Cardio makes me cry

Does this ever happen to anyone else? Intense cardio (mainly running, but it also happened in spin class today) totally makes me cry. And not in the "oh, this sucks so bad I want to cry" sense, but in the "all of a sudden I'm so overwhelmed with emotions I have to cry" sense. It's probably some kind of crazy brain chemistry thing triggered by the release of endorphins or whatever, but it's not something I've ever seen or heard of before. I have to say, it makes me feel pretty silly to burst into tears while I'm pounding away at the treadmill in the middle of the gym. I always sweat so much that the tears just blend in, so people probably wouldn't even notice except that I can't keep my face from contorting into crying person face. It's actually not that bad--it doesn't last very long so it's not like I'm sobbing all over the place or anything. It's a good reminder, though, how much my mental stability requires regular exercise. I think there's a lot of stress that I just don't let myself process and exercise has become the way I do that. I used to eat my stress, now I just try to outrun it.

There are so many good things to report on the weight loss front this week. You may remember from my post a few weeks ago that I was not doing so hot for a while there. I really fell into a nasty funk after Tim left and, try as I might, I couldn't seem to shake it. I was so discouraged by the weight that I'd gained and had such a hard time getting back into a groove. I don't think I considered giving up on my goal altogether, but I was definitely considering coming up with some pansy wimp-out modifications to it. But thanks to the encouragement of my awesome friends and family (you guys!!) and some good advice from other Lose It! users, I just decided to buckle down and push through it, to keep logging my food and forcing myself to work out (gym care or not!). Almost as soon as I made that decision my motivation reappeared. Just the act of deciding that I wasn't going to let a little case of the blues defeat me turned everything around. And the last week has been awesome. My workouts have been hard core, I've been eating under my calorie budget without really even trying, and my mood has done a complete 180.

Here is a taste of the awesomeness from this week:

• Yesterday and today I did the WHOLE ab workout in my fitness classes without stopping. I have NEVER in my life finished an ab workout without having to stop in the middle (usually several times)! Can I just tell you how amazing that feels?!
• I discovered that I can do 29 push-ups in a minute. Real push-ups! I could totally pass the push-up and sit-up portions of the Army PT test. (The 2 mile run still needs some serious work, though, don't get too excited.)
• I have dropped almost all of the weight I put on over R&R. I set myself back about a month on my goal, but I've made peace with that and now I'm just thrilled to be moving in the right direction again.
• Ok, this is super embarrassing, but check out the size of these quads:

I know, body builder legs, right? Yikes!

• I've also noticed some great improvements in my flexibility, posture, and energy level. Exercise really does do all the stuff they say! Imagine that.

At the end of spin class this morning the instructor told us to "own the song"-- to do whatever we wanted, but to do it as hard as we could for the whole song. So, just like she said, I put my head down, ignored the people around me, and pretty much all-out sprinted for the next five minutes. I was thinking about everything that has happened this month, and how amazed I am that I've made it to this place. I thought about what it will feel like to reach my goal, and the reasons I'm doing all of this to begin with. And I thought, "If I can do this, I can do anything. How can anything seem out of reach if I can master this?" And then I started to cry again. I just kept my head down and let it flow.