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.
On Sunday, D was still laid up with his flu bug. I met up with a friend for brunch, then went to the new gym for my "fitness induction." It was STUPID. I have been through many, many sessions of personal training, and this guy was useless. He didn't listen to what I wanted in a program, and only showed me how to do a shoulder exercise, a bicep exercise, an ab exercise and then a calf and quad exercise. That's it. What about chest, back, other parts of my legs? What about triceps? What about other core training? Nope. He would only show me those exercises. Thankfully, I already know how to do a lot of stuff, but it was really annoying! And then, adding insult to injury, he started pitching how good he would be as a trainer. Ummmm, no thanks.
But it's cool. I still like the new gym and am happy to be working out there. After the waste of a fitness session, I met up with M at her flat. We proceeding to go for a run in a park with Big Huge Hills. My thighs are throbbing, but I'm glad we did it. We still stopped for walk breaks, but nearly made a full lap of the park this time before needing to stop to walk (appx. 1.25 miles). Next week, the goal is to make it all the way around. We shall see!
I know. It's a Saturday night. It's 9:20 pm on a Saturday night. I (almost) never post on the weekends and rarely on Fridays. Not only is it Saturday night, it is The Saturday Night That is Our Second Anniversary. By all rights, I should be out at a lovely romantic restaurant drinking fabulous wine, indulging in luscious foods, calories bedamned, because I've spent two wonderful years with a darling man and that is what you DO to celebrate these things.
Instead, I am home, sitting on the couch in my scruffiest jeans and an oversized college sweatshirt, eating Greek takeaway and drinking my own way through a bottle of shiraz. Why, you may ask?
A very good question.
My poor D, who by all rights should be at the very least helping me drink my way through the bottle of wine, is laid up in bed with a particularly nasty flu bug. And no, it's not man-flu. There was genuine illness commencing at 3 am and continuing throughout the day.
So I am playing my part as Florence Nightingale, attempting to convince him some broth would be a good idea, and being a good Jewish girl, I know there is nothing in life that cannot be solved or at the very least improved by chicken soup. Down with a cold? Have some chicken soup. Broke your leg? Have some chicken soup. Teetering on the brink of death? Have some chicken soup. It may not help, but it wouldn't hurt.
I am pumping him full of sudafed and fluids, hoping that by this time tomorrow this flu thing will have subsided. And I am comforting myself with a bottle of red and a healthy dose of glorious Technicolor 1950s musicals. Is there nothing a little Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando can't cure? Between them and chicken soup, life is just fine.
Sometimes, I am reminded just how lucky I am to have D in my life.
Since the sale on D's flat is moving foward (fingers crossed!) we're in this phase of eating our way through his freezer and cupboards. While much more centrally located than him, my kitchen lacks a certain amount of storage, so we're trying to minimize the amount of food that will have to get moved or tossed. Yesterday, he emailed me midway through the day to announce we were having a lamb roast for dinner. Yowza. He was going to invent his own marinade, he informed me, which he often does. I am MUCH more of a recipe cook. He kinda throws things together, and most of the time, it works. This one ended up being a rub comprised of rosemary, thyme and some wasabi, with a bit of Worcestershire sauce for juice.
I got back to his flat around 8 pm (not from working late, but from having a quick afterwork drink with some friends and then dealing with transport nightmares - curses to you, Transport for London!) to find the lamb fully cooked and that he had even bought all the requirements to make Bloody Marys, my favorite drink. He has recently come around to them, though he still considers them to taste a bit like cold soup. Um, duh? If you add some vegetables and take out the vodka, you've got yourself a gazpacho. Heck, leave the vodka in if you like!
We ended up having a most delicious dinner of souvlakis, where we ate the lamb in tortilla wraps with loads of fresh veggies and tzatziki sauce. The lamb was FABULOUS, and, truth be told, I felt a bit like a 50s husband coming home after a long day at the office to a welcoming wife with a cocktail at the ready and dinner on the table. All that was missing was an apron for D and some slippers and a pipe for me.
I jest.
But seriously, I am so lucky. He's so wonderful and considerate. He kept reassuring me that the dinner was healthy and made sure to cut the fatty bits off the lamb so I wouldn't eat them - probably to avoid a repeat of the previous tummy-poking incident. And then he wouldn't even let me help clean up.
Yesterday turned into One Of Those Days. You know the kind. The ones where you can't focus and whatever you do ends moderately badly. I woke up after a pretty crappy night's sleep and didn't make it to the gym. I didn't go to the gym at lunch. I didn't go to the gym after work. I did manage to tell D I wanted a salad for dinner, and then proceeded to eat my body weight in chicken. Then I sat on the couch and proceeded to return to my bad behavior of poking myself in the stomach, repeatedly, pushing around the belly jiggle.
It was a weird mental place to be.
After another night of fairly lousy sleep, I knew I had to do something to shake the mental instability. This morning, I did make it to the gym, and tried out a new machine called the Treadstepper which looks like a treadmill that has been split in half. It goes up and down while you walk on it at different levels for each foot, so that the workout is a combination treadmill, stairmaster and elliptical. The best part about it? About 3/4 of the way through the workout, it told me I was doing a good job. I like a piece of equipment that encourages you. With 2 minutes to go, it said "Don't give up! Almost done!" Thank you, Mr. Treadstepper. I will take that under advisement.
I am actively seeking ways to make today a better day. I know part of the weirdness comes from all the instability in the markets, which is sending shockwaves and weird vibes through all parts of the financial services sector, including the legal end. And then there's the fact that it's getting darker so much earlier which means the onset of winter is coming . . . I haven't quite gotten to the point where I'm willing to wear a coat, but I think I'm cutting off my nose to spite face with that one.
Ah well. Winter means cozy sweaters and hot chocolate and the holidays. That's good, right?
It's one of those days where I am feeling waaaaay too stuffed. Last night, a big deal that had been consuming most of our office was put on hold, so a friend and I went for a pint to celebrate the return of her freedom. Then I met up with D and some of his former work colleagues for what I thought was a drink, which turned into dinner. Then D and I decided we were craving a cheese course on our walk home. (I think that was the red wine talking.) Anyway, we stopped at Tesco, picked up some cheeses, and since we were feeling tipsy and happy, some port.
Oy. I had the WEIRDEST dreams last night. One involved a dinner party, and my dog (who died last December) and hedgehogs, and hedgehogs that turned into my dog and were flying through the air and attacking the dinner table and for some reason my coworkers were there and then the dream went all meta because I was describing it to the coworkers at the dinner party . . . I was telling a friend about the dream this morning, and she replied, ever so sagely, "Ah. Cheese Dreams."
Cheese dreams? Does cheese give you weird dreams?
In any event, I need to work out my stuffed feelings and will be hauling my ass to the gym, hopefully at lunch. Fun times!
