Observations

I’ve been waking up with the sniffles since Monday morning. A quick shower and a cup of coffee and the sniffles are usually gone but when I woke up Wednesday morning, the sniffles were there as well as a dull ache in my left ear. Along with the dull ache was a dulled ability to hear from that ear. I was supposed to go for a run at 9:00 but the idea of jostling my head around really didn’t appeal to me. I texted my running partner and we turned our run into a walk up and down a large hill instead.

I was proud of myself. Once upon a time, I would have just cancelled any sort of activity if I feel like I did that morning. But I didn’t. I changed what I was doing but I still got out there and worked hard enough that I was satisfied with my effort. I was also very happy that my ear cleared up by noon. One of my biggest rational fears is hearing loss. I will take losing my sight over losing my hearing any day of the week and twice on Sunday.*

I’ve been trying to take the stairs as often as possible in my apartment because four flights of stairs adds up, but sometimes you just don’t want to. Like last Tuesday. I took the elevator and ended up flirting my way up the four flights with an attractive young man. For the record, flirting with hot men is good motivation for getting in shape. Okay, so it wasn’t so much that he was hot but that he was observant enough to know that I must have had a stressful day at work.

(“Is it really that obvious?”

“Yes. You look like the day beat you down.”

Well, he was right. My unit is undergoing a re-org which means desk moves to a less than ideal location and leaving behind some wonderful friends, so Tuesday was a wee bit stressful. I would like to point out, however, that he told a complete stranger that they looked tired. Tact is obviously not his strong suit.)

I want to put his observation skills to the test and see if he can notice a change in my figure next time we meet (as we seem to ride the elevator together every few months). Also, he seems like a hockey guy and now that I don’t have cable or the Internet, a hockey guy just down the hallway who works roughly the same hours I do would be really convenient.

Just putting that out there, universe.

And did I mention that he’s easy on the eyes?**

*My biggest irrational fear is that a scarecrow is going to come through my TV screen and sing to me. Don’t laugh! I know it sounds silly. That’s why I called it irrational.***

**Plus he’s in construction which is a bit of a *rawr* factor for me. He can build and fix things! How attractive is that?

***I’m not making this up. There is a certain Doctor Who two-parter which I have to watch with all the lights on and my teddy bear held strategically in front of my face.

Soon Back on the Bandwagon

Today is the first time this week that I have come home from work and not had a nap. It is safe to say that I am on my way back to the lady of the healthy. Still, I'm feeling less than stellar so instead of meeting my mom at the gym tomorrow morning for a workout, I've planned out a leisurely-but-hilly hour long walk then I'll meet her afterwards for coffee. I'll get a workout in and see my mom. That's the combo I really care about!

The upside is that despite being under the weather, I still lost weight at this week's weigh-in for the OH&S at work. Here's to keeping that up this week!

I Had Been Doing So Well

I was down at my OH&S weigh-in last week. In fact, I was second for percentage of body weight lost.

I went to aerobics on Saturday morning and my knee felt pretty good afterwards (although I did keep my lateral movements teeny-tiny just to be on the safe side).

I ate out twice this weekend (a birthday dinner and a birthday breakfast) and although I didn't restrict myself, I was fairly smart about my food choices (perhaps not so much with my drink choices).

And then it hit me. The dreaded lurgy which had glanced out at my two weeks ago hit me full force by Sunday evening.

I'm angry because I haven't been sick in over six months. That was when a summer flu went through my office and pretty much hit everyone at least twice. I went all winter without actually getting sick. Now? The weather is finally starting to turn and I just want to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and go to sleep.

I hate the lurgy.

Christmas is Coming, The Goose and I Are Getting Fat

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat

Please put a penny in the old man's hat

If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do

If you haven't got a ha'penny, God bless you!

It is safe to say that the end of 2010 did not go as well as the start. Knee problems then a hip problem then getting knocked sideways by a flu have left me sliding backwards as far as my goal go. Clothes that were loose are feeling a big more snug. There are a few shoulda-coulda-woulda moments in the last three months, but I also cried on three separate occasions from the pain and discomfort in my hip so I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I'll just pick myself up and move on from here.

I attended a Christmas get-together in my apartment building last night. Our awesome building managers put out quite the spread along with their homemade wine and kid-friendly punch. I came away from the afternoon realising that other than a grand total of five plain chips I ate very healthy. Maybe the holidays don't have to be a worrisome time of year!

I am making Grandma's Molasses Cookies with my mom today. Grandma always had these cookies all year round so I'm not quite sure why it became a 'Christmas Only' cookie in our house but they're one of my favourite traditions of the season. To be honest, this is one treat I always overindulge in so I've already started mentally eating my 30 molasses cookies and seeing if it stops the random snacking throughout the afternoon.

Focus on the Positives and Recommit

I'm finally back from the dead over the chest/head cold which has been keeping me pretty low key for the last week. It's been a tough two weeks--I was told to stop running, I lost my workout buddy to Vancouver, I was viciously attacked by my own respiratory system--and I have to admit that at one point, I felt like giving up on the getting healthy. Then a few friends were talking about next week's marathon which I will no longer be participating in. That really didn't help the crummy.

As I got over my cold, I also got over my 'oh woe is me' feelings and decided to focus on the positive:

1. Running is temporarily on hold while we sort out what's up with my knees. The doc is very positive that I will be back at it soon and that nothing long term has actually happened to my knees.
2. I'm still allowed to dance and that makes me the happiest when it comes to cardio. I will be plante-tacon-ing and djole-ing once a week for the foreseeable future.
3. Before the attack of the irritated bronchial tubes, I was doing well with the 'at home' workouts. I know what needs tweaking when I start them up again this week.
4. I have a new walking partner.
5. My eating has been very clean throughout my illness and I know I can continue that through the next couple weeks.
6. Beauty and the Beast comes out on DVD on Tuesday!

Okay, so that last one isn't health/fitness related but it's a positive, darn it!

At the start of September I began writing a contract with myself as a guide to keep myself on target with my workouts and eating. Somewhere along the way, it went from being a simple contract with a few guidelines to a fully annotated Encyclopdia AndreaClairicus. The original thought was in the right place and I want to go back to that. I have a rough draft of it done so I plan to do a quick rewrite of it and then it will be up on here for everyone to see... as soon as I'm done watching Beauty and the Beast.

Because Stockholm Syndrome rocks!

Hack, Hack... And I'm Not Talking About My Writing.

It's been just over a month and I am sick again. Knocked down, dragged out sick. I'm at the tail end of it now (although my cough might make you think otherwise) but there was a good four days when I barely left the apartment. Frustrating doesn't even begin to cover the annoyance of being stuck inside on beautiful, sunny days. We won't have many of those left in Victoria with winter fast approaching and I spent them watching shows on my laptop I have no desire to ever see again because I was too sick to even concentrate on reading for longer than 15 minutes. Thankfully, crappy sit-coms don't involve much thought.

I missed both my flamenco and my west african dance classes this week which bums me out. I know that physically there was no way I could have even gotten myself to those classes, let alone actually partake in them, but they're the part of my workout schedule I look forward to the most. Not one second of those classes feels like work yet my body is dripping with sweat once I'm done and I miss that. I hope I didn't miss too much.

I'm finally feeling better and am back to work. Hopefully, I'll be 100% by this weekend and will be able to get back into the swing of things... and hopefully avoid getting sick for the remainder of the year because two times was more than enough!

On my feet again

I just got back from my first run in two weeks and it felt so good. Granted, I didn't go as far or as hard as I should have, but I didn't eat proper meals in those two weeks so I'm still getting my 'exercise-legs' back so to speak. I was a little apprehensive given the amount of time off, but I needn't have worried. I did lag a little in parts but that's to be expected even if I hadn't been sick. The extra bonus is that it felt so good to be running, all the little nagging doubts that crept in during my extended illness about the ability to continue towards the half-marathon in October totally evaporated. I will have to make a few adjustments to the training schedule so I can make up for the training sessions I missed without just jumping up in distance and intervals, but I can totally still make this happen. That is a great feeling.

Could It Be True?

I woke up this morning feeling really, really good. I think I might be back to normal. Every morning for the past week and a bit, I've woken up feeling *meh* and achy but not today. The fever that I wasn't so sure I had? Well, I actually felt it break last night. Apparently I did have a fever. I'm very excited because hopefully this means I can be back to the training tomorrow. YAY!!

Summer is back!!

After a week and a bit of very questionable weather in Victoria (and Vancouver from the sounds of it), summer is definitely back. I left the air conditioned office for my morning coffee break and wished I had some shorts or a skirt to change into because it was already uncomfortably hot and it wasn't even 11:00am. Of course, part of the reason I found it uncomfortably hot could be because I once again had to leave work early (I don't even know why I bothered going in) and I appear to be running a bit of a fever. I don't actually have a thermometer in my house because I only think to buy them when I'm sick and the last thing I want to do when I'm sick is leave the house to go buy something. One of these days, I will get one... probably when I have children.

Obviously, tonight's exercise involves pilates-type single movements as I toss about the bed in my overly hot bedroom, followed by core work as I try to keep myself upright long enough to make something to eat, some upper arms as I flick through the DVDs to watch and then, to round things out, a bit of yoga. I plan to stay in shavasana for a long, long time.

I'm totally okay with being sick and indoors during the nicest weather of the year. Totally!

Yeah, I remember that

Remember how yesterday I wrote that I was feeling better and I'd be back on track for Friday's run? Remember?

Apparently my body lied to me because someone had to leave work early today and won't be weighing in tonight, and quite possibly, won't be doing anything of the athletic variety tomorrow night.

Boo-urns.

For my mom, who will have no idea what 'boo-urns' means.


PS. How have I been able to go an entire 13 months without once labelling something 'Simpsons'? I feel like blogger-me has failed real-me.

It's like I'm being kicked while I'm down

They say things happen in threes. I'm not a believer of that theory as I can think on many times when things *didn't* happen in threes, but if they were right (whoever the f* 'they' are) then I would feel that the universe might owe me three good things this week.

The weekend started off with the crummy: C died. Then on Saturday, I noticed that I seemed incredibly tired and my arms really hurt after carrying home my groceries. By Sunday morning, I was pretty much bed ridden. I had caught the flu which was going around the office and I spent an entire 48 hours either in bed sleeping or doing things that didn't involve much thought. To give you an idea about how much thought was too much, a friend had lent me Iron Man on DVD because I had never seen it. After 15 minutes, I turned it off because it required too much thought. Yeah, that sick. The upside is that I didn't really eat much because I couldn't stay awake long enough to make anything. The downside is that I haven't done anything physical in a week. I'm not expecting great things tomorrow. Quite frankly, I'll be happy if I break even.



My third thing happened late last night. I had been giving most of my extra free time this summer to helping organise a BC Tour for Ballet Saamato. We diligently sent off the visa applications in early July and then started the process of waiting... and waiting... and waiting... and being asked to send additional documents... and then waiting... and still more waiting. It was an agonizing situation to be in. We wanted to move forward with the planning, but how can we confirm concerts and sell tickets if we don't even know if they're coming? Ballet Saamato were supposed to arrive tomorrow but two weeks ago we pushed it the flights back to next week. Then last night we got our answer. From my 'things in three', I'm sure you can guess that it was a decline. The Embassy has their reasons (not enough paper trail to prove that the artists will return to Guinea once the trip is over) and we have to accept their answer, but we have already started creating that required paper trail (proof of land ownership, copies of birth records for children, I know it sounds odd but paper trails rarely exist in Africa; when the literacy rate is less than 30%, a piece paper doesn't mean much) in the hopes that we will be able to try this again.

I'm still not entirely back to my usual fabulous self, that will take a few more nights of decent rest and proper nutrition, but I'm hoping to be back to the running by Friday. I've missed a lot of time on my training and although I'm not too worried (yet) that I won't be able to catch up, too much more and I'll have to rethink the run-walk a half-marathon plan. Sigh... perhaps I'll just spend a little more time in the self-pity wallowing pool. Just for tonight; I promise.

Do you guys ever have a week that makes you think 'ugh, why bother'?

Let This Be a Lesson to You All

Last Saturday night was the bachelorette party of one of my best friends. She's originally from the island and is back to get married, so we headed out for a night on the town together for the first time in four years. I wasn't planning on doing anything too crazy, a drink (maybe two if someone else was buying) and a lot of dancing. We ended up at her favourite bar and were immediately hit on by two drunk navy men who were in Victoria to head out on their first basic training on the ship (as opposed to the basic basic training which all military personnel do on land). They were friendly enough, good conversationalists, and we had a few laughs before they realised our table of six wasn't looking to expand that evening. I got chatting with one of the guys about various sports and I was really enjoying myself except he couldn't stop coughing.

Sunday morning, I didn't feel too great but I chalked it up to lack of sleep. The day passed in a haze of sleepiness. The weather was less than great (it was raining... again) so I was fine with curling up on my couch and feeling *meh*. By Monday morning, I was pretty much ready to call it a day within 10 mins of waking up. The only reason I actually got out of bed was because I had to train a new employee that day... why not make them sick as well? I cancelled my evening run with THR, watched an extra episode of Battlestar Galactica (I'm limiting myself to one episode a day so as not to rush through the awesomeness that is BSG), and crawled into bed at an hour I haven't gone to bed at since I was eight.

I feel better today, but still a little groggy and coughing a lot. At this point, I'm planning on doing my run tomorrow, but I fear I may have to pull it back to shorter intervals until this cough goes away. So let this be a lesson to you all: Navy guys can still get you sick even if you don't sleep with them!

Don't eat pink meat, no matter how much you like the colour

I had a fabulously relaxing weekend up in Chemainus (there's really not much to do there other than relax so...) with my mom. The Sunshine Boys was very enjoyable, the B&B was (as last time) wonderful (with the best breakfasts ever!). I returned to Victoria all ready and raring to go on my "big week" as this is my first week back at the Y and it will be my first week at Weight Watchers. I have plans, baby, and I'm making them happen!

For lunch, I decided to get a meal which I won't be able to have for a while (I could work it into my points, but it's easier just to say 'no' until I'm more into the swing of things) and headed back to my desk. About halfway through, I bit into one of the pieces of chicken and it looked a little pink--not a lot, just a little--and I stared at it for a bit. Dare I? I mean, it wasn't really pink and all the other pieces were fine. I knew better, I really did, but I ate it anyway. The real kickers is that I'm fairly friendly with the guys who work at this joint and I could have just wandered back, shown them the pink piece and been all like "dudes, seriously?" And they would have been like "totally our bad" and then probably given me a $5 coupon or something. They're good guys like that. Their restaurant's clean, I've eaten there quite often and have never had a problem, so I know it's one of those one-time things were they probably would have been happy to know they needed to cook the chicken a little longer. But no... I pulled a Ralph Wiggum and ated it (tastes like burning!). I hope someone else was smarter than me and alerted them to the chicken.

I arrived home, postponed my run, and headed to bed in a hopes that I could quell the Eyjafjoell rumblings in my tummy with a bit of rest, denial and wishful thinking. No such luck, but on the upside, getting sick like this is a fabulous abs workout! I'm already feeling better, although noticeably weaker than normal, so I'm optimistic that it really was just some mild food poisoning and I'm on my way back to 100%. Knowing three people who've been laid out with stomach bugs in the last two weeks, I've been repeating the mantra of "it's only food poisoning, it's only food poisoning" as I slowly rock back and forth. Eventually, in an effort to make myself laugh, this became "Just a food poisoning." "What are you going to do? Vomit on me?" (For those who are lacking in random humour in their lives, I was referencing this scene.) The message in all this is that even on my death bed, I will find myself hilarious.

One more joke, dear? Well, if you insist.

(Image credit)

The end result is that tonight's run was cancelled and it's looking pretty much like a 'no' for my planned early morning gym visit tomorrow, but I'm optimistic that tomorrow night's yoga will be do-able and I'll be back to my gym plan on Wednesday. In the meantime, I'll rest up, avoid pink chicken, and throw in a few of my Monty Python DVDs. From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta! Wha?!? (This is actually my all-time favourite MP scene/skit.)

Can Your Emotions Make You Sick?

I didn't want to go to dance class today but I made myself. I wanted to sit on my couch and do nothing (well, as nothing as surfing the web can be); I wanted to save my energy for my run. No, I thought to myself, I'm just being lazy. I hauled my butt off the couch, got dressed and then headed off to dance with my cell phone in my hand. I had missed a call from a co-worker so I texted her. It needed to be a phone call, it had to do with a complaint that was filed against her for a privacy breach (We work with people's income and medical information, this is not an accusation to be taken lightly in our office and can result in dismissal), and she just really needed to talk to someone so we'd talk after my class. I already wasn't feeling well and now I felt down right sick.

I have to back track a bit here: back in September, a grievance was filed when I got a new position by two people who I have a history with. This isn't the forum to get into the why's and all that, but I do know that this grievance was thrown out at the start of this week. Today, one of those people wrote a letter to my supervisor to accuse two of my friends of a breach of privacy which happened a week ago. Let me repeat that: a breach of privacy which happened a week ago. She wrote the email today. The grievance was dismissed on Monday. I can't help but feel that this is in retaliation for the unsuccessful grievance and therefore, through a long and twisted history of Catholic guilt, I am some how responsible for this happening.

I threw myself into the class like I never had before, both figuratively and literally. I had so much anger and I tossed my body about like some sort of rag doll. I hit a point where I knew I should pull back on the moves and the energy, but I couldn't. There was so much frustration and aggression in me and if I didn't leave it on the dance floor, I would carry it with me into work tomorrow. Towards the end of class, I felt myself growing faint but I wasn't done so I pushed a little bit further. I finished my class, I left without saying a word to anyone, I walked a few blocks away from the main road, and then I threw up in a flower garden.

I didn't feel great before the class but I didn't feel sick. Lethargic, that would be the word to discribe how I felt. Instead of taking it easy, which was my intention when I got off the couch, I pushed and pushed myself until I was physically ill. I've never done that before (I'm usually very good at listening to my body), and I found it very scary so I cancelled my run and spent the evening thinking... a lot. I like my job and I'm really good at it, but is the stress caused by these specific coworkers really worth it? It is said that stress both contributes to weight gain and makes weight loss more difficult. If I am to be successful with my goals, I am obviously going to need to address this issue.

I had positive things I wanted to talk about in my post today, but they will have to wait for tomorrow... assuming the moving scarecrow doesn't get me in my sleep.

Being sick sucks when you don't have your mommy

I should have seen this coming: I couldn't seem to get myself out of bed the last half of this week, I struggled with my run on Friday in a way I haven't struggled with it since the first week, all I wanted to do while out with a friend yesterday was sit down even though we were just casually walking around, and I had innumberable sore muscles in places I had previously thought devoid of muscle tissue. I am sick and it sucks.

I was in denial that I was sick, convinced I just hadn't slept enough or I'm just out of shape, but after I returned home from dinner at the Blue Nile last night, I hit that wall that says STOP. For the first time in months, I crawled into bed before 10:00pm and just crashed. It was a disappointing realisation as I had plans for another run today and a skating session with a bunch of people from work; having spent so many weekend hidden away in my apartment because of school work, I was really looking forward to the social aspects of these outtings.

Instead, I will take it easy and spend the remainder of the weekend crocheting and seeing my family for dinner tonight. I'm mentally feeling a little better but still lethargic and achy so I may drag myself to the local movie theatre for an afternoon show. In the meantime, I'm going to see if a hot shower can loosen some of the aches out of my back.