Musing over dinner

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Since breakfast was a roast beef sandwich with baked chips at Potbelly's (I was watching Theresa and Tony perform) and lunch was a peanut butter sandwich and a bowl of lower sugar oatmeal (yeah, yeah, I know about steelcut oats -- they taste like snot), I'm not hungry at the moment so this is a good time to hit the store and pick up the fixings for dinner. So -- something tasty, something healthy, but something that's not going to heat up the kitchen too badly (because it's freaking hot out there). Chicken breasts and veggies? I may well hit Whole Paycheck and pick up something I can toss on the grill.

Oh, and as of this morning -- 311.2. Whatever. Tonight is also a straight cardio night, so I may bike for 30 and then swim.

LATER: dinner was a grilled chicken breast, grilled zucchini with onions and garlic, two cobs of fresh grilled corn, and a Weight Watchers English Toffee Crunch bar. Mmm...

Drumroll, please

Friday, July 30, 2010

312.4 as of this morning. The HELL? I'm not complaining, mind you, but...the HELL? Especially since I had a PB&J sandwich for dinner, then was too damn tired to hit the gym so I just went straight to bed (and proceeded to stare at the ceiling for 5 hours because my subconscious hates me).

I don't understand my metabolism anymore, I really don't.

Breakfast was a peanut butter sandwich -- lunch was stir-fried chicken, shrimp and vegetables plus chicken fried rice at Benihana since I missed my traditional birthday lunch with Steve & Co. (plus I got a scoop of green tea ice cream as a birthday dessert).



Tea was a bag of low-butter popcorn (275 calories) because I'm stuck in the office until 8, and I'll probably have a protein shake for dinner when I get home (note to self -- remember to stop at Walmart and get more low-fat chocolate soy milk). As for the sweaty stuff, tonight will be a weightlifting night, plus 30 minutes on the bike. And dear Jesus, I'm doing a face plant the moment I get out of the shower.

Uh-huh

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Well, turned out to be the exact same weight as yesterday, so hell if I know what's happening.

Breakfast was a muffin (once again, late out the door and had to grab what I could). Lunch was roasted chicken breast, Greek salad, tsatsiki, tabouleh, some chunks of roasted potato, and a piece of pan-fried cauliflower that surprised me. The taste was really quite acceptable, kind of bland and slightly sweet. The problem is the mouth-feel -- I wasn't tempted to gag as I usually do with boiled cauliflower, but I still don't like that overly juicy cellular feel of the vegetable. That being said, I could see pureeing it and using it in a sauce or dip.

26 laps

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

After today's food fest I thought I'd go to the gym and work some of it off on the bike, then realized 1) I've already been on the bike twice this week and 2) I really needed a shower. With that in mind, I decided to do laps in the pool instead. Which turned out to be great, as the moon was perfectly placed to throw a carpet of silver across the water and made swimming eminently cool (yeah, I have pool lights -- they attract mosquitos and June bugs in the summer. Moving on--).

I'm very pleased to discover that I can now swim for 10 minutes straight, which takes up 26 laps (or 650 feet in my pool). Granted, I was panting and exhausted at the end of it, but by God I did it. So I can swim for 10 minutes, and bike for 40. Now I have to get to the point where I can do it concurrently. After that, I have to practice running for 10 minutes non-stop, then add THAT in at the end.

Fuck the scale. I felt great when I got out of the gym last night, and I feel damn good right now. The weight will come off when it comes off -- in the meantime, I'm getting stronger and more fit. (Still have to work on the food, though.)

So, food today

Breakfast -- a liver sausage sandwich on sugar-free whole wheat bread because I was hideously late and didn't have time for oatmeal.

Lunch -- a bowl of zuppa toscana, two breadsticks and three small slices of sausage pizza at Olive Garden.

Dinner -- Caesar salad, two slices of Shiner beer bread, 10 ounce steak and some fried onions.

And watch -- now that I've gorged, I'll be 313 tomorrow, because my body likes to play mindfuck games with me. Oh, and I know all this isn't very healthy -- I also don't normally eat like this.

Yeah, so much for my goal

*sigh*

314. Fourteen pounds over where I was supposed to be by today. Just fucking shoot me already.

I know I've been eating badly. Yesterday was a bowl of low-sugar oatmeal (breakfast), a Thai chicken wrap, Doritos and a cookie for lunch, a protein shake for dinner, and two tortillas, a chicken curry pocket thingy and a Weight Watchers ice cream bar because I'm under a LOT OF FUCKING STRESS THAT I CAN'T TALK ABOUT IN PUBLIC. FUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK!

Mind you, I'm still exercising -- after last night's little pigout I went to the gym, lifted weights and rode the bike for 40 minutes. Didn't do shit, probably because of all that sugar. Just...fuck.

I've got to come up with a decent stress-reducing technique. Yoga doesn't seem to do anything. And I can no longer eat. Great. What I need is a pile of wood and an axe, or the modern equivalent.

Still alive

Monday, July 26, 2010

Arteries are all still intact. 15 minutes on the regular bike, 25 on the reclining bike. Woohoo, whatever.

Putting a pint of Blue Bell to my head, and pulling the trigger

Sunday, July 25, 2010

No, I'm not going to do that, but dear God the thought has a certain appeal. I have a massive sinus headache from the variable weather out there that meds aren't touching, various loved ones are going through incredibly stressful times and I'm worried about them, I haven't lost a damn pound since Thursday (in fact, I gained 2 -- whee!) and I feel like this is my body's way of giving me the finger for even trying to do something as insane as train for a triathlon, all of which makes I feel like I'm spinning my wheels big time and not making any forward momentum.

Which just goes to show that endorphins don't cure all of life's evils, no matter how much you wish they did. I'm just going to go to the gym and get on the damn bike anyway -- maybe it'll jack my blood pressure up enough that I'll blow out an artery. At least then I won't have to deal with this stupid headache anymore.

Video Post 02

Friday, July 23, 2010

Bounce

Thursday, July 22, 2010

In this case, up, to 310. Not unusual -- my sleep cycle has been for shit since Monday, and when I can't sleep my cortisol levels go absolutely gonzo and I swell up like the Michelin Man. Last night was the first one where I got something akin to 7 hours of sleep (interrupted once when I had to go to the bathroom -- the Black & White Idiot heard me and decided to headbutt the bedroom door for a good five minutes until he realized I wasn't letting him in) -- another night like that and my metabolism should settle down.

Nonetheless, it's annoying because it means that, barring a sudden GI virus, I won't meet my goal weight for my birthday. I really, really, REALLY wanted to be under 300 -- and yeah, I know that was kind of wishful thinking, but still. I may have to settle for being under 305, which is still damn good. I think the lowest I've been since we started using the electronic scale was 307.

Never mind. I just have to keep swimming and cycling, throwing the iron around, and eating reasonably. Things will resolve themselves in their own time, right?

A "Hee!" moment

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Many moons ago, when the world was young and Ann Coulter still roamed the plains, I learned how to juggle. It happened when I was in the chorus of "Barnum" -- the director wanted a female juggler to stand behind Charity Barnum during her big death scene and slowly juggle while she sang "The Colors of My Life". 22 measures of music, mind you. Anyway, being the attention whore that I am, I learned how to juggle for that, and have been doing it ever since.

So I have a set of juggling balls on my desk, and my boss just walked by, picked them up and tried to juggle with them. He managed one juggle (that's actually the formal term for one successful pass), then handed them back to me. I started juggling, much to the surprise of my coworkers, then dropped a ball. Without even thinking about it, I dropped into a crouch and picked it up. Dropped another ball, dropped into another crouch and got that one. It wasn't until I stood up that I realized, "Oh, wait -- I just did a butt-to-heels crouch without gasping, falling over or straining to get up."

Hee!

98.44

That's how many laps I have to do in my pool to reach 750 meters, which is the baby length of the swim section of a triathlon. Tonight, I did ten laps. Ten standard laps, mind you -- crawl style instead of my usual backstroke.

I'm still panting. Yeah, it's gonna take me six months to get up there.

Oy, lunch

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

So we have this little cafeteria at work where you can get sandwiches, wraps, burgers, and salads. The salads are kept in these little tubs -- you tell the counter person what you want, and they scoop some into a styrofoam cup (large or small, depending on your choice).

And the salads look good, I admit that. Luscious chunks of red tomato, gleaming green broccoli, purple and white onion, leafy green stuff, all of it glistening under a light coating of dressing. And then you get a cup of it, and you take it upstairs and try a forkful...and it tastes like plastic. And I don't mean, "Hmm, there's an aftertaste here" -- I'm talking, "Was this produced in China for display use only?"

Which makes obtaining lunch a bit of a challenge. I mean, sure, I could bring stuff in from home, but that would require planning and forethought and...and...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *wipes a tear away* I kill myself sometimes, I really do. The second option is to go out and forage for a decent lunch somewhere else, but since I loathe fighting crowds and usually try to eat before or after the noon rush hour, I lose my decent parking space in the lot. I may even have to park in *gasp* the satellite lot across the street. Horrors.

(Which is a problem how, my inner trainer asks, especially since it means you have to walk for a couple of extra minutes? Hey, I never said I was sensible, okay? And frankly, when I'm fresh out of the Death Star the last thing I want to do is slog an additional two minutes through God's Own Hair Dryer.)

Or I suck it up and eat the plastic. *sigh* Nobody ever said eating healthily was going to be easy.

Video Post 01

What was I thinking?

I made a very silly post on my Facebook a couple of nights ago. Someone had told me, "You rock" when I detailed how far I'd gone on the reclining bike that evening, and I blithely replied, "The goal is to be able to swim 750 meters, bike 20 kilometers, and run 5 kilometers. Why yes, I do like triathlons. :-)"

What. The. FUCK?

Where did THAT come from? I mean, yes, I actually do enjoy triathlons -- on TV. And while the idea of competing in an endurance race is interesting (if there's one thing I do damn well, it's endure), let's be perfectly honest here -- I'm a 308 lb. 44-year-old woman with flat feet and one dodgy knee. At this point in my life, I would probably throw up and then pass out within fifteen minutes of getting in the water, much less getting on a bike and running in consecutive order.

Oh, and yes, I'm putting it out there. As of this morning, I weighed 308 pounds. Granted, that's down from my all-time high of 324, and the goal is to drop below 300 before my birthday, but I digress. Where the hell did a big ol' gal like me get off saying that I wanted to compete in a triathlon? Is my subconscious trying to tell me something? Is it trying to kill me?

Of course, then the idea wouldn't leave me alone, goddamn it. Idly, because I didn't want my subconscious to think that I was serious or anything, I did a bit of Googling on triathlons in the area. Turns out that a local Life Time Fitness in Plano sponsors an indoor triathlon in February. Which would be seven months away, and the distances, well:

10-minute swim in lap pool
10-minute transition (swim to bike)
30-minute bike in cycle fitness studio
5-minute transition (bike to run)
20-minute treadmill run

Hell, I'm already doing 40 minutes on a bike (13.53 kilometers), and I've got a pool -- I can just start using a crawl instead of a backstroke to swim. The biggest, sweatiest bitch would be the running -- I have a treadmill, but I already know that would hurt like a motherfucker. And then I'd have to put it all together.

I...think I want to try this. I'd have to figure out HOW to train for it, but still, I think I want to try this, despite the whole 308 lb 44-year-old dodgy knee and flat feet thing (of course, if I DID actually train for a triathlon I suspect the 308 lbs would be a self-correcting issue). And upon doing some further Googling it seems that big broads all over the place are training for this sort of thing, so I wouldn't be totally alone.

Um. What do you think?

No bikee -- swimee!

Monday, July 19, 2010

No, I'm not dead. But there didn't seem to be any point to posting, "Got up, went into work, came home, did shit around the house, went to bed" over and over again. Yeah, it's been something of a fallow few months, but I'm back on the horse now.

Or, more accurately, bike. Yeah, I'm biking these days, kind of in honor of the Tour de France but also because it uses up more energy than just walking (and God knows me running at the moment probably wouldn't be the greatest of ideas). At the moment I'm up to 40 minutes on the bike (gym bike, not out on the roads), with an average of 8.2 miles per ride. If I can keep this up (please God), I want to take my Swedish bike into one of the local shops, get it overhauled, and see about taking it out on some of the bike paths around here once the weather gets back down into reasonable temps (aka not God's Own Hairdryer).

That being said, I decided I wasn't up to biking tonight -- so I swam 25 laps instead. Phoo, there's nothing quite like diving into a blood-warm pool.