Adjusted Reality

Errr, crap.  Been a busy week, haven’t had much time to yakity yak.  Have a few posts started but not the brainpower to finish, s0 here is one of those generic bullet points this and that type posts.  Hopefully something cooler soon!

Things of note:

-Last weekend was gorgeous and wonderful and we hit 81.  I wore shorts and sandals, went for an awesome swim Saturday, enjoyed being out in the sun, went for an amazing sunset walk Sunday.  It was like a wee taste of Spring.

-Then the smackdown came.  Tuesday, it was in the 20s, and hasn’t let up, and we may even get SNOW in the next day or 2.

-Also this morning, Austin got hit with rolling blackouts because the ground was too cold to get the reserve power flowing.  This makes last night’s 2 hour 30 min oven preheating debauchle make sense (serious, got home at 8:15, started oven then, meatloaf was done at 11.  I gave up at 10 and ate soup).

-Due to said rolling blackouts, the iguana came to work with me today (the house was in the 50s at best and we didn’t know how long she would have to go without heat).  It was nice to have an extra production assistant to help with scheduling.  Not sure why it all revolved around baths and trees and playing, but we’ll go with it…

-Eatingwise, I did pretty well.  Appetite is definitely decreased.  Shifts are occuring.  Had one day around 2000, but the rest of the days were the norm 1300-1600.  No longer trying to push protein is also working, I’m still getting enough per sparkpeople.  I’m definitely not TRYING to limit, but I don’t automatically think “I should have protein” when I eat, it’s “what do I feel like”.  Sometimes, that’s not meat, and that’s not gonna kill me.

-Workouts have been pretty good.  Friday I took off instead of working out and did my swim Saturday morning instead.  It was really nice!  We took an hour walk on Sunday, not a huge calorie burn, but good for the soul.  Monday, I attempted a timed mile (one mile warmup, one mile all out, one mile cooldown).  I set it to break my record and get under 7 minute miles, and I just couldn’t take it after half a mile.  I went back down to 9-10 min miles, rested up, and tried again and made it another quarter, and then again.  I did my 6:59 mile, but just with some rests in between.  I’ll need to work on it, my legs are not built for speed like that right now and I’m still sore!  After that, we did the crunchtime class (it’s a 30 min core class and AWESOME – it’s always tiny and it’s like getting free personal training).  Tuesday, I did a swim workout – jumpouts.  Every 50m or so I jumped out of the pool and did 10 of a different exercise – pushups, situps, and squats.  People looked at me like I was craaaaazy but it was a pretty damn good workout.

-I was all prepared to bitch about my weight but today it finally came down.  167.2.  That’s 1.2 less than last week.  I’m fighting for every ounce and it’s bouncing all over, but I’ll keep the faith.  I still can’t believe how slooooooow it’s going.  But as long as it goes in the right direction, I can’t complain.

-The way I’ve kept sane this week with all the cold and ucky?  Surfing cruise excursions and races.  I think on our vacation we’re doing this zipline/snorkle/beach excursion and the jungle float excursion.  I can’t wait!  I’m also continuing to update my race page HERE with potential ideas for 2011.

So, last week by the numbers?

Calories in: 1551 + 100 for adjustment errors = 1651

Calories out: 2800 total (approx), so 400 per day

Net calories in per day: 1251

Deficit per day: 591, or about 1.25 lbs lost.

Weight: 167.2, or about 1.2 lbs lost.

Hmmm, some weeks, it makes sense.

Next week of workouts planned/in progress:

Monday: mile time trial (30 mins), crunch time (30 mins)
Tuesday: 60 mins swimming workout (jumpouts)
Wednesday: off
Thursday: group power
Friday: bike workout (TBD), 60 mins
Weekend: one cardio workout, TBD
Weekend Day 2: off

Not sure what I will do over the weekend, I suppose it will depend on the weather.  Brick workout outside?  A class at the gym?  Another swim?  A time trial of some sort?  Only time will tell.  Hope everyone is staying warm out there.  We’re getting blasted by teens and 20’s this week (coldest in 20 years or something, apparently), but we should be back in the mid 60’s by the weekend.  SPRING PLZ!!!

It’s Friday and I haven’t put up last week’s progress post.  Oopsie daisy!  Let’s make with the reader’s digest version.

Last Week Workouts:

Monday: bike workout (60 mins)
Tuesday: group power (60 mins)
Wednesday: off
Thursday: run workout (60 mins)
Friday: swim workout (50 mins, gym was closing)
Saturday: 5k (in a gorilla suit, see below) and about 2 miles walking around downtown after
Sunday: off

Last Week’s Food:

I actually did pretty well.  No sweets, and my high calorie day on Saturday was only about 2100 calories.  It was another alcohol heavy day… but I compensated by not eating that much food.  I actually found I had a very little hangover the next day.  It seems like my metabolism is FINALLY making the shift.  Just this last week or so, I just feel… different.  Less food makes me satiated.  I’m not counting the hours between meals.  HOLY GOD I’M BACK TO BEING ABLE TO EAT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON WOOOOHOOO!!! Since I’m not training distance until the summer, that should mean I can take the next few months and perhaps maybe drop some lbs if I don’t eat like an asshole.  Maybe just like a gorilla…

Avg calories in per day: 1506 +100 for error = 1606

Avg calories out per day: 386

Avg net calories per day: 1220

Avg deficit per day: 604, or about 1.5 lbs in a week

Weight:

So how did I do?  Meh.  It was TOM.  Technically I gained 0.2 (168.4 vs 168.2 last week), but considering, I’ll call that a win.  Next week will be the real test.

Next Week (well, uh, this week):

Workouts:

Monday: 30 mins run and 7:30 crunch time
Tuesday: bike workout (fun with cadence)
Wednesday: sorting cans at the food bank for 2 hours
Thursday: 20 all out cycle, 20 hard run, 20 full body circuit
Friday: off
Saturday: swim workout
Sunday: cycle strength (maybe some day…)

Food:

I had a high calorie day of about 1900 on Wednesday, and doing my damndest not to go above 1500-1600 this weekend.  Wish me luck!

Other notes:

-We had our yelp elite party this week and work took us to the italian buffet on the same day.  Yikes.  I was able to not eat like a jerk at either, but I did have a few sweet drinks (vodka, amaretto, and lemonade) at the yelp party.  But hey, I looked ridiculous swanky.

…and so did Zliten…

…and we had fun taking silly peectures.

So, hopefully I can make some progress by the next weigh in.  For finally?  Please?  Isn’t it amazing how it takes 2 weeks to gain 5 lbs and like 2 months to lose it?  Argh!!!

…while I could chat a lot about this week, I think I’ll let the pictures and video say most of it.

Sunday, December 26:

The hat told us it was rock climbing day.  However, I looked up on the website at Main Event and they had a special for 16 bucks, it was all you can play day with mini golf, laser tag, rock climbing, bowling, pool, and shuffleboard.  Score!  We started the day with glow golf – the course was kinda lame but I did get to golf through the STARGAAAAATE!

Then we played a little pool.  I think one game took 30 mins because Zliten and I both are horribly out of practice.

Then, the main event… har har… rock climbing.  I went up about 25 beginner walls in an hour.  I tried a few more advanced ones but I do not have the grip strength.  I made up for quality with quantity though!

Then after some more pool, bowling!  Woohoo!  My hands were sooooore from climbing, I could barely grip the ball.  I never bowl under 100!

Then, some more pool and shuffleboard, and then we were hungry.  Chicken fajitas and a margarita was on the order, and then a little more boozin’ around the fire pit, and we went to bed awesomely sleepytired.  I don’t have pictures from any of that, so here is another video of me rock climbing.

Monday, December 27th:

We woke up just a little worse for wear, and had a decadent lunch of din ho (family style authentic Chinese food with the best wonton soup around).  We decided to save rollerskating for the next day (which is what the hat said), and instead engineered the hat to give us “watch all 3 lotrs in one day”.  I also devoured the two books I got for xmas (The Great Fitness Experiment and 50 1-hour triathlon workouts).  I highly suggest that everyone out there go out and pick up a copy of both (GFE for everyone, 50 workouts for anyone that wants some nifty, interesting swim/bike/run training)!

Tuesday, December 28 th:

We spent most of the day shopping, returning stuff, and generally being about town, and then later in the evening we made good on our hat pick by going to adult skate night.

Wednesday, December 29th:

The hat told us that our adventure was Cancun mexican restaurant.  It is a sketchy little taco shop in a sketchy part of town we pass occasionally on the freeway, and we figured it would be either the BEST tex mex around or the worst.  Ended up just being sorta “meh”.  After our lunch, we came home and relaxed and then headed down south for our trapeze lessons! It was so so so fun!!!  I want to go back!

I figured it would be a lot of on ground stuff and then a bit of swinging, but we warmed up, they taught us the sequence, we tried it on the low bar once, and then up we went!  We had 3 chances to do the sequence of takeoff, swing, hook your knees on the bar, swing, present to the (invisible) catcher, swing, unhook your knees and go back to your hands, and then do a back flip to the net (essentially a flyaway from the moving bar for my ex-gymnast peeps).  Then, they brought the catcher up, and we had two chances to do the sequence below.  I caught both times!  Wooo!

Zliten did the first sequence, but didn’t do the catching part.  Next time he said!  We came home, made some dinner, and it took Zliten about 4 hours to calm down, his heart was all pitter pattery and he said that whenever he closed his eyes he was falling.

Thursday, December 30th:

This was my Zliten the next day – so we kinda took it easy.  I kept joking that it was time for a run and I kept getting eye rolls.

The hat took pity on us and told us to go get pho – it was delicious and it had been 2 weeks (and normally it’s a weekly thing for us), so it was greatly appreciated.  Our new year’s eve party was imminent, and we didn’t want to have to deal with a mad rush on the day itself, so we shopped, cooked, and prepped.  A pretty chill day after quite a bit of excitement.  I even took the day off the gym.

Friday, December 31st:

The hat told us to make a movie, and it was the perfect night for it.  We both have a bunch of footage, but we haven’t started to edit it.  We spent most of the day chillin’ and getting ready for the party, but I did get to the gym.  It happened to be 30 mins before closing, which meant 20 mins to swim, so I did a 15 min time trial.  Swimming all out for 15 mins is kinda hard!  However, I was pretty impressed – I got through 1000 yards (or about 914 meters).  That’s over half a mile!  Our friends came over and cooked us dinner and helped us get ready, and then a party ensued.

This was the bottle of “that’s what she said” shots.  Anytime anyone said that, they had to take one (unless they were driving and opted out, of course).  We toasted the new year with a lot of good friends, had an awesome time, and this year did not have to walk 3-4 miles in the cold in platforms trying to get a cab!  Score!

Saturday, January 1st:

Happy hangover day!  It wasn’t too brutal to me, so we headed to our fave chinese buffet, got my fill of chicken and veggies and eggdrop soup, and commenced with the laying around all day.  No pics, of course.

Sunday, January 2nd:

It was time to prepare for getting back to reality.  Laundry was done, the house was cleaned, we put away xmas and new years decorations, and hit the gym for some bike sprints.

And here I ended it, snugged up on the couch, all sleepytired and ready for normalcy.  All in all, it was a lovely 2 week break, but I was kinda ready to get back to it.  I was a little sad that we didn’t get to more hat picks, but that’s just an excuse to break it out during the year!

I hope you all had a WONDERFUL holiday, and may those awesome times hold you over until the next great holiday in March, my birthday.  Oh wait, that’s just me.  So, I wanna know… what’s the coolest thing you did over your holiday?

Hi, my name is Quix.  And I done fucked up last weekend.

I can’t even be mad at the scale.  Or question WTF went wrong.  I know (sorta – although if you look at the numbers… still shoulda lost).

Friday night, I ate a very, very restricted amount of food calories (1000) to save room for the bar calories (500).  Priorities, people.  We went out, we had fun, it was all good (and planned for).

Saturday, we had two “going out” meals planned, brunch for a friend’s birthday at 11, and a fancypants steak dinner with other friends at 7.  We were more than a little hungover at brunch (lack of food magnifies hangover by eleventy-billion-fold), and it was the thing to do, so we ordered a mimosa.  Hair of the dog and all.  I ate my veggie burger with no mayo like a good girl (we won’t talk about the fries, but still – a planned choice.  Steak and veggies and salad for dinner instead of potato).

Herein lies the problem.  After brunch, someone shouts, “what’s next”, and we end up at our neighborhood bar which has 2 dollar mimosa happy hour that afternoon.

I don’t know if you have ever had a daytime champagne buzz all afternoon, but let me tell you – it is decadent.  You feel like a desperate housewife.  You’re on a boat.  You are Fancypants McGee with your numb nose and your giggles.  You also realize that once you sober up, you’re going to crash HARD.  And you have dinner at 7 with friends, while amenable to the happy fun, were not actually WITH YOU drinking champagne all day, so they’re not on your level and would be very very disappointed if you canceled.  So the mantra is MAINTAIN, MAINTAIN, MAINTAIN.  Which takes more champagne.

Steak dinner goes well, with a salad, a glass of wine, a petit filet and crab with spinach, and we’re having fun.  Then desert comes up and I wave it off.  First, chocolate is suggested.  Then cheesecake.  Then other things.  Finally, they settle on KEY LIME PIE.  Um, sorry, I have been craving a freaking key lime pie for about a year.  I had a bite and it was probably one of the best pieces I have ever had – cinnamon graham cracker crust, super tart lime, not super moussey… I split the fucker down the middle with Zliten.  Yes I broke my sugar fast.  Was worth it.  Don’t regret it at all.  Haven’t had any since, plan to keep it up for the majority of the year, honestly.  But that pie was amAAAzing.

Then, we return to the bar and have a few drinks with our friends who aren’t feeling it, and then we proceeded, out of our mind, to go home, continue drinking, and dancing around to bad pop all night and talking about life.  All said and done, it was about a 3000 calorie damage that day.  I know, because I made my ass go back and track it all.  I really wanted to “start again on Monday” but I made myself go own up to my awesomely fun day.

The funny thing is – each outing is at our neighborhood bar.  So we’ve been there 3 times in 24 hours.  I’d say it’s a record, but you didn’t know me in college.  It’s still pretty impressive though!  I will definitely count this on my “memorable days of 2011” list!

Every other day, I had a pretty damn good eating day, but two days of partying did make me skip my cycle strength class on Sunday, so I only got 4 workout days last week.

The scale is up, but it’s not unreasonably so, and it’s also TOM.  So I’ll freak out next week, ok?

Avg calories in per day: 1654 +100 for error = 1754.  So seriously, one crazy day can’t do THAT much.  It should equate to about maintenance without workouts (something like 1/3 lb lost).

Workouts were a little less than normal and it was weird to start off the week without a workout, but I wouldn’t call it slacking.  4 days of solid, hard workouts is less than I planned, but whatevs.

Monday: off (Yelp event and then early to bed after some good Mediterranean food)
Tuesday: 30 mins swim (30 mins IM) + 30 mins abs and legs
Wednesday: bike workout # 8 Steady as she goes – 10 mins warmup, 45 mins 75-80% heart rate (around 90-100 rpm), 5 mins cooldown (15 miles total)
Thursday: group power
Friday: run workout # 13 Out and Backs – 10  mins warmup, 11 mins “out”, 9 mins “back” , then 5 mins ou 4 mins back, short cooldown (wanted to do the full distance twice, but gym was closing)
Saturday: off
Sunday: off

All in all, it was about a 2k calorie burn.  Along with the silly dancing and walking home from the bar on Saturday, I’ll say I probably should be close to 1 lb lost this week calorie-wise.

Here’s the forward thinking plan.  No champagne days planned (but you never know) and a little workout penance for missing out last week.

Monday: bike workout (False flats – THIS WAS HARD!!! 35 mins uphill)
Tuesday: group power
Wednesday: off
Thursday: run workout (whatever I can muster – I am WIPED today, I think it’s focused on nasal breathing, which I may skip due to allergies, not sure I can do an hour of snot in, snot out)
Friday: swim workout (not sure what the next one is, I think alternating speed and technique intervals)
Saturday: Gorilla Run (yes, that is a 5k in a gorilla suit – you heard right!  Race #1 for the year!)
Sunday: cycle strength (let’s see if I make it!!!)

Official weigh in this week: 168.2 (but that was last Thursday), down 1.8 overall, 0.6 this week.  I don’t anticipate much of a loss this next week, but I’ll work toward it and maybe my body will surprise me.  I’ll letcha know.

So, I ask: when you have a crazy day out and make some food/drink choices that may not be 100% angelic, do you find you regret them, or feel like it’s worth it, and you just put in the effort elsewhere?

Friday, December 17th:

Work was a totally short day, because we spent the afternoon at the movies.  They took us to the Alamo for lunch, a few glasses of wine, and also double feature of Tron (the old one, and then the new one).  It was a good thing the theatre was LITERALLY right across the parking lot, so we were able to snag a workout even though motivation was at an all time low – we did 30 mins of arc sprints and strength training for leggies.  Then, we headed home and had some dinner and drinks with friends and made use of our firepit.

Saturday, December 18th:

Woke up a little worse for wear but not too bad.  We grabbed lunch, and went shopping.  We got our own big xmas presents after – new phones – Mytouch 4gs. He sorta didn’t tell me where we were going, and when we got there, we went into the store and I figured we were just looking around or picking up a spare case or charger or something (Zliten loves to gawk and play at the phone store so it was pretty normal).  He took me over to the phones, and said “black, white, red, or purple” and asked the clerk to get a white one for him.  After a little hemming and hawing I picked black and we went on our merry way and I loves it.  After a littler relaxing, we got some nummy italian dinner with friends and enjoyed some early sleep.  Here is me mid choke at dinner.  Of course Zliten doesn’t help me, but takes a picture.  That’s luv.

Sunday, December 19th:

Lazed around in the morning before getting out to do a nice long 20 mile bike ride (I missed you bikey bike!!!), then hopped a bus downtown and attended a snuggie party, then barhopped a little finding a new cool place called bar 96 and played an epic game of battleship, then kept our local bar open a little late and ended up meeting some new cool friends.

Monday, December 20th:

Spent the morning recovering a bit – mostly watched tv, discovered that if I sat around at home all day I’d probably eat myself gigantic.  Seriously, I do not know how you stay at home people do it.  The kitchen being in such close proximity would kill me.  In the afternoon did a little xmas shopping and wrapping, and went to bed way early. Just an uneventful, relaxing day and I loved it.

Tuesday, December 21st:

I woke up and watched TV for a bit, biked 11 miles in the awesome 70 degree weather, met Zliten for lunch at Trudy’s (yuuum).  It’s a great tex mex restaurant, and during the day they now have a lunch special – 9 dollar buffet, and you can special order any type of taco.  Serious danger.  After that, I finished xmas shopping, vegged a bit more, hit the gym with Zliten for weights after he got home from work, made an epic crab boil dinner, and just kinda vegged in prep for a nice long run outside to enjoy the weather tomorrow.  Another pretty chill day.

Wednesday, December 22nd:

Again with the slow starts, I bummed around the house all day, did laundry, prepped dinner, then FINALLY got to runnin’ at 4:30.  I ran the first 6.5 outside and then took the last 3.5 on the treadmill.  And then did leg strength exercises with Zliten after.  Not smart.  I just sort of died that evening, but did have a delicious shepards pie and salad on my way to oblivion.

Thursday, December 23rd:

I woke up with my ankle KILLING ME, so I vegged on the couch and limped around and made leftovers for lunch and just waited for Zliten to get home!!!  I was totally bored finally and realized… as much as I wanted some time off to do nothing, it had a short shelf life for me.  Without my Zliten, without vacation, without something to do… I was over it pretty quick.  Later, we went to meet friends at a bar for dinner and drinks, and made good friends with a bottle of wine and we had a fire outside…

Friday, December 24th:

Once we got up – our xmas eve present opening extravaganza started. We were kinda hungover so not so much boozin’, though we had a few traditional xmas absinthes.  So many awesome presents and good fun times.  Here are some of the highlights…

What’s in the box?

Lotsa presents!

Superbowl shirt!

We had so much fun out at the bar that Sunday playing Battleship, we both got it for each other!

Putting my best side forward.

Saturday, December 25th:

It was xmas with the parents! Yummy greek salad, homemade lasagna, garlic bread, and ridiculous amounts of sweets, plus an awesome day of cards and dominos.

….and the rest will have to wait for next week.  Stay tuned for part 2 where I discuss flying, climbing, rolling, and ringing…