Sick

I have been sick. Like, the kind of sick that’s all up in your sinuses and makes you sneeze about 4000 times a day and makes your eyes run all -the -time- kind of sick! I will usually teach through most colds, but I can’t do it through laryngitis and I won’t do it with tears running down my face! So I stayed home.
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Being sick worked out well with my exercise vacation. I was sick throughout most of the excer-break, and my body even bonused an extra day off yesterday. Today I worked out on the Wii Fit. It’s fun, but I miss the great outdoors. Today’s workout was mostly just intended to remind my body that this is still the plan. We are still dieting, we are still working it out. We just needed a break…
(‘We’ refers to the muscles I’m rallying here at the quarter break!) The excer-break seemed to do the trick with my body. I really was getting worn out. My limbs were hurting, my joints, ALL of my muscles ached. But my hips made the most noise and were really concerning me. I’m pleased to report that after the time off my hips are totally fine. If I sit in one position too long they get stiff, but I’m relieved that I seemed to make a pretty complete recovery. Phew! I was afraid I was going to have to quit running as soon as I had begun. Like, really worried.
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The rain today was gorgeous. Being from Seattle, we get plenty of rain so it’s like blaspheme for me to utter such a phrase. But yeah. The rain looked beautiful. I came home and looked outside to see that kind of rain that turns all summery looking because the sun’s shining through the backside… All golden… It was beautiful. And then I remembered the one time I’ve ever run in the rain and how much I loved it, the way is sprayed across my face, how happy I was to realize a new reason to appreciate the rain. I was dying to go out. But no, tomorrow. Gigi and I will head out again tomorrow to see if the old hips are gonna make the magic happen.
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In other RAD news? The Color Me Rad Race happens on 8/10 in my town! I have yet to register, but I’m planning to be there, vacation allowing. If not that race, I’ll go be rad somewhere else. 🙂

At Last!

So far this is my day:

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The first part of the day was decorating the venue for my daughter’s school’s PTSA auction with Pacman, Miss Pacman and a few of the ghosts and treats. After that it was retail therapy and nail painting. I’m not saying I’m the best at painting my stubby, little nails, but I do have great taste in color!

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This morning I hopped on the scale to see those two pesky pounds that jumped on as soon as I stopped exercising on Tuesday, disappear. Along with them they took a half pound, so I am down 2.5 this week after being up two earlier this week. A net of a half pound lost! I know, it doesn’t seem like THE numbers I’m looking for, but after sitting for a month without any significant movement on the scale, it feels like progress! Something! At last!

Bradley emailed me an article yesterday that was about fat. The article not only had a lot of interesting fat factoids (and a stomach turning Dr. Oz video), it also confirmed my suspicions about my body going into stress and holding onto the fat instead of letting it go.
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I did lie a little bit. I gave up 70% of my exercise. I figured my hip was really what needed rest so I took two complete days off of everything and since then I’ve played around with Wii Fit and I’ve done a few rounds of abs and arms workouts. If I stopped altogether I was afraid of losing my momentum. Today my plan is to do Wii, abs, arms and end with some of the hip exercises. I figure it’s ok. I’ve kept everything focused on strength training and it’s all been low impact. And really, I lost weight for the first time in a while. I must be doing something right!
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EmbarASSing confession- my butt is getting cuter. I was reading on Pinterest all these amazing workouts one can do on Memes, and of course they have, like, a 21 year old chick standing there in a midriff shirt, close up on the compression shorts ensconced booty – wait, lemme correct that- a high, tight, round booty that you could bounce quarters on in compression shorts. I looked at those and thought, “Man, that will never be me.”* And that may be true. It does say not for people with weak knees. I may never wear a midriff shirt (let’s give that a 3% chance of happening intentionally), but it would seem that when I work my rear, it hops to and pays a little attention! I’m liking the change and my husband is not complaining either. Lets just leave it at that. 🙂
*I realized after I wrote this that in the past having that thought would have been enough to stop me from even trying to move forward. As if because I might not ever look like the girl in that picture it just wasn’t worth it. Isn’t that strange? That some improvement wasn’t good enough? It makes me wonder how often I tell myself things aren’t possible because I allow the fear of failure to hold me back.
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And lastly…
Pet peeve of mine- why do people care so much about ‘dressing their age’?! This morning I overheard one mom say to the other, “We’ll, she’s like FIFTY and she’s trying to dress like her daughter who is 18!” A gasp and a giggle later and the room was all a flutter. I encountered this last year too at Disneyland too. There was a group of ‘adults’ in front of me commenting on a group of early twenty-something girls wearing total nerd girl shirts with quotes about reading, physics and Schrödinger’s cat. This did not escape these women who agreed that, “There just comes a time in your life when you have to buy a grown up’s t-shirt.” There I was, wearing a bright pink t-shirt with Wonder Woman on it while waiting to ride Toy Story Mania. The height of sophistication. I turned around and obviously studied their plain brown khakis and age safe pastel tops with indistinguishable designs safely centered above their bosoms. Their husbands were the male counterpart. Who cares? So then, I wonder, do people say that kind of stuff about me? Because I like color and wear a lot of it. I like to play with clothes. I like kid stuff. Fortunately I work in a profession that encourages And perhaps that’s why this is a pet peeve of mine- I’m waiting for the day I get accused of dressing like a (oh please, NO) 18 year old!

Insane in the Membrane

I was not a fan of that song.  It did make me feel insane.  And that is exactly what this week has felt like!  Sheesh!  I thought I was going for the payout of, “After Jude’s birthday we’ll have some downtime…”  But I had open house last night and after Tuesday’s festivities, I just had to pick up my skirts and get ready for the next event!  Phew!  After this Saturday, life should return to normal…

This morning we had a two hour late start because of snow.  I think we were just excited about it really, since we’ve really had no snow to speak of this year.  So I came into work and tried to sit down and get some procrastinated grading done.  So there I am, sitting at my desk practically vibrating around my chair.  WTH??  It occurred to me that I have not been exercising.  AT ALL.  And my body is probably a little used to burning off the energy.  so….  I went into my childhood hyper ADHD mode where focus was a joke and I couldn’t stop moving.  Eventually I sat with pen in hand, lots of techno and the Moulin Rouge soundtrack and my legs literally running in place under my desk while I graded tests.

I’m going batty.  As soon as I stopped exercising it’s like I took the whole dieting thing down four or five gears.  I got tired.  I got sleepy.   I also got busy and integrated lots of crap into our house for the party.   The good news is that it seems like any hip swelling is going down.  The bad news is that as the swelling is going down I am starting to feel how deep my injury seemed to go.  I think I got a really interesting bone bruise, truth be told.  As I am healing, little twists and jumps seem to aggravate it, and forget about sleeping on it.  anyhow, this is not a blog to act all old and I’m not planning to deeply ponder my health, but it is an interesting game, this whole changing the body thing.

Stepping away from being so hardcore has offered me some perspective, though.  I do think I put my body into shock.  I went from being fairly inactive to exercising an hour or more per night and eating a net of 900-1200 calories per day (that is my after exercise number).  SO hopefully this little vacation from the program will reset my body a bit and have the desired effect.

***Weekend Goals:

This weekend I am hoping to start getting some stretching and strengthening exercises in.  I found a workout that was made by people who run and it is designed specifically to focus on strengthening the hips of people like me – new fat runners.  🙂  I’ll give it  a try, keep chugging and I am bound to see change.  I want to stay within my calories, of course.