Adjusted Reality

I am the poster child for the type A personality.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to be content. I know how to be content! Contentedness arrives through goal setting, progress towards things I want, and achievement. When I am moving towards what I want, I am happy. I wake up excited (most mornings) these days to check all the numbers of all the things that I need to check the numbers for, attack my to-do list, and then relax later after it’s done. This is my perfect day. I can even correlate this with my Garmin – when I am doing the work that I want to be doing/should be doing, my stress levels go wayyyyy down. Give me a whole morning to focus on tasks and the actual attention to do so, and I am a very happy little type A nerdo. I do need to save myself from myself occasionally and have a do-nothing day, but that causes me significant stress unless it’s PLANNED.

I’ve had more of this lately, checking things off the list and making progress, and it makes me very very content. While we got a chance to go play in the woods once over our week off (yay), and we also spent plenty of time relaxing on the couch playing video games, reading, and watching TV, we also did a lot of productive work around the house. I didn’t realize how satisfying and stress relieving that would be.

I was worried that this productivity might just be a vacation week fantasy but getting back to work kept a similar vibe. Monday, I had something big I feared would take me all day take two hours. My focus workday Friday began with three tasks and two appointments. Once I stopped getting distracted and dug in, I was able to get almost everything done, which was better than I expected! It feels really really really good starting these days not emulating me with the 1-plate salad bar at Jason’s Deli.

I keep arriving at finish lines of proverbial marathons I didn’t even know I was running and recover mentally and physically a little bit more each time. I was so used to my piled-up “to-do” plates, I had forgotten what an achievable day felt like. My body has been in sad shape for so long, I forgot what a functioning meatbag that isn’t injured feels like, on that isn’t overstressed, and takes the time to do the recovery things, and it feels great. And the house stuff. I had turned a blind eye to the condition of my office and stayed in my little bubble corner for so long I didn’t think it really bothered me. However, now I’m happy to walk into the room in the morning to start work instead of having a little unconscious sigh before I go back to ignoring it. I have a feeling as we fix each room in the house, I’ll feel the same way about it.

By the end of the year-ish we have three more projects:

• Finish the office – this means get the music nook set up and organized, unearth Joel’s desk, figure out what to do with the fabric/sewing machine, and get the guitar cases back in the closet (since they have nice stands and get played now, they get to stay out!).
• Tackle the pain cave – Joel has a bike desk that has been sitting in the hall waiting to be set up for nine months now. 😛 We also need to clean out some shelves and drawers and closets and just clean the floors. It’s another office situation – I can tuck myself in my little useable bubble and ignore the rest, but it will be SO NICE when I don’t have to.
• Finish Joel’s office/gaming/hobby room. This needs the third set of shelving to house the printers, and the artwork to be put back up once we fully decide on a layout (this may wait until after Christmas stuff is put away)

None of this is huge, just a few hours each project max. Next year we’d like to tackle some bigger stuff. First up, our master bathroom is literally falling apart so we need to get it redone, but we have so much to clean out in the vanity area first, so I think the master bedroom/bath has to be the next room for us to unearth and organize and it’s going to take a LOT more than a few hours. But thinking about alllll the things we need to do is overwhelming, we’ll just do our 1-2 hours per week and make progress and that will be enough to make me happy.

Speaking of progress… look at this sexy beast…

Last week when I was off, it could have gone bad- but instead I made some solid progress because I stayed consistent. I tracked my food, stuck to my workout and calorie plan, and used the time off to make progress on things and destress instead of pigging out and being lazy. I went a few calories over on Thanksgiving (as one does) but got right back on track the next day. Spoiler alert: December looks similar to this trend and yesterday, I weighed the lowest I have all year. So, consistency brings progress and progress brings the motivation to continue consistency.

I got 7 hours of activity on my week off (and almost as much this week)! Two runs, lifting three times, a bike, a swim, an elliptical, and eight miles of walking. That’s great! This week, I hit my goals to run 2.5 miles twice, lifted three times, cycled once, elliptical’d once, and I friggin’ TRIED to swim (but the pool was full and I ran out of time). The weekend was for walking/hiking since these beautiful fall colors won’t be lasting forever. Yet again, more weeks like this please!

I ate 1583 calories/day the week off, and this week I’m back to 1509. I got just over 10k steps both weeks. Overall, I think I’ve found the sweet spot with achievable goals in calorie input/output which seem to be working. They take consistency and diligence but don’t feel overwhelming. And that makes all the difference.

This week I asked Joel, “is this what being boring feels like?”

And honestly, it’s not too bad for a change.

If you’ve met me, or at least my social media feed, you know that I’m an adventure junkie. If I have free time, I’m here to squeeze any sort of exciting, beautiful, awe-inspiring, picture-and/or-blog-worthy experience out of it. Uncharacteristically, I am currently amidst a week off where it took a hell of a lot of self-control to not just go for a little camping trip somewhere pretty (it’s FALLLLLL out there, you know), or hop a plane somewhere, and I’m actually not hating it. It may be that I’m still in deep picture-editing-ception (I have a whole cruise + fall hikes + ten full days of EU sightseeing left so I’m in ZERO danger of running out of material) so I know my adventure log has been very full this year already. I *am* missing a scuba diving focused trip something fierce, so that’s something I’ll have to address next year, but for now, I’m OKAY with being here instead of anywhere else.

It’s been a long “2-4 weeks” since we all got sent home from work one Friday in March 2020, and when I let many of the plates I was spinning crash to the ground over the pandemic, I’ve just been walking around them (or just on top of them) ever since. Late 2022 has been about starting to pick up some of those shattered pieces, for real this time, not just pretending while sweeping them under the rug. Y’know, really trying to clean house (both literally and figuratively). Some plates are worth gluing back together. Some need to be thrown away and replaced. Some, maybe I can live without the spinning of this particular dishware in this new era. But it’s time to stop spending every free moment running away from my plates to go on adventures.

It’s just weird to take a Monday off and go to the gym, do errands, and clean. There was absolutely nothing adventurous about that – but I’m proud to say our office has carpet again (and I believe it will have EVEN MORE later today). I’m not going to have a super gorgeous modern minimalist house anytime soon – but I may at some point not be MORTIFIED if I forget to turn on my Zoom background in the office. We’re going to try to make incremental and time-boxed progress on the rest of the house as well – this week we’re trying for one hour a day, and weeks where we are working, we’re going to do two hours a week. Just that one change (time-boxing it) made an overwhelming task something that seems at least less intimidating to start and maybe even eventually achievable. I can give two hours a week to fix something that’s causing me strife. It’d be nice to not have to add “sorry there’s stuff everywhere” to the greeting “hello and welcome to our home”.

In the spirit of proactivity and not ignoring problems, I started with an executive coach this week. It sounds very fancy, but really, it’s just an outside voice with a non-disclosure agreement to talk through work challenges. I’m finding that I have fewer and fewer appropriate sounding boards these days for some of the things that come up. Instead of unloading on someone who shouldn’t have to be burdened with it, I now have her! I’ve found the space to just babble really useful, and while she’s given me some golden nuggets, the ability to talk things out loud instead of in my head was super helpful. I have a few things to try over the next month to see if they help my productivity and give me the ability to connect better.

And now, I shall end this missive with the normal things. This is my reward for being boring.

And I’m happy with my prize right now. The meal delivery services are very much helping this quest – especially this week. We could have easily said “eff it” week and go get takeout/go out even if we shunned the adventure. However, the food, it just keeps showing up. So, we keep eating it instead of being adventurous. And my trendweight, she keeps going down. It’s like methodical, boring, mundane magic!

Last week I ate 1469 calories per day on average and getting that average below 1500 is key. It’s not much lower, but I’m getting more activity to balance it out. It’s not jacking up my appetite yet, so that’s good, but this is abouuuuuut where I’m going to stay for a while.

Yep, that’s two runs AND a swim, as well as three trips to the gym to lift weights. My seven-day step average is at about 9k (which is a triumph in and of itself with this craptastic weather). I’m working my run up to 3 miles/30 mins (three more weeks to go if all goes well!) and would like to swim 1000m/20 mins, but that’s it. After that becomes easy, I’ll work on doing it faster (slowly) instead of continuing to add time.

For the first time in a while, my goal for this week is “another one like the last one”. That’s the opposite of what an adventure junkie would say. I’m weirdly excited to be temporarily reformed – at least for the next few months!

Another week and I have some words! And maybe some cheese.

First of all, folks, this is what progress looks like.

Would I like it to go faster? Yes. Am I a little sad that so far this progress is just taking off the weight I gained in Europe? Also, yes. However, I love me some inertia. I’m pretty good at CONTINUING habits, so I’ll take my wins at face value and keep moving on… down?

I’d like to say a hearty thank you to Snap Kitchen and Factor for keeping my cakehole on the straight and narrow. The subscription service adds one additional factor to pressure me (in a good way) – the meals keep coming whether I eat them or not. So far, it’s kept us from going out quite a few times simply because I will NOT let them expire (and I have only frozen ONE). I mean, it’s also just super convenient and the food is actually really good, so it’s not a hardship or anything, but the weekly food delivery is really helping things along.

My average calories consumed per day last week was 1554, which seems to be about my limit for calorie deficits while keeping my sanity intact. Most of the Snap/Factor meals are around 500 calories, so two of those + breakfast is about 1200. I try to skip breakfast every once in a while, if I’m not hungry (intermittent fasting?) and only snack when I absolutely must, but there’s been a few days lately where I just couldn’t THINK on 1200 calories and I kinda have to do that to work.

So, to balance the equation, I need to burn a bit more, which means a few things:

1. Putting on muscle (it burns calories!)
2. More low intensity cardio (10k steps per day)
3. Remembering how to run again

The last one might be more for my sanity, but I do also love the efficiency of a run for the calories/minute burn. There’s a tipping point where it just makes me hungrier (thus why I’ve gained weight training for every full marathon I’ve ran), but my modest goal to be able to jog a 5k again by the end of the year shouldn’t cause problems.

So, last week I had a few goals. I wanted to run twice, bike or elliptical 3 times, do strength 3 times, and get as close to 10k steps per day as possible.

• Monday – 1 mile run, leg day, 11.1k steps
• Tuesday – 30 min bike, 9.4k steps
• Wednesday – chest and shoulders, 9.7k steps
• Thursday – 1 mile run, 10.1k steps
• Friday – 3.5k steps (day off)
• Saturday – 12.5k steps
• Sunday – we’ll see, but I’m off for an hour walk shortly, so I have high hopes

As you can see, I hit some goals and not others. I’m THRILLED to be able to say I ran twice (even though it was one mile and slow as eff) and did not have any calf/heel/back/body issues as my meatbag has officially remembered how to engage my inner thighs when I amble about. Lovely! I traded two bikes/ellipticals for more walks, and this is okay. It’s been gorgeous outside and while I should be doing both, I’ll take long walks after work over being cooped up in the pain cave on my trainer. I squeezed in an Oiselle Dozen today instead of normal strength work since I missed back/bicep day (since we visit the squat witch tomorrow and I am not sure which part of the body she is going to abuse, so core is safe since I can do that daily). All in all, pleased with my week and we’ll keep building.

I made another recovery habit breakthrough. I realized that I have put off stretching for weeks because my routine is LONG. Instead of the goal to stretch daily, I’m making my goal to stretch for 5 minutes daily. Who can say they don’t have time to do 5 minutes of something? After this hit me, I’ve stretched most days since. I’ve also rolled most days, and I think I get a gold star for using the massage boots and icing daily as well. Very happy with my recovery habits (and how they’re paying off!).

This all takes a lot of focus and attention. If I add up the 5 minutes here and 15 minutes there I’m spending on my health and fitness goals, it’s about 2 1/2 hours per day. Sure, some of this happens while doing other things (icing, massage boots), but it still takes DOING. It’s important for this to be high priority right now and push other things below the “suck” line to stay undone – I love the incremental progress I’ve made and want to continue. My body just FEELS different – I’m not as much of a constantly in pain sloshy meat sack right now, I feel… pretty good. Like maybe I can remember how to be me again someday.

Balancing this with some hobby time and social time (which are both also sorely needed to make me a happy human) has been doable as well. Work has, after about three years of being a ball of nonstop overwhelm, calmed down just a bit. I’m wearing the hat I’m supposed to, I’ve handed off the other ones to the right people, and I don’t want to jinx it, but most days I can work a normal number of hours during normal hours! It’s amazing! I picked up my guitar yesterday and also finished and started a new painting. I would like to do both of these more often, but again, they can fall below the “suck” line if I need the time for my health. I’m working diligently through my backlog of photos as that’s my most efficient hobby (one I can do on the couch while the TV is on) where I can still be moderately social. I actually even picked up a dumb game called Shop Titans that I’ve played a few times. It’s like things are really coming together.

However, I also feel like I’ve hit the finish line of a marathon. I am so, so, so very mentally tired. After a race, I don’t question why I’m exhausted even though I’m not currently running. I’ve had to have that conversation with myself a few times to remind myself that after years of 120-200% almost nonstop, 70% is FINE right now even if gosh I feel like a failure if I’m operating at less than 100%. Because I would like to be back to capacity as soon as I can, I’m going to take the week of Thanksgiving off and do something uncharacteristic of me – nothing. Sure, I’ve got a few house projects I’d like to do. I plan to hike and bike some pretty places. I’m sure I’ll hobby it up and get to the gym and stuff too. But we’re not going camping or hopping on a plane anywhere. These are my nine days to slow down a little and gather my strength.

I also am resisting the urge to go anywhere, to bring it around to the beginning, because I have a good routine going here, and I still feel my grasp on it is tentative. And this is what I need right now to grapple this feeling and this progress and keep it going. Routine. Normalcy. Permission to be a bit boring. Adventure is exciting, and I am an unrepentant adventure junkie, but Europe and the events right before and after were a little TOO exciting (mentally and physically). I need to slow down and be okay with just chopping the wood and carrying the water for a while. I won’t go complete cold turkey, but we’ll keep the adventure to day hikes and bikes instead of things that are going to throw my carefully crafted routine off kilter.

Here we are, we are here. Let’s catch up, shall we?

Have minor surgery, they said. You’ll feel back to normal in a few days, they said. Not quite. I’d say it took about a week. My energy was just REAL low, and I just didn’t feel mentally or physically right (and I was actually nicely called out on it, so I know I wasn’t hiding it well). We met friends three days later for dinner and a Blue Man Group show on Friday after work, and I was half of a human, maybe. All in all, even with some extra unplanned recovery time, all went well and the thing they needed to biopsy came back all clear, so I’m thankful my complaints were simply around having to take it easier than I’d like for longer than I’d like.

It may be weird to say, but after I got home from the procedure, it was one of the most relaxing days I’ve had in months. Maybe I need to schedule “surgery” days (day off, just reading, napping, and eating snacks with no goals/chores/to dos) every so often. Pretty proud of my eating habits, I didn’t go overboard in terms of calories that day and tracked everything. I spent the rest of the week off lifting heavy things (or light things, even), and just took a bunch of walks for exercise. We hiked Bull creek last weekend (and went back again today) and am really enjoying seeing fall start to descend on the ATX.

And then, we were back at it. Last Monday at 7am (never going this early again, simply for the Joel-complaining-factor!), the squat witch tortured our legs. We now have a standing appointment at 830am Mondays (much more reasonable), and the goal is to find a time later in the week to do training and go once on our own as well (Monday/Wed/Fri or Sat?). On gym days, we’re doing the elliptical before or after for cardio, at home, we’re biking on the trainer or walking. It’s not nothing, but I really do aim to figure out how to make swimming work and try some short runs soon, maybe even tomorrow. I’d like to remember how to triathlete, at least a little bit.

But hey, it wasn’t nothing. This is what I did:

Week of October 24th:

• Monday – 1h15 min walk
• Tuesday – off
• Wednesday – 30 min walk
• Thursday – off
• Friday – 50 min walk
• Saturday – 2-hour hike (with LOTS of picture stops!)
• Sunday – 1 hour walk

Week of Oct 31:

• Monday – 30 min legs, 30 min elliptical, 12 min walk
• Tuesday – 30 min bike
• Wednesday – 1 hour walk
• Thursday – off
• Friday – 30 min back and biceps, 30 min elliptical
• Saturday – off
• Sunday – 1.5h hike

Monday, we also realized our Iguana wasn’t acting like herself and made a vet appointment… which cascaded into multiple vet appointments during the week when she started going downhill very quickly. We ended up saying goodbye yesterday, which was very sad, but also very much the right thing to do. We decided that it was okay to have a small pity party, so we ordered some pizza and zoned out on TV and played video games the rest of the day. At around 2000 calories, it was the most I’ve tracked in a while, but I think it’s okay to make the exception.

By the numbers:

• Week of Oct 24 – 1503 calories/average per day
• Week of Oct 31 – 1574 calories/average per day

I could have done better, but considering the circumstances of the last two weeks, I certainly could have done way worse (and absolutely would have, would I not be tracking my food).

So how did this play out in the results? It’s really not worth sharing October’s trend line, as most of the month it was just trendweight adjusting to what I gained in Europe, but November is showing a bit of progress so far. This makes me happy, as long as I ignore the feeling that I’m Sisyphus, rolling the same damn boulder up the hill yet again, losing the same weight I lost before, but the other option is to give up and that’s not an option.

So, here we are, we are here. If you know me, you know the question that follows – what’s next?

I’m finding it pretty easy to stick around 1500 calories/day on average as long as I mind what’s going into my mouth and track my food. I’m finding it quite difficult to reduce much further. I think the answer now is to up my activity just a little bit (the moderate to vigorous bits like biking/running/weights/elliptical). So, I’m going to try this next week:

• 2-1-mile runs
• 3-30 min bikes or ellipticals with effort
• 3 strength sessions
• 10k steps per day*

10k steps is a lofty goal right now, sadly, but I’m hoping this will get me outside even if I don’t feel like it some days for some extra calorie burn (and extra sanity points).

Since I’m aiming to up my calorie BURN this week, I’m going to keep my eating habits at the status quo. We are fully on the meal delivery cycle train. However, we’re a bit backlogged because of social events, pity parties, and just a few times I skipped a meal. I suppose, if there’s anything to change, it’s to 100% eat the food that’s being delivered or we’re going to waste some expensive meals.

My other habits are going… okay. I’m still meditating daily, and doing some recovery, but rolling has definitely fallen off from daily to a few times a week. Back to it this week! I have other things I’d like to do but I need to make sure I don’t go into overwhelm. I’m not doing GREAT on hobbies – we have our dateboxes piling up, my guitar has been untouched for a while, and there’s no writing going on besides these journals. However, I’m voraciously editing photos, and I managed to put the finishing touches on my 16th painting and work on my 17th. I suppose all these things ebb and flow.

This week has been frustrating, not gonna lie.

Mondays always start with rosy intentions. I enjoyed my personal trainer appointment at lunch and had a kickass workout, had great food intake right around 1200 calories without going nuts, did all my recovery, and slept amazingly. I woke up the next day and rode the trainer. My weight was trending in a nice direction. Everything was going so well!

We were hosting an anniversary celebration that day at work, but we planned to have one small piece of cake and bow out of any other festivities. Instead, in the early afternoon I had to take Joel home because he had a kidney stone (ouch!!) and ended up at urgent care and we had a bit of a pity party together. I also got my consultation for the minor surgery I’m having in a few days, and the instructions said to stop alcohol for 7 days beforehand. Since that’s kind of forever for me, I had one last unplanned evening of whiskey, and of course now I’m eating my nerves a bit – which is more than 1200 calories per day. I’m hanging out at 1515/day average, though a few of those days I wasn’t as diligent at tracking my random snacks right away, so it’s probably higher.

And of course, because my body is a drama queen, I had the highest weight yesterday since like, January and then my lowest weight since travel after I worked out today.

And here’s the whine to go with the slightly-too-much-cheese this week: my tracked calories haven’t exceeded what My Fitness Pal thinks I should be eating daily with my activity (not even close). I just know that what seems to work for every other damn body on the planet doesn’t work for me. I lost weight last time when I stopped getting hung up on what I thought was fair and followed the metrics. The truth is I have to do more to lose weight than the average able-bodied human being and it is absolutely NOT FAIR. And yet, I still need to do it anyway because I am unhappy right now with my athletic capabilities/injuries and also how I look in my clothes.

I’ve been walking a bit more this week since Joel (for good reason) hasn’t really wanted to get on the bike and the company and weather during some mild activity has been pleasant. It’s not burning as many calories as other efforts, but it’s helping establish a habit and the goal is to eventually ADD these to my training, not have them BE my training. But we’ll get there. Since my Garmin calendar doesn’t show walks, here’s this week!

• Monday: 30 min chest and shoulders trainer session, 30 mins elliptical
• Tuesday: 30 min bike trainer
• Wednesday: 30 min leg workout
• Thursday: off
• Friday: 1.5h walk
• Saturday: 40 min walk
• Sunday: 1h bike, quick 20 min back/bicep workout

It’s not nothing, it’s just… not what I had planned.

So, yeah, I didn’t make it to the pool this week. I *almost* switched the elliptical for a swim Monday, but it was cold and rainy, and I couldn’t be arsed. “I’ll do it later in the week.” SPOILER: she did not do it later in the week. Next week is definitely not the week for it either, but soon after I need to figure out where this fits in my schedule as it’s good for switching up cardio, loosening up my tight legs, and my sanity.

However, all is not lost. Let me give myself some props to end this missive:

I have rolled every day! I think it’s working, I’m feeling the tension and layers of knots in my calves, hammies, and IT bands slowly unravel. Rolling spots on my body that used to feel like I was bruising or injuring myself now just feels mildly uncomfortable or even satisfying. I still need to work stretching into my life as well, but baby steps.

These habits are still going well: tracking food, weighing myself, using the massage boots, icing, doing some physical activity 5x week, returning to weights 2x week, meditating, doing some sort of hobby most days, and now rolling. I was doing almost none of this when I returned from Europe. I have to admit that in 6 weeks, this is pretty solid work.

I also did this while losing a boss I really enjoyed working with and assuming more responsibility. In the face of this, over the last 6 weeks, I’ve been able to work back towards a fairly contiguous 40h week with some wiggle room and I even have time to actually get some deep work done. My triumph last week was that even through a very unpredictable and interrupted week (I think I lost the totality of an entire workday to one life circumstance or another), I was able to get all my work done, even including three tasks that included significant thought, not just execution.

I know it’s a slow path and I just need to stay the course. Next week, due to the fact I have to go get put to sleep and poked a bit (how’s that for describing minor surgery as awkwardly as possible?) my goals are a little bit modified:

1. Recover as needed. Take the ENTIRETY of the surgery day off even if you feel “fine”, and the next day too if needed. Eat good healthy food if you can stand it, but remember you have (lower calorie) comfort food on standby if the healthy stuff sounds nauseating.
2. Get back to every habit as quickly as possible while adhering to goal #1. Don’t let a day or two of abnormality screw with the good habits you’ve been building.
3. The end of the week has some social stuff. Again, don’t let this screw with your good habits. Plan for a larger meal with friends before the theater but don’t go crazy. Stop by the Halloween party for a bit to say hi and catch up with people but stick to lower calorie drinks and not too many, and ignore the food.

Next week, we’ll get back to building, with this one, I just don’t want to backslide. It’s all about chutes and ladders right now and I need to stay on the up and up.