Yesterday, I promised that I would share the training program I’m following today…and that I would also share how those of you who aren’t in the DFW area can also participate. I can deliver on 75% of that. Lemme ‘splain…
First, I’m following Hal Higdon’s 5K for Walkers program. You may ask why I’m not following Couch to 5K and it’s simply psychology on my part. See, Couch to 5K is ultimately designed to get you running. I look forward to that someday, but I’m over 300 pounds and my feet hate me. I won’t be running for a while.
Understand, I’m not being a slacker…even when I weighed 125 pounds I was a regular in the podiatrist’s office. My feet really do hate me. I was always bandaged up or going for physical therapy. Two foot surgeries and multiple stress fractures later, I’ve learned to be realistic about what I can put my feet through at this weight – because if there’s one thing that sucks, it’s getting yourself all motivated and ending up in a stress fracture boot for 8 weeks. That shit ain’t fun.
So the psychology of it all? If I was a grown-up, I could read Couch to 5K and just substitute the word “run” for “walk”…but that’s not what happens in my head. What happens in my head is something like this:
Everyone else is running and you’re walking. You can’t run because you’re too fat. What if you never beat this? You never should have let yourself get this big. Who does this? You’re ridiculous. You’ll never run. You’re a failure.
Welcome to my evil twin, ladies and gentlemen…that’s what will be going on in my head if I do the grown-up thing and try to just overlook the word run. I don’t give myself any credit for trying. I’m horrible to myself. So to keep that from happening, I do what I have to in order to avoid those destructive voices in my head…and I keep pushing forward.
I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that crap silent. Determination is what’s most important to me.
I’ll be posting my daily walking goal on my Facebook fan page every day, so if you want to follow along please do! I’ll also be blogging quite a bit about it here…you know I won’t shut up about it.
So for those of you who don’t live in the DFW area and can’t walk the Buffalo Boogie with us, don’t fret…you can train with us! And that’s not all…there is actually one more announcement I have to make this week, but I’m not ready to do it tonight – so stay tuned.
I’ll hurry it up as fast as I can. I should have it out by Wednesday night.
For now, you’ve got the link to the training program I’m using…and I’ll be back soon with the re-birth of a pretty damn cool project I launched a while back. You’re gonna love it!
It’s time to talk about something ugly…and I’m not talking about my Frankenpants. I’m talking about my first 5K, which shall forever be known in the Hot Mess Hall of Fame as “The 5K from Hell”.
This was back when I was just starting to wake up from all the crap the diet industry was feeding me, so I was really anxious to get the hell on the road to healthy. I was unemployed at the time, which makes things worse because an unemployed Dianne with too much time on her hands can be a scary thing. I’d already lost a little weight and thought I was the shit.
Strictly speaking, this wasn’t my very first 5K. I’d been to a few others, which were more like lazy walking 5K’s centered around fundraising events. Show up, get a t-shirt, sign a poster, stroll the track and chat with friends. Pretty easy.
The 5K from Hell was July 3rd. Here in Texas. Most of you already see what a horrendous mistake this was. Sure, a seasoned runner could tackle a 5K in the Texas summer heat with no problem, but a native Californian with over 200 pounds to lose? Not a good idea. I was dead set on this one because it was at a Fourth of July weekend festival and I’m patriotic to a fault. Yankee Doodle Badass.
On 5K day, I woke up ready to conquer the universe. It was going to be awesome! I was going to power through this sucker. My fellow walkers were going to be so supportive, cheering me on as I kept pace with those who had far less junk in the trunk than me. Chubby people sitting on the sidelines would be Inspired to get up walk at the site of me trudging with much determination towards the finish line. There would be unicorns and bunnies everywhere… and world peace…all because I kicked ass at my first 5K.
That’s not even close to what happened.
There were tons of runners and walkers present that day – so much so that the event parking was overflowing by the time we got there. My friend Brenda was with me, which is good because it’s important to have a witness/moral support when you go through shit like this.
First bad omen: we had to park so far away that we walked more than half of a 5K just to get to the starting line (in 90% humidity, thanks to the rain the night before). No matter. This was it. My day was finally here. It was 8 am, 96 degrees, and I was about to walk my first official 5K. Bring it.
Brenda and me at the starting line…before all hell broke loose.
The starter’s pistol fired and we were off.
It was incredibly hot and muggy, but I was bravely shrugging it off. Nothing was going to stop me from turning the page on the next chapter of my new healthy life. I had the road in front of me and nothing but old ladies and fellow chubbies behind me. I owned this day. Fuck yeah.
Mile marker 1 came along and I was ready for water. I didn’t bring my own because I thought water stations were pretty much a given at an event like this. Even the lazy-ass 5K’s I’d been to in California had water stations at every mile marker. No water? In Texas?? In the summer??? Really?
There was no choice but to press on. Just before mile marker 2, my heart rate monitor started beeping. (The kind runners wear around their chest, not the kind they make heart attack patients wear…just to be clear.) The wristband readout was blinking at me. 160. The normal max for me was 148, so the monitor was telling me to slow down. I continued to push forward. Fat girl on a mission…look out!
Mile marker 2. No water. No effing water. Brenda looks over at a group of spectators and yells “Where’s the water?” They just smiled at us vacantly and waved their American flags, cheering us on in what was now beginning to feel like the Yankee Doodle Death March. It was sweltering and the sun seemed to be getting stronger by the second. A toddler sat in a stroller, mocking me with his fucking juice box. There was more juice on his shirt than in his mouth. Cocky little bastard.
My heart rate monitor beeped faster. 170. One by one, the chubbies and the oldies started to pass me. By the time we got to the halfway mark, an old man with a flat ass bedecked in Texas flag running shorts shuffled past us. Not a good feeling. Plus, his legs were pasty white.
Then, finally, a water station. Overexcited Boy Scout volunteers swarmed us, extending countless cups of water, often with one or two fingers inside the cup. At that point, I didn’t give a crap if I found a booger floating in one of those cups…I needed the water. I drank as much as I could without stopping and trudged on.
180 on the heart rate monitor. Crap. I really needed to slow down. And then I heard a car engine behind me.
Brenda and I turned around to find a police car, lights flashing, and a city truck tailing us. Workers were jumping out of the city truck, grabbing up the traffic cones as soon as we walked by them. Effing awesome. Not only was I dead last in the 5K Death March, but I was now holding up the city from resuming its normal business.
Me and the Self Esteem Motorcade.
Sensing my embarrassment, Brenda jogged back to the police car and asked if the officer if she could at least turn the lights off. Nope. Apparently, it’s a city law that all fatties attempting unrealistic fitness goals be followed by a police car with its lights on. You know…for public safety. Can’t have the fatties just get on the sidewalk instead, right? I kept walking, but deep inside I started wishing I could just disappear.
Pain set in. My arches, heels, knees, hips, and back were killing me. Every step hurt. I had trained for this 5K, but the combination of the humidity, heat, and desperately trying to pick up the pace were taking its toll.
188 on the heart monitor. If I had seen the Grim Reaper standing on the side of the road, it wouldn’t have surprised me.
An hour and 6 minutes after we started, I crossed the finish line.
Five minutes after that, I was in the back of an ambulance.
Seriously.
I had to tell Brenda to get me some help when I knew I was fainting. There was no place to sit and no shade. The heat was unbearable. Trying to save the remaining shred of pride I had left, I begged her to tell them not to come with the lights and sirens. A few minutes later, she came running back to tell me that help was coming. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an EMT jump into an ambulance.
Me: Oh God, please don’t tell me they’ve got the lights going…please…
Brenda: Okay, I won’t tell you that.
Fuck. Lights and sirens a-blaze’in, here came my knights in shining armor.
Oh…wait…maybe not.
The damn ambulance couldn’t fit under the “Starting Line” banner. I shit you not.
People were scrambling everywhere now, trying to get the banner down and save the fatty. An incredibly fit woman with a generous heart and no visible body fat ran up to me and handed me her apple juice and energy bar. Great…now I’ve got skinny people giving me food. I looked up to thank her and saw two EMT’s running towards me with a gurney.
Sweet jump’in Jesus…make it stop.
Me (head between my knees): I’m not getting on that thing. I have some pride, guys.
Hero #1: Okay, ma’am, we have to get you out of this heat right now. Can you stand up?
Me: I don’t think so. Can’t you just check me out right here? I’m sure I’m just hyperventilating.
Hero #1: No ma’am, our equipment is in the ambulance and we need to get you cooled off.
Hero #2 (trying and failing to console me): There’s nobody left, ma’am. Everyone’s gone home pretty much.
Ouch. Point taken, Trapper John.
Every time I tried to stand up I would start to black out. I wanted to cry but I was more dehydrated than beef jerky. I had nothing left. I had to let them help me onto the gurney.
Me: Just give me the body bag. I don’t want anyone to see me.
Hero #2 handed me a folded white sheet – you know, the kind they usually drape over dead bodies. I put it over my face and they rolled me into the back of the ambulance.
Heart rate monitor: 192.
The two hunky EMT’s started putting those sticky electrode things on my chest…and then on my leg, which was even more embarrassing because I hadn’t shaved my legs. In my delirium, I apparently apologized for that because Hero #2 told me I needed to lighten up on myself.
Hero #1: What’s that beeping?
Me: My heart rate monitor…see? (I held up my wrist to show him the display.)
Hero #2: You know the ones you just wear on your wrist aren’t very accurate. You should get one of the monitors you wear around your chest.
Me: Yeah, I’m wearing it…you just can’t see it ‘cause I’m fat.
Crickets chirping.
An hour later, the final diagnosis was dehydration. When I declined a one way ticket to the hospital, they told Brenda to take me somewhere cool and to get plenty of food and water. So we went to Razoo’s Cajun Café and I ate 2,000 calories and drank about five gallons of water and diet soda. (I hadn’t conquered my food demons yet).
That’s the 5K from Hell.
Not a good experience by any means. It was the lack of water that got me, but I wasn’t ready for an event like this. I joke about it because, let’s face it, some of this shit is just damn funny – but when I’m done laughing it off, there’s a little funky residue left over. The multiple failures of this day took the shine right off the fact that I finished. No matter what else happened, I finished that motherfucker…and yet that’s not what I’m left with. I’m left with the embarrassment and the failure of it all. And a cute EMT touching my hairy leg.
The memory of the 5K from Hell is one of my exercise demons. Find out tomorrow how I plan to get rid of it for good.
Do you have any exercise demons in your head? Have you had a less than stellar experience in the fitness world? Don’t leave me feeling all crappy with this demon lurking around.
Sometimes I forget to be grateful for what I have. There are days when it feels like I’m in constant battle against “the grass is always greener syndrome”. Someone’s always luckier than me, prettier than me, has more money than me. Thinner than me. Hell, that’s most of the world.
I’m ashamed of how often I forget to be grateful. I’m luckier than so many others.
Remember back in the day when Oprah had her “Ah-hah!” moment and finally lost all her weight? I remember sitting in a restaurant with one of my girlfriends talk’in shit about poor Oprah. While we chomped on what was easily a day’s worth of calories, we lamented about how easy it would be lose our weight if we had Oprah’s enormous wealth.
“Yeah, if I could afford to hire someone to follow me around all day I’d hit my goal weight too,” my friend said. “She has a personal chef, a personal trainer, a personal assistant…she doesn’t have to do shit for herself.”
Our solution to the problem? Order dessert…because we poor girls, who had to work for a living and struggled so unfairly to lose weight, deserved it. We weren’t really struggling though. Well, I can only speak for me. I started all my diets on Monday back then, after a “last night on earth” eating binge on Sunday night. By Thursday night I was usually so starved and bored that I was calling for pizza delivery. For years, I did the same thing over and over again, failing every time and then whined to myself about it over a pint of mint chip while I watched The Biggest Loser.
It wasn’t until just over a year ago, when I was on the verge of lap band surgery, that I realized the bulk of my struggle was a bunch of bullshit that I was feeding myself. Well, the diet industry was feeding it to me as well – but I was the one swallowing it. Just weeks before my planned lap band surgery, I decided to experiment with a sort of imaginary lap band…and I found something unexpected: gratitude.
My imaginary lap band experiment opened my eyes. I didn’t miss all the processed crap I had been eating when I went without it. Instead, I missed the healthy foods that I enjoy cooking for myself. It surprised me quite a bit…and was the catalyst that caused me to cancel my surgery and do this on my own.
Here we are again, just over a year later, with my food demons in check…and now I’m going after exercise. Just a few weeks into the process of making exercise a consistent habit, I’m putting an enormous amount of thought into every aspect of it. Why do I hate it? What do I hate about it? How can I change that? What roadblocks are in my way? How do I get rid of them? This may seem like a lot of over thinking to some of you, but this is exactly what I did with health eating last year and it worked like a charm. Examine every rock, every stone, every pebble.
This year it’s not my healthy, delicious recipes I’m grateful for. Well, I’m still grateful for all that. With my focus on exercise this year, my relentless over thinking is making me grateful for the fact that I already have everything I need in order to move more. I hate gyms – but I’m grateful for the treadmill in my bedroom that makes gym memberships unnecessary. I’ve always had foot problems that can create issues for me, even when I was thin…but I have strong legs and no serious handicaps that keep me from exercising consistently.
And then there’s the path…
The path to victory
This is the entrance to a 6.10 mile long bike/walking trail in my neighborhood. I only have to walk two neighborhood streets behind my house to get here. The trail connects to other parks with other walking trails as well, providing just over 20 miles of room for me to stretch my legs. If I turn right, I’ll hit the dog park and a few other parks and trails. The bulk of the trail lies to my left. I have no idea what’s down there…but I plan to find out.
This post is the beginning of a series of blog posts I’ll be making as I discover what waits for me on the path ahead…on this trail and in my head as I try to fight some pretty serious mental demons about exercise. Four weeks into my new challenge of making exercise a consistent habit and I’m still resisting myself at every turn.
That’s fine. If that’s how my subconscious wants to play it, I can’t control it – but I can control what I do about it. So I will use the legs that I’m so grateful for to propel me down the path ahead whether my subconscious likes it or not…just like I made myself stand in the kitchen last year and actually cook instead of hitting the drive-thru. At first it was hard, but I avoided fad diets and absolute thinking. Gentle persistence turned into willingness…which turned into habit…and before I knew it my whole way of thinking about food was changed for good.
As I write this and I think about the fact that I’m going to go down this path whether I want to or not, I’m afraid. I know it isn’t real fear. There’s nothing to be afraid of down this path. (Well, at least not until spring when the bugs come back.) But, as I’ll explain in more detail later, there are mental demons at the heart of this that I haven’t confronted in over 20 years. When I think about the crap I’m going to have to claw through this year in order to change my life, last year seems like a total breeze.
It doesn’t matter in the end. It has to be done…because I want it done. I may not be particularly courageous, but I am stubborn.
Something’s happening soon and I’m not going to tell you what it is until it’s over. Frankly, I’ll be so busy zinging between feeling thrilled and feeling absolutely horrified that I just can’t handle anyone else watching me go through it until it’s done. And maybe not even then.
I’m going to be on tv.
Before you get all excited, it’s not for anything to do with my blog. That would rock, but I would still be just as freaked. Maybe someday I’ll be on tv because my awesome blog has inspired so many people across the land that the governor declares it National Hot Mess Princess Day…but that’s not what this is. This is because I’m an idiot fan of our local news show who posts too much on Facebook and got voted “Facebook Friend of the Week” – so they invited me down to the studio to meet the news anchors and get a tour.
That part’s cool, right? At least I think so. Many of you who have liked my Facebook fan page helped me win this invitation when I posted my frantic plea for people to vote for me. (Y’all totally blew my competition out of the water, too…you rock!) What I didn’t realize at the time, however, was that they don’t just invite you to the studio for a meet & greet. Nope. They also put you on the air.
Fuck.
As smooth, charming, and witty as I seem here in my little Hot Mess kingdom (chuckle) I’m really just a big twit. Especially when I’m feeling nervous. Or self-conscious. Seriously, when I’m nervous I could trip on a damn hair. I go from normal to blithering idiot in 2.2 seconds.
Don’t believe me? Let me take you back to 1984…when I was on tv the last time. Me and my BFF were camped out for “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” at the big swanky movie theater in our town. I’m a geek, ok? Shut up.
Every newspaper and local news station was coming out to report on us. It was very exciting. And then one reporter decided to interview us on camera. My BFF, a sun-shiny blonde with a big smile and nerves of steel did an awesome job being interviewed. Then it was my turn.
Reporter: “So do you think you’ll ever do this again?”
Me: (laughing nervously) “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be doing this again in the recent future!”
What. The. Hell???
…in the recent future.
Yes, I said that on tv. Yes, everyone I know was watching. Yes, it took a hundred thousand years for me to live that down. And I was cute back then! I had one ass, one chin, and no gray hair.
Cute me. No, I wasn’t a cast member from Twilight…I was just pale from living in a dance studio and never seeing the sun.
I am no longer that cute, oblivious young movie fan. I am a monstrously overweight chick who, in spite of her seemingly cool exterior, is really a nightmarish bundle of self-conscious bullshit balled up into a pair of plus sized pants. I do not want to be on camera.
I was on a work retreat in New York once and we did the NBC Studio Tour…and guess who was voted by her co-workers to be the weather girl on the NBC Nightly News set? Yours truly, of course. I got up on camera with that map of the U.S. behind me and the first thing out of my mouth was “Holy crap, my ass just eclipsed Texas!!!” (It’s true, it did…)
Yeah. And that was just in front of work people and not on the air. Imagine the damage I’ll do on live tv when I’m nervous. Holy shit biscuits.
Why can’t I just cancel? Well, I sort of had to cancel already because of a meeting at work on the day they originally invited me to the studio. I sent an email explaining my predicament and extended my heartfelt apologies…and they did the unthinkable: they sent a very gracious invitation to reschedule. So there’s that. Not to mention the fact that I beat out other viewers who would have had the opportunity to go. If I cancel again, I’m a Hot Mess Asshole. And why? Because I’m self-conscious? In the immortal scheme of things, who cares? No one knows who I am and no one cares. My last name isn’t Kardashian. (Thank God!!!)
I know in my head that none of this matters, but deep down in my heart lives that same 10 year old little girl who learned to get all her self-worth from her outer shell. That little girl will probably always be with me, but my 2013 goal of making exercise a consistent habit is going to do a lot to get her under control. Unfortunately we’re only 10 days into 2013 and I haven’t quite gotten around to shutting her up.
Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to go…and I’m going to have a great time. I’m going to enjoy the tour and face my fears and muscle through it – because nothing good happens from hiding in a corner. And nobody puts Baby in a corner! Okay, seriously, I can’t be serious.
Hopefully when this is done, I’ll be able to smile and say I had a great time. I’ll realize how stupid I was to put so much importance on so small a thing. And, yes, I’ll be back to tell you how it went. And no, I’m not telling you when and what channel. I’m not that big of a badass yet.
Last year at this time, I was strutting around my living room like Mick Jagger’s fat sister…adamantly proclaiming that 2012 was going to be my year. Take no prisoners, batten down the hatches, I was going to forge through 2012 and make it my bitch.
I feel like I did that, but not in the “In yo face, chump!” way I thought I would. Sometimes when I get very excited I turn into Richard Simmons…and that shit’s not good for anybody. Then I calm down and remember that I’m just me: a former snack cake guzzler who has seen the light.
2012 was my year. (I have a whole “2012 was awesome” post coming on New Year’s Eve. Sort of a snarky retrospective on all things Hot Mess. You’re welcome.) It was the year that I created a bunch of motivational tools to help me hit my goals. It was the year that I realized this is a war of tiny battles…and that if I just focus on the little steps and map out a plan for myself, I can get there from here. And it was the first year that I have ever lost weight (45 pounds) and kept it off. Ever.
True enough, a year ago I imagined that I would plow through the year at full speed and kick major scale ass for the entire year. I imagined celebrating 100 pounds lost sometime around the end of the summer, victoriously donating box after box after box of fat pants to the Goodwill. That did not happen. I hit a plateau on the scale and then I hit a plateau in my brain. I had to fight the urge to take my frustrations out on Twinkies. I won that fight (sorry about that whole bankruptcy thing, Hostess, but I’ve moved on). In fact, Little Debbie is probably getting her affairs in order as well…because I have successfully avoided Nutty Bars for a year. Take that, you little bitch!
2012 was the year I kicked my food demons in the ass. Looking back at it now, I can clearly see that was the lesson I was supposed to learn this year: finally getting control over my food demons. I feel good about it. I feel victorious. And sure, there are a lot of fatty haters out there who would say I’ve failed because I didn’t keep losing…and I don’t care about them. This is not their life and it’s not their process. In over 20 years of being obese I have ended every year weighing more than I did at the start of the year. I have never lost weight and kept it off. I will proudly stand on top of my plus sized mountain and proclaim victory for losing 45 pounds and not gaining it back. I’ve earned that right.
Another victory to celebrate is the fact that my outlook on food has significantly changed. Even when I’m famished, steering my car towards a drive-thru is not an option for me. I don’t even consider it. I’m done with fast food. There have been a few times when I’ve been out with the hubby and we’ve stopped for fast food because that’s what he wanted. He would catch me making a face every time and I’d just shake my head and explain that it doesn’t taste like I remember it. At all. Fast food tastes terrible to me now. And sugar? A little sugar goes a long way with me. We went out to dinner the other night and our waiter asked if we would like dessert. I immediately said “Oh, no thank you…I’m full!” After he left, hubby smiled at me and said “You’ve changed so much, babe. You used to always get dessert no matter what. I’m proud of you for how well you’ve done this year.” There’s nothing like someone you love being proud of you. Nothing.
He’s right, too: whenever we went out to dinner before I got on a healthier road, my heart would race just looking at the dessert menu. If the waiter brought the check and didn’t ask us if we’d like dessert, I was downright pissed.
“Are you trying to say that you think I’ve had enough dessert, Mr. Waiter? Is that it? Because I’ll tell you what: I haven’t! I’d like to pack a few more asses into these here fat pants, Mister, so get your skinny ass into that kitchen and bring me some mud pie!”
Yeah. I’ve changed.
So what about 2013? It’s nearly upon us. Is 2013 going to be the year that I celebrate 100 pounds lost? Oooh! Maybe I’ll lose 150!!! Or maybe I’ll even get to my entire goal of 219 pounds lost by next year! OMG yes! And I’ll do it all by drinking organic smoothies and eating nuts I find in the yard.
Okay, seriously. No.
My 2013 is going to be about moving more. Part of me cringes every time I say it, but it’s true. 2013 is going to be about me moving more. A lot more. Why am I cringing? Because I fucking hate exercise. I hate it!!! That’s something else 2012 taught me – but unlike all the positive results and wonderful lessons I learned in 2012, I know that my attitude towards exercise is unhealthy…so it’s time for me to do something about it. If you’d like a mental image of what that’s going to be like, imagine being shoved into a tiny cage with an angry badger while someone pokes said badger with a very sharp stick. There will be a lot of screaming and probably a lot of bleeding, but I’ll get through it. I will tame the badger.
When it comes to my goal of moving more, 2012 taught me that my treadmill is a wonderful convenience that gets boring if I don’t mix it up. I learned that doing dance and exercise games on our Playstation 3 makes me feel like the 9 year old little girl who didn’t measure up at the dance studio. It brings a lot of issues up for me that need to rest in peace, so I’m not likely to do that kind of exercise for a while. I love dancing, I just need less junk in my trunk when I get down with the funk. And I learned that the task of bringing exercise back into my life is going to require a lot of careful thought, some trial and error, and a high level of motivation from a lot of different sources. One of those sources is electronic gadgetry.
In addition to being a handbag ho, I’m also a gadget geek and a bit of a gamer. So, in these last few days before 2013 is upon us, I’ve decided to buy myself a Fit Bit activity tracker. I’ve heard tons of good reviews from many of you here on the blog and on my Facebook fan page. Tomorrow is payday and I’m going for it.
Why Fit Bit? Well, I had a BodyBug once. I saw the contestants on the Biggest Loser using them (back when I used to watch) and I loved the idea of having real time data telling me whether I was moving enough in order to hit my calorie deficit each day. I actually bought one and I loved it. I miss that. What sucks about the BodyBug is that it comes with a monthly fee for their online service…and we don’t need another monthly expense in the Hot Mess Household. No way. Fit Bit doesn’t require a monthly fee.
If you’ve never heard of these gadgets before, I encourage you to get all Google-y and check it out. You strap these little gadgets to yourself (they’re small enough to conceal) and they tell you how much you’re moving and how well you’re doing in relation to the goals you’ve set for yourself. I’ll give you a real world example to compare this to: a shitty job I had a long time ago.
I had a boss who was a complete jackass…and every month he would call me to his office for our “one on one” meeting. Every month he would tell me that I didn’t hit my productivity goal. He would make suggestions like “work faster” or “don’t take a break every day”. You know…douchebag advice. He was a real piece of work. And every month I would work really hard, trying to get to my productivity goal, and every month I would fail.
Then he went off to do something else (I think they actually created a douche bag department and put him in charge) and I got a new boss. In our first meeting together, my new boss asked me how I was monitoring my productivity. I explained to him that I had no tools to do that. Douche bag boss would not allow us to even use the printer that all the reports came off of, nor would he allow us access to print any…or even know what was available. New boss says to me, “Well, how are you supposed to hit a monthly productivity goal if you can’t tell how you’re doing during the month? Would it help you to have access to that information sooner so that you can make changes accordingly?”
Hell yes!
New boss gave me access to the reports, explained to me what kind of reports I could run, gave me some suggestions about what to look for, and set me loose. I hit my productivity goal well before the month was over. By the end of the year, I had increased my productivity so much that they didn’t hire a replacement for my co-worker when she transferred to another department.
The lesson here? Information and the right tools are more valuable than cigarettes in prison, peeps. The thing I loved most about my BodyBug (and hope to love about my Fit Bit) is that it will give me real time info so that I don’t have to wait to get on the scale to find out I wasn’t trying hard enough. If you’re still shaking your head at me, don’t worry…I’ll be blogging a lot about this over the next several weeks and you’ll get to see it in action. I promise.
Tomorrow we’re going to talk about another cool tool…one that I hope you’ll join me on. It’s free and I’m enjoying it so far. I have a Hot Mess Princess group all set up for us, which I’ll tell you all about in tomorrow’s post. Maybe if enough of us are having fun, I won’t be so grumpy about having to move below the waist.
I’ll be posting pics here and on my Facebook fan page as I go along.
Then he went off to do something else (I think they actually created a douche bag department and put him in charge) and I got a new boss. In our first meeting together, my new boss asked me how I was monitoring my productivity. I explained to him that I had no tools to do that. Douche bag boss would not allow us to even use the printer that all the reports came off of, nor would he allow us access to print any…or even know what was available. New boss says to me, “Well, how are you supposed to hit a monthly productivity goal if you can’t tell how you’re doing during the month? Would it help you to have access to that information sooner so that you can make changes accordingly?”