Monday, March 29th, 2010 through Sunday, April 4th, 2010

WEDNESDAY MORNING:  I'm going to shift gears a little bit.  So far I've largely stayed out of my personal life in this blog and have mostly focused on the exercise part.  I shared about my dad but I haven't really shared much else (other than some thoughts and feelings).  I'm going to start sharing more starting today.

The first question you may ask is why.  Why do I feel like sharing details from my personal life?  Many reasons.  I'm Hispanic, and a huge thing in the Hispanic culture is appearances, and this takes two routes.  First, you don't share anything about yourself, pretty much.  Second, you become what you think the other person wants.  In a dinner you spend 3 minutes talking to person A about this, and then five minutes talking to person B about that, etc. etc.  And it's about projecting an image.  It's not about being who you are.  So I grew up my whole life not sharing and not being who I was.  I'm very different than I was nine months ago.  I share more, for one.  And this decision to start sharing more is not an easy one.  But that's reason one.  Reason two:  around early December of last year I realized the gym had finally set me free.  The first group of group fitness class instructors I really connected with - Rachel, Kathy, Donalin, and Michelle - gave me, me.  For the first time in my life I felt free.  I realized I'd lived my life in fear and my actions were about is this right or wrong as opposed to is this me or not.  And it's not that you want to be two-faced, it's that you subjugate yourself in order to mold yourself into what other people want you to be.  And I came to that realization in early December.  For the first time in my life I was free, and I had discovered myself, and I will forever be grateful to that first group of instructors.  So I share because I'm making up for 31 lost years of sharing.  And I share because I've found that I like to share, and nowadays I'm just being me without worrying about what people think (that's the goal, at least, doesn't work that well all the time).  And I want to give you a more complete view of what this whole thing has meant and done to me.  I share because it frees me.  And I share because it's me.  And I'd like to think there's a place for someone like me in this world.

Before I go on let me recap the last couple of days.  Monday at boot camp we did abs day - 100 sit-ups, 100 crunches, 100 reverse sit-ups, 100 leg lifts on a hill, 100 bicycles (left+right == one rep), 100 doggy leg lifts with each leg, and alligator crawl, bear crawl, crab craw, zig-zag running up and down hills, skipping, and running backwards in-between stations.  My bear crawl is getting A LOT better, noticeable improvement (and I'm down to 8:45 for the mile).  Didn't wake up in time for Linda so went and took Laura, and now she's on my Facebook.

On Tuesday we ran up and down stairs for an hour, ran half a mile on an outdoors track, and walked a quarter of a mile on the same track.  Ran around bleachers.  I got a Garmin 305 GPS watch and going to start wearing it today.  We run a lot and I want to know distances.  After boot camp on Tuesday I went swimming and did 52 laps - with paddles, hard, slow, warm-up, cool-down, 90%, 100%.  Had Seder at night, roasted chicken and baked potato, soup with 2 Matzah balls, strawberries.  No night class because of the Seder.

I didn't cry yesterday with the stairs.  So that's going away a bit.  I'm getting better at going down and up stairs fast.  But I couldn't help but feel there was something unnatural about my dad dying going down the stairs and me going down stairs really fast on purpose.

So activity-wise I think that catches us up to today.  I'm going to start writing every day or at least trying (yes, I know, where have you heard that before?).

Not a lot of people know what I'm about to share right now.  About 10 in the past have known, and I just told two people in the last couple of weeks.  Maybe testing the waters before sharing it to a larger audience.

I've suffered from depression since I was at least 10 years old.  I have my earliest memories of being depressed then.  Been to about 30 therapists, currently seeing one.  And while I was writing the Fat Debbie entry I wrote that I would see someone about body image if I needed it but that so far I hadn't, and I wasn't trying to be sneaky.  I'm going to a therapist now because I want to work on all of me, just not on the physical me.  But since she's not a body image therapist, I didn't think of her that way.  But I do talk a lot about my experience losing weight so I guess she IS helping me with that.  So wanted to throw that out there.

Don't have a lot of time left to finish this right now and I'll be writing a lot more about it later, but needless to say that someone who lives at least 22 years with depression has figured out a way to live life while dealing with it.  I'll be sharing more about that later.  Debbie out.  Boot camp time!!

THURSDAY AFTERNOON:  On Wednesday we went to Towers.  I did The Loop officially for the first time (did it with Jill after class the first time).  Climbing up and a mountain then up and down hills.  Spent an hour pretty much running up and down hills.  Doesn't burn that many calories surprisingly but great on muscle and endurance building.  I can handle Towers A LOT better now than a month ago, the progress in this particular setting has been night and day.

Today we ran to the underpass (literally an underpass for the highway) and we used a VERY inclined wall to do fun stuff like run up and down it, squats, lunges, bear crawls, crab crawls, and sprints.  My down-running is getting better and so is my bear crawl, I can bear crawl fast now.  My crab crawl still sucks but at least I can do it without putting the behind down on the floor.

So back to the depression.  I guess if you live your life with depression being part of you, you learn a few things and I think other people may benefit from what I've learned without having to go through it themselves.  Here's the biggest thing I've gotten out of being depressed:  I don't know if I've mentioned it but I've gone to about 30 therapists over my lifetime (almost one per year I've been alive).  And you go to therapy, and you go to group therapy, and you go to support groups, and you find yourself still depressed.  So what do you do?  You have a choice.  Is your life going to be on hold while you try to find something that works or are you going to put that aside and live your life the best you can?  So I pretty much built the depression into my everyday life.  If I'm depressed, I'm depressed.  It's just normal for me.  So sometimes we have less than ideal circumstances, and we have a choice.  Are we going to let that derail our life or are we going to incorporate it into our life and deal with it as best as we can?  And I think this whole attitude is what's starting to pick up during boot camp right around now that I'm finally beginning to get in better shape.  That whole attitude that there's something banging against you and you have to bang against it harder.  The harder the exercise, the harder I go.  This whole mentality that there's something trying to push you down and you're not going to let it.

Since I started exercising the depression has let up quite a bit.  It used to be three days on, two days off, one day on, one week off, ten hours on, four days off, two weeks on, three months off, etc.  Comes and goes.  Since I started exercising on 7/3/09, I can point to three "episodes."  Going through one right now.  To use a word I just learned on Facebook to refer to these kinds of moods (and one I like quite a bit), been going through a funk since Sunday and here we are on Thursday and it hasn't let up.  On Sunday I let up on the exercise to lay in bed depressed but since Monday I've gone back to my normal exercise routing while depressed.  I'm not going to lay in bed waiting it out like I would have done before.  I'm going to be miserable while running up a hill.  And it's not like you can just say "Ok it's gone" and it is.  It comes and it goes as it pleases and the one thing I have control over is what I do while it's on.  But here I was thinking these long episodes were a thing of the past but nope.  I'll be talking more throughout the coming months about depression, exercise, self-esteem, etc.  Chucks at a time.  Debbie out.

STILL THURSDAY AFTERNOON/EARLY EVENING:  There's another part of my life that was very defining, and that is that for the longest time I thought I had an eating disorder, compulsive overeating.  The more separated I get from those years (10 or so... let's see.... 20 years old until yes pretty much 30, so 10 years) the more I have doubt that I had an eating disorder, and maybe it was just emotional eating.  I would go to Burger King and get 4 plain hamburgers (always four) and separate each into four pieces (always four.... by the way I don't think I've mentioned I'm a bit OCD..... I like to say I have functional OCD... it's there, it comes out sometimes, but it doesn't interfere with my life), and eat them with BBQ sauce.  In Gainesville back in 2001 I used to go and get 16 cheesesticks (multiple of 4... hhhmmm........).  Don't know how many, but a lot of BBQ wings at KFC.  I used to get this craving for fast food, I'd be driving to the fast food place, and I couldn't stop myself.   The first nine months I haven't really had cravings since I started exercising, but now I'm getting them, but I'm finally strong enough to say no to them.  Maybe if I had had them earlier I would have succumbed.

So a lot of this blog will talk about what happens when depression, eating disorders, and exercise interrelate and collide with each other.  I'll talk a lot about self-esteem.  I used to joke to my therapists that I didn't have low self-esteem because something non-existent could not be quantified.

And I was going up a hill yesterday and I told myself, that hill's my depression, I can climb it.  It's something I can touch, feel, conquer.  And it's weird going through this "funk" (I really do love that word.... I really like people who use Yay, HA!, and funk), because it is the first time I've been really depressed since I started exercising (two other times but those lasted hours, this is now the fifth day and it's in full swing).  And it's like you think you've come so far and you're really just back at the starting line.  But things are different and it's a really weird dichotomy.  Because on one hand I have this I can do anything mentality and if it hurts, GOOD, it's working, and I will push through anything and do anything and go go go and on the other hand there's this whole I just want to lay in bed and do nothing depression side.  How can you be both?  Today I only did one hour of exercise and I feel I let the depression win.... will go do a 5K at the treadmill after the show tonight (Linda and I are going to go see Anita at her Elvis play) to feel better about today.  Didn't do anything from 11a when I got home from boot camp until 5p but lay in bed (well, did go out to eat with niece and sister and brother in law for niece's birthday).  And it's fine if I designate a rest day, but it's not fine if I stay in bed because I'm depressed.  That just pisses me off further.

And it comes down to that I'm still in the same set of circumstances but I'm a different person, so it's going to be interesting to see how I deal with the depression now.  This whole stay in bed thing is not going to fly.  Can't do anything about the last six hours, but I can wake up tomorrow determined to keep moving all day.

There's some women I've met who are very open about experiences they've gone through.  And knowing that about them just makes me admire them more and want to be more like them.  The courage, the strength, the love of life.  So if they can share, why should my story be a secret?

Passed someone else in the running pecking order in boot camp.  And of course they're in better shape than me.  I don't beat people here (points to stomach), I beat people here (points to head).  And I tell people that. Look at you, look at me.  There's no reason for me to be in front of you.  I noticed that if someone is about to pass me, I slowed down, gave up.  And now I noticed someone slowed down when I passed them.  I'm getting better at going harder if someone's about to pass me, not easier.  And it's funny because there IS a pecking order that people put themselves in.  People know in what order they should arrive, and they stay there.  There's no physical way I'm catching up to #1, but that's certainly not going to stop me from trying.  My pecking order is #1, my body just has to catch up.  But that mile run has become a push myself all out, catch up to the next person daily ritual.  Pass someone, focus on the next.  And people see me passing them and they ACCEPT it as in I can run faster than them now, and physically, I really can't.  I noticed the same kind of thinking in myself and I still have it sometimes but I fight it.  And after I noticed it in myself I noticed it in other people, and I want people to get rid of that.  Go faster when people pass you, pass them back.  Race the #1 person.  I'm all about competition.  But it's not about winning or losing or being the best.  It's about that feeling of pushing yourself all out and give it everything you got.  Love the actual race, don't care about the results.  I am very fortunate in that I have been shown how to push myself into that little space between when the mind gives up and the body gives up, and I want to share that with others.  It is such a powerful and wonderful feeling to push your body to its limit and I want people to experience that at least once and then decide if they want that feeling again.

We did the squat down leaning on a wall today, I think it was 2 or 3 minutes.  And I lasted the whole time listening to my music.  But I gave up mentally at the end and opened my eyes, when it started really hurting.  And I've gotten to the point that my mind will give up but my body will stay there.  The mind gives up before the body EVERY ... SINGLE ... TIME.  Mine does, yours does, everyone's does.  It's an immutable fact.  The mind WILL give up first ALWAYS.  And I listened to it.  I was still squatting, but I listened to it, and I only had 20 more seconds to go or so.  So my body can now hang on the whole time, but my goal for next time is for my mind to hang on the whole time also.

Ran alongside one of the best runners today only because she pulls back until the end, and I still give up when she's picking up and I'm winding down (because it does take my all to keep up with her comfortable pace).  I need to get rid of that and hang on for dear life when she starts picking it up.  I need to keep up no matter what.

RIGHT AFTER MIDNIGHT, INTO FRIDAY:  Play was great.  I'm going to take off the whole weekend from exercising, which for me means just one hour of Boot Camp Friday and one hour each at the gym Saturday and Sunday.  Going to finish unpacking and then moving all the stuff from the storage to the house, so I'll be moving all day, and the one hour of exercise should be enough for me to have a lot of calories left to eat.

FRIDAY MORNING:  I think the funk's gone away.  Five full days.  Today I have to go all out in the boot camp easter egg hunt.  I have to kick the intensity up a notch.  Each time harder.  Only one hour of exercise today, Saturday, and Sunday and going to finish unpacking and then move the things from storage.

There's two things that I've realized through my time exercising, and ironically they have nothing to do with exercise at all.  I've met a lot of people and have a lot of them on Facebook and noticed the following:  When people are in a funk, they think they're the only ones.  It isolates people.  People don't understand how normal it is to have a bad day, how thoroughly part of being human it is.  The other is that if people think something is normal, it normalizes the experience for them and makes it easier to go through.  If you think an exercise is SUPPOSED to hurt, you will hang on longer.  If you think you are SUPPOSED to have bad days, it makes the bad days easier to go through.  If you think you are SUPPOSED to be terrified before speaking in public, it makes speaking in public easier.  If we think other people go through something, it makes it easier for us to go through it ourselves.

FRIDAY AFTER NOON (as in, very close to noon):  I went to a TKB class on Wednesday and saw someone I hadn't seen in a long time and she asked me where my skinny clothes were.  I had my Large 24HF shirt on.  It's very hard for me to wear the tights and tank tops, I have to make myself.  And after having a week with a positive body image, I'm back to feeling huge.  I took a picture at the play and I just look gigantic.  So body image took another dive after one week of feeling good about my body.  Weight going down, lowest of 143.5 lbs, normal range.  And, now I have something else to be dissatisfied with:  physical shape.  My body is useless right now.  Trying to build it up.  Today I couldn't even keep up with a tire pull because I couldn't run fast enough to keep up with the team.  My endurance is not there.  My strength is not there.  So now I hate how my body looks AND does.  Going to start over tomorrow forcing myself to wear the tights and tank tops.  It does the mind and body good.

FRIDAY EARLY NIGHT:  So I didn't really describe today's Boot Camp.  It was my first ever Easter Egg Hunt (Jewish here, went to a Jewish school all through sixth grade).  It was a blast.  I got six eggs, and the winner got 19.  You collected eggs and did what they showed.  I got 25 jumping jacks twice, 50 leg lifts, tire pull, walk backwards to next egg, bear-crawl to next egg.  At the tire pull I could barely budge the tire but I got it in with Eyes' help.  Then we did sprints, lost them.  Then we did a team tire pull, I couldn't even keep up and had to go off to the side while my team ran past me with the tire.  At the beginning mile someone passed me right at the end.  Very humbling day, where you feel you can't do anything.  That just means I get to start again Monday.  I like that about boot camp, you get knocked down, you get back up again.  Each day is an opportunity to start over with a blank slate.  But today sucked, performance-wise.  One of those days that makes you feel like you haven't accomplished anything.

Next time we run a mile I'm going to match Jill from the beginning.  I go all out at the beginning and then slow down.  She paces herself and then goes all out, and always gets there in the front.  I'm going to try to match her at the beginning and see if that's a better way of running, getting my legs warm first and then sprinting.  Go with her as much as I can.  Run smarter, not harder, I guess.

Feeling like a beached whale today.  Some days you feel like you conquered the world, some days you feel like you're back at square one.  And surprisingly, NOT depressed!!  That's gone.  This is all just left-over body image issues.  I still don't feel skinny, even though my back rolls are going away and it's getting harder to pinch fat at the sides (and body fat is in the normal range and weight is going down).  I'm pretty much considered normal when it comes to weight, body fat, and inches.  And I feel fat.  When is it that you finally start feeling skinny?  I thought I did, but that was only for a day or so.  When I wore the tights I still felt fat (and I look fat..... I really do, there's rolls and jiggles and fat pockets).

MONDAY MORNING: On Saturday I went to Kelly's TKB and was able to push myself just a bit further. Then I went and was able to visit with Christina. Christina and I took Karate together in Miami when I was 16 years old, almost 16 years ago. And I found her and Caryn on Facebook about a couple of months back and reconnected with them. It's an experience because last time we saw each other I was a teenager and now I'm an adult, and they were adults then and now. So our relationship necessarily has to be different from the get-go. I have it easier because I don't have to adjust to them but they have to adjust to me not being a teenager anymore. It's funny how over the years you find yourself going the same direction as some people who were different than you back then and shifting away from people who wereo very much like you. The day was an adventure and I had trouble staying in my own skin as I was looking for her, I was so excited. Lately each day has been a blessing and each thing I do has been an adventure. Finally found her (she came for a Karate tournament and posted on Facebook that she had landed in the airport and that's how I found out she was here) and we spent a couple of hours talking. We're going out to eat later in the day. It was really wonderful to see her again. Always remembered her and Caryn throughout my life. That was it for Saturday. Sunday morning I took Dallas again after five weeks and it was wonderful to see her again. It was an hour and a half indoor cycle class instead of just an hour because of Easter. It was my first time back on an indoor bike since Boot Camp (I did go to that spa in a hotel but I don't count that, different bike, shorter class, etc.). I was surprised how much harder I can do and I CAN BEND and it is just wonderful. I have a stronger core for sure. While standing, I was able to stay most of the class with my behind over the seat, and I couldn't do that a month ago. It's just wonderful to see progress like that. Pounds, inches, that doesn't matter. Physicality, that's what I enjoy the most. After that went swimming. Did the 32 laps that the triathlon needs, then 4 with just the right arm, then 4 with just the left, 4 with just the right, 4 with just the left, 4 all out, and I really think my swimming has improved tremendously in the past two weeks since I started swimming. Going to add 4 laps for a cool down and making that my training and just whittle the time down. 56 laps total. Then slept a lot the rest of the day and replenished. Then I forgot my Gym Rat Rules book at home and so I took The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall to finish reading it. Finished it, and I really think that book is going to change my life, starting today. Have you ever shaken inside because an experience had changed your life? Have you ever gone through something and knew it had changed you but you didn't know how or how much and wouldn't know for years or maybe decades to come? I am excited to live out today and have already started applying the book. Really recommend that book.


Today I have a full day ahead of me. Cleaning up the room and the car and doing laundry. Then boot camp, then meeting Christina for lunch, Linda tonight for Zumba.

It really is as if these past nine months have just been a whirlwind and I'm just hanging on for dear life, and it's just about to really get started. Like the adventure really begins now and all of this has just been the initial preparations. I'm excited for what life has in store for me.

I don't know if I'm going to continue posting the food here, just because it takes time.  Maybe, but it may be a few weeks before I update it.  I log it on the BodyBugg website so it's stored there, so I'm keeping up with it, just not posting about it here.  I start 40% protein, 20% fat, 40% carbs today.

What is the meaning behind Debbie Tough?

On 3/1/10 I started going to an outdoors boot camp called Boot Camp Las Vegas. It's outdoor fitness for adults (http://www.bootcamplasvegas.com). I fell in love with it during the first class. And they have a motto, and something they say after every class: Boot Camp Tough. And I have this attitude that the harder the better, so I jokingly said I was so tough I wasn't Boot Camp Tough, I was my own kind of tough, Debbie Tough. Even got a Boot Camp shirt with Debbie Tough on the back. But there's a bit of philosophy behind it. I found the boot camp mentality spilling over into my everyday life, and I went from being helpless to being ready and able to figure out anything that life threw my way, and just throwing myself into situations. So Debbie Tough is about taking the Boot Camp Tough mentality and carrying it over with me into my everyday life instead of just having it for an hour a day. It's about making that thought process of being able to handle anything (not DO anything.... HANDLE anything) part of your core so that one day you don't have to think about it (Ok, I'm Boot Camp Tough, I can handle this, etc.) and it comes out as second nature. It's about taking everything that makes you YOU and meshing it together with the Boot Camp mentality and coming out with someone who still gets afraid but does it anyway and can handle anything life throws their way. That's Debbie Tough.