When I go, I leave no trace.

In so much pain that I literally ran 4 steps before I doubled over and cried out.

My knees are killing me.

Even three hours and two ibuprofen later, I can feel the pain radiating up from my knees into my thighs.

Frustrated and I don’t want to go to the doctor because I know they’ll tell me to rest.

Ugh. I just want to run.

More later. When I have the capacity to write complex sentences.

I knew when I started trying to eat better and get fit that I would have to learn some things about myself that maybe I didn’t want to know but I am just now figuring out how hard that is.

I have been tracking my food intake with the Livestrong app on my iPhone and, bless my soul, I’m being actually honest about it. Even if I go out and blow my calorie count for the day out of the water, I write it all down so I can keep myself accountable and hopefully learn from it. Which brings me to what happened this weekend that I can hopefully take something away from.

I stayed in Friday night and stuck to my calorie goal because I was looking to beat my PR for a mile in the morning as part of my c25k plan. I got to bed early, then woke up and ran and BEASTED the time I thought I was going to get. Three minutes faster than my previous time and a minute and a half faster than I was aiming for.

I am extremely proud of that. I am not, however, extremely proud of what happened next.

I came home and ate some breakfast, nbd. Then around 11, I ate some homemade chili. Not a great plan, but it’s less than 300 calories and chock full of protein so whatever. Then I ate half of a spinach pizza. I get so damn munchy when this week of the month rolls around, I just want to eat all time time. So I decided to remove the temptation and get out of the apartment. I got some ish done around the house and then I suggested to some friends we go on a mini-hike since it was so nice outside. Now, I am also super proud of that decision. Before, it was a rare day that I would have volunteered to spend a totally free and clear Saturday afternoon hiking around getting sweaty. I also had a blast with my friends, good times had by all.

Bacon cups is where it all went down hill.

I, being a Southern girl, come from the Paula Deen school of cooking. This is probably one of my friends’ favorite things that I make. It involves a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon and two cups of cheese. So I made up a batch of these, which yield a dozen muffin-sized mini-omelettes basically. I restrained myself to one. Not too shabby. I even created a recipe within Livestrong to see what the nutritional value was so I could track it (173 calories). The problem was the beer I had while making it. Then we went to Hooters where a friend of mine was promoting a beer and had two more beers there with some wings and fried pickles (how could you not get wings at Hooters? was my rationalization for that). Then another beer while playing foosball at a friends house, then another beer at a bar with three fruity/syrupy shots. More beer. M&Ms at 2 o’clock in the morning. Girl Scout cookies when I got home drunk.

All told, I consumed 3535 calories. Three thousand five hundred and thirty five calories. That’s just over twice my caloric goal for the day. Around 3,000 less my workouts.

Disappointing.

What’s worse is what I did yesterday. I sat around in the morning calculating my intake from Saturday, looked at it, then went and made a batch of cupcakes and ate three of them. I had Wendy’s fries for breakfast and Jimmy John’s for lunch. I went out for dinner with a friend and ate my FACE off. I was about 1,000 calories over for the day yesterday and what’s more, I hadn’t learned a damn thing from Saturday.

When I tracked my weight this morning, I realized I had gained back every pound I had lost over the past three weeks of hard, consistent work in two days. And that was really hard to realize.

It was even harder to realize how much I gave up on myself this weekend.

The hardest thing, however, was to realize how important of a role alcohol plays in my life, in all our lives really. Last weekend I didn’t drink when I went out and I felt like an absolute outcast. Every bartender looked at me with pity when I ordered soda water & lime like I was in recovery and all my friends kept interrogating me as to why I wasn’t drinking. I can’t IMAGINE being a recovering alcoholic in this world, it must be absolutely impossible. If someone like me, who only drinks a few nights a week, can’t resist having a drink at the bar and feels all that pressure, its a wonder anyone ever gets sober.

I need to start making some hard decisions about what I want out of my life and what sacrifices I am willing to make to get there. I have to be willing to put myself in uncomfortable situations and stand up to people who make fun of my choices.

There have definitely been bright spots in this weekend, I made some good decisions that I am very happy with. I hope I can hold onto that feeling so that I can remember how good it feels when it comes time to make another choice later on.

So yesterday was Valentine’s Day, so I decided to treat myself. I got a spankin’ new pair of Asics Cumulus 13 from Fleet Feet to replace my crapped out Nikes. They’re so comfortable! When I got them home, I wanted to go out immediately, but I was so hungry I decided to eat first. I was also dead tired so I decided to get what I was craving, Wendy’s, instead of cooking something from scratch like I had been planning.

What a terrible idea.

All of that Wendy’s sat in my stomach like a rock. It had a nasty greasy aftertaste in my mouth. After a few weeks of consciously eating better and going (mostly) organic, it was a total disappointment. After I ate, I lounged around in my bed with my dog watching TV and reading. I still felt so sick, that even though I was exhausted, I went out and walked for half an hour, following my C25k program, even though I had planned to give myself a rest day since my knees have been killing me.

One of the reasons I wrote this post is so that I can go back the next time I want Wendy’s, I can remember that it’s not going to be nearly as delicious as I want it to be.

I’m looking forward to my run tonight with my new shoes!

Yesterday was a really frustrating run for a lot of reasons, the main one of which is my adorable black lab Hattie. She’s a great dog, really she is. Even if she does eat all my socks. She is absolutely horrible on the leash however. What makes it even more annoying is that I know that it is MY fault. Dog’s only know what their owners teach them and I’ve never been running with her. It’s beyond annoying. She pulls at the leash, then lags behind. Stops dead to smell something, or bolts off to chase a squirrel. She crosses in front of me, under my feet. I’ve tripped over her more than once. I don’t know what to do other than just keep going but I don’t know if I can. She settles in usually after 2 miles or so, but when my runs are 2.5 miles, that doesn’t really help any. When I don’t run with her, it’s infinitely more pleasant but I just don’t have the time to run for an hour, then take her on a long walk like she needs each day.

One of the things I am really struggling right now with is a lack of support from my friends.

Wednesday night, before the Carolina/Dook game, I was joking with one of my friends that drinking half a growler of beer wasn’t exactly part of my diet. I meant it lightly - and I continued drinking my beer - but she seemed really shell-shocked by it.

“But, you’ve always been one of those girls who loves the way you look! Why are you on a diet? You’re fine,” she said. I immediately felt really defensive and rushed to explain. “It’s not really a diet, I’m not doing Atkins or anything. I’m just trying to keep a better eye on what I eat and eat less of it.” We moved on to other topics of conversation, but it has kept bugging me for two days now.

I’m not dramatically overweight. I weigh around 175 and I’m 5’8”. On good days, my BMI is in the healthy range for my height. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to feel better about my body. I’m not running to lose weight, I’m running because I’m tired of getting winded while playing with my dog in the yard or struggling to bike the two miles to campus.

I really need support as I do this. My therapist has encouraged me to be more open with my friends about my weaknesses as they’re a major part of my anxiety. I HATE admitting when I’m struggling or not happy. I prefer pretending that everything is okay. I finally took the step of making my efforts to get in shape public and I just feel like A) no one cares and B) no one really believes this is a true change. One of the reasons I started this tumblr was that I am hoping to find some people here who are in the same boat as I am.

I want to make this change happen. I can’t do it by myself. It hurts when my roommate makes fun of me for going for a run at night while he sits on the couch growing his beer belly. It is discouraging when my friends laugh at the idea of running a 5k with me. I know I shouldn’t let that kind of stuff bother me but the truth is that it does.

Sometimes it just feels like I’m the only one on the road, you know?