I ended up taking off early on Tuesday, sleeping for most of the day, sleeping for most of Wednesday and then going to services for Yom Kippur on Thursday. A nice short week at the office, eh?
Seriously though, I feel much better, except for this cold sore the size of Texas that decided it was a good idea to take over my head and eat a giant hole in my lip. Seriously. Even if I hadn't been feeling sick on Wednesday, I might have stayed home because it looked that nasty. When I went to the pharmacist to get something for it, she looked at me, shook her head sadly, and said (in a posh British accent), "oh you poor dear, don't you know you're supposed to put something on them before they burst like that?" Thanks, lady. Much obliged.
Oh, and some other news? Thanks to my sickness / fasting / whatever, I'm down a pound or two! We'll see if it sticks.
And here's some really really great news that means the weekend and weeks going forward are going to be hectic but awesome . . . D exchanged contracts on his flat!! This means the sale is locked in, it is going forward, and he'll be moving in with me in seventeen days. Woohoo! Here's to roommates! The good kind . . . the kind who (hopefully) do their share of the laundry . . . the kind who make you purr at night when they rub your back while they think you're sleeping . . . mmm . . . roommates . . .
Things in pretty quiet here in London-land. The markets are still all topsy-turvy, which means work is super quiet. It also means I've actually had time to focus on setting up some pro bono projects, which satifies the squishy liberal core at the center of this seemingly capitalist corporate lawyer.
Weight wise? I'm not sure. I ate a lot of salty foods this weekend, so I haven't gotten on a scale because I don't want to depress myself. M and I didn't go for our run on Sunday because it was raining so hard we were worried we'd have to hitch a ride on Noah's Ark to survive it. I'm coming down with some sort of cold-sinus-draining-thingy so I didn't go to the gym this morning. I think I may take today off entirely and see how I'm feeling tomorrow before hauling my butt back in there.
That's about it on my end. Quiet at work, slightly sick. Par-tay.
Today is a better day. I can feel it. The sun is shining, I feel well rested, and TOM is leaving. All these factors, plus, hey, it's Friday, can't help but make it a better day.
Yesterday, I was pretty upset for much of the day. My friend H insisted we go to the Boot Camp class at the gym. We had been planning to go anyway, but she demanded that I attend, saying it would get my mind off things. And boy, did it ever. We had to leave work at 5:30 to make the 6:00 class which in itself is a bit cheeky, especially since I didn't roll in until around 10:15 yesterday. Given how slow we are these days (thank you credit crisis), no one really cared or even noticed.
The class was exactly what I needed. High energy, high impact. The instructor was hysterical and kept making us yell with him, either doing countdowns of the last ten seconds of a particular exercise, or telling him we were still with him. If we didn't yell loud enough, we had to do push ups. After a crazy cardio warmup, we were divided into groups and did fast-paced circuits around the room, doing dips, squats, lunges, push-ups, jumping jacks (or star jumps, as they are called here) and holding plank position amongst other things.
It was perfect.
Afterwards, D and I went back to H's flat to make dinner, and ended up putting on cheesy pop music and dancing around her living room. Well, H and I danced. D just sat there, amused, and periodically shimmied on the couch.
So all in all, I'm in a much better frame of mind. So much better, that I actually got on the scale this morning. And lo and behold, I'm back below 160. Granted, it's 159.5, but I will take it, log it, and rejoice in it.
About a month ago, D accepted an offer on his flat. Given the market conditions, I didn't want to get my hopes up too much. But as time went on and they got closer and even set a date for completion, I started thinking of it as more and more of a likely thing. He was going to move in with me in three weeks.
The buyer pulled out last night.
I'm pretty devastated. I know it's not the end of the world and we'll move in together eventually, but there are a whole slew of reasons why it doesn't make sense for me to move in with him. It's a long story and a complicated one, and I don't have any answers.
So we're back to the beginning now. Starting this process of trying to sell a house again so we can move on to the next phase of our relationship.
Did I mention TOM is in town? That's not making this any easier, let me tell you! I'm trying to put a positive spin on it somehow. I'm trying to say to myself, Self, it's okay. Look at this as a new beginning. Rather than waiting for that fateful day when D moves in with you, you are going to start moving forward. You are going to keep on doing the good things you're doing, and do more of them.
But Self is having a hard time believing that right now.
My weight is stuck. Just locked down, playing with the same five pounds over and over and over again. I keep bopping along, thinking maybe I'm down then up it pops again.
I know my eating isn't awesome. I'm eating out too much and I'm eating too much period.
But then again, that's not always the case. Exhibit A: D and I went out for Chinese on Monday night. We got a set meal, and had soup then crispy aromatic duck (our favorite). The mains were about to be served, when we both realized we were full. We had them pack up the mains, and then had FIVE takeaway boxes to eat over the next couple days. We're still not through them.
I think it's just that I'm not being that careful. I'm not trying that hard. Part of me thinks, eh, if I'm maintaining, that's okay. I'm working out more, I'm not eating crap, I'm just eating a lot.
Maybe I should just throw the scale away, focus on how I'm feeling, the exercise I'm doing and the fact that I'm not obsessing over food and weight the way I used to. I'm working out, and that gives me license to enjoy food, rather than think of food as some sort of emotional guilt-wagon. Is that a healthy approach? I'm just not sure.
I had wanted to be 150 by October 17, when I go home for my mom's birthday. As of this morning, I'm back up to 162, though I had sushi last night so I'm hopefuly some of that is just water retention. There's no way I'll be down 12 pounds in 17 days. Hell, with my track record, I won't be down 5. So maybe I will just throw that scale away. The rule about not saying anything if you can't say anything nice should apply to scales. I don't mind a few home truths every now and again, but this perpetual morning letdown is getting a bit old.
It's the Jewish holidays around Casa Jenny*in*London these days, which means the old Jewish guilt is out in full force and yours truly is hauling her butt to services.
Seriously though, it's the one time of year when I go, and it actually is a deeply affirming time for me.
But that has nothing to do with diet or exercise, both of which are more or less proceding apace. I ran on Sunday with M and this time we made it almost all the way around the park on our first try. We shaved about five minutes off our three laps, and ran a fair bit more than previously. So that's good.
I also went to a new class at the gym on the weekend - it's a Boot Camp class and is basically cardio weight-lifting whilst getting yelled at by loud Australians. Honestly, I'm not sure why I pay a gym fee for that - I'm sure D (my own personal occasionally loud Australian) would do it for free if I ask. But the class was a serious workout, and I think I'll go back next week.
My goodness. Some days just come and bite your attempts at dieting in the butt.
Yesterday, I ate like there was no tomorrow. I ate like there was a bottomless pit inside me and all the tortilla chips in the world could not satisfy my hunger. I ate until I was full and then I ate some more. I am surprised my belly did not pop with the strain of all the food I stuffed into it, spraying a noxious mixture of snack foods and burrito across the staff room walls.
Yes folks. Yesterday, I suffered an attack from the Great Snack Monster. The Great Snack Monster preys on the unsuspecting soul at numerous times - during periods of distraction or times of great emotion or even during boredom - but most often arrives riding on its beast of burden, the PMS Pony. These two demons are going to be the bane of my existence for the next few days. I would like them to leave, I have kindly suggested that they are Not Welcome Here and pretty soon I will have to resort to some form of violence to kick them to the curb.
The "Welcome" mat is gone. The canapes have been consumed. The well has run dry. It is time for the party to pack up and go.
Thank you for all your insightful comments to my post yesterday. I am truly lucky to have such wonderful and supportive EP friends in my life.
Now, in other news, I had written this whole long post about a mishap I had involving a yeti, a razor, the gym and my middle finger. But then when I tried to helpfully include a link with some background about yetis, EP ate my post and spat out a big blank page of nothingness.
And now I have to do some actual work (the shock! the horror!) and can't recreate the hilarity that was my previous missive. But I'll try again tomorrow.
There's been a bit of talk on EP lately about listening to your inner voice. About hearing the Thin Me inside of the Big Me and heeding the Thin Me. For me, it's less about listening to the Thin Me. It's more about digging down for She Who Wants To Be Fit.
Growing up, I wasn't fat. I can say this now, with some degree of confidence. I was chubby, I was pudgy, I was overweight compared to other skinny kids, but I wasn't fat. Even now, when I'm being rational, I can say to myself, "Self, you are not fat. You are carring some extra pounds, but you are not fat." And sometimes, Self agrees. When I was a kid, however, all I saw was that I was bigger than a lot of my peers, bigger than a lot of my friends. So I compensated in different ways. I was going to be smarter or get along better with others or be more creative or do anything to compensate for the fact that I didn't like and couldn't do sports like they did. This became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because I convinced myself I couldn't compete at sports, I didn't even try. We had to play team sports during gym class, and then you had the option to be "competitive" or "non-competitive." I always took non-competitive, because why would I even try to play against other, fitter kids when I couldn't even keep up with the kids in my gym class? So I didn't try.
This mentality stuck with me for years. In high school, I played on the tennis team, because tennis was the one sport where I thought I was okay. My coach was a bitch. A bona fide bitch. I developed bad knee problems and was wearing a brace from my thigh down to my calf. She made us run double suicide sprints every practice, and if you came in last, you ran another sprint all by yourself. Soon, I was running double all the other girls, mostly due to knee problems, and had to quit eventually because my knees were giving out. My coach had no sympathy, and was glad I quit, since I was bringing the team down, in her eyes.
I threw myself into everything else at school - clubs, studying, the arts - basically anything to prove to myself and everyone else that even if I couldn't do sports, it didn't matter because I was damn good at other stuff. And I was.
But the fact is I created this mental space in which I existed as the Fat Smart Girl. She Who Wants To Be Fit did not factor into the equation. I may not have been able to compete on a fitness level, but I'd be damned if I couldn't compete in every other way.
And now? I'm fighting against the Fat Smart Girl image daily. But the only person I'm competing with now is myself. What I want is for the competition to stop. I want to sit Fat Smart Girl and She Who Wants To Be Fit down and make them sort out their differences. I want them to realize they can co-exist in a sphere where you don't have to the best, but you can take the best of both mental spaces and create a stronger, better, more balanced me.
This morning, I was awoken earlier than anticipated by my cleaner. I think I must have been at D's the past several times she has come because I had no idea she enters the flat at the ass-crack of dawn. Hearing someone else's keys scraping in your lock whilst you are still slightly comatose is not the most welcome sound. But it was fine, I bolted out of bed, threw some clothes on and decided it was my wakeup call to get my booty to the gym.
So I went, and quite enjoyed myself. A bit of treadmill, a bit of elliptical, a bit of weight lifting, a bit of stretching. A nice 45 minutes all to myself. The New Gym On the Walk to Work has a ladies only room, which is actually fabulous. I can huff and puff and sweat like a pig and not feel like the beefcakes are just standing around waiting for me to finish using my paltry weights so they can get on and grunt their testosterone-laden hearts out.
I went down to the locker room and pulled out the things I would need for my shower. Now, as D has not yet sold his flat (but it's scheduled to complete at the end of October!) I still never know where I will be sleeping each night. Rather than let "lack of clean gym clothes" be an excuse to avoid working out this week, I brought a week's worth into the office, since I know I'll be there daily. (Unfortunately.) I dumped most of the kit into a drawer and pulled out one day's worth to schlep around in my gym bag. After the shower, I went to put on some clean underwear, a bra and a tank top to go and sort out my hair. And therein lay the problem. No underwear. None. Clearly, in my haste to escape the office yesterday, I missed that one crucial bit of gym kit.
Faced with the problematic pant situation, I went off to tame into submission the unruly beast that is my hair. And therein I came to a conclusion. There was no way in hell I was putting my stinky-sweaty-gymmy underwear back on. So I was left with no choice.
I went commando.
What else could I do? I figured that I couldn't have been so dumb as to forget ALL underwear for the week and it was only a five minute walk to the office and underwear nirvana. Thankfully, I wore trousers today, rather than a floaty-flowy-god-forbid-short skirt. But let me tell you, going commando is WEIRD. You feel the thighs rubbing and the clothes chafing and all sorts of things you never think about when you have underwear to protect you from any such indignities.
