Bad Math = Happy Friday!

At the gym this morning I did my warm up jog and then headed over to the squat rack for the start of Workout A.  I did the first set of 8 and while I was taking my 60 second rest I was sort of….well…..dejectedly hanging over the bar, feeling sorry for myself and wondering why, if I have gotten back to my previous weight (or damn close) on every other exercise, why the squats are alluding me???  And then a small little sticker caught my eye and I was reminded that the squat rack starts with 20 pounds before you put a single plate on.  And THAT means that when I left off before the accident I was at 95 pounds (barely, but there) and now I am actually at 80.  That is WAY better.  I had completely forgotten that and had I not been feeling sorry for myself, I never would have noticed it.  See?  It just goes to show you SHOULD waste time feeling sorry for yourself.  LOL, just kidding!

Yesterday for Ray’s birthday I ordered him 6 cupcakes from a company called Mancakes Bakery.  They’re a very small little startup company that make terrific looking and smelling treats (not sure how they taste yet, I won’t be able to eat them and Ray was too stuffed from dinner to taste test). 

The flavours were: Chocolate Red Wine, Rum & Coke, Buffalo Wing, Pineapple Tequila, Whiskey Lime & Breakfast. Pretty unique! The buffalo wing one has little bits of chicken skin “sprinkles” on it!

After work I went and ran an errand and then came home, changed clothes and headed out to the restaurant to meet him for dinner.  He had a delicious, saucy and cheesy baked ravioli and I had beef ribs.  Mine….was not great.  On the other hand, I had a delicious glass and a half of wine.  Which made me borderline tipsy.  The other half of that glass had to get abandoned when we left because I wouldn’t have been able to drive myself home!  It’s funny, sometimes you can drink an entire bottle and it’s a waste of time and calories and other times a glass gets you!

Anyway, big plans for this evening, we’re going to be washing, poking, wrapping and roasting 40 pounds of potatoes for a club barbeque we’re going to tomorrow.  It’s our motorcycle club 3 year anniversary so there’s a big pancake breakfast (I’ll be eating at home first) in the morning and then there’s supposed to be a ride but that is likely to get rained out.  BBQ in the evening and, again, I’ll be eating at home first since besides a steak they are doing potatoes, garlic toast, pasta salad and then cake for dessert.  Obviously that’s not going to work for me so I’ll supplement before I go and then have steak for dinner.  That works.

I’m hoping for a morning walk tomorrow before we go and another one on Sunday because I haven’t done any of the supplementary cardio that I scheduled myself for this week.  I was going to go right after work by myself but when my body was too exhausted to walk up the stairs and get my own hoodie this morning (I’m wearing Ray’s; it’s a tent, but cozy!) I figured that I would guard my recovery time a little more and take it easy.  This is the first full week of early gym and my body notices it at the moment.  There is zero value in ignoring the body’s request for rest.

Happy Weekend to you all!

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Levelling Out

There is little that makes me feel more level and more in control than having a plan on paper that I can follow along with.  After my post yesterday I made up my schedule and took it home and posted it on the fridge.  I’m a total dork but I like checking things off, seeing lots of marked off squares in a row!  It makes me feel accomplished and it fosters some dedication.  In truth it’s probably a little silly because that sheet of paper all marked off at the end of the month will just go in the recycle bin, but I’ll take whatever little motivators I can get!

The Schedule. The “V” is for vitamins and the little hearts at the very end are the three walks/jogs in addition to the gym dates.

I did hit the gym this morning as planned.  I expected mental resistance when the alarm went off at 4:30, but since it’s what the plan is, I got out of bed relatively easily.  I suspect that won’t happen every day.  I did a treadmill jog, 5.0 speed and 1.0% incline.  A little easier than road (treadmill road equivilant is 1.5% incline) but a bit harder than what I was doing earlier in the month.  Squats still suck a bit and when I left off at the beginning of May I was squatting 95 pounds, now 60 is a bit of a struggle.  I’m told that is because a squat isn’t only in your thighs, there’s also a lot of contribution from your lower back and hips (my problem area).  I’ll get there though, Friday when I rotate back to this work out I should be able to get 65-70 pounds on.  Everything else (seated rows, step ups, pushups) on that workout I’m back to my ending weight with so that makes me happy.  I have subbed in plank for the ab portion of the program though, plank is The Best Core Movement there is and so I’m going to stick with that for awhile.  I’d rather tighten up my core than worry about “shaping” my waistline.  😉

Tomorrow is a second gym day and I’m curious how this is going to work.   I’ve never done this program on back to back days and have definitely not worked out on back to back days since my hiatus.  I might have to switch to M,W,F instead of T,W,F.  Which sort of sucks because timewise I would be forced to get ready for work at the gym on Monday.  We’ll see, I’d really rather make T,W,F work.

Tonight after work I have to run to the drug store for a birthday card and then dart down to Running Room to get the balance of Ray’s b’day present and then zip home and make fajitas for dinner.  All before 6pm.  Riiiight.  Traffic will be totally fine, right?  LOL!  I’m told that we’re assembling the wagon tonight, too and I’m kind of excited!  It got its third coat of paint last night and once it’s put together we’ll bring it in the house and stick it in the furnace room for awhile so that the paint cures and then Ray will spray the whole thing with clear coat.  I was going to pinstripe the sides of it but I’ve had to rethink that since I have no artistic ability whatsoever.  Plus, I probably shouldn’t make the wagon so nice that it gets stolen out of our yard!  😉

Anyway, I realize it’s only been one day into my Adapt or Die Plan however I feel more like myself than I have in awhile and that is very valuable!

June Plan Of Attack

Welcome to June!  I realize that June is now 4 days old, but this is a special June this year.  This June the theme is Adapt Or Die.  I love that slogan and I’m putting it to use for the next 27 days in order to get back into my groove.  The groove that I love and am very happy in. 

You see, I’ve been coasting now since the third of May, trying a little and putting in a little effort but mostly struggling.  I’ve also been whining a lot and feeling sorry for myself and saying “I can’t” way too much for my own liking.  I’ve been complaining and making excuses.  Some of them are valid, no doubt, but excuse making doesn’t achieve anything.  I asked myself last night what my goals were for the next one month and the next three months and none of those goals that I came up with are served by whining or excuse making.  So then logically, that stuff would need to come to an end and be replaced with something else. 

So, for the next 27 days, my goal is to fake it until I make it.  Go through the motions and actions of the person that I want to get back to until I actually become it…and 27 days is plenty of time to make that happen!

I’m tired & drained feeling and I know that exercise will obliterate this odd feeling mental and physical slump….but you have to do it WHILE you’re tired in order to get untired. 

So, here’s the plan. 

EXERCISE:  Gym & weights Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday early morning (June 5,6,8 – June 12,13,15 – June 19,20,22 – June 26,27,29).  Either a trail walk/jog (more on the jogging in a second) or a long neighborhood walk with Ray 2 evenings during the week and one on weekends.

FOOD:  give head a good shake and stop with the nonsense.  Enough said on that one.

OTHER:  My lower back is incredibly tight and sore and it’s a big contributor to my whining and excuse making.  Happily though, I don’t have injury pain while I’m doing exercise and that means that I’m not further hurting myself.  I do have quite a lot of pain in the hours afterwards and the next days though.  I have to go on the assumption that that isn’t going to change in the short term so I have to work with it.  Now, this might seem stupid or as though I’m coming to this realization late, but I think stretching is going to be a big key here.  It’s all very nice to go to massage once a week and chiropractor every 10 days and I could even add physio (don’t want to!), but if I don’t do anything to help myself on the in between days I’m not really doing myself a service.  So, every single day between now and the end of June, I will do daily lower back stretching, wall walks for my shoulders and a couple minutes of plank for my core.  And every night when I go to bed I will ice my lower back. 

That’s it.  That’s my Adapt Or Die June plan of action.  If you want to kick your own ass over the next 27 days and you feel like making that commitment out loud, write your plan on your own blog and link here if you want some cheering.  Or just leave a comment with your intentions. Writing it down makes it much more likely to happen!

I’ll leave you with a clump of pictures from the weekend.

Kaos and Ray

A close up of part of my new garden ornament, a birdhouse that my grampa made out of old barnboard. Came from my mom’s and is now in my front garden.

Our front garden. The white sign on the post says “GARDEN”. It all looks so pretty!

Remember that wagon I was going to restore from a couple of months ago (or more)? It’s in process!

I’m so excited to get it back together, I think it’s going to look really cool!

SO Glad It’s Friday!

Remember yesterday how I said that I don’t enjoy massages?  Well that was solidified last night after my appointment.  I left there feeling horrible.  HORREEEBLE.  Nauseated and my eyes were all wonky and my head felt like it was jammed inside a big feather pillow.  I suspect it was probably because she gave me a deep tissue massage where my injuries are and there’s lactic acid and other toxins that have built up there which got released into my blood stream.  Whatever the reason, I felt like crap, I was irritable and tired and generally lovely to be around.  😉

Ray was actually home before I even left for my appointment but he begged off making dinner anyway and asked if he could just take me out instead, my choice of location.  I had no energy with which to complain and no real reason why that wouldn’t work so we went out for dinner to a favourite restaurant and then hit up Costco on the way home.  Unfortunately going out to that particular restaurant does not yield leftovers (her portions are perfect for one meal) so after having been at work all day, yucky massage and then going for dinner and groceries, when I got home near bedtime I still had to make my lunch for today.  THAT is when this whole paleo/primal/grain free/whatever-you-want-to-call-it lifestyle really sucks.  When people ask me if the way I eat is difficult, I always say it’s not.  Because it isn’t.  Until you just want to throw yourself at your bed and not be standing in the kitchen for 30 minutes preparing a balanced day of food.  When going somewhere and buying your lunch the next day isn’t an option, this whole grain free thing can feel like a bit of a trap.  Fortunately this set of circumstances doesn’t happen very often and the benefit of staying true to the theme is well worth any inconvenience that comes about occasionally.

I did not go to the gym this morning, there’s no real excuse except that I felt like crap and didn’t make the effort to get out there.  It happens.

This weekend we’re babysitting Ray’s daughter’s dog.  His name is Kaos and he is ENORMOUS.  Easily 120+ pounds.  He’s also a big suck, sensitive and whiny and fragile.  Should be interesting.  I’ll take a picture/video of him this weekend and post it here, the dog is massive, it’s hilarious.

I think that’s about it for me.  We have very little planned for this weekend and “sleeping in on Saturday” has been discussed more than once this week so I think I won’t get away with getting us up for an early morning walk….which is, honestly, just fine by me!  It is supposed to be sunny & warm…fingers crossed….right now I’m wearing a t-shirt, a winter wool sweater, jeans and my heater is going under my desk! 

Anyway, if it is nice weather then I think we’re going to put our bicycles in the back of Ray’s truck and drive to a great bicycling area that’s a bit too far from our house to start from (Colony Farm for the local readers among you).  There’s up to a 40km easy trail ride that we could do but I doubt we’ll go that far.  And, if it’s not nice this weekend, I’m almost positive that the house would appreciate getting cleaned.

And last, I ordered from here for Ray’s birthday next week.  I think it’s a hilarious concept and a delicious sounding product, fun for a surprise instead of me baking him a cake.  https://mancakesbakery.com/index.html

 Have a great weekend!

Mmmmmango!

It’s a tea kind of day today, for sure!  Dreary and drizzly out and kind of chilly in.  Kind of grateful for my desk-drawer tea stash at the moment! 

  

On to other things.   Such as:  how have I lived this long without mangoes in my life?  Or prawns, for that matter!  What else have I been missing out on because I’ve been assuming I didn’t like it?  Papaya?  Olives?  Celery?  Well….no, celery is definitely still a big “No!”.  Scallops?  About two months ago I realized that I no longer hate ketchup.  I have hated ketchup for easily 20 years and now I don’t mind it at all and will even willingly squirt it on an omelette from time to time.

 

Makes me think that the next time my first response is “I don’t like _____.” or “I can’t do/don’t like to do ______.”, that I might want to take a moment and see if that is still true! 

 

For instance, hiking. Ray asked if I wanted to drive somewhere and go for a hike on Saturday and my first response was “no thanks, not interested.”.  But…..wait a second……I like the outdoors and I enjoy exercise.  Sooooo…..hiking then?  Sure, why not?  I’m sure I declared my non-interest way back in the day when I wasn’t interested in doing anything besides eating and smoking.  Things change, it’s probably a good idea to remember that our preferences probably should change with them!

 

We did the equivilant of nothing yesterday when I got home from work.  We walked one block up to our neighbor’s house to pick up my wagon frame that he’d sand blasted for me.  Tonight we’re going to go and get the paint for it and hopefully this week or next we can get it painted, cured and put back together!

 

I did make bacon and eggs and hashbrowns for dinner last night as planned and now our whole house smells like the backside of a pig.  Plus, we ate so much bacon I’m surprised we weren’t oinking in our sleep!  It was good though, and now the need for bacon is out of my system for awhile. 

 

Tonight we’re doing halibut, roast asparagus and a salad (with mango & goat cheese) for dinner…which is an improvement on the rather beige/brown dinner we had last night!  Tomorrow is gym morning, back to Workout A and hopefully a decent jog to start!

 

Fired Up!

Thank you very, very much to everyone who read or commented on my last post.  I’m so grateful to know that while we are all unique individuals, we sometimes struggle with similar issues and can understand, commiserate and support one another.  Gratitude!

 

I thought after a couple of heavier posts this week that I would end the week on the upswing.  First, the delightful little treat that my boss brought to work yesterday morning.  His name is Bentley and he’s a Duck Tolling Retriever.  He’s 10 weeks old and a little sweetheart….also a biter with those sharp puppy teeth!  Really adorable and playful.

 

Bentley!

 

I’ve been trying to prepare myself for the second stage of New Rules of Lifting for Women because of course there are new exercises and new equipment required.  As happy as I’ll be to be done with Stage 1 (9 weeks is a hellaciously long time to repeat the exact same workout!), Stage 2 freaks me out a little because it means I have to do new movements with new weights and due to the equipment required I have no choice but to enter into the big co-ed area.  I kept thinking of this little graphic and how it really is true.

 

 

And then yesterday my friend, Tara forwarded me a link to an article that got me fired right up.  Fired! Up!  Click for the full article but I’ll give you below a couple of my favourite experts:

 

 

“Push.  Turn up the volume.  Go hard.  Go harder.

Re-prioritize your aches and pains.

Infuse your sensitivities with courage.

Tell fear to fuck right the fuck off.

Devote to Done.”

 

“Decide to be one of those people who pull it off.”

 

“It’s your soul speaking and she says,

Get UP! I need you.  I want you.  I am you.  Choose me.”

 

Anyway, go check out the link, the article isn’t long and you may just feel like an invincible, unstoppable ROCK STAR when you’ve finished.  A thousand thank you’s to Tara for sending me this, I love it!  I am going to infuse my sensitivities with courage and I AM going to tell fear to fuck the fuck off and I’m going to pop my iPod on and go and do what is right for my body and if there are boys there then there are boys there.  If there are women fitter than me there then so be it, I will use them to push myself harder.  It’s going to be at 4:30 in the g’damn morning, if it was me and I saw someone new lifting heavy weights at that time of the morning, the only thing I would be thinking was “good for them!”.  The more cynical part of me would also be wondering “I wonder how long they’ll last?”, but I know me and I’m a “laster”!  😉

 

Tonight after work we’re going out for a quick drink with one of my favourite co-workers who is retiring.  Tomorrow morning I’m hoping that the rains break for awhile and I am successful about prying Ray out of bed and going for our now beloved early Saturday morning coffee-walk.  I really love that time that we spend together first thing on Saturday morning.  Sometimes it’s what drives me to make it through the week!  Saturday during the day I hope to get some work done on my wagon and then Saturday evening we’re going out and we’re going to celebrate my dear friend Tara with a few drinks (it’s her b’day, go give her some love!). 

 

This has been a long and somewhat rocky week (and a bit) and I’m glad to be going out of it on a more balanced, positive note.  I’m excited again and motivated and my vision is clear and for that I am extremely grateful. 

Lost & Found

“What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be.”

 

This quote was left in a comment on my blog post yesterday (thanks Claire!).  I have to say, I teared up when reading it.  It sums up everything that I’ve been feeling the last few days.  You see, I eliminated grains three months ago because I was not feeling well and I was having all sorts of symptoms.  I did it for my overall health and because I felt, somewhere within me, that this is what my body needed.  And as I was starting to read grain free and gluten free blogs in order to support myself, I started finding really wonderful blogs within the paleo and primal community.  The trouble is/was, that there are a lot of really fit people who are showcased in these blogs, either as the authors or as….well….showcases of what “you too can achieve!”.  No doubt that there are a zillion really positive benefits from being grain free and practicing paleo or primal (or a mutated combination of both as I prefer).  One thing that is not positive though is the illusion that is perpetrated that you can have it all.  Simply eat a lot of meat and fat, avoid bread and pasta and you can lean out, muscle up and get the body you’ve never had but always wanted.  And it’s true.  What I fail to remember (and maybe you, too) is that the body I’m going to get is still mine. I used to be almost 300 pounds and unfortunately there is some fallout (fall down?) from that which will never go away outside of cosmetic surgery.  I’m also in my mid thirties, not twenties.  Believe it or not, that makes a difference.  I also like beer on the weekends and a glass of wine on a Wednesday.  I like walking with my man at his pace (ever increasing, mind you!) rather than running alone.  I work hard at the gym but I don’t want to spend more than an hour and a half there at any one time.  

 

I’m afraid I may have been sucked in.  Sucked into believing that I could become someone that I’m not.  The fact that I didn’t/can’t achieve that became frustrating and disheartening. 

 

However!  Yesterday morning after I did early gym and was driving home I felt the most like myself that I have in weeks.  I actually said (to myself) “YES! I’m back!”.  I felt my determination and my fight.  Physically there is no reason for me to be feeling this way.  I’m a bit bloated and the scale is higher than I would prefer.  Any muscle gain that I’ve had isn’t visible to anyone but me.  I haven’t “leaned out”.  Hell, I haven’t even slimmed down!  

 

So why do I feel strong and successful?  Because I had forgotten who I was and where I came from and these past few days I’ve remembered and it feels good!  Last week and the beginning of this week I had been trying to figure out how I was going to avoid posting my results from NROL Stage 1…because it’s not dramatic and I wasn’t super pleased with how I’d done as far as losing some fat and gaining some muscle.  

 

But I am going to post the results, measurements and pictures. Here’s why.  I love all the paleo and primal blogs out there but I feel like I need to post my grain free, less than super-lean self.   Because I am succeeding at something difficult.  It is HARD to eliminate grains, beans etc in our culture.  I’ve found my way and cleaned up my insides and I feel good.  That was the point.  I also started a new kind of exercise (new to me, anyway) and my body appreciates it, I’m stronger and fitter and I feel good.  Again, that’s the point. 

 

So shouldn’t I promote that?  If I don’t want to perpetuate the “grain free makes you look like a fitness model” myth then shouldn’t I put my photo where my mouth is and show you what grain free and weight lifting looks like for me?  A before & after that is really a “ongoing forever”?  I think it’s important to know that you can work hard for three months and not be able to bounce a quarter off your abs and that’s alright.  It’s still a success!  You can eliminate grains and not lose 50 pounds in three months and that’s alright too.  Still successful!  You can be an average person who gets average results and that is most certainly a success story!

 

So when my Stage One is over in the next week or so, I will once again donne the Harley Davidson bikini that I took my before pictures in and get Ray to take an update.  Then I’ll break out the insanely long tape measure that I have and get measured up.

 

I got lost for a little while there, I allowed something exterior to completely change my definition of who I am rather than taking the new item and integrating it into my fabric.  That created a surprising amount of stress and frustration when who I believed I was going to become didn’t materialize.

 

I made fajitas last night.  I could not see using the packaged fajita seasoning that you buy at the store, that stuff has WAY too much salt and too many chemicals that neither one of us need.  So, I made my own fajita seasoning and it was absolutely perfect!  If you’re interested, comment me for the recipe.  Ray had his fajitas on soft tortillas and I had mine on leaf lettuce that I then spread with a healthy amount of mashed avocado and then topped with the fajita meat/veg.  Absolutely delicious!  And none of the bloat/yech that comes from using a packaged mix!

 

The homemade seasoning didn't taste at all like the packaged stuff, something different altogether.......but much more authentic and fresh tasting!

Stop Splashing, Start Swimming

First things first.  I went to the gym this morning.  Ran 20 minutes at 5.0 and 1.5% incline (I’ve heard 1.5% is what simulates road running) and then did my New Rules Workout B.  Phew!  Was so glad to be back there this morning.  Not so much when my alarm blared at 4:20am but pretty much all the parts after that!  😉

 

Now, I tell you a story.

 

I got my hand stuck in the undercarriage of Ray’s truck on the weekend.  We were trying to get the boot off of the spark plug and he couldn’t get his hand in there so I offered to give it a try.  I slid my hand under the interior mud guard and then had to sort of double it back and slip underneath the heat shield up in the motor.  It was akward but I fit so I started tugging at the boot of the spark plug.  I had to pull my hand out a couple of times and reposition.  Tug.  Tug.  Wiggle.  Tug.  And off it popped!  And then I tried to get my hand out for the last time.  Stuck.  Stuck?!  Stuck with my face pressed against the fender of the truck and my arm halfway up inside the motor of a Ford Ranger?  Stuck!  Obviously, I panicked.  I started trying to yank my hand out and then I had a vision of degloving myself (a disgusting injury, google it at your own risk) and I stopped.  Stop.  Reassess.  Calm down!  Wiggle.  Maneouver.  Free! 

 

I was thinking about that yesterday after I’d posted my blog about being dangerously close to a backslide and I realized that’s not it at all.  I’m not backsliding, I’m floundering.  It’s like I’m in the water making all sorts of huge waves and splashes……..but I’m not going anywhere.  I’m exerting the hell out of myself but I’m no further ahead than I was when I started.

 

Stop.  Calm Down!  Reassess.  There is a lot of freedom when you come from a place of counting calories/points to a place where none of that matters.  When I used to have guidelines to live within, I lived within them.  Now my guideline is “don’t eat grains”.  There is a LOT of wiggle room there and I have wiggled beyond where I should be.  Instead of splashing around randomly and exhausting myself, I need to stop, get pointed in the right direction and then start to move forward.  One decisive stroke forward is more valuable than any time spent in splash mode.  One stroke forward and then another.  Instead of exhausting myself and not going anywhere, I’ll harness my energy and use it in a concentrated manner.

 

I’m good with rules and guidelines and limitations.  I’m also good at listening to my body.  Together those are a powerful combination.  When you take away the rules and guidelines though (or they are too vast), listening to my body becomes a party trick rather than a tool to be used.  So, I tried “no rules” for awhile (almost three months) and I have a pretty good idea of what works for me and what doesn’t.  I no longer believe in counting calories and I don’t agree with chronic cardio when it’s something you’re forcing yourself to do to the exclusion of enjoyment.  I don’t believe fat makes you fat and I don’t believe whole grains are a healthy dietary item for anyone. 

 

Having said all that, I’m stopping the splashing and moving forward, one dedicated stroke at a time.  I’m not at all where I thought I would be three months ago when I started this and it’s hard not to get frustrated and feel defeated.  However, three months is but a blink in the grand scheme, an entire lifetime of habits and behaviours cannot be revised in a blink.  So for the next three months I’ll turn away from some of the things that haven’t worked for me, take all the wonderful things that I have learned and gained and build on that with more awareness, more determination and more dedication.  

Old Tricks

Oh, am I ever kicking myself right now.  I read a post yesterday about needing variation in diet and exercise.  It was a good post and one that struck home in a number of ways.  The most important one though was something that I’ve known for a long time but have just chosen not to do lately.  She says if you feel like you’re eating super clean and you’re still not losing weight (or, heaven forbid, you’re gaining it), write down everything that you eat and see if the balance is out.  Not being above continuous self assessment, even though I KNOW that I’m doing everything right, I got out a fresh new book and started back to Friday. 

 

You see, Friday I felt fairly good about myself and then this morning I felt like dirt.  It happens every weekend.  Every. Weekend.  I go into the weekend feeling good and come out of the weekend confused and bloated.  Given that I am a veeeerrrrryyy  clean eater, I didn’t think that this little exercise would show much except what I already knew.  Ha!

 

I decided to mark each item with a letter; P, F, C (protein, good fat, good carb…fruit or veg).  I also have a * for excess sodium (since I am very sensitive) an “E” for exercise and an “O” for anything that doesn’t fall under the heading of P, F or C.

 

"Journalling" is an old trick....which works quite well!

 

Now, why, after a weekend of “clean and healthful eating” would I be up 3.4 pounds with flared up excema, a bloated gut and a short temper?

 

The “O”s!  From Friday dinner to Sunday afternoon:

 

• french fries
• beer
• beer
• 2 handfuls of kettle chips (and of note, I don’t have tiny hands)
• 3/4 of a bottle of red wine
• a mini milk chocolate lindt bunny
• beer again
• the rest of the chips

Oh, clean eating, how you betray me!  Not. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I did eat healthy THINGS over the weekend; a homemade shrimp salad, a proper balanced breakfast each day and a proper dinner (maybe have to cut back on the coleslaw though!).  But I have betrayed myself and my mind chose to remember only the good and consider the bad as deserved treats.  Whatever, I can think about it in 100 different ways.  But I am sabotaging my success and my inner calmness by circling around the truth.  I eat completely grain free.  Fair enough.  But I think I’ve taken it a bit to the extreme insomuch as what I am “allowing” myself to eat and pass off as healthy.

 

I’m not against treats, not at all.  But I’m in a bit of a slow backslide and if I keep going in this manner I’m going to get the opposite results as I want and end up frustrated and burnt. 

 

So where to go from here?  I haven’t failed or ruined anything, nothing has fallen apart, so I’m just going to retool a bit and keep going.  I’m going to mark down my intake and limit/reduce my O’s.  I also need to get my ass back into the gym. 

 

I’m one week away from finishing Stage One and then getting a 7 day break and I’m dragging my frigging feet about it.  I know why……I know that the reason I’ve been making excuses is because I am feeling self conscious about….well…myself.  You see, the personal trainers at the gym broke the co-ed olympic bar (how???) and so they keep stealing the one from the women’s section.  So on Friday night last week I decided that instead of dicking around and dragging it aaaaallll the way back (it weighs 40 pounds) to the women’s only area, I would just do my Saturday morning workout in the co-ed.  Aaaaaand…..I totally freaked myself out about it and now I haven’t gone to the gym at all.  So dumb, isn’t it??  I’m frozen in place at the moment.  But I have to break the ice and get going because becoming frozen here is not a place I want to stay.  So tomorrow morning I’m doing early gym…..and in order to break the freeze, I’ve told myself that even if all I do when I get there is run on the treadmill then that’s acceptable because I just have to GO.  I can also just do the deadlifts with lower weight dumbbells (or skip them altogether) and then, problem solved!

 

I think I’ve rambled on long enough now, I will leave you with a photo of a new permanent menu addition at our house; Sausage & Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms.  They were so, SO good. 

 

Portobellos stuffed w/ Italian turkey sausage, sundried tomato, tonnes of spinach and then topped with a wee bit of shredded cheese.

Lesson Learned

This weekend feels like it flew by!

 

Friday afternoon Ray texted me and asked if, instead of going to the RV Show (that I didn’t want to go to in the first place), would I like to ride our motorcycles out to Steveston (a little beach town around an hour from our house) and have dinner.  Um, YES!  We went for fish & chips, I just had mine grilled instead of breaded and fried.  Not the best choice, nutritionally, but part of an overall awesome outing.  After our meal we walked along the main street and stopped in for a coffee at Rocanino Coffee Roasters.  Our ride home was a bit dusky and a little cool but well worth it!

 

Beautiful beach side coffee shop!

 

Saturday morning I had a little life lesson that, as with all good life lessons, I wasn’t really expecting.  I got up at 6:30am and changed into my gym clothes.  As I was getting my gym bag together I was grumbling the entire time.  I didn’t want to go to the gym, it was gorgeous and mild outside with a bit of sunshine, I wanted to wake Ray up, put on a pot of coffee and go for a nice early morning walk together.  But, alas, my plan was to go to the gym.  So, into the car, down the street, complaining halfway to the gym about how this sucks and I wish that I could have just done a morning walk.  And then, at a red light, it hit me.  I am an ADULT.  If I would rather go for a refreshing am walk with my honey instead of hitting the gym, then do it!  There is enough in life that we do because we have to, why add to the pile? It’s not like I wanted to go home and eat a tub of ice cream while watching trash TV, I wanted to go for a walk in the spring morning air with my man.  Ya.  So I turned around and drove home, pried Ray out of bed and we did just that….and it was lovely.

 

After our walk I got ready and headed to my sister’s house where I helped her pack for a few hours.  Part of the packing deal was that I would take an old outdoor cabinet off of her hands so that she didn’t have to find someone to take it or someway to get rid of it.  It has 100+ year old barn board on the top of it and made a perfect addition to our veranda in the front.  It’s now a garden cabinet adding style to necessary outdoor storage. 

 

The top will host some shade loving flowers and the inside is packed with all of my gardening tools, pots, gloves etc.

 

Saturday after we’d finished our chores it was the much loved “driveway beer time”.  It was so warm out that neither of us wanted to go inside.  Driveway time extended beyond dusk before we finally cleaned up and went inside for dinner.

 

The combo of the pink crocs and the pink striped socks is......something!

 

Sunday morning was lazy, I slept until 9:30 and then laid on the sofa until 10:30.  Totally unusual for us to waste away that much morning but it felt good and relaxing.  We ran out for some groceries and then went to Wendy’s for lunch.  I had their chicken BLT salad….not bad…a bit salty though.  And nothing in comparison to the salad I made myself for lunch on Saturday.  It was mixed greens, radish, pepper, walnuts, avocado and some fresh shrimp tossed in a creamy balsamic vinagarette.  So delicious!

 

Anyway, the rest of Sunday we puttered around in the yard, I turned over a bit more of my garden and stripped the paint off of my wagon project.  Ray painted the deck of our utility trailer and then changed the spark plugs in his truck.  We planned to have another driveway beer after our jobs were done.  Ray loaded some of our cardboard for recycling into his truck and was going to run up the kilometer to the recycling place so he could test the work he’d done on the truck and get an errand done.  20 minutes later he finally arrived back home where he told me that he’d given himself a concussion and blacked out while tossing the recycling.  Apparantly he smoked his head on the lid of the dumpster and blacked out.  He says he didn’t knock himself all the way out, just got a good dimming and saw stars.  When he came home and got out of the truck I knew that something had happened, he looked like he had just woken up and like maybe he was going to puke.  He seems to be fine now….he’s had concussions from playing hockey in the past so he could tell it was just a mild one.  Nonetheless he had ice to the head and I watched him the rest of the evening.  This morning he was up and gone to work so I presume he’s fine.

 

Ray painting the trailer...and a little sneak peak of the wagon!

 

That’s about it.  Tonight my esthetician is coming over right after work and then I think after dinner we’re going to head into the valley for Ray to buy gas.  I would like to go for a long walk as well (I skipped the gym this morning, more on that later) but I’m not sure we’ll have time to do it all by the time my waxist leaves and we make and eat dinner.

 

Tonight I’m making Sausage & Spinach Stuffed Portabella Mushrooms for dinner.  I’m excited to try it!  Tomorrow the rain comes and is sticking around for awhile so maybe I’ll get around to cleaning our house this week.  That would be nice although I’d rather the house stayed dirty and the sun stayed shining!

 

I’ll leave you with a final picture, it’s a Bleeding Heart bush.  I’ve wanted one of these for over 20 years….since I was 13 years old and my step mom had a huge one on the side of her house.  This is the first year for mine and it’s gorgeous!