The ride that goes down in infamy

Why do weekends go by so fast? We had a nice weekend, it was a combination of busy and relaxing if that makes any sense. I did not do too bad in terms of weight loss and eating. I actually did pretty good in terms of exercise and I am continuing to move forward.

I tracked my food all weekend long.  It was not a perfect week in terms eating. But I’m OK with with what  I did do this weekend. My weight was showing way down on one morning this weekend but I do believe I’m retaining some water due to some higher sodium foods and honestly today  due to just not drinking my water. I don’t think I’m going to keep my streak alive for the water intake today.  That’s  OK too.  I’m striving for perfection but I’m OK if I don’t reach perfection because this is life.

On Friday night we had our typical pizza dinner… My splurge for the week and I was actually OK with calories, right at the top end of my calorie goal for the day,  but perfectly fine. Saturday morning my weight was actually even down! So I was very happy

On Saturday we relaxed a little bit, ran some errends, drove up to Hagerstown to see my mom and run one or two errands up there. Any exercise and/or steps that I got that day we’re simply from grocery shopping and errand running. My calories were a little bit higher than I wanted them to be but I still felt pretty confident with where I was and what I was doing.

Sunday… In one way Sunday was a victory and in one way it was a failure. On Sunday morning I woke up and went for a run. It wasn’t  a long run. It wasn’t a fast run. But I was out there doing it. I came back and we hung around the house a little bit. And then got motivated to get out and ride our bikes. I was starting to feel hungry so I had two slices of pizza,  left over of course. And then we went out on her bikes and rode for a few hours. For dinner I was just hungry. Really hungry. No excuse really… we had cheeseburgers zucchini and bean salad… And I was still hungry I added baked beans and some deviled eggs. And then I had my small piece of cake.  Yes, I was way over my calories.  So calorie wise I’m going to say it was a failure. Exercise wise, I’m going to say it was a bit of the victory because I actually did it. (Looking at my net calorie/exercise chart...I was below goal!)

This bike ride?  Well that willlive in infamy. Why? Well, I’m going to say…very confidently, that this was probably one of the worst bike rides I have ever had. Top five at the very least. Let me highlight some of the wonderful aspects of this ride. Almost immediately, I rolled through some kind of pollen.  This pollen was a beast!!!  I was coughing and gagging. My eyes were running. My nose was dripping like a faucet. When I tried to speak, I started to gag. Water didn’t help. 2 miles!!!  That how long  it took for me to recover! Yes, I thought about turning around and giving  up. But, I was having some delusional thought of being a tough girl!  OK, maybe I just figured it would pass quickly. See, doesn’t this bike ride sound fun? The first 4 miles of this ride were pure mud!! Now, some days I don’t riding a mud big bike ride. With my less than stellar beginning though, yeah that was not one of those days. I slipped and slid in the mud.  I grumbled and moaned. I pushed my muscles through the mud.   (It takes more power to go through that mess). And I pushed through. After about mile 4 the mud dried up and the next few miles we’re not as muddy. But the whole time we were riding I kept reminding myself that this was indeed an out and back bike ride… Meaning that those  first four hellish blood muddy miles  we’re going to be repeated in reverse. Are we having fun yet? I guess it was right about the time that the mud eased up at the next event happened. I open my mouth to say something to Jason. In flew  a bug. I don’t even know what the calorie count on that sucker was. Tasty...not! Sadly, the extra protein didn’t make the ride any easier.   Anytime  we stopped to get a drink bugs would descend upon us. Swarms! Plague like!!!  Can I say yuck!!   Jason had a bug flying into his eye!! … He almost rode off the trail because it blinded him. He said his eye with stinging still an hour or so later. Maybe I should be glad that I just ate one instead of having it in my eyeball. The return trip after we turned around wasn’t that bad. It was still muddy, but as I was able to breathe and talk and not gag from some unknown pollen, so  it was not as miserable. Maybe next week we can repeat the fun? OK note the sarcasm… I want to ride next week but I don’t want to repeat that type of fun. But hey I got my writing! I got my exercise done!!!

Maybe I shouldn’t be too concerned about the higher calories on Saturday night due to a couple hours on the bike and a run.  

Monday…… A day off of work for me! Yes, I had a vacation day scheduled. I’ve been very productive. House cleaning, shopping, oil change for the car, laundry, bills paid, cookies made for Jason, A dentist appointment to have my teeth cleaned, so much.  I also did go out for a run. My Monday morning run was brutal. My shins  were cooking in pain. I did a lot of walking during the run.That’s OK. I still put the miles on my body. For lunch I had a salad and for dinner I’m planning chicken so I should be OK calorie wise also. My only downfall today, is my water consumption. I am very low for the day.

Her was my helper during my house cleaning and laundry chores!

Eating myself Sick

I kick myself every time it happens. Seriously?   What kind of idiot continues to eat when they are full, stuffed even! What kind of dummy feels bloated and stuffed to the gills yet still decides to eat lunch simply because it’s lunch time? This dummy apparently. 

That kind of behavior used to be the norm.  I would eat until I was literally sick to my stomach.  Before that bloated icky feeling would even go away, I would be right there shoveling more food down my gullet.  My life was a constant round of stomach aches.  It wasn’t until I had started to lose weight and really manage my food intake that I realized that the stomach aches were caused by my gluttony.  I was eating myself sick. 

You would think that when I made this discovery that the problem would go away.  However I must be incredibly dense.  This behavior crops up over and over and over again.  Thankfully less and less often, but it’s still embedded in my memory bank of behaviors to act upon.

Yes, I’m writing this because I have recently lived a few days of this behavior. Monday was the worst.  I woke up.  I got dressed to go out for a run.  I had to drop something off for Todd so I headed out.  I don’t like to run on a full stomach so I planned to eat after my run.  However I had packed my lunch for work.  Things happened (lets not go there….) and I never got the run in.  I went home and I was so stressed out about those ‘things that happened’ that I had some homemade bread and then decided to eat some leftover Mexican chicken soup that I had in the fridge.  It was soooooo tasty and I knew that there was one bowl left so I ADDED it to my lunch box. Lunch rolled around and I was not even remotely hungry but I carted my butt up the stairs to the lunch room and heated up that soup.  Did I stop at the soup (and the tortilla chips that went with it…and yes I had tortilla chips with the soup at breakfast too).  Heck no!  I ate some cottage cheese and some fruit…most of the original items in my lunchbox.   What was my reasoning for the ‘extra items’ that were above and beyond the ultra filling soup and chips?   It’s very simple really.  I knew that I wasn’t going to be packing a lunch for work until Friday due to a vacation day , a half day and a late start day.  That food would/could have gone bad!  I didn’t want to waste it! 

I was miserable and then asked myself all day what in the world I was doing to myself.   Why would I mindlessly shovel food into my body, a body that was already rebelling against me.  It makes no sense.  Absolutely insane, if you ask me!  Yet I continually fall into that trap and habit.

I’m not going to say that I’ll never do it again.  I’m an addict. I have an addiction to food and I KNOW that I will slip up again in the future.  I’m just writing this to affirm that I KNOW that it is happening. I’m saying that I don’t like it and I am going to TRY to guard against it.

Meanwhile, I think I’m falling apart physically.  Yes, I do.  Lets start at the bottom:

The left foot…the tarsal nerve is still periodically kicking….along with the plantars fasciitis.

The right foot….the tarsal nerve is bothering me.  I’m freaked out because from what I read the tarsal nerve can precipitate the plantar’s fasciitis (the nerve helps support the arch so when the nerve is messed up the arch loses it’s support and thereby ‘falls’ and that can irritate the plantar)

My back…my lower back has given me grief for a few years.  Yes, in 2011 I was really bad and actually had to take some time off work, simply because I couldn’t move…literally.  It was horrible!   So that was been sensitive a few days recently. I’ve rested it and stretched it and it seems to be better now.

My right arm……what the heck?  I started to feel pain the day I did my 3 bushels of apples (applesauce and apple butter).  I figured it was just a tensed muscle from the work.  Two days later I did a full day photo shoot (the wedding).  At the end of the evening I was getting my gear packed to go home and there was a sharp pain in my arm and from then on my arm HURTS.  It hurts to hold a pen and write. It hurts to type.  It hurts to move my fingers.  It hurts to touch my arm.  It hurts.  GRRR.  It has been suggested that I have tendonitis….or something akin to tennis elbow.  Really????

Otherwise, I’m feeling pretty good.