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<\/p>\nHooooly crap guys, life is up to 11 lately.\u00a0 I’d say I’m looking forward to vacation (because I AM SO MUCH), but I think it’s just going to be a lot of EPIC DOINGS there too.\u00a0 Ahhhhhhh, I love it.\u00a0 I may have had a major freakout on Friday and hid in bed for a few hours (and in the process missed a lovely day for a bike ride), but I realized a bit later it was just a product of some misunderstood PMS and got over it quickly, and then had a pretty damn cool weekend.<\/p>\n
Scuba Certification:<\/p>\n
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Back for more.\u00a0 We were sun-happy, washing out our equipment in the driveway, excited to be newly certified, and our neighbor, a seasoned scuba diver, came to talk to us.\u00a0 He said our noob certification would probably make the divemasters not let us pair up together since we were so inexperienced, and really, what’s fun about not getting to do this new fun thing you spent a lot of money and time training for with your hubbs (it’s like when they made us dance with other people, I came to learn to dance with HIM, not people :P)?\u00a0 So, we decided to knock out the advanced class before vacation.\u00a0 This meant another 500$ in fees, and more schoolwork.\u00a0 At least we got a month to do this instead of 4 days.<\/p>\n
This class was so much fun.\u00a0 There was no classroom – we went over the book work on the boat.\u00a0 Related, we got to spend the majority of the weekend on a boat, which made my fishie self super happy.<\/p>\n
After the book work, we did 5 dives – the first one worked on being better at buoyancy – which I actually kind of sucked at because I wasn’t weighted properly.\u00a0 And I had a LOT of weight.\u00a0 Let me tell you, I think I finally succeeded in taking a little bit of poundage off in March after feeling what extra weight felt like.\u00a0 Sadly though, it wasn’t enough and once my tank got lighter from air use, I just keep bubbling up to the surface.\u00a0 The instructor thought I wasn’t using my BCD (buoyancy control device) properly, but on the next dive, I was validated because I put in more weight, and I was just fine the rest of the time.<\/p>\n
The second one, which I was the most scared of, was the underwater navigator dive.\u00a0 Me + compass = not friends.\u00a0 Folks, north is the way I’m facing unless I really really think hard about it.\u00a0 However, I ROCKED the out and back part, and made a perfect square.\u00a0 My navigationally inclined Zliten?\u00a0 Missed it.\u00a0 He forgot to count and ended up lopsided.\u00a0 Probably the only time ever I’ll beat him in something involved with a map, but hey, I’ll take it.\u00a0 I was also taught the “nestea plunge” entry, and if at all possible, it is the only way I’ll get in the water because it’s just so freaking fun.<\/p>\n
The last dive Saturday was a boat dive.\u00a0 Technically, they were all boat dives, but on this one, they let us go out on our own.\u00a0 We hugged the wall and checked out the little grottos and saw a sleeping (I say sleeping, Zliten said dead – but it was perfectly preserved).\u00a0 We got down to 60 feet at one point!<\/p>\n
Sunday, the storm was rolling in, so we got an early start and got to business.\u00a0 First up was our deep dive, he took us to 80+ feet at the bottom of the lake, and around 60, light started to get really dim so we switched on our dive lights, and also around there, I started to sink like a rock so I had to put a bunch of air in my BCD (the further you go down, the easier it is to sink, the further up you come, the easier it is to float).\u00a0 We finally touched bottom and got reoriented – it was super dark.\u00a0 I thought I might freak out but I just got… calm.\u00a0 I really enjoyed the peaceful feeling down there.\u00a0 Life was good.<\/p>\n
Our last dive was a wreck dive.\u00a0 There was a sunken houseboat and a pecan tree that we checked out, and then the instructor left to prep the boat and left us to enjoy the rest of our air tanks\/time\/etc.\u00a0 We swam around and checked out each crevice and nook and happened on a bunch of fish and I kinda connected with one (we bonded).\u00a0 After my air dropped under 900, we went up, boarded our vessel, and got back to shore just as the weather started to turn sour.<\/p>\n
So, so, so much fun.\u00a0 I can’t wait to dive in gorgeous blue ocean this month.<\/p>\n
Training:<\/p>\n
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Hi, my name is Quix, and I am a huge slacker.<\/p>\n
Since I rarely am, I decided I was fine with it.\u00a0\u00a0 I did Monday and Tuesday’s easy work as planned, but then Wednesday showed up and I was so unmotivated to hit the gym\/pool we skipped it.\u00a0 Then, I had a freakout about life in general and hid in bed and didn’t get out to ride on Friday.\u00a0 So – I swam once, did weights once, and ran for an hour (and hauled a bunch of scuba shit 3 days and, well, scuba’d).<\/p>\n
I was worried when I was still totally unenthused on Monday, but as soon as I hit the gym and got a dose of swim endorphins, I was happy girl again.\u00a0 So, I’m good. Ready for build month #3.\u00a0 Pile it on!<\/p>\n
Food:<\/strong><\/p>\n I did pretty great this week – no crazy high days, appetite in check.\u00a0 Scuba makes me want SALT and SUGAR.\u00a0 And usually, I want sugar and fruit does it, and for salt, I’m good with nuts\/veggies\/etc – but nope, I was craving junk food.\u00a0 Totally weird.<\/p>\n However, I can’t complain.\u00a0 I hit a low of 182.2 this week, which is nice, and my normal 2 week spiral of weight gain for TOM and weekend bloat didn’t happen because, well, something is clicking.\u00a0 It’s sloooooow going, but at least it’s going in the right direction.\u00a0 While I’d like to be more at about a lb a week, if I can take 2 lbs off per month, I’ll take it.<\/p>\n While I am still eating good food with a pretty high diet quality (in the book, they were saying the 20s is like, great eating and on an average day, that’s where I’m at) – I’ve definitely decided that calories are king.\u00a0 For some people, they can eat their fill of good, healthy food, and it will automatically adjust their weight to where it naturally should be.\u00a0 I just need to accept that I am not one of those people.<\/p>\n If you put a bag of carrots in front of me, I might eat the whole thing.\u00a0 I’ll probably be much more careful if you put junk food there and abide by the servings.\u00a0 The carrots, to me, are a license to eat as much as I want.\u00a0 If you put me in a room with only healthy food I liked, and said eat your fill, I would probably still overeat.\u00a0 The good news is that I love healthy food.\u00a0 The bad news is that I love healthy food so much, I can’t just improve my diet quality.<\/p>\n So it comes back full circle.\u00a0 To lose weight, I must count calories.\u00a0 So now really, to lose weight in a healthy way which doesn’t impact my training, I need to make sure and keep that DQ score high and those calories low.<\/p>\n I’ve also made a decision that while I am loving my trend towards vegan, it’s too much for me to deal with 24\/7.\u00a0 I’m getting sick of beans, and I refuse to make chick’n or soy or tempeh a staple of my diet.\u00a0 While I will maintain that I believe that I operate best on lotsa fruits and veggies, some grains\/starches, and a little meat and dairy and nuts, I think that my body likes some animal\/fish protein once a day or so.<\/p>\n Oddly enough, there were some days I was getting more protein as a non-meat eater than when I ate meat.\u00a0 It’s definitely possible to get adequate protein without meat.\u00a0 I just don’t think a 100% veggie or vegan life is for me.<\/p>\n This weekend, I’m going to try to keep it under control while camping (though I have planned for some vodka and one key lime smore), and be crazy active (run, bike, swim, hike, kayak, etc) and then eat like an angel in prep for the vacay.<\/p>\n Monday: 28 DQs, 1501 calories Average DQs: 20<\/p>\n Average Calories: 1748 calories in, estimating 2142 calories burnt per day, ~400 deficit per day, so about 3\/4 lb.<\/p>\n Weight range last week: 182.4 to 186.6 (trending down)<\/p>\n Random things:<\/p>\n -I got a filling done, and have to go back in 2 weeks to get a permanent crown and one more filling.\u00a0 Boo, teeth.<\/p>\n -Since Zliten was working overtime, he was getting up early to go to work, which got me up early.\u00a0 Since there was really no point in me getting to work early, and I had to wait for him to be available to train, I ended up having some nice early productive mornings, but felt all weird and out of sorts.\u00a0 I’m not used to doing anything but getting up and rushing somewhere.<\/p>\n -I like running after work.\u00a0 Sunset runs are nice.\u00a0 They are also very rare because it’s either too dark or too hot, you get a month or two in spring and then a month MAYBE in fall.\u00a0 One last week, one this week.\u00a0\u00a0 Love.<\/p>\n -Chocolate muscle milk + frozen cherries\/strawberries\/raspberries + blender = best healthy desert ever.<\/p>\n -Got to have a game night with an offshoot group of our normal table top roll playing group (dorky stuff here).\u00a0 We created our characters and sat around and discussed the story to come.\u00a0 Kinda scary, we’re going to take turns telling the story and I’ve never done that before.<\/p>\n And on that note, now that I’ve recapped, I’ll get on with my week… which has about an hour and a half left until the weekend.\u00a0 Oops!<\/p>\n Question of the week: What’s the one thing in your diet you’d be most reluctant to give up completely?\u00a0 Meat? Carbs? Veggies? Sweets? Chocolate?<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net\/hphotos-ash3\/480016_553503138028018_1044792360_n.jpg\")
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\nTuesday: 26 DQs, 1742 calories
\nWednesday: 23 DQs, 1627 calories
\nThursday: 19 DQs, 2017 calories
\nFriday: 23 DQs, 1724 calories
\nSaturday: 14 DQs, 1608 calories
\nSunday: 7 DQs, 2023 calories<\/p>\n