New Week, New Momentum

Well, last week wound up being kind of a wash.  I just couldn't seem to get up and at 'em at all.  Instead, I slept in every day.  Well, I say "slept in".  Really, I just slept for an extra half hour, then got to work a little early.  So I swam on Tuesday, I walked another day, and that was about it for the week.

Yesterday, though, I finally started feeling some motivation to get moving again.  It was a gorgeous day!  I had church and then came home at 1, made a late lunch for me and Jason, and then went to another meeting for my church responsibilities.  I got home at about 6:00 and decided to go for a walk.  Jason was out, so I took off on my own down the pretty Boulevard path, listening to funny podcasts. 

I texted Jason to let him know I was heading out and he came to find me on his way home, pulling over to the side of the road, asking in a creepy voice, "Want some candy, little girl?"  I didn't really want to stop walking, since it was so nice, but he seemed bummed when I said he could go on home without me, so I got in the car.  Then he and I went for another walk around our neighborhood.  There are so many gorgeous flowers in bloom still, and the air is so fragrant with their scent.

We also wanted to scope out the other houses in the neighborhood that are for sale to size up the competition.

By the way, we close on our house tomorrow!

I've been feeling pretty blase about it up until now, but it's starting to feel real.

I think yesterday's walk helped spark something inside of me to get me back into gear after last week's slothfulness.  I didn't get to sleep until close to midnight last night, but I was still raring to go this morning for my strength training class.  Now I'm sore, but happy.  Tomorrow is Masters swimming!

The Doctor's Visit

I went to my new doctor yesterday, mainly just so I could get my drug hook-up (see previous migraine post).  I also got a physical, prescription for a lab work up, and a vaccination.  Woo hoo.

My doctor was really nice.  I'm to the age where the newer doctors are my peers and I could see going out to lunch with this one sometime.  But of course, the weight topic came up.  She was very nice about it, but I know that my current weight (and BMI, if you're into that sort of thing) sets off all sorts of alarms in the medical professional's mind.

I told her briefly about losing a bunch of weight several years ago and how most of it has crept back on.  I told her about my experience last year seeing the dietician who essentially called me a liar (or delusional).  I told her about my current workout regimen and how I haven't lost any weight, but I have lost 9 inches in the last month and a half.

She had a couple of thoughts, including me joining a research study at a local hospital involving tracking.  Which made me laugh as I told her that I've tracked my food off and on for YEARS.  In the end, we discussed it, and determined that for now, I would continue what I'm doing, since at least in terms of body composition, I am seeing some results.  If I'm concerned about it in a couple of months, she and I can discuss options.

She was very nice, but this is just one of those awkward conversations that I've had before and will probably have again.  No one seems to understand how I could be doing all the right things and still be obese.  Well, it's very, very possible.  Trust me.

The Lost Week - or, At Least A Couple of Days

I feel useless this week.  It started Tuesday when I was nauseous at Masters swimming.  I had a little tiny headache too, but I was mainly feeling completely ill, especially after every flipturn.  By Tuesday afternoon, I definitely had a migraine.  This is the first time that nausea has preceded a migraine.  Usually they show up together, nicely complementing one another.

I took one migraine pill and it dulled the pain for a little bit, but it came roaring back a bit later.  And I was out of migraine pills.  I'm in between doctors and didn't have anyone to call for a prescription.

I couldn't go home because we had a big meeting on Tuesday.  Which didn't go well.  Which didn't help my headache.  But I popped some Excedrin and soldiered through.  I finally left the office around 6:15, and went home to put an icepack on my head and take some more Excedrin.

Yesterday morning was supposed to be strength training, but I woke up and the headache seemed to have abated, but within 10 minutes of waking up, it was back.  I managed to keep it at a distance through most of yesterday with lots of Excedrin.  LOTS of Excedrin.

This morning I had swimming on my calendar, but when I woke up and realized my head didn't hurt anymore, but I was still exhausted, I decided to sleep.  Right this second, I can feel a slight achiness tapping on the back of my right eyebrow (that's where the pain parks itself when it shows up), but I'm drinking lots of water and hoping I can keep it at bay.  I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon where I'll be getting a shiny new prescription for my magic headache pills.

I've identified certain migraine triggers, but sometimes they show up without any root cause - other than my normal everyday stressors.  It always shocks me how debilitating they are.

This is SuperFun.

Today's WG moment:

At a pause in the set, Coach says to WG, "Straight and narrow!  Straight and narrow!  Stay between the lane line and the black marker down the center.  THAT's your space!"  In a nice way, but emphatically, because she sees him swimming down the middle-ish of the lane.

WG says, kind of to himself, and I don't think the coach heard, "I'm fiiiiine."  As in, there's NOTHING I need to change.

This is after the coach told him to change something.

I don't think he understands the concept behind Masters swimming.  With a coach.  To help you swim better.

I wound up leaving early because I'm feeling kind of yucky today.  As I was leaving, Coach asked me if the lane dynamics were the reason.  I said no (since that wasn't it), but now I'm wondering if I should have said, "Yes, please. Take him aside and talk to him."

2.25 Again

Well, I'm glad that I'm taking measurements as well as weighing myself, because if I went solely by the scale I would be really, really depressed by now. I still haven't lost any weight. I'm still hovering around those same 2-3 pounds in a range that I don't want to be in AT ALL. However, I'm down another 2.25 inches in the past 2 weeks, including 3/4 of an inch off of my hips. Now THAT's cause to celebrate.

More of the Mean Girls

We weren't really mean yesterday, more catty after the fact. But seriously, you know there's a problem when even the coach comments on it.

So yesterday the Weird Guy (WG) was in my lane again and he was still weird. He continued to swim down the middle of the lane, and continued to not really seem to understand the workouts and to do his own thing part of the time.

The most obnoxious thing, though, was his sprinting through everything so that he was right on top of whoever happened to be in front of him. Yesterday, the swimmers in my lane were me, B, WG and another guy. Other guy went first, B went 2nd, I went 3rd and WG went 4th. Yes, we arranged the order without consulting him and just started the set.

Well, at the end of the first length, I did a flipturn and when I turned around, WG was RIGHT ON TOP OF ME. Ack!

I seriously thought he was going to punch me in the face. Accidentally, of course. It's common courtesy to give the person in front of you a little space, unless you're sure you can pass them. He was swimming as hard as he could, and couldn't pass me outright, but he was bound and determined to swim as close to my feet as possible.

The third time this happened, I stopped and basically asked him to back off. He said he would, but he didn't, so I just let him pass me after the next length, and I swam last.

Then he started doing the same thing to B.

During the next set, I had to stop at one point and wait for him to get ahead because I kept catching up to his feet. While I was stopped, our coach noticed me and asked, "Why don't you just pass him?" I laughed and told her I tried that, but then he would sprint and get right on top of me. She looked out to where he was swimming and observed, "Oh yeah...Now he's doing it to B too..."

See! It's not just us!

She said, "Well, there's always one in every group. I suggest you wait 10-15 seconds after he goes before you start."

I mean, there's only so much she can do when she's coaching adults, right?

In the locker room afterward, B and I were rehashing the workout and she told me that he kept hitting her feet the entire time she was swimming in front of him. The funny thing is, he sprints through the entire workout, which doesn't seem healthy to me. At the end of each set, we would stop and the other 3 of us would be breathing normally pretty quickly, but WG was panting all the time. I don't know if he has something to prove to himself, but for whatever reason he is bound and determined to keep up and to win, even if it means swimming way outside of his comfort zone.

It's so strange. I've never run into this behavior before.

Good Start

This morning I made it to strength training, starting my week off right. I am still kind of amazed at how weak my legs are. We do this series of moves where we're on all fours and we stick one leg out straight and do this long series of lifts and circles and curls. I can never finish them. Though, I suppose each of my legs must weigh at least 50 pounds, so I guess it's not too shameful that I can't hold one up and do lots of moves with it for 5 minutes straight. My short-term goal is to be able to finish those particular exercises.

On the other hand, my abs still rock. I can do all the ab exercises no problem. I'm a little sore the next day, but overall, my core is pretty strong. Yay, swimming!

Today is a little quiet at work because the client I do the most work for is in Boston, and they have a holiday today. I'm playing catch up with a bunch of my other work. I'm also going to take the luxury of going for a lunch walk in a little bit.

This week, I'm rededicating myself to being healthy. I keep letting myself have little Easter candy treats and I don't know why, because I just feel awful after I eat them. On Saturday we went down to Newport with a group of friends for a seal-watching tour and excursion around the various beaches and parks. I got up early and went for a swim. Good start.

After the tour we went to Flo's Clam Shack for lunch and ate a LOT of deep fried seafood. It tasted good at first, but then I started feeling a little ill, and I passed off about a third of my fried clams to Jason. We went for a walk on the beach afterward and I started feeling better, and felt even better later as we explored some more beaches out past the mansions. Then we got some soft serve ice cream for dessert.

Then I got a migraine.

Seriously, I never learn. Too much crappy food = migraine. Thankfully on Saturday, it only took one prescription pill to get rid of the headache, but that should be a lesson to me.

It should be, but that particular lesson never seems to stick.

Even though it was chilly on Saturday, it was a good reminder that beach season is coming up and I want my body composition to be different than it is right now. I'm rededicating myself to eating Paleo/Primal (no sugar, no grains, limited dairy) and getting in 2 swims and 2 strength training classes per week. In fact, I'm going make it a 30-day challenge, since usually that works pretty well. We'll see where I am in 30 days.

Encroachment

As work gets (or continues to be) crazy, my workouts are sliding again. I suppose I shouldn't beat myself up too much, since today is really the only day that I've missed because of work.

I'm really good at getting down on myself when I mess up any little thing. Anyone else have that disease?

I swam Tuesday, did the Chisel! class on Wednesday, then didn't do anything yesterday because Chisel! beat me up. Actually, I'm pretty sure that if I had dragged my sore muscles to the pool yesterday morning, it would have helped, but I couldn't convince myself of that at 6 AM.

Today I was either going to do the Friday strength training class or swim, but in the end I decided I needed to get to work early. I'll be in meetings all day and at the same time I'm supposed to get some regulatory stuff out of the office by 4 PM. I love when I need to be two places at once.

Tomorrow, I'll get in a swim at least. But my plans for working out 5 times this week have instead resulted in working out 3 times. Not so bad, but not where I wanted to be either.

Mean Girl(s)?

This morning I was reminded how I used to call one woman in my lane "Mean Girl". We're actually very chummy now and I barely remember how she seemed kind of resentful when I got moved into her lane. But today we had a run-in with a new guy.

So, new guy. He came into our lane from the one below ours because they had too many people. So it was him and 3 women. He breached several items of swimming etiquette that gradually annoyed the 3 of us more and more until finally B (the former mean girl) couldn't stand it any longer. Here's what happened:

1) He took off first almost every. single. time. That's not how it works. Usually we decide as a lane what order we go in based on how everyone is feeling and who is usually faster. Since he came from a slower lane, I assumed he would go last. Instead he took off first almost every time and we would wind up waiting until he had completed almost a whole length before we started so that we wouldn't be swimming on top of him by the end of the set.

2) He swam down the middle of the lane. There were 4 of us in the lane, which means we were circle swimming, and there's plenty of room to swim on either side of the lane. New guy swam sort of to the side, but really more down the middle. He's a big guy - probably 6' 2" or so, and not skinny. We were dodging him every time we passed him. Then at one of his starts, he sped out right down the middle and almost completely took out K, who was just finishing her last set.

3) He clobbered me over the head with one of his giant arms. We did a 50 of backstroke and as soon as I finished I scooted over to the middle of the lane, leaving plenty of room on the right for the next person to finish. Apparently he wasn't paying attention and came barreling into me (because, as I discussed in 2, he was in the center of the lane), whacking me on the head with his arm. He apologized, but geez. You have to be a little bit self aware when you're swimming with a bunch of people.

4) He took off first (see 1) AND he messed up the workout. We were supposed to do a 50 backstroke, followed by a 100 (50 back, 50 free), followed by a 150 (50 back, 100 free), etc. He did the 50 as 25 back, 25 free. Then he did a 50 and stopped. So we just kept on going and finished the 100. When I breathed before my flipturn and he realized I would be the second person to pass him, I heard him say, "Hey, wait a minute...", but that's all I heard because I kept going. Then I don't know what he did, but he messed up the 150 somehow. So at the next rest, B called our coach over and asked her to explain to him how to read the workout. Especially since he was insisting on going first and all. Rather than just say, "oh, ok, I see," he made his worst mistake:

5) He claimed that he didn't mess up, but he passed us somehow and was actually a 50 ahead of us. Um, no. That's when I got involved and B and I were both saying to him "No. You are NOT a 50 ahead of us." It was so ridiculous. At no point did he lap us. But rather than accept that maybe he didn't get the workout right, he kept insisting, "No, I passed you." Grrr.

So then B was REALLY irritated and she stopped waiting for him to finish a length before she left the wall, and she wound up on his toes the ENTIRE rest of the workout. And me and the other lady were right behind her. He wound up gasping for air at the end of it because, hey, it turns out he's not faster than us after all.

So maybe I was a little bit of a Mean Girl today too. But my head was still aching from getting whacked.

2.25

Two weeks since my last weigh-in, and the weight is still in the same range, but I've lost another 2.25 inches. That means after a month of really keeping track of weight and measurements again, my weight is still basically the same, but I'm down 6.75 inches. I call that a positive.

Actually, this has been my trend in the past. I see changes in my measurements (and in how my clothes fit me and how my body feels as I go throughout the day) long before I see any movement on the scale. It's staying patient and waiting for that number to go down that is hard. I know that it's not all about the scale, and that the number doesn't mean a lot, but right now it's about 30 pounds higher than the last time I saw a picture of myself that I actually liked. A picture where I looked like just one of the gang, and not the fat girl.

Yes, I know, a lot (if not all) of this is in my head. But I'm trying to stay positive and realize that I'm really busy at work and right now what I can do is an hour workout in the morning. Then I can try to make healthy food choices throughout the day. That's all I can do, and I'm doing fairly well.

I swam 3000 yards in an hour this morning, which is a really good pace for me, considering it's not just a straight swim, but a workout with intervals and built in rests. I may still be heavy, but I'm getting faster!

A Paleo Easter

In case you didn't know, it's Holy Week. For people who are affiliated in any way with church music, that means it's a very busy week. I was trying to cobble together some people for Easter dinner, until I realized I wasn't really in the mood to throw a party.

First of all, Jason and I are both singing at the Easter Vigil Saturday night and both Easter morning services. Most other church choristers are also singing every night this week (Jason sang last night at Tenebrae), but for me, 3 services in 12 hours is about all I can handle. Last year after the 2nd Easter service, I felt exhilarated by the beautiful music and the sense of community worship, but also really, really exhausted.

Plus, work has been crazy busy lately and I am selfish with my down time. Since Sunday afternoon will be the calm before the storm of work and meetings that my Outlook calendar tells me is coming next week, I sort of let the idea of Big Easter Plans fade away.

However, that doesn't mean I can't whip up a ham for me and Jason. Inspired by Jenna at The Paleo Project and Melissa at CupcakesOMG, I'm planning my own Paleo Easter. Which is also known as "regular dinner time at Jason and Kelly's", but with the added flair of a Paleo carrot cake and possibly some deviled eggs.

I'm going to make:
Honey and Citrus Glazed Ham
Some type of roasted vegetable
Spiced Carrot Cake (with regular whipped cream)

Like I said, deviled eggs may also make an appearance. As may baked sweet potatoes (with cinnamon and butter).

All of the above sound doable without making me crazy on a Sunday afternoon. Happy Easter to us!