Adjusted Reality

I’ve got a lot going on this month, so instead of the weekly thing, I wanted to lay September out for the month.

Here’s what happens when I get lazy with instagramming for a few days.  You get the picture version of a training (and junk food) montage.

So, let’s get on with it, shall we?

In August, I rode bikes.  A lot.  It was my highest cycling month since January with almost 400 miles (and unlike January, it wasn’t cheat-y trainer miles because I rode mostly outside and my trainer is now HARDER than outside so…).  I ran and swam very little, but enough to remember how to move my arms and legs the right way, sort of.  I raced a triathlon and felt better about my performance than the same course back in June.  I rode 100 miles and was pretty happy with life after.

In September, I plan to be a *little* more balanced.  On the weekends, I still have rides planned but most of them say MEDIUM length (aka – 40-60 miles – which is medium in my life right now, heh).  Now that I proved 100 is doable, I feel like I just need one more long one a few weeks out of the next 100 and I’ll be fine as long as I keep the volume about the same.  I built some great bike base when I didn’t feel  like doing much else in the way of training this summer, and I’m pretty sure the next time I build to race a half ironman or ironman, that experience will help me out.

But… it’s time to change it up a little bit.  I have one more sprint triathlon Sept 23rd.  I should probably make it a point to run more than 12 miles and swim more than 3 in September, unlike August.  I still plan to bike more than the other sports, but maybe at least pretend like I’m a triathlete again, sorta kinda.

Last week I rode bikes for about 3 hours (in one shot), played DDR for about an hour, and then the last hour was split between a run and a swim.  It was a good recovery week after the 100 mile ride.

Here’s what I have planned for this week:

• Runs: lunch run (probably about a 3 mile lake interval run), 2 mile brick run (chasing the faster people on my tri team)
• Swims: sadly, with everything else, I only have time for one and it’s already done (unless I squeeze in another one while camping).  I’ll change this up the next week.
• Weights: new program x2 (back to it after a week break), some DDR if I can work it in
• Bike: 35 mile bike adventure Labor Day, 25 mile bike commute to/from work Tuesday, 12-ish mile brick bike Wednesday, 50-ish mile ride at Granger Lake on Saturday.
• 11-ish hours as planned

So, yeah.  You can see where my priorities lie.  I am having fun riding bikes and I know in the next few months I need to shift to running if I want to make 3M Half Marathon my A race.  While that sounds like the worst thing in the world to me right now, I also know as soon as the temps drop I will be out there loving running and biking will be a little less awesome when I have to wear 20 layers and still can’t feel warm.  But also it might be still as awesome and I’ll see how things go.

Kind of secretly healthy.  Would have been healthier if they weren’t out of every single wheat bun at the grocery store ><.

August was rough for various reasons.  I actually had a few really good weeks in spite of it but there was work overtime (with catered food) and camping and one week where I just couldn’t even with any sort of effort for anything.

Here’s the wins – I’m eating much healthier than I was before.  While I still put things in my mouth that are negatives on the Diet Quality scale, I’m eating much more of the things that give me points like more fruits, veggies, whole grains, and nuts.  I’m slowly attacking the fact that I eat like a human garbage disposal on the weekends with strategy (pre-made salads/easy access veggies that are appealing, keeping pistachios like EVERYWHERE so I can eat them as a salty snack, etc).  I started making some progress with the booze calories and then I think my inner child twenty-one year old threw a tantrum with all the other diet cleanup I’m trying to do, so it’s one step forward, two steps back there.

But I think I’m ready to take another step forward, so here’s my goals for September:

Actually measure out the drinks I want to have when I’m home and try to stick to them.  I plan every-effing-thing else, and maybe that’s tipsy-me rebelling against stick-up-her-butt me, but just the act of setting aside a portion helps when I can make myself do it.  Just like taking a serving of chips or ice cream or anything else and having that instead of just allowing yourself to consume from the container, it’s all about portion control.

Continue to work on what I put in my mouth on the weekends.  I have done better with this and I feel like this is starting to be a habit, but definitely needs another month of focus.  I’ve done much better with veggies, but fruits and nuts can get ignored in lieu of junk food and whole grains sometimes become refined.  There’s some room for this but doing better is always a good goal.

Abide by the deficit a little more strictly.  I’ve had a few weeks with a pretty small deficit, and it’s proven that people tend to completely underestimate their consumption when tracking.  So, if I want to make progress here, I need to eat less than I am currently.  I make slow progress when I stay close to -1000 on fitbit (which seems to work out closer to -500/-600 on the garmin).  Hopefully, not going quite as crazy with the 70-100 mile rides will help me not want to eat small cities at mealtimes.

Here’s the numbers from last week.

• Weight: 188.8 (+0.9) lbs
• Avg cal per day: 1839(-743) calories
• Avg deficit per day: 998 (+431) calories/Garmin average deficit: 621 (+454)
• Macros: 58 (-23)g fat, 190 (-54)g carbs, 107 (-2)g protein, 28(+3)g fiber

DQ score: Monday: 26.  Tuesday: 26.  Wednesday: 21. Thursday: 24.  Friday: 25. Saturday: 8.  Sunday: 21.  Average comes out to approximately 21.5 (out of 32).

Overall… better.  The scale is still punishing me for my transgressions over the last two weeks but so far it’s looking better for this month if I can keep myself out of trouble and build up some momentum.

Because I am a data nut, here’s the averages from the last month.

• Weight: 187.3
• Avg cal per day: 2082 calories
• Avg deficit per day: -820 calories (per fitbit, don’t yet have a month of garmin data)
• DQ Score: 20.9.  A whole month on average over 20!  Yessss!

All in all, it’s a decent month although the top number is not going anywhere fast.  My goal is to beat these numbers in September and hopefully see some progress. Also, hopefully with a monthly average, I can actually see WHAT it takes to make that first number drop.

Four usuable rooms people.  The dream is alive! (ignore the dust)

I’m seriously proud of what I have been able to accomplish here.

My big goals were:

• Finish the office to the point where it’s usable (DONE)
• Paint and put everything in the shed that’s supposed to go in the shed (DONE)
• Finish the pain cave to the point where it’s usable (DONE)
• Write 4 first-draft chapters of my book (DONE)
• Read two non-fiction books: How to Start Up and Daring Greatly (first one DONE, second I’m saving for later)

Other little accomplishments:

• Got my e-chart set up for my doctors office which took faxing things and calling people and other adulting.
• Started the inital prepping for our kitchen remodel.
• Made myself sort of a girl again with plucked eyebrows and a self-pedicure
• Saw some movies in the theater that I REALLY wanted to catch instead of whining about it later and saw Rob Schneider at the comedy club.
• Had some friends over for an impromptu smallish game night.
• Successful camping trip to Wichita Falls!

Whew!  I feel awesome about August considering I crashed into it feeling like a train wreck.  Amazing how marking some big things off my to do list, and making a prioritized list by month completely helped my sanity.

So, it’s September!  New month, new list.  Honestly, after the last few months of chores and getting the house in order, I think we deserve a little reprieve from that stuff.  I was getting close to burning it down so we could start over, y’all.  I’m glad I didn’t, and I’m happy it’s done, but it was a pretty close call.  So, we’re focusing elsewhere for the month.

• TWO camping trips.  Since we had to cancel our family trip to Port Aransas because… well… it’s kind of not there anymore… (we’ll try again in the spring) we decided to go to Granger Lake instead for a long weekend to unwind.  We’ve both been rather prickly lately with the last month of craziness and three days in the wilderness without to dos, screens, technology, and frankly, much talking, sounds like the cure.  And then, camping for Kerrville… we’re staying two nights just for a sprint race, so most of the trip is also about chilling out and having fun.
• Office.  Actually using it.  Now that the office is set up, we need to dedicate time to actually working on projects.  Here’s what I’d like to accomplish:
  • Three more chapters in my book.  I’m giving myself a little leeway because I’d like to make some strides in other things (below).  But, if I’m really rolling, I’ll try for one a week again and go for four.
  • Website functionality.  Investigate setting up site subscriptions, and payment options.  I feel like these are the last two things I need to learn to be able to set up a professional looking website.  I may outsource this one to Zliten or at least ask him to help me.
  • Side Gig Plan.  Start thinking about in what manner I would trade little green scraps of paper for things that I do.  What services would I provide?  What are appropriate prices?  What can I offer that can make me passive income (like stock training plans)?  What am I willing to do actively (like coaching a client one on one)?

Other stuff:

• Dr. Appointment to drain my ears.  I’m not doing overtime anymore, so it’s not quite as annoying to get there during business hours and it would be nice to know if my ears are super plugged or my husband just mumbles a lot.
• Two more Non-Fiction books.  One triathlon or memoirs type non-fiction book, and one about business/marketing/etc.  I haven’t picked them out yet – any suggestions? Hit me up in the comments.
• Wills.  This should be fairly easy and cheap to set up online and then my parents will stop bugging me about them.  Also, it’s a good thing to do because I do ride my bike and dive 50 feet underwater and swim in lakes where people beat me up while I’m trying not to drown and I also abide by the 5 second rule liberally so it’s not as if I completely avoid risks in life.

I have a lot of other fun stuff planned too, like hosting game night, going to two others, celebrating some birthdays, and all sorts of other things I’m forgetting right now!

This week’s to do list:

• Try to nail down our kitchen remodel and give someone green papers in exchange for it.
• Identify the 2-3 non fiction books I want to read this month and buy them.  I’ll have a decent amount of reading time on the camping trip so I hope to have them queued up and ready to go!
• Chapter 5.  It’s started, but just barely (about 1k words)  Finish it and start the next if there’s time.  Spend some time doing this in the woods!
• Camping!  This will be trip #3 in the pop up.  Hopefully this one will be easier to pack for and less stressful.
• Wills.  Zliten has already started to look into this, perhaps we can get this one taken care of!

I’m hoping to get all this done, but it may be ambitious with camping.  We’ll see!

PSA: If you’re looking for a way to help with the craziness happening in the Houston area, we sent some supplies on Amazon.  I liked this option because I know 100% of what I paid for this went directly to something that was needed in shelters.  Consider this option if you have a few $$ to toss their way and don’t know what to do.