Adjusted Reality

It’s Friday, and I do believe it’s high time for some adorable cat pictures and some randomness.  So it will be.

1.  Do you ever feel like the tricks stop working?  Like the “if you’re hungry drink a glass of water” or “eat more protein to feel fuller” type things?  It’s like my body is going “HA!  I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work anymore.  I am still HUNGERS!!!”

2.  Also related – how do you stop the nighttime CRUNCH AND MUNCH?  Not tips on how to make yourself not eat the fridge even though you want to, but how to eliminate the urge?  For example – I’ve gotten in this bad habit that I NEED to eat just about the moment I get home from work.  Great when I’m getting out of the gym and food is ready moments later, but bad in the instances where dinner takes a long time after or now that I’m eating WAY WAY earlier because the office is providing dinner.  I don’t have philosophical beliefs against eating late (a calorie is a calorie at 10 am or 10pm), but I have been trending towards sweet snacks.  I guess what I need to do is wait until I’m back to normal and set some sort of rule like after dinner I can have only fruits and veggies or something.  Right now I’m just like this dude below.  Last night was better though – I made myself healthy desert of 1 cup of pineapple, 1 cup 0% plain oikos, and 1 tbsp powdered sugar all blended up, and that was totally satisfying.  And mostly healthy!  Maybe I need to just PLAN for something like that every night…

3.  I had a fantastically cool and scary dream where one of my artists was chasing me around Las Vegas with a shotgun.  He was like, a bounty hunter and I was escaping something.  It was scary, but fabulously exciting – I ended up going through theme parks, cutting my hair and changing my clothes to get away (I looked interesting with shoulder length wispy hair with blonde streaks), and ended up in some rich kids crazy house with my dog (who was apparently obedient enough to stay with me through all this), hiding in this spectacular old room only accessible by a 1920’s elevator lift when I woke up.  I was very fleet footed and apparently had some of my gymnastics skills back.  It felt more like a movie where I knew I was going to get away, but exciting nonetheless.  Very cool, because I normally dream very mundanely – like I’m at work, but my boss is my middle school teacher or something… or don’t even remember them at all.  Any cool dreams to report lately?

4.  Plans this weekend (if work doesn’t interfere) are kinda cool.  We have been meaning to do a long hike.  We have been also meaning to hit up downtown bars during the day.  We decided to roll this into one big exercise-y debaucherous day.  Saturday, we’re going to do the 7-8 mile hike… stopping every other mile or so for refreshments.  Sneakyface bonus: more not-running training how to be on my feet for long periods.  If work *DOES* invade my weekend in a manner which would make this inconceviable, we’ll figure something out.  I’m thinking… rock climbing.  I like combining drinking and exercise! 🙂  Any cool plans this weekend?

5.  I decided to take this week completely off running.  And life did not end.  I needed it.  Depending on work next week I might take next week off too.  It’s nice and all to prove to myself that I have the mental and physical toughness to both wrangle a ton of new job responsibilities and extra hours – and keep up my kick ass workout schedule – but it’s exhausting.  I’m all about the low/medium intensity stuff this week like DDR and the arc trainer and long walks and lots of lifting heavy things and stretching stretchy things.  It’s enough to know that I know I COULD run – I’ve certainly gotten out there enough times when I had NO desire to and had great runs.  Right now though – I’m not training for anything specific, and my body/mind are emphatically shouting at me to back off a bit, so I’ll listen.  Am I a complete wuss or what? Tee hee.

That’s about it for me today.  Have a great weekend, and I’ll hitcha back on Monday.  I’m debating on starting April’s Experiment then – we shall see.

One of my go to questions for interviews (and I’ve been doing a lot lately) is “What motivates you?”  For senior level/management positions, it’s followed by, “How do you motivate others?”

I’m toying with this a lot in the last week or five in my personal life.  This is sort of in the vein of the finite-amount-of-give-a-shit in my life right now.  While I realize that – yes, it is healthy to let some things fall off your radar.  Yes, it is ok to shift priorities around due to life’s little surprises.  It’s even acceptable to slack a little after accomplishing something big.  However, I feel like the meter might be swinging a bit too far in the wrong direction lately.  Or maybe it’s just me being dillusional.

What’s causing my grump?  Well, it’s lots of things.  I think I’m finally feeling the let down of such crappy circumstances around my half and not even being CLOSE to accomplishing a goal I trained for HARD for 3 months.  It’s certainly about that time of the month where I can tend to be a little bleh.  It’s the few extra hours of work coming in just as it’s starting to get nice enough outside to run just before dusk (when I still gotta be at work), but too cold in the morning.  It’s the scale going the wrong way.

Really though – it’s my inability to make lemonade out of these lemons.  I know how to lose 5 lbs.  I just can’t bring myself to do it.  I COULD have toughed out the run this morning, but I was so excited to have a run in the nice weather it floored me when I saw 40 degrees this morning.

I don’t wait until Festivus to air my grievances.  Let’s whip them out, shall we?

-This was supposed to be the year of maintenance.  However, I have not been able to get to my maintenance weight of 155 since mid-December.  I have wasted 1/4 of my year trying unsuccessfully to lose weight.

-My house is a freaking mess and I have no care or desire to do anything about it.  The last thing I want to waste the precious few moments I have at home on when I’m already feeling bleh and burnt about responsibility is clean.  We keep it picked up enough to keep the critters away but that’s about it.

-I had this GREAT plan to keep my running going.  I didn’t want to lose that awesome base I had built.  I was going to keep on with the long runs.  Then – boom.  Injuries and birthdays and now it’s been a month since I did anything longer than a 10k and I have no desire.  At all.

-I’ll eat well all week, minus something silly like a piece of cake every day, but well within my calorie range, and then have 3000 calorie days on the weekends because I am hungry.  And I can’t stop eating.  And I don’t care.  And I know it’s something broken in me because it’s not craving junk, and I’m not mindlessly eating… I am really and truly hungry and my body wants good food.  All signs that it’s not just faking me out to get some baked cheetos.

-I haven’t been shopping for 3 months.  I’m just too bleh about the fact that I’m 5 lbs up to even want to redeem my savers gift certificate from Christmas.  TOTALLY SAD!  I love to shop.  But I just can’t make myself feel like I deserve it right now.  I’d like to say it’s motivation to chew through the high 15o’s but it’s again the problem of lack-0f-give-a-shit.

-My hair is in this in between stage, and I feel schlumpy.  I’m debating for the first time in over 10 years letting a professional cut it instead of Zliten to attempt to get some layers (or something different), but I keep thinking that I could totally use the money on something way more important or fun and it’s just HAIR.  And I also dread the convo I’m going to have to have… “Ok, so I need something that looks hawt but can go back into a ponytail easily, doesn’t take more than 2 minutes to style in the morning, looks good curly, straight, or wavy, will last through getting drenched during workouts, doesn’t cause me to have to wash my hair more than once every 3-5 days, and doesn’t take expensive product to maintain.  Oh, and I’d like a pony as well…”

I could go on and on but there is a common theme here.  I can’t bring myself to care, but I’m depressed (in that wah, I’m a rich little white girl and things aren’t going my way, not clinically) about it.  This violates one of my cardinal rules of “put up, or shut up”.  Either it’s time to figure out how to fix it, or move it off the radar for a while.  There is no use lusting after something I don’t have the oomph to pursue.

I simply don’t think I can put everything that’s bothering me off my radar, so I’ll also have to decide how to get myself motivated.  Whether to employ the carrot, or the stick.  I know that I’m motivated by specific goals that are completely under my control.  The question is trying to decide right now if punitive measures are the way to go if I fail, or if rewards are the way to go if I succeed.

Sure – the answer seems obvious.  OF COURSE I should respond better to the idea of getting something awesome for accomplishing my goal rather than being affected in some negative way if I don’t.  But, as we’ve established, I tend to be broken.  Right now, the lack of give-a-shit is rampant.  Even a really cool prize, I could probably convince myself that I didn’t really care about.  And things I want – what I really, really want (yes, reference intended) – I end up getting anyway.

So maybe it’s time to break out the stick.  Maybe it’s time to stop coddling myself, telling myself it’s ok, I’m doing ok, it’s ok to fuck up.  Maybe it’s time for some good old fashioned hard-assery when I fail.  It’s been a while.  I have been living in this happy bubble where everything I do is fine and it’s okay if I forget a workout because I don’t feel like it and it’s ok if I eat a shitload of cake because I DO feel like it, and it’s ok if I eat when I feel hungry even though I know I’m eating too much.  Maybe it’s not ok to not clean the house and to not get myself out and running for 3 hours like I wanted.  I know I’m stronger than I’ve been in the last month.  I know I’m more capable.  My give-a-shit is broken and I need fixing.

It’s time to do some soul searching, and I do believe Monthly Experiments will return in April.  I will pick something to focus on, set achievable goals, and apply both a carrot (a reward for myself at the end of the month) and a stick (some sort of “pennance” if I stray).  I’m not sure what yet, but it’s time.  It’s time to kick off the post race funk, work will be settling a bit, the weather should be lovely and prohibitive of outdoor activity, and beyond one planned indulgence for my father’s birthday, there are no crazy pitfalls and minefields to wade through.

For now, time to eat.  Good thing I have some carrot sticks handy. 🙂

This weekend was disappointing in the fact that it was BEAUTIFUL all week, got cold and rainy Saturday, got cold and supahwindy Sunday, and is now back to gorgeous again.  Just in time for overtime again!  Wheeee!

Workouts:

Workouts went as planned last week, minus skipping the 5k Saturday morning.  It was rainy (like heavy pouring rain) and thunderstormy.  The race people said they were still holding it, but we decided that we didn’t want to get sick/injured and figured – next month.

At first I was holding out, trying not to be a wuss and so was Zliten, but when I realized there is no way I’m getting a PR on a mud run, and he thought about adding a twisted ankle to his huge arm bruise (which I didn’t cause, thxuverymuch) and his rib being out of place – we decided against it.

I’m taking it easy on running right now.  My body has spoken and is now shouting very loudly.  My appetite has NOT gone down at all (please see food stuff below).  My heels are hurty.  I just feel tired.  I’ve just gotta accept that right now, 3-4 months is about the limit for me and I need to rotate to easier workouts for a while to stay healthy.  I’m going to lower the requirement down to 2 runs a week, and no less than a 5k – so at minimum 6 miles a week.  I hope to get out and do more.  But honestly?  I need a rest.  Long epic walks.  DDR.  Bike rides.  Gym cross training.  Lotsa weights/resistance band/strength stuff.

As much as I wanted to try and keep a base, I definitely proved I can ramp up quickly without too much discomfort.  Maybe in a few weeks I’ll revisit the idea of going longer than a 10k, or if the right opportunity provides itself and I feel rested/ready – but for now… short and fast.  What?  I can’t do short and slow….

Food Stuffs:

I started tracking last week and was doing good.  Minus the daily piece of cake (?), I sailed through most weekdays without an issue calorie-wise, coming in at about 1400 per day.  The problem?  The weekend.  Friday, I ate dinner at 6pm, then went out and drank.  Pretty much like a little fishie. I woke up STARVING.

Then, I was just HUNGRY all weekend.  I tried to make decent choices but it was about 50%.  Saturday, I got no mayo on my sammich, and threw away some of the bread, and didn’t eat ALL of the fries, but as you can see, it wasn’t super healthy.  Then I snacked all day (on cuties and sesame chips and cheese) at my parents’ house.  Then birthday dinner #29456 was filet and grilled shrimp and veggies and salad with lowfat ranch.  But there was also bread.  And onion straws.  And key lime pie.  And then LATER there was even more snacking.  Same type of thing Sunday.  My appetite is just NOT NORMAL right now.  I’m not necessarily uber craving the bad stuff, and the “cake everyday” thing should subside now that birthday celebrations are officially over, but just the sheer quantity is disturbing.

And I have no excuse!  I burned like 2500 calories last week, max.  I ran 6 miles.  The only thing I can think is that I’ve added a few miles a week walking around the office.  Literally.  I’m not kidding.  Herding cats is walky work.  However, I sure don’t think I’m doing ANYTHING compared to the 30+ mile weeks and my trap just wants more shoved down it.  Carrots or carrot cake, sprouted grain bread or jelly donuts – it’s all the same.  All that matters is the ease of ability to shove.  So the good news is I’ve been eating a lot of healthy food.  The bad news – I’ve been eating A LOT.

Mental State/General Life:

It’s definitely interesting, this life.  Just a little over a month ago I was putting all my training to the test slogging through a sick 13.1 miles.  I had no idea what was in store for me in the next month.  Things I have learned and experienced since then:

-I only have a finite amount of “give-a-shit”.  I can cultivate more with work, and I can slack and have less, but there is a tangible amount of effort I can put into things, be it physical, mental, emotional, and willpower-y.  Right now, work has definitely borrowed from other aspects of my life.  As frustrating as it was to shift FROM that 3 years ago, I got used to it, and now it’s just as weird and awkward to shift that direction again.  This could (and probably will) be a whole other post.

-I was freaked out about being able to ever run a half marathon again – because when I took the break it felt so unnatural to run more than a 10k.  What if I just can’t do it anymore?  What if that was a fluke?  What if I’m not meant to run long distances even though it was was rewarding?  I had/am having the same moments with work.  I’m doing what I had done before at my previous job (except on a much higher profile/larger scale).  The funny thing about both – if you did something well once, chances are you’ll be able to do it again as long as you train properly and give yourself the necessary time to adjust.

-I can get all upset at myself for not making much progress on my resolutions yet this year.  I haven’t seen under 155.  I didn’t hit my half marathon goal pace and I’m curtailing my running for a bit.  I’m not reading, I’m not writing.  I haven’t done any of the one liners except whittling down my smoking (once a week, always with alcohol, thxuverymuch).  However, that nebulous “figure out WTF to do with my job” resolution?  On like donkey kong.  So 1 out of 5 aint bad I guess.

-I’m feeling that ennui about the whole MUST!LOSE!WEIGHT! thing right now.  I just don’t have the oomph to give more than 50%.  Mostly, because I feel like I do enough with the regular, vigorous exercise and eating healthier than most humans most of the time.  And if it’s not working, then FUCK IT, something is broken and I just don’t have the mindshare to fix it right now.  Inherently, this is ok.  I’m a healthy weight and in good shape.  However, I can’t let it go too long.  It’s been a long standing question in my mind that just never gets answered.  What is ok?  When can I call it, and say that I eat healthy enough HERE, and there is no need to worry as long as I stick to this standard?  Argh…

Anyhoo, that’s my braindump for the week.  I think I’d like to expand on some of this but it’s already running long and I’ve got a million and two things to attend to.  FYI, I seem to be good about visiting bloggy folk that twitter.  I miss all your blogs.  If you are on twitter, pleeeeaaassse look me up (I’m quixotique) or comment and I’ll find ya.  I haven’t been able to get to my rss reader in weeks. 🙁

I miss you all.

I’m going to try and get my head unfogged and figure out how to eek out a little more mental focus on a few more things without going bat shit crazy and rocking back and forth.

I’ll see you then!

While I can’t talk that much about the specifics of my company, I certainly can discuss certain aspects of my job and the industry as a whole.  And one of them is making sure that a team of 20+ people stay on schedule.  Sometimes it’s not so hard, but sometimes it’s like herding cats.  In the rain.  And I’m a scratching post.

Some of the stereotypical things about the gaming industry are super cool.  The casual attire is a plus – today I wore a blue hippie hat, a star trek shirt, a hoodie, and blue snowboarding pants – and I fit right in.  Everyone has toys on their desks (oh, sorry, action figures) and there are nerf gun fights.  There are many work-related interoffice discussions about dragons and magic.  There is often a lunch card game or roleplaying game going on.

However, one of the negative stereotypes of working in the games industry is crunch time, otherwise known as extended hours, overtime, death march, pulling all nighters, see your family when the milestone is reached, etc, etc.  I’ve been through some of the worst of it.  I’ve worked 24 hours straight before.  I’ve worked 6 months of 7 day weeks where I had to beg for a day off.  I went through a period where my downtime was working at home.  This industry LOVES my workaholic tendencies like peanut butter loves chocolate.

Now, everyone understands that sometimes you need to pull a long night to finish something up.  I’ve been ass deep in work before jammin’ to something great in my headphones, and have looked up and it’s way later than I should be at work, and I don’t mind that at all.   The problem is – it gets old.

Take my 7 day week for about 6 months.  The bonus there was that I was actually making overtime.  The not-so-bonus?  Overtime on 9 bucks per hour in San Diego isn’t really worth it.  It’s ramen when you’re working 40 hour weeks, it’s fancier ramen when you get a little extra, and the taxes really kill ya.  What happened was it stopped being productive after a while and people just started soaking up the hours and getting the same amount done, and since so many people were doing it, you stood out like a sore thumb if you, for heavens sake, worked a SIX day week or left early.  I moved on from that place after a year, and things got a little better at the next place, but it wasn’t for too long, and soon we lost the overtime pay when we made the change to salary.

There’s nothing like extra hours when you’re not paid for them.  Especially when it happens for an extended period of time.  Zliten worked crunch for about a year straight as his innauguration to game design.  His reward after shipping the game?  2 weeks added to his paid time off.  He probably worked that extra in the last 2 months.  I lead such a small team that I never was TOLD to crunch, but what does any dedicated young upstart trying to prove herself do?  I found myself still at work after midnight A LOT.  I’d wake up groggy, not be productive until after lunch, and then do it again.  It was much less fun that this.

The other thing they tried to pacify us with (well, not me so much, but Zliten) was food.  I gained my weight at the end of college about the same time I maxxed my credit card with bar tabs, but Zliten gained his during that year of crunch food.  Low quality, cheap, crappy, non-nutritious troughs of food.  I do believe they got the same thing over and over for that year.

I am a lucky duck now at my place of employment, and work with some amazing people.  Our studio philosophy is to really kick ass and focus while we’re there, and go home when it’s time to go home.  So while we’re a bit of a drag about people sitting there watching videos or playing games all day or being too rambunctious, it makes for very few long days.  We are currently working our first 50 hour week in a year.  It might last for 2 weeks.  We worked approximately 2 months worth of crunch (mostly just 5o hour weeks, I don’t think we ever worked both weekend days) in the last 2 years before we shipped our first title.

The best thing?  Individually ordered crunch food.  Except on pizza nights (where they know to also order me a salad), we can order whatever we want from the restaurant of the day and it’s delivered.  One day, I got a super healthified burrito (about 300 calories).  Yesterday, turkey no cheese no mayo with a side of veggies.  Tonight, I splurged and got meatloaf, and it was TOTALLY worth it, but I could have ordered chicken, rice, and veggies.

I have had the opportunity to sit in on a lot of interviews lately, and one of my favorite loaded questions to ask is “what is your philosophy on crunch?”.  I’ve heard some great horror stories, but one of the common themes is that having to crunch for extended periods of time is due to mismanaged products.  Which is totally true.  Like me, most managers in the game industry came up out of other departments.  We’re not MBAs.  We don’t have exceptional experience managing anything, we just were good at what we did.  Or in some companies, not so good at what we did but weren’t fireable.  Depends.  I’d like to think I’m the former, but whatevs.

That being said, I’ve learned some time saving tips in the last few years.  Let me share them with you:

-If you’re procrastinating, move onto something else if you can.  There is no use sitting and staring at something you’re supposed to be doing without making progress.  If you can put it off without repercussions, do it when you are motivated.  For example, if you’re supposed to grocery shop and then do laundry, and you’re putting off the shopping, just start the laundry instead.

-Figure out how you work best and encourage it.  If you’re a born multitasker, make sure to have a to do list with more than one thing on it and plan to have a bunch of things ready to go at once.  If you get easily distracted, make sure you have a closed-door office that’s tidied up before you start working.  If all you can think about is getting out of the house and you feel lonely, grab your laptop and hit the park or the coffee shop.

-There is no substitute for a To Do list.  Nothing kills productivity than forgetting what you’re supposed to do next and having to search around for what you’re supposed to do.

What’s your best tip for being productive?  Any funny/true stereotypes about your job or hobby?

So that was a little too mysterious.  Sorry.  Succintly put, there is just too much going on with work and life and the weather being beautiful and I just need to spend time living instead of talking about it.  Executing on plans instead of making tons of them.  Winging it.  Reveling in the moment.  And such.

This just means that instead of attempting to do 5 posts per week, I’m going to lower my expectations.  I would HIGHLY doubt I’ll not check in at least once a week.  Maybe even a few times a week.  I just definitely don’t have time to do 1k+ words every weekday.  So don’t worry, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.  You will just see a little less of my ugly mug, and I may not be able to make it to your blogs as often for now.  Deal?  Deal.

Down to business.  So, a short weekly update.

Last Week’s Workouts:

Monday: Hill repeats. 1 mile warmup, 400m @ 10 min miles uphill (2.0 to 4.5 on the treadmill), 400m recovery x7, then 1 mile cooldown. After that, some leg strength work. I hate hills but I need to get better at them.

Tuesday: 30 mins arc trainer, 45 mins arms + abs. Was just thinking “get through this as fast as possible so I can get home and play final fantasy, heh”.

Wednesday: All out-ish 5k in 26:15. I was mentally exhausted after a long day, so I’m pretty proud of this even if it wasn’t a PR. I’ll set the goal for next weekend as under 26. My heel was aching after this and hadn’t felt right all week, so I knew it was time for new shoes. Decided to hold off on more running until Monday.

Thursday: 30 mins of strength.  My heel was still thrashed so I stayed off it. Did my new resistance band circuit (6 arm and leg workouts) + some ab work x2.

Friday: 40 mins on the arc trainer.  Babying the hurty heel, did alright. Felt better today.

Sunday: Walked about 2 miles to and from the kite festival.  It counts, right?

This Week’s Workouts:

Monday: Gym circuits.  1 mile running, 4 arm exercises x3, 1 mile running, 4 ab exercises x3, 1 mile running, 4 leg exercises x3, stretch.  Breaking in the new shoes.

Tuesday: 45 mins arc trainer

Wednesday: 5k outside, resistance band workout (arms and legs)

Thursday: 30-45 mins arc trainer/DDR, abs

Saturday: 5k race

Yeah, it’s not my normal insanity but a) I’m working at least 10 hour days and b) I’m racing (a little unofficial one but still) a race this weekend.  So there.  If I don’t call it slacking you can’t either.

Food Consumption/Weight/Etc:

Last weekend was Zliten’s birthday.  We had steak and queso and chocobo cake and pretzels and cheese for breakfast… I’m thinking I didn’t go ridici-crazy, but it’s worth noting that there were things that did not go along with my normal eating plan, fo sho.  This week, it’s crunch week at work.  There has been junk food ALL OVER.  The people who order food know I am generally a healthy eater and ask me if what they’re ordering is ok or if I need anything special (it’s good to be boss), so like today, I had 2 slices of pizza and a GIGANTA-salad.  Considering I had a light lunch, and didn’t snack, it was perfect.

Now the baked cheetos and half slice of cake when I got home…not perfect.  We’ll have to work on that.  Generally I’ll be getting up and working out BEFORE work so it won’t be 9:30 and I come home again looking for noms, but, perhaps I should look into a late night snack option if it happens again.  Cuz I cannot come home from the gym after almost 1 1/2 hours and not ingest something.

Weight-wise?  Last week I was around 159-ish.  Not optimal, but not horrible.  I’m just having an issue getting really worked up about it, though I am finding I’m down 0n my appearance a bit internally lately.  Not good, but I understand I just don’t have the OOMPH to change it right now.  Soon.  But not now.

That’s about it.  Hopefully I can make it back to blather about more but for now – off to work and play and be outside when I can and dance and sing and be happy.  Enjoy your week!