So, as you (the mythical you, since “you” really means “me”) can see, I haven’t blogged in a while.
I find that I’m often spinning plates – and then all the plates crash to the ground. H calls me a “gadget freak” and that’s somewhat true. Have you seen the movie Tin Cup? In it, Kevin Costner plays a washed-up golf pro. In one of his lessons, a gal walks up and has every single golf bit of “paraphernalia” basically hanging off her body. It’s hilarious – she looks almost like a one-man band with all the things that she’s “using” to “help her to hit straight.”
Sometimes I feel like that. (I’m SURE that H thinks I am like that! In fact, Tin Cup will never, ever be in our Netflix queue…)
For me, it’s not just cooking or other gadgets (being addicted to Kickstarter and Indiegogo….yeah…I gots some of them), I have online “gadgets” – and lots of them. Here are some of the online things that I am trying to keep up:
EveryMove: This is tied into the fitbit device I wear, but it also gives you “perqs” if you log in and say what you’ve done every day. Steps, workouts, things like that. It shouldn’t be that hard, since it ties to Facebook, Twitter, BodyMedia (my device), etc. But while the device downloads to it, you have to “fill in” what you did. I was good for like a month, then have totally fallen off the wagon recently (more on that later).
GiveIt100: I love this website. I love the idea of doing something EVERY day, taking a little video of it, being accountable. Except – I haven’t been. I’ll post something today, because I was going to go to the 9:00 a.m. Crossfit WOD but I’ve convinced H to start up again (it’s been a month) so we’re going to do 6:30 p.m. So suddenly I have more “day” to catch up.
this blog: Sometimes I just don’t have the time or inclination. Probably because I haven’t moved myself forward in my goals, so I just ignore writing that down. (Looking up at the ceiling…whistle….whistle whistle….) I do, however, generally post something to Facebook every day and usually I do Tweet every day. I wish there was a quick and easy way for those to show up here – I know you can do it “vice versa” (your blog posts showing up as tweets/Facebook posts – probably LinkedIn too).
EverPlans: OK this isn’t a workout thing, but a GREAT website where you can log all the things that you are doing/have to do/have done related to basically “end of life” decisions. I know – sort of morbid – but it’s FANTASTIC. And, free. I started it – gotta keep at it. One thing it made me do is hit up my trusts/estates attorney AGAIN to finish our work. I paid her already – always a bad idea – and she hasn’t finished getting our properties into the trust and all that jazz.
There are also a NUMBER and I mean a NUMBER of things I’ve “subscribed to” that I WANT to keep on top of – but haven’t. I have PAID to be part of something that a number of “gurus” have done – and then, I do nothing with those things! Shame on me.
I have more books, articles, etc. sitting by my bedside than is really safe. (smile) No, seriously. H threw his back out this weekend, so I had to get into my bedside table (I have an industrial massager that I needed to use to unlock his muscles, and it’s stored in there) – and when I “knocked” the pile I realized that the “torn out magazine article” part of that pile is HONESTLY (no, not joking) 10″ thick. This isn’t magazines, this is TORN OUT articles. Well, now it’s 10″ um…”not so thick” since I knocked it over, so there is a fan of paper that goes from the bed to the wall.
One that I’m exceedingly “unhappy” that I don’t keep up is a “meal tracker” that I subscribed to through JillianMichaels.com. I probably need to just bite the bullet and discontinue it – it’s not inexpensive. My BodyMedia is also through JillianMichaels.com, but I can get that for $6/month just to download, and the JM costs me $52 per quarter. I could do a similar thing on MyFitnessPal or some such – IF I were to do it.
I know, I know, “tracking calories” is SO 2012 (smile). The thing is, that my doctors have decided that I eat too much, so that’s why I’m such an enormous thang. My nutritionist thinks that one of my thyroid meds needs to be boosted, the doctors say that I’m “in the normal range” and that it’s that I eat too much. For a female over 50. (I think I posted the email from my endocrinologist a few posts ago).
So here’s the thing. I don’t really LIKE to exercise. I was the kid who hid in her bed reading under the covers with a flashlight, but would try to get her (doctor) dad to write doctor’s notes so that she wouldn’t have to go to gym. Yes, really. Back then, I was a skinny, coltish, shy girl, head and shoulders (literally) taller than anyone else – I was smart but lazy (“unchallenged” I guess they’d say now).
I remember doing a “women’s retreat” a decade or so ago in Sayulita, Mexico – I’d already agreed to be the sous chef for all the other women to get the retreat for half price before I found out the “program” was “re-introducing yourself to and integrating your inner child.” I told the therapist running the program that this was NOT something I was interested in – that in college, I’d spent all of freshman year copying a gal who was super nice, popular and NOT a “Mean Girl” because I wanted to have, oh, some friends (smile). She said that I had to “play the game” – then I got “called out” when I sat on a rock reading a book when all the other women exercising their “inner child” were skipping and cavorting in the sand. When “chastized” I explained that this WAS my inner child – that IS who I was until college, and my “personal makeover/transformation by copying.” Of course, that didn’t fit the mold – but I did play the game.
(And hated it.)
Anyway – so I’m 30 pounds heavier than my “heavy but healthy” weight. (40 pounds heavier than my “slim but healthy” weight.) All my doctors – gyno, GP, endo – say that I should “just face it” that “that’s what happens” when you’re over 50, to “deal with it” and cut portions and work out like a demon. The endo even put me into a “Health By Kaiser” thing…I dutifully filled out the survey, and get back that I should be eating 4 portions of grains a day, etc. – !!! Ah yes, the dreaded Food Pyramid.
That said – I’m sure they’re right to some extent. But GOSH DARN IT! – for the last 3 months, I have been GOLDEN in my eating. No alcohol, sweets (sugar/sugar substitutes), lactose (milk/cheese/etc.), gluten, fruit, starchy carbs (even down to sweet potatoes), etc. I have eaten meat, eggs, fat (“good” fat a la coconut oil, butter, mac nut oil, MCT oil), non-starchy veggies, PERIOD. And my weight is still 30 pounds heavy (min.) and my body fat over 30%. WTF?
These past couple weeks, I was just “done” with it all. I’ve had friends in town, H and I went out, H had stressful work stuff going on, so I had a cocktail or a glass of wine most days, I split a dessert with one friend who was in town, 2 weeks ago when my grandboy was in town, I ate a sourdough bread bowl of clam chowder at Fisherman’s Wharf because “one does.” And my face is still broken out – gluten is REALLY off my list, I’m too vain for that.
I do know that I need something to be “accountable to” – but H is not so good in that he shows up with a martini or a glass of wine, and I have no “No.” :-)
Why am I writing this? Because today is another Fresh Start Day. I am sick and tired of how I look – and summer is coming on. I have gained TWENTY pounds since September – something is up hormonally, because the fact that I could gain so much and then NOT lose it with being so strict means my body is holding onto calories in a very meaningful way.
So today’s the day to go back to all the FollowupThen.com’s that keep showing up in my box – tied to MindValley things I have paid to be subscribed to, Dr. Sara Gottfried (paid) subscription, The Low-Carb Guy (paid) subscription, Mark Sisson (paid) subscription, etc. If throwing $ at the problem would solve it, I’d be so, so healthy and slim right now…
Because LET’S JUST SAY that The Amazing Race called us TODAY. I already know this isn’t like when I was in my 20s – cut back a little and drop 10 pounds in a few weeks. No, we’ve proven that’s not the case! The thing is, that as the time goes on, it’s harder and harder to use that as a “stick” to push me forward. And let’s face it – I’m ill equipped for what is happening “to” my body. In my 20s and 30s and even most of my 40s, I was the girl folks hated – thigh gap and all. Oh sure, I couldn’t have run 2 blocks or deadlifted more than my cat . . . but I could cut back a tiny bit on what I was eating and be completely happy with how I looked and felt.
BTW – since I mentioned The Amazing Race – one thing I DID learn when I was doing some random web surfing the other day is that when you are chosen, you have to get all the visas for where you “might go” – they give you a list, and it includes the real places you’ll go that require visas, PLUS a few extra thrown in. That explains one thing that I’ve been curious about – why the teams seem to know “Please, Thank you, Fast, Race” in CRAZY languages. Three weeks ago they were in Borneo and even the “stupidest” team knew how to say “Thank you” to the folks there, which was a mystery to me. Now I get it – as there are at least a dozen countries that you go to – some of which do NOT require Visas, like for example Europe – as a team you could split the countries that you’re required to get Visas for, and learn a few phrases for each. My supposition is that Borneo requires a Visa. Also, apparently you have to get a litany of shots, that cover all the places that you “might go,” and some extras. This makes Pinky (from last season)’s comment about having to “do all the work” for her and her partner (hence their 60/40 split) make more sense.
Okay, time to go start ramping back up on all those things I’ve been ignoring for so long . . . and today starts being seriously back at Crossfit again. (As I said above, after the back-to-back weekend clinics, I have had Achilles issues plus a back “thing” – so I’ve been doing the Open workouts but otherwise basically going to the WOD but just doing stretching and rolling.)