It’s In The Genes

Good Morning,

Today is Homemade Shampoo Day Three and I still mostly like the results.  I do find that my hair doesn’t appear to be as shiny and the colour seems to have darkened a bit but it’s falling out less (YAY!) and still looks clean.  According to Ray it still smells the same as always and according to a coworker it smells like really sweet candycanes.  LOL!  After having done further research on homemade shampoos, I’m going to change my recipe a bit.  Most “recipes” indicate to “wash” with baking soda and then rinse with dilute apple cider vinegar (ACV).  This might work alright for people with strong, thick hair but as someone with thin and somewhat weak hair, that pH shift and opening and closing of the follicle all the time isn’t awesome.  So, this weekend I’m going to switch to a more neutral pH recipe and go with just coconut milk and aloe vera.  I really like the idea of the natural cleansing so I’ll stick it out for a while and see how it goes.  And, whether you’re interested or not, I’ll keep you posted!  😉

Last night was my “personal evening” to watch my own television or what have you.  I decided to re-read my book, Paleo Solution.  I’m not sure why I felt compelled to do that but as with all things, if you listen to yourself, good things happen.  On the very first page of the book, this review caught my eye:

“Now you will finally look, feel and perform as well as your genes will allow.”

That was like a frigging fireworks show on the page, bells and whistles were going off, lights were flashing: “…as well as your genes will allow.”.

Tara wrote a comment on my blog the other day about how she’s never known someone who digs as much as I do and I will fully admit that I listen to and try to interpret every nuance of every little thing.  Which can be exhausting.  I was food-logging for a few days because I thought maybe I could find something that wasn’t agreeing with my body and then I whipped that food log duotang into the recycle bin last night.  Ray dug it out and asked why I wasn’t doing it and my (rather crabby) answer was that it doesn’t matter.  I have already given up SO MUCH in my diet and my life (foods, treats, most alcohol, time, energy, money) and I simply refuse to give up anymore.  So maybe eggs or peppers are causing me inflammation.  At the moment there is nothing that I would be willing to do about that.  I loved toast. Gone.  I loved baking.  Never do it anymore.  I loved bananas.  Rarely eat them.  I could use the simplicity of ordering in sometimes.  Never in a million.  I like wine in the evening.  Cut WAY back.  I’m on the border of having eliminated enough things that I am approaching the elimination of enjoyment.  I’m staying here.  I’m happy here.  I like the food, I’ve got the prep/cost/planning pretty much down to a science, we’re in the very top of the population as far as quality of food and quality of life/health.  I’m staying here.  With eggs for breakfast every day and roasted peppers and mashed potatoes and huge scoops of cumin and paprika in nearly everything I cook.  I’m staying here.

I don’t have any more time, any more money or any more desire to change anything.  Yes, I’ll cut back on my intake to lose 10-15 pounds but I’m not changing anything else.  I’ll go to the gym when I can and I’ll walk the dog and I’ll bike to work and I’ll continue to cook our every meal.  But this is it.  This is my pinnacle and I will now fully declare that I’m fine here.  I think I could change and shift and cause myself all sorts of heartache…..and that very little would happen.  I’d still be bouncing around in this general area but having to put in a tonne of extra work for little extra benefit.  You want to know why else I’m staying here?  Because I actually think that “here” is as good as my genes will allow.  I could weigh less, yes.  But my skin quality, body comp, hair, nails, attitude, health stats, life……this is as good as my genes will allow.  I’m here.

Regarding my sore body, I’m still going with my plan from the other day, serious hydration, no sugar and very limited alcohol, supplementing with gelatin and Omega 3, walking, stretching, core work and eventually yoga.  I’ll use our gravity board more and ice and lose those 10 pounds noted above.  Maybe everyone has some level of daily discomfort (do you?) or maybe I am hyper sensitive to my body.  I just keep thinking, what if I change everything and do the AIP and eliminate all those foods and then something else crops up….or worse yet, it only sort of works.  Then what?  When I have next to no room left to make any modifications, what do I do?  When I have no more enjoyment, no more flexibility, no more fun?

 

I’m choosing to go with staying here….this is it……it’s who I am……

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Fail Less

It’s Easter Monday today.  A day that is a holiday if you work for our government but not a holiday if you don’t.  If you are at work though, as I am, this is going to (hopefully) be one of those days that you sort of drift through!

Saturday and Sunday were equally as gorgeous as Friday and we spent as much time outside as we possibly could.  We drank wine on the driveway, barbequed steaks, rode our bicycles (Grace went for her first bicycle stroll on Sunday and did awesome!), rode Ray’s motorcycle some more and went for a couple walks.  Thank God for allergy medication though, we both felt awesome all weekend and then this morning, sans-pill, I feel like she-it!  Will be running to the store next door for some allergy meds as soon as my co-worker arrives this morning!

So anyway, earlier in the week my other co-worker was lamenting her own life and weight issues and smoking habit and proceeded to tell me the following:  “You’re so lucky that you lost all your weight and quit smoking, it must be amazing to have that much will power and never fail at anything!”.  I was equal parts amazed and annoyed by the whole thing.  First of all, “luck” had nothing to do with it.  Second, I don’t actually have more than normal will power and third, what in the blue blazes makes her think that it was my first time trying to lose weight and quit cigarettes?! 

Everyone fails, over and over.  The people who succeed are the ones who make the effort to FAIL LESS!  I failed two days last week when I couldn’t get up and go to the gym like I was supposed to.  I failed on Thursday afternoon when, after having commuted and grocery shopped after work for over 3 hours on an empty stomach, I bought a fist full of bulk bridge mixture and ate it all while sitting in my car before going home.  I failed at the gym on Saturday when I didn’t properly fuel and could only run ¾ of the second mile in mile-row-mile. 

I failed three times in one week.  Someone might even consider the bottle and a half of wine I drank or the French fries I had as a failure to healthy eating.  The thing of it is, as far as I’m concerned, we all fail, all the time.  It’s about trying to balance the failure that we all encounter with doing more things that make you successful.  I ate bridge mix on Thursday.  I rocked the gym on Friday morning and ate clean all day.  I failed the mile-row-mile on Saturday but the success was the 1.75 miles and 1000m row that I did do, and I ate well all day.  I failed Saturday when I drank the bulk of a bottle of wine but the success is that we had an awesome sunshiney evening and a great late dinner.  I failed yesterday when I had French fries with my lunch instead of salad but the success was that we had a light salad for dinner instead of what I’d originally planned.

For anyone to think that I don’t fail or have trouble or miss is ridiculous.  Sometimes it’s hard to see if you’re not looking for it but most people who appear to be successful at something are toiling away at it in the dark hours and for the most part no one ever sees that part.  Rarely is success effortless.  Anyway, I just had to get that off my chest because the idea that I just “decided” one day to become healthy and fit and then was “lucky” enough to have it magically happen irks me because I worked my tail off every day to get here and I work even harder to stay here!

OK, so it’s April 1^st, the start of a new month!  I read a tweet (I think) of Girl Meets Paleo the other day where she commented that she was going to be eating “squeaky clean” for April.  For some reason the whole “squeaky clean” thing resonated with me and I decided that I’m going to give it my best in April also.  In March, with going to the gym very frequently and eating pretty well I made some decent gains…well…..losses….or both.  I gained some muscle and lost some weight although how much of either is unknown since I don’t weigh myself.  But, with a mild to moderate effort in March being pretty successful I thought I would give an even more concerted effort in April knowing that bikini season is coming!.  My definition of “squeaky clean” is much the same as I eat now….but I’m going to make a real dedicated effort to sticking to whole foods.  And yes, I’m sorry, in my book a nice glass of wine is a whole food!  Haha

Also in April I have 15 gym days lined up in the second month of a partner-gym-pact with my co-worker.  Along with that I have another new goal.  HANDSTAND!  I will try and achieve a handstand that lasts long enough for Ray to snap a picture of it for proof.  By the end of April. (I just googled “How to learn a handstand” and the progression on how you can teach this to yourself is going to take longer than a month….so I renege my “by the end of April” and will do it when I can do it.)  Yesterday’s trial run ended with three tries and the last try with me on the floor killing myself laughing.  Granted there was a significant amount of wine fueling the trial but whatever!  Took the sting out of the rugburn I ended up with!  Given that the title of my post is Fail Less, I realize that I will be unlikely to achieve this for awhile but I will give an update in April (with a video?) showing how far I’ve come…and there is no need for a “before” video or pic, just picture me not doing a handstand and you should have a good impression of where I am now.  LOL!

(yesterday I asked Ray if he thought I could do a handstand and his answer was to start laughing and say “You have next to no balance on your two feet and you want to stand on your hands?!”)

DeVictimize Yourself

Guess where I was at 6:30pm last night?  Yep, spinning.  And it was the best workout I’ve had since December 24th.  Granted it’s only the second workout I’ve had since December 24th but that’s irrelevant.  😉

 

I go again tomorrow morning as per normal.  I feel a little like I’ve been stuck in some mud and I’ve managed to rock my little wagon back and forth enough that I’m free and chugging along again.  I don’t believe that I had ever fallen off my wagon, I was just sitting on it while it sat parked.  Now we’re steaming ahead again.  I’m down 2 of my 4 holiday pounds so I’m nearly back to where I was prior to my birthday on December 18th.  I hope by the end of January I can be at least 1 pound below that number.  That would make me happy.  That’s three pounds to lose in two and a half weeks.  I’ll aim for that (and I’m not weighing myself again until Jan 31).

 

I got a short little comment overnight and it really summed up everything that I was trying to say yesterday (including the parts I typed out and then deleted and then typed out again and deleted again).  “It’s great that you are pushing through and taking a real masters approach to life rather than acting like a victim.” I don’t know about the master’s approach to life part since I really just do the best I can as often as I can…..but it’s the victim part that really struck me.  My absolute loathing of the victim mentality, the inability to coddle or coach people who act like victims, annoyance towards people who use the same reasons and explanations that we all have (busy, tired, stressed etc) and expect that they are unique and deserve special consideration.  This comment made me realize that a lot of what I do and circumstances that I push through when others maybe wouldn’t and days when I choose a harder path than I have to, it’s because I want to be heading in the opposite direction of ‘the victim’.   I also firmly believe in the quote, “No rest is worth anything except the rest that is earned.” by Jean Paul (not sure who that is).  I want to feel like I deserve my sofa time or my sleep-in or my cupcake.  I want to feel like I earned a glass of wine with my feet up or an afternoon snooze.  I know that my sister has alluded to this issue in a post or two on her blog.  We have a commonality as far as people in our lives who always act like a victim, who always want other people to be taking care of them, who are so insistant upon this that they drive away genuine caring attention because it’s never enough.  Anyway, enough about that.  Thanks for the comment, Anthony Magro, I appreciated it!

 

Tonight we’re going out for dinner with Ray’s mom and then Ray and I will go to Chapter’s to pick up my new book (VERY excited to start this one), Costco for some staple items, the liquor store for the staple items that aren’t available at Costco ( 😉 ) and then home.  Tomorrow I spin at 8:30am.  It’s supposed to snow this weekend and since we have no significant plans I’m thinking a long snowy winter walk through the park near our home on Sunday and then a warm up with a nice spiked hot chocolate when we get home.

 

Happy Weekend!