The Evil Truth of Perception

How many mornings do you wake up look in the mirror and think "There is nothing I would change about myself?" We are pretty sure when most women look in the mirror they think several things negatively. Well, needless to say we are no different. As we look at our time of weight loss over the last year, it's still difficult to get the we are unhealthy mentality out of our heads! Many times when we look in the mirror all we see is the girl who was 50-70 pounds heavier. Or we see the 20-30 pounds we are desperately trying still trying to get off.


Several mornings of inner dialogue with the following conversations. 

We step on the scale. "Damn you scale. I will throw you out the window." "You are a liar scale!" "WTH! There is no way!" (Either good or bad! Hahaha!) Or perhaps..."Yes! Starvation was a success for the last two days. I will never maintain it but I'll take it today." (Side note: Neither of us have starved ourselves during this process, neither should you 😉.) The worst is when you feel as though you have done everything right, you've worked out, didn't have a cheat day (yet, we save those for after our weigh in days) or you are just plain feeling really good and then the number is higher than you've seen in a while.

Clothing issues: "I have nothing that fits! Everything I own makes me look fat. I'll send a pic to Andrea/Tegan to ask if I look ok." Clothes are difficult because as we lose weight we don't have an abundance of clothes! As we all know, the bipolar weather of Kansas doesn't help this situation either. So when we find that magical outfit in the morning the angels sing and we rejoice. Or we put on our tents and decide we are eating 5 chocolates for breakfast instead of our protein shake. Sometimes you've got to feed the raging inner fat kid. Ours have been getting fed a lot more than they usually do here recently.

We realize this all perception and it takes a change of mindset to beat this inner dialogue. This is easier said than done and we want to say it's OK and it's normal. The important part is that you need to take a step back every now and again and put your perspective into reality. What's it really like? So we might have to ask "Do I really look like a cow? Is it possible to gain 50 pounds back by eating unhealthy one day? Am I going to survive emotionally?" Though we could probably argue with ourselves to say yes or no, however it applies to the above, the truth to all of these answers is opposite of what we normally say!

This week we challenge you to take perspective of what you are doing. Count the little successes and be proud of yourself. Maybe you ate a smaller meal or maybe you walked an extra mile or maybe you finally compared those before and after pictures to realize your small victories are actually adding up to a large one! Whatever it is keep in mind you are doing something just by reaching out for encouragement from us or other friends. 

Remember no matter what size of clothes you are, you're beautiful just like we are! Do what makes you feel good inside. Also a pictures says a million words. Take those before and after pictures or progress pictures. Our favorite thing to do is go digging through your old photos (FaceBook can be really helpful for this) and find you at your largest. You will have an Oh goodness please tell me I didn't really look like that moment. Nothing makes you feel better on a "fat" day then running across a picture when you realize your successes. We both kind of needed this for this week as we continue our health journey. Perception really can be our worst enemy and a picture can help to win the battles over it.




You've got this!
The Fitster Sisters

Here Comes Race Day

Race day is approaching, you've logged so many miles you can't keep track, you don't even want to think about how many hours it's taken, and lets not even mention all the aches and pains you have had along the way. But the best part is that race day is coming and soon all the miles, the hours and yes even the aches and pains will pay off. It may not seem like it but it will.

The week or weeks leading up to a race can be just as important as the all the weeks you spent training. One of the most important things you can do is taper for at least a week, if not two. Tapering is an athletes best friend! If you are anything like we are the closer you get to the end of your training program the more exhausted you body is becoming. The less you want to lace up those shoes and head out for a run. Trust us we get it, we have been there for pretty much any race we have trained for. There are many times we are talking each other into getting those last few training runs in. Mile after mile you are breaking down your body, the longer your runs get the longer your body need to recover. A taper will bring your mileage down and allow your legs to be fresh for race day.

Related: Real Talk

During that final week it is imperative you watch what you eat, something we aren't the best at. Think of it like your car, you have to put the right gas into it for it to perform well. The same goes for your body. If you have been watching what you are eating the entire time you have been training you can't change that the week before the race. Make you are loading up on protein, healthy good carbs, and fiber. These things will allow your body to perform at it's peak. We like having family pasta dinners the night before our big races. Not only are we going to carb up but we are also going to get a chance to celebrate with those that have stood by us during our craziness.

Related: Adventures In Cross Training

Now to everyone's favorite part, and the hardest thing to do, SLEEP! During the week/weeks leading up to your race you need to make sure you are allowing your body to rest. When you workout you are actually tearing down your muscles, while you sleep it allows your body to repair these tears and help you to grow stronger. We know several elite level athletes and one of the things they almost always do it nap right after they get done with a hard work out. This isn't always possible but you should be getting at least 6-8 hours of sleep a night. We love using our Fitbit to track our sleep to know just how well we actually are sleeping.

When the morning finally arrives it is beyond important that you eat something which will allow you to maintain energy during the duration of the race. One of the best things to eat is something made up of complex carbs which will break down slowly giving you energy through out the race, especially during the longer races. Remember this goes back to fueling your body, it had to have something it can run off of. This is, however, not the time to try something new. Eat something the day of the race you have eaten before and you know it will not mess with your stomach. If you don't you will find yourself half way through your race struggling.

The best part is that if you have made it to this point you are almost done. We would love to hear about your own race day prep, do you have something you have to do? Let us know!

You've got this!
The Fitster Sisters

Real Talk

Lets real talk for a couple minutes. Is there anything worse than feeling like you are doing everything you are suppose to be doing and nothing is happening? That ridiculous number on the scale isn't changing. Seriously, is there anything more frustrating? What are you to do?
We want people to know that we have our own struggles, and it's not all rainbows, sunshine and pounds just melting off all the time. In fact for both of us it's been a rough couple months, yes that is rights MONTHS, in our weight loss journey. Tegan has been seeing numbers on her scale the last few weeks that haven't been there since MARCH. It's beyond hard and frustrating.

We'll be the first to admit that we aren't always doing the things we are suppose to. Come on it's Fall, it's easy to eat all the pumpkin spice flavored goodies. Not to mention that we are knee deep in holiday season. You may be in the process of getting rid of all the fun size candy in your house from Halloween but that's really just the beginning, Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. (We will cover that in a later blog) for us the most frustrating thing has to be when you actually are back on track, you weigh in and not only has the number on the scale not gone down it's gone up. SERIOUSLY?!?! This is what we have been fighting ourselves basically since May.



Related: The Weight Roller Coaster

So what do you do? Other than sitting down on your couch and binging on the biggest chocolate chip cookie you can find. Well there are a couple things.

- Grant yourself some grace. Keep in mind that this is a process and like all things in life there are ups and downs. If everything came easy to use would we really appreciate it in the end? This is work, and work is hard, but work makes you stronger. The more you are able to overcome multiple little things in your life, you notice that they can add up to one big thing. Or better yet the strength you gained from overcoming those little things, will help you overcoming something even larger in the future.

Related: Dieting Again ?!...

- Working out is not just to help you physically, it is also to help you mentally. We can tell a difference in ourselves if we have taken a few days off. Normally we are sweet and compliant people, (that may be a little bit of a stretch) but if we haven't worked out in a few days we are short tempered, irritable and not the most rational people on the face of the planet. Many times when one of us gets like this we will suggest a walk together, just to get the other one out and about. Have any of you noticed the same things?

- With all of that said, this is mentally exhausting!!! Between trying to keep yourself motivated to work out, eating healthy and dealing with that frustrating number it's ok to have a vent session with your BFF every once in a while. Or in our case several times a week at the moment. So go ahead and vent, better yet vent while taking a walk or if you want to over a bowl of some yummy ice cream.

- Drink all the water. Well ok, maybe not ALL the water, but make sure you are drinking a lot of water. We know this is something we continually talk about but it is so very important. The average person need 8 8oz glasses a day for a grand total of 64oz. That's only 2.6 Tervis cups! If you are working out you should be drinking more. Water is not only used to hydrate you, but it also helps to flush out the toxins in your system. It even can help you regulate your digestive track, and a lot of times we could be adding on an extra pound or two because things just aren't moving the way they should be.

- You will probably ALWAYS be hungry, or at least we are. Right at this moment we can't seem to get full if our lives are dependent on it. It's partially because we haven't been on our diets, eating our snacks when we are suppose to, making sure we are eating the right amount of fiber and protein, and working out. Again, there seems to be a correlation, for us, between always being hungry and not following the things we should be doing.

The most important thing to remember is that even if you have added a few pounds, or in our case 7 for both of us, you can always start back up. It's ok to get off track, in no way is this a sprint; it's a marathon and something you will continually have to work at. One of the things we have to remind ourselves over and over again is that we didn't put the weight on overnight (even if it seems like it did) so we can't expect it to come off overnight either.

You've got this!!!
The Fitster Sisters