A New Focus

This whole rough start to February is throwing me off a bit.  I know that my Alien is inbound in the next couple of days and that I shouldn’t make any sweeping judgements on anything right this second.  But as really awesome as January was, February has kind of sucked bobo.  I went through my goals list this morning and was happy to have come in successfully on one or two….but there are a few important ones that I will definitely not make it on.  Running 5km around our park 4 times this month (the thought of running right now makes my lower back cry).  Not eating any sugar in February; ya….that ship sailed on Day Three of being a Couch Hostage.  My biggest sadness right now is that with only 18 days left in February, I will more than likely not meet my Century Challenge.  I haven’t logged any kilometers since February 3^rd and to succeed at the challenge now I would have to log at least three per day for the rest of the month.  Possible?  I guess……..it would be an enormous stretch to get that done.  I’m really on the fence right now on whether or not I should even try or just write it off.  Thoughts?

I went to the gym this morning and did some gentle rowing (because, duh, ROWING), some lighter resistance training (squats, lunges etc), a whole bunch of core work and a shit-tonne of stretching.  I think that’s what I want to focus the rest of this month on; my general wellness and consistent activity.  My body is So Sore, all the time, which is ridiculous since I’m only 35, fairly fit and top-of-the-heap in the healthy eats department.  I’m pretty certain that I have some systemic inflammation in my body (heartburn, joint pain, skin rash, headaches, mood swings) and as we all know, inflammation is almost 100% caused by food.  So I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to try an autoimmune protocol and figure out which of the foods that are known inflamers are causing me problems.  The trouble?  They are all the foods that, in our house, we eat the most of.  Eggs. Potatoes.  Tomatoes.  Peppers.  Cumin & coriander.  Paprika!  All nut products. I truly don’t know if I want to know.  You know? Once you know, you can’t scrub that information from your mind.  Also, if you determine that you are sensitive to “some” of the AIP foods….the chances are enormous that you are sensitive to all of them.  For that reason, I am going to try a LOT of other things first to get my body under control.  HEAVY amounts of water and tea, nightly stretching (regardless of gym), supplementing with more Omega 3 and with gelatin, daily walks, icing the sore spots, losing a few pounds and some hot yoga.  Sugar and alcohol are also known to be HUGE inflamers and I drank way too much this weekend (of a really sweet wine, no less) and ate chocolate.  After lazing about for 5 days with my injured shoulder and the chocolate and the wine, my body was wracked with spasms on Sunday and Monday, it was awful.

So, I’m off on another little side road to see if I can clean up, improve, move forward, break new ground and feel better.  In looking back at the sheer number of times that I have been injured, how long recovery seems to take and my constantly recurring general discomfort over the last few years, I surmise that I may be onto something with the food-caused inflammation…..and I desperately hope that I’m not.

As possibly sad as this is, I have this……renewed drive right now…..knowing that I have a purpose to eating healthy and moving and hydrating and sleeping.  If you’ve ever lost a lot of weight, you’d know that once the weight is gone, there is no more reward and it’s really hard to find a reason to keep going when nothing really changes anymore.  Sure, there’s “always” reward in being healthy and eating right or exercising….but it’s not the same as actively doing something in order to move yourself to a different place.  I suspect that doing a Whole30 is one of those “I have a reason for this now” instances?  I’m kind of looking forward to having a tangible reason within myself to dig a little deeper…and in some different ways.  Yoga will be a huge stretch for me (haha, no pun intended).  I don’t like regular Hatha yoga and I don’t like being new to things.  And I’m really inflexible.  Focusing on my core and my stretching along with rowing and some body weight exercises will be a bit different focus for me.  Stretching every night, even the ones that I’m not hurting….that will be new.   I’m excited though…..I’ve been stuck where I am and going forward and back and forward and back for a long time now and never really getting anywhere……because I haven’t really needed to be anywhere.  And now I do, so off I go!

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Shampoo & Biscuits

Morning!  It’s a bright and sunny morning outside (albeit very cold) and I am overjoyed to be back at work this morning.  I’ve spent the last week being in a considerable amount of pain and I’m so glad to be well onto the road to recovery.  I have mostly full range of motion in my injured arm and now that I’m up and moving around, my aching back should start to ease as well (there’s only so much couch time a body can take!).  I’m so glad that it was a long weekend for us as well because I needed that one extra day to get mobile and get some things taken care of.

Saturday morning after a slow start, we bundled up and went for a walk by the river. It was beautiful and cold and we had a really nice time.  It wasn’t a super long walk but it was enough fresh air to rejuvenate us!

Frozen little creek

Slushy Fraser River

 

We stopped at a little boutique wine store on the way home and I spent a Christmas gift certificate and we got some instruction on how you cannot cellar white or rose wines, the fruit flavours don’t keep well.  So, after our chilly walk along the river, we went home and I took one of the many bottles of white wine out of my downstairs fridge, put my cozies on and proceeded to watch the Olympics and drink wine.  Too much wine.  SO much wine….for someone who has barely had two glasses in a row!  SO STUPID and I felt awful and sick and slept horribly and woke up and put this on Twitter:

SO STUPID.  Did I say that already?  Anyway, Sunday was pretty lowkey, did some cooking and had some company over for tea and then Monday was even lower key than Sunday.  All in all I’m very glad to be feeling more like myself again!  I get to hit the gym tomorrow and will spend some time today programming the rest of February for myself.  I’m also going to spend some tiem today reviewing my February goals in light of the last week and a bit and see what and how much I can salvage.

In completely different news, I made homemade shampoo last night and so far I love it!  It’s a combo of coconut milk (homemade or from the can), castille soap, avocado oil and gelatin and it gets followed with a diluted apple cider vinegar rinse.  I’ll test run it for the rest of February and report back, but so far my hair has a nicer texture, is more manageable and is super shiny!  They say it can take some time for your hair to adjust to the new ‘poo so I’m not holding my breath on results just yet!

And finally, go check the “FEED ME” tab, I made biscuits (with three ingredients) on the weekend and they were really good!  They rival the best grain free “buns” I’ve ever made (Against All Grain Cashew Buns) but are quicker (these took about 10 minutes vs the AAG ones which were upwards of an hour) and MUCH cheaper (AAG cashew buns were almost $20 for 4).  I wouldn’t make them weekly (as much as I want to) but for stew night or chili night, they are really nice and quick and easy!

 

Bye Baby

It would be really easy right now to completely chuck out all of February’s goals, given my current state.  But….this afternoon, in a drug and pain induced haze, I had the thought that if I did that, it would be the complete opposite of my theme of the year (self) and my goal to find balance in my life.  So I can’t go to the gym….is that any reason to chuck out my financial goals, my sugar-less goals, my relationship goals?  It is not.  I’ve been called “stoic” a few times in the last couple of days and I’m going to be stoic here and stay true to my values and goals and stay as true to the course as I can get.

One thing that has come out of this is a dramatic slow down in everything.  Every single thing I do, from pouring and drinking a coffee to picking which pajama pants to wear has to be thought out in advance and done deliberately.  Every move I make right now is painful and that is ratcheted up exponentially if I have to move quickly or do something more than once.  Just to elaborate on my situation (because it’s all-consuming right now for me), here’s a fun list:

Things I can’t do at all right now (besides fitness, of course):

put my hair in a ponytail, tie my shoes, wear tights, floss my teeth, take my contacts in or out, fill the large dog water dish, put on or take off a necklace, go to work, drive my car (stick shift)

Things I can’t do efficiently or effectively:

laundry, dishes, cooking, shampooing or styling my hair, brushing my teeth, getting off the sofa or out of bed, anything that requires my dominant hand/arm to be engaged at all.

I just got back from taking Gracie for a walk…..after 20 minutes of cavorting into The Ugliest Outfit I’ve ever worn outdoors (selected for my ability to get into and out of it one-armed), we went on a Very Slow march around a few residential blocks in the neighborhood.  It is cold outside but clear and the fresh air felt fantastic.  Tonight is Thursday so we normally go to Costco after dinner but….and here’s a bit of vanity for you…..unless Ray is going to help me get some leggings or yoga pants on, I’m not going out in public wearing what I just wore to walk the dog.  Not.  I still have pride!

I’ll be trying to go to work tomorrow because I don’t currently get paid for staying at home (thanks, new job!).  Ray is going to have to help dress me a bit in the morning…..but I’ll be on my own when I’m at work and have to pee.  TMI, but it’s something I have to think about.  As long as I can get some sleep tonight (slept last night in our spare bed and alternated between crying and dozing sitting up….which was the only position that the bastard arm didn’t make me want to shoot myself) and get dressed with at least combed hair tomorrow, I will go to work.  Even typing that I’m considering going to work sounds so frigging idiotic……(as long as I can comb my hair and get dressed??) but I have to at least show up there.  This is still a new-ish job and I can’t just not show for two days.

We have a three day weekend ahead (thank HEAVENS) and although I won’t be doing any of the things I originally planned, I’m so grateful for the extra days off!  Ray doesn’t know it yet but I’ll still be doing my weekend cooking “hour” because I want to be able to eat good and healthy food next week.  The only difference between my normal cooking time and this weekend is that Ray is going to do most of it with my guidance.

And in regards to hubby dearest who was acting like a bit of a spoiled brat the past few days……he got told last night to step up his game.  He got reminded that I do A LOT for us normally where he does very little, he got reminded that we are in a PARTNERSHIP and you don’t just hang the other partner out to dry when it gets inconvenient.  And he got reminded that he was severely injured FOR A YEAR and I did absolutely everything from cooking, laundry, dog, house, shopping, banking, helping him with hygiene, doctor appts, and being ready and available for HIS EVERY NEED.  FOR A YEAR.  So slamming pots around and acting like I’m torturing him because he has to fry the fajita ingredients (which were pre-chopped and already seasoned!) is effing ridiculous and childish and makes me look at him very differently.    I realize I’ve given him a very nice life and he’s become accustomed to being taken care of and I don’t personally do well on the accepting help front….but we have No Choice in this case so he needs to step up and I need to let/make him.

So to summarize:  not throwing the baby out with the bathwater (February Goals), taking this forced slowdown for what it’s worth and trying to learn from it, considering getting some nice yoga pants/sweatpants that can be worn in public, and doing some work on the old relationship.

Wishing for good, restful and pain-free sleep tonight and some improvement tomorrow….even if it’s miniscule, I’ll take it!

Dog to the Shoulder

Remember this picture from a couple days ago?

Remember how I said she crashed right into me at top speed?  It was HILARIOUS at the time, seriously funny, we both killed ourselves laughing.  I haven’t laughed since.  My right shoulder started aching on Monday night, a deep, bone-ache.  By this morning it was excruciating, couldn’t move it at all, Ray had to put my shoes on me this morning (after I’d cried for two hours trying to get myself ready).  Turns out that thanks to Gracie’s antics, I have trauma (bruising, bleeding) where the biceps attaches to the bone (called the biceps insertion), a torn deltoid and a heavily bruised spinus anterior muscle.  What all that means is ridiculous pain.  RI-DIC-U-LOUS.  Absolutely nothing I can do about it but let it heal.  Ice.  Ice.  More Ice.  Rest.  NO gym.  NO lifting anything…and that means NOTHING, including a fork to my mouth (ever try eating with your non-dominant hand?).  NO heavy breathing (ie, fast walk, stationary bike etc) because….the nerve that services the shoulder contingent is the same one that services the heavy breathing part of your diaghram.  Think about it…..when you are heavy breathing, what are your shoulder muscles doing?  Lifting your chest up and down to facilitate the breathing.  So…..nothing.

I am at work, apparently that is good for me…..small movements bring healthy blood flow to the area (typing, mousing…no writing because that requires grip strength…which starts in your forearm and travels to your bicep and delt…and believe me when I tell you, it most certainly does affect that area!).

Snowflake (my Jetta) is stick shift so Ray and I have to trade for awhile.

I’m borderline amused by all of this and borderline hysterical.  ALL of February’s fitness goals are in the toilet, I am in SO much pain (which hopefully will start to abate in a few days….dependant I guess on how much I really follow the “lift absolutely nothing” rule).

Ray is going to have to step up his game over the next few days…..this morning after I made breakfast (yes, seriously) and served both our plates and poured our coffees, he took his plate and coffee and went and sat down and left me and my breakfast and coffee standing in the kitchen….whereby I burst into tears because, seriously, HELP ME!  And then…..sitting on the sofa, crying into my breakfast while I tried to eat it, he made this comment, “So, what time on Saturday are you riding your bike to work?” and then laughed at me.  He is very, very lucky that I couldn’t lift my coffee or it would have been all over him!  SO not the time to be making stupid jokes about things that, quite honestly, are going to be depressing.

So….that’s where I am right now…..won’t be getting up to much….no bike ride this weekend, no Coquitlam Crunch, no Perimeter Trail run, no gym.  Nothing.  I’d be really bummed right now…..if I wasn’t busy being in so much pain I could puke.

Air Teddy out.

Camping Weekend

 Holy Moly!  It’s been a week since I’ve posted, that’s not normal!  Last week went by so fast that it was over and done with before I knew it and here we are already at Tuesday!

The most major thing that has happened since my last post is the infamous “potluck” camping trip.  You may think that I am exaggerating some portions of this recount….however I assure you, these people are inconsiderate and very rude to me.  SO much that Ray started getting his ire up and started shielding me by answering first or talking over them.  If you know Ray, you understand how out of the ordinary

  that is.

Friday I left work and spent TWO HOURS driving to the campsite.  Ray was there with Grace already and the first couple was also there.  Upon arrival I was starving, had to pee and was still dressed up in high heels and a short shirt-dress, sweating and exhausted.  I found our campsite, pulled in and parked

  my car.  I no sooner had the car door closed when my sweet Grace was on me with kisses and butt wiggles.  I had time to give her one kiss on the head and the woman in the first couple started snarking at me  “Your dog has food aggression and who knows what other issues.”.  I was so, SO offended.  We’ve had her for less than three months.  This other couple has a small yappy dog as well.  And this stupid woman, her and her dog being strangers to mine, chose to feed them treats at the same time….and Grace decided she wanted all the treats.  The woman kept on about how she was going to “figure out and work on Grace’s issues over the weekend” until I eventually hauled Grace and Ray into our motorhome and closed the door.  So….super start.

After I got changed I took Grace and went out to the group area and sat down and a little bit sort of apologized, indicating that no one likes to hear bad things about their baby, especially after having been in hot traffic for over two hours.  And so, everyone was happy again.  Temporarily.

 Couple Two arrived and we all had a couple drinks and then set out for the pub for dinner (a short walk away).  The pub was horrible, the food was disgusting and the service was atrocious.  Before we figured that out though, the waitress came and took our drink and menu orders. I was at the end and ordered last, softly asking the waitress to check a certain item to confirm that there was no wheat in it. She walked away to check and the lady from Couple Two loudly questioned what was going on.  Ray told her that the waitress was just checking something and again, she loudly questioned what.  At that time the waitress came back and shot down the ONE THING I might’ve been able to order.  I ended up ordering a shrimp cocktail with no cocktail sauce and a Caesar salad with no croutons.  Mrs Couple Two actually scoffed at me, told me not to take myself so seriously and then physically turned her back on me and blocked me from the other two people sitting on that side of the table.  We then sat at the table with empty drinks and no food for an HOUR.  When the food finally arrived I ate three limp prawns and a bite of a plate of mayonnaise masquerading as Caesar salad.  Disgusting.

I still made efforts to talk to people and there were a couple good

  conversations but I chose to go to bed when I was tired rather than push through tired and keep drinking around the campfire.  I was in bed at 9. 

Saturday morning we all had breakfast and coffee at our own campsites which was nice and then Couple One came and “collected” us for a group walk.  We thought we were actually going for a morning walk so we brought our dog.  In reality they wanted to go shopping in the little town so Ray and I stood on the sidewalk for an hour and a half while they went into Every Goddamn Store.  When we did break away from them for a m

 inute to go to the drugstore to buy sunscreen I had a text immediately asking where we were.  *sigh*

Upon arriving back at the campsite I took my towel and book and sunscreen and headed to the beach for some suntime.  It was gorgeous and hot and peaceful and the highlight of the weekend.  Ray came to get me after a couple hours.  They’d all sat around chatting and catching up (which I thought would be great for them since I got bored of talking about motorhomes and health issues in the first 5 minutes) while I was beaching.  Unfortunately my innocent little excursion was highly offensive to Mrs Couple Two who mused out loud about how when people get together for a weekend that she just assumed that they’ll spend that time catching up, not gallivanting around to suite their own fancy.  I was gone less than 2 hours.  *shakes head*

 After my little beach jaunt we sat around having drinks and snacks (none of which I could eat, but that’s alright) which prompted a discussion of how healthy rice is for you, how “they” say that whole grains are good for you so they must be and how broccoli & green beans are worse for your intestines than white flour.  Couple Two started espousing the value of soy and I had to bite my tongue.  Mr Couple Two then made a comment that “there’s a “pro camp” and a “con camp” to every food” which I agreed to and then asked if that was the case then why is it that what they believe to be true is valid and what I believe to be true is a load of shit and how come what I believe deserves to come under their scrutiny when I don’t ever comment on what they consume.

And that was the last I heard from them about anything food related for the rest of the weekend.

 It was a weekend that I do not care to repeat again anytime soon.  Unfortunately the overall bad feelings about the weekend was also impacted by my getting an extremely painful illness on Saturday morning that hasn’t gone away yet and actually caused me to miss a day of work yesterday.

On the bright side, there were a few magical moments of non-suckitude and I took pictures to prove it!

 

A sunny, sandy slice of paradise, hot enough out on Saturday afternoon that I laid there in my bikini & sweated for two hours!

Biggest marshmallow I’ve ever seen! And yes, I realize that mallows are made of corn starch and corn syrup….give a girl a break! 😉

These were the weirdest sparks, they were long and slow and loud!

I bought local pattypan squash at the farm market on Saturday and stuffed them with bacon & spinach on Sunday. They were so tasty and the salty bacon with the earthy-fresh squash was lovely!

 

How Not To Start Your Friday

At 3:58am this morning, after having been awake for approximately 45 seconds, I walked into the kitchen and did an endo over the left-open dishwasher door.  Goose-egged both my shins, scraped one of them up, smacked my head and broke all the fingernails on my left hand (no idea how that happened!).  It was so startling that I started to cry.  Lame. 

I never normally go into the kitchen from that side and I really don’t know why I did today but let me tell you, not a great way to wake up!  What is even less great is the following conversation with my honey moments ago:

S:  Did you hear the big commotion in the kitchen at 4am this morning?

R:  No, what happened?

S:  Oh, I did an endo over the dishwasher, bashed my legs, smacked my head and sat on the floor bleeding and crying for 5 minutes.

R:  Hunh.  Did you get the email about that dog I sent you last night?

S:  OK, so we’re done talking about me then….ok, good to know.  (screaming silently)

He’s a good guy, just a little…..well……guy.

Anyway, I did end up going to the gym this morning, throbbing shins and all and did the second workout in the second stage.  It wasn’t as hard as the first one so I don’t think I was pushing myself at maximum weights but I’ll rectify that next week!  So my comeback was launched on Monday and I have stuck to my comeback goals for the week.  All good.

Tomorrow we’re hosting a barbeque for my family.  This is the one that was supposed to be hosted while we were out camping but due to flooding our camping has been cancelled so we decided to do it in our front yard.  Due to rain the front yard has been cancelled so now we’re doing a camping-style get together in our living room.  Not cool.  REALLY not sure how this is going to work out, 9 people all sitting around staring at each other?  I was really excited about the whole thing back when we were doing it at a campsite and then outside.  Now I’m just apprehensive and kind of annoyed about it.

My dad will be there, I haven’t seen him in three years and my grandparents haven’t seen him in over 12 and haven’t approved of him ever.  My mom will be there and she hasn’t seen him in forever either but she’s a drama queen of the first order so that should be entertaining/horrifying to watch. 

On a high note, I made a completely grain free chocolate layer cake to serve for the dessert.  Only…now that it’s done I’ll be going to the store to get a bought-cake.  Why, you ask? Because the grain free layer cake is gorgeous and delicious and expensive and I don’t feel like serving it to people who don’t give a shit about whether they eat grains or not.  So, grain free chocolate layer cake with cranberry orange filling and chocolate ganache frosting for me and store bought tuxedo cake for the fam.  😉  I’ll post a picture of the cake once it’s all done….probably on twitter so if you don’t follow me, click the button there on the left!

I’m a busy bee tonight after work, cutting down a tree in the front room, vacuum and clean the main bathroom and frosting the cake.  Then walking 4km to the pub to meet Ray for dinner.  Doing a little DVD project tonight.  This weekend, hanging out with my sweetheart enjoying what we really hope will be our last two days of non pet ownership, fingers crossed that we have a fur-buddy coming in on Sunday night.

Happy Canada Day!

Crazy-Train, Let Me Off!

Night and frigging day, I’m tellin’ ya!  The difference in how I feel from this time last week just blows my mind.  I’m not sure if it’s just that enough time has passed or that I am stretching twice a day, icing every night and moving more?  Who cares though, it makes me excited that if I can just keep on moving forward at this rate then I’ll come out of this stronger, fitter and more flexible than I was before. 

I missed my massage appointment last night, like a complete idiot, I assumed that I was correct when I thought that it was at 6pm.  Had I looked in my handy dandy date book that has every single fact, experience, time and cost of my whole life in it I would have realized that the appointment was actually at 5:15pm.  Alas, I didn’t and I missed it.  I’m not that sad about it though.  I do feel badly that I wasted their time but I wasn’t super jazzed to go anyway.  Maybe it was subconscious that I “missed” it

Since I was so busy racing around trying to cram everything in before my alleged appointment, I didn’t have dinner until 7pm.  And dinner…..well….it was a bit strange.  I had a Larabar, some leftover fajita beef, a glass of carrot juice, two pieces of salami, a mini Lindt bunny and a blueberry smoothie with chocolate protein powder.  Random bits and pieces but effective…and surprisingly balanced, actually.

Today is Ray’s birthday and I’m meeting him at a restaurant about halfway between work and home and we’re having dinner together, just the two of us. 

It’s been a bit of a crazy-train in my family over the last couple of days and I am more than ready to get off at the next stop.  The emails and phone calls between myself, my sister, my mom and my grandparents number in the dozens and the subject matter is ridiculous and infuriating.  I texted my sister this morning that I am on hiatus until tomorrow morning from emails and ridiculousness.  Unless it’s death or destruction, I don’t want to know about it.  The comments that were hurled my way yesterday were over the top and inconsiderate, not to mention ill thought out and so today I’m taking a break from it.  I need my brain for work and after work is the evening that Ray and I celebrate his birthday and he deserves all of my attention and positive energy. 

In case I’ve whetted your curiosity over what was said, here are a few excerpts:

Exerpt #1

• Gramma:  “I would be embarrassed to tell anyone that I couldn’t afford to do something that they’d asked me to do.”
• Shannon:  “Well I’m not, it’s pretty standard for our generation to be broke and “can you afford to…” is one of the first things we consider.”
• Gramma:  “Fine, then tell me how much money is in your bank account right now.”

Exerpt #2

• Shannon:  “I have trouble having any sympathy for anyone who refuses to help themselves first.  If someone likes being sick then let them but that doesn’t mean they get special consideration in life.”
• Gramma:  “Fine, then I have no sympathy for you.”
• Shannon:  “Why on earth would you feel sorry for me??”
• Gramma:  “Because you’re in pain so that’s your fault and I don’t have sympathy towards you.”
• Shannon:  “I am in pain because I got hit by a car, not my fault.  But I don’t want or need any sympathy nor have I ever asked for it.”
• Gramma:  “You’re in pain because you don’t eat grains and now I don’t feel sorry for you.”

Exerpt #3

• Gramma:  “You don’t eat any grains?”
• Shannon:  “Nope, and I feel fantastic, it can help with a lot of conditions and illnesses.”
• Gramma:  “What, did you read that somewhere?”  (said in a condescending tone)
• Shannon:  “Well, yes.  Research, books and articles.”
• Gramma:  “Just because it works for you doesn’t make it real.  We’re just waiting for what you do to not work and then you’ll put all your weight back on, you’ll see.”

So all in all, not a great and uplifting conversation, but extremely amusing.  However, I don’t want to be “amused” today and so I’m on family email and phone call hiatus today.  J

Tomorrow is gym morning and back to my current nemesis, squats.  Hoping I can put a couple more plates on tomorrow and push through to where I was a bit more.  Have a great day, tomorrow is Friday, thank God!

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!

Boring, Beautiful

Could it be?  Could things really be getting back to normal?  Yes.  YES!  I have nothing depressing, dismal or difficult to share.  In fact, I sort of have nothing to share.  I like it!

 

Thursday’s gym date was good, I did Workout A and had to drop some of the weights back a bit but I did better than I thought I would.  I was definitely sore that afternoon and Ray reminded me not to push myself so hard that I extend my recovery.  I am that stupid sometimes, but not this time, I worked smart.  Friday I felt pretty good, I had the ow’s in the morning when I woke up but it was more gym-pain than car accident pain and that is just fine by me!  I called it done for gym until Tuesday though to give myself a decent amount of recovery time.  So tomorrow morning is my next gym date.

 

Friday after work we walked 3.5 kilometers to a favourite pub and had dinner and a couple of drinks and then walked home.  It was so warm and so nice to just be outside.  And, I figure if you’re walking 7 kilometers to and from the pub then the beer you drank AT the pub doesn’t count.  Right?

 

Saturday morning I got us up at 6:30am to go for a walk before we had to get ready for the rest of our day.  We walked about 5km at a decent pace in the warm morning sunshine.  Saturday afternoon I went and bought my flowers for the garden and the garden shelf while Ray worked on the motorhome.  In between planting flowers and pulling up weeds I drank some gorgeous white wine (Burrowing Owl Chardonnay) and rested in the sunshine. 

 

Wine, flowers and sun.

 

Sunday morning we were up at 6:30am again but this time to go on a charity motorcycle ride.  I’m still not able to ride my motorcycle so I was Ray’s passenger for the day.  It was an alright ride and the weather was alright.  Apparantly the food sucked (I didn’t pay to get in to the “lunch” since I knew there would be no options there for me (we’ve been to this ride before)).  It really is my least favourite ride of the year but because it’s for Prostate cancer and all the proceeds stay in our province for care and research, it’s one we just don’t miss.  We were home by 1pm and chose to sit out in the sunshine for a couple of hours and take it easy. 

 

All in all we had a really good weekend, spent lots of time relaxing and soaking in sunshine, eating some ice cream, drinking some wine and settling back into our boring life routine….which I happen to love.

 

That’s about it.  Gym tomorrow, Wednesday and Friday and hopefully everything just keeps ticking right along!