What If........

           Every once and a while a stupid idea comes along. Today a lightbulb went off in my head. I already stated in my previous blog how the rain is coming between me and a good walk. I was able to work from home today. All day long I was thinking what a beautiful day it was and how I was going to go out at five o'clock on the dot and take a long walk...or maybe even jog before I pick Jake up from his afterschool program. The birds were chirping, the sun was beaming and so was I. It happened around 4:40pm....the clouds came rolling in. With my faced pressed up against the window, I waited for the rain to start. But it didn't.  I was suspicious of the rain. It was trying to lull me into a false sense of security. I would walk all the way out to the track and then it would pour. Well you're not gonna get me rain! You're not gonna take me down! I felt the old me creeping up , saying "you don't really have to workout today. You could just lay around and watch tv". But this is not my usual day of rest. I needed a plan. A new plan to exercise. And then it came to me........the stairs.

           A Weight Watcher must use all of her ingenuity and skills and come up with a way. I figured , I live on the 21st floor of my building. Surely those stairs were put there for a reason (and not just to torture me when the elevator is out of service).

SIDEBAR: about two years ago, I came home to find the elevator was out of service. It was a beautiful day outside but I was done hanging out. I needed to get in my house so that that I could eat a giant plate of food and lay down and watch tv. So I took my 280lbs butt to the stairs with Jake and I found out the hard way that IT WAS HARD!!! Jake had to carry my tote bag and handbag up the last ten flights because I couldn't even hold them and the railing. By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I was speak in tongues- and I don't mean like in church either.
           But today, the exercise gremlin in me said, Ms. Bitchcakes does the stairs every Tuesday for 120 flights last count. Surely I can walk down and up 21 flights of stairs. I grabbed my MP3 and keys and ran down 21 flights of stairs.

 It felt good. Then I turned around to climb back up 21 flights of stairs.

Hey- who's idea was this?

  Around the 4th flight I was out of breath and wondering why I was doing this to myself. But I carried on.

Around the 11th floor I started comtemplating getting on the elevator. How does Sheryl do this to herself every week? What made me think I could to this too? This is the voice of  DOUBT. DOUBT talks to me when I don't feel like doing something. DOUBT tried to talk me out of writing this blog. DOUBT told me to keep my blog a secret because no one would read it. Today I said "SHUT UP DOUBT! I'm doing this"!

I made it. I walked down and up 21 flights of stairs. Me and my 240lbs. Then the exercise gremlin told me to do it again. After some realistic negotiaions, I chose to run down 5 flights and climb back up 5 flights. But that was not enough for me because I was on a sadistic roll. So I ran back down 5 flights of stairs to the 16th floor and back up again. When I got back to my apartment, I asked my son how long did he think I took( no I didn't bring my phone). He said about 15-20 minutes. This is what I looked like.

       It was almost time to pick up Jake from his after school program. And I asked Josh if he thought I could do a little more. He told me not to push my luck. I did it anyway.

         I ran down to the 16th floor and climbed back up two more times. Then I ran down 21 flights one more time and went to pickup Jake. So let's go over the count, shall we?

42 flights + 10 flights + 10 flights + 10 flights + 10 flights + 21 flights = 103 flights of stairs

         The moral of my tale is to push yourself every little once and a while. Will I commit to doing this every week? I don't know. The important thing to know that I at 240lbs actually can do this. The old me could barely do 21 flights. But the me that working hard to get in shape and become healthy can. Now let's not get delusional. I will ache soooooo bad tonight and I will complain all the way through our monthly 5K tomorrow. And I will live to blog about it. Take that DOUBT!