Accountability, Bike Trainers, and Protective Cups

My old health coach taught me that it’s important to be accountable to someone to make sure you stay on track. I have to say, that I both agree and disagree with that statement at the same time. Don’t worry, this is not a blog about my multiple personalities. We’ll write another blog about that later :-).

As a kid, I loved doing math homework. I mean, really, I absolutely loved it. Yes, I was that kid in your class who reminded the teacher to give homework when he’d forget (oh, get over it. That last raise you got at work was because of me reminding the teacher to assign homework and you ended up learning that one thing you needed at work to land that promotion. You’re welcome). My point, though, is that I loved math and was good at it, so my mom never had to remind me to get my homework done, or even check it to see if it was right. Where I’m going here is that if you really love something and are really good at it, you don’t need to check in or be accountable to anyone.

Where a person needs help is in areas where they can slip up. Now, I would NEVER skip an opportunity to do my (or my older brother’s :-) math homework, but workouts? In the winter? After the marathon? When all the excitement over them has ceased? Umm, yeah, that might be what my old health coach was talking about.

As any of you who has been reading my blogs knows, my weight has being increasing in direct reverse proportion of my motivation. In other words, my weight has been up, my determination has been down. I’ve been working on it a bit, but with Thanksgiving, Channukah, endless office parties, and the FOUR birthdays my family members have in SIX days between December 29^th and January 3rd, it’s been tough to be good around pies, stuffing, birthday cake, birthday cake, birthday cake and birthday cake. Also, with winter arriving (by date, if not by temperature. And let’s all silently thank Mother Nature for being in such a good mood, and by all means let’s not piss her off and get a repeat of last winter), I’ve had no motivation at all. I’ve been doing my workouts, but I’ve really just been going through the motions. And “going through the motions” doesn’t burn calories so well.

To top things off, the other week I got sick. I mean, SICK. I had pneumonia. For those who have never had it, let me describe what pneumonia feels like. It’s all the achiness and feverishness of the flu, combined with killer headaches and the inability to breathe. Basically, when you have pneumonia you WISH you had the flu just so you can feel a little better. The doctor I went to forbade me from working out, and I wanted to kiss her as a thank you. But, after a few days of being idle I really missed it (well, once my fever dropped so I didn’t feel like I was baking from the inside out and all the achiness in my muscles went away and I could take a deep breath again, I missed it).

One night I thought back to what my old health coach talked about: accountability. Then I had a conversation with my husband, Wil. I told him that I really enjoyed how I looked and felt over the summer, when I was fit enough to run a half marathon on a Saturday and then bike 20 miles and run a 10K in a brick workout on Sunday.

Although I have a half marathon coming up near the end of January, Wil suggested I sign up for a race earlier in order to have a goal to work on. So, I did, and will be running my first race in 2012 on January 7^th (another quick conversation with Mother Nature here that she stay in her good mood while I stand for about 45 minutes waiting for the 10K race to start wearing nothing thicker than lycra tights and running shoes with ventilation holes all over them).

Wil also has spent the last week or so knocking cake out of my hand (brave man), and shoving me out of bed at 4 in the morning so that I’ll do my workouts (again, brave man). He even bought me a bike trainer for Channukah so that I can do my bike workouts indoors and stop spending my triathlon career in the back of the pack. Middle-back of the pack, here I come!

Last Friday I weighed in at Weight Watchers and all of mine and Wil’s hard work has paid off. The scale is moving down again, and I couldn’t wait to report my number to Wil. More importantly, I am loving eating well and working out again. OK, so some things in life I’ll always be able to take care of on my own (that’s why I love my job as a data analyst; it’s like getting to do math homework all day!), but I guess my former coach is right. Sometimes you need someone to be accountable to. I just hope Wil stays brave enough to keep pushing me out of bed and out the door through two marathons, 8 half marathons, a 10K next week and 4 triathlons. I might have to buy him a protective cup….