I am a control freak. It's no secret nor is it some earth-shattering revelation. But I'm learning to recognize situations where I can't control losing control. Like this week, for example. I've just started a protracted training schedule for a half marathon that I only have ten weeks to prepare for and can't afford to slack on. AT ALL. I've finally found a cross-training cardio workout that I enjoy enough that I want to get out of bed for in the morning - on the weekend even. And what happens? I come down with a stomach bug.
It started Monday afternoon and instead of getting to go to my Monday night gym class, I writhed in pain on the couch all night. I suffered all day Tuesday. Even more horrid because Tuesday was the Utah Pioneer Day holiday and I had the entire day off to fit my run into at leisure. I was so sick that I laid around all morning so I could muster the strength to smiled through the pain long enough to hang out with the neighbors for a few hours. No run for me that day. I had a full day of meetings in the office on Wednesday and powered through them all, visually suffering enough that my co-workers told me repeatedly that I should go home. Thank god for work from home Thursdays that I spent on the couch. I'm almost feeling back to normal today with only a few minor abdominal pains remaining. I woke up with high hopes that I could run. Packed my gym back and dragged it with me to work this morning and everything. But, alas, did not feel up for it still this afternoon.
The control freak in me is seriously freaking out that I cannot afford to lose an entire week of training. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND - AN ENTIRE WEEK! The zen girl who is starting to emerge at random times has her by the throat shouting "suck it up, bitch and go with the flow. It is what it is!" I like to call that zen girl, my inner runner. The one who exists now only because I run. What an oxymoron. My inner runner telling my inner control freak to quick freaking out that I can't run... Wrap your brain around that one!
Friday, July 27, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
A pause to reset
What's the best thing when you're in a funk with a broken give-a-damn? A ten-day vacation where most of the time you are off the grid and completely unplugged from everyday life. Hubby and I took the girls to Montana for the Fourth of July holiday. It was exactly what I needed and started the process of returning to my old new self. After four days of river rafting, a day of boating and a whole lot of relaxing I was almost back to feeling normal again.
When we got back, I committed myself to training for a half-marathon in the fall. My thought process is that if I don't have anything looming that could kill me without training, I won't force myself to train. There are a couple in the Sept/October time frame that look likeI could do them fun so I counted the weeks between now and then. (So I'd know the last possible minute I could hold off training and still have enough time.) The first one is only 10 weeks away. That is not a lot of time considering most half-marathon training plans are 12 weeks. YIKES! So, I started looking at training programs and getting my mind focused on regular running again. Since I haven't run a step - unless you count that sprint in the rain from the store to the car - since Ragnar a month ago.
Meanwhile, I have a good friend who recently joined the same gym I go to. She has a completely different schedule as me so she goes during the day and I'm an evenings and weekend girl - when I have time to go. We were talking and comparing gym stories. She's a group fitness girl, I'm a loner. She has a favorite class and I love yoga - which is the only group fitness I do - which both occur on Saturday mornings. That's the one day a week we could both go. I told her I'd try out hydro training if she'd go with me to yoga and try it. Our schedules finally lined up yesterday to allow a 4-hour trip to the gym so we did it. I got up at 7:00 - that's AM! - and was at the gym in the pool by 8:00. Guess what? I LOVE Hydro Training. It is basically hard core aerobic circuit training in the pool. And according to the instructor will never make me have sore muscles because the lactic acid doesn't have a chance to build up since the movement of the water massages it away. Amazing. I have found my favorite cross-training activity! After class, we warmed up in the hot tub then dried off in the sauna and changed into regular workout clothes for 75 minutes of yoga. It was heated yoga, which I've never done before, and it was the hardest yoga I've ever done. Nor have I ever sweat that much before. You know it's a workout when you have a little puddle of sweat on the floor in front of your mat AND you are sliding around in sweat where your feet go. I should have paid attention to everyone with towels on the top and bottom of their mats... Three hours of hard-core exercise later, I had magically started to feel back to myself.
Today I have deliciously sore muscles - I'm sure from the yoga - where every movement comes with a twinge of soreness reminding me of all my hard work. I basked in the glow of that feeling while mapping out my new workout schedule which hopefully will mesh better with Big Sister's new dance schedule we got yesterday after try-outs. Four days of running, two days of cross training hydro style and a day of rest. Only one day will be a bitch to try and fit this all into but even if one run a week doesn't happen and the rest does I'll be ready in twelve weeks for another half. I do believe my give-a-damn is officially fixed!
When we got back, I committed myself to training for a half-marathon in the fall. My thought process is that if I don't have anything looming that could kill me without training, I won't force myself to train. There are a couple in the Sept/October time frame that look like
Meanwhile, I have a good friend who recently joined the same gym I go to. She has a completely different schedule as me so she goes during the day and I'm an evenings and weekend girl - when I have time to go. We were talking and comparing gym stories. She's a group fitness girl, I'm a loner. She has a favorite class and I love yoga - which is the only group fitness I do - which both occur on Saturday mornings. That's the one day a week we could both go. I told her I'd try out hydro training if she'd go with me to yoga and try it. Our schedules finally lined up yesterday to allow a 4-hour trip to the gym so we did it. I got up at 7:00 - that's AM! - and was at the gym in the pool by 8:00. Guess what? I LOVE Hydro Training. It is basically hard core aerobic circuit training in the pool. And according to the instructor will never make me have sore muscles because the lactic acid doesn't have a chance to build up since the movement of the water massages it away. Amazing. I have found my favorite cross-training activity! After class, we warmed up in the hot tub then dried off in the sauna and changed into regular workout clothes for 75 minutes of yoga. It was heated yoga, which I've never done before, and it was the hardest yoga I've ever done. Nor have I ever sweat that much before. You know it's a workout when you have a little puddle of sweat on the floor in front of your mat AND you are sliding around in sweat where your feet go. I should have paid attention to everyone with towels on the top and bottom of their mats... Three hours of hard-core exercise later, I had magically started to feel back to myself.
Today I have deliciously sore muscles - I'm sure from the yoga - where every movement comes with a twinge of soreness reminding me of all my hard work. I basked in the glow of that feeling while mapping out my new workout schedule which hopefully will mesh better with Big Sister's new dance schedule we got yesterday after try-outs. Four days of running, two days of cross training hydro style and a day of rest. Only one day will be a bitch to try and fit this all into but even if one run a week doesn't happen and the rest does I'll be ready in twelve weeks for another half. I do believe my give-a-damn is officially fixed!
Friday, June 22, 2012
It was wonderful and it was horrible
I survived - and finished - Ragnar Wasatch Back relay 2012. It was amazing and wonderful on one hand, and on the other it was terrible and horrible.
The amazing and wonderful came from all the things that weren't running - with the exception of the first half of my run in the middle of the night. Hubby and I hand-picked our van-mates after having experienced the difference between a Ragnar with new friends you get to know better and a van full of old friends. Hubby got hurt in late January and could not train so he bowed out a couple of months before race day. His substitution - who we met on our Vegas team last year - luckily was as cool as he is and fit in perfectly with the vibe in the van. It was a weekend full of laughing until our abs hurt - and laughing even more when we wondered why our abs hurt so badly. A weekend full of my favorite word (you know, the one that starts with F and ends in uck!) spoken freely from everyone and thus no need to filter from my own mouth. A weekend full of judging. And whores. I could tell you more, but what happens on Ragnar stays on Ragnar.
The terrible and horrible part sums up having to run in extreme heat when I hadn't trained properly at all. I'm still a hormonally imbalanced mental and emotional wreck who is carrying around an extra 10-15 pounds thanks to my injury last fall and the cursed birth control I'm still stuck on. (Seriously, what's the deal with men getting all freaked about letting a doctor cut open their junk and sterilize them?) My broken give-a-damn had me down to barely running the couple of weeks before race day and it all combined with the extreme heat for a perfect storm of horrible. We had an injury in the other van and trades happening in our van to make sure we were better positioned for the right runner on the right legs. It was hard not to be discouraged about being one of the two non-ultra runners in our van but I was in that category with one of my best friends. We kept each others spirits up while the other four of our van-mates ran circles around us. I like to think it was just sheer brilliance on my part that I stacked the van with the best runners I know who could get us up and over the most narly hill Ragnar has to offer anywhere but comparing yourself to others is so innate... The fact that there was someone capable of running the last three miles of my last run rather than make me suffer in the heat and push the entire team even further behind our scheduled finish was sheer genius on my part, right?
Looking back on the whole experience I am once again amazed at what I did when, in the moment, I didn't think I could do any of it. I finished with my first daytime/heat/miserable run and thought 'I'm done, let's just go home'. Then my night run was in a canyon where I had spotty GPS signal so I used my UN-calibrated Nike+ iPod sensor which I luckily just always have on my running shoes. Brilliant - or so I thought until I figured out it was feeding me such inaccurate data that I'd pushed myself too hard and too fast in the beginning to have enough left to finish strong. The first five miles were blissful - middle of the night, cold enough I could see my breath puffing out in the light of my headlamp, DOWNHILL on a canyon road, the moon rising over the mountains. The last two miles of that run were so hard and ended with me limping into the exchange cursing with every step - literally. I'm pretty sure I completely ruined the innocence of that volunteer I ran past. After that, I knew there was no way I could run again and started to worry and fret about how I was going to have to walk my entire third run - the hardest of my three because it was all uphill. But guess what, when it was time to run again after having caught maybe two hours of sleep in little cat-nap snippets, I ran! If it hadn't been so hot, I would have run that whole leg. That fact still amazes me. Maybe that's what Ragnar is really about - pushing yourself beyond what you think you are capable of and finding that you're capable of so much more than you thought you were.
Registration for next year's race is already open and I promised Hubby we would not register a team for next year - which freaks me out whenever I think about it. But never fear, we are still going to be Ragnarians. Hubby and I decided to compromise. We will do Wasatch Back every other year and do another somewhere else on the off-years. Next year we're planning on Northwest Passage in the Seattle area. It might be my favorite race since the average temp for the area on race weekend is low 70's - at sea level even. Still hot but not hell-hot. Why can't they do a Ragnar somewhere when it's only 50-60 degrees? Now THAT would rock!!
Next up: fixing my give-a-damn so I can talk myself into another half marathon in the next year. After all if you don't have something to train for, it's harder to keep pushing yourself past your comfort zone.
The amazing and wonderful came from all the things that weren't running - with the exception of the first half of my run in the middle of the night. Hubby and I hand-picked our van-mates after having experienced the difference between a Ragnar with new friends you get to know better and a van full of old friends. Hubby got hurt in late January and could not train so he bowed out a couple of months before race day. His substitution - who we met on our Vegas team last year - luckily was as cool as he is and fit in perfectly with the vibe in the van. It was a weekend full of laughing until our abs hurt - and laughing even more when we wondered why our abs hurt so badly. A weekend full of my favorite word (you know, the one that starts with F and ends in uck!) spoken freely from everyone and thus no need to filter from my own mouth. A weekend full of judging. And whores. I could tell you more, but what happens on Ragnar stays on Ragnar.
The terrible and horrible part sums up having to run in extreme heat when I hadn't trained properly at all. I'm still a hormonally imbalanced mental and emotional wreck who is carrying around an extra 10-15 pounds thanks to my injury last fall and the cursed birth control I'm still stuck on. (Seriously, what's the deal with men getting all freaked about letting a doctor cut open their junk and sterilize them?) My broken give-a-damn had me down to barely running the couple of weeks before race day and it all combined with the extreme heat for a perfect storm of horrible. We had an injury in the other van and trades happening in our van to make sure we were better positioned for the right runner on the right legs. It was hard not to be discouraged about being one of the two non-ultra runners in our van but I was in that category with one of my best friends. We kept each others spirits up while the other four of our van-mates ran circles around us. I like to think it was just sheer brilliance on my part that I stacked the van with the best runners I know who could get us up and over the most narly hill Ragnar has to offer anywhere but comparing yourself to others is so innate... The fact that there was someone capable of running the last three miles of my last run rather than make me suffer in the heat and push the entire team even further behind our scheduled finish was sheer genius on my part, right?
Looking back on the whole experience I am once again amazed at what I did when, in the moment, I didn't think I could do any of it. I finished with my first daytime/heat/miserable run and thought 'I'm done, let's just go home'. Then my night run was in a canyon where I had spotty GPS signal so I used my UN-calibrated Nike+ iPod sensor which I luckily just always have on my running shoes. Brilliant - or so I thought until I figured out it was feeding me such inaccurate data that I'd pushed myself too hard and too fast in the beginning to have enough left to finish strong. The first five miles were blissful - middle of the night, cold enough I could see my breath puffing out in the light of my headlamp, DOWNHILL on a canyon road, the moon rising over the mountains. The last two miles of that run were so hard and ended with me limping into the exchange cursing with every step - literally. I'm pretty sure I completely ruined the innocence of that volunteer I ran past. After that, I knew there was no way I could run again and started to worry and fret about how I was going to have to walk my entire third run - the hardest of my three because it was all uphill. But guess what, when it was time to run again after having caught maybe two hours of sleep in little cat-nap snippets, I ran! If it hadn't been so hot, I would have run that whole leg. That fact still amazes me. Maybe that's what Ragnar is really about - pushing yourself beyond what you think you are capable of and finding that you're capable of so much more than you thought you were.
Registration for next year's race is already open and I promised Hubby we would not register a team for next year - which freaks me out whenever I think about it. But never fear, we are still going to be Ragnarians. Hubby and I decided to compromise. We will do Wasatch Back every other year and do another somewhere else on the off-years. Next year we're planning on Northwest Passage in the Seattle area. It might be my favorite race since the average temp for the area on race weekend is low 70's - at sea level even. Still hot but not hell-hot. Why can't they do a Ragnar somewhere when it's only 50-60 degrees? Now THAT would rock!!
Next up: fixing my give-a-damn so I can talk myself into another half marathon in the next year. After all if you don't have something to train for, it's harder to keep pushing yourself past your comfort zone.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Ragnar approaches
Ragnar is a week from today. As I look back on how different I felt this time last year it is hard not to post about it.
Last year I was a brand new Ragnarian who had no idea what to expect who had trained hard - pushing through injury which I had no idea would impact my life so greatly a year later. This year I breezed through logistics planning for my team with ease - thanks of course to my handy dandy spreadsheet I could re-use from last year! I attended the Captain's meeting last night and smiled sweetly at all the newbies furiously taking notes, because they were now the ones with no idea what lay ahead of them, and chuckled about being in their shoes last year. Last year I had obsessed about buying the right gear weeks before, this year I haven't even started to worry about what I need to buy except briefly in passing a couple of times. Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend, huh?
Two major things are weighing on me. Training and temperatures.
Last year I was in great shape having just finished my first half marathon a few months prior to starting Ragnar training and averaged twenty five miles a week until race weekend. This year, I was barely able to run a mile straight when training started because of my injury - caused of course from training so hard the year before for two Ragnars and ignoring the plantar fasciitis I had going on. Plus, I have a two year old and what seems like a crazier schedule this year with Big Sister's dance which impacted my training time severely. I haven't come close to the distances I was running last year and although I've been following the beginner training plan laid out by Ragnar I fear I am not prepared enough for all the running I'll be doing on race day. I guess we'll see next weekend how ready I am! Hopefully I'm just being too hard on the comparison between where I was last year and hating how far back injury pushed me from there.
Last year it was unseasonably cold in Utah and there were still mountain passes covered in snow that the course had to be rerouted around. This year it's hot. As in we've broken heat records in the past week.
(I've expressed my hatred of running in the heat before, right?)
Yesterday I ran three and a half miles in late afternoon heat (it was seventy degrees out I believe) and ended up with heat stroke. About four hours post run I had the worst headache and was nauseated for hours. Today I did some research - which means I asked a fellow outdoor enthusiast who trains in the heat - and found out both symptoms can be caused by heat stroke. Great... the heat index is predicted to be ninety six for next weekend. NINETY. SIX. Two of my runs are anticipated to be in the heat of the afternoon.
I'm trying hard not to panic.
Last year I was a brand new Ragnarian who had no idea what to expect who had trained hard - pushing through injury which I had no idea would impact my life so greatly a year later. This year I breezed through logistics planning for my team with ease - thanks of course to my handy dandy spreadsheet I could re-use from last year! I attended the Captain's meeting last night and smiled sweetly at all the newbies furiously taking notes, because they were now the ones with no idea what lay ahead of them, and chuckled about being in their shoes last year. Last year I had obsessed about buying the right gear weeks before, this year I haven't even started to worry about what I need to buy except briefly in passing a couple of times. Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend, huh?
Two major things are weighing on me. Training and temperatures.
Last year I was in great shape having just finished my first half marathon a few months prior to starting Ragnar training and averaged twenty five miles a week until race weekend. This year, I was barely able to run a mile straight when training started because of my injury - caused of course from training so hard the year before for two Ragnars and ignoring the plantar fasciitis I had going on. Plus, I have a two year old and what seems like a crazier schedule this year with Big Sister's dance which impacted my training time severely. I haven't come close to the distances I was running last year and although I've been following the beginner training plan laid out by Ragnar I fear I am not prepared enough for all the running I'll be doing on race day. I guess we'll see next weekend how ready I am! Hopefully I'm just being too hard on the comparison between where I was last year and hating how far back injury pushed me from there.
Last year it was unseasonably cold in Utah and there were still mountain passes covered in snow that the course had to be rerouted around. This year it's hot. As in we've broken heat records in the past week.
(I've expressed my hatred of running in the heat before, right?)
Yesterday I ran three and a half miles in late afternoon heat (it was seventy degrees out I believe) and ended up with heat stroke. About four hours post run I had the worst headache and was nauseated for hours. Today I did some research - which means I asked a fellow outdoor enthusiast who trains in the heat - and found out both symptoms can be caused by heat stroke. Great... the heat index is predicted to be ninety six for next weekend. NINETY. SIX. Two of my runs are anticipated to be in the heat of the afternoon.
I'm trying hard not to panic.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Root Cause
I can't keep kidding myself that I'm merely "in a funk" - my give-a-damn is full on broken and for the life of me I couldn't figure out exactly why. Until yesterday.
Root cause is a buzz word I've heard thrown around the I.T. industry for at least a handful of years - coined by someone who I'm sure copyrighted it and is making tons of money just by my referring to it here in some way. Basically it means that every problem can be traced back to the very beginning of any chain reaction where you can find the very first thing that happened to set things in motion. Once you understand the root cause of an issue, you then know how to fix it at the most basic level. See, fancy name for a pretty simple concept.
I don't hide that I am a problem-solver with OCD tendencies in every aspect of my life. Remember, I'm the one who has a spreadsheet to plan Thanksgiving dinner to the Nth degree of minutia. (Although in my defense my sister's spreadsheet is even bigger and better than mine...) So it might surprise you that it took me several months to even put my finger on the fact that I had an issue that needed to be solved.
So what, you ask, is my problem? I am losing my mind.
There. I said it.
Here's a few items of proof illustrating just how bad it is:
It has all been building slowly over the last couple of months. The fact that it did sneak up on me slowly probably explains why I didn't notice it. This past weekend it came to a head - filled with crazy and ready to burst. Like the big zit on the neck of the kid sitting in front of you in 9th grade English. So big you could see it stretching beyond the containment limits so far you were worried it would burst and spurt right at you while you watched and wondered why the kid couldn't see it himself to take care of the thing. It was that kind of coming to a head.
I knew something was super wrong with me when I let an entire weekend slip by - one with an extra day in it for the holiday - and I didn't go for a single run. Me, who used to wake up and first thing to pop in my head was planning when I'd get to run that day. Me, who has a Ragnar to run in less than three weeks. I let four days slip by without a run and at least two distinct times consciously decided to skip it and "do it tomorrow instead" with no solid plan as to when I'd have time to fit it in. The thought had even occurred to me that I could be suffering from some sort of depression since it was so unexplainable otherwise. Pretty damn scary especially for this girl who has always had everything under control. I feel like I can't cope with day to day life anymore.
I was talking to a handful of women I work with yesterday and the subject of permanent sterilization versus birth control options came up. Several have or have had IUDs, a couple have taken more permanent sterilization measures either on their own or their husbands. One just went off all birth control so she could get pregnant again. And then there were two of us who had just recently switched from an IUD and started back on the good old 'pill'. Yours truly fits into this particular category. (Oopsie, forgot the disclaimer that we were going to be talking uterus and all things related!) As the other girl currently taking the pill was describing how crazy she has been the last couple of months and why she hates taking the pill because of it, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like she had been living inside my skull because she had just defined everything about how I'd been feeling but until now had been unable to articulate.
And then everything clicked into place. With a big shiny spotlight pointed directly at the root cause I hadn't even consciously been looking for. (Queue hallelujah chorus.) I looked back through my blog posts and found that everything suddenly changed in late January - when I'd started on the damn pill. God I miss my IUD and wish it didn't cost $900 to replace it... but this isn't a blog post about the ridiculous cost of healthcare or the pitfalls of having high-deductible insurance coverage so we won't go there.
Just the knowledge that I know why I feel crazy and helpless and lethargic all the time gives me hope and has me excited to take control of my life back. First thing first: I MUST find a different form of birth control. Immediately! Then, once I feel like myself again mentally, maybe I can finally shed the last ten pounds from my injury-induced weight gain that even though I've been running again and eating right won't budge from my hips and - what do you know - can also be explained by that goddamn pill.
I'm hopeful now and looking forward to getting back to normal...
Root cause is a buzz word I've heard thrown around the I.T. industry for at least a handful of years - coined by someone who I'm sure copyrighted it and is making tons of money just by my referring to it here in some way. Basically it means that every problem can be traced back to the very beginning of any chain reaction where you can find the very first thing that happened to set things in motion. Once you understand the root cause of an issue, you then know how to fix it at the most basic level. See, fancy name for a pretty simple concept.
I don't hide that I am a problem-solver with OCD tendencies in every aspect of my life. Remember, I'm the one who has a spreadsheet to plan Thanksgiving dinner to the Nth degree of minutia. (Although in my defense my sister's spreadsheet is even bigger and better than mine...) So it might surprise you that it took me several months to even put my finger on the fact that I had an issue that needed to be solved.
So what, you ask, is my problem? I am losing my mind.
There. I said it.
Here's a few items of proof illustrating just how bad it is:
- I say things that come out of my mouth followed by me immediately wondering where the hell the comment came from.
- I am short (and sometimes borderline mean) to my kids. I've become the mom who yells - and swears - all the time.
- I have zero patience with Hubby. Well, everyone, really.
- I'm a totally raging bitch basically every day. And I don't mean bitch in a positive way this time, either.
- I have zero ambition or drive to push myself in anything - whether it's writing or running or just getting the dishes done at night.
- I have constant cravings to eat junk food and find myself standing in front of the pantry without memory of how I got there. (Luckily I've had enough will power to not buy junk so there's nothing I actually find...)
- And inside my head where it's just me, I don't fundamentally feel like me anymore.
It has all been building slowly over the last couple of months. The fact that it did sneak up on me slowly probably explains why I didn't notice it. This past weekend it came to a head - filled with crazy and ready to burst. Like the big zit on the neck of the kid sitting in front of you in 9th grade English. So big you could see it stretching beyond the containment limits so far you were worried it would burst and spurt right at you while you watched and wondered why the kid couldn't see it himself to take care of the thing. It was that kind of coming to a head.
I knew something was super wrong with me when I let an entire weekend slip by - one with an extra day in it for the holiday - and I didn't go for a single run. Me, who used to wake up and first thing to pop in my head was planning when I'd get to run that day. Me, who has a Ragnar to run in less than three weeks. I let four days slip by without a run and at least two distinct times consciously decided to skip it and "do it tomorrow instead" with no solid plan as to when I'd have time to fit it in. The thought had even occurred to me that I could be suffering from some sort of depression since it was so unexplainable otherwise. Pretty damn scary especially for this girl who has always had everything under control. I feel like I can't cope with day to day life anymore.
I was talking to a handful of women I work with yesterday and the subject of permanent sterilization versus birth control options came up. Several have or have had IUDs, a couple have taken more permanent sterilization measures either on their own or their husbands. One just went off all birth control so she could get pregnant again. And then there were two of us who had just recently switched from an IUD and started back on the good old 'pill'. Yours truly fits into this particular category. (Oopsie, forgot the disclaimer that we were going to be talking uterus and all things related!) As the other girl currently taking the pill was describing how crazy she has been the last couple of months and why she hates taking the pill because of it, it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like she had been living inside my skull because she had just defined everything about how I'd been feeling but until now had been unable to articulate.
And then everything clicked into place. With a big shiny spotlight pointed directly at the root cause I hadn't even consciously been looking for. (Queue hallelujah chorus.) I looked back through my blog posts and found that everything suddenly changed in late January - when I'd started on the damn pill. God I miss my IUD and wish it didn't cost $900 to replace it... but this isn't a blog post about the ridiculous cost of healthcare or the pitfalls of having high-deductible insurance coverage so we won't go there.
Just the knowledge that I know why I feel crazy and helpless and lethargic all the time gives me hope and has me excited to take control of my life back. First thing first: I MUST find a different form of birth control. Immediately! Then, once I feel like myself again mentally, maybe I can finally shed the last ten pounds from my injury-induced weight gain that even though I've been running again and eating right won't budge from my hips and - what do you know - can also be explained by that goddamn pill.
I'm hopeful now and looking forward to getting back to normal...
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Myth busting
Ever heard someone say it is so much harder and more time consuming to cook dinner every night? Or that eating healthy costs so much more money? Or that wearing special shoes or taking a miracle pill will help you tone your body and lose weight? Well today I'm putting on my myth-buster hat and tackling all of these.
We'll start with "it's so much easier to pick up fast food on your way home from work rather than cook dinner" with a peek into a day of my life. This particular day was crazier than most. I headed off to work in the morning leaving Baby Sister with her nanny after scooting Big Sister out the door to walk to school. (Yes, my kid walks to school - shouldn't every kid?) I worked a typical day except that I had to leave a couple of hours early since Big Sister's dance studio decided once again to conduct business as if none of the dance moms actually work outside the home. Meaning specifically that she had to be in full hair and make-up and across town by 4:30 for the annual team photo shoot. Awesome, since I don't usually get off work until 5:30.
I left the office at 3:00, rushed home while project managing Big Sister's efforts from the phone in the car, and did the fastest make-up and hair I think I've ever done including ringlets. Big Sister has stick straight and super thick hair - I love that she did not get my curls except for when she wants curly hair and it becomes a chore. Thank god for my Chi and my ability to use it for creating curls in addition to it's straightening properties. Of course Murphy was alive and well since the shirt I'd bought her the night before was too big through the chest when she put it on. I had to get creative with safety pins because I didn't have time to whip out the sewing machine to take in the sides. We left the house only ten minutes behind schedule leaving Baby Sister with Daddy and hoping they were correct that the shoot would only take an hour. Pictures were fabulous and we were headed back across town by 5:30 now hoping traffic wasn't too bad.
This was also the night of our first neighborhood walk-about which we never miss. During warm weather months, two or three different families host little block party gatherings so that everyone can wander around and mingle with each other, catch up on gossip and meet any new people who have moved in. It started at 6:30.
Here's where the myth comes in. Considering I only had an hour to drive across town, feed my kids dinner and head out to the next activity, society would say I had to pick up either burgers or a $5 Hot n' Ready pizza on my way home. But NO! Instead I went straight home, browned up some ground turkey, made it into taco meat and served my kids taco's. Well, Big Sister prefers to eat her taco fixin's atop corn chips instead of in the crunchy shells and Baby Sister prefers little individual piles of cheese and meat, etc to eat as finger foods so basically, I ate tacos. The point is, it took me no more time than it would have to sit in the long ass line I passed at the Wendy's as I drove by. Not to mention how much healthier my choice of meals was by comparison. Plus, now I have an extra pound of taco meat in my fridge to eat left-overs in the next couple of days when I'm in an even tighter pinch for dinner - say tonight when Big Sister has to be at the dance studio by 6:30.
I cook ninety-five percent of the time at home. It isn't always quick and easy but it is always better than anything else I could feed my family. The extra effort this activity requires is actually on the front end when you're doing your grocery shopping. I usually have the basics on hand like spaghetti (I make my own amazing and authentic sauce) or homemade macaroni and cheese (that actually uses cheese and milk instead of powdery blobs of orange chemical concoctions you get in the box). Then I mix things up with a few preplanned meals in mind for the week. We always have tons of fresh fruit in the house and the crisper drawer is always full of veggies. With a little creativity I can throw together many a meal just by opening the refrigerator - even if I don't know exactly what's for dinner before I walk in the door from work.
It makes me wonder who exactly "they" are that says it is so much easier to buy crap from a fast-food joint and eat out of a bag every night. Probably the people marketing the crap in a bag from all those different places who only care about their bottom line. And let's talk about cost! I can feed my family of four for an entire week buying the ingredients to cook my own meals on less than what it would cost to eat out just one meal a day for that same week. This is based on fact since we had way more money left over at the end of the month once we started eating in versus when we were subscribing to the marketing ploys. This was also before I'd pulled my head out of my ass about things like processed foods and high fructose corn syrup evils.
With obesity rates in adults and children alike continually rising, I wonder how long before the general population demands better choices in their food that contribute to better health instead of sacrificing long-term health for the convenience of a packaged dinner or fast food slop. Most of the food we eat isn't even real food when you look at the ingredient label. When was the last time you had to list the ingredients on a head of lettuce or a bundle of bananas? Even more frightening is how many people I talk to who never even glance at the ingredient list of the 'food' they consume every day. When you cook your own meal, using real whole foods you know exactly what you are eating and feeding to your kids.
There was a story in the Washington Post this week about how Sketchers are settling a lawsuit for $40 million. Turns out they were lying when they said wearing their funny looking shoes would tone your lower body without stepping foot into a gym. You can't tone your lower body by wearing a pair of shoes and sitting on your ass all day any easier than you can lose weight and keep it off by eating some fad diet or taking some pill that causes side effects worse than just keeping the extra weight on. You have to eat real food to nourish your body and burn more calories than you take in every single day. Period. There's no other way around it. Trust me, I've tried it all (minus surgical measures where I drew the line). When is society as a whole going to wake up and realize that corporations are only after one thing - to make money by selling us crap we don't need - and start listening to common sense again?
I challenge you - if you aren't doing it already - try cooking for a week and see how easy it really is. You don't even have to have a recipe box that your mom or grandma handed down to you anymore. All you need is Google - recipes for everything and anything are right at your fingers. It's an amazing world out there! And if you want a quick, easy to read, common sense book on how to incorporate real food back into your diet, I highly recommend "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan. That little book was partly what changed my life years ago and should be required reading for every American - in my humble opinion.
We'll start with "it's so much easier to pick up fast food on your way home from work rather than cook dinner" with a peek into a day of my life. This particular day was crazier than most. I headed off to work in the morning leaving Baby Sister with her nanny after scooting Big Sister out the door to walk to school. (Yes, my kid walks to school - shouldn't every kid?) I worked a typical day except that I had to leave a couple of hours early since Big Sister's dance studio decided once again to conduct business as if none of the dance moms actually work outside the home. Meaning specifically that she had to be in full hair and make-up and across town by 4:30 for the annual team photo shoot. Awesome, since I don't usually get off work until 5:30.
I left the office at 3:00, rushed home while project managing Big Sister's efforts from the phone in the car, and did the fastest make-up and hair I think I've ever done including ringlets. Big Sister has stick straight and super thick hair - I love that she did not get my curls except for when she wants curly hair and it becomes a chore. Thank god for my Chi and my ability to use it for creating curls in addition to it's straightening properties. Of course Murphy was alive and well since the shirt I'd bought her the night before was too big through the chest when she put it on. I had to get creative with safety pins because I didn't have time to whip out the sewing machine to take in the sides. We left the house only ten minutes behind schedule leaving Baby Sister with Daddy and hoping they were correct that the shoot would only take an hour. Pictures were fabulous and we were headed back across town by 5:30 now hoping traffic wasn't too bad.
This was also the night of our first neighborhood walk-about which we never miss. During warm weather months, two or three different families host little block party gatherings so that everyone can wander around and mingle with each other, catch up on gossip and meet any new people who have moved in. It started at 6:30.
Here's where the myth comes in. Considering I only had an hour to drive across town, feed my kids dinner and head out to the next activity, society would say I had to pick up either burgers or a $5 Hot n' Ready pizza on my way home. But NO! Instead I went straight home, browned up some ground turkey, made it into taco meat and served my kids taco's. Well, Big Sister prefers to eat her taco fixin's atop corn chips instead of in the crunchy shells and Baby Sister prefers little individual piles of cheese and meat, etc to eat as finger foods so basically, I ate tacos. The point is, it took me no more time than it would have to sit in the long ass line I passed at the Wendy's as I drove by. Not to mention how much healthier my choice of meals was by comparison. Plus, now I have an extra pound of taco meat in my fridge to eat left-overs in the next couple of days when I'm in an even tighter pinch for dinner - say tonight when Big Sister has to be at the dance studio by 6:30.
I cook ninety-five percent of the time at home. It isn't always quick and easy but it is always better than anything else I could feed my family. The extra effort this activity requires is actually on the front end when you're doing your grocery shopping. I usually have the basics on hand like spaghetti (I make my own amazing and authentic sauce) or homemade macaroni and cheese (that actually uses cheese and milk instead of powdery blobs of orange chemical concoctions you get in the box). Then I mix things up with a few preplanned meals in mind for the week. We always have tons of fresh fruit in the house and the crisper drawer is always full of veggies. With a little creativity I can throw together many a meal just by opening the refrigerator - even if I don't know exactly what's for dinner before I walk in the door from work.
It makes me wonder who exactly "they" are that says it is so much easier to buy crap from a fast-food joint and eat out of a bag every night. Probably the people marketing the crap in a bag from all those different places who only care about their bottom line. And let's talk about cost! I can feed my family of four for an entire week buying the ingredients to cook my own meals on less than what it would cost to eat out just one meal a day for that same week. This is based on fact since we had way more money left over at the end of the month once we started eating in versus when we were subscribing to the marketing ploys. This was also before I'd pulled my head out of my ass about things like processed foods and high fructose corn syrup evils.
With obesity rates in adults and children alike continually rising, I wonder how long before the general population demands better choices in their food that contribute to better health instead of sacrificing long-term health for the convenience of a packaged dinner or fast food slop. Most of the food we eat isn't even real food when you look at the ingredient label. When was the last time you had to list the ingredients on a head of lettuce or a bundle of bananas? Even more frightening is how many people I talk to who never even glance at the ingredient list of the 'food' they consume every day. When you cook your own meal, using real whole foods you know exactly what you are eating and feeding to your kids.
There was a story in the Washington Post this week about how Sketchers are settling a lawsuit for $40 million. Turns out they were lying when they said wearing their funny looking shoes would tone your lower body without stepping foot into a gym. You can't tone your lower body by wearing a pair of shoes and sitting on your ass all day any easier than you can lose weight and keep it off by eating some fad diet or taking some pill that causes side effects worse than just keeping the extra weight on. You have to eat real food to nourish your body and burn more calories than you take in every single day. Period. There's no other way around it. Trust me, I've tried it all (minus surgical measures where I drew the line). When is society as a whole going to wake up and realize that corporations are only after one thing - to make money by selling us crap we don't need - and start listening to common sense again?
I challenge you - if you aren't doing it already - try cooking for a week and see how easy it really is. You don't even have to have a recipe box that your mom or grandma handed down to you anymore. All you need is Google - recipes for everything and anything are right at your fingers. It's an amazing world out there! And if you want a quick, easy to read, common sense book on how to incorporate real food back into your diet, I highly recommend "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto" by Michael Pollan. That little book was partly what changed my life years ago and should be required reading for every American - in my humble opinion.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
You're doing it wrong
I took another step on my journey of figuring out how to write a novel this week. In an attempt to pull myself up by my bootstraps and self-motivate some action in the writing department since writer's group looms over my head, I reached out to my editor for some advice.
I know what you're thinking: Wait, she has an editor? But she isn't even finished with her first draft! This is my friend who I found out recently is also an editor. He will be tasked with editing my work once I get it finished. And since I think it is super cool to refer to the fact that I have an editor, I'll now be doing so every chance I get.
Remember I said I was currently discovering my own editing method? I told him what I had been doing and how unmotivated I'd become and asked for some advice on the whole process. Turns out, I was doing it all wrong. In my haste to have something for my writer's group to see, I was doing the editing completely out of order. I was editing on the micro level instead of the macro level. I haven't even worked out the big picture and filled in all the gaps yet. I haven't figured out what the outline is to make sure I flow from scene to sequel and back to scene yet. All this has to happen before we go through chapter by chapter which is what I'd been doing with my alpha-readers.
AH-HA! No wonder I wasn't feeling the flow! It was like recapping a race I hadn't even trained for yet.
I know my writer's group is going to be sad that they won't get to see what I'm up to for a while again, but I'm back to the writing desk. This time with some direction on how to get from here to the end. And with my new knowledge I'm excited to be here again which is the whole point.
This also reminded me of something else a lot of people have said... Writing is damn hard work.
I know what you're thinking: Wait, she has an editor? But she isn't even finished with her first draft! This is my friend who I found out recently is also an editor. He will be tasked with editing my work once I get it finished. And since I think it is super cool to refer to the fact that I have an editor, I'll now be doing so every chance I get.
Remember I said I was currently discovering my own editing method? I told him what I had been doing and how unmotivated I'd become and asked for some advice on the whole process. Turns out, I was doing it all wrong. In my haste to have something for my writer's group to see, I was doing the editing completely out of order. I was editing on the micro level instead of the macro level. I haven't even worked out the big picture and filled in all the gaps yet. I haven't figured out what the outline is to make sure I flow from scene to sequel and back to scene yet. All this has to happen before we go through chapter by chapter which is what I'd been doing with my alpha-readers.
AH-HA! No wonder I wasn't feeling the flow! It was like recapping a race I hadn't even trained for yet.
I know my writer's group is going to be sad that they won't get to see what I'm up to for a while again, but I'm back to the writing desk. This time with some direction on how to get from here to the end. And with my new knowledge I'm excited to be here again which is the whole point.
This also reminded me of something else a lot of people have said... Writing is damn hard work.
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