Easy day

 Quote du jour: “We do not stop exercising because we grow old – we grow old because we stop exercising.” ~ Dr. Kenneth Cooper

Spent a total of 2 hours on the elliptical yesterday. I'm easing into this return to exercising, so I wasn't using high resistance. I got my heart rate up, even so. Have I mentioned that I love my elliptical? I even find using the moveable arms gives my arm muscles a bit of a workout.

Wow. I am surprised how tired I am today. I did not push myself yesterday as far as using resistance on the elliptical, and my muscles are not sore, but I have no energy today. Zero. Zip. Zilch. (Why are there so many 'Z' words for low energy?) So whatever I did, it must have pushed my body even though I did not feel like I was stressing out the system. I'm going to consider that progress.

Exercise du jour: Today, I want to go easy on the elliptical. A mere 15 minute stint. done

Joachim Martin Falbe [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Working from home = more work time, less home time

Quote du jour: Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.- Carl Sandburg

One thing I'm working to overcome is my tendency to sit down in front of my computer and stay there for hours. Working in an office, it's easier to control this. A co-worker wants you to go to the break room for a coffee, you go out to lunch with people, you need to physically get up and go to a meeting. Something. But working from home, my point of connection to the outside world is the computer screen and there I stay. So today, here's the schedule.

10 a.m. -- Get up from my desk. 15 minutes ellipticalling.-- done
12 noon -- Get up from my desk. 30 minutes cleaning the house. done30 minutes ellipticalling.done
3:30 p.m. -- Get up from my desk. 30 minutes yard work.fail. Last Minute Meeting, very important (yeah. so why was everything shelved until tomorrow if it was so important, hmmn?)
4 p.m. -- 60 minutes ellipticalling.done -- got to use up a lot of frustration
7 p.m. -- 15 minutes ellipticalling.done. Finally.
That's a hard schedule for me. Not the hour on the elliptical, the taking-a-break part.

Work is bad for blogging

Quote du jour: Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

Sheesh, all it took was a job with a hellishly long commute and poof my exercise blogging went out the window. Update:

1. No, I'm not dead. Not yet, at least.
2. Working a job that involves a 3-hour commute and getting up at 4:30 in the morning is bad for your blogging schedule.
3. Jumping from that job to one that involves travel up to half a month is even worse.
4. Exercising or eating right when working 15 hour days is not always easy possible.
5. For the moment, I'm not working as hard so I'm going to go back to tracking exercise.

I bought a new elliptical. Broke the old cheap one, and fixing it would've cost more than it was worth, so I bought a fancy one with a fancy maintenance agreement. I've found that this is one type of exercise that I can and will do consistently. Go with what works, yes? Exercise du jour: 1 hour, ellipticalling -- done!

It's not Hugh, but I liked it

Friday! Holiday! Hugh Jackman!

quote du jour: I’ve always felt that if you back down from a fear, the ghost of that fear never goes away. It diminishes people. So I’ve always said ‘yes’ to the thing I’m most scared about. -Hugh Jackman

It's Friday,it's a holiday weekend, and I've gotten lil'ipad to play nice with blogger. Maybe.* So of course I needed a picture of Hugh.

*I still can't get the Preview button to work, and most of the text runs off the edge of the screen, so you have to guess at what it really says. But it's better than it was.

Photo: http://www.allaboutjackman.com/

Please don't let Blogger design nuclear power plants, 'k?

Quote du jour:
Arthur: "What happens if I press this button?"
Ford:"I wouldn't."
Arthur:"Oh!"
Ford:"What happened?"
Arthur: "A sign lit up, saying Please Do Not Press This Button Again."
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Curse Blogger! They've changed the whole interface, and taken away all the text on the draft page. If you add an image, you can't see it, not even the HTML code. All you see is a bunch of icons. Presumably you're supposed to click each icon until you find out what it does. ("Oh, was that the Delete button? That must be why all my text went away.")

Not that Wordpress gets any awards either, as you might have discovered recently if you tried to leave a comment on a blog and got a message loop telling you to log in.

Luckily, I read another blogger's comments, which mentioned that clicking the cog icon gives you an option to revert to the old UI. Which has text, text being symbols that TELL you what will happen if you click a link BEFORE you click the link. Please don't let Blogger get the idea that it should design nuclear power plants. "Oooh, it's a shiny red button. What would happen if I press it?"

Interior dialogue, with gratuitous Hugh Jackman pic

Quote du jour: “I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.”
Mark Twain

Me: I need to put up a post on my blog.
Inner critic:Why? Nobody ever reads it.
Inner paranoiac: Besides, even if someone does read it, they'll give you advice!!!
Me: Because I need to hold myself accountable. I can go a few weeks keeping up the daily exercising without blogging about it, but something always happens to derail me, and once that happens, it's hard to get back into it.
Inner slug: Stop! I'm blushing.
Inner defeatist: Look, it's simple. This week, you've been working 10 hour days. Add that to the 3 hours of daily commute and 8 hours of sleep, and that leaves you one hour in the day to eat, exercise, shower, weed the yard, mow the lawn, and whine about how tired you are. What do you expect?
Me: The only solution I can see (aside from not working 10 hour days) is to build exercise into the commute.
Inner selves: Why not just put up a picture of Hugh Jackman exercising instead?



Exercise du jour: Callanetics this evening. Next week, plan B.


Photo courtesy of Cool Guyz

Eat to Live Weeks 5 & 6

Quote du jour: “If you focus on results, you will never change. If you focus on change, you will get results.” ~Jack Dixon

I didn't post last week, so I lumped that post in with this week's post.

Week 5 - Made it through week 5 of the Eat to Live diet. Lost the four pounds of sodium/ water retention, gained two pounds from swollen legs due to excessive exercising, lost that too. Um, where am I again? It's easy to lose track, but I think I ended up back where I was in week 3.

I think my body's having trouble adjusting. This past week, my old headache has come back repeatedly. This is a hormone-related headache that involves my face swelling up like a balloon. The upper eyelids especially become so swollen that the pressure on the eyes causes the headaches.

Week 6 -- more headaches. For two days, I went back to the non-vegan style of eating, which had three immediate results: the headaches eased off, I gained two pounds, and I got my period. This last is one of those side effects that I should have been aware of. Apparently it is quite common to stop getting your period when you first switch over to a low-fat diet. It's a reminder that what I eat has a direct effect on the hormones coursing through my body. And eating this way makes the cramps much, much, MUCH less painful. I'll take the occasional headache any day compared to that.

I went right back to eating vegan, because I really do like it. I started this six week diet as a way to tie in with Lent, but I don't feel like I'm giving up anything now by eating this way. The only thing I plan to change is to add in some more starchy vegetables or grains sometimes. Maybe meat or fish on special occasions. Dr. Fuhrman suggests using the 90/10 rule as a long-term eating plan: only eat 10% "bad" food. I like that. I've learned it's important for me to not feel restricted; if I think I can never eat a particular food, I'll feel deprived. If I think "well, not today", then I am fine with it. It doesn't matter how much the eyes and the imagination want fried chicken and chocolate-- once I've eaten the beans, greens and strawberries, the stomach is perfectly happy with the substitution. The body doesn't NEED fried chicken.

Summary: after six weeks, I've lost eight pounds and a couple inches. More important, though, is what I've gained. I feel better. I feel healthy. My nails used to be brittle and break easily; now, I've had to buy a nail file because they are growing long without breaking. I'm enjoying eating more than I used to, and I'm much more aware of everything I taste.

Final note: Since I've started eating this way, Damn Back hasn't complained once. Not a peep.I think all that pain was exacerbated by the inflammation, which was itself fueled by the high fat diet.

Exercise du jour: I've decided to go for another 30-day challenge. This month, I'm going to be doing Callanetics in the morning and evening. It's rather like Pilates, but it is supposed to be good for people with bad backs. No, I don't currently have a bad back. I want to keep it that way.


Posted from DPad on my iPad

Week 4, Eat to Live

Quote du jour: “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong'.
Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.”
― Charles M. Schulz

UPDATE:Done. I do feel a bit silly. Okay, a lot silly. But I did it anyway.

Made it through week 4 of the Eat to Live diet. Couple slip ups. Not with eating meat or grains or such, more a matter of eating things that I THOUGHT were low sodium, but turned out not to be. I shall avoid all sauces for the next couple weeks.

Usually, I don't track my weight this closely, but for the six week diet I decided to make note of how well it works. On Sunday, I gained four pounds overnight. An overnight gain like that suggests water retention, hence my suspicions about the sodium levels in the sauce. I'm not asking for advice on how to change this; I am merely keeping track.

Otherwise, I am enjoying the simplicity of this diet. Lettuce might not be very exciting to eat, but I like how it makes me feel full without feeling weighed down by greasy food. I don't have any qualms about eating with people who are downing French fries and cheeseburgers. So long as they don't expect me to join in, it's all good.



Exercise du jour: 15 minutes waving my arms around with an exercise band and trying not to feel foolish. If people stare I will smile and nod and Act Confident. What the hell.



Posted from DPad on my iPad

Armed and dangerously silly

Quote du jour: “Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr.


I've got a new idea for making a fool of myself in public. I spend three hours a day sitting on a train. Why not work some exercise into that time? So I've packed an exercise band in next to my lunch. The Wes train in the afternoon starts out with few enough passengers that I can do some arm exercises without putting someone's eye out.

I tried it last Friday. The conductors suggested some good exercises. And what the hell. Haven't been deliberately foolish in a while now.

Exercise du jour: 15 minutes waving my arms around with an exercise band and trying not to feel foolish.



Posted from DPad on my iPad

Do over Day

Quote du jour: This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy


FAIL on both exercising and organizing and eating right. Decided to get a migraine instead. Today is a do-over. Just pretend yesterday didn't happen.


Exercise du jour: 45 minutes elliptical, 15 minutes cleaning/organizing. It will get done!!!



Posted from DPad on my iPad

Eat to live, week 3

Quote du jour: I consider the 70s to be the youth of old age. So all you women out there who are afraid of getting older, just keep your orgasms in place, eat a lot of vegetables, take exercise, and you'll be fine.
- Betty Dodson

Finished the third week on the Eat to Live six week diet plan. Only lost a pound and a half this week. ("Only," she says.) I blame the pizza. (Yes, I could blame myself for lifting the pizza to my open mouth, but that's far less satisfying. Anyway, blame is boring. Done now. Moving on.) Had a little problem with the innards when I introduced ground up flax seed into the diet, but other than that the transition to eating high fiber has been amazingly stress free. I am pleasantly surprised.

Interesting note: Friday, the day of the Dreaded Pizza Encounter, was the first time in weeks that I felt hungry. I knew in theory that a diet of mostly rabbit food makes me feel full more than a high-fat low-fiber diet would, but this brought it home.

I'd eaten only low-fat food that morning to balance out the pizza, so I was quite hungry by lunch time. For about five minutes after I ate the pizza, I felt satisfied. Then I was hungry, a gnawing hunger that wouldn't go away until I ate a couple cups of lettuce. Then the stomach was happy, purring instead of growling. Damn. I really am turning into a healthy person.

Exercise du jour: 45 minutes elliptical, 15 minutes cleaning/organizing. Maybe if I post organizing up here, it will get done.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Sleep savings time

Quote du jour: If people were meant to pop out of bed, we'd all sleep in toasters. - Jim Davis, attrib.


I propose a new time system: Sleep Savings Time. Why bother with saving daylight? It's all going to be gone once night comes around.

Actually taking the day off exercising. My legs feel swollen from the steady regime of nothing but elliptical, so I'm going to spend my exercise time clearing things up so that I have room for exercise DVDs or using the rower. I've done so much exercising lately that I don't feel lazy for taking the day off.

Exercise du jour: 15 minutes stretching.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Onward and downward

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

Survived the pizza peril. As expected, suffered a reversal temporarily on the downward progression. It helped that I was prepared for it. Back to being good. Onward and downward.

Exercise du jour: 60 minutes on the elliptical. It shall be done.
Update: DONE

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Perils, pitfalls, pizza... and a plan.

Quote du jour: And Jesus saith to him: If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And immediately the father of the boy cried out with tears, I do believe, Lord: help my unbelief!
- Mark 9:23-24

Today is a short day at work, but it's a day filled with perils and pitfalls. Yes, today is pizza day. One is expected to attend. One will feel obliged to partake. It's showing Team Spirit, or something like that. I know that when faced with the pizza, I'll probably end up nibbling.

What I'm most concerned with is not losing momentum. I'm almost halfway through the six week diet plan; this is about the time when I'd expect doubts & difficulties to start dropping by for a visit. I've been losing weight at the rate of a steady 2 pounds a week, which is a great way to stay motivated. I've been averaging an hour a night on the elliptical. Things have been good.

Even a vegetarian pizza that's been commercially made is going to be stuffed to the gills with enough sodium to choke a horse. I've learned enough to know that it's going to add pounds on the scale, that I'm going to feel most irrationally annoyed, and that that I'm going to feel irrationally discouraged. Even though I believe the diet works, I will start to disbelieve in my ability to follow it in faith.

So the plan is this:
ALL DONE

• Eat a ton of fruit and vegetables for breakfast
--DONE

• Start the day with 15 minutes on the elliptical --DONE!


• Work in 15 minutes of walking while waiting for the morning train --DONE!


• 45 minutes on the elliptical this evening

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Second week doing Eat to Live

Quote du jour: The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late. ~Charles Caleb Colton


Survived another week on the Eat to Live eating plan. Lost another two pounds, despite the Unfortunate Chinese Food Incident, which is not to be sneezed at even if it is allergy season. One thing I've noticed is that my weight is not fluctuating wildly up and down as it used to before I started this. Is it just reduced salt intake? I'm curious.

Another curious thing is how sensitive the taste buds are getting. Is it because so much of the diet is green, leafy, unspicy? I had a bowl of sweet, sweet early strawberries with some tart blueberries mixed in. Even ten minutes later, my taste buds were acting like a bunch of stoned hippies in a brownie factory: "whoa, man, that was, like, intense, dude.*"

Of course, that is not always a good thing. Yesterday I went out to eat at a restaurant with a bunch of people. It was the first time I'd eaten out, since I've been on this eating plan, at a place that didn't have a salad bar. All you could get was stir fry, though you could pick out what you wanted them to put in the wok. I thought I was playing it safe by getting a vegetable stir fry, but that sauce! Argh! I can still taste it. Forget Chinese food making you hungry, I was full for the rest of the day.

Update: exercise done!


Exercise du jour: Going for distance. 60 on the elliptical.

*Yes, my taste buds are Californian. They talk like that.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

The Joy of Exercising

Quote du jour:

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
~D.H. Lawrence

Very strange thing. Last night, I'd planned a short 15 minutes on the elliptical. But once I got going, I didn't want to stop exercising. Don't ask me where my Inner Slug was; he must've taken the night off, because my body felt full of energy. I wanted to work out. I ended up doing 40 minutes on the elliptical for the sheer joy of movement.

I'm trying to remember the last time I worked out for the sheer fun of it. It's the kind of thing I associate with childhood. These days, fun is hanging out with friends or playing a game, not exercising. I'm not complaining, not by any means. Just wondering when that joy went away. I'm glad it came back last night.



Exercise du jour: No plan. At some point this evening, I'm going to get on the elliptical and move, but how hard and how long, those details I will leave up to my inner child. Might be fun.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Eat to live, Merry style

Quote du jour: I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day, because that means it's going to be up all night. ~Steven Wright


By request, a typical day's menu on the Eat to Live six week plan. At least, typical for me. One thing that I like about this way of eating is that you don't have to count calories. (I'm keeping track because it's a way to study my eating patterns, for my own understanding.) The emphasis is on eating beans and greens, especially green leafies, with 4 pieces of fruit and some nuts and seeds.

Breakfast is generally fruit with a bit of protein thrown in. Today, strawberries, blueberries, and a pear, about 3 cups' worth, with a bit of baked tofu on the side. The application I'm using to track calories suggests that I should aim for eating 200 calories and 5 grams of fiber at breakfast. I'm not an especially breakfast or morning type of person, so it might take me a couple hours to eat breakfast while at my desk. If I finish before 10, I call it breakfast.

Lunch is where I go to town on veggies. I usually go for a salad with a couple cups of greens, then beans, mushrooms, sliced carrots, whatever veggie toppings are around. There's a salad bar in the cafe at work, so I tend to cruise it for things I wouldn't usually buy at the store, and add them to my home-brought salad. One thing I've noticed about the beans and greens diet is that my taste buds are much more easily pleased. Used to be I didn't especially notice my food after the first taste of an entree, but now it's different. Suddenly, each bite of something like sundried tomatoes makes my taste buds all join hands and dance around in happy circles. Eating has become a lot more interesting.

For the mid-afternoon slump, I munch on an apple and some almonds.

Dinner is where I throw in any 'bad' food, i.e. anything that's not especially nutritious. Traditionally, I eat very well during the day and blow it after I get home at night. These days, I plan my bad, so I don't go overboard. One thing about this six week plan is that grains and starchy vegetables are limited, so here's where I'll eat some fritos or a baked (nuked) potato with salsa, something like that along with my salad. I'm still trying to find the best way to include flax seed into this diet.

Exercise du jour: 15 minutes elliptical. Yesterday I did a rather long 50 minutes, the day before was resistance. Today is just a placeholder, a quickie. Because I overslept, I get to work late, which means I won't have time to organize the house and exercise both. Inner Slug will be pleased.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

So far... (Week 1 Eat to Live)

Quote du jour: Nothing cures insomnia as well as the realization that it's time to get up.

Survived week 1 of the Eat to Live six week plan.

Look, I don't want to jinx anything, but so far, so good. Not really noticing much difference. Well, yes, I did lose a couple pounds this week, but my weight fluctuates wildly anyway, so it's not that significant. (In the last six weeks, I've gained and lost 11 pounds. It's a roller coaster.)

More to the point, I'm not noticing any complaints from the Department of the Interior regarding the increase in high-fiber veggies in the diet. Not noticing any decrease in energy. I am noticing the feeling that I had before, the feeling of lightness, of not being weighed down by high-fat foods.

Exercise du jour: 50 minutes elliptical. Yesterday I did 30 minutes on a higher resistance; today I want to go for endurance.

I know I should mix it up with other kinds of exercise, such as spine-stretching yoga, but until I get all the furniture moved back into my office, the living room is too crowded for me to try exercise DVDs. No, seriously. I'll have to put a picture up. I keep planning to organize things when I get home, but i don't follow through. Turns out there is something my inner slug hates worse than exercising or house cleaning: organizing. The thought of being faced with that kind of decision-making at the end of the day makes the inner slug Really Eager to get on that elliptical.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Re lent

,
see more Very Demotivational

Update: Done! That was a looooooong 50 minutes. Much longer than 45 minutes.


Quote du jour: Change is inevitable. Except from vending machines.

I know people scoff at New Year's resolutions and things of that ilk, but all the same there is a bit of an energizing momentum feel to the start of something; it can help you get out of a rut. (Keeping going once the momentum fades, that's another story.) I've been mulling over things to do for Lent, and this morning an idea occurred to me. (Even before coffee.) I wrote a review of the Eat to Live diet for Cranky Fitness. The author, Joel Fuhrman, suggests starting this lifestyle off with a six week diet plan. I can do something for six weeks. Hmmmn... That's about how long Lent is, too. Coincidence? Well, yes, okay, so it is a coincidence. But it's also a plan.

Last time I tried eating this way, I loved it with 80% of my body. The innards couldn't handle that much fiber after a lifetime of going carnivore. So I've been gradually switching my diet to eat more greens, beans, fruit. This is not going to be as radical a change as it was before. Let's see what happens.

Note: I'm using the Net Diary app on the iPad to keep track of the nutrients, so yes, I WILL make sure I get enough protein, 'k?

Exercise du jour: 50 minutes elliptical. I know I should mix it up, but until I get all the furniture moved back into my office, the living room is too crowded for me to try exercise DVDs.

Party Gras on Mardi Gras?

Quote du jour: The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more.
- Wilson Mizener

Another reason to take public transportation: it is not a good idea to drive when I'm this sleepy.

Another reason to walk at lunch. I go to work every morning when it's pitch dark outside. I leave work and it's equally dark. If I don't get out for a walk at lunch, it feels like I'm stuck in one eternal night until winter is over. That feeling creeps me out.

Another good reason to keep a blog. It feels like I'm in a rut, but if I look back, I can see progress. Even though damn back gets cranky if I sit too long, it doesn't fuss so much about the elliptical. It got annoyed with me last night, because I had the effrontery to try to pick something up off the floor. (Can I get a doctor's note to excuse me from house cleaning? And would the house elves do it for me?) Once I get the place organized, I need to go in for some ritualized form of stretching and strengthening, like yoga.

Exercise du jour: 45 minutes elliptical. Pushing things a little further.

UPDATE : done!
Posted from DPad on my iPad

The garlic had it coming...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

Update: Done!

Quote du jour: Are you casting asparagus on my cooking?
- Curly Howard

It's not my fault.
Not completely, anyway.

I mean, the recipe said that you're supposed to roast the head of garlic without peeling the cloves. In my joy at that news, I kinda skipped over the part about removing the dried papery skin around the garlic. And everything was going fine...until I heard the high-pitched screaming coming from the oven. I had to pierce the skin with a knife several times before the noise went away. Okay, yes, I stabbed it until it stopped screaming. I felt guilty for assaulting a vegetable.

Who knew cooking could be this violent?

Damn back still hurts, but it's a low level of pain that doesn't seem affected by ellipticaling. (Sitting is another story.)

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes elliptical, respectfully.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Yes!

Quote du jour: I'd like mornings better if they started later.

Stayed up late last night. Went a weeeee bit off the healthy eating path. I'd planned to take the day off, but they asked me to come in and work overtime, which is extraordinary enough that I felt obliged to do it.

The back didn't object to the elliptical! I'll try it again with the resistance up a bit more, see how that feels. It's not back to normal, but it's a LOT better.

Exercise du jour: 30 minutes elliptical, respectfully.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Less pain = more exercise

Quote du jour:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' And whenever the answer has been 'No' for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Steve Jobs

Update: Done! Got the Elliptical done before midnight. Admittedly, only two minutes before, but it still counts.


Site du jour: Ever read the sarcastic science comic XKCD? Ever read and then thought "what the hell is he talking about?" There's a blog called XKCD Explained that explains the science (and sometimes the sarcasm) behind the humor.


Exercise du jour: The back pain has descended into minor irritant level, so I'm going to see if I can do 30 minutes on the elliptical. What's the worst that could happen? Wait, don't answer that. Let's see what happens.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

The many uses of guilt

see more epicfails



Quote du jour: If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?
-- Anon

Site du jour: The How to Write Badly Well blog created a Random Folktale Generator. No more casting around for something to write about, the plot creates itself! Some assembly required.

UPDATE: Got the walk done!


All the comments yesterday about guilt got me thinking.



(Dang it, I hate it when you guys do things like that to me. Thinking? At this hour of the morning?)


To me, guilt is useful, so long as you don’t linger over it. Accept it, learn from it, and move on. ‘nuff said. If I aim for a goal and miss, I count that as a FAIL. Hopefully one with lessons learned, so I can make different mistakes the next time.



I use guilt as a tool in my fight against my inner slug. It gets me up in the morning, it makes me get on the elliptical or lace up the walking shoes. I use guilt whenever I put up a post about a challenge, something I want to do to extend myself. The difference is that these days, I don't dwell on a FAIL.


When I was young, I used to feel guilty all the time; it was my default position. I was the sort of person who’d say “I’m sorry” whenever people told me I apologize too much. Someone once gave me a copy of “When I say no, I feel guilty.” I just ran across it the other day, and yes, I do feel guilty that I’ve never opened the cover and read a single page. All the same, I’ve mostly learned to deal with guilt, accept that it has a place in my general scheme of things. Just not a very big place. I’ll shake the hand of guilt, but I no longer feel the urge to hug guilt to myself as if it were a best friend. Honestly, we’re not that close any more, and I’m fine with that.

Speaking of FAIL, I spent yesterday's lunchtime working instead of walking. No good reason. Since the back has improved a bit more, I'm falling back into the old standby of ignoring my body and concentrating on work. This is repeating old mistakes, which I do consider a FAIL. Today will be different.



Posted from DPad on my iPad

I was not prepared

Quote du jour: It's innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn't.
-- Mignon McLaughlin

Site du jour: On the Mark Reads blog, Mark is blogging about the experience of reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time. Interesting to see it through the eyes of someone who's never seen or read the tale.

I never posted about the January challenge of going 30 days without going near a store. I did not do well. Lasted almost three weeks before I had to pick something up. I made it through the month with a couple of quickie FAILs. I know this is a learning experience, but I still felt guilty. I should adopt the motto from Mark Reads:You Are Not Prepared. I did try to be prepared. Even so,I ran out of almost everything, overstocked on a few things. I still have loads of frozen vegetables stuffed in the frig... want some? Yeah, that's what I thought. I suppose I should eat them up.

It was a tremendously useful challenge in terms of how much I learned. There are organized people out there. I am not one of them. But at least I am much more self aware. I thought I needed a lot more veggies than I did. I want to try that challenge again in a few months, see if I can do any better.

Note: the jury is still out on using Dpad. I'm getting better at working with it, but blogging on an iPad is always going to be a frustrating experience unless you have a wireless keyboard. It's better than straight HTML coding... I guess... But I'm not thrilled with it.

Still going to go Cold Carrot today. In more ways than one.

Exercise du jour: one gentle walk at lunch.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Getting better all the time

Quote du jour: Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music — the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

Site du jour: The Perfect in our Imperfections blog wrote a good post on Things that get in the way.

Not my best week, but I suppose it could be worse. Better than last weekend. Managed to go almost completely cold carrot this week. I don't know if it was the smartest move budget-wise, but I bought a big container of pre-washed salad and supplemented it with salad toppings from the deli counter in the cafe. Okay, yes, I did slip in an ounce of grilled chicken once, but that was it. From the point of view of being good, it's much easier if I don't have meat in the house so I am giving myself a pass on buying food from work this time.

I really feel like I'm being obsessive about the diet, but that springs from fear. I do not want to go through pain like that again. Usually I take the absence of pain for granted, but right now I am profoundly grateful for it. I actually managed to sit through a whole meeting - an entire hour sitting down! - without having to get up because it hurt. I am betting that my body will be nicer to me if I avoid inflammatory comfort foods.

It's easier to be good when you feel bad. Since I've started to feel better, the old habits have come slinking back in, acting casual like they've been around the whole time. Last night on the way home it was cold and dark and depressing. I really wanted to stop off and pick up something baaad to eat, something high-fat with no nutritional value. Maybe even get a bottle of wine. My inner child was whining and pouting and throwing a tantrum. (You'd think it would have grown up with the rest of me. Can't wait until it hits adolescence.) Managed to give my inner self a time out, i.e. I told it we'd deal with it when I got home. Then, of course, the inner slug spoke up and pointed out that it was dark and cold and rainy and who wants to go out in that? Thus inertia saved the day.

Still going to go Cold Carrot today.

Exercise du jour: one gentle walk at lunch.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Me and Shakespeare

Quote du jour: Our faults, dear Brutus, lie not in our stars, but in our selves.

- Will Baby, Julius Ceasar

Better. Could be worse, anyway. Though I do think that if I'm going to feel like I'm being stabbed in the back, I should be wearing a toga in the ides of March. Interesting to note (well, interesting to me), that beer therapy has no effect. I thought alcohol acted as an analge-, an analg- a thing that made pain go away for a while. But no.

Still going to go Cold Carrot today. No food that has even the slightest inclination to aid the inflammatory response (e.g. anything with saturated fat) shall pass these lips.

Exercise du jour: one gentle walk at lunch.

Another good reason to take public transportation

Quote du jour: Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
- G.K. Chesterton

Site du jour: I love studies that agree with what I already think. Turns out business meetings can make you dumb.

Sigh. The back continues to improve, albeit slower than a snail on Valium. And I likewise. Gentle walk again today.

I feel obsessive, minutely chronicling each goal, but it does help. If nothing else, my Stubborn muscle is getting a workout. Semi- fail on the good eating yesterday. I had to eat Bad for social reasons.

The company went through a round of layoffs yesterday. You could see how hard it was for some of the managers, laying off people they'd been close to for years. In an effort to find something positive in the day, one manager brought cupcakes into a meeting to celebrate an employee's 35th anniversary with the company. I could see how stressed the manager was, so when she passed out the cupcakes I felt obliged to take one and nibble at it. Honestly, I didn't want it. Afterward, I felt down, rather depressed. That might have been because of the re-org, I suppose.

The layoffs went on all day. No one knew how many people were let go or from what departments. There were a couple articles in the newspapers; they didn't have the details either. It's understandable that management wouldn't want to go into detail, but the uncertainty does tend to feed the paranoia.

On the shuttle ride back to the train, the bus driver filled me in on all the details of exactly how many people were let go and from what departments.

Still going to go Cold Carrot today. No food that has even the slightest inclination to aid the inflammatory response (e.g. anything with saturated fat) shall pass these lips.

Exercise du jour: one gentle walk at lunch.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Pain but no gain

Quote du jour: History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
- Maya Angelou


Wow. After four days of increasing back pain, last night the agony suddenly decreased. I'm not free of it, but it's now so moderate that I feel as if I can have a life again. I actually slept last night! (The night before, every time I tried to doze, the pain would wake me up.)

Now I'm trying to figure out what the hell that was all about. What makes a body turn on you like that? I feel like someone who has owned a fat, lazy cat for years, the kind that lounges around waiting to be fed, only to wake up one morning to find that Fluffy has turned into a snarling Sabertooth tiger with a major attitude problem.

Still going to go Cold Carrot today. No food that has even the slightest inclination to aid the inflammatory response (e.g. anything with saturated fat) shall pass these lips. Might try a walk at lunch. I'm going to play it by ear. Back, as it were, to basics. But gently. Nice kitty, niiiiice kitty...


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I also lost another pound last night. Granted, I've gained and lost nine pounds in the last two weeks, so who knows how long this will last, but I am calling it a win.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Honest lying

Quote du jour: Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
- Lance Armstrong


Okay, change of plan. The back flared up into intense nastiness, so I spent the whole weekend lying on my back either in bed or in a hot bath. I can't sit in a chair, but I can walk and I can lie. Down, that is. So I'm thinking this is the body's way of slapping me upside the head to get my attention. I'm putting exercise on hold and switching my attention to Extreme Diet mode. Going to go Cold Carrot today. No food that has even the slightest inclination to aid the inflammatory response (e.g. anything with saturated fat) shall pass these lips.


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I lost two pounds this weekend while lying around. There's something positive.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

All the good things

Quote du jour: What doesn't destroy me makes me stronger.

-- Nietzche

Site du jour: Scientists are trying to read our thoughts. Mood rings are never going to come back into fashion.

Good things are happening:

• I pulled a muscle in my back. Which is good, because now I can't sit in a chair for more than an hour at a time. I have to get up and move around.
• I missed the connection for my second train this morning. Which is good, because it meant I was stuck at a very cold and windy transit center for half an hour and has to walk around to keep warm. More exercise!
• So all I need now is one more good thing... Oh yeah. It's Friday! All day!

Exercise du jour: Again, the goal is to take a lunch break, back away from the keyboard and walk. No one is forcing me to work through lunch. Four days in a row!

The Three Faces of Merry

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Quote du jour: The personality which swore to meditate early in the morning every day was not the same personality as the one who threw the alarm clock out of the window. - Gurdjieff (attrib.)

I think I'm three people in one:

• There's AM Merry, who wakes up full of hopeful plans for the day. Life seems full of opportunity. Of course there'll be time to exercise, so long as I stick to the To Do list.
  


• There's Workaday Merry, who devotes her hours to dancing the Corporate Shuffle (kinda like the Charleston, without the catchy tune). She resents having to stop work just to do something lame like exercise. "Can't AM Merry see how important this work is? Why stop just when I'm getting things done?"
  


• And then there's PM Merry, who wants nothing to do with the other two. Frankly, she thinks Workaday Merry is a humorless killjoy, and she can't stand AM Merry, whose plans should be shredded into confetti. All PM Merry wants is comfort food and the chance to curl up in bed.

Of course, what I really need is a job that doesn't take me an hour and a half to get away from each night. And I need for it to be lighter out on the way home. Something about that long train ride through the dark night drains all energy and optimism out of me. Luckily, both of those things can be changed, given time.

Site du jour: I gotta give these people credit for a shocking headline that grabs my attention even as I think, WTF? Popping a multi-vitamin can lead to debauchery.

Exercise du jour: Should I go for it? Oh sure, why not. Trying for a third day in a row of taking a walk at lunch.

Modest goals

Quote du jour: When we die, no one remembers us for what we weighed. Our weight isn't etched into our headstones.
-- Stephanie Klein, Moose, 2008


Site du jour: I liked this post about overwork versus getting things done. Myths of the overworked

Exercise du jour: Again, the goal is to take a lunch break, back away from the keyboard and walk. No one is forcing me to work through lunch. It shall be done.
Done! Hey, that's two in a row. Not that that makes a habit. But it does make for an improvement.



Posted from DPad on my iPad

Trying again...

Quote du jour: I always wanted a happy ending... now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.
-- Gilda Radner

Site du jour: Who knew rescuing a pet was so hard these days? I can understand rescue organizations being picky, but this is a bit extreme.Not good enough to adopt a pet?


Updated link: HERE

Exercise du jour: Again, the goal is to take a lunch break, back away from the keyboard and walk. No one is forcing me to do that to myself. I will take a break! I have spoken.
Done! I didn't wanna do it -- not for any good reason, I just didn't wanna. But I did it anyway. Do that enough times and I'll have a habit.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Blogging on a train

Geez, the personal details people talk about on cell phones. The guy on the train just called his son " to hear his voice," He asked the kid how his Christmas was. Apparently, the place where the man was being held, he wasn't allowed to make phone calls. He's in a halfway house now, so he can call any day except Sunday. And in a few months, he'll be able to find them both a place to live.

The other night on the train, a woman was yelling on her cell at her son. After she hung up, she called someone else and had a long conversation about how "DHS said she wasn't a good mother, so they wouldn't let her throw her son a birthday party."

I really hope it wasn't the same kid.

Exercise du jour: I am going to take a walk at lunch. No excuses. I'm posting this to publicly shame myself into doing it.

Damn it. I don't know whether to classify this as a WIN or a FAIl.

I mean -- was it my fault I was born female, and heir to all the exercise-inhibiting cramps that female flesh is heir to?

(That sounds so much more fancy than saying cramps stopped me from taking a walk at lunch. Gotta go with what sounds good.)

On the other hand, I was able to do 20 minutes on the elliptical this evening. Should that qualify me for a gold star? I think that I'm gonna call this a win, on the whole.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Don't ask, don't tell

Egad, I got tagged. That's what I get for being so quiet.

One reason I haven't been posting is that if I share any issues, people will try to tell me what I should do, even if I'm not even remotely asking for advice. In fact, i wasn't sure I should even mention it. I'm afraid of getting some well-intentioned commenter saying "you don't want people to offer advice? Well here's what I think you should do about it..."

it sounds like a simple enough, even trivial issue. But it's not really. Not if it stops me from posting. It inhibits me. ("You find it inhibiting? Here's what you should do...") I mean, if i post about a problem and you want to tell me what you did in a similar situation, that's wonderful. I'll sit at your feet and listen attentively. I'd love for you to share your experiences of life. Just don't want people telling me what to do with mine.

Posted from DPad on my iPad

Update:it's Friday!

Ha! He's a swinger! I always suspected...

Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacey/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Trying something new

It is a dark and stormy night.

I am trying to see if I can blog on the iPad on the train.
If I can figure out how to sleep on the train, I'll really be doing well.


Posted from DPad on my iPad

Wait a minute... who turned the lights back on?

Whew! It's bright in here now.
Must be time for a spring cleaning, or something like that.
(It's warm enough for a spring cleaning... the weathermen were all warning about a huge storm, 'Snowmagedden' approaching. Turns out to be more like 'Slushmagedden.')

I've been good, and I've been bad, but mostly I've been tired.
My immediate goal for the week is simply to get to sleep before midnight, so I can get up before I have to already be at work, so that I can get to work at an early enough hour that I can leave at a decent hour so that I can get home in time to get to sleep before midnight so that I can...

Oi vey maria. Enough already. I'd like the universe to send me a job that doesn't involve spending 3+ hours a day commuting. Preferably one that includes a respectable salary, positive co-workers, interesting-but-not-extremely-stressful work. Also, I'd like the workplace to be populated with single, straight Hugh Jackman lookalikes. (I thought I'd throw that in. You never know.)

New year, new challenge

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Out with the old, on with the new. Challenge, that is.

One thing I noticed from going car-free for a month was that I spent more time going to the store and I spent more money at the store. Because I couldn't carry as much stuff on a bicycle, I shopped more often. The more I shop, the more I spend. Spending more is bad.

I wanted to try something different. I wanted to see if I could not go to the store for a month. Use up the food that I have in the pantry or the freezer. What would that be like? Can I do this? I have no idea. I want to find out.

So yesterday, I started up the evilSUV and went off to the grocery store. (I wanted to stock up on things like frozen vegetables and toliet paper.) Today, my freezer is stuffed to the gills with fruit and vegetables. If there's a power outage, I might have to re-think this idea.

I do realize it would be smarter to try this in the late summer, but I want to try it now. I'm curious. Maybe this will be a fabulous experience.


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Exercise du jour: 30 minutes on the elliptical. I can do it.
Done. I did it!

Survived the car-free month

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Made it through 30 days of being car-free -- well, almost car free. I did take the car to visit the mechanic, and I drove it yesterday because I wanted to buy a heap of stuff from the store and I couldn't carry it all home on a bicycle. Ordinarily, I would've waited until the month was up, but I needed the stuff for this month's challenge.

My thoughts on going car-free for a month:

• It's doable, in large part because I made a point of buying a house in a walkable neighborhood.
• It takes planning and organizing, skills that are not among my strong points. If I want to go to the library, the grocery store, and Home Depot, I have to figure out my route and make sure that the lights are working on my bicycle.
• I was limited in how much I could carry home at one time. Therefore, I shopped more often. Even though I bought fewer items each visit, I still bought more things because I was in the store more.
• Going car-free is great if you have a monthly pass and access to a train or light-rail. It stinks if you take the bus. I didn't know this before, but I am an elitist. I hate riding the bus. I don't like the bus drivers and I don't like the people who ride buses. One woman I rode next to, Ms. Contagion, had a long conversation on her cell phone describing in detail how sick she was and how she still had to go to work. (I really hope she doesn't work in a restaurant.) On another bus ride, Mrs. Sharp Elbows squeezed in next to me. She kept jabbing me in the ribs. Finally I worked my arm in between us, so she couldn't actually hurt me anymore, but it was still uncomfortable. Note: I only rode the bus a couple times. There might be intelligent, charming, polite and healthy people out there riding buses. I just didn't see them.
• Going car-free is a terrific way to work in exercise into your day. I love having exercise become part of my commute.
• Having a car-free commute saves a ton of money. A lot of people told me that they could ride the light rail, but their car got good mileage. I don't think they've actually sat down and ran the numbers. By taking the train instead of the car, I saved over $300 a month. Granted, my car is an SUV, so it doesn't get fantastic mileage. But even if a car does pretty good with the gas, it's much cheaper to take the train.

Will I continue to take the train to work? Definitely. Will I use the bicycle to do my shopping? Most of the time. Am I ready to toss the car keys away and walk everywhere? Not yet. But I think I can do a lot more without driving.

Site du jour: A family decided to get rid of their car and go car-free. And they're not living in a particularly walkable neighborhood.

It's Boxing Day -- not Kickboxing Day

Quote du jour: Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.
- Kin Hubbard

I've never found a good explanation for why the day after Christmas is called Boxing Day. Even Scopes found it hard to explain. All I know is that it means I have to clean up wrapping paper and do some extra dishwashing.

Wait. It also means I have to go back to work tomorrow? Already? Jeez.

Something tells me that if I found a job that I loved to do and looked forward to every morning, I wouldn't have that reaction. Just a hunch.

Job hunt update: Got some nibbles, but most employers aren't really interested in hiring between Christmas and New Years. Still, I've updated the résumé, dusted off the interview outfit, and posted my latest info up on Monster. (Surprisingly, that's still a highly popular job site. I'd have expected a more tech-specific site, but that's where a lot of employers still look.)

Exercise update: I've been Suzy Slacker all week. Luckily, this blog is a guilt-free zone (or I'd have a lot to say to myself on this subject). Instead, I'm going to focus on getting something done exercise-wise every day this week. It's not that I'm incapable. I'm just totally unmotivated. Pretty sure I don't need to be motivated to exercise; I just need to be capable.
Plus, if I get up and work out this week, I'll end the year on an up note, which is always a good thing.

Winter is coming

It's dark outside.
It's too dark outside.
Therefore, it is entirely logical for me to think that it's too dark to:

• Exercise yes, that includes the elliptical in my bedroom, the one that is currently sulking from neglect


• Do yard work no, even if the sun is up for part of the day. Hey, it's going to get dark soon. No sense starting something I can't finish, right?


• Clean my house okay, so this one takes more rationalizing, but bear with me. It's cold outside and therefore unless I want to spend all my money on heating bills, it's going to be cold inside. Therefore, I think I will spend the rest of this month curled up in bed huddling under the covers.

I do realize that work is needed on the attitude front. On the plus side, I have been doing well on the car-free front. Not that I had much choice, since I had to take the car in to see Mr. Mechanic. I will have to drive today, since I can't pick up the car from the mechanic and also hie myself to work. (That's one drawback to taking a commuter train that doesn't run in the middle of the day.)

Exercise du jour: 4 miles of walking a day. I can, I can, IcanIcanIreallycan.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Can't go forward, don't want to go backward. Will tread.

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Quote du jour: Nothing will work unless you do.
- Maya Angelou

Feel a bit up in the air. Can't concentrate on exercise because I'm spending a lot of my time focusing on getting a job or fixing the one I've got. Going to see the manager of the department today to see if something can be done. Sent 5 résumés out last night. A couple of the jobs were pretty good fits for what I can do, another was a long shot, one was 'meh' and the last one was sent to a former co-worker whose new company might need somebody.

Exercise du jour: I will aim for 4 miles of walking a day. I know, I know, it's not pushing myself to do this. This week, maintenance is all I am asking of myself.

Would it be okay if I were assertive? Or I could just impersonate a doormat if you'd prefer

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Good: Legs not so swollen up, can walk without limping. Still don't know what the heck I did to earn that.
Bad: I don't know if I should even ask a doctor about it.

Remember a few months back, when I was talking to new recruiters every day? Every time it was the same routine:

1. They'd describe the job and ask what rate I'd expect.
2. I'd say the rate would depend on whether or not I'd have to pay for health insurance.

The responses fell into three basic categories:

• Most recruiters said "No insurance and oh my that's a high rate Merry."
• Some said "Welllll, we have a sort of reimbursement plan and oh my that's a high rate Merry."
• A rare few said "Oh yes, we offer health insurance and that rate is a bit high, but we can deal."

This job I'm at now, the conversation fell into the last category "but of course there's a waiting period." The waiting period is now up. And... they don't offer health insurance.

So I send them an email saying, essentially, "WTF?"

They sent back an email saying "let's chat." I was not interested in anything they had to say unless it was in writing, so I suggested email instead.

Now I get an email from them saying "Oh gosh! Turns out that when you first spoke to the recruiter we did offer health insurance, but by the time you got an offer from the company, we'd changed our policy. Still, since we're such nice people, we'll up your salary by an additional $300 a month so you can buy your own insurance."

Huh. Now I've got to sit down and figure out whether or not that's a good move. I'm not even sure I could get health insurance -- surely being overweight is a bad mark in the eyes of an insurance company?

Site du jour: Jennette Fulda wrote a post on insurance for the self-employed. I found it clear, comprehensive, and depressing. I think the best thing to do would be to marry a rich old man who had no close relatives. Preferably one who is Canadian.

How hard can it be?

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“In a sense the car has become a prosthetic, and though prosthetics are usually for injured or missing limbs, the auto-prosthetic is for a conceptually impaired body or a body impaired by the creation of a world that is no longer human in scale.”
- Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A History of Walking

Yes, I thought up another 30 day challenge. It occurred to me, since my car is having difficulties, that this might be a good month to try going car-free. This might be considered making a virtue of necessity: my mechanic doesn't work weekends, so with my work schedule it's awkward trying to get the car to him right now. I'm going to try to work another week of four 10-hour days, so maybe I can drop the car off Friday, pick it up next Friday. Aside from that, I want to see if I can go without driving anywhere at all for a month.

What I've discovered so far is that I'm getting a lot more incidental exercise. Just shopping for groceries or picking up a DVD from the library involves walking or cycling for several miles. On the down side, I have to plan a lot better. Because it gets dark so much earlier, my bike ride had to be cut short yesterday when I found out that the batteries in my bike lights had quit working. Even so, I managed to cycle for about five miles. It's not much, but it's a start.

These 30-day challenge things seem a bit cheesy, but I've noticed that they get results. The other day, I was running out of steam at work at the end of my 12-hour stint. I picked up a packet of M&Ms to give me some energy, but I couldn't finish them. The first taste of chocolate was great, but after that I didn't enjoy the experience. It tasted as if I were eating wax flavored with a lot of chemicals. Probably I was. Maybe going a month sans car will lead me to automatically reach for my bike helmet instead of my car keys.

Site du jour: SuperMarket Sweep blog. Last weekend in San Francisco there was the 6th annual Supermarket Sweep race, where participants go to local grocery stores -- on their bicycles -- and haul food back to donate it to charity. The winners hauled 845 pounds in 2 hours. (It was a father-and-son team on a tandem. They had a long line of grocery carts, filled with groceries and linked together, that they hauled up and down S.F. hills.) Makes my little grocery run (1 pannier) look pretty wimpy.

Exercise du jour: This week, I'm aiming for 5 miles of walking a day and 15 minutes ellipticalling at night.
Most emphatic FAIL.
Yes, I did walk about 2 miles, what with my commute to the Max and the trek down to the cafeteria for the morning coffee, but other than that -- Pffft!
My legs felt swollen at the start of the day.
It only got worse as the day went on. I couldn't even touch my toes. (No, that's not normal. Usually I can almost touch my palms to the carpet.)
Don't ask me what the problem was today. I don't know. I didn't exercise at all yesterday, neither did I feel sore from the bike ride the day before. I'm pretty sure that starting my cycle wouldn't cause my hamstring muscles to throw a hissy fit. On the walk home, it was so bad that I was limping. Noticeably.
I think this is a sign that I should chalk the day up to Whatever and try again tomorrow.

Wake me up when it's December, 'k?

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Good: Thanks to the lack of car, I got a lot of walking done this weekend just from Getting Things Done. To wit, walked 7-1/2 miles this weekend.
Bad: Might not get any exercise at all this week.

The next seven days are going to be hellish. I don't get paid for hours I don't work, so I'm going to try to work three 12-hour days this week to make up for the loss of money from the holidays. Plus which, I'm going to be spending money, flying home for Thanksgiving and then on to Southern California for a family reunion. The odds of healthy eating, regular exercise, or enough sleep occurring this week are, unlike the woman typing these words, extremely slim.

Site du week: Eco Cat Lady has a great post on why Alarm Clocks are the Root of All Evil.

Getting crafty

Confession du jour: I'm trying to learn crafty things like crochet. (Yes, I know this photo shows Cary Grant trying to knit. Stretch your imagination a bit, okay? I defy you to produce a photo of a hunk crocheting. Must be something only women do.)

I figure that spending three hours a day commuting by public transport should provide the ideal time and place to learn this craft stuff. For one thing, you can't throw the tangled yarn down and run out the door screaming. Not while the train is moving, at any rate.

If all goes as planned, I will be able to do a bit more serious exercise today. Since I worked four 10-hour days, I get today off. So I have the time to exercise... presuming I don't spend it doing chores. Are chores more important than exercise? Clearly not. Well... unless you want to be able to find clean clothes, eat off clean plates, have the electric bill paid before they cut it off... pish! Trivial things like that.

Exercise du jour: I'm figuring two hours of ellipticalling: one in the morning, one in the evening.

Note: I don't know how this will go. I've been extremely lax on the elliptical lately, so this might prove too much for Damn Knee. Six weeks ago, this would've been an easy goal to do. Let's see what happens.


Photo courtesy of Noelle Noodle.

But baby it's cold outside

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Quote du jour: I was so cold the other day, I almost got married.
- Shelley Winters

Quiz du jour: Reader, I married him, a quiz about lines from well-known books in English literature. Some of them I could identify the book, some I could only identify the author. A couple, alas, I knew them not.

Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling.
Sigh. Yes, again. Let's see if I can do the full stint this time, even though I hab a code and hab to sneeze before I can breed through my nodz. (Yes, having a cold does make me type like that. What? It doesn't affect your spelling?)

Done! With the help of drugs, so I won't qualify for any Olympic records (I'm sure Nyquil^TM is on the proscribed list), but it's done!

Every family has its own internal language

Quote du jour:
Me: What's this potted plant?
Mother: Oh, Cathy gave me that. It's to replace that plant we had by the front door, the one that died when the weather got below freezing. I forget the name... something that begins with 'P'...
Me: Hibiscus?
Mother: That's the one.

Site du jour: In case you missed it, A Mouse in France wrote a series of posts on how to avoid getting computer viruses. And since she deals with that sort of thing for a living, this is straight from the horse's mouth, as it were. (From the mouse's mouth? Whatever.)

Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling.
Sigh. Yes, again. This will become a habit eventually. I just wish I had a precise definition of what 'eventually' means in this case.
Done. Finally. Actually, not quite done. I skimped on the walking (2-1/2 miles), because my body decided that since everyone else was sniffling and sneezing, it should join in the fun. Slowest 15 minutes of ellipticalling ever, but I got up and did it anyway, so I'm putting the star up.

Oh, gift me a break

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Quote du jour: I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
- Shirley Temple


Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling. It shall be done.
It has been done. That 'just 15 minutes' thing still works.

"Oh good. You still work here."

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Not the best way to start the day: "Oh good. You still work here."
- A co-worker, when I walked into the office one day last week. Turns out the company's been playing musical chairs, a.k.a. reorganizing.

Not the best way to end the day: That night I drove home by back roads, going 60 down dark, narrow roads that don't even had a shoulder if you need to pull over. I turned into the driveway, shut off the engine, and only then noticed clouds of steam rising up from under the hood. Half an hour later, the car was still steaming. Can't see any loose hoses, but there's a definite smell of antifreeze. Thankfully, I can get around without a car if I have to.

Goal for the week: I'm thinking that I might try working four 10-hour days this week. The manager told me that this was an option, and I'm wondering if it will work out better. I get more done when I can concentrate for long periods of time. Plus, I'm spending three friggin' hours a day commuting. Would be nice to only have to do that four days a week.

On the down side, doing this means that I will have less time to exercise during the week. Therefore, I have to take a walking lunch break. Also, I will have to make it an absolute rule to use the elliptical every night. That's going to be hard. I don't mean physically, but mentally. By the end of the day I'm usually worn out and want "me" time -- I want to relax, put my feet up, and be self-indulgent. The trick here is to try to persuade my inner slug that using the elliptical is a form of self-indulgence.

Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes elliptical. Yes, I know it's the same goal as before. When it gets easy, I'll up the workout. (It's easy enough physically. The challenge here involves time and discipline.)
Done! Actually did 5 miles walking.

The Internet is making it harder for me to be a slacker

Here I was, spending time on the Internet because it was too dark and cold and gloomy to get off my ever-increasing bottom and get on my bicycle for a short 4-mile ride. (But it's so dark! It's so cold! It's so glooooooomy!)

Then I had to go and read Lynne's blog about her ride from Eugene to Beaverton.* (For those of you from elsewhere, she rode 136 miles that day. For those of you from somewhere with a more sensible measuring system, that's 218 kilometers.)

Damn. It's much harder to look my conscience in the eye and tell it that I can't do my simple get-the-chores-done ride.

Done! 4 miles on a bike

*Sorry, Julie, but even though I'd love to stop in for a visit, it ain't gonna be by bike.

The magic of 15 minutes

Quote du jour:It always seems impossible until it's done.
- Nelson Mandela

Thanks to the amazing MessyMimi, I now know that today is National Cliché day. And it is a cliché that you can do more than you think you can.


When I absolutely positively cannot in any way Get Up And Exercise... for some reason, I can almost always still manage to get on the elliptical for 15 minutes. Can't manage half an hour, 20 minutes is still too long. But just 15 minutes, well, the bar is set low enough that the weary brain can grasp the concept and see it as doable. As often as not, I find that once I'm going, I can go a little further.

Exercise du jour: Yes, another 4 miles walking, 15 minutes ellipticalling. (Merry, when are you going to change the routine? A - when it becomes easy.)
Done! I'm claiming the star even though I did 30 minutes ellipticalling and no minutes walking. I figure I deserve it on humanitarian grounds, for even though I had a rotten day and really wanted nothing more than to crawl into my home/cave at the end of the day, I got on the elliptical machine. Of course, I wouldn't have done it if you -- yes, you right there, don't look away -- hadn't had faith that I could do it. The guilt of letting you down, well, I was ready to get up there and go through the motions to placate that guilt. Then, once I was going through the motions, it was easy enough to put a good tune on the headphones and get some real exercise.
I think the formula is Friends + Guilt + iTunes = Workout.

Why You Should Exercise Every Day

Hella long Quote du jour:

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts show
that, after just one day of not exercising, your body loses some
of its ability to respond to insulin (Metabolism: Clinical and
Experimental, July 2011). Inability to respond to insulin is the
cause of most cases of diabetes that has the potential to cause
premature death in one of every three North Americans.

HOW SUGAR DAMAGES CELLS: After you eat, blood sugar levels
rise. If they rise too high, sugar sticks to outer cell membranes
to destroy those cells. That's why diabetics suffer from damage
to every cell in their bodies, leading to blindness, deafness, dementia, heart attacks, strokes, impotence, and damage to nerves, kidneys or liver. To keep blood sugar levels from rising too high, your pancreas releases insulin which drives sugar from the bloodstream into cells. Exercising every day helps to keep sugar levels from rising too high.

HOW CONTRACTING MUSCLES CAN PREVENT DIABETES: Resting muscles cannot draw sugar from the bloodstream without receiving large amounts of insulin. However, contracting muscles can remove sugar from the bloodstream without using insulin. This effect is maximal during exercise and is gone completely after 17
hours.

ONE MISSED DAY OF EXERCISE: In the study from the University of Massachusetts, after just one day of sitting, people had higher blood sugar levels after a meal, decreased ability to respond to insulin, and higher insulin levels. The more food they ate on the day of not exercising, the higher their blood sugar levels, and the less their bodies responded to insulin. This study shows that just one day of not exercising increases a person's risk for the side effects of diabetes.

HOW TO EXERCISE EVERY DAY: Many people become injured when they try to exercise every day. The most likely cause is that they do not understand the hard-easy principle that every knowledgeable exerciser should learn. You take a more intense workout on one day. The next day, you can expect to feel sore. That is when you must put very little pressure on your muscles. That means to run, dance, skate, cycle very slowly or lift lightly until the soreness diminishes. Only then should you move faster and lift heavier. You can tell that you are headed for an injury if you feel soreness that is not symmetrical and it worsens with exercise. Stop because continuing discomfort with exercise is often a sign of impending injury.

- Dr. Mirkin

Okay, I have a plan. Yesterday started off pretty good, with me drinking like a fish. I drank about three liters of water in the morning, but I slacked off in the afternoon only to find Mr. Headache coming back for a visit.

So today, I'm hitting the bottle every hour from the moment I walk in the front door to the last-minute frantic dash for the exit at night. And I'm going to exercise.

4 miles. 15 minutes elliptically. It shall be done, damn it.
It has been done. 30 on the elliptical. And it was good. The drinking plan seems to be helping.

Back to the routine

Quote du jour: Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.
- Yeats (attrib.)

Why does a headache leave you feeling as drained as if you'd indulged in an orgy of debauchery? If I'd known I was going to have a hangover, I would've gone out on the town, damn it.

Oh well. Another day, another dollar cliché exercise goal.

Exercise du jour: 4 miles walking, 15 minutes elliptical.
Semi-win. Did 3 miles walking. Yes, the headache came back. I am nearly positive that it's caused by dehydration. The workplace humidity is kept unnaturally low, to make the products feel better. They do provide extra drinking water stations to make the people feel better, and a round-trip walk to the closest one is a 1/4 mile walk, so it's not too bad. So long as I remember to keep drinking. Slacked off this afternoon, and lo! The headache returned this evening like an old friend. The kind who owes you money and sits around on your couch drinking your beer and watching shows you hate.