Back to move

I had a nice visit with my friend, made it to the gym a few times, did a few hikes, bike rides, etc.  Did lots of touristing.  It was cold and foggy for the most part, and he didn’t get amazing views.  I showed him pics of the views he would see if not for fog, but just not the same.  Anyway, went away, ate randomly, drank often, had fun, no discernable change on the scale, about what I would expect.  Now I need to move out of my current 2 br into a tiny studio, must purge belongings.  Not my idea of fun, but economics says it’s time to go.  Hopefully I’ll catch up on all my blog reading in the next few days.  Here’s a pic of Big Sur, where I spent a warmer (still not hot) few days.

30 hours of summer

It felt just like it did when I was a kid.  I wore a bathing suit, same one from my previous scary picture, about 10 pounds ago:

http://justjuliebean.wordpress.com/2009/05/14/me-exposed-2/

It’s now too big on me, but I don’t have another, and it was just a girlfriend and I.  She was house/dog sitting for a traveling cousin, in a not too far town where the temp >103F (my town today = 67F).  Swimming just isn’t a part  of my life.  Shorts are hardly part of my life.  I sat by the pool, I swam in the pool, I did handstands and somersaults and flips.   I wore a tank top out at night in public, got no strange looks, and I don’t even look too fat even to myself anymore.   Still very far from thin, which isn’t really what I’m aiming for, just not chubby.  Realistically maybe 10-15 pounds more.

I’m changing course a bit.  I did a yoga class today, much easier and more comfortable than it was 40 pounds ago.  I would like to do yoga 1x/week, I like the stretch and blood flow stuff.  I’ve also decided to put more effort into the strength training.  I also do that at least 2x week, but I don’t quite push myself enough to move up in weights, or really progress.  It’s kinda silly, to go and be half-assed about it.  I’m moving to a new town next month, I’ll need to join a new gym.  Life is going to radically change, but honestly, it can’t be for the worse.  Things have been getting a little better recently, but I’m not happy or thriving here.

Tomorrow I have a guest coming, for over a week.  I haven’t seen him in 20 years, found him thorugh Facebook.  Can I leave him and hit the gym an hour or two every other day?  Surely he can entertain himself for a few hours, this is a major tourist town, and he’s here more to visit town than me.  OK, that doesn’t seem too rude, when I look at it like that.  I was concerned, but now that it’s written, it seems reasonable.  Possibly this means a lot of meals out as well, but I think he actually can cook, so maybe we’ll just split the cooking.  That makes sense too, maybe this will be okay.  Wish me well, 10 days is a long time.

So close I can taste it

I’ve been working seriously at this weight loss crap for about a year now.  I set my original goal at 150, and 3 out of my last 4 times stepping on the scale I’m coming in at 153.  I started this year at 195 (the gym weighed me at 198, but I think that was just a spike).  To get my BMI under 25, I need to weigh 148, so that’s 5 pounds.  I think my breasts weigh about 8, maybe I can just chop them off?  OK, maybe not.  I wear size 10 pants, medium shirts.  I don’t hesitate to put on a bathing suit and swim if I find myself somewhere warm.  I am far from thin.

I am more likely at this point to eat too little than eat too much, and have to be careful not to ambush myself.  I don’t have a set pattern of eating, and I tend to make it to the gym 3-4 days a week, which includes 2x strength training, 3-4 cardio, I would like to do more yoga but apparently it’s low-priority, and I don’t have a convenient class that I really like.  I leave the city once a week or so for a real hike, usually 7+ miles and steep.  The rest of the time I bike or walk around the city, sometimes for exercise, sometimes just doing errands or shopping.    I consider these my rest days, and even they consist of  over an hour or two of leisurely exercise.  I like leisurely exercise, and I like the kickboxing because I won’t get my heart rate up there if nobody is yelling at me to do so.  I am lazy by nature.

I spend about $50 at the Farmer’s Market every weekend, and eat so much of this that I don’t worry about the rest of my diet.  I would happily live on fish and fruit, if I lived in Thailand or somewhere where both were abundant and cheap.  Since I don’t, I have to eat vegetables, beans, cheese (yum), grains-whole and processed (meh to both), small amounts of unhealthy red meat or chicken (yuck) and vodka/grapefruit.  I prefer raw veggies, raw fish, but I see the health advantages to cooked, so I am trying to cook more veggies.  I drink once or twice a week, but am such a lightweight that two is more than enough.  Sometimes when I drink I overeat, but in my new way of thinking, that’s probably a good thing since in general I now tend to undereat.  Calorie cycling, yeah, okay.  I’m just lazy and I don’t want to make the effort to feed myself.   I have to make a conscious effort to eat protein, which I could be better at.

I’ve actually been losing quicker than normal recently.  I think there are just fewer occasions for me to eat lots of crap.  For example, I sometimes go to a friend’s house who always has ice cream, chocolate covered almonds, tortilla chips (not as yummy as potato chips), baguette.  Sometimes I eat the stuff, not binge level, but probably 5-600 calories worth.  (If I try to stop myself from eating it, when I actually want it, I’ll eat 1000-1200 instead).  I understand and respect my weak spots.  I exercise enough that it’s mostly irrelevant, but I won’t lose that day or the next.  I have been doing stuff like this less and less.   I think these episodes, and the occasional beer/pizza or other restaurant meal keep my metabolism up.  I don’t consider any foods to be problems (except potato chips), though there’s plenty I won’t keep at home.  I am not afraid of sugar, HFCS, MSG, saturated fat, processed carbs.  I may not seek them out often anymore, but don’t avoid.

On a funny note, sometimes I read these arguments that involve various types of athletes who believe various arguments about nutrition.  They argue about whether carbs are evil, whether people who believe carbs are evil are stupid, how soon after working out you should eat or drink, what you should eat or drink.  Anyway, bodybuilders tend to be the ones who shun carbs, follow rigid rules about exactly how long after lifting they should eat xyz.  Meanwhile, the majority of bicyclists think the obvious choice after a long workout:  BEER!  Hooray for cyclists!

OK, long rambling early morning post.  I’m moving in 4 weeks, is there anything more stressful than moving?   I can live much cheaper where I’m going, have no choice, no job in sight.  I’m finally making friends where I’m about to leave.  Oh well, it’s time to grow up now.

Impulse Control

I have been thinking about impulse control since reading a Time magazine article on it a few days back.  Here’s the link:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1889942,00.html

“In two papers published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, scientists found that preschool-age children who had trouble with self-control and the ability to delay gratification gained more weight by the time they were preteens than those who were better at regulating their behavior”

It’s not really much of a surprise, to me at least.  I would also guess that these kids were also more likely to have drug and alcohol problems.   I am not so good at impulse control.  This is what I’m going to work on next.  I managed to get past this with food (how the hell did I do this?) but I still have my problems, especially emotional impulse control.   A friend blew me off, and apologized, and I still told her she was lame.  Why don’t I just avoid her for a week or two until I’m over it?  Now she’s probably pissed at me.  It’s not like I have enough friends that I can just throw them away, even if they’re lame.  And the worst is my need to talk things out with people I shouldn’t be so close to, like ex-boyfriends.  The problem with being close with ex-bfs, especially if you’re still intimate with them, is that they start dating someone, and then the whole relationship is awkward, inappropriate, and uncomfortable.  I keep wanting to call him, and it’s just philosophy talk, I don’t want to revisit old relationship issues (oh hells no!)  The transition from boyfriend/girlfriend to friends with benefits to just friends and back again is confusing, at best.

Anyway, I’m actually figuring shit out as I approach my goal weight and am trying to put more energy into actually improving my life, not just thinning.  I’m learning quickly, and I hope when I move in another month, from my 2 bedroom in the heart (or armpit, in the opinion of some) of my city to a tiny studio with a huge yard in a more suburban city.  Other than the tininess, I’m looking forward to it.  I love the yard, love the Y, love all the lush greenery, don’t love the guns and drugs, though they’re here, too, just not as visible.

Today I ate breakfast at 8:30, went to kickboxing at 10, walked 2.5 miles each way for a burrito at 2, now I’m making pasta sauce.  I won’t eat again tonight, other than peaches, cherries, purple green beans, maybe part of a Korean melon.  I seem to be on the two meal and lots of snack thing these days.  If I ever get a job, I’ll go back to three, but they’ll be smaller.  I can’t eat again within 10 hours of a burrito.  As for the job, I have a phone screen for a shitty temp job that’s too far away for my comfort, but I can’t be picky.  I think they drug test, which is why I’m dealing with the impulse control thing, I had to give up the weed immediately, and it’s uncomfortable.  I feel compulsion!  Feh.

**Pasta will be eaten for lunch or dinner for the next few days.  Whole grain pasta, I add sugar to the sauce so I can stand it.  Also I roasted eggplant, summer squash, sauteed shiitakes, 2 cans diced tomatoes, 1 can tomato paste.  And about 8 cloves of garlic, herbs, and mirin (my absolute favorite).  For someone who doesn’t think she has a sweet tooth, I sure sweeten a lot of my food.  But, the eggplant is bitter, yeah yeah, that’s it, bitter without it.

One of us! One of us! (not)

This is from a great cult movie, so obscure that I can’t even rememeber the name of it.  I saw a spoof recently on the Simpsons recently, so it’s in my head.  Great movie, it’ll stick with you for a while.  Anyway, I hope I’m not becoming one of THOSE people, you know the ones who are so inflexible and uptight about their eating, that they’re really no fun.  I’ve had a few experiences lately that make me wonder, but mostly I think I’m still okay.    The first was about a week ago, when I had a friend in town, and we went on an urban hike with his ex-girlfriend, from a few towns over.  After we walked up and down various hills for a few hours, we got to a neighborhood with lots of shops and restaurants.   Sharon wanted to go to a tasty bakery and get cheesebread, and was disturbed that I didn’t want any.  I don’t know what cheesebread is exactly, but it sounds nasty.  Yes, I realize I just did a huge walk, but that doesn’t mean I want pastries, especially cheese bread.  I tried some of hers, and it was as nasty as I thought it would be.  My friend and I got burritos, and she wouldn’t get one, because she wanted to get a better one later, since she’s usually on a raw food diet, so if she’s eating a burrito, it should be the best!  (And she gives me shit for not wanting cheesebread that I don’t even like!)

The next day, I was sitting in a park with a friend, and she wanted to split a bacon wrapped hot dog.  Now I love bacon, and I eat hot dogs, fully cognizant of the fact that they are made of assholes and eyeballs.  But these look nasty, smell really bad.  The bacon is just wrapped around a low quality hot dog, it looks rubbery and greasy, and I really hate those gluey white buns.  Sorry, you’re on your own with that one.  We went hiking a few days later, and split a bacon/cheese/mushroom burger and green salad.  I talked her into a green salad instead of a chef’s salad.  She sighed, but said when she goes out with Randy (the friend who introduced us), it’s much worse, as he’s vegan.  We were talking later, and I said I didn’t bake.  She thought that was so awful, after all banana bread is healthy, as is zucchini bread.    I started to explain that if I have it at home, I’ll eat it all very quickly, so I just get something like that when I want some, but she thought that was irrational.  I got tired of explaining, for the third time this week, that I have/am losing weight, and I can’t eat like this, so I pulled out my driver’s license, showed her my picture.  I’m about 60 pounds heavier, it’s a striking difference,  and it finally shut her up.   I’m not like her.  Or my pal’s ex-girlfriend.

I’ve been lucky enough not to spend too much time around weird, rigid dieters, and I certainly don’t want to become one.  I’m happy to eat high fat, greasy, heavy food occasionally, but it’s gotta actually be stuff I like.    I ate potato chips, hot dogs, and cheesecake on July 4, and didn’t feel uptight about that.  It did feel weird not to take leftover hotdogs and other leftovers home for the skinny dog, but I’m getting used to it.  She’s been eating 1/4 of my meals for so long now, I feel very full eating them all myself.

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light!

I lost my sweet doggy friend, neighbor and companion. She lived upstairs with the landlord, but spent most of her time with me. We had lots of nice hikes, shared many meals, hung out and chilled. Her kidneys just shut down. This is a picture from about a year ago, it’s kinda startling to see how chubby I was.  Her head in my dog door was the first thing I ever saw in the mornng (but not yesterday-she didn’t even come down for bacon), and any time I came home.  Love you Tara, I’ll miss you much