Adjusted Reality

Man oh man, I never thought I would say this, but I am ready for the grind.  I have never had two weeks straight off like this with nothing particular to do like a vacation (last year was close but not quite), and I can honestly say it’s good to be back to work, back to normal workouts, back to eating like a normal human bean, and uh, quix-ing like a normal Quix.

Although I pitched a fit and whined and moaned and complained a lot in 2009 and some in 2010, I don’t want to just stay at home and do nothing.  I enjoyed a few days of it, but then I was ready to rock.  Then I went crazy and did lots of fun stuff when my Zliten was also off, but somehow that also lead to really crappy eating, not much exercise, and not much productivity.  In fact, beyond some of the epic experiences I will start detailing soon, I can’t really tell you what we did.  There was a lot of TV watching, shopping, napping, web dorking, web gaming, some drinking around the fire, some hangin’ out, and some cleaning.  Can’t say that I really felt I made huge use of my time off to be productive/epic/whatevs, but I got a lot of rest and relaximication, and that is absolutely what I needed.

This is relaximicated,  happy Quix.  Photo courtesy of Tiny Glow who ended up partying at mi casa (g00d times, good times….).

So now, back to life, back to reality.  Definitely with a clearer head, a sunnier disposition, and less crispy crunchiness from being brain fried.  It definitely helps that we’ve got a vacation planned in, oh, 46 days (not that I’m counting… oh wait, I am…).  Even though the last two days of normal life have been hectic (we don’t do easy break ins back from vacation here!), I love my life, so it makes sense that getting back to the norm ain’t so bad.

I do miss the 11am wakeups though.  Dear fluffy lord, why can’t the world operate a little later?  Ah well.  C’est la vie.   Numbers below…

Vacation Rest Week Workouts:

Monday: off
Tuesday: roller skating
Wednesday: trapeze lessons
Thursday: off
Friday: swimming, full body weights
Saturday: off
Sunday: bike sprints

Back to the Grind Week:

Monday: swim workout #1 Season Prep – 3000 yds (1.7 miles…yeah) 15 mins warmup IM (butterfly, you are so awkward), 5×200 yd repeats in about 8 minutes each with 1 min rest in between, 5 mins cooldown.
Tuesday: group power
Wednesday: run workout #12 – Faking the Long Run – 15 mins warmup, 4×5 minute hill repeats, 5 mins cooldown
Thursday: 30 mins cardio, abs + legs
Friday: bike sprints, arms + back
Saturday:  off
Sunday: off

Foodwise… we don’t even want to go there last week.  It’s not as if I intentionally went hog wild.  I didn’t.  However, I definitely did not eat like my normal self.  My body is telling me that this week.  The scale is telling me that as well.  I’m pretty sure I didn’t gain 5 lbs in one week and I feel like a helium balloon, and uh… my body is trying desperately to get all the yuk out, so I’m not putting much stock in the number, but suffice to say – I’m not content with it.  However, I’ll leave the harsh judgment for next week.

However, it’s true – scale, this is what you make me do… because I also am the heaviest I’ve been in 2 years.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m also the fittest I’ve been in 2 years, but my clothes definitely let me know that it’s not all muscle.  I would do well with some fat loss.  I know fat loss is slow, where weight loss can be quick. I’m not giving up an INCH of these muscles if I can help it, thx u very much.  157 may not be reasonable by my cruise.  I just need to stay on top of it and continue to make forward progress.

I didn’t gain during tri season last year (sadly, the extra 15 on me can be pinpointed to half marathon 1, 2, and 3 – 5 each time), even without being terribly conscious of my food, so I’m going to try to stick to less lengthy swim, bike, and run workouts, and continue at least 2 hours of weights this month.  I think yoga may perhaps fall by the wayside, but something’s gotta give.

This week – I return to no sweets for January as I did in July.  That’s one of the major ways my eating changed – I normally don’t have issues controlling myself around sweets (a dab’l do me) but occasionally I’ll notice it’s a nightly occurrence.  Or like December, when it was ALWAYS around – I tried to be discerning, but so much of it WAS homemade and delicious and worth it.  And January is the season of bringing the leftovers to the office to get rid of them.  I figured the best thing was to just swear off them altogether for a while.  And honestly, they don’t even look good to me – the homemade fudge and candy caramel corn and the like and puppy chow and christmas chocolates?  Bleh.  Over it.  I’m not making a big deal about sugar content of stuff (like ketchup or dressing or crap – that would drive me batty), but anything that’s a sweet treat?  Call me in February.

Calorie-wise?  Trying to average at or a little below 1500 cal/day over the week.  That means probably 1300-1400 weekdays, a little more weekends.  I forgot that pain of calorie restriction and am not enjoying it thusfar, but hey, I guess you must bleed for your art, right?  I always get the comments that it looks low for my activity level/weight – but I just can’t lose on more.  I wish I could.  But my body is greedy with the food and wants to keep it allz.  I’ve tried more fat, less fat, more carbs, less carbs, zone ratio… the only thing that works is good old fashioned deprivation.  Bleh.

So, how’s your first week back to reality?  How are doing with your January goals?

So, now that it’s even closer to the end of the year, it’s time to lay out the plan for 2011.  Let’s cut to the chase before we pop the bubbly…

1.  First and foremost, I need to get a handle on my free time.  I spend most of my weeknights just dorking on social media because it’s easy, I haven’t had a chance to look at it all day – and then all of a sudden it’s bedtime and I’ve done nothing.  I’d like to start with a goal to not have my nose in my lappy all the time.  I’d like to make one weeknight per week a reading night (no laptop after dinner), and 1 day per week gaming (again, no laptop after dinner).  I need to accept that I don’t need to read EVERY tweet or facebook update if I don’t have time.  I love keeping in touch with people, but if they care that much, they can @ me or tag me.

2.  Race goals –

-I’d like a new half marathon PR (goal – 2:05).  I’d love a sub 2 hour, but improvement is all I care about
-I’d also like to feel that I could run 10 miles at any time (do at least 1 double digit run per month)
-Do another sprint and olympic triathlon, PR at least 1
-I’d like to attack my 5k, 5 mile, and/or 10k PR
-Do a trail half marathon/duathalon in one weekend
-Do each workout in the new tri training book at least once
-Do a destination race outside Texas (any distance)
-Adapt these as I see fit next year… the goal is mainly to get better at the distances I’ve do

3.  Weight Loss/Maintenance goals – get down to and maintain 150 by summer. Once i get down to 15o, never go above 155… that will allow me to fit in all my clothes, still have flexibility to gain a little during race training that I can easily lose after, and once I get there, feel super fit, awesome, and hot while not being a weight I have to only eat celery to maintain.

3b.  Continue with strength training, yoga, and things that don’t immediately contribute to torching tons of calories or race training but definitely helps build definition, makes me look thinner, and most importantly, helps me improve my race times.

4.  Continue with my job in the same position at the same company continuing to improve, grow, and become a better producer capable of handling more things with more ease.  I have much more specific goals here but that’s about all I’ll say publicly.

5.  More one liners:

-Smoke less.  Continue to allow smokes only with alcohol, and I’d like to get to the point where I can take it or leave it.
-Less hangovers.  I hate getting one of my weekend days eaten being laid out on the couch.  I just need to quit just BEFORE that switch flips where it’s on like donkey kong and all of a sudden it’s 10am and I feel like death warmed over.
-Pay off the car (January), pay off Zliten’s college loan (August), and continue to meet our savings goal of 1k per month.
-Visit one new city I’ve never seen before.  Denver? NYC? Seattle? Portland?
-Begin one new major house renovation.  Failing that, start planning and budgeting for it and establish a timeline (windows, bathrooms, counters, etc).
-Find something that makes me happy that is not goal oriented.  Some people knit.  Not to be the best knitter and to make x scarves per week and improve by March to be onto stripes instead of solids, but simply because they enjoy the act of it.  Same with Zliten and reading.  I’d like to find mine.
-Continue to do things that frighten/excite/challenge me (like trapeze lessons or flight lessons) and continue to pick out of the hat – the whole life goal of one truly memorable thing per month.

Cheers to a great 2011.  I KNOW it was a great 2010.  I was able to put this on my wall today…

This is all of our race numbers, medals, and some pictures.  This is our wall o bragging for 2010.  Can’t wait to start on our 2011 wall!  Happy New Year everyone!

I’m back on the straight and narrow Monday morning (hi 2 u fruits and veggies, remember me… I’ll be baaack), and through January I’ll be recapping my epic epic holiday break (it’s gonna take a few posts) and getting into the nitty gritty about how I’m going to be torching inches from my poor bulging belly.

What’s your 2011 resolution(s)?  More importantly, how are you ringing it in?  Debauchery and drunkeness like me, or something more pure and pristine, like a NYD race?

One of my resolutions last year (and every year for the last 5 years is to have at least one super memorable experience per month.  Here is where I make good on that!  Considering I have the memory of a goldfish, it’s a good thing I blog about them!  Below are some of my favorite moments and/or blog posts this year…

January:

I realized I shared a dress size with Mariska Hargitay, and that gave me huge confidence.

I shared my wisdom with some non-obvious half marathon tips.

I offend everyone’s fashion senses.

I share my story over the last 3 years.

February:

I ran a half marathon sick as hell.

Our lizard escapes death by a narrow margin.

March:

We did the Urban Dare race for my birthday.

Then we did a different type of half marathon.

April:

We did our first duathlon and rocked it.

I decided to change focus for the rest of the year from a marathon to a triathlon.

May:

We conquered the warrior dash (#1).

Just had way too much fun to regularly post with lots of out-and-about going on.

Kicked ass and took names by getting PRs in the Gladiator Games.

This month, Zliten and I both chopped our hairs, just in time for summer.

June:

I got my official promotion to Producer and Zliten got his offer to move over to our company with a real person salary again.

Amy’s bachelorette party was pretty super fun!

July:

Amy and Jeff’s wedding was an awesome time and I even did a kegstand.

Had an epiphany about a different path my life could have taken.

August:

I kicked nature’s ass with an open water swim.

I became a triathlete at the Sweet and Twisted Tri.

September:

I wore my vinyl shorts out of the house for the yelp elite glitterati party, and also got my mug in a (video game) magazine.

We went to Vegas to celebrate our friend’s birthday and our anniversary.

I ran in costume at the Casa Superhero Run.

I dove off the side of a boat into 100 ft deep water.

October:

I became an Olympic triathlete.

November:

I rocked the second half marathon and got a PR by 8 minutes.

Supergirl came out again and rocked the second warrior dash.

Finished up the 11th race of the year (Turkey Trot) and reflected on them.

I forgot to blog about it, but I got published again in a different magazine.

December:

Reflected on my resolutions.

Went to a snuggie party!

…and vacation is just getting started.  The magic hat is making it’s appearance again this week – looking forward to a week’s worth of adventures!  No half training this year, so the world is our oyster!

As for exercise, weight loss, and the like – that sort of serious business stuff will have to wait for after the new year.  Rock climbing, skating, and trapeze classes are more my style this week.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday (I don’t count it as ending until I go back to work on the 3rd), and the rest of your 2010 is awesometastic!  I’ll be back with resolutions later this week.

Asking the audience: what is the most memorable thing you’ve done this year?

It’s finally here.  I’m starting day 5 of 16 and have been enjoying a lot of relaxation.  Finally!  I feel like I haven’t done all that much yet but again, I know I need the rest.  Even with the resting I have reconnected with my bike and done over 30 miles outside, kept up with my weights, finished my holiday shopping, picked up a bit, and am working on laundry today and hope to get some outside run miles in if the weather improves a bit.  Not to mention… two fun parties so far and a really nice dinner out with friends.

I’ve actually been keeping my calories in check (a few days over 1500 but under 2000), and get to post a loss this week (though it was from last Thursday) even though I’m riding the TOM wave.  It’s a little frustrating that I’m only 1 lb down and I only have one weigh in left this month, but to look at it another way – it’s the holidays and I’ve lost 1 lb.  Not gained.  I’ll take it.

And keeping my calories in check the last few days has been HARD!  For all of you who stay at home (work at home, stay at home parent, unemployed, etc), I don’t know how you do it.  At work I’m so busy that I barely think about eating.  Here at home, I am constantly looking at the kitchen and could easily eat myself back to a size 24!  I mean, nothing I’m eating is junk food, but the temptation to snack is just overwhelming!

That being said, it’s really nice to have guilt free time to just chill.

Here’s last week by the numbers:

Workouts

Monday: off
Tuesday: swim sprints, arm and back
Wednesday: run sprints, legs and abs
Thursday: arms and back at home
Friday: arc trainer sprints, arms and back
Saturday: off
Sunday: 1.5 hour bike ride

Calories burnt last week: 3054 or 436 per day

Eating: average of about 1666 per day +100 for error = 1766 per day

Average net calories per day: 1329

Average deficit per day (1849 – net calories): 520, or just over 1 lb per week.

We’ll see if my work paid off next week once the bloat goes away.  However, I did post a nice weight of 166.4 last week, so we’re now 1 lb total lost.  I’ve worked my ass off for that 1 lb, and that’s weight during the holiday that I have lost, not gained.  So there.

This week, here is the plan:

Monday: off
Tuesday: 45 mins outside bike, arms and back
Wednesday: 10 mile run, abs and legs
Thursday: swim sprints, arms and back
Friday: track sprints, abs and legs at home
Saturday: off
Sunday: long bike ride

This should keep me active and enjoying my time off, but also keeping myself working towards loss.  The gym is closed Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so hopefully the weather cooperates.  If not, I’ll be glad that I still retain my other membership at Planet Fitness!

As for food – I plan to eat healthy on Christmas Eve (we’re making a stir fry) even though there will be booze, and splurge on Christmas – family tradition is lasagna, salad, garlic bread, and lots of desert and wine.  However, it’s usually eaten over the course of a day – so while I might have a few servings of lasagna and bread and a piece of pie or 2 – it rarely breaks my calorie bank.  Could I eat healthier food?  Sure.  But it will be aight for one day.  The rest of the week – calorie counting and balancing and good food 80% of the time.  If we go to Lockhart for BBQ for lunch, I’ll have a salad for dinner.  It’s the way I lost 100 lbs, and it’s the way I’ll lose this last 10.

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday so far – 4 days until Christmas!  I’m so excited!  What are you most excited for about Christmas?  Or, if you don’t celebrate, what plans do you have to make the most of your next week?

Photos from the yelp elite snuggie party Sunday…

So, it’s about that time of year – done with work until 2011 (yaaaaaaaaaaay – don’t get me wrong, I love my job but it is time for a long winters nap), and time to reflect upon how 2o10 went.

In a word – 2010 was AWESOME.  It’s going out with MUCH more promise than it had coming in.  January 1st, I was having some discontentment issues at work, financial uncertainty, and just general uneasiness with things.  Late December, I’m feeling very content with just about all areas of life.  It’s nice that things are good again!  I missed having nice things.

Besides just a general feeling of “pleased” with the year, here is the specifics… here were my resolutions for 2010 I posted last December:

1.  This is the most important and different one for me – for one year, I am going to not attempt to lose weight.  As long as I maintain under 155, I’m going to put any pressure on myself to take off weight.  I’m going to focus on my running, and continuing to eat healthy.

How did I do?  Well, I never actually got into my goal range this year.  I’m a little less buggered about it than I expected.  I’m currently working on it since I’m about 10 lbs heavier than this, but I’ve also come to accept that I’m never going to be perfect.  Without some surgery, I’m not going to be able to walk around in a bikini with rock hard abs.  I’m never going to look in the mirror and think “perfect”, but I can (and often do) certainly look in the mirror and think “hawt”.  I do need to, and will, take off the extra 10 lbs to get right about to the tippy top of my “healthy” range and I think that’s about as low as I need to go.  Unless it interferes with my progress in athletic pursuits, I think I’m ready to let go chasing the ideal of 125.

Also, on the subject of perfect – I DO have what I would have considered a perfect body 5 years ago.  At that time, I would have probably been happy with not being out of breath walking across the parking lot, and freakin’ jazzed at not having to shop in the plus size section.  These are things that I take very much for granted now.

So yeah – not much physical progress, but lotsa mental progress.  I’ll take it.

2.  Running – I want to do a half marathon in under 2 hours, and I want to run a full marathon (no pace goal, just run the whole thing… well, who am I kidding, I’ll have a pace goal by the time I finish training, but anyhoo…) this year.  After that, decide what’s next.  Martial arts?  Triathlons?  More marathons?  Ultras?  Also, I want to make sure to not forget stretching and yoga.  That’s when I start getting injured like I am now with hurty butt.

Well, unless you’re new to the blog I’ve talked about these extensively.  The closest I got to under 2 hours was 2:08:08, but I’m working on it (and very proud of the huge PR there).  I decided to drop the marathon goal and instead train for an olympic triathlon, which I can proudly say I completed on October 3rd.  For right now, rest is next, but I definitely have some goals for next year which I’ve hinted about and will talk about soon (part 2 of this post is forward looking!)

I definitely did NOT do well with stretching this year, but I’ve gotten better in the last month – plus having yoga CLASSES is really nice.  I stayed relatively injury free this year (a few weeks of heel pain caused by sucky running shoes, one more instance of “hurty butt”, and that’s about it if I remember correctly… nothing major).  Also, having access to a pool/sauna/jacuzzi seems to have kept me loose and the injuries at bay.

3.  I will dedicate 6 hours per week to writing, revising, reading other books, or outlining.  I want to finish what I started for NaNoWriMo, and then move on to another one.  It would be peachy keen if I could do some necklaces, I would love to start songwriting, but I think this is my year of writing.

Nope.  Fail.  I read a few books but I didn’t write one word that wasn’t blogging or work related.  While I would like to read more, I’m ok taking a pass on the writing this year.  This was essentially trying to explore the possibility of pursuing this as a career.  While I love to write, and someday would like to publish a book, it’s no longer a huge need to fill a void of making my bacon with creative expression – it’s back to the bucket list.

4.  I’m not sure exactly what I want to say here, but I want to figure out what’s next career-wise.  I have spent the last few years keeping my head down and trying to stay out of the way so I can support the creatives, get my check, and go on my way.  That is SO not me.  I can’t continue to do that forever.  I might not have the ability to get what I want just yet, but I want to have a direction by the end of the year.

Done and done.  Sometimes you just have to hold out long enough and things just resolve themselves.  I’ve got a good few more years before I don’t feel sufficiently challenged in this position at work – I’ve got my hands happily full now.

5.  Some one liners: Travel outside the country (nope).  Be more spontaneous (I had to ask Zliten on this one – he said I was after some consideration so I will call it a yep!).  Continue to whittle down my smoking (yep – only when I drink now and not even all the time anymore).  Try something new with my hair (yep – hello shoulder length and layers – loving it).  Continue to draw things out of the magic hat (nope, but we definitely had our share of adventures).  Host some game nights at the house (nope).   Attempt to keep a cleaner house so it’s not embarrassing when someone comes over unannounced (ha! ha! um…no).  Do more industry events and get over my boredom with networking for networking sake (did some, but could do better – much easier in my new position now though, and much less needed, heh).  Play more games (err, besides my own game, nope).  Continue to live a life where I can have at least ONE memorable thing I do each month (2009 has many more than 1 per month, but that’s my absolute minimum requirement) (absolutely).

What’s on tap for 2011?  Stay tuned next week and I’ll discuss!  Question of the moment: do you do resolutions?  If so, what’s your one biggest success in 2010, and what do you still need to work on?