Attacking my inner slug on its home turf

[Note: inner slug is not nearly that cute. Plus, it can spell.]

One thing the week of Ornish quotes taught me was that I need to find a way to change my reaction to stress and frustration.

Once damn foot stops hurting, I want to go back to bike riding. (Yes, just as the winter is coming on: rain, darkness, all that good stuff.) The best part about commuting to work on a bicycle is that you can get all your rage, angst, aggression worked out of your body before you even get home. Then there's no urge to eat bad food, drink bad liquids, or grind your teeth.

The challenge here is that to commute by bicycle I am going to have to get up early and come into work early. So long as I can get on the road by 4:30, commuting by bike should be fine. What I really want to avoid is the 5 o'clock drivers, cause they're a cranky and inattentive bunch. (Even in the Portland suburbs, where bike riders are really not uncommon at all.)

To leave work by 4:30, I will need to get in to work early.

Goal for the week: To Get Up Early Every Morning and Get Out Of The House by... oh, let's say 7:30. To me, that's hella early, so it's a good challenge.

That's one thing I can start on now, even while damn foot is still cranky. It's a three-pronged approach:
- I have to wanna be disciplined about going to bed at a reasonable hour. Surfing the internet is a luxury, not a necessity. Shut down the computer by 8 p.m. every night.
- I have to wanna do the evening yoga session every night. It really helps me unwind.
- I have to wanna un-friend Mr. Snooze button. It's over between us, S.

Done. Well, except for shutting the computer down by 8. Need to work on that.

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes on the elliptical.
Done!

Summary: week of Ornish and yoga

Very stressful week, working very long hours and not enough time for sleep.

At first I thought that it was just evil chance that I'd get hit with this load of work when I was trying a little extra exercise. Now I'm wondering if maybe that was the point God was trying to make. The yoga sessions were the only change that I made this week; I gave in and ate quick (bad, high fat/sugar) food for energy or to shut the stomach up while I typed. Didn't lose any pounds this week.

Despite all the stress, the yoga helped. Not on the scale, though. (Though since I didn't gain despite all the bad eating, maybe it did help. Hard to tell.)

I do think it helped me fall asleep once I went to bed; usually, after a stressful day, I tend to lie awake stressing some more, but this week I dropped off right away.

So... I didn't see any dramatic improvement, but I didn't slide back during this week. And despite all the long work hours and short sleep hours, I feel pretty good about life. Though I need to schedule sleep in there somewhere.

And the week of Ornish quotes -- I need to change my behavior when chaos reigns around me. I tend to get resentful, which is natural but unhelpful. My work comes at the process, after a long line of other people's jobs, and if other people take longer than expected, the pressure is on me to complete the job on schedule even if that means working late hours and going short on sleep. Geez. I can't even describe it without resentment coming into the paragraph. That needs to change.

Ornish: day 6

Quote du jour:

We tend not to question our beliefs, our perceptions, and our patterns of behavior, even when they are causing problems for us. The same homeostasis that protects us from change also makes it more difficult for us to transform even when it's in our best interest to do so.... Part of the value of pain is to help motivate you to change.
- Dean Ornish

Goal of the day: Pay attention. If I find myself wanting to eat something unhealthy, ask myself why I want to do this right now.
Done! Of course, in this case the answer was "because I want to stay awake and alert so I can finish the project even if I am working on it at 11 pm due to someone else's lack of planning not that that bothers me much I'm just going to vent about it here and maybe grind my teeth a bit."


Goal of the week: Final day of the week-long yoga challenge.



Exercise du jour: 30 minutes rowing

Ornish: day 5

see more dog and puppy pictures

Quote du jour:

What makes the quick fix so seductive and addictive is that the relief seems so real. When we believe that relief in the short run comes from that which helps to destroy us in the long run, then we have a problem.
- Dean Ornish

Goal for the day: Today, I vow not to go for any quick fixes that make me feel worse in the long run.
Um... can I go for best two out of three? The problem is, when I get hit with a boatload of work and unrealistic deadlines, something's got to give. I didn't have time to prepare healthy food and bring it in to work. This is another goal that I'll have to try tackling again. I wish I could say otherwise.

Goal for the week: Yes, again with the yoga. I know it's going to take longer than a week to make this a habit; right now I'm just getting through on will power. And for now, that's okay.
Done!



Exercise du jour: 30 minutes with my elliptical. I'm starting to find the elliptical machine a good short-term fix. Feel good after I stop, don't feel any bad effects later on.

Done!

Ornish: day 4

see more dog and puppy pictures

Quote du jour:

Anything that helps you to transcend your isolation will help you to lose excess weight and keep it off. More than that, though, transforming and transcending isolation is the essence of real healing.
- Dean Ornish

Even if surrounded by people, if you feel disconnected than you are isolated.

Goal of the day: Today, I'm going to contact a friend I haven't spoken to in a while. Bridge the gap.
Done! We're having lunch on Friday.




Goal of the week: Yes, I'm going to keep up the yoga. I'd like to try getting to sleep earlier, but it's the only time I can guarantee yoga time. And I suspect that yoga is helping me drop off rather than lying in bed for an hour or so.
Done! Though I didn't get to done before 1:15 am.

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes rowing. I do find myself liking rowing. I suspect it's because it's an exercise you can perform sitting down.
Done! Okay, not quite. When I saw that I couldn't start until after Midnight, I compromised and only did 20 minute on the rowing machine. Still think it's worth the dang star, especially because I stayed up late to get it done.

Ornish: day 3

see more Very Demotivational

Quote du jour:

We become addicted to what makes us unconscious, so we don't feel the pain we create. The temporary pleasure is used to hide the chronic pain. Worse than that, when we blunt the capacity to feel pain, we also diminish the capacity to feel pleasure, joy, and love, both for ourselves and others. When we can deal with the pain more directly, then we can increase our awareness and joy rather than diminish it.
- Dean Ornish

Goal of the day: Okay, if something bugs me today, I'm going to leap on the elliptical. Well, I will if I'm near the elliptical. If someone at work bugs me, I'll try some push ups, squats, and stretching. If none of those are possible, I'll write it out. I will not try to drown the anger, angst, or annoyance in food.
(Watch today turn out to be a perfect day, with no irritations at all. What the hell. It could happen.)
Well.... can't really call this one a fail or a win. It'll have to go to the judges. The thing is, I was so sleep-deprived, after three days of putting the To Do list ahead of sleep, that I was too zombie-like to get irked about anything. The good part about this is that people stopped asking me to do One More Thing because they could see how tired I was. The bad thing is that I didn't get a single chance to practice positive ways of dealing with angst. I'm pretty damn sure I'll get another shot at this goal another day.

Goal of the week: Day 3 of the yoga-all-week.
Done! And almost 40 minutes until Midnight. This is an accomplishment.



Exercise du jour: 30 minutes on the elliptical -- even if I'm not irritated.
Done! And before 10 pm, even. Much better.

A week of Ornish: day 1

Stolen from The Ironic Catholic, who leveraged it from a copyright-free Google images site.

Quote du jour:

[Meditation] satiates the hunger that is not satisfied by food alone. And when your soul is fed, you have less need to overeat. When you directly experience the fullness of life, then you have less need to attempt to fill the void with food.
Other ways of feeding your soul -- that is, healing your isolation -- include: altruism, compassion, massage, psychotherapy, and yoga.
- Dean Ornish

I was browsing through a book written by Dr. Ornish (Eat more, weigh less) and ran across some paragraphs that struck me as worth pondering. So I thought I'd put them up here, one a day for a week, and ponder them.

This quote made me wonder if I should try an experiment.

I don't feel any urge to undergo psychotherapy, massage, or meditation. I'm not seeing any especially altruistic or compassionate things I could do at the moment. But I do have that yoga DVD. Maybe that's a sign.

Goal for the week: One week of daily yoga sessions. See if it makes any diff on the scale.
Done! And with seven minutes to spare before Midnight. I can tell already that it's going to be one of Those weeks.


Yes, I know, to do a true scientific experiment I would have to do this for longer than a week. But if this were a true scientific experiment I would also have to divide myself into a test group and a control group and double-blindfold myself when weighing on the scale and… well, anyway, this is strictly a personal anecdotal study, worthy only of publication in the Journal of Irreproducible Results.

Note: If you want real, proper exercise experiments, go read Charlotte's blog.

I'll still keep up with the aerobic exercise as well.

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes on the elliptical
Done!