For at least a month, maybe more, I've been doing everything but run, trying to rest and heal my hamstring and the tendons that attach it to the hip joint. The muscle feels fine now - I've been doing tons of stretching so I'm more limber than I've been in ages. (I used to be a dancer but I can't imagine I'll ever get anywhere near the flexibility I had back then!) The tendon still aches when I put strain on it - spinning doesn't bother it, nor elliptical, but just about any other weight bearing exercise does. However I couldn't wait any longer - I did 20 minutes slow jog (4.5 mph) on the treadmill today. It felt - OK. The aches is there, but it didn't get any worse as I went along. I'll try it again in a day or two.
By the way, the vitamins and supplements I've now been taking for about six weeks seem to really help - thanks, LBTEPA!
The stunning silence in the comments area from my last post leads me to believe that I revealed too much!
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Tagged!
GeekGirl tagged me! I'm so flattered! I'm supposed to share five unusual things about me. I've already done this once before on my other blog, so click here for eight more "interesting" facts.
1. I once had a joke published in Hustler Magazine (but wasn't paid for it.) The story of how it came to be is kinda funny - details below.
2. GeekGrl says her beloved told her she has pretty feet, which reminded me that the guy I had a crush on in high school told me I had sturdy feet. I think he meant it as a compliment, but at age 16 hoping for my first- ever kiss, it wasn't the one I was hoping for! (He never did kiss me.)
3. I have actually played the part of a fairy onstage. As an adult. Seriously. (In Gilbert & Sullivan, so it wasn't THAT serious!)
4. I have gotten lost in every borough of New York City.
5. I once worked as a park ranger in a remote island off the coast of Michigan's upper peninsula - at night you could hear the wolves howling.
So the story of Hustler Magazine (in case you aren't or don't know any teenage boys, it's a porn magazine): my first boyfriend worked in the comic book industry after college - a friend of ours had co-founded a wonderful company called Milestone Media and my by-then-already-ex was one of the first writers working there. But for various reasons he left, and after much travail found a job as the editor of the humor section of Hustler. (What makes this hilarious is that he is the shyest person on the planet - he'd literally leave the room if someone was breastfeeding their baby.) We were still friends, and as I had just had my daughter at that time, proposed a joke to him that was a parody of the "Got Milk" campaign, involving a man, a milk mustache, and a naked breast. (It ran in the magazine with another friend of ours posing in the photo as the most happy fella.) He left that job after a short time, before he got totally corrupted, and is now back in the "legit" world of Saturday morning cartoons!
Now I'm supposed to tag five other people. But since everyone in blog land has already been tagged at least once, I don't want to spam anyone. Instead, if you read this and want to tag yourself, please do (and say so in the comments so we can come to your blog and learn more about you!)
1. I once had a joke published in Hustler Magazine (but wasn't paid for it.) The story of how it came to be is kinda funny - details below.
2. GeekGrl says her beloved told her she has pretty feet, which reminded me that the guy I had a crush on in high school told me I had sturdy feet. I think he meant it as a compliment, but at age 16 hoping for my first- ever kiss, it wasn't the one I was hoping for! (He never did kiss me.)
3. I have actually played the part of a fairy onstage. As an adult. Seriously. (In Gilbert & Sullivan, so it wasn't THAT serious!)
4. I have gotten lost in every borough of New York City.
5. I once worked as a park ranger in a remote island off the coast of Michigan's upper peninsula - at night you could hear the wolves howling.
So the story of Hustler Magazine (in case you aren't or don't know any teenage boys, it's a porn magazine): my first boyfriend worked in the comic book industry after college - a friend of ours had co-founded a wonderful company called Milestone Media and my by-then-already-ex was one of the first writers working there. But for various reasons he left, and after much travail found a job as the editor of the humor section of Hustler. (What makes this hilarious is that he is the shyest person on the planet - he'd literally leave the room if someone was breastfeeding their baby.) We were still friends, and as I had just had my daughter at that time, proposed a joke to him that was a parody of the "Got Milk" campaign, involving a man, a milk mustache, and a naked breast. (It ran in the magazine with another friend of ours posing in the photo as the most happy fella.) He left that job after a short time, before he got totally corrupted, and is now back in the "legit" world of Saturday morning cartoons!
Now I'm supposed to tag five other people. But since everyone in blog land has already been tagged at least once, I don't want to spam anyone. Instead, if you read this and want to tag yourself, please do (and say so in the comments so we can come to your blog and learn more about you!)
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Three weeks, no post!
Where am I? What am I doing? I'm starting over, in some ways. I had gained back about 8 pounds, but in the last while I've gotten a grip on myself and have re-lost 4 of them - helped along by a nasty bout of stomach flu! (Is it "The Devil Wears Prada" that has the line that goes something like, "I'm just one stomach flu away from fitting into my skinny jeans?" Since recovering, I've worked out every day. I bought some heavier dumbbells, and finally popped for a new heart rate monitor after having lost the transmitter on my old one a couple of months ago. Soon I'll decipher all the buttons so I can use it properly! (It's a Polar F6 - it has some fancy functions like a diary and upload to computer abilities - but honestly the only thing I really care about is keeping track of where I am when I'm working out - I'll never be enough of a geek-head (no insult intended, GeekGrl!) to want to chart and graph my workouts. I stopped going to IronWil's ThroughTh3Wall Challenge in part because, of all the fun timewasters, like Facebook, which I'm currently enjoying mightily, that one just wasn't grabbing me! End of digression, or is it all digression?)
Anyway, my injury is still bothering me a lot, though my insurance company decided I was better enough that they don't need to continue paying for the PT. I have a little money left over in my flex savings account so I can go next week and the week after if they're around during the holiday, but then it's just me and my foam roller. So I'm spinning, ellipticalling, shoveling snow, walking steep hills on the treadmill, and a LITTLE light jogging. Oh and I've managed to mostly avoid swimming for various reasons but I WILL get back in the pool soon. Will I ever race again? I don't know. At least I'm going through this during the winter, not peak race season!
I'm planning to start a new blog, though: I have at least a dozen essays in mind about various feminist-ish topics - the evils of girl's toys and TV shows, how far back we've fallen since the 70's in creating positive images for girls - oddly enough and completely coincidentally, just as I started to write this, the kids found, of all things, the Free to Be, You and Me CD and put it in. Marlo Thomas, what has become of your dream?
Anyway, my injury is still bothering me a lot, though my insurance company decided I was better enough that they don't need to continue paying for the PT. I have a little money left over in my flex savings account so I can go next week and the week after if they're around during the holiday, but then it's just me and my foam roller. So I'm spinning, ellipticalling, shoveling snow, walking steep hills on the treadmill, and a LITTLE light jogging. Oh and I've managed to mostly avoid swimming for various reasons but I WILL get back in the pool soon. Will I ever race again? I don't know. At least I'm going through this during the winter, not peak race season!
I'm planning to start a new blog, though: I have at least a dozen essays in mind about various feminist-ish topics - the evils of girl's toys and TV shows, how far back we've fallen since the 70's in creating positive images for girls - oddly enough and completely coincidentally, just as I started to write this, the kids found, of all things, the Free to Be, You and Me CD and put it in. Marlo Thomas, what has become of your dream?
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Away to Thanksgiving
Weight this morning: 196. I don't think I regained 2 pounds that I'd actually lost - I'm sure it's all just water up, water down. My goal for the next four days: come back weighing no more than when I left. Exercise every day (including today); don't drink too much, don't stuff myself silly.
I'm going to run today for the first time in a week. I have a new pain, down the side of the same leg that's been bothering me, a few inches above the knee. I'm going to take it real easy and see how it feels.
Meanwhile,e on the advice of a wise friend, I've been investigating possible hormonal imbalances contributing to mood swings - I've invested in some black cohosh herb, some soy products and seaweed to balance the soy. I'm cutting back on alcohol (one small glass every other day instead of 1-2 large glasses every day!) and on caffeine. I'll give it a month and see if it affects any of these problems and if it doesn't, take it the next step beyond random self-treatment and go see...someone. Not sure who yet.
I'm going to run today for the first time in a week. I have a new pain, down the side of the same leg that's been bothering me, a few inches above the knee. I'm going to take it real easy and see how it feels.
Meanwhile,e on the advice of a wise friend, I've been investigating possible hormonal imbalances contributing to mood swings - I've invested in some black cohosh herb, some soy products and seaweed to balance the soy. I'm cutting back on alcohol (one small glass every other day instead of 1-2 large glasses every day!) and on caffeine. I'll give it a month and see if it affects any of these problems and if it doesn't, take it the next step beyond random self-treatment and go see...someone. Not sure who yet.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Plowing ahead
Weight this morning: 194.8. While it looks like I've lost 3 pounds this week, it occurs to me that at least some of it is hair - I had a major chop this week. I'd been working a long-n-glamorous look for a while, mostly out of laziness. When I took the time to blowdry it all the way, it looked GREAT but the rest of the time it was a bit too shaggy/messy for me, not in a sexy bedhead way, but in a "this girl is in a slump and not taking care of herself" way. So I found this picture and brought it to a new stylist whose work I've admired:
She looked at the picture, at my hair and my face, heard me say "I don't want to spend more than 5 minutes in the morning," and told me, "no, not doing that." Though I was disappointed, I trusted her completely - she seemed to be paying such close attention to what would be JUST RIGHT for me.
The end of the story is probably obvious: I HATE it. It's not long nor short, it has no particular shape (other than vaguely bell-like) and it makes me feel like an 8th grader. Not in a good way. (Is there a good way to feel like an 8th-grader?) I'll give it a week more, to try to learn how to do it right, and then, I guess, go back and ask her to fix it. (I've NEVER done that before, but I really hate it.)
However, it does dry much faster, which I tested out this afternoon after my first time swimming with the other Master's Swimming Coach. I liked him much better than the guy who does the Thursday night session - his advice is much more in tune with TI, and is better for triathletes and distance swimmers as opposed to the high-school sprinter approach the other guy has. I'm going to try to switch my session, at least every other week.
However my panic problem has returned - I could barely venture into the deep end today. (The lanes went from 4 feet to 7 feet, with only the last 10 or 15 feet of lane over my head.) I think it's in part because of something GeekGrl posted, about a woman who basically drowned doing an IM a few weeks ago. After I read that, I found a few more stories of people who died doing tri swims, or who started suffering from swim-induced pulmonary edema. I am SUCH an idiot for looking this up - completely morbid, and being so susceptible to anxiety, it was really stupid.
I think the only option for me now is hypnosis, and I'm seriously considering it.
She looked at the picture, at my hair and my face, heard me say "I don't want to spend more than 5 minutes in the morning," and told me, "no, not doing that." Though I was disappointed, I trusted her completely - she seemed to be paying such close attention to what would be JUST RIGHT for me.
The end of the story is probably obvious: I HATE it. It's not long nor short, it has no particular shape (other than vaguely bell-like) and it makes me feel like an 8th grader. Not in a good way. (Is there a good way to feel like an 8th-grader?) I'll give it a week more, to try to learn how to do it right, and then, I guess, go back and ask her to fix it. (I've NEVER done that before, but I really hate it.)
However, it does dry much faster, which I tested out this afternoon after my first time swimming with the other Master's Swimming Coach. I liked him much better than the guy who does the Thursday night session - his advice is much more in tune with TI, and is better for triathletes and distance swimmers as opposed to the high-school sprinter approach the other guy has. I'm going to try to switch my session, at least every other week.
However my panic problem has returned - I could barely venture into the deep end today. (The lanes went from 4 feet to 7 feet, with only the last 10 or 15 feet of lane over my head.) I think it's in part because of something GeekGrl posted, about a woman who basically drowned doing an IM a few weeks ago. After I read that, I found a few more stories of people who died doing tri swims, or who started suffering from swim-induced pulmonary edema. I am SUCH an idiot for looking this up - completely morbid, and being so susceptible to anxiety, it was really stupid.
I think the only option for me now is hypnosis, and I'm seriously considering it.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
How not to lose weight
Alternate title: how not to indulge a chocolate craving.
Or: How not to make fudge.
Take your pick.
But first: weight this morning, 195.something. Size - still one up from where I was - I dug into the retired pants pile since everything I have is dirty and found to my dismay that the pair I found, discarded 2 months ago for being too big, is now snug.
Meanwhile, last night after dinner I had a "MUST HAVE CHOCOLATE" moment. Digging through the cupboards I found most of a bar of unsweetened ghirardelli. We were out of almost everything one might put in a chocolate confection including eggs and flour, but amazingly, the wrapper had a recipe for fudge that involved only: the unsweetened chocolate, some semi-sweet chocolate chips (which, I'd forgotten, we had some of), some sweetened condensed milk, which I usually keep on hand for the occasional pumpkin pie, and vanilla. Turned out we only had unsweetened evaporated skim milk, and it further turned out, when I opened it and found a weird yellow liquid with shredded looking milky bits, that evaporated milk has an expiration date that, in this case, was more than 2 years ago. But it smelled OK, so I proceeded. (Being a truly pathetic creature.) We were also short on the chocolate chips, so I added more unsweeted baking chocolate, plus sugar.
Can you tell this is not going to end well?
I melted all in a double-boiler, added the vanilla, and it tasted OK. Next step was to pour it into a pan and let it set in the refrigerator for 2 hours. I poured, and left - went to a movie (no snacks there, good on me.) Came home, found the chocolate had congealed into something resembling nothing so muich as sewage sludge on top, with a thin liquidy layer on the bottom.
Naturally, I ate some.
It looks just as disgusting today, and I've been picking at it all morning and into the afternoon. WHY? WHY don't I just pitch it? Why don't I look at the chocolate mess, and look at my too-small, formerly too big pants, and say, STOP. THE. INSANITY.
I guess I can try LPTEBA's suggestion and post the weight I want to attain next - say, 193, on little post-its all over the house. If my kids ask about them I can tell them they're for math practice and give them some subtraction problems.
By the way, I did hav ea great workout today - a one-hour Pilates class plus 45 minutes on the elliptical, on the "fat-burn" setting. It's weird - to lose fat you're supposed to work out at a lower heart rate. I'm so used to working in the 130-150 range, and the machine kept silently yelling at me to slow down to 119. The good thing was that by doing so, I could indeed continue for the whole 45 minutes. I iced my hamstring by sitting on a pack of frozen hamburger meat (well-wrapped - it's going to be a pot of chili tonight) and rested too - trying to nap while listening to my kids and their playdate play school. It's so cute to hear 8-year olds give each other (and the little sister) instruction about US geography.
Oh, and here's some more consolation: apparently women with small waists and big asses are smarter, and pass their brains down to their kids. Something to do with Omega-3-fatty acids - we naturally have more of them. So instead of bemoaning the fact that pants never fit the 14-inch difference between my waist and my hips, I should be glad!
Or: How not to make fudge.
Take your pick.
But first: weight this morning, 195.something. Size - still one up from where I was - I dug into the retired pants pile since everything I have is dirty and found to my dismay that the pair I found, discarded 2 months ago for being too big, is now snug.
Meanwhile, last night after dinner I had a "MUST HAVE CHOCOLATE" moment. Digging through the cupboards I found most of a bar of unsweetened ghirardelli. We were out of almost everything one might put in a chocolate confection including eggs and flour, but amazingly, the wrapper had a recipe for fudge that involved only: the unsweetened chocolate, some semi-sweet chocolate chips (which, I'd forgotten, we had some of), some sweetened condensed milk, which I usually keep on hand for the occasional pumpkin pie, and vanilla. Turned out we only had unsweetened evaporated skim milk, and it further turned out, when I opened it and found a weird yellow liquid with shredded looking milky bits, that evaporated milk has an expiration date that, in this case, was more than 2 years ago. But it smelled OK, so I proceeded. (Being a truly pathetic creature.) We were also short on the chocolate chips, so I added more unsweeted baking chocolate, plus sugar.
Can you tell this is not going to end well?
I melted all in a double-boiler, added the vanilla, and it tasted OK. Next step was to pour it into a pan and let it set in the refrigerator for 2 hours. I poured, and left - went to a movie (no snacks there, good on me.) Came home, found the chocolate had congealed into something resembling nothing so muich as sewage sludge on top, with a thin liquidy layer on the bottom.
Naturally, I ate some.
It looks just as disgusting today, and I've been picking at it all morning and into the afternoon. WHY? WHY don't I just pitch it? Why don't I look at the chocolate mess, and look at my too-small, formerly too big pants, and say, STOP. THE. INSANITY.
I guess I can try LPTEBA's suggestion and post the weight I want to attain next - say, 193, on little post-its all over the house. If my kids ask about them I can tell them they're for math practice and give them some subtraction problems.
By the way, I did hav ea great workout today - a one-hour Pilates class plus 45 minutes on the elliptical, on the "fat-burn" setting. It's weird - to lose fat you're supposed to work out at a lower heart rate. I'm so used to working in the 130-150 range, and the machine kept silently yelling at me to slow down to 119. The good thing was that by doing so, I could indeed continue for the whole 45 minutes. I iced my hamstring by sitting on a pack of frozen hamburger meat (well-wrapped - it's going to be a pot of chili tonight) and rested too - trying to nap while listening to my kids and their playdate play school. It's so cute to hear 8-year olds give each other (and the little sister) instruction about US geography.
Oh, and here's some more consolation: apparently women with small waists and big asses are smarter, and pass their brains down to their kids. Something to do with Omega-3-fatty acids - we naturally have more of them. So instead of bemoaning the fact that pants never fit the 14-inch difference between my waist and my hips, I should be glad!
Friday, November 16, 2007
Accountability
Several of my blog-world friends are using this forum to hold themselves accountable for their choices and actions. So, in that spirit and with the intent of getting a grip and refocusing on my goals:
My weight this morning was 197.
That's 8, count-em, 8 pounds up from six weeks ago. I blame Halloween, cold weather, being overtired, and my own inability to stop shoving food in my mouth. (and my injury, but I could be doing plenty of exercise if I chose to make the time.)
My clothes are tight, my thighs rub together, I feel physically yucky. It's not that I haven't been exercising - I am averaging 3-4 times a week of a decent aerobic workout of one type or another, plus 2ish light core/weight trainings. But I've been eating double or triple what I should with absolutely no self-control. So - with Thanksgiving and the holidays coming, and everyone having cookies and crap around, I am determined to get ahold of myself and hit January 1 weighing less than I do now. Can get back to 190 by then? I don't know. But I should be able to lose a pound a week, right?
I am 43 years old. Why do I still undermine myself at every turn? Why do I say out loud thatI want to control my eating, but at the very same time, think, "oh, there will be chocolate at the hair salon, great!" I heard a commercial on the radio this morning for a hypnotist that used that very idea, saying, "stop being your own worst enemy and become your own best friend."
My daughter wants a turn on the computer but I am definitely coming back to this theme, hopefully in a more coherent way. Meanwhile, I went to sleep at 8:30 pm last night instead of swimming; did nothing today. Wednesday I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and 25 minutes of weights; Tuesday I did spinning but it hurt my leg too much. Tomorrow: Pilates and elliptical (or something.) Sunday: swim. And I will not overeat. I will not overeat. I will not overeat.
My weight this morning was 197.
That's 8, count-em, 8 pounds up from six weeks ago. I blame Halloween, cold weather, being overtired, and my own inability to stop shoving food in my mouth. (and my injury, but I could be doing plenty of exercise if I chose to make the time.)
My clothes are tight, my thighs rub together, I feel physically yucky. It's not that I haven't been exercising - I am averaging 3-4 times a week of a decent aerobic workout of one type or another, plus 2ish light core/weight trainings. But I've been eating double or triple what I should with absolutely no self-control. So - with Thanksgiving and the holidays coming, and everyone having cookies and crap around, I am determined to get ahold of myself and hit January 1 weighing less than I do now. Can get back to 190 by then? I don't know. But I should be able to lose a pound a week, right?
I am 43 years old. Why do I still undermine myself at every turn? Why do I say out loud thatI want to control my eating, but at the very same time, think, "oh, there will be chocolate at the hair salon, great!" I heard a commercial on the radio this morning for a hypnotist that used that very idea, saying, "stop being your own worst enemy and become your own best friend."
My daughter wants a turn on the computer but I am definitely coming back to this theme, hopefully in a more coherent way. Meanwhile, I went to sleep at 8:30 pm last night instead of swimming; did nothing today. Wednesday I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and 25 minutes of weights; Tuesday I did spinning but it hurt my leg too much. Tomorrow: Pilates and elliptical (or something.) Sunday: swim. And I will not overeat. I will not overeat. I will not overeat.
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