Perfectly Imperfect

Ask Yoda

It's Thursday Friday already?! How is this happening? Does time go into hyper-speed in December? Is this happening to anyone else? I feel like the days are zooming by. Of course, of course it's happening to everyone, I can hear it in their frenzied, distracted voices on the phone. And in my own. This isn't the peaceful, mindful lifestyle I'd like to be living but I'm also striving for acceptance of what is so I'll not judge, just accept. Zooming it is. For now.

So Wednesday was a day home with the kids. Those days are numbered, by the way. I am very sad to report that come January I will no longer be working a 4-day workweek. My lovely employer has decided it is best to have everyone working 5-days a week. What century is this? But I'm not in a position to fight this fight right now so I just have to accept it. There it is again, acceptance. I'm doing so by putting my head in the sand and pretending it's not happening. Losing my day with the kids is breaking my heart right now. But uh, well... excuse me while I re-insert my head back into the sand.

Yesterday I went to the gym after work. Glen's spin class was underway so I quickly changed and joined in. When all was said and done I got about 30 minutes of the class, which was perfect. I was short on time so I skipped the post-spin stretching and went to do weights. Arrive late and leave early, what a student.

Weights were chest/triceps/core. Tough stuff there. The pushups are feeling a bit more manageable but the core and tricep work was a challenge. Of course I muscled through (tee hee) and then ran to pick up the kids.

My eating is off-again, I haven't been tracking either. I did so for about 1.5 days and then, blip, I was off. Not sure what to say about that. Nothing to say at this point really. Except that I'll just keep doing what I'm doing, and never give up.

Because of my personal life issues there's been a tape of negative self-talk playing in my head for weeks on end. And it's quite harsh. There is no harsher critic than ourselves and the judgments have been heavy and ever-present. I know it's not helping with the food stuff. And don't get me started on my confidence, suffice to say, it's low. But each workout is like a moment of salvation, a ray of light shining through a hole in the clouds. It's a break from the melancholy that says, "In this moment you are strong and healthy and all is right in the world."

I got on the scale this morning. 145.8 pounds. I am now officially above my goal weight. My pants are a bit snug - nothing you'd notice but I can feel it. And I'm avoiding the pants that were quite fitted a few months ago. But you know what? All is right in the world. In this moment, too, things are good. So much to be grateful for. I will continue to strive, continue to put one foot in front of the other. If, during this time, I take a few steps back, I can accept that as long as I continue to move forward over time. I am imperfect and in that imperfection, I am exactly as I should be.

Fast is the Old Slow

Blog makeover!! What do you think? My Facebook people have given it a big, meh, mostly because they preferred the picture that used to be up. But I was ready for a change so here we are. I have to admit, I kind of miss the picture too though so we'll see. I'm going to sit with it for a while and see how I feel.

Anyway...Tuesday already? Day two of the workweek brings two days of exercise. Yesterday (Monday) I went to the gym after work and started with the treadmill. I ran 3 miles (for the first time since my return) at 6.0 and 6.5 mph intervals. I made the mistake of looking up my prior interval pace, 6.5 and 7.5mph. That means my current "fast" pace is my previous slow pace. Ah well, that's how it goes when you fall off the wagon for a bit.

After the treadmill I did legs/shoulders/core. Surprisingly I did my whole normal workout without too much pain. It's a good thing I managed the occasional workout during my sick/slump episode, I'm sure it saved some of the muscle in my legs. Wrapped up with some stretching and then met a friend for dinner. I had a glass of wine and pasta with ricotta for dinner. Plus a little bread in olive oil. The food choices were not the best but I was good about portion control.

Oh, before I forget! I got on the scale yesterday morning and...dun, dun, duunnn...144.8 pounds. Yes, folks, I am a mere .2 pounds from my red-light weight of 145. Eek! So I decided to start tracking, just to raise my awareness a bit on the food intake. So far it's been helpful, though the wheels fell off tonight at my work holiday gathering. We met at a Mexican restaurant and I made the mistake of arriving hungry. Chips, cheese enchiladas and a whole lotta refried beans later and my points took a major hit. Track it and move on, right? Even tracked the sugar cookies, dinner roll and M&M's I ate at home. Yeah, not a stellar second half of the day. But tomorrow is a new day.

There's good news too, so let me close with that. A bit of balance was achieved with a solid workout. I started with 25 minutes on the upright bike, level 8 - I was doing level 9 pre-sick/slump - it was a challenge but I got through it by way of self-cheerleading during the last few minutes. Then I did back/biceps/core for strength training. I was pressed for time so I had to hustle but I managed to do most of it. I skipped the assisted pullups, again. I think I'm going to just drop them altogether for a while. Lord knows I hate doing them so why not, right?

A Goal Partially Met

A Sunday evening blog post often finds me describing a weekend filled with activity. And I suppose this one was pretty active, though not with exercise. The weekend started with the end of my non-workday on Friday. I took the day off after waking up with a terrible headache and a stuffed up nose, oh and cramps. Enough already, I needed a break. After resting for most of the day I started making a dish to take to the kids' Holiday Sing-along at their preschool. Homemade mac-n-cheese. Started with a roux - butter, flour - and closed with whole milk, pasta, two kinds of cheese, salt...how can you go wrong? The food at the sing-along was mostly calorie-dense and that was our dinner.

I hadn't exercised during the day being sick-ish and all. I ran into a friend who is going to refer me to her practically magically healing alternative doc. Normally I'm too skeptical but she convinced me to give him a try. I'm tired of having what appears to be no immune system at all. Anyway, the sing-along was too cute!

Saturday brought more holiday fun, my buddy Michelle and I took the kids to a neighborhood gathering complete with a magician and an appearance by the jolly old man himself. Fortunately there was no food at this event but we went to FroYo after to make up for that. Saturday evening I went out for a grown up dinner, which included a couple drinks. I made decent (not stellar/not terrible) choices and skipped dessert. Alcohol or dessert, I really shouldn't be doing both unless it's a special occasion. And while eating out- with no dishes to clean or kids spilling food onto my lap - might feel like an occasion, it really isn't.

Sunday morning was supposed to be a run but, well, it didn't quite happen. And I'm ok with that, for now. I'd hoped to come up with a plan to run in the afternoon and the weather was brilliant for it, but that didn't happen either. But midday Sunday I took the kids to a friends birthday, which was held at a local outdoor shopping/dining area that has a weekly "food truck crush" in which various food trucks show up. The choices are varied and delicious and there's live music and plenty of space for the kiddies to roam and climb. The weather was lovely and we managed to kick around for several hours before the kids started to tire out.

Food-wise I had a fried chicken thigh and vietnamese garlic noodles - odd combo I know but that's food truck eatin' for ya - a few bites of the kids' ice cream and some Ghiradelli chocolate. Yes, I brought the chocolate to share (and unload). I got the chicken from Arki's.

And the noodles came from somewhere down that way...

Did I mention the music? They had this folk band in one area and a cello guy who sang in another.

The Farm Band

I managed to get the kids to dance with me between stints of hide-and-seek. It was a super fun afternoon. We came home and I did housework for a few hours and then made good on a promise to bake cookies with the kids. I'd planned to bake chocolate chip but they wanted to decorate them so we made sugar cookies. Still yummy. I ate a few of those. Or more.

Well, it's about bedtime now. I've got my gym bag packed for tomorrow. I'm thrilled with getting to the gym 4 times last week. A weekend workout would have been nice but it wasn't in the cards. I've always said a goal partially met is better than no goal at all. Next weekend I will run for sure. There are less than 6 weeks until the Kaiser half-marathon (a registration flyer came in the mail today, felt like the universe giving me a nudge but I know it's more like marketing nudgery). I need to do an assessment run. I plan to hit the road. If I can run 6 or more non-torturous miles I'll seriously consider Kaiser. If less, I'll shoot for the Emerald Nut Run in March, which is only a 12k.