Weight doesn't exist during the holidays, right?

I weighed myself yesterday for the first time in a few days, and I was up a couple of pounds. No surprise there, especially since the heavy food I'd been eating for the previous two or three days had left me feeling very, very gross. I'm in Alabama now and eating as badly as ever. I brought my running clothes, but I haven't gone out yet -- it's hard to be enthused when there's snow on the ground!

Storm coming?

I did NOT sleep well last night. I woke up feeling very sick again - but not. It was weird. That is two nights this week so far. Then I couldn't settle back into sleep. I tossed and turned the rest of the night. I have also been very headachy. I think a storm is coming in. I also think maybe all the wind we had last night was keeping me awake.

Katie spent a good chunk of the day moving the rest of her stuff out of the yoga room. There is still a lot of sewing room stuff that needs to be moved down the basement, but other than that it is ready to be turned into an exercise room. YAY! Now, I just have to USE it!

I dreamed last night at one point that Sarah was about to go running and didn't want to (btw, she was wearing the running shorts and tube socks of our youth. it was fetching) so I said I would do it for her. In my dream that seemed perfectly reasonable. We lived somewhere by the water. It was very hilly, but nice. I do sometimes dream about running. It is much nicer in my dreams than when I actually do it.

I am off the rest of the week after today. THANK GOODNESS! However, I need to spend most of my time cleaning and cooking for Friday night. I also think I will need to come into work tomorrow for about an hour. Sigh.

I remembered to weigh myself this morning, but chose not to. I was (am) feeling very blobby and fat. I didn't want to know what I weighed.

Insomniac

Since last Tuesday, I have had exactly ONE night where I didn't wake up two or three (or four) hours before I'd had a solid night's sleep. This is extremely unlike me. I slept solidly through midnight sun; why can't I sleep when it's dark outside and I'm exhausted? I'm managing not to be completely cranky, but I am drained dry by the end of the day. I thought the problem was Daniel's absence -- the morning Cecilia slept with me I was able to go back to sleep -- but today he was back and I still woke up. I'm too groggy to want to get up but can't actually sleep, so I waste two or three hours in a haze getting no real rest.

My current theory is that since it's not Daniel's fault it must be the lack of exercise catching up to me; I've been consistent at exercise for years now (Norway being the notable exception), so this two-month stretch with only a handful of exercise days is throwing my system out of whack. Daniel thinks this is a reasonable theory and is coming home early enough today for me to get to the gym. After the new year I'll be back into a reasonable routine, and choir is more or less disappearing, so I'll have at least one more day when I can make appointments to exercise.

Yet the uncharacteristic weight decline has continued. Today I was at 140.0, but that was my highest all week; I actually saw 137.5 the day before yesterday. I think that day I was dehydrated. I'm not eating much (I keep forgetting lunch and wolfing down a half-dinner on my way out the door to someplace) and definitely not drinking enough. Of course I'm happy to see lower numbers on the scale, but I'd really rather see them for the right reasons, because the pounds will come back with a vengeance when things calm down (and I start sleeping again).

Grr

I have some sort of sinus situation brewing, and I wouldn't usually be too cranky (overall--I know how the ropes for getting through it) BUT this time something has gone awry in my right ear and I am terribly aggravated with it. I am not in pain, even with my sinuses, however there is a constant pounding in my right ear, I guess from fluid build up. It is driving me NUTS and causing me to have super sonic hearing for things far away, but I can barely hear someone talking to me 4 feet away.

When I eventually fell asleep last night, it was on my left side, but the RIGHT side of my head was a disaster this morning, and still is. I doubled up on the cold medicine at the recommendation of my pharmacist boss, and it has subsided a teeny bit. I really don't want to go to the doctor because I'll most likely end up leaving there with a prescription and then a REAL illness from all the germy people. Right now I don't have a fever or anything, so I am trying to deal with it on my own. Anyone have experience with adult ear problems? I wonder the best way to clear out those tubes without prescription meds or a trip to the doctors. WebMD recommended ear drops, so I might stop at the Rite Aid and scope that out. Google health said to chew gum with Xylitol in it; luckily I had that in my purse and I am on my 3rd piece.

Even with this aggravation, I did go to the gym last night and spent 35 minutes on the bike. I felt decent while working out and right afterwards, but then as I cooled down it was like all the junk in my head re-congealed. I was so tired though, I only slept about 3 hours the night before, and those weren't consecutive. Then last night I discovered I can stream netflix movies on my ipad and it actually works. I stayed up too late, partially because of my ear and partially because of my discovery. I got most of the way through Lord of the Rings before I fell asleep.

But it is a short week here; I have the rest of today and then tomorrow before I am off until January 3. This week off is the single best part about having a job with the university system. Next week I have grand plans for cleaning, organizing the house, and going to the gym. We'll see how that pans out...

I hope you all have a great Christmas with your families and friends!

And The Recipe

Sorry - I almost forgot. I have this one memorized in fact...

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
40 saltine crackers
2 cups chocolate chips
chopped pecans (or not)

Line a jelly roll pan with tin foil and spray with cooking spray. Line up the 40 crackers on the pan (5x8) Melt the butter and sugar together. Cook until "foamy" (three minutes past the point where it begins to boil). I stir constantly so it won't stick - but that may not be necessary. Pour evenly over the lined up crackers. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Remove and let stand for a minute or so. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the hot goo and let them soften (about five minutes). Spread the melted chocolate out in an even layer. If you want to sprinkle chopped pecans on the chocolate you may. Put in the refrigerator until chilled completely. Crack up into pieces and store in a sealed container. Or eat it all in one sitting. Your choice.

No weight today

I forgot to weigh in, again. I thought of it after I was out of the shower and COULD have weighed, only I was already dressed and I didn't want to get naked again, and besides, I have been having a case of PMS from hell, so I didn't really WANT to know my weight.

I have sort of eased up on my cookie binge. I made two batches of Christmas Crack (recipe to follow - all healthy ingredients... low fat, low sugar... really, I promise) and have eaten very little of it. We are doing our team lunch today, and I may actually get a salad.

I have done NO exercise. None.

Oops! I forgot to check in today

So I haven't read anyone else's posts tonight and now I'm about to go to bed. But if I don't post now I'll forget by tomorrow. I weighed 140.5 this morning, and my weight has ranged from 139.0 to 140.5 over the past week -- so somehow I shed a pound or two mysteriously. I think they are in hiding and will come back with friends over the next three weeks. But at least I exercised yesterday and I will *try* to exercise a few more times this week. I'm sore today after running yesterday, but not in my formerly-injured leg or knees. Hooray!

Cookies Galore!

I have been a cookie eating machine the past several days! I think I am having really bad PMS because I am in one of those moods where I want to eat everything in sight. Unfortunately, everything in sight seems to be a lot of cookies!!! OTOH Katie, who is not PMSing said she has been ravenous also, so maybe it is just the lack of heat in our house.

It is funny. The yoga room is mostly done. I mean, the floor is in, the walls are painted, most of the exercise stuff is up there - but I am still picturing it in my head differently. In my head it has a light wood floor and gold walls... or sometimes blue walls, like Katie's bed room. I bet if I was actually USING the room for exercise I would picture it the way it actually looks, but so far it is still a storage room. (Of course, in my head I picture myself about 10 years younger, 120 pounds lighter and running on the treadmill... so what does THAT tell you!?)

So, yes, back to no heat. It seems that the trigger to turn the electric heat on is what is not working. Once Corby fixed it last time it stayed fixed until it got warm enough to not need to run. Then it never STARTED running again. I am hoping all it needs is a new thermostat, but I still fear that the heat pump is shot. It should run SOME of the time - and I don't think it has run at all since I noticed it not running before... I know for a fact last winter in the snow it was running. I wonder what we did with the old junky thermostat. Maybe we could put that back on until I get a new one. At least then we would know it is the thermostat.

Sooo close...

My last class (ever) is tonight...then I have to get everything graded by Monday at 4:30 pm. After that, I will experience total freedom and subsequently have very few excuses for pretty much anything. I am actually looking forward to this.

The gym called me last week to make sure I was ok...I guess it has been A LONG time since my last visit. I didn't even bother to calculate it. We had been planning to go for another hike Sunday (we visited Oregon Ridge two Sundays ago and that was excellent) but it was cold and raining, so no thanks. I did go to the gym instead. I need to find my heart rate monitor to double check the readings on the machines. They usually read a little bit high for me, but my heart rate was awful when I was on the elliptical. The reality is that it could just be that terrible right now, but I hope not.

I have off work starting the 23rd, potentially the 22nd if I decide to ditch work, until the first Monday in January. I am looking forward to that for a number of reasons. First, my house is a wreck. I have BIG plans for MAJOR cleaning/decluttering activities. Second, I already have the gym schedule and I am taking some classes. Third, I am NOT waking up to an alarm clock ANY day.

I've been doing ok with my health month game; my exercise is not consistent, but I have been doing really well with not drinking soda. And I have the excruciating headache to show for it. I have been trying to drink tea in the morning, but it just doesn't have enough caffeine. It is getting better though, slowly but surely.

Good luck to Sarah & (hopefully) Vicki when running the race Saturday. Stay warm and the snuggle up in the cool t shirt once you are finished!

Holy moly, it's cold out there!

I only managed two runs last week, both of them on the treadmill. I planned an outside run on Friday and never made it, which turned out to be a good thing--when I gathered my bags to leave work that evening, I realized my gym bag wasn't with me. So even if I had made the time, I wouldn't have been able to do anything.

So today I tried to come up with excuses for why I could go running outside. The real excuse, of course, was that it was cold and I didn't want to. Once I admitted that, I had to go. I figured if I ran outside today, I wouldn't have to do it again until the race on Saturday and after that I wouldn't have to run outside at all if I didn't want to until the spring. So I bundled up in my wool t-shirt and Underarmor tights and shirt (more like a tunic--clearly the women's large size is designed for very tall women!) and gloves and headband thingie and off I went. Incidentally, races in the winter would be much easier for spectators to follow--in the summer you're pretty much dressed like everyone else (I'm the one in the black shorts and light blue shirt!) but in the winter you're hard to mistake (I'm the one in the bright purple shirt with the red jacket over top but the purple shows underneath because it's so long and I have on multicolored stripey ear warmer things.). Pity it's too damn cold to want to spectate at much of anything.

And yes, it was cold. 29 degrees, I found out afterwards. And worse, the wind was horrible--gusty and from all directions. You'd turn a corner and it would slam into you, taking your breath away. The prediction for the day was 30 m.p.h. gusts, and I think I had them. I was running uphill into a headwind for most of a mile along the route and thought I was having so much fun, and then the snow started! Seriously, it snowed on me. Just flurries, but it was snow. It made me laugh.

But clearly I made it back--I did all five miles and made it in just over 50 minutes (five seconds over), which probably has jinxed me for Saturday. But the important thing about this race is not how fast I do it, but that I'm getting a cool shirt out of it. Right? Oh, and keeping up with the running at a time of the year when I have a million good excuses for not exercising at all. But really I'm in it for the shirt.

No exercise + eating to appetite = weight loss?

I don't think I've actually lost much weight this week, but I saw a surprise 139.5 last week one day and today was 140.0. The other days I was closer to 142. But the truth is that I have had ZERO exercise -- grocery shopping is as mobile as I've gotten -- and I have not tried to restrict my snacking. However, I haven't had a huge appetite, and though I have been eating far too many sweets throughout the day, I haven't had much alcohol at all (it hasn't appealed to me) and I've been forgetting to eat dessert in the evening as often as not. I've just been sick and tired. The pleurisy has faded, but I'm into laryngitis, round 2, and Mary and Cecilia have been significantly sick this past week (Mary hadn't had even a touch of this until the last few days, but Cecilia was into at least round 2 or maybe 3). With SOMEbody being sick every day for the past month or so, I haven't been to the gym in ages. But generally speaking if I don't exercise I do gain weight, almost immediately. All I can figure is that I'm either eating less than I thought I was, or I'm converting a lot of muscle back into fat (depressing but probably true) and it's going to catch up to me over Christmas.

Back to salads

I forgot how much good eating salads for lunch did me over the summer. I am not sure why I got away from it. I had a cobb salad on Friday and am eating an Asian chicken salad today. I just need to plan for it.

Milk - I can't think of a milk reference...

So - here is an interesting bit about milk. Make me almost want to drink it... I think maybe that will be my next health month rule. I don't think I can manage more than two glasses a day... Maybe with some coffee added for flavor...

No heat - no exercise

OK - you all who get out and exercise in this freezing cold weather are INSANE, but I admire you. I started December with the intention of exercising 4 days a week for 30 minutes a day. That is one day less than the goal I set in November, and I MET that goal (mostly). I have not done ONE DAY of extra exercise since December started - only my normal yoga class. I am blaming it entirely on the lack of heat in my house. I know, logically, that it is because I am a lazy butt and didn't actually get myself up and moving that I didn't exercise - but when the temps in my house were in the mid 50s, all I wanted to do was curl up in a blanket and huddle by the space heater. I was completely aware that when I was moving around I was warmer AND the air in the house would warm up (using the portable 98.6 degree radiator), but my brain was doing the "if it is this cold INSIDE what is it like OUTSIDE" thing. So I have one day to get in one more exercise session.

I need to start going to the gym during the day. Afterwork is just not happening for me.

OTOH, my weight was exactly the same this week as last week.

Houston, we have a problem

My calf. I strained it several weeks ago and it's still plaguing me, enough so I'm not sure if I'll be able to run the Celtic Solstice in less than two weeks (scream here.). I can go about 2.5 miles before it seizes up on me. It's just not fun and I'm not happy about it because, even though I've always been a slow runner, I can usually do the distance. I'm in decent cardio shape and everything else feels great, my legs have the ability to keep running but my calf is stopping me.

So I finally decided to do some research and found people talking about "the stick." Sounds sexy. Not really. Basically, people are shelling out inordinate amounts of cash for a stick to rub on their leg. Many people complained about the calf issue and said "the stick" really helps. After looking at it online I pondered a cheaper alternative -- a device that would help unball (not a word but whatever) my calf muscle. My solution -- a rolling pin. I have one of those longer ones. So I decided to give it a go. Now mind you, the calf stops hurting shortly after I stop running and isn't sore to the touch so imagine my surprise when my handy dandy rolling pin found the baseball-sized knot -- yeah, ouch. So I did the only thing I could do -- roll out the muscle and groan. It seems to be helping at least pinpoint the problem and get blood into the affected area for healing. So, we'll see.

I haven't had any issues running in the cold weather -- I heat up pretty fast. But the problem is maddening and, from what I've learned, quite common among runners.

So I'm trying to keep up with the bike work (inside on the trainer) and weight work. At this point I'm just not sure if I'm going to be able to do it. There's "fun" torture -- when you have to get up before dawn and stand in the freezing cold with a bunch of other crazies and run a race you figure you can finish. Then there's "stupid" torture when you realize your chances of finishing are based on when your body seizes up on you end up dragging your zombie-like (got it in there) carcass to the finish line. No fun. I'm hoping I'm ready for the fun torture because I've been looking forward to it.

Not bad (and not just for December!)

I was down nearly 2.5 pounds today, to 144.2. This would feel like more of an accomplishment if I hadn't fluctuated down to this weight fairly regularly anyway--the magical sub-140 weight still seems nearly impossible, although I don't know why. I held steady below 140 for quite a long time--it's only that pesky triathlon training that got me above 140!

Taking time off with no exercise wasn't a good idea. I've gotten to the gym or out for a run several times in the past week and it's definitely not the easy task that it was a month ago. I'm trying to get back up to 5 miles--yesterday I did roughly 4, but it was killing me. The 3.5 I did last Friday outside wasn't too bad, but it absolutely was more work that 5 miles was at the start of November. But yesterday's workout was just one of those workouts where you can't get it together--I was on the treadmill (yuck, but I only have one pair of cold weather tights and they were still drying yesterday morning), then kept having to stop--once because my iPod went flying (didn't break, thank goodness), once because I accidentally knocked off the emergency stop thing (which zeroed out my run and I wasn't exactly sure where I was with the distance), and twice because my HRM was acting up. I finally gave up on the HRM; I think it measured my heart rate at roughly 69 bpm during most of the workout (really, really wrong) except for when it shot up to 213 bpm. And I couldn't keep my speed up--I did the first 15 minutes at 6 mph, but then had to drop it to 5.7 and 5.8 for most of the rest of the workout. I'm not entirely sure I made it to 4 miles, but at least I kept running for 40 minutes. I'll bump that up to 45 minutes later this week. The race is a week from Saturday and I'm hoping to finish in 50 minutes or less, but I'll be happy with under 55 minutes. And I'll be REALLY happy if the winds die before then and we get back up to a balmy 40 degrees!