Full Throttle, Wide Open

Ah, Friday, and a sunny one, no less! It is cold outside for we west-coasters. We’re used to living in a humid rainforest so when the temperature dips below 0 (32F), we all cry and shiver. The benefit of cold though? SUNSHINE! And thank heavens for it! I’m looking at crisp and rugged mountains covered in sparkly white snow outside of my office window. Don’t get me wrong though, those mountains are a long, LONG way off….but when I get to see something other than the backside of a trucking/warehouse outfit and a disgusting smoke-shack filled with dirty, stinky plant workers? Well, the mountains are a nice change!

Tomorrow morning is my jogging day and since I’ve already worked very hard at my workouts this week, I’m thinking it may be a bit of a struggle. In order to make it exciting, I had to set myself a goal to work towards. Last week I ran 4.86km at 0.5% incline in 30 minutes. This week the goal is EITHER another 30 minutes, same distance but incline 1.0% OR same incline, 5.5km in the same time. So either faster or harder incline. And since I am pressed for time tomorrow morning, when the 30 minutes is up, the treadmill stops and I have to get going. I think I’ll probably go for increasing the incline, seems easier to regulate than trying to just go “faster”. Plus, eventually I need to consistently achieve a 1.5%-2.0% incline to mimick running outside.

So, if you don’t actually care about my running speed or time, I’ll move onto something else. The most motivational lyrics I’ve come across in a long, long time. It’s the song The Only Way I Know by Jason Aldean. The lyrics in the chorus get me so jacked up and motivated and ready to crush a workout, I love it! I’ll be listening to it on the way to the gym tomorrow morning, for sure!

Don’t stop till everything’s gone
Straight ahead never turn round
Don’t back up, don’t back down
Full throttle, wide open
You get tired, you don’t show it
Dig a little deeper when you think you can’t dig no more

Tonight after work Ray is going to dinner with his mom (no thanks) and I’m going to go home and take Grace for a short training run (she’s practicing!) and then going to nest onto the couch and watch a PVR’d Grey’s Anatomy while eating Caesar salad & roasted chicken. (It always feels so good when I know I earned my couch-time!) Tomorrow morning we’re going to a pancake breakfast meeting (no food for me, as per normal) after my gym and then we’ll be working hard for the rest of the weekend on prepping the house and yard for Snoopy’s arrival.

I wish you a very happy weekend! If you don’t already, feel free to follow me on Twitter!

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Fat Ass?

Already sweaty and I had barely made it onto the trail!

Anyone who has ever struggled with their weight or fitness knows this feeling so try to cast your mind/self to the place where I was last night.  I got home and true to my word changed into proper exercise clothes and then dragged my fat ass (*) up the miniscule incline of my street towards the park, sweating and cursing under my breath and telling myself over and over and over and over, “Tomorrow won’t be different, tomorrow won’t be easier, tomorrow never comes.”.  This was interspersed with telling myself that the epic amount of chocolate that I have eaten over the last month caused this, my lack of self control caused this and any discomfort I felt with myself or my efforts was completely deserved and probably should have been amplified ten-fold just for being a big idiot.

I probably didn’t really do myself any favours when I got dressed for this either, I wore shorts that have never been comfortable and possibly the most unflattering exercise top I have.  My underwear was crawling up my ass the entire time, my Shuffle had died so I had to carry my iPhone in my hand the entire way and it was very humid and close in the park.  All that negativity aside though, I did the best I could and finished strong.  It was only 4 kilometers and I didn’t time myself (that wasn’t the point) and I had to walk a lot of it.  But when I got home after my “end of the run, down my own street sprint” I was very impressed with how quickly my heart rate and breathing came back to normal.  My back and legs were pretty sore last night but this morning I feel fine.  Today after work I’m doing a 5.5km walk/jog with the focus on walking, rain or shine.

(*) Note, my referral to my fat ass is subjective, of course.  Fat is a state of mind as much as a state of body as far as I’m concerned.  I am in my acceptable weight range, at the low end of it, even, and yet I feel/felt as uncomfortable within myself as I ever did when I was 100 pounds heavier. The toxicity and lack of self respect doesn’t discriminate over size or body fat percentage, it is as real for me now as it was back then and even though I don’t need to shed weight to build a healthier body anymore, the work and effort is as real and urgent to my mental health as it ever was to the physical. 

When I got home from my park mission yesterday I checked the mail and was very excited to find a little box stuffed in my mailbox.  It was “Leaf” that I ordered from Noelle Munoz Jewelry and it is beautiful!!  The craftsmanship is incredible, her attention to detail and excellence just blew my mind, even the wrapping that it came in is top end.  Really a nice experience from start to finish. 

 

My insane cravings for chocolate and sugar and sweets yesterday (and the pissy mood and snarky tongue that came with it) led me to believe that detoxing is exactly what I needed to start.  When I had to run to the grocery store before dinner for some veggies for lunches I was by myself in the house and a little concerned that I would cave and buy a chocolate bar or something equally as sugary.  I held strong though because tomorrow isn’t any easier than today.  If it’s difficult today, just do it and push through, it does not get easier tomorrow.  So, veggies and a couple apples and I was on my way out the door, successful and strong.  Win!

See?? No chocolate!

 Happy weekend, hopefully we hear something this weekend about Olive, we still don’t have her and now my emails to the rescue agency aren’t being returned so I’m leaning toward wondering if the current owner has changed their mind about giving her up.  Fingers crossed that we hear something so that we can either get her or move forward!

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!

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!

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!

 

Nothing Much

Oh, the last few days have been crazy!  It seems like there is a tonne of stuff going on and yet when I look back and try to figure out where the time has gone, there’s really nothing of note.

 

Sunday after dinner we went for a 5km walk…although halfway through I realized that was a bit optimistic considering that meant I logged 15km that day.  Sort of silly so we just strolled back home.  I skipped gym on Monday in light of the 10k that I ran on Sunday.  That felt nice, knowing I didn’t have to go to the gym for a couple of days.  I even had a glass of red wine on Monday night (I don’t drink the night before if I’m going to the gym) with dinner. 

 

Ray’s been off work this week on a vacation week which started out very stressfully and rather expensively when he went to get a minor repair done on his Harley and it turned into a transmission rebuild.  Everything is fixed and put back together now and I have insurance on my bike so it’s just a matter of getting a sunny day to go and shake them down!

 

I was supposed to have gone to the gym this morning as per my regular schedule, unfortunately at midnight I woke up from a very vivid and disturbing nightmare and I couldn’t close my eyes again.  So at 4:30am when my alarm went off I rolled over and tried to squeeze another hour of sleep.  It didn’t work that well and now I’m still really tired AND I have to go to the gym after dinner tonight (NO working out right after work!).  Canucks play at 7:30 tonight so I think I’ll head to the gym at 7.  This is a do or die game for us so the gym should be empty.  I’m more of a “tell me what happened after it’s happened” sort of a fan….and Ray gets VERY worked up about the games which I don’t particularly love sitting through so I’ll go and get my sweat on for an hour or so tonight instead.

 

That’s about it at the moment.  Nothing exciting for dinner these days, no exciting workouts or results or inspirations.  Just………regular.

 

OOOHHH!! Wait, the 10km results just hit my inbox.  My chip time was 1:12:17 and I placed 132 out of 175 overall and 45 out of 63 in my age category (30-39).  So…..definitely some room for improvement there!  The fastest woman was 42:42 and the winner was a guy at 37:25.

10KM “Race” Weekend Recap

This morning I did the “Up The Creek” 10km run and I’ll get to how I did in a minute.  There’s some backstory.  Of course there’s backstory!

Friday afternoon I went home from work an hour early, I was dizzy and nauseated and so, so tired.  Putting my head down for awhile when I got home helped tremendously!  Ray went for dinner with his mom and then he came home and picked me up for our regular Friday Costco run and then we headed to the Legion for a dart “tournament” with our motorcycle group.  Turned out to be a fun time, lots of people showed up.  Ray and I both suck at darts.  Not as much as we suck at bowling, mind you, but we won’t be having a career in throwing darts anytime soon.  It is fun though, no doubt!  Home and in bed by 9:30 for me afterwards.

Wishing that jersey would have been luckier for the Canucks but Ray got to the semi finals in our darts game!

Saturday I knew I wanted us to get up early and go for a walk.  7am I had gentle fingers dancing all over my face and arms from Ray waking me up.  We made a pot of coffee, filled up our thermal mugs and headed out on a brisk walk.  We ended up doing a very hilly route, a total elevation climb of almost 250 meters.  We didn’t go very far, just shy of 5km, but it took us almost 45 minutes.  One hill was so straight up that we had to stop for a little breather.  After our walk we got ready, headed to our motorcycle monthly meeting and then went to pick up my race packet at Running Room.  I’m not a huge fan of that business, I think that they “sell” a concept but employ very little actual talent.  The packet pick up line was long and disorganized making me one unhappy camper.

After I finally got the “goodie bag” (the only thing in the goodie bag was pamphlets from other races….no samples, no coupons, NOTHING) we headed out to the valley to buy our new utility trailer.  On the way home following lunch I got so so sleepy.  When we got home I crawled into bed and Ray played around with the new trailer outside.  He tried to wake me up around 4pm and apparantly started getting really concerned because he couldn’t wake me up.  I got out of bed and for the next 2 hours he kept a close eye on me, at one point thinking that maybe we would be making a trip to the emergency room.  I couldn’t hold my head up, once I was sitting on the grass I didn’t even have the energy to get myself standing again.  We think that the dizziness and nausea and now that weird episode are probably all related to my heart condition.  We’re not sure exactly what’s happening but I do have an appointment next month and I’ll be sure and bring it up with him.

The reason that I’m not too worked up about it (although it was scarier than hell yesterday!) is because today I’m completely fine.  Ray made dinner last night and by the time it was clean up time I was starting to come around.  We watched a movie and I had a good sleep and this morning I had no ill effects.  I don’t have a lot of faith in my family doctor and all she would do is send me to the emergency room anyway.  If it happens again I don’t think I’ll have much choice but to head over there; Ray was pretty freaked out.

Anyway, this morning I was fine and ready to tackle a 10km run.  As ready as I could be given the fact that I didn’t train or practice for it AT ALL.

Everything all ready to go the night before. Ugliest race shirt ever, and absolutely HUGE! A small and it's a tent.

 

Ready to go!

 

So?  I’ve dragged you this far down the page, if you’ve come this far you probaby want to know how I did?

10.25km in 1:13

Not bad for being completely untrained!

I definitely did not run the whole thing, especially getting closer to the end.  The race started almost a half hour late so I was pretty gassed at the end being that far from the last time I ate.  Each time I stopped to walk (because anyone who runs knows it’s mental chatter the. whole. time) I quoted my tattoo to myself and asked myself if, when I went to bed tonight, would I be able to say confidently and truthfully that I’d done the absolute best that I could do.  Hell. Yes.  I pushed myself as hard as I could and it feels good.

Post run at the event I had two gala apples, a bottle of water and a dixie cup full of Starbucks coffee (that was all they had, apples, water and coffee…..totally lame, I thought although that’s all I would have been able to have anyway).  Ray came and picked me up and we went for a coffee and I had a chocolate chip Larabar.

Now it’s afternoon, I’ve cleaned the bathtub and had a bath, thrown gym clothes in the laundry, gone out for lunch (mushroom bacon omelette, thank you!!!!!!!!!!) and Ray is messing around outside with his son and the new trailer.  I am going to go and paint my nails and lay on the sofa.  Ray is in charge of dinner tonight and then later we’ll probably take a long walk while it’s still nice out.

Happy Sunday!

“Acceptable”

Why is it, that the first thought that pops into my head when my alarm goes off at 4:30 for the gym, is “I can’t.”.  Why IS that?  When in fact, I CAN and I did and I had a decent workout.  Why is “can’t” the first response though? 

 

Last night we had dinner, huge prawns cooked in garlic butter with coleslaw on the side.  We’re prawn-cooking rookies though and we should have shelled the stupid things before we threw them in the pan.  We ended up a bit buttery having to shell them as we ate.  It went fairly well, considering that I do not enjoy shellfish, that fleshy crunch you get from prawns really grosses me out.  However, I’ve been thinking that I need to open up to some stuff I haven’t previously enjoyed because it helps to grow the “acceptable” list.  I managed to eat 7 prawns last night and that’s probably pretty much my limit.  We hopped in the truck after dinner and drove about 30 minutes away to where gas is much cheaper.  Along the way I was having to convince the prawns that they liked being in my stomach and that they should definitely stay there!  Totally a mind over stomach thing because there was no other reason to feel queasy from them.  Once gas was purchased we went to Dairy Queen for small ice cream sundaes.  It’s a favourite treat and believe it or not, DQ is on my “acceptable” list (under the occasssional treat heading).  Strange since some premium ice cream that we have in the freezer at home blows my belly up almost instantly but DQ is totally fine. 

 

Shoulda peeled the little suckers first!

 

Since I had a migraine all day yesterday the ice cream wasn’t the best idea though and the rush of sugar caused my already aching head to commence monster-throbbing.  Not sure if it was the migraine or maybe a touch of ear infection but I’ve been feeling a little wobbly these past few days….as though the floor randomly shifts under my feet.  I went to bed right when I got home and slept fine but when I got up this morning for gym, I was a little unsteady again so I think maybe a little water in my ear?

 

Anyway, the weather looks promising for Sunday morning which means that I will get up early and go and run/walk a 10k.  My jog at the gym this morning went pretty well (albeit only 20 minutes) so I’m hopeful that this little plan of mine isn’t foolhardy.  Again, it’s a flat course, not on pavement and I’ll just be happy to finish it, I’m not expecting to make decent time or to run the whole thing.  (yes, I’m convincing myself that this is a good idea!)  I read a quote on a blog the other day to the effect of “your body will always want to quit, it’s your mind you need to harness in order to make your mind push your body”.  Definitely the wording on the one I saw was nicer but you get the idea.  So I’m doing lots of mental chatter so that when my legs and lungs are burning up, I will be all ready to have strong words with myself to push harder and go further.  If I do end up jogging this race (it’s weather permitting as far as I’m concerned) then I’m not going to be going to the gym on Monday morning.  10km is WAY over my current distance/endurance and once I make it through, going to the gym the next day at 4:30am is a recipe for injury or burnout.  So if I run Sunday, I’m ok with not hitting the gym until Wednesday morning at the earliest.  This will set my lifting schedule back a few days but that’s alright!  Working within my actual reality, a 10k completed is acceptable (or fantastic!) and that means that skipping  a couple weights workouts is also acceptable!

 

Ray’s out for dinner with his mom tonight (I’ve opted out…again, mediocre food and high sodium is not on the acceptable list) and then we’re going to Costco.  At 7pm we’re meeting a group of friends for a casual darts tournament.  I’ve never played darts before and I have terrible aim to begin with.  Should be interesting!

 

Saturday we’re going to a meeting in the morning, I’m picking up my race packet afterwards, we’re heading out to the valley to look at utility trailers after that (oh, fun.  Not.) and then groceries.  And Sunday is the run. 

 

Happy Weekend, All!

Dream vs Reality

First thing, before I go anywhere, my dear friend Tara wrote a post yesterday that you all deserve to read.  She’s found that place where healthy living aspirations balance with the reality of life.  The place where “normal” people live.  I have to admit that I have not yet found that place.  I teeter on the edge of it from time to time but have not had the catalyst to push me fully into it.  Go read.  Click HERE!

 

While driving to work this morning (where all good thinking comes from….that and the shower) I was thinking quite a bit about her post and numbers.  For whatever reason, every for the last three years I have marked down my weight.  Maybe because spring is a time of trying to drop a little winter weight and I’ve marked down my starting?  Who knows.  But I’ve been thinking about it a lot in the last few days.

 

March 2009 ~ 173.2

March 2010 ~ 175

March 2011 ~ 176

March 2012 ~ 174.4

 

My average March weight is 174.6 pounds.  There have been ups and downs within those calendar years, nothing major, no different pant sizes, most of my clothes fit at one time or another.  So if, after FOUR YEARS of healthy living, consistent exercise, conscientious eating while still enjoying life, I am pretty much exactly where I started out, shouldn’t that tell me something?  Is that, perhaps, a clue that the weight I am now is my body’s set point?  Furthermore, from the beginning of February when I started grain free to this very morning, I have changed in weight 2.2 pounds.  The biggest swing I’ve had was from my start weight to my lowest this year and that difference is only 5.4 pounds (176.6 when I started, low weight 171.2).  I have to chalk that swing up to standard ups and downs across time.  Considering that I have counted calories, counted points, not counted anything, drank wine daily for several weeks, drank absolutely nothing but water or tea, given up all grains and eaten oodles of fat; I’ve done all of this and my body weight has not changed considerably, I have to believe this is where I’m meant to be.  The trouble is that this is not where I want to be and that pits a dream against reality.  Realistically which one is going to win?

 

Every fibre of my being wants to throw my scale out and trust myself and my body that I can fly solo and find that balance between that drive for continuous improvement and the reality of living life comfortably.  I just…….can’t do it yet. 

 

So, I will keep on keeping on, striving for continuous improvement, pushing heavy weights, getting a little more cardio in (because apparantly now my body WANTS to jog….it didn’t 2 months ago!) and staying grain, chemical/preservative, dairy free.  But I’m also going to start trying to embrace the idea that while I might see small changes in my body composition, at this point in my life, with the time and effort that I am willing to contribute, this is where I’ll be. 

 

Never stop trying to become a better version of myself……..but maybe remembering to do so within the contraints of reality.  Less disappointing that way!

 

Go read Tara’s article, it’ll be worth your time, I promise!

Apples ARE Sexy!

This text message is a result of Ray texting me and complaining that he’d agreed to work overtime but didn’t have any snack to tide him over the next 4 hours.  Since we work in the same building, I offered to deliver him what I had available and this was his response:

 

After I finished busting a gut laughing, I tossed him the snack and then went home.  All the way home I was thinking about it; almonds and apple aren’t sexy.  And I suppose he’s right, that’s not a “sexy” snack.  It brings to mind the fact that the right choices aren’t necessarily the popular choices.  A piece of pie or an apple?  A bag of Doritos or some chicken?  A Mars bar or a hard boiled egg?  Not only are the “right” choices less desirable in some cases, but the bad ones are often times easier and more accessible.   Which brings me to a post that I was reading last night.  I won’t link to it because the comments that I made on the post may be considered harsh by some.  However the gist of the story was that this guy is sick and tired of nay-sayers and can’t-doers sucking the energy out of him.  He’s decided to deplete the energy suckers from his life and work on building a circle of support and powerful positive energy in order to help him achieve his goals.  My comment strayed towards how we as humans judge people on how they look.  Don’t shake your head, we all do it.  We judge wealth and health, compatibility, attractiveness, friendliness all in the first moments that we look at someone.  There is an article going around which says that you should not ever strive for physical attractiveness because that is A) not sustainable and B) shallow.  I’m sorry that I can’t find the link to that right now…I’ll look a bit later and add it if I can find it.  The author also says that the defining factor for something to be physically attractive is rarity.  In this day and age it’s slender, toned, healthy and strong.  In the days of famine and starvation it was plump and round and well fed.  Enormous, majestic houses are attractive because not all of us can afford one.  Rarity is beauty, for sure.

 

The trouble is, if you want to be physically attractive you have to either be born ‘rare’ or do what the majority of people don’t do, achieve what the majority of people don’t achieve and make decisions that the majority of people won’t make.  That’s not shallow or single minded, it’s driven and determined.  Why should I have to settle for common if I can push myself to achieve more?  Why shouldn’t I want to be the best possible version of myself? 

 

Anyway, moving on.  I did not go for a run last night.  By the time I got home, went back to the store, made cranberry sauce for our dinner, took out the garbages, did the recycling, convinced the nice man to get off my lawn, I do NOT want it aerated, and then actually started cooking dinner, Ray texted to say he was on his way home.  Pardon?? It’s 6pm already??  Well…….shit!  So, no exercise last night.  Which might not be the worst thing, I am so frigging exhausted today I can hardly keep my eyes open!  I did hit the gym at 4:45am this morning as per my schedule however I didn’t go up in weight on any but one exercise.  I know that there are ups and down as far as your strength on any given day so I’m not too worried about it.  I know I worked as hard as I could and even pouring the coffee pot this morning after the gym was a challenge.  I only have 5 workouts left of Stage 1…which is great because I’m getting a little bored of doing the same things over and over.  On the other hand I’m a little nervous that I still can’t do a proper pushup from plank position.  And I’m nervous that the second stage is going to have weird exercises in it that you never see anyone else doing.  Of course I’m scared that I’ll look stupid……but tieing into my discussion above, I’m going to do things most people don’t do in order to get the results that most people don’t get.  And at 4:30am, who’s going to see me look stupid?  No one I care about!

 

Last night I fried the turkey filets in seasoned butter (butter melted in the cast iron with paprika, onion pwdr, garlic pwdr, sage and thyme), topped with the homemade cranberries and served with mashed cauli and green beans.  Tonight is ribeye steaks, left over cauli and some coleslaw.  And tonight we’re taking the tent trailer to its new owners.  And I’m hoping we can squeeze in a walk right after work!