Time to Heal

It’s been a long time since I posted.. basically over a year.

I’ve gone through so much this past year. Torn ankle ligament, torn meniscus and torn hip flexor - these injuries have thrown a huge wrench in my training; but my biggest wrench occured In July 2014 - when I was sexually assaulted.

It feels freeing to finally admitted it, finally speak it! I don’t think I’ve actually spoken those words officially since the day I met with the investigator. I think I was so afraid to say them because I would fear people would think differently of me, I feared people would look at me like I was broken, fragile, frail. I want you to know I'm not broken but I'm strong. 

I believe being sexually assaulted prevented me from running more than my injuries did. It hurt more than tearing any ligament in my body. It hurt more than breaking any bone. It hurt my heart and soul.

As you runners understand running is mental; you hit a distance and you get a flood of emotion, you feel every hurt, every up, every down, every tinge of pain. Your emotions are heightened. Feeling this prevented me from running anything more than 4 miles. 

I don’t want to get into all the details. I’m still not ready to talk about that nor do I think I ever will be  fully ready.

What I want to discuss is healing, my healing.

I felt so terribly broken. I felt destroyed. I felt violated. I felt that all the goodness in me had been taken away. I felt so unhappy. Yet I hid this away from the everyone, I put a smile on my face daily and continued life as you all know it but deep inside a darkness was taking over my happy place and making me feel worthless, small.

That day I changed, I became a different person. Someone stole a piece of me I’ll never be able to get back. They stole a happiness that lives in me. They stole my self worth.

One year ago I learned that not all people are good people but there is still good people in the world.

These past few weeks I’ve managed to lace up my running shoes more often and I’ve even tackled a 10 mile run.

I’ve decided it's time to get back out there and I'm currently training for a full marathon .. I’m ready to put this past year behind me and get out on the trails again.

My runs have been nothing less than emotional but in the emotion I'm finding joy. In the pain I'm finding relief. I'm finally starting to admit what happened to me and I truly believe admitting it is the first step in moving past it. 

I am getting back to the person I once was. The happy, determined, fun Tiara. 

My Issue with Calorie Tracking Apps

I am using a calorie tracking app right now to make sure I am eating enough. There is a fine line between eating for fuel and over eating or under eating, both under and over eating can cause you to gain weight. Over eating because your body will store it as fat and under because your body enters into starvation mode and starts to hold onto everything you put into it. I  want to make sure I am not sabotaging my body. Because I generally eat the same thing most days (creature of habit) I know if I do this for a full week I can understand what I am eating.

Yesterday I did Nike Training Club in the morning, 95 minutes worth, at lunch I ran 4 miles and after work I did a quick Nike Kinect training. I ate a total of 2,640 calories!! Yep I apparently ate a lot. It was all clean food. However, My Fitness Pal doesn't account for your Resting Metabolic Rate and it doesn't properly track calories burned.

Last January I had my RMR tested by my dietitian. She came to my house in the morning, I had to fast for 12 hours before I did this and she plugged my nose and had me breath into this machine for 10 minutes. It told me that I have a RMR of 2,300. At rest, if I stayed in bed all day I would burn 2,300 calories doing absolutely nothing. 

Also I did a lot of activity yesterday and needed to refeed my muscles after my workouts therefore needed more food. I looked at the workout tracker on my fitness pal and I feel that is grossly over estimates how much you actually are burning. The only proper way to know exactly what you are burning calorie wise is to get your V02 max tested and wear a heart rate monitor. I refuse to use the workout tracker on there.

At the end of the night I clicked the button to end my day and it told me if I continued to eat like this every day in 5 weeks I would weight 165 pounds. I am lucky that I am at a pretty secure place with myself because if I read that before I would have freaked out and attempted to purge myself. 

People remember these are generalized trackers. They do not understand your body, your RMR or how much you are burning. No calorie tracker can tell you what to eat. Please if you eat over your calories one day, look at what you ate. Is it clean and healthy? Do you feel satisfied? Ignore what it says.

My Rant About American Politics

Yesterday was voting day for America. I am a duel citizen and love America so I was playing very close attention to the polls and what was going on.

I jumped for joy when I heard that Barack Obama beat out Mitt Romney!!

I am a huge Obama supporter and I LOVE him. I think he is wonderful and Michele and Barack have raised two beautiful girls. When I think how I would want to model a family after I think of them. Michele is huge into health and fitness and I believe this rubs off on her girls and Barack is an adoring father.

Aside from his amazing family I believe the social issues he is bringing to play are important and crucial. I believe that two people should be allowed to get married regardless if they are man and women, women and women or man and man. If you love someone and you want to legally marry them I believe you should be able to do so. I don't think it is fair that only man and women can get married, marriage is for people regardless of their sexual preference. There are people in the world who get married for 72 days and get divorced and there are people who wan to marry their same sex partner, have a family and are happy together; so please tell me who is in violation of the sanctity of marriage if that is what you are worried about. For those people out there who believe that this is an abomination, please, I think marrying and divorcing in 72 days is an abomination.

Also Barack believes in the women in the work force, dear Mitt Romney, you lost the majority of  the women vote because women now are in the work force. I know you probably raised your daughters to grow up find a husband who can support them, have them stay home and cook, clean and raise the family but news flash we no longer live in the 1950's. This is 2012 and women are CEO's and Presidents of companies. We no longer live in the shadow of our husbands. We no longer want sexual relations for procreation, we want to have sex and not have a child. So talking about getting rid of birth control is not away to gain the vote. Respect the women in the work force and not just the mother because women does not equal mother. I am a women, but I am not a mother. I have a full time job, I pay taxes, I volunteer. When you spoke at the your rally you only used the word mother. I commend you Mr. Obama for the respect you have for the working women, a mother or not. 

I have respect for Barack and his party for making birth control readily available. It is called Planned Parenthood because parenthood should be planned and this planning should be available for all women, not just the wealthy women. As far as certain Congressman's view on rape, it is just so outdated and preposterous. I read a quote from one State Congressman that said "As long as it is happening you should just lay back and enjoy it" well I hope someone walks up and slaps you across the face because that is downright rude to every women out there including your wife and daughter because I am sure if that happened to one of them your tone would change pretty quickly. Rape is a violation of a human, a living human. If a pregnancy resulted from that rape that women has every right to do what she views is right and no person in this world should be able to tell her that is right or wrong. No President, Prime Minster, King should have any say on a women's body whatsoever. 

Today I woke up scared about the fate of the country, but I woke up to find out that Mr. Barack Obama had won the American election. I can rest easy for the next four years knowing our country is in good hands.

I saw a lot of twitter statuses yesterday that stated "Whatever happens I know, it is God's will" than this morning those same people were saying "God Save Us" If you truly believed it is God's will that Mr. Obama made it into office why would he save you? As for myself I am happy America chose Mr. Obama for a fourth term because remember it took more than 4 years to mess up the state of America it is going to take more than 4 years to put it back together. Obama came into a mess created by Bush, not created by Obama.

My political rant is over, I will go back to blogging about running and fitness.