Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Stasis and Strife

More randomness – I’ve kinda had writer’s block and these are the only things that are flowing.  I hate to go all radio silence, so this is what you get.

Considering the options:

So I ain’t getting any skinnier.  It really hit me when I had to pull out the slightly larger shorts for the cruise.  Not that it’s a travesty (to be honest, I’m in between both sizes and I figure the comfy ones will be better for vacay – while I know tighter is better for ) this upward trend must be nipped in the bud.  I had REALLY, REALLY hoped to be about 10 lbs lighter by now.  I’m stuck here in the 167-170 range.  And now I’m heading in the month o eating pitfalls (cruise, birthday, Zliten birthday).  I need to regroup and get my head on straight.  I need to now, really and truly, shift my goal to maintenance, not loss, and pick it up again in about a month.  This month, I focus on the bloat and getting my body back into stasis.  Here’s the plan:

I got a homeopathic remedy for bloat and some probiotic supplements from the hippie dippie grocery store today.  While I’m sure it’s just in my head – I already feel less bloated.  We’ll see how I continue to feel, it usually hits me pretty bad late night/early morning.

I’m setting aside some dough and going to bite the bullet and get a nutritionist for a while.  While I’m still fighting it because, well, fuck, I lost 110 lbs myself without paying anyone thxuverymuch, if it’s causing me this much strife, then I need to do something.  And (I’ll cover this more below), I CAN afford it without cutting out anything.  I’m going to do some research, but I will probably end up just using the one at my gym (I do like her little blurb – she’s into moderation).  Any ATX folks with recommendations (or advice about online services – I’m totally down for that too, doesn’t have to be face to face), I’m all ears.  It actually feels very cathartic to finally admit I need help and commit to it, I tend to be stubborn and proud about shit like this, when I actually don’t need to be.

For the cruise – the plan is to get activity each day, but no timing/pacing/whatever goals.  I don’t think that will be hard at all, there are a billion things to do both on board and on our shore excursions, I think I’ll have to be coerced to STOP moving.  Food – while I don’t want to go crazy, I also recognize this is one of the awesome parts of the vacation.  The goal is one desert per day, try to fill up on the healthiest food I can at breakfast/lunch and taste the not-as-healthy stuff.  Dinner – all bets are off.  If you’re serving me a 4 course meal, I am going to enjoy it.  Overall – just because it’s there does NOT mean I need to consume it.  If I’m hungry, eat.  If not, don’t.   The highest I’ve weighed in recently has been 170.  I would like to be 170 or less when I get back.

For the next few weeks, I plan to try out the “veggie fast” for the first few days of the week.  Considering I have my birthday, then Zliten’s, then an out of town trip to run the Warrior Dash… there is not a full week window anytime soon.  I’m figuring a few days of real clean eating can help balance out some of the crazy.  The goal is at least 2 days/week.  We’ll see how it goes from there.  The goal is both to cleanse, and to see if I have any weird, new food allergies.

I think that’s about it.  I don’t want to throw too many things at the problem right now, in spite of that being in my nature to do exactly that.

Traaaaain:

I am a tale of two Quix’s.  I am torn asunder at both being excited that I have had some leeway in my workout (4 days instead of 5 this week? Eh, no biggie.  Or…I don’t feel like running today, think I’ll DDR), and I really have enjoyed feeling like I’m getting WAY better with biking and swimming, but I’m also feeling a little lost without a race to train for.

In March and April, I really need to sit down and plan for the rest of the year.  I think May will probably kick off seriouspants training for a sprint tri, and it will be all training all the time until I finish up for the year.  I think, while I’m sure there will be some 5k – and maybe 10k action, I need to have some quality time to focus on getting faster, and I just haven’t been into it this winter. I think I went a little too crazy on my NY resolutions.  I dunno if I can PR all these races and still lose the weight I want and also have a life and some downtime, so something’s gotta give.

I’ve been too enamored with getting better swimming and biking and conquering hill running (though I do admit I am cursing up a storm in my head during the workouts).  I swam a 14 minute 750m last week.  My average speed is creeping up on the bike from 15 mph to 17 mph.  Running is kinda taking a back burner right now, and it’s ok.

So far the plan is:

-Warrior Dash (mud run), March

-Du Loop (duathlon), April

-Hell Run (? …not yet signed up), April

-Too Cool (6 hour adventure race), May

-Sprint Tri (not yet picked one), July

-Olympic Tri (not yet picked one), Sept/Oct

-Dirty Du (trail half marathon/camping/duathlon), Nov

-Another for reals half marathon in there somewhere (maybe wait til ’12 and do 3M in Jan?)

-An out of town race somewhere

-Various and sundry 5ks, 10ks, fun runs.

However, right now I’m not even thinking about any of this, because I decided to lift heavier in my weights class, and threw my back out (owwww).  I can actually almost pinpoint it in the clean and presses I was doing at the end with too much weight and ended up with bad form.  It’s not so painful that I’m bedridden, but it’s VERY stiff in the morning and loosens up as the day goes on.  I expected it would be better by now (started Friday nite and of course now it’s Monday morning), and am dosing on ibuprofen, icing (my back, trying to stay away from icing on all the crazy cookies and cake :P), and water, with small doses of icy hot and massage.  Any other suggestions?

Happy News:

Review and bonus time has come around at work and we did AWESOME!  I got a significantly higher bonus than expected, to the point where I just kinda stared at it with my mouth open.  No complaints there!  Also, I got a very fair review with actual points to work on the next year (that made sense), which made me happy.  What made me happier?  I got the raise I asked for, plus some.

As for the bonus plans, Zliten bought himself a new laptop (which I *may* end up getting too, mine is over 4 years old…), we’re getting him a new bike that’s more in line with the quality of mine (instead of a 79 dollar target bike), and I decided with mine I was going to do the nutritionist thing, and also apply it to my race entry fees next year and not feel a lick of guilt for any of them, no matter how expensive.  The rest will go into savings, go towards paying off the last bit of college loan, and also for cruise spending money.

It’s nice to be at a point in my life again where quality of life is more important than really pinching pennies.  For example, we’re starting maid service soon (just wanted to double check that we were actually getting the proper raises expected).  It is worth it to me to pay someone to do that, instead of the combination now of living in filth/spending weekends and evenings cleaning up.  I’m also hoping it will train us to keep things picked up, since we’ll have to pick up anyway before they come by and clean.  Same with the nutritionist thing… I could continue to struggle, or I could fork over the cash to let someone else try for a little while.

So, that’s life in a nutshell.  Questions of the day: any suggestions on how to un-fuck a back that sore (it’s my mid back – like right above the small)?  Any nutritionist recommendations or advice or relation of past experiences (I have no idea what I’m getting into here)?  Would you use an online nutritionist or would you rather have face to face time with someone?

Also: I’m finding less and less time to attend to my RSS reader.  I *have* been able to keep up with twitter though and end up reading a lot of blogs this way.  If I don’t follow you on twitter, I would LOVE if you would leave me your twitter handle so I could follow you.  Or you can find me – quixotique. 😉

Speaking of love… HAPPY VALENTINES DAY.  I had one REALLY YUMMY truffle yesterday, otherwise I’m staying away from the treats and just trying to feel the LOVE.

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Fruit and Veggie Detox

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When It All Falls Apart

2 Comments

  1. Yay for the bonus and the tummy truffle!! I’m interested to see how your de-bloating plan goes and the veggie fasts. I think the nutritionist is a fab idea!

  2. take that question mark off of Hell Run.You totally need to do it

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