&*$&#*!&@#

Forgot to set my alarm last night.  No swim this morning, which means I'm behind in my Olympics challenge.  Guess I'll be doing some crazy amounts of swimming next week.

Coming Out of a Carb Coma

Yesterday morning we had a staff meeting at work.  Meaning the 4 people who work in my office sat in our teeny conference room talking about projects.  Our assistant insisted on getting breakfast for us, and boy did she ever.  She turned up with a HUGE box of pastries.  HUGE.  When I commented on the hugeness, she said, "Well, but they're so cheap!"

Never mind that we're only 4 people and there's no way in the world we would ever eat all of that.  I think 4 people = 4 pastries.  Right?  There were probably 12 pastries in that box.

Not only was the box huge, but the pastries themselves were huge.  I carved the corners off of a few of them and nibbled on them for breakfast.  I swam yesterday morning so I was starving.  I ate a big salad for lunch, but the damage was done.  The rest of the day consisted of insulin spikes and crashes.  When I crashed, I would wander into the conference room and grab another pastry corner to get through another hour or so of my afternoon.

Then we went out for dinner with friends.  Mexican food.  It was so good!  Usually corn tortilla chips don't bug me too much, but after yesterday's carb-stravaganza, it was just adding insult to injury.

This morning I woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck.  No swimming, only sleep, is what my body cried.  So I slept until almost 8 AM.

I'm all puffy too.  The jacket I wore just last week, noting that it was fitting a little looser, is today completely constricting my upper arms.

In addition, I had a bout of angry sleep talking last night.  Sometimes I have whole conversations with Jason in the middle of the night, while he's sitting up in bed, typing away on his computer, that I don't remember the next day.  Sometimes they're benign and sometimes I'm just so irritated with him I could scream.  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of these ramblings. 

Last night was an angry night and I woke up in the middle of it and snapped at him, "How much longer are you going to be on your computer?!"

To be fair, it was 1:12 AM.  I don't think my question was completely unreasonable.  However, my delivery could have been a little nicer.  I wonder, though, if those angry nights have anything to do with what I've eaten the day before.  That's something to make note of in the future.

So here I am, disappointed because I didn't get in my swim this morning, feeling bloated and yucky, with a slightly resentful husband.  Pastries are no good for me!

We have suggested to our assistant that next time she might also want to get some fruit for our staff meeting breakfast.  I'd like to put in a plug for bacon too, but I think that might be asking too much.

Michelle Obama is Sort of a Low-Carber

I just read this article about Michelle Obama's diet and fitness tips.  While she does mention eating veggie pizza on whole wheat crust (per the Daily Plate guidelines she's pushing), I thought Tip #5 was very interesting:

5. She Eats Five Meals a Day, When She’s ‘Doing What I’m Supposed to Do’

“I try to eat—when I’m being good—five meals, a breakfast, which can be like stir-fried vegetables, tofu, or oatmeal,” she said while promoting her book, American Grown: The Story of The White House Kitchen Garden and Gardens Across America. “And then I’ll have a snack, something like this [pointing to a tray of sliced apples and honey from the White House beehive] or a vegetable tray or sometimes a protein shake ... then lunch. This last year I’ve tried to change it so my lunch is my biggest meal ... like today, I had fish and vegetables, stir-fried vegetables. And if I’m going to have a carb, like a brown rice or a potato or something, I’ll have it at lunch.”

 

It sounds like the majority of her meals are protein, fruits and vegetables, with a carb (meaning brown rice or potato) possibly thrown in at lunch, with some oatmeal or honey here or there.  If only she could push that more in her official recommendations without the USDA and their grain subsidies jumping down her throat.

Weekend in New Hampshire

Jason and I spent this past weekend in New Hampshire because it was a 3-day weekend in Rhode Island.  We spent 2 nights at a lovely inn that I can't recommend enough.  Jason asked if we could live there, that's how much he liked it. 

Jacuzzi!

The 3rd night, we hiked into the Zealand Falls Hut, maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club, stayed overnight, and hiked out the next morning.  So this weekend I got 2 nights of really luxurious sleep, which almost made up for getting almost no sleep on the 3rd night.  Suffice it to say, I do not do well with snoring, and when you're sharing a sleeping room with 17 other people, there will be snoring. 

I say we hiked in, but what I really mean is, we "hiked" in to the hut.  I think we walked the easiest trail in the White Mountains.  It was 2 1/2 miles of a slight incline through the woods, then maybe 1/4 mile straight up through granite boulders to the hut, on the kind of trail I've come to expect from the White Mountains.  Once we got to the hut, we dumped our bags and claimed our bunks, then walked out to the Falls.

You can boulder hop on the falls and sit on dry rock, with the water rushing around on either side of you.  After we sat there for a few minutes, Jason asked if I wanted to hike back down and over, on another flat trail to another set of falls.  I'm just going to put it out there and say I am the wimpiest hiker ever.  I really wish I could be that awesome, kick-a** hiker girl for Jason, but I'm just not.  I opted to stay at the top of the hill and read my book.  He wound up hiking another 4 miles on his own.  I felt bad, but not bad enough to go with him.

Here's my problem.  Whenever I hike, I get really overheated and wind up with a migraine.   Doesn't matter how much water and/or Gatorade I drink, it happens every time.  This was a very easy hike, but then I also weigh more than I did the last time we hiked, so it didn't take much.  It was also hot and muggy on Sunday.  The headache started Sunday afternoon and continued through Monday morning, finally waning a bit around 1 PM.  Then it came back last night and when I woke up this morning, it was there, stabbing me in the right eyebrow.  I popped 3 Excedrin and managed to pull it together enough to go to Masters swimming.  Right now it's still a little achey, but not bad.  My fingers are crossed that as the day continues, it will get better and not worse.

So, yeah.  That's enough to put me right off of hiking.  I'm going to do a little research and see if I can figure out why this happens, but for now, Jason will just have to be content with the non-kick-a**, non-hiker girl that I am.

The Olympics...

...are killing my workout goals.

Every night I watch the Olympics and feel motivated to be strong and tough and to work out and lose weight and get back into shape and RAWR!

Then I stay up until 12:30 and can't get up the next morning to work out.  I know sleep is important so I'm trying not to beat myself up too much.  I think what I need to do after the Olympics are over is rewatch some of the best swimming races every night at 9:30 or 10 PM, and then go to bed motivated to get up the next morning and hit the pool or the weights.  Because so far during the Olympics, the workouts are not happening.

Jason and I will be doing some hiking this weekend, so at least I'll get some sort of activity this week.  I know I still have a few mornings  left in the week, but I'm not holding my breath that I'll get to bed before 12:30 on any of the preceding nights.