Lose the Buddha

Great blog by a woman I can really relate to. And she's funny to boot!

Sweaty, sore and sensitive.

The good news:

Most excellent work out yesterday. I had one of those workouts where I didn't want to leave the gym. I was brimming with energy, smiling, sweat on my chest, sweat on my neck, sweat dripping off my upper lip. I felt good. It may have been the coffee, or the fact that I got to watch Superman the whole time, or the new playlist on my iPod that made me feel "17 Again".

This morning I made it to the gym by 10am for a short but productive workout. I feel good about that.

The bad news:

I went to the gym this morning as a direct result of waking up with a major craving for a cigarette. It's that time of the week again: I have a java project due Wednesday that I can't get off my mind. It's also taking away from much needed job-searching time. I've been having vivid dreams that tend to result in restless sleep. I'm anxious, tired, and grumpy.

I used to drink, smoke, and eat with little concern. Ever since I decided to "take control" of how I treat my body, I stress about it constantly. It makes me wonder if it's all worth it. I wish there was a way to be healthy without missing indulgences.

I like indulgences.

That's probably the difference between me and Superman.

Tim asked me the other day: What would you do if Superman asked you out?

That's easy.

I don't think so, Superman.

I'm no Lois Lane.

Guess Who's Back?

Remember those dreams I had of an alcohol-free spring break?

What was I thinking?

Nightmares!!

As it happened, following my spring break was UIUC's spring break, which means the last two weeks have been consumed by booze and bad food.

Wait, the weeks weren't consumed. The booze and bad food were consumed.

By me.

I kept up with most of my workouts, but tonight I'm left feeling tired and toxic - and now the fun stops.

These past two weeks were a bit of a slap in the face for me - a reality check, if you will. The last time I quit smoking was so much easier than this go. It makes me angry I ever broke my clean streak. When I first quit, I was feeling pretty solid about things. I had just spent 4 weeks in Georgia, making my own friends and doing my own thing. I was on summer vacation and the work was light. I felt independent and secure. Maybe it was all of that, or maybe it was the trial session of hypnosis I attended, but quitting was pretty easy.

This time around I'm finding it incredibly difficult to stop smoking those damn cigarettes. So much has changed since last summer, and so much is uncertain in my future. The thought of never being able to smoke again makes me incredibly nervous. Change can make a girl feel real lonely. I long for my always dependable friend, the cancer stick.

But at the same time I'm getting really tired of feeling like crap. If it isn't smoking, it's drinking, and sometimes it's both. I've lost my once "charming" ability to balance drinking and regular-life. Instead of having fun on both accounts, I now stress and wonder about my regular-life, and drink to chill.

Christ, I'm starting to sound like I have a substance abuse problem.

But you know what college is like.

The good news is that I don't smoke like a I used to - I have occasional breakdowns that last from a night to a couple days. But these breakdowns and breaking me down. Every time I fall, I fall harder, and feel more guilty about it than the last time. Sometimes I get so sick of the cycle, I want to forget about it and smoke and not worry anymore.

Other times I get so sick of the cycle that I never want to pick up another cigarette ever again.

So I'm tired of wasting time. So many mornings I've woken up thinking, "Christ, if the apocalypse comes today, I'm not going to survive!" I want to get my balance back. And that starts with getting all the booze, nicotine, and preservatives out of my body that I've put into it these past two weeks. I must replace those things with water, raw food, good protein, and tea.

I was telling someone the other day that the reason attention whores are who they are, is that they never get the attention from who they need it most: themselves. (This comment actually came up in a discussion about masturbation, but it seems strangely appropriate here.) And since I am attention whore extraordanaire, I think I'm going to take my own advice for a change and give my body some much needed spooning.

More tomorrow in Day 1 of the "Week of Proverbial Spooning."

Spring Break is Beating Me Down

This week is Spring Break, which means I have plenty of time for exercising and, unfortunately, plenty of time to do horrible mean things to my body.

The trend for the week seem to be good day followed by drunk night followed by recovery day followed by another good day.

The trend stops here.

With my copious free time, I had a phenomenal workout yesterday; I took a nice long bike ride before hitting the gym where I had a great time working my legs/butt/abs. My only point of discomfort was pure paranoia: I had a creepy feeling that one of the guys at the gym was watching me, and felt a little rushed when he decided to do incline presses right behind the station where I was doing deadlifts.

Maybe someday I'll have an ass that doesn't mind the attention.

But like I said, probably paranoia: one of my many flaws.

After the workout and a nice dinner, I could not resist the opportunity to go to a party at author Bruce Sterling's house. The party turned out to be a freaky good (and drunken) time. Unfortunately this morning I woke up with, not only a sore body, but an extremely sore head.

So I'm going to call today a "rest day" and get on with my life.

This week has illustrated one of my biggest obstacles to being fit for the apocalypse: I have very very little self control when it comes to drinking. I have an extremely difficult time limiting my drinking at parties and bars. I also have difficulty not smoking. And like smoking, I can't just have one beer. I have to have three pitchers. I know it's not healthy, and yet when the time to imbibe comes, I feel invincible. I think the solution is to abstain from alcohol altogether (with perhaps the exception of a glass of wine if I'm out for a nice dinner). Sobriety can only lead to better things, I figure. If I don't drink, I don't smoke. If I don't smoke, I am more motivated to challenge myself in physical activity. If I'm not drunk all the time, I eat better. Less beer means less calories.

It's time to get serious.

Sadly I make promises like this to myself all the time and it never seems to stick. Beer = fun and relaxation for me. I need to break that frame of mind.

The SXSW music fest is going on this weekend and I have a wristband! I think I'm actually happy about my decision to not drink at the shows. I spent too much money on the wristband to waste the concerts away in a drunken stupor.

Why do i feel like I'm gaining?

Don't think for a second that my silence as of late has anything to do with lack of adherence to the great schedule. I have, however, been having trouble making it to the gym at the ambitious hours I set for myself.

Monday:
The Plan: 9am at the gym, 20 min cardio, 10 min abs
The Reality: After a very frustrating fiasco with a bicycle basket, I ended up at the gym by 10 or so. It was a good time, though after that and the fiasco, I was quite hungry.

Tuesday:
The Plan: 3:30 at the gym for a leg and ab workout
The Reality: It was only natural that after touting my wonderful morning on spacekadet blog, my afternoon turned to shit. I didn't bring enough food with me to school, and by the time my 3 hour lecture/lab was finished at 3:30, I was painfully hungry. I thought I'd be able to go if I nourished a bit, and I'd heard the eggplant gyros were good at Kismet Cafe (not exactly in line with the diet, but I was too hungry to care). So I walk to the hell that is The Drag, get the gyro and carry it back to my office. I get there and find that it's a meat gyro! No matter how long I stared at it, hoping I could convince myself it was eggplant, in the end I was left with meat scraped off a stick. I was so sad. So I went home and found a snack but I was still unsatisfied. Hopeless and dashed, I was so frustrated and tired of looking for food that I gave up and went to sleep. Eventually I awoke to Tim, wonderful Tim, who sympathized with my plight and took me to Mother's Cafe on Duval. I had a salad with some of their delicious Cashew Tamari dressing and a bowl of broccoli cheese soup, a rare treat for a vegetarian (and also not in line with diet, but at that point losing weight was the last thing on my mind). I have to wonder if this was a blessing in disguise: for a few days prior, I'd been experiencing some pain in my left inner thigh and shooting down to my knee. Nothing huge but uncomfortable. It was probably best to stay off it.

Wednesday: Another day.
The Plan: 9am at the gym, 20 mins of cardio and 10 min abs
The Reality: I'm so pathetic at this 9am thing. I think I ended up at the gym a little after 10am. The workout always feels so short and I'm often tempted to do more. I wonder if that would be bad?

Thursday:
The Plan: 3:30pm gym fun day
The Reality: Much happiness because my bike is sorted out and I was able to cycle to school: I'm going to make a habit out of this. As of 2pm I was on spring break so I went to the gym early. It was nice and quiet and I got my leg workout in. My abs were really sore today, but I can tell they are getting stronger. Already it's getting easier to do more challenging exercises, like the one where you lift your legs up and lift your ass off the ground. I also did some upper body maintenance but nothing too strenuous.

After the workout, I came home, got naked, and prepared for a task I've been avoiding: measurement. I had planned on measuring everything -- biceps, chest, etc. -- but after the trauma of measuring my hips, waist, and thighs, I decided to stop there.

Today I feel like I'm gaining weight. Fingers crossed that I'll feel differently when I do my next measurement a month from now.

Status Report

Weight: 129lbs
Waist: 78cm
Hips: 93cm
Thighs: L - 56cm, R- 56cm (ah the joy of symmetry)

Schedules, details and diet.

The hardest thing about building this site so far is organization. How detailed should I be? And how do I present this information in a useful way?

Also difficult is finding bona fide resources! Which resources are reputable and which are fluff? Where does one turn when a Google search is not enough?

Research research research.

I gave brief consideration to the calorie-counting approach to fat loss. Then I reconsidered some of my priorities: I work out in order to better enjoy life. I also eat to better enjoy life. The thought of counting calories takes all the fun out of healthful living. A contradiction? I think not. Granted, I probably hold the joy of eating in higher regard than most people. But in the confines of my twisted narcissism, I think if everyone knew what "good food" was, then they'd feel the same way I do.

Forgive me while I use the phrase "eat sensibly", as that is my plan.

For the past couple of weeks, the "eat sensibly" method has worked well. By eating sensibly, I mean

- no eating out
- no "bad" fat: butter, hydrogenated oil,
- no cheese with every meal!!!
- heaps of raw vegetables
- instead of bread, concentrate on filling up with happy proteins: skim milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, tofu
- fresh fruit with breakfast and lunch

I used to hate fruit, then I started eating grapefruit with breakfast and found that I had noticeably more energy throughout the day. I threw in an orange at lunch and I was a machine.

So what does that mean for vegetarian meals?

Breakfast:
- Scrambled eggs or a feta cheese omelette
- Whole Wheat Toast: I don't usually miss the butter because I eat my eggs on the toast.
- Glorious fake meat: Stripples may have very little nutritional value, but I love them just the same.
- Grapefruit

Lunch:
- HEB has this "Tofu (no-egg) Salad" that I make sandwiches out of. It's pretty yummy. I'd eat egg salad but I eat so many eggs as it is that I worry about my cholesterol.
- Pasta Salad: I just started making this for my lunches. At first I tried making it with tofu instead of pasta, but I found that I missed the sustenance of happy noodles. So I added some whole wheat pasta (in addition to some baked tofu) and called it a day.
- Carrots!!!
- Yogurt or cottage cheese
- Orange, banana

Dinner:
- Salad, veggie chile, more pasta salad, grilled veggies, what else?

Sounds hard? Yes - cooking all the time is a big pain in the rear end. The good news is that I love to cook. But still, it can get very exasperating, not having a dishwasher and all. In the end there is a point to be made that inspires me to maintain: I have little to lose and everything to gain by filling my body with good food. "Good food" consists of the natural substances my body wants like nutrients and vitamins and good fats. When I fill my body with these things, I'm more adept at telling when I am satisfied. I feel good when my body is full of fuel it can use. I feel bad when I'm full of preservatives or I skip a meal.

So Saturdays I eat whatever I darn well please: pizza, enchiladas, cheese galore. And yet, after a week of eating well, I find that I'm feeling pretty good by Saturday and not terribly inclined to stuff my face silly.

Anyway, this has been another installment of non-cohesive blathering, which brings me back to the problem of organization . Will that ever change?

Current Schedule

tgif: the gym is far

This weekend I'm going to build a schedule. I'm not going to take it from a website or a book, rather, I'm going to build my own schedule and adjust it as I see fit.

This plan for this month is: fat loss. (This I type as I drink an iced latte?) In my opinion, I'm fairly muscular, but if I don't start trimming off some fat I'm going to end up looking like a rugby-playing lesbian. I will continue to work on my abdomenals and lower back, as they've been long neglected over the years. Concrete plan to follow this weekend.

I got a great start to my plan this morning: I got up and went to the gym. I've read that working out in the morning (before breakfast) is more productive for fat burning. Training in the morning jump starts the metabolism and keeps it elevated for up to 24 hours. As a result, the body burns more calories in a day. Also, levels of muscle and liver glycogen are low when we first wake up. With depleted glycogen and lower blood sugar, the body is in a better state to burn fat instead of carbohydrates.

Working out in the morning is going to be difficult, but I'm going to give it a good effort. This morning was not easy. I felt very dehydrated and sleepy. Tonight I'm going to drink massive amounts of water before bed and tomorrow I'll have a small cup of coffee before I exercise.

Speaking of coffee, lately I've been drinking coffee before working out and it makes me sweat like a fiend: I love it.

women's weight training on stumptuous.com

I really like Krista's page on women's weight training, an often overlooked topic. It's a fairly cohesive starting point for women who want to get into lifting weights. Her site has some sample workouts, diet info, injury resources, and a pictorial guide to lifting.

Strength training is an essential part of "training for the apocalypse". To be strong is to be capable in a variety of tasks like wrestling lions, saving someone from a burning building, or repopulating a dying society.

long overdue

i've been meaning to set up this blog for a long time. my goal for this site is to keep track of my workout progress and the things i learn about fitness. i call it "training for the apocaplypse": i believe that fitness is an essential part of survival (we've known this for centuries but americans seem to have forgotten about this fundamental law of nature) and it is important that we do not take for granted the luxeries around us; someday our bodies may solely determine our survival in compromising times.

beyond the philosophical realm, there are plenty of other reasons why fitness should be a priority and not a luxery (like cinemas and mars bars):

- increased metabolism (energy energy energy)
- increased sexual ability, confidence and stamina
- increased confidence in general
- the ability to make one trip from the car to the kitchen with a weeks worth of groceries
- never having to say "i'm too weak/slow/fat" to do something
- improved health of the heart, lungs, blood vessels, organs, bones, the list goes on and on
- improved sleep
- damn wouldn't it be nice to look good and know it?
- being strong is generally useful for things like taking out the garbage, moving boxes, and engaging in arm wrestling contests

I'm building this site now because I hope it motivates me to keep better track of my progress and have more productive workouts. Lately I've been working out without a notebook and althought I have lost 4 pounds in the last 2 weeks (in fat not muscle - cheer!) I have no idea where I'm going with this. But I'm going to find out.

Things to do with this site:

- Add a regime calendar.
- Add a quit meter
- Add amazon.com affiliate stuff
- Review some books
- Links to other health blogs
- Perhaps someday I will take the time to develop a more cohesive philosophy about health and fitness. It's there somewhere in the jumble of my mind.