Well, crap

Over 70 people voted that I should cut my hair. That means I might actually have  to do it, lol. I'm kidding, thank you for voting, it helped.

The thing I love about blogging is that putting things out there publicly gives me the courage to do hard things. That's why I've blogged so much about my weight loss journey. If I make huge big deal on my blog about how I'm going on a diet and getting back in shape, someone is going to notice if I don't follow though. There has been more than one time that I didn't want to exercise or I wanted to quit the diet but I didn't solely for the reason that if I did I would have to come here with my tail between my legs and explain myself on my blog, lol. It's not like I could just drop the topic after all this time and pretend like it never happened. People e-mail me and tell me that my blog was their inspiration for starting a diet or riding their bike or running. Knowing I'm accountable to someone and that you're all checking in is what keeps me going. So thank you for that.

So I figured the haircut would be the same way. On my own I'm too chicken to cut that much hair off. My appointment is tomorrow morning. To tell you the truth I still want to chicken out a little bit, lol. But 70+ people are waiting to see if I'm actually going to do it. Am I actually going to? I still don't know! I think so! I wish you could all come with me for moral support! :)

On thing that makes me want to do it is that I really want new hair as part of my "new me" transformation. It's been really fun making all these changes over the past several months. I feel better about myself than I have in a long time. Now is the perfect time to change my hair. The old me was blah, and so is my hair. I need fun hair for the new fun me! :) I should hopefully be almost at 20 pounds lost tomorrow. What better way to celebrate than with new hair?

Oh, and speaking of the weight...here is where I come with my tail between my legs and explain myself, lol. I fell off the diet wagon for three days. I ate fast food, I ate cookies, I ate ice cream and you know what? I felt like CRAP. My body felt sluggish and yucky and it was SOOO not worth it. I also gained back a couple of the pounds that I have been fighting so hard to lose. I ran them right back off though, and I only have one pound to go to hit 20 pounds lost. Can I do it by tomorrow? Maybe! I might wait and weight myself when I get back from getting my hair cut. I have a ton of hair on my head. If I really do chop it off the scale has got to show some change, right?! :) (That is me still trying to convince myself to cut my hair.)

In running news, things are going great. I'm still a terrible runner, but I kind of love it anyway! There is something so freeing and powerful about running. I get excited about it when I start and when I see myself improving it's so exciting! I run with a big stupid grin on my face because I'm DOING it! I'm actually running. I never ever in my entire life thought I could run. I've had asthma since I was a kid and I have always avoided running like the plague. When I was younger it was because I didn't want it to trigger my asthma and as I've gotten older and more out of shape it was simply because I couldn't. When I first started using the treadmill a few months ago, walking at 2.2 miles an hour wore me out. I'm super embarrassed to admit that because I know how pathetic it is. I eventually got up to 2.5mph and stayed there for a while. I didn't really even attempt to go faster. I would throw an occasional jog in every now and then but it was a slow jog and it wasn't for very long. Mostly 2.5mph was where I stayed. The day I decided to kick it up a notch and I realized that I could power walk at 3mph was big. I thought I was really getting somewhere then, lol.

But I remember looking at the speed control on the treadmill when I was walking one day and thinking that going even 4mph seemed impossible. I tried it a couple of times and couldn't keep it up for very long.

Yesterday I did 20 minutes of HIIT at 5.2mph and sometimes I even push it up higher than that. That's still not super fast, and I still have to stop frequently to catch my breath. It still feels like it's going to kill me and I still couldn't run a 5K or do anything impressive. Let me be clear that I still suck at running, lol.  But I am light years from where I was. I'm actually getting on that treadmill every single day and kicking up the speed and running. Not taking a slow stroll and not even power walking. I'm running!! I have leg muscles now that weren't there before and I can chase Clarissa up the stairs and not have to catch my breath when I get to the top. I wake up in the morning and look forward to my day now. That might not seem like a big thing but a year ago I was sitting in a therapists office trying to figure out why I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning. I've come a long way since then and I never want to go back.

So if I'm brave enough to do all of that, I can chop my hair off tomorrow, right? I don't know! Check back tomorrow and find out! :)