Friend of Julie: Out of Order

Carbs have been calling out to me all week, but I'm not answering. Right now, I'd love to bite into a fresh baked goodie, but I'm not going to. Instead, I'm tapping those thoughts away. Today was my first day of training for a 10k run and I want to run an incredible race far more than I want to eat a baked treat. 

The gym was packed and my treadmill was acting weird, but I kept  running.

At the end of a stressful day at work, one of my friends called to see if I could meet her at the gym and I did. When we arrived at the gym it was packed. There were only 2 treadmills open next to each other, so we quickly jumped on them. I was running for about a minute when I noticed something odd was happening. I felt like I was going to slide right off the treadmill. I wasn't sure if it was my sneakers, the treadmill, or if something was wrong with my equilibrium. I turned the machine off and on again twice, before I decided to keep going.

One of the things that keeps me motivated on the treadmill is talking with one of my friends while I'm running. We each go at our own pace and at the same time catch up on our lives. So when I realized there was something wrong with my treadmill, I really didn't want to move to another machine. We looked around the room for other options and my friend noticed an empty machine had an "out of order" sign on it. I looked up at the top of my treadmill and I saw a sliver of paper pushed to the backside of the machine. I flipped the paper over and read "Equipment out of order. Sorry for any inconvenience."

Ah - so it wasn't me - it was the machine! I decided to run slower and stay on the treadmill. The fact that I was running at all outweighed everything else. I held tight to the hand grips and cranked up the level so I could run faster without feeling like I was going to slip off the machine. I always run with my hands by my side and holding on felt odd. I silenced Jillian Michaels voice yelling at me to get my hands off NOW, like she does with her clients on the Biggest Loser.

Every few minutes I felt as though I was falling off the machine, but I decided to treat this like a bumpy trail and I kept going. I enjoyed catching up with my friend and before I knew it thirty minutes had passed.

I'm fortunate that my friends call me to go to the gym with them. The reality is that a week ago I set myself up for this call. I had told my friend I was going to the gym after work this week, lunchtime hasn't been an option lately, and she agreed to spontaneously call if she wanted to join me. Today's call to take me up on my offer is what got me to the gym. My gym clothes were in my office since Tuesday and I hadn't gone to the gym all week. See, when we put these kind of thoughts out into the universe we get what we asked for; I asked for a friend to workout with and the friend appeared.

I love being able to run to relieve the stress and after a minute on the treadmill, my body and soul agreed that was running was exactly what I needed to do today. I love feeling this good. I love my life the way it is and no carb can beat feeling this good. Three years ago none of this was true. I could barely walk for five minutes, never mind run 3-6 miles.

About those carb cravings. Tap, tap, tap - I push them out of my mind. I also use one of Julie's suggestions: I tell myself "I want to not want it." Both techniques help me get past the carb cravings, as they have for the past 3 years.

I am going to keep pushing forward. I'm staying in the river. I'm staying on my weight loss journey.

What's happening on your weight loss journey? Are you staying focused? What are you doing to stay the course?