Pardon my dust

This is a semi-private blog in that I don't care who reads it, but I don't solicit followers.  That being said, if you're a follower, thanks!  But also, I'm sorry.  I decided to compile my ancient blog into this one so I added about 50 posts today and if you get notified when I make new posts, you may have been emailed repeatedly.  Ooooops!  Thanks for your understanding.

You're one workout away from something

Actually, I need to be fair and stop being so Gen-Xy about this.  It's a lovely quote that seems to have lost its creator across the interwebs:  You're one workout away from a good mood.

Hey, it's Tuesday!  Still no idea why I only ever seem to want to post on Tuesdays.  I get introspective on Tuesdays.  How weird.

So two and a half months ago I embarked on a new Whole 30, and I did NOT do it perfectly, I did cheat, and I did NOT keep starting over because, as I've stated, it screws me up psychologically.  BUT, I did finish, and I lost about ten pounds.  That was awesome.

THEN

I had the food fiesta that is traditional after finishing one of these challenges.  However, instead of it lasting a day or a weekend or a week as is my usual habit, this food fiesta has lasted a month and a half.

THEN

I had to quit fitwit.  The schedule with Kevs' job and the kids going to two different schools across town from each other (with me doing all the driving, plus working my full time job, plus being in the band, taking care of the house / garden etc.) was just too much for me.  For a little while I was bringing them with me and then Kevs would show up ten minutes later and grab them, but we didn't always meet at the same place and it just turned into a big huge stress ball.  So I quit.

THEN

I joined the gym at work and worked out there exactly three times.

THEN

On the third workout, I seriously aggravated my very injured back.  I had just started getting treatment from a chiropractor, because I am afraid of traditional medicine's approach to curing back pain.  When I went to see him the next day, he told me to lay off exercising for a couple of weeks.

THEN

At the next treatment he gave me some exercises to do every day to strengthen my back and not feel like a lump.

THEN

I did them exactly once.

THEN

I joined the Y with the family, mainly because the kids want to swim in the winter, but they also have a kick-ass gym and the kids like going to the child care area while I work out.  I figured I could go swimming there without hurting my back, and after the two weeks were pretty much over, I tried the elliptical trainer and found that it did not hurt my back.

THEN

I never went back.

ALSO

Somewhere in the midst of all this (September 11), I quit smoking.  Which means instant weight gain, and yeah, good for me, etc., but it still sucks.  It also means pain hurts more and everyone irritates the hell out of me and I sleep all the time and I smell everything and almost everything smells gross.

NOW

I have gained back all but 30 pounds of what I've lost since 02/11 (when I finally got serious).  At one point, I was down to almost twice that amount lost.  I didn't gain it all back in the past six weeks, but this is just depressing.  I feel horrible, my clothes don't fit right any more, I'm in a shitty mood (which I'm told one workout will fix), and on and on and on.  My band has a gig coming up on Halloween and I'm going to look like just as much of a big fat whale as the last time we performed, which was in May of 2011.  This is so, so depressing.

So, diet is like 90% of it, I know.  But exercise is still essential, even if it only accounts for a small number of calories being burned per session.  Exercise is critical for health / mood / keeping weight off / metabolism and all that good stuff.  I don't think it has to be as critical as fitwit, but I like fitwit's style and I do think it's the biggest bang for your buck in terms of time spent.  The diet part is the part that always kills me. 

This recent Whole 30 was extremely successful, not just because I lost weight, but because for the first time ever I lost fat and gained muscle.  This happened because I think for the first time I was eating fairly strict paleo but still making the effort to eat enough calories.  I discovered coconut butter, which was a big help.  So now, out here on my own, no challenges or constraints, I need to find some way to do paleo most of the time, restrict treats to appropriate times, and eat enough to sustain muscle while losing fat.

This is the problem.  I've never been able to find a balance.  I've never been able to keep it off.

Help.

Day 15 - A Song That Describes You
OK, except for the fact that I have brown eyes and I'm a chick, this song describes me exactly.  The inner me.  Some of the time.  Special relevant lyric:  "And if I swallow anything evil, put your finger down my throat..."

Behind Blue Eyes, by The Who

A Whole New Mess

My oh my, yes oh yes...  Time for a new Whole 30 mess.

I'm on Day 3.  Day 1 was fine.  Day 2 was fine until lastnight when I ate my weight in cashews.  It is really, really amazing to me how in the midst of eating clean as a m***f***ing whistle I can still find something horrible to do.  Technically I never fell off the wagon, but jeeeeezzzz....

So, nuts are fine on the Whole 30.  If I had a handful of cashews, or maybe even two handfuls, all the skinny ladies doing this challenge would be clapping their dainty yet powerful hands with approval.  I struggle to imagine the looks on their faces watching me shovel down seven handfuls.

#5 - It is indeed possible to overeat on even very healthy foods.  I saw a loss this morning anyway, so that's good I guess.  (BTW, Whole 30 says to stay off the scale the whole time but I just can't do that.  I will gain 40 pounds somehow if I don't look at the scale for a month.  OCD / PTSD)  It's one problem I have with Whole 30 in general, though...  There's no counting calories or macronutriens or any of that, which is a lovely break, certainly.  Their thing is to eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full (I believe).  My problem is that since I've lost the ability to tell when I'm full over the years due to my VERY SERIOUS  sugar addiction, I just don't freaking know what full feels like any more.  I barely know what hunger feels like, either.  I sort of know when I'm busting at the seams, but that's about it.

And WHAT IS UP  with all the skinny ladies on this challenge anyway?  I've been using their facebook group and after a few days I'm thinking, WTF?  How much further y'all tryina take this sh*t?  Here's a collage I made without any permissions from facebook of them:

OK?  Sh*t.  Irritating.



30 Day Song Challenge
Day 16 - A Song That You Used to Love But Now Hate
Hall and Oates, "Private Eyes"
Man, I loved the sh*t out of this song when I was about 8 years old.  And fat.

Baggage and The Work Pantry

When I was three years old, I was at my Grandmother's house one day and looked down at my chubby little toddler forearm. It was the first time in my life I had this singular thought that has stayed with me ever since:

“I’m fat.”

Now I’m 40 and I still think I’m fat. I still am fat.

Since about age 8, I have been “on a diet”. Here’s the part where we make harsh judgements about my mother and strongly refute the notion of being on a diet versus embracing healthy blah blah blah... But that’s not what this is about.

A little over a year ago, I started working out with fitwit regularly and adopted the paleo diet. For the first time in my life, something is working. Yes, it’s amazing, but that’s not what this is about, either. From age 8 to age 39, for a sum total of about 31 years, I was trying to achieve something and chronically failing. That’s quite an impressive track record. Those should have been the most vital, vigorous, fun years of my life. Maybe they were. But I was out of shape the whole time.

Don’t get me wrong, I had brief successes, and I had some very active times. My life was never ruined by it. I had lots of other achievements, a great social life, lots of meaningful experiences, all in the face of being fairly unhealthy. At age 39, upon adopting paleo as a way of eating, I learned that almost everything I thought I knew about food was wrong. I was born in 1972, during the height of the “war of the macronutrients,” when the grand debate between sugars vs fat was in full swing. By the time I started dieting around 1980, dietary fat had long since been declared the enemy. As it turns out, fat was declared the enemy primarily for political and economic reasons, and as it turns out, that declaration was completely wrong. Sugar is the enemy.

For 31 years I ate high-carb faux foods and as little fat as I possibly could, and I was starving, and it wasn’t sustainable, and I failed. Over and over and over again. Now I’m forty years old, and it is wonderful that I am healthier than I ever have been, and I’m excited to build on it and get healthier and in better shape and stronger and faster and more flexible than ever! But G**D***IT I wish I had known this twenty years ago.

So, I could wallow in regret, like everyone does from time to time, and I could throw away all the time and effort that was invested in my stupid health efforts for the past 31 years while I was doing everything wrong, but the reality is that failures ARE opportunities, no matter how cheesy and motivational-poster-y that makes me feel to say. I am not going to “forget everything I ever knew about diet and fitness.” Maybe it takes a special kind of stubborn to cling to old ideas so tightly, or maybe the only way to stay sane is to realize that I was actually doing something right in there amidst all the wrongness. In any case, there are some important lessons that I learned that I think stand true no matter what health and lifestyle and fitness changes one is trying to make. Almost none of these were my original thoughts, by the way, but they are all personally tried and true.

1. Fitness is not an intellectual matter. If I lost 1/100th of an ounce for every hour I spent analyzing and stressing over my weight, I would have wasted away long ago. It is not a puzzle that has to be unlocked. It is not a mystery to solve. In fact, the less you think about it, the better you get at it. You just have to do it. You have to be a robot. You need not have internal conversations about whether you should or should not exercise. You must set aside time to chop vegetables. Making habits is not about motivation, it’s not about thinking or remembering, it’s not about depression, it’s not about liking it or hating it, it’s not about shoving your mother-in-law’s face in it, and it’s not about how awkward your Dad makes you feel about your hip circumference. It’s about doing it. Brushing your teeth is not about any of those things either. It’s just about doing what you’re supposed to do. You want your car to work? You get the oil changed every so often. You want your body to work? Do what you’re supposed to do.

2. If you don’t have a glass or bottle of water within reach, panic.

3. Any kind of exercise is good exercise. Some kinds are better than others, some are more crucial than others, some are more enjoyable than others, and some are more sustainable than others. They’re all better than sitting, standing, or lying down.

Those are probably the most important ones, but there are others. “Going paleo” is a huge, massive undertaking and a radical change in lifestyle. The challenge is NOT in eating the foods. The foods are delicious, and there’s something in there for everyone, believe me. The challenge is partially in giving up the foods that are bad for you, sure. But the biggest challenge is in reconciling your current lifestyle and the paleo diet as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. Let’s say you currently work until about 7 pm and then have dinner and cocktails with friends at a restaurant every weeknight. How likely are you to switch to going home at 7, preparing and cooking food for up to two hours, eating alone and then going to bed? Maybe you would try it for a week or two, but in the end it would prove too radical a change to be sustainable. You have a lifestyle you enjoy, and changing it completely will not work for you. Notice, however, that this paragraph says nothing about food. Going paleo means changing what you eat. At first, it seems that the only way to do that is to also change your lifestyle radically, but that just doesn’t have to be the case. Go out to restaurants every night after work with friends. Order steak and a salad. Get club soda with lime juice and mint. Get a glass of red wine or two every so often. Done.

Personally, as a busy working Mom, one thing that I have always relied on heavily is what I call the “Work Pantry”. The Work Pantry is a place - sometimes a drawer, sometimes a cupboard, where I have things I need to eat at work. It serves two purposes. First, it has condiments that I might need. Second, it has emergency snacks for when I get super busy or forget to pack something or when I have PMS or whatever the case may be. The Work Pantry keeps me from saying, “oh f*** it, I’m going to McDonald’s.” The Work Pantry is one of those things that has ALWAYS helped me to stay on track with my diet, no matter how misguided that diet may have been. (And a misguided diet is still better than McDonalds, IMHO.)

The Work Pantry has always had, and will probably always have:
Paper plates and bowls
Utensils
Napkins
Salt and pepper
Medications I may need at work (pain reliever, neosporin, cold medicine, stomach relief, etc.)

The Work Pantry used to have things like:
Granola bars
Packets of grits
Protein bars
Popcorn
Fat free chips
Snackwells cookies
Pretzels

This is my current Work Pantry:

Tea bags
Almond butter - for apple slices!
Olive oil and balsamic vinegar - to dress salads
Almonds
Pepper sauce - favorite condiment since going paleo
Salt
Dried cherries
Dried papaya
Dried peaches
Vegetable juice

Now, real quick, before you say, “Oh you lying b**** those dried fruits have added sugar and that vegetable juice is a nightmare!” let me just remind you that the Work Pantry is partially about preventing yourself from making horrible decisions. It’s emergency food. You plan to eat after your 11:00 am meeting and then notice you are booked with meetings until 3 pm. Should you nibble on almonds and dried fruit and sip on vegetable juice until you can properly feed yourself? Or should you show up to your 1 pm meeting five minutes late with a Happy Meal? Which reminds me:

4. Some bad decisions are much, much better than others.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 17:  a song that you hear often on the radio
Stealer's Wheel, "Stuck in the Middle With You"
One of my all-time favorites, with one of the best bass lines ever.

Oh hey there

Hi! I haven't blogged in almost a year! Neat!

I've been meaning to, though, for reals.

You might think that like so many others, so many times before, I just fell off the wagon and never got back on. To the contrary! I got so busy getting sexy that I never had time to blog! Seriously. I've lost somewhere between 60 and 70 pounds over the last 14 months, and I just couldn't be more pleased. I'm still doing fitwit, and still trying to eat Paleo. The Whole 30 was a massive FAIL, though, I have to admit. The reason I cannot do whole 30 is because it's too much of a mind fuck. One of the many, many rules of whole 30 is that if you slip up, you have to start over from Day 1. That's just insane. So here's what would happen: I would eat a bunch of garbage for about a week before starting Whole 30. This, in my small, crippled foodmind was necessary because of the 30 days of utter deprivation staring me in the face. So then I would get to, at best, Day 9 of 30. Inevitably something would happen and I just couldn't control myself and I would drink a beer or shove a ho-ho in my face or SOMETHING. Yes, I'm weak and pathetic, Melissa and Dallas. I've also been known to start dancing in public places and have sex before marriage. It's called joi de vivre, people. Look into it. So then, bam, I'm back on Day 1. But you know what? Day 1 is scary as a mofo. There are 29 more after that one. So instead of jumping back on the wagon, which is totally, totally necessary, I would go back to eating a bunch of garbage in preparation for Day 1. For at least 3 days, sometimes a week, and then at some point I reckon I just gave the fuck up on Whole 30. If you can do Whole 30, you totally should, and I admire you for it. I cannot. It is bad for me.

The 30 Day Song Challenge
(Well heck yeah! I can pick this back up right where I left off if I want to!)
Day 18: A Song That You Wished You Heard on the Radio

I never hear any of the songs I really love on the radio, generally speaking. Or, I hear it once on the radio, instantly fall in love with it, the CIA notices it in my iTunes account, then calls all the radio stations and tells them to destroy their copies of it. Anyway, I kinda wish I was hearing this on the radio right now.

"Casting Agents and Cowgirls" by Busdriver

Does anybody really know what day it is?

I've lost track of where I'm supposed to be on the Whole 30, I think Day 10 maybe? But it doesn't matter because if you cheat, which I did, you're supposed to restart, which I'm not going to.

It's demoralizing, that's all. To go several days and then have to start back at Day 1 is demoralizing to me, and we can't have any of that. More specifically, I can't have any of that. I thrive off of results, accomplishments, things I can be proud of, and I don't typically respond well to punishment, guilt, beratement, etc. Who does, really? And feeling guilty or freaked out or scared about my weight problem has done about all it's ever going to do for me, believe me!

I'd be much better off, I think, focussing on the good things. Yes, I did cheat a little on Sunday night and quite a bit on Saturday night! The good thing is that I stayed on whole 30 the whole rest of the week. The other good thing is that I lost a pound this week. The other good thing is that Saturday marked the commencement of the dreaded "monthly visitor," which means that I should have been bloated, horribly cranky, tearful, and shoving junk in my face ALL week last week and into this week. Instead, I did not retain any water, my cravings were vastly reduced and (while intense) quickly satisfied, and I was a little grouchy Saturday (NOTHING like I usually am at that time). I could really go on and on about the benefits of eating Paleo / Primal / Whole 30 / Whatever you wanna call it. It's wonderful.

The off-roading is the tricky part. The cheating. I read the Whole 9 blog entry about it, and it's very sensible advice. It's not exactly right for me, though. They say in one of their many articles on the subject that the only good reason, and it is a good reason, to cheat is mental health. So, what is it exactly about a cheat that I need? I need a minute to not care. I don't want to pull out a flowchart, I don't want to have the gluten-free pizza, I don't want to ask the waiter what the ingredients of the brine were. I want to not care. Just for a minute. I TOTALLY agree with what they say about not scheduling cheats, and I TOTALLY agree with what they say about having a cheat 'item' or 'meal' and don't turn it into a whole cheat 'day.' Having said that, I will say that it's a slippery slope. An item can turn into a meal that can turn into a day that can turn into a lifestyle. I know that I am fighting, seriously fighting, to find a balance here. BUT, I don't think continuing to do "12 weeks challenges" or "Whole 30" or any other little chunks of time is really going to get me to nail that balance down. I eat a Paleo diet. All the time. Except sometimes I cheat. Hopefully not too often.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 19: A Song From Your Favorite Album
"The Beast and Dragon, Adored" by Spoon (from Gimme Fiction)



Fucking brilliant song, brilliant album. It was my favorite album as soon as it came out in 2005, during what I consider the most visceral time of my life. Good music was better during that time. This one blew me away.

Still Alive on Day 5

Here I am. Day 5 of the Whole 30. Check.

It's going fine so far, but man am I ever tired today! I guess I'm always a little tired on Friday, but I started to feel sleepy on the way home from work yesterday, and then I slept in a little this morning due to my inability to be awakened. And now I'm just beat. I need my exercise back! I'm actually kind of jonesing to go back to fitwit. And I've always done my best at my workouts there, but I have a renewed spirit to actually really work and improve my performance. God, it just helps so much. More than anything, there's a scheduled time and place that I *have* to go. This past 2 weeks I've been dedicated to try and workout a lot, intentionally giving myself some extra rest days, but if left completely to my own devices I just don't get up and go. I'm going to the kettlebell class again tonight with one of the girls from fitwit. Then if the weather holds out I'm supposed to go on a long urban hike with my bff. We'll see how the rest of the weekend pans out. Also I had a slight headache on Wednesday that could have been from sugar withdrawal. It probably was. But it wasn't too bad.

Yesterday I wore a dress to work that I couldn't fit into earlier in the season. Hooray! I love little victories. Every pound that comes off is such a little gift to me. I love each and every one of them when they go. The shirt I'm wearing at work today was from last summer and it looks too big and kind of ridiculous on and I'm just workin' it. Also this week for some reason people decided to start noticing that I've been losing weight, and I've finally stopped trying to find a problem with that. It's great! I love it! It's weird that I had to lose 30 pounds first, but shit, I'll take it.

Also, I had a very psychological accomplishment recently... Finally, somehow, I seem to have internalized the concept of a "small cheat". I'm not great at it yet, but I'm getting much better. By "small cheat", I mean that just because I have pizza for lunch doesn't mean I have to have frito pie for dinner. It's not over if I slip, in other words. I always understood this on some level before, but it's always been a really slippery slope for me. It probably still is, but I've just felt more willing to return to my Paleo diet right after a slip or cheat now than I have (with whatever kind of diet) in the past.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 20: A Song That You Listen to When You're Angry
"5 Years" by Bjork

Man, this song says it all. And so hugely empowering.

Two of thirty perhaps

I think there's a disconnect somewhere, really. I was SOOO hardcore during the 'food fight' at fitwit. It was good for me. My body fat was tested at the beginning and the end. It was just plain fact. There was no room for bullshit. And I'm so competitive! I wanted to WIN! I couldn't talk my way into or out of anything. I couldn't rationalize anything. It was just true, in black and white, if you give in to temptation as often as you'd like, you will not win. So I very, very rarely did. There were many times I REALLY wanted something, and I just didn't eat it. I kept telling myself, and others, "No! No! I have to be good until the end!"

Day 2 of the Whole 30 - check. Did very well today. I didn't get any exercise, mainly because I wanted to give Kevin a break from me running off somewhere all the time. But, I ate perfectly well. Meat, veggies, fruit.

How do I get back to that place? I did well today, and maybe I should just take it one day at a time, but I don't have the same clarity and motivation I had at that time. Maybe I should schedule another dunk in the body fat tank in, say, 3 months. Maybe there's something else, tangible, real that I could win. Not a long-term-far-away thing like reaching my goal weight in a year, and not something nebulous like 'lifelong health' either. Maybe I need to just place some damn bets.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 21: A Song You Listen to When You're Happy
"Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley

There's a reggae show on the local college radio station on Sunday mornings. It always coincides with the happy vibe of my little family, the smell of coffee and bacon, and an easy feeling of not having to really be anywhere at any particular time. This is one of my favorites, and one of the happiest.

Whole 30 Redux

Good Lord, why did you make me so pathetic?

Why did you give me the strength of ten men unless faced with cheese dip? To which I give in every time like a mexican kitten?

GAH!

So, week 5 of camp, I'm feeling good, strong, healthy, looking forward to the two-week break, but still planning to get some good fun activity in there just to make sure I keep my metabolism cranking. Then on Friday, my foot started hurting. I thought it might be plantar fasciitis (heel spurs), which sucked, but I iced it, massaged it, and carried on. Tuesday morning (after the holiday on the 4th), it was still hurting, but I went to fitwit anyway. Then it started really hurting. The thing is, with heel spurs, you usually are in agony when you first step out of bed, but after warming it up a little, you're good to go. In my case, it was much better after resting in the morning, but got worse as the day went on. I was icing, massaging, stretching, and taking advil. I had to skip fitwit on Tuesday and Thursday. I called my doctor, who didn't have time to see me, but she said it might be fractured so I might as well go to the ER anyway. They told me it wasn't broken, but I should stay off it and see a podiatrist. Great. I saw my regular doctor the next morning and she gave me similar advice, but a referral to a closer podiatrist. So then after I spent $100 on seeing doctors, it just magically got better and went away.

Of course it did.

But, in the mix there somewhere was a bit of a paleo meltdown. I slipped, fell, cheated, whatever you want to call it. It snowballed. I started exercising again last Wednesday with an off-week workout. Saturday morning I took a yoga class, and lastnight I went roller skating for the first time in I think about 20 years. (That was incredibly fun, by the way). But I just couldn't pull my diet together.

So, I'm heading down the path again today... wish me luck. I had an apple and almond butter for breakfast with some iced black coffee. I also ate about 8 strawberries this morning. For lunch I had a salad with ham / salami, marinated mushrooms, spring lettuces, and a little balsamic. I got hungry again shortly after and had 2 spoonfuls of almond butter and about 1/4 cup of dried papaya. I'm sure my carbs are way off the meter already, but this isn't about counting carbs, right? It's about following the Whole 30. I was super tempted to eat a Lara Bar, but no, no fake food either. Good for me. I have a big pork roast cooking in the slow cooker at home, which I will shred and serve with squash for dinner. It looks kind of good, but I have to say I've been fooled by pork roast many times. Actually this time I'm trying it with a half picnic. It turns out picnic means something totally different than eating your food on a blanket in the grass.

And tonight I'm going to work out at a kettlebell gym. If you haven't read this hilarious piece on kettlebells, you really need to. It makes me laugh out loud every time I read it. But anyway, some of the girls from fitwit are going, so I figure I'll try it out. My goal for this week is to get at least 3 great workouts, and to try to do something active every day.

I'm so mad at myself! I should be so much closer to my goals by now!

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 22: A Song That You Listen to When You're Sad
"Tamacun" by Rodrigo y Gabriela

Wow, this was a hard one for me. I don't usually go straight to music when I'm feeling sad, and I would have to say that it would depend on what I was sad about. I don't find it helpful to play funny or otherwise happy-making music when I'm sad because that's too much of a transition, too fast. The worst kind of sadness is silent despair. If the situation has gotten so bad that you're out of tears, then it's so hard to work through it. Or, if it hasn't come to tears yet, same thing. So, I guess the best thing for me is to work it up into something tangible, and hopefully redirect it somehow. When I listen to music like this, it tends to skew me emo - so passionate, but also wordless. It can help break down sadness into frustration and anger, so that I can at least work those parts out of the sadness, if they are in there. Plus the beat just gets me moving, and focused. You'd have to be dead to not want to move when you hear Rodrigo y Gabriela. I find anger and frustration easier to cope with than despair.

One Down, 29 to Go

Today was Day 1 of the Whole 30. I made it. No cheating. Here's hoping I can stick it out for a month. I totally rocked the 11 week thing we did at fitwit earlier this year, but when it was over I strayed. Obviously I stayed on the exercise, but the cheating snowballed. And there was really no need for it. It almost felt gratuitous at first, and the non-paleo stuff even sometimes made me feel sick. I slipped back and forth for a while and then this past week I decided to do the whole 30 because I got sick of it. Mainly, why would I be working out like a dog and not take care of my diet too? Why work out and let myself gain weight? Stupid.

The key to paleo success for me is to make something delicious all the time. Oh, and by the way, my team went out to eat at a mexican place and I still stuck to my whole 30, just eating fajita steak and veggies. This morning I drowned an apple in some almond butter. Then tonight I made this and it was soooooo amazingly good. I also made some radish and leek side and it tasted like ass. Oh well, live and learn. I gotta go pick up a bunch of fresh fruit tomorrow - it's crucial!

The 30 Day Song Challenge
Day 23: A Song That You Want Played at Your Wedding
Etta James - "At Last"

Oh no. No more weddings over here. One marriage is enough punishment for one lifetime. Do. Not. Get. Me. Started. But, for the sake of the challenge, I've channeled the 4-year-old version of myself (fresh from the Cinderella lie) and consulted her. This was her selection.

More on Paleo lifestyle challenges

Dang I'm sore today. Whoo. It was a little cooler lastnight than usual, and I was sleeping hard when that alarm clock went off. I was tired. I got to my workout a few minutes late and had to go straight into some light jogging. My body did not like that. Yesterday's workout involved lunging up and down the football field, taking a "break" at each end to do 50 sit-ups. Needless to say, my abs and thighs are very sore, and I'm sort of overall wiped out physically from my week of workouts. The odd thing, though, is that I somehow got road rash on my ass from doing yesterday's workout! I know, groty, TMI, etc., but it's so very strange and I can't figure out how it happened. Maybe from the heat? Or maybe from the repetitive sit-up motion? But I was on a mat, so??? The funny thing is that the trainer said before the workout, "Your thighs will hate you today, but your butt will thank you tomorrow!" WRONG! :) Anyway, looking forward to a weekend of active recovery.

The Paleo issue I want to kind of address today is all the TIME involved. I read something today in sparkpeople from one of the members who said, "Slow food is good food." So true! It seems like whatever your diet is like, the more TLC you put into it, the better it tastes, and with the Paleo diet, since all the food is unprocessed, you have to do all the "processing" yourself. Here are some ideas I've been working with, feel free to pitch in other ideas...

First, crock-pot cookery rules. When preparing a meal for my family, it's usually a game of odd timing. I cut, sautee, chop, brown, rub, etc., but it's not always a do-one-thing-right-after-the-next deal. So I've found that I can actually save time if I make two meals at once when I'm in the kitchen. This also saves on dishwashing time by using the same knife, cutting board, etc. wherever practical. When you're done prepping the crock-pot meal, you can just put it in the fridge and then in the morning, pull it back out and turn it on before you go to work. Then when you get home it's all ready to go. Paleo Mama has a good page of Paleo crock-pot recipes.

Another thing that's really helpful if you work in an office like I do, is to set up your office or cube with gear. Hopefully you have a fridge and microwave in a break room somewhere you can use, but if not, you can get an inexpensive small fridge on ebay. You'll also want to have plates, cups, dish detergent, napkins, knives, spoons, and forks tucked away somewhere. I work in a secured facility, so I'm stuck with plastic knives. They totally suck for cutting, but I guess it's better then trying to hack at stuff with my keys! You'll also want to keep some supplies on hand there, like salt, pepper, lemon juice, almond butter or sunbutter, vinegar, etc., because it will save you time and effort dragging stuff back and forth from home. I used to have a hot pot also, but I didn't wind up using it as much as I thought I would. I'm practically a master at meal creation at my desk... Sad but true. I'm so busy at work, and I'm similarly so busy at home. So, I just bring the food and assemble it while I eat, which often involves a lot of prep. I eat a lot of salad for lunch, usually topped with some kind of awesome MEAT. Leftovers are another great option.

Food processors are great for some things, but for mincing vegetables (even garlic) they really don't save any time in the long run. You get better at chopping the more you practice, and when I use a food processor, there is time spent assembling, disassembling, and cleaning the thing. I don't get it out unless I really need it!

Of course, the grand time-saver will always be muti-tasking. I can be prepping food while I'm on the phone (even a conference call). I can be peeling and slicing things while talking to Kevin or the kids. I don't watch tv too much, but if you do, that would be a good time to work on food prep as well.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 24: A Song That You Want Played at Your Funeral
"Requiem in D Minor" by W.A. Mozart

I've heard a lot of people say that when they die, they want their friends and family to have a party, remember the good times, laugh, think of them fondly, play joyous music, and focus on how he / she has gone to a better place. NOT ME. I want hundreds of people at my funeral, and I want them all to be utterly inconsolable. I want loud wailing. I want fainting. I want sobbing. I want people to throw themselves over my casket and into the path of the pallbearers. I want fights to break out. I want people screaming out things like, "WHY?!" and "It's NOT FAIR!" I mean yes, I do want them to eventually recover and go on to live normal lives again, but I think grieving is healthy, and I don't think we give it enough credence these days. Most of the time when I go to a funeral, I don't even feel like it's proper to cry any more, like everyone is struggling to hold back the tears. Not at my funeral. Everyone should feel free to just let it all out. Plus of course, I'd like to know that I was missed. ;)

Well now, I didn't expect that!

One of the best things in the world is when you step on the scale expecting to see a gain, and instead you see a loss. That happened to me today! I haven't weighed myself since the end of the food fight back on 5/21. Since then I've been working out as planned, but I've been eating pretty much whatever. I've tried to "watch it", so to speak, but there have been more cheat days than not for sure. So, it wasn't like massive weight loss, but I lost 3 pounds essentially in the last 3 weeks.

Hell, I WILL TAKE IT.

I am trying to keep up with my 30 day song challenge, but I just can't blog every day. So the 30 days will be random, I guess.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 25: A Song That Makes You Laugh
"Piss Up a Rope" by Ween

(Actually, most songs by Ween make me laugh. Either that or rock the fuck out!)

The many challenges of the Paleo lifestyle

I'm not going to try and tackle writing about them all at once. That would be "so like me" to think about zillions of things and then postpone writing for forever. I'm not going to do that. One issue at a time, people.

I got inspired actually by looking at nomnompaleo.com again recently. The chick has some great, great recipe ideas, no doubt about it. And her writing style is very down-to-earth. But there's something about her that makes her blog so very inacessible to me. For one thing, it seems like her entire life is prep-cook-prep-cook-cart her one child around-prep-cook-workout-prep-cook-workout... Look, lady, I work. I have a full-time job. I have two small children. I'm in a band. I run a monthly jam session for women. I have extended family and an active social schedule. I have a garden. I have narcolepsy. I have two dogs. So yes, prep-cook-workout still has to happen, but it's like, the same as brushing my teeth has to happen. Gotta work it in. Secondly, I don't have a ton of money for things like a sous-vide. The whole thing kind of smacks of OC soccer Mom, really. Not that I have anything against that kind of person - quite the contrary - and more power to ya sister! But I have this sneaky feeling there are more Moms / people out there like me who aren't rolling in cash or time. Yet, I'm still working in the paleo thing. Maybe I have some useful advice to offer? Or just tell me to STFU, whatever.

My biggest issue is getting about in the morning. I'm narcoleptic, thus I have been late for work for the past sixteen years or so. I have to have a way to get out the door as quickly as possible in the morning. You might label this issue "No Time For Breakfast" just to put us all in the same boat together.

The best solution for me has been to eat breakfast at work. I know, not everyone likes doing that, and not everyone has the luxury of being able to eat at work, but if you can eat at work, or in your car on the way to work, here are the breakfasts that work for me:

(Everything comes with a big thermos of black coffee of course).

1. Get a container of pre-cut cantaloupe and a pack of sliced prosciutto from the grocery store and bring it in. Wrap about 1/4 slice of prosciutto around each chunk. This lasts me 2 days usually, which is about 2 oz prosciutto and 3/4 cups of cantaloupe per day. YUM.
2. Slice up an apple and put almond butter or sun butter on the slices. YUM.
3. A giant handful of your favorite berries with a handful of raw whole almonds. YUM.
4. In case of emergency, a Lara Bar (most kinds are paleo-friendly, but as usual check the label) will do in a pinch. YUM but high in carbs. A Tanka bar is better for you, but ca-ching $$$. YUM.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 26: A Song That You Can Play on an Instrument
Iron Maiden - "Losfer Words"



Yes, I can play this on my bass. Not quite this fast, though. But damn it, I'm working on it! MAIDEN!

too tired to remember how to spell tgif

Missed the mile run portion of this morning's workout, so i have to make it up some time this weekend. So very tired.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 27: A Song You Wish You Could Play
Metallica - "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth"

happy day! then wallowing in it...

So, the aqua boot camp when belly-up. Oh well, easy come, easy go. I knew it wouldn't fly, but at least I'm getting my money back. I had to go to 6:15 pm boot camp tonight because Joseph was being a demon all morning and half the night lastnight. Wow, little boys can be bad! I must have spanked him about 10 times in a 24 hour period. He can be just horrid. And hard-headed. He's spending the night with my Mom tonight, PTL. I need a break. But the fun thing was that Kevs and Gabe came with me to boot camp. Gabe was sooooo adorable. He did some of the exercises with me. He lifted a 15 pound kettlebell and a 10 pound medicine ball. He kept lying down to take breaks. We ran out across the field and then we had to run backwards. He started to run backwards and then he turned around and said, "I can't do it!" I smiled and said, "Me neither!" It was so enjoyable. He was really into it! I suspected that after the warm up he'd be ready to go, but he made it through the whole thing (in some form or fashion). It was such a good time, I didn't really even mind the heat so much. But man it sure was hot.

30 Day Song Challenge
Day 28: A Song That Makes You Feel Guilty
"Look What You've Done" by Jet

I was married for nine years. It was a terrible marriage, bad from the very start, and in a constant state of degradation. I loved my ex-husband, passionately, deeply, but we were young, and he had quite the drug and alcohol problem. He mistreated me, to say the least. We were separated for about two years at the very end. I felt strongly that we should get divorced, but I wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do, naturally. He wanted to stay together, but continued to fuck up the relationship even when we were separated. I finally reached a point where I felt pretty dead inside towards him. The opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. I became apathetic. It made me feel happy to think about being divorced from him. I started to live my life again as a single person, and I enjoyed it. I finally went to a lawyer and had all the papers drawn up. I went to see my husband at his apartment. Without knowing any of my circumstances or what I had come there to do, he played this song for me, and sang it to me. I sat there, pregnant with another man's child, and thought, he doesn't deserve this. He may deserve many bad things, but he doesn't deserve what's about to happen to him.

Aqua beat

I am sooooo tired. I went to aqua boot camp today during lunch. It was a thousand degrees and the water felt amazing. I never broke a sweat, except on my head. I never felt hot. I didn't really even feel like I was getting a workout.

WRONG!

I'm already getting sore!

30 Day Song Challenge:
Day 29 - A Song From Your Childhood
"Sing" by Joe Raposo



I pulled this one up again back in 2006 when I was making a mixtape for my newborn. It really brings back some nice, warm, secure feelings.

Tuesdays With Anna

How weird is it that I only ever want to blog on Tuesdays? So odd.

I'm on week 2 of my third boot camp. I moved to 7 am. So far, so good. It's actually kind of motivating me to get up in the mornings! I thought for sure I would just sleep through all of them and screw everything up. Whoo-hoo! I'm kicking butt. Also on Friday they featured me as the fitwit Camper Profile on their blog, so that was quite the lil honor. It was a good way for me to kind of give my perspective on the whole experience, and that makes me feel more comfortable in general. I'm not sure why, nor am I even sure I want to know why, but I am addicted to fitwit. My goal for this camp is to have perfect attendance.

AND THEN... I joined the fitwit dance club, which basically just means once a month I'm going to go to a dance class with some of the people. I've been wanting to go to dance 411 and shake my booty real hard, but I always feel like an ass going to those things by myself. So, now I have someone to go with. High five.

AND THEN... I bought a 25-class card to aqua boot camp, which is very near my work and has a lunch time class. I scheduled my first few for my off days from fitwit.

AND THEN... I fell off the wagon hardcore this past weekend... We went to Alex's graduation in Charleston, SC. I can't believe I'm the aunt of an adult now. It's just too weird. They grow up too fast. Anyway, I ate a bunch of garbage while traveling, and I had a lunch meeting today with an employee, and I have dinner plans tonight, so I'm just screwed. I'm planning to pick my paleo lifestyle back up tomorrow and run with it. I honestly can't believe the difference it makes when I'm eating clean vs. not. My stomach has actually been hurting after I indulge in whatever garbage I used to eat by the bucketful. It's been a very telling experience, for sure.

Hey, have you heard of the 30 day song challenge? Everybody is doing it on facebook. My problem is that I'm friends with too many music snobs and I don't feel like undergoing that kind of scrutiny. So I'm going to do it here.

Day 30: Your Favorite Song at This Time Last Year
"Summertime Clothes" by Animal Collective
The song and lyrics create such familiar imagery for me; it really resonated with me. Atlanta is HOT in the summer! And until I had kids, I was one of those night people...

That's when my bipolar tendencies kicked in

I noticed I was blogging on Tuesdays and I wanted to put a stop to that and since that time I've only ever thought about blogging on Tuesdays, so I figure if I just give in to Tuesdays I will somewhow self-regulate.

The food fight ended on 5/21. I didn't win. I did, however, lose 18% of my body fat. If you're making a little impressed face at that, then just take a moment to realize that that percentage doesn't mean anything. I did lose quite a few pounds and inches. Then I went into this bizarre sort of post-partum about it. I indulged in all sorts of evil foods and drinks all week and basically felt sick most of the time. I think I was trying to have some kind of backlash, but I really don't know wtf I think I have to rebel against. Living longer? Good habits?

The descent into madness started a couple of days before the food fight ended, when I realized I couldn't possibly win. The trainers had this side bet going about which of them could lose the highest percentage of body fat. The trainer who won lost 25% of her body fat. She was already rail thin. Then it occurred to me, if someone only has 10 pounds of body fat, then they would have only had to lose 2.5 pounds over the past 11 weeks to get to 25%. So then some little sparks flew around in my robot brain for a couple of days until I got dunked. I lost 18% of my body fat, plus 4 pounds of muscle. I won't say how many pounds I lost, but I will say that I lost more than 1.5 pounds per week, which is 'unhealthy'. Why? Because you lose muscle when you lose weight that quickly. The woman who won lost 27% of her body fat, which would have been damn near impossible for me to do in 11 weeks, and entirely unhealthy.

Shenanigans!

Nonetheless I was thrilled to have lost the fat. Additionally I had lost inches, my clothes fit better (or worse if they were too big), my mood had stabilized, my blood pressure was better, my sleep apnea was cured, and I was fine with not winning. I can't win everything.

Then came the photos. I had to have Kevs take pictures of me from the front, side, and back for my 'after' shots. I looked awful. I mean really. Awful. All I could thinks was wow, I worked my ass off for eleven weeks just to look slightly less disgusting. And it was depressing. And all the fatigue and discomfort and nausea and hunger that I had been grinning and bearing for the past eleven weeks came back to me and forced their way through my tear ducts.

I mean, I had so many positive changes in my health and my life and the way I felt over the past few weeks, I couldn't understand why my body didn't really reflect that. In fact, very few people have made any kind of 'Have you lost weight?' types of comments at all. It's barely noticeable.

It's because it's kind of a drop in the bucket. I'm a big fat whale of a woman, and I have a long way to go. And no one to blame but myself. I just get kind of freaked out when I think about continuing to do this over the next I-don't-know-how-long until I'm in good shape. It's overwhelming.

So I trudged back into fitwit this morning, and I'm eating my fucking fruit for lunch. I don't have any choice any more. Oh but yeah now I have the added joy of having to wake up early in the morning to go exercise because the fam can't really handle me being gone an extra hour 4 nights per week.

It's cool. I'm going to rock this shit if it kills me.

an endless journey of self-something

I seem to be blogging on Tuesdays. How very odd.

I've been following this primal / paleo / caveman diet thing lately, for the sake of the fitwit "food fight" competition. If you've never heard of it, you can peep it here and here, but it's basically like, if you can't kill it with a spear or hack it out of the earth, you can't eat it. Oh and also you can't eat any grains or legumes for some reason. (Sigh) I hate diets that aren't really based on anything, but this one seems to be working and seems to be keeping me relatively fed, so I guess it is based on something, I'm just not 100% sure what yet. But you know, don't sell it like it's some caveman trip when oh, but if you come across beans or corn don't eat that shit for God's sake. It's all a lot easier to swallow (wah-wah) when there's some kind of basis behind it. Like Gittleman's stuff - I could understand that. I get the glycemic index. It seems to make perfect sense. If I eat something a little too sweet, I can totally feel it causing more cravings. This diet I don't really understand that well yet, but it's the fitwit way, so I've been giving it a whirl. Oh yeah, no dairy or alcohol either. Guhhh...

So, here are some things I've discovered on my foray into paleo-ism.

• Dehydrated ginger tastes like hair on fire.


• There's this thing called a Tanka Bar that's basically dried buffalo and dried cranberries that someone came up with, and it's the big / main / only? paleo snack food. Now in spicy pepper flavor too. Hey guess what? They taste pretty amazing. Not as in, "I'm starving, oh wow suddenly kale tastes good," either. I mean they actually taste good.


• I love canteloupe and hate honeydew.


• I knew 'sugar makes me hungry' before, but I did not know that fat is what makes me feel full.


• Apparently saturated fats are righteous now? This one is still confusing to me, but doing this for a few weeks probably won't kill me. Right?


• You just can't make kale taste good. Eating it raw is tolerable, making it into chips by tossing oil and salt and roasting is tolerable, but it cannot be made good.


• It's damn near impossible for me to eat enough protein in a day to be the beefcake my body is trying to be.


• Coconut water tastes like stale water. There's a weird meatiness to it. It tastes the way that it smells when you're sitting near someone with bad breath. Not horrible breath, and not right in your face, just bad. But when you splash it into a big glass of water it tastes nice and apparently rebalances your electrolytes wonderfully.


• Coconut oil works like regular oil but smells like coconut. I do love that smell. And I'm so happy to not be reading any recipes that call for vegetable oil. That stuff smells disgusting.


• Coconut meat tastes fine, but not as good as I had imagined it would. I love dessicated coconut, even unsweetened, and it seems like if that has been ligin in a big sphere with coconut milk then it would taste amazing, but no. It is pretty filling, though.


• My stomach lacks the ability to signal for "full." But lately I've been trying to at least take a stab at guessing, instead of ignoring the problem altogether. That's progress, I guess.

How many Harvard grads does it take to change a lightbulb?

Just one. She holds the light bulb up to the socket and the world spins around her.

That was a weak segue into my new constant obsession about my inability to find a balance between Anna and non-Anna concerns. Like last year when I felt always stressed for time because eyedrum was eating into my family time, I worry about the time I spend away from the kids. I didn't see them all day today, other than a quick good morning and a quick goodnight. Unlike last year, I feel that this is a much more important reason. I'm getting healthy -- that would buy me years of time with them that I might otherwise not have. But I could spend more time with them and get healthy if I would just work out at home. But I never did that when I had the chance. I didn't want to, and they wouldn't let me. And then let's not even talk about my new diet being completely different from what they eat. But wait, should it be? Am I still in the trial period? Is this an opportunity for me to feel guilty about something?

I haven't bought their Easter stuff at all yet. What do I have to do again? Egg hunt? Color eggs? Where am I?

I'm so tired.

Belly dancing continues unabated. As does boot camp. I ran an incredibly slow mile today and patted myself on the back for it. I'm back off the cigs, which of course is WONDERFUL. I pigged out over the weekend, but it was scheduled so therefore fine I guess. You wouldn't believe what a hard workout belly dancing is.