Back in the ring

I have been slacking big time! I only went to one TKD class this week and avoided the gym altogether. My elbow is still sore and hasn't gotten any better over the past month. It hurts when I push or pull and when I wake up in the middle of the night it's very stiff. Then yesterday, I woke up, stretched and my old calf tear charley-horsed so badly I had to leap out of bed and hop around til it stopped, but it was sore and tight all day. So what does one do after two weeks of indolence with an injured elbow and reinjured calf? Go to sparring class!

I was thinking of asking if we could spar using tournament rules (no hitting in the head for color belts), but Instructor Foxy started off with bob & weave hand drills and it was actually really helpful to get punched in the head under controlled conditions. My conditioning had slipped a little, but otherwise I was pretty loose. I felt a lot better with my hands and even got Juggernaut to scowl which means I landed a good head shot. I also have new (giant metallic purple) shin guards which made a huge difference in blocking kicks I think. Another dojang is holding a tournament next month and I have a feeling that everyone in the women's color belt 30+ division is coming from our school and that we're ALL going to get disqualified for hitting in the face. lol.

p.s.: my contribution to science!

and the weather report:

Tuesday..............

I had some funny stuff about Hawaii, but I haven’t felt like posting. We knew that my uncle had prostate cancer, but my Mom just got a letter from him and I think it’s much worse than he lets on. By the time he was diagnosed it had metastasized to the nearby bone. Anyway – his sisters convinced him to move in to his eldest sister’s house while he is receiving treatment.

I think I have a pretty solid view of life and death and our place in the universe. I don’t pity him, I know he’s very peaceful and enjoying the opportunity to spend time with family and attend to some hobbies, he won’t leave behind a wife and kids. I know he'd feel bad if he knew I were sad… and yet… I’m totally heartbroken. There are people I need to tell (V), but I can’t even talk about it.

He lived with us for a while when I was little. He immediately learned to swear and it amused me no end that he would flavor his stories with forbidden words like, “My friends call my car the ‘shit-vette’!” He was probably the first “grown-up” to converse with me like I was a normal human. Being the youngest in a large family he is just a little older than my oldest cousin so I was surprised to hear he is 60 because I’ll always see him as the young, handsome, laughing uncle.

And so
I am grateful I have the chance to let him know how much I love him and how important he is to me. We always have this chance with everyone we love, but we usually don’t realize it.
I am grateful he’ll never have to go through a long lingering twilight of old age, decrepitude, uncertainty and loneliness.
I am grateful he is my uncle and I got to know him enough to miss him, if he weren’t so important I wouldn’t be so heartbroken.

I know he loved it here and he wrote, “I don’t know if I’ll get to visit again and see those white mountains” so I will do it for him. I will watch the sun come up behind the icy peaks to infuse pale color into the sky, and I’ll turn my back to the road and look over a million acres of snow on black trees. In summer I’ll leave the car and climb into the fog of the mountain pass to photograph the tiny defiant flowers, I’ll take my fishing rod out like we did when midnight is purple twilight and I won’t feel sorry for the goddamn fish. When you’re better I’ll bring you your guitar waiting silently for you nearly 20 years now or else I’ll learn to play it myself. Right now I can do the changes for Buck Owens’ “Pfft! You were gone” on the uke which is a far cry from classical guitar…but I’m working on it!

Last time I saw you we said, "mata ai masho, neh", let's meet again, ok?

Let's meet again.

13 week wrap up

I wrapped up my accountability log on the Precision Nutrition forum today. Looking back I guess it was not too bad for the time, I had it in my brain that it was 20 weeks, but I lost some time after the calf tear.

I’m not going to bother with the bodyfat percentage because my Omron readings are so wack, I’ve been as low as 24% and yesterday I was 29% again, lol. I don’t think I was even that high to begin with.

Measure…..Starting……Current….Difference
Weight……132lb………125lb……-7lb
Bust……….36.5………..36.5…….0” (??)
Upper chest….35……….35.5…….+.5” (??)
Narrowest
waist………..30.75…….29.25……-1.5”
Widest
abdomen…..33.25……….31……-2.25”
Hips……….37………….36…….-1”

Remember the stupid bridesmaid picture where I'm the hugely fat one?
The dress is a little large on me now!
The plan for now is to do a lot of snorkelling and walking during vacation to let my elbow, glute, knee and back heal up. When I return I'm going to go back to sparring class! I'm going to stick with the two-day fast thing for a few more weeks, but bring some carbs back into my post workout meals and a piece of fruit during the day. If that doesn't bring my energy levels and strength back up I may drop it to one day per week.

Songs to eat brains by

I've had "Walk Among Us" by the Misfits in the car for weeks now. We were one of the last USA stops on their 30 year anniversary tour. I really really thought about going, but it was an all ages show and I figured there was an excellent chance I would be the oldest person there amidst a sea of children who were NOT BORN YET when Glenn Danzig left. Hello? When did oldies become cool? Then I found out tix were $40 and the ol' "I'm not paying that much to see someone who is washed up enough to play this town" attitude kicked in. Ronnie James Dio played here several years ago at a horrible dive. I totally would have gone just to have my picture taken with him! Ha! Dio! Poor dude, I believe his career has picked up since then.

I am not admitting to anything today because I'm totally off-base. First I was too sore to get up so I slept in. Then, having succeeded in my zeal to rid the fridge of perishables I had nothing to eat so I missed my morning snack and had a sandwich for lunch. I have to try and not be completely bloated by tomorrow afternoon because I should really take some pictures. I look ok. Have a lot of work to do, but definitely better than a year ago! I have shrunk a little this month because I can almost get my 'comfy jeans' off without undoing them, rather inconvenient.

Mayo-free chicken salad

4:30 wake
5:30 take friend to airport
6:30 g beef and peas, tea
9:00 boiled egg, carrots, huge Americano w/ cream and Splenda
12:00 “chicken salad”, romaine lettuce
1:00 still hungry – part of cottage/protein powder snack, carrots
4:00 the rest of the previous snack, diet Dr. Pepper
6:00 beef and spinach
8:00 viactiv (calcium chewy-chews) , potato wedges

A friend had to catch an early flight and I offered to take her since I’m normally up at that time anyway. For some reason I got really anxious about sleeping through the alarm (never happens) so I didn’t get any sleep. Then I had to sit in front of the computer all day which is my excuse for the coffee and diet.

No-Mayo Chicken Salad
The chicken teriyaki I made with chicken breast came out dry and icky, but there’s a lot of it. Today I cut it into tiny chunks, mixed it with a bit of feta cheese, a squidge of flaxseed oil, and fat free yogurt and it was really good! Who needs mayo?

I was fine all day, but then I crashed in the evening and lay on the sofa watching “The Specials” (worst movie evar). Then I had a freak-out and cooked and ate some potato wedges I found in the freezer. I was all guilty and feeling bad about having to report the freak-out, but not too long after it became apparent (I won’t go into detail) that I am not digesting my food. On top of that, dinner had a 2.5 hour transit time. I’m probably feeling malnourished and that’s why I’ve been so bad about sweets. I’ve been taking digestive enzymes sporadically, so I’m going to take HCl with my main meals again, that seems to help a lot.

My exciting Monday... and a recipe!

4:30 wake
5:30 whey + waxy maize, TT30DMFL w/oA and HIIT
7:00 white tea, g beef, ½ pepper, zucchini
9:30 egg, carrots
12:00 big salad, chicken breast, flaxseed dressing
3:00 ostrim and no veg @#$#@!
6:00 bay scallops, swiss chard
8:00 cottage & metabolic drive

I feel ok about how I look. Definitely look better than a year ago, but still squishy and fleshy when undressed *sighs*. If someone had told me 3 years ago it would come to this I wouldn’t have believed it. I never understood how you could get 30lb overweight. Oh well, all the trauma hasn’t been in vain because I did end up learning a LOT about nutrition and exercise so ultimately I’ll be healthier than if I never got sick and fat.

Got really tired this afternoon and ended up taking a nap instead of going to TKD, I think I didn’t get enough cals at lunch because I was hungry later on. I also ended up staying in the lab later than expected so I was unprepared and had to eat an Ostrim I had in my desk (no veg). So: bigger PM snack to keep energy levels up.

I have a new recipe for y’all, very tasty, healthy, and EASY:

Scallops and Swiss Chard
1 bunch swiss chard
4 oz bay scallops (the little ones)
Butter (yes!)
1 garlic clove
1/2c white wine or broth
Wash chard, cut the leafy parts from the stem and tear into pieces. Chop stems into 1” chunks. Melt butter, sautee scallops and garlic until scallops are nicely browned. Turn down heat to medium so the garlic doesn’t burn, add chard and stir it all until it starts to wilt. Cover and steam about one minute until chard is soft and stems are tender. Remove scallops and chard to serving dish, deglaze pan with wine or broth. When it’s reduced by about half, pour over scallops and chard. Yum!

Change is afoot

Heh heh heh. I got through to someone the other day. She is someone very important to me and quite a bit older who basically refuses to exercise. This year the doctor put her on statins because her cholesterol won’t go down despite dietary changes. So I told her that if she doesn’t take care of herself starting now, someone is going to have to take care of her when she’s elderly. She’s totally horrified at the idea of lying helpless in bed.

My take is that change is inevitable, but you have choices: you can drift along believing you are at the mercy of time or you can grab a paddle and steer yourself in the direction you want to go. Don’t you want to be able to hop a plane and go visit your grandchildren whenever you want or do you want to be the sick, long-distance grandma? My grandfather made the trip from Tokyo well into his mid-90’s. He turned 99 in 2001 and the last time I saw him was right after 9/11. He told me that if I’d gone missing (living in Boston at the time) he would’ve gone to New York to find me. He would’ve too! I want to be like that at 99.

In other news: I read “Eat-Stop-Eat” and I’m going to try that in combination with PN! Mostly because fasting appeals to me, but it’ll be a good incentive to keep the calories up on feeding days. First I thought that I’d just fast one day, but then I decided that I shouldn’t tweak so I’m going to give it a go for 8 weeks. I’m thinking Wednesdays and Sundays for fasting because I don’t lift on those days. For workouts I’m going to start with one of the turbulence training programs and do another one in four weeks.

5:00 wake
During day: water, green tea
5:30 TKD 1 hour (intermediate class, woo woo)
7:00 teriyaki chicken, brussel sprouts, carrots (started fasting yesterday evening)

Ooh, I ceremoniously dumped out all the chemical creamer this morning. No more creamer! Also, no more e-books (til March), e-book diet!

No Excuses