Summation of Images

Soul Coughing

What a difference a few days make.  By Friday, my head was in a huge fog.  Work wasn’t going too well, to the point which necessitated weekend work for a lot of the team.  I was too tired – nay – physically and mentally exhausted to deal with low salt cooking or make proper lunches (not to mention working too many hours), so while I’m pretty sure I didn’t blow my calorie load beyond a reasonable level, I didn’t eat quality food, and being that it was many foods not home cooked in a row, it was definitely not low sodium.  Also, my back was showing progress, but it still *hurt*.  I was still definitely INJURED.

Friday night I got off at a decent-ish hour, and the plan was for me to go swim some laps, cook a healthy dinner, and rest up and go to sleep early.  I was in such a mood, and was grumbling about it.  And then, it happened.  We found a dead mouse in the kitchen under a towel that had been there for obviously a few days (what, not everyone throws their used kitchen towels on the floor so they can sop up water and then leaves them?) that had MAGGOTS crawling in and out of it.  Zliten gets MAJOR hubby points for picking it up, but that was the tipping point.

I was so disgusted and grumpy I said fuck the gym, poured my ass a drink (rum, selzer, key lime juice, and a bit of honey – still doing good on no artificial sweeteners), and decided I was going to go outside, bring my laptop, sit on my patio, and enjoy the game I had been toiling over all week.  And thus I did until 2am.  And ate a tiny, salt laden, microwave meal for my dinner around 11pm.

Best decision ever.

Sure I had a bit of a hangover the next day.  Sure I missed an opportunity to burn some calories.  However, I had a blast, and went into the next day with a much better and energized attitude.  I finished up work around 4:30, had a whole day and a half of a brain break, and I am a new woman this week.

The scale didn’t even suffer.  I ate dinner after 10pm on Sunday, and weighed in at 171 the next morning.  With all the salt and the crap over the end of the week/weekend, I was not at all unhappy with it.  What’s better is that I am at 168.6 today.  And it’s TOM.  This is major progress folks!

Sometimes making the soul happy is more important than anything else.

The Condition My Condition Is In

As for the condition of my back/training – that’s on the up and up too.  Sunday morning it was still a little stiff, but feeling better so I got in the water and did over a mile in 45 mins.  Slower than normal, but it felt SO GOOD to be in the water (I could have kept going whereas last week I hit a definitely STOP at about 30 mins).  Yesterday, I biked for 40 mins (hills level 7), and while it wasn’t my fastest pace either, it was better than anything I’d done over a month ago.  Then, I did 30 mins of crunch time class – he modified it for me but I still got a good workout.  Shame that our lake bricks (swim/bike) with friends that we want to start doing every 2 weeks are Mondays as well.

I’m still feeling a bit nervous for running Saturday, I think the plan will be to take it easy, for the most part, with a short run Thurs with some 100m pickups (to keep the legs loose, but not sore).  I’m not going to do anything this week by running hard but hurt myself, so I’ll stay fresh and see what my legs (and back and brain) will let me do this weekend.  A goal: under 25, B goal: 26:30 (beating my second best 5k race time), C goal: crossing the finish line uninjured.  I’ll have the opportunity to get my revenge…

Take a Picture

I just looked and saw that the P5 pictures were up from the splash and dash and…ugh.  The one they caught me in, the photographer was down low (sitting) and full on to the side.  It was not pretty.  Hambeast came to mind, although I know it’s not true, it was just…bad (to be fair, EVERYONE looked bad from that angle).  However, it just got me going.  The idea that ANYONE would see me looking like that from any angle just scared the bejeezus out of me.  Then the anger.  It’s not FAIR that I work so hard and still can look like that.  And then fear.  Is losing the weight I want to going to make me happy?  I mean, is 15 lbs going to cure THAT?

I think I’ve shut the bad voice up for a while.  I’ll lose the weight, be better off than I am now for certain, maintain it for a while, and THEN see if I still feel like I need to do more.  And I need to remember this…  Two pictures on the same night, very different looks.  The camera is distorting me in both instances.  Also – I’m more than a summation of the images I leave behind.  If a few of those are unflattering, so be it.  As my image of myself changes as I change, there will always be unflattering pictures, and I don’t think they’ll freak me out less when I’m at my goal weight.  It’s all about being happy in my skin and I’m getting there.