Ominous Beginnings

This was the view on my bike ride into work this morning. There was a bit of a damp chill in the air and misty evidence on my bare legs and shoulders of the dark clouds that were headed east.

It made for a nice start to the day, though.

And I like the metaphor. I chased the dark clouds away and dragged in the sun.

Grocery Day Prep

Let me start by saying,

I HATE GOING TO THE GROCERY STORE.

Especially on a weekend. Especially on a weekend at Woodman's. But go, I must, at least once a week. (For the record, I barely survived today's trip ... between the construction and the approximately 873 other people in the store, I made it out just before I flipped my lid.)

But then I got home and was happy to put all of this together:

• Carrots peeled and cut. 
• Red peppers, deseeded and sliced.
• Seedless cucumbers, one sliced for snacking and one currently in the process of becoming 24-hour refrigerator pickles. 
• Jicama, peeled and matchsticked.
• Corn on the cob, shucked for dinner this evening.
• Iceburg, washed and chillin' for BLTs Monday night.
• Green grapes, rinsed and ready. 
• Bowl full o'cherries, duds removed.
• Seedless watermelon, cut up and getting cold for tonight's snack. 

After yesterday's German Fest fun, it's back to good stuff for the week. And now that it's all ready for me, there are no excuses for not eating well.

If It Feels Good, Do It

The concept is incredibly simple. Easy, almost.

Do what makes you feel good.

The hard part is knowing what feels good. And identifying what feels bad.

I read this the other day and it has stuck in my cranium:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/rethinking-exercise-as-a-source-of-immediate-rewards/?smid=tw-share&_r=0

What is says, in a nutshell, is that perhaps it's wise to think of exercise /eating better in a new way. Perhaps we should ot think of it as means to an end ... like weight loss. But as a way to feel good. Really good. Down deep inside good. For a long time.

Or at least that's how I interpreted it.

So I started thinking about what makes me feel good. Really good.

I attack the day better, think clearer, handle stress better when I work out in the morning.

I worry and kick myself less when I eat right.

Do I like sleeping in? Yes. Do I like cake? Yes. Yes, I do. But both of those things really end up making me feel worse, not better. It's just not always the easiest thing to remember when my eyelids are heavy and there's frosting just a few feet from me in the breakroom.

When I stop and think, really think, the choice isn't as hard as it seems.

(This is Day 3 of relatively clean eating for me. The first 3-day streak in a long time.)

Efficiency

I'm still riding my bike to work a couple of times a week.

There is still no hot water.

This is how you take an ice cold shower:

1. Get washcloth, soap, shampoo and conditioner in the ready position.

2. Turn water on about half-speed and immediately jump under it, washcloth in hand. Your goal here is to get your body as wet as possible, as quickly as possible, with the water that's "in the pipes" and therefore NOT ice cold. Ignore your head at this point Your hair isn't the most important thing yet. Making sure you get the sweat and stink off is the key outcome of this step.

3. As soon as you are wet, turn water OFF. Use washcloth to scrub away. As soon as you are soapy ...

4. Turn water back on ... again at half speed. (You don't want to use that "in the pipes" water too fast.) Rinse as you spin quickly under the trickle. Get hair as wet as you can. Keep that washcloth under the water as much as possible.

5. Turn water off. Shampoo.

6. Turn water on to rinse hair ... but bend forward to do so, so that your butt/body is out of the water and only your head is in. The water is getting colder now.

7. Turn water off for lather #2. And curse the amount of "product" you have in your hair that requires two shampoos to get it all out.

8. Turn water back on for final rinse, again head first. Water is really cold now.

9. Turn water off and apply conditioner, the smallest amount you can. The less you use, the less you have to rinse out.

10. Rinse conditioner from hair. By now, the water is FREEZING and it hurts the back of your head as it hits.

11. Turn water off. Use washcloth to get the last bits of soap off.

12. If you need to make one more swipe of the important parts (my grandma called them the 3 Ps), use the wet washcloth you've been holding on to.

13. Done! And there is no steam to mess up the mirror or wreck your hair. If I had to guess, the water ran for less than 3 minutes.

The good news is that my boss has searched out parts to fix the innards of the faucet on Amazon. He says that I will eventually get warm water. And I'm not going to lie.

I can't wait.

I Am Strong

Today, I am loving my body.

I've been pretty down on it lately. It's too big. I'm carrying too much weight. There's too much squish and my clothes are not fitting properly. 

I'm really not fond of the muffing top that appears with my jeans. 

But you know what? 

I still love my body. 

I ran Saturday morning. Lately, every mile has been a real challenge. I've been feeling big and lethargic and heavy. 

Saturday morning I felt at home. The best way I can describe it is comfortable in my own skin. My feet hit the pavement methodically, one in front of the other. My breathing was even and steady. And I covered 5 miles after a 1-hour RIPPED workout with relative ease. 

It made me feel like a million bucks.

This body has been bigger. This body has been smaller. When it was bigger, I didn't trust it. I didn't trust that I was good enough or strong enough.

Today, I know I am good enough. I am strong enough. My body will take me where I want to go, when I want to go there. Through this whole process, and it is an ongoing process, I have learned to trust me.

It hasn't come easy. It's taken practice to believe that I can do "it" ... whatever it is.

But today, at almost 48 years old, I know I can.

I love that.

P.S. Here's one more thing I love. I got a message from our old friend New Runner today. This morning she logged a personal best distance of 6 miles!  That's SIX MILES ... that's the distance between Fort and Jefferson, y'all! What I love most about it is that I know she's feeling the same way about her body tonight. She's proud of what it can do.

Double Double

Saturday marked the second day of my week where I doubled up workouts.

If you recall, I ran and biked on Thursday. It felt pretty OK, so I thought I'd give it a whirl again to start the weekend off right.

I was up early, at RIPPED by 6:30 a.m (OK, 6:35 ... I missed the first half of the warm-up) and good and sweaty by the cool-down an hour later at 7:30. The sun was still hiding behind the clouds and the breeze was just perfect, so I grabbed my running water bottle, flipped my Map My Run app on and hit the streets of my old neighborhood.

It was fun to cruise over those once-familiar sidewalks. I always walked, even at my heaviest, and knew my old 2-mile route would serve me well. I wanted to do 4 miles, however, so I added a few blocks here and there in an attempt to avoid simply doing the loop twice.

Before I knew it, I was back at my car ... with 5.1 miles on my phone.

A nice surprise.

Best of all, it felt easy. My pace was "slow" for me ... 10:40 miles. But it was easy and it felt good. Really good. For the first time in a long time.

A change of scenery is good for everything, I guess.

Bugs, Breathing and Beads

I challenged myself Thursday.

First, I woke up before 5 a.m., ran four miles and then hopped on my bike to ride to work. 

Then, I put in a 10+ hour day.  

Then I got suited up for the ride home. I was actually looking forward to it because it's nice to have the decompression time. It's a good time to think and a good time to sort, prioritize and chill. 

But as soon as I hit the bike path, I knew I wasn't alone. 

They were there. 

Millions of them. 

Swarms of gnats. 

I took a mouthful before I knew it. They stick in the back of your throat in the most disgusting way. 

I got wise quickly ... in through the nose; out through the mouth. In through the nose; out through the mouth. In through the nose; out through the mouth. I kept repeating it over and over, in cadence with my pedaling, and tried to keep my nose/mouth pointed toward the ground to prevent an accidental bug cloud inhale . 

I didn't dare lick my lips for fear that I'd have a whole bunch of the little buggers stuck there by the time I got home. 

I could hear them pinging off my helmet and see them bouncing off my sunglasses. 

I was convinced I could even hear them as they hit the craters of my ears. Gross, right?

The good news is that the ride is only about 8 miles ... so I was home fairly quickly. I took off my helmet and gave myself a good shake to make sure there were no hangers-on. 

And that's when I noticed something that made me smile. 

You see, I had forgotten to take my earrings off when I changed from office wear into bike gear. What I thought was bugs crashing into my ears was actually some fake pearl beads clinking from my dangle earrings. 

It's a good look. Bike helmet and dangly pearl earrings, right?  

Better option than this ... 

I Keep Looking ...

I am looking for something.

I have not yet put my finger on it. Every time I think I have found it, when I swear I've found it, it turns out I haven't yet.

What am I looking for?

I'm looking for the one thing that's going to snap me back to reality.

So far, these are the things it has not been:

My smallest clothes not fitting.
My favorite clothes not fitting.
My biggest small clothes not fitting.
Walking around feeling like an uncomfortable sausage all day because my clothes don't fit.
The re-emergence of huge upper arms.
The rubbing together of the tops of my thighs.
The blob of skin that hangs over my too tight bra.
The re-appearance of a pooch in my mid-section.
The weakness of will that allows me to walk when I should be running or back off when I should be pushing.
The nearly constant bad internal conversation in my head.
The tired, defeated, hopeless feelings that creep in.

I have made myself lots of promises. I have vowed to get back on track a hundred or more times. And, as of yet, I have not actually done it. Which means I'm obviously lying to myself. I can't figure out why, either. 

But yesterday I tried on a pair of size 12 pants and stopped breathing for a minute when they fit. 

The truth is I'm working out pretty much like usual. But I'm essentially eating whatever I want. Proof that this whole deal is ALL. ABOUT. THE. EATING. 

For now, I'm going to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving forward. And maybe, just maybe, while I'm hunting for divine intervention or some equally illogical other thing, I'll do enough right to get to the place I want to be.