago. No, it comes from all over. A little here, a little there, but never much from where I've got a lot to spare.

And as I get smaller and smaller, weigh less and less, my calorie demands also get smaller and it seems as though I wouldn't eat enough to keep a bird alive to be in a calorie deficit. I know EXACTLY what they mean when they say the closer you come to a goal, the harder it becomes. I wish that excess fat would fall off me like it did after my 3rd child. Once I started exercising and eating better, the weight melted off me faster than I ever could have imagined. I loved stepping on the scale week after week and seeing the number get smaller and smaller. What a feeling! And I wasn't working near as hard at it as I am now.

I know I am on the right track. I'm training religiously. I'm eating the best I can (being human means I slip up now and then). I'm taking supplements. I'm getting sleep. I'm consistent. Sooner or later, that bitch I like to call the universe, has GOT to cut me some slack. I think I'm deserving of it. I think it's about time. There isn't a whole lot more I can give to this cause. But believe me, I would give everything I own, if it would help me get there.

Today was a "down" day for me, could you tell?? haha...