12/31/2009

2009 in review.

1. what did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
stand on mont ventoux. go on holidays with a partner. drive through peage on a frensh auto-route. be faithful. run a 5k. fit into skinny jeans. buy clothes in sizes 36 and 38 and small. go to a tattoo convention.

2. did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
i kept them all. but then, my resolutions were pretty simple: one was related to my relationship (and was kept), another one was reading at least 20 books (read 27), and the third and last was taking part in (and finishing) project 365 on flickr. i'll write my new ones down on january first.

3. did anyone close to you give birth?
my bf's sister gave birth to an adorbale new niece, emma.

4. did anyone close to you die?
my dear old cat.

5. what countries did you visit?
france, switzerland, luxemburg

6. what would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
more staying power when it comes to challenging stuff at work, and more focus during and fun there. i also want to become more reliable and better at staying in touch with people.

7. what dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
none, really. no drama, no nightmares.

8. what was your biggest achievement of the year?
it's so silly, really, but it was indeed finally losing all that weight.

9. what was your biggest failure?
overtraining out of excitement. same old, same old. so glad though, that i didn't use that as an excuse to stop altogether!

10. did you suffer illness or injury?
yup. hurt my knees by running too much and resting too little, still struggling with tension and nerve pain in my shoulder and having way too much fun with various little recurring infections. but it's all small stuff, really.

11.what was the best thing you bought?
the best money i spent was certainly on the rental car for our holidays in france.

12. whose behavior merited celebration?
the boyfriends', obviously. he's been a continous source of support, fun and excitement all year. and mine. i did pretty damn well this year.

13. whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
someone i worked with. but those days are over, woohoo!

14. where did most of your money go?
the trip to france, various other travel and new clothes, oh yes!

15. what did you get really, really, really excited about?
running!

16. what song will always remind you of 2009?




17. compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? thinner
c) richer or poorer? richer

18. what do you wish you’d done more of?
holidays, obviously. and i wish i'd visited my parents earlier and more often.

19. what do you wish you’d done less of?
nothing, really.

20. how did you spend christmas?
with the bf, not celebrating, as we did last year. it was awesome.

21. did you fall in love in 2009?
every day a little more.

22. what was your favorite tv program?
tatort, a german crime show. and a crappy reality tv dating show about single farmers. 't was the only telly i watched.

23. do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
nope. i generally don't hate anymore.

24. what was the best book you read?
sibylle berg. der mann schläft.

25. what was your greatest musical discovery?
julian plenti.

26. what did you want and get?
a fit and strong body. a mirror ball for my flat.

27. what did you want and not get?
nothing, really.

28. what was your favorite film of this year?
michael haneke's 'the white ribbon'.

29. what did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
i turned 31. and i had a fun night out at a local bar, dj-ing with my pal m., pretending we were celebrating the luxemburg natioal holiday.

30. what’s the one things that made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
my wonderful relationship.

31. how would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
dresses! skirts! leggings! tights! for the first time in my life, i own fun clothes and really enjoy coming up with awesome ways to wear stuff. i love to dress up now. oh yes. tonight, i'll be wearing shiny black leggings, like so. and a jumper as a dress. i've obviously lost my mind.

32. what kept you sane?
my wonderful relationship.

33. which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
julian plenti/paul banks.

34. what political issue stirred you the most?
nuclear energy.

35. who did you miss?
my pal s., in faraway berlin.

36. who was the best new person you met?
s. from munich. i should really make an effort to become friends with her.

37. tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
you can do pretty much anything, if you really really want to.

38. quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
it's getting better all the time.

12/28/2009

inspiration. [#9]

"i don’t love broccoli, and i don’t love the treadmill, but i love the way i feel when i’m healthy and strong. it empowers me in all facets of my life. so remember, that although something may not be fun in the moment, remind yourself of the ultimate reward, and allow that to motivate you through the tough times."

jillian michael [via move your booty|losing weight in the city]


[and i actually love broccoli.]

goals for the week. [#4]

my weight on sunday morning:



how was my week?


my week was good! i really enjoyed christmas and could actually use another christmas asap. and hey: i reached my goal weight. go me!

how did i do on my goals?
  • no bread - had whole-wheat bread once, on wednesday, as an emergency measure, ha, to get my stomach moving again; that tastes alright (nowhere near as awesome as i had imagines), and worked okay; but that was that
  • no booze - totally easy; only downside - i felt like a smug idiot when everyone started being incoherent at our christmas eve get-together
  • ice my knees twice every day - done; need to keep that up
  • enjoy christmas - done; and
  • maintain - failed this one, ha. :) yay for losses, yay for reaching goals!

nsv of the week:
hiking a hill with the dog on yesterdays' walk that left me totally out of breath and winded and unhappy exactly a year ago. and was now easy-peasy.

what will i do this week?

work monday, tuesday and wednesday. i'll be cooking dinner tonight, we'll prolly be going out to dinner tomorrow and i'll be having no carb night by myself on wednesday. we will spend new years' in zurich, which is always total mayhem - not just, because of the hard partying, actually. last year, we ate raclette for 4 hours straight. and again for breakfast. on friday, the guy and i will travel back, hang out at home on saturday (he's got the day off work), and on sunday, the half-sibs of his daughter will come to visit for a week, which will be more of a time-challenge than anything else.

the biggest challenge is definitely new years'. i'll bring some alcohol-free drinks, and some okay snacks, so that i won't freak out and so that some things that i want will be available.


when will i work out and what will i be doing?
  • monday, pm: gym (2 rounds strength circle, weights, 30 minutes rowing or other cardio, stretching)
  • wednesday, pm: (30 minutes rowing or other cardio; 2 rounds fat burning circle, 30 minutes hypoxy, stretching), followed by no-carb-night
  • saturday, am: gym (2 rounds strength circle, weights, 30 minutes rowing or other cardio, 30 minutes hypoxi, stretching)
weekly goals:
  • no bread;
  • no booze;
  • ice my knees twice every day;
  • come up with some definite fitness goals for 2010 and blog about them;
  • get an appointment with thomas to talk about said goals; and
  • enjoy new years' and not spend the night nibbling.

possibly the worst photo ever taken of me.


it's been 618 days, 27,5kg and 5 dress sizes since this picture was taken.

what freaks me out the most, however, is that i actually thought that i looked good then. and i really didn't.

i'm having lots of weird moments of residual shame and sadness right now, looking at photos from my fat days - you know the ones, the ones that just barely escaped the delete-button, the ones other people took and emailed, the ones that are not on flickr.

it's so odd to think: that was me. i still own the very same body that looked that way. i'm so sad about having been that way. and so sad about feeling so crappy about my former self.

it's all a wee bit much sometimes, this change.

now that i've lost weight... [#7]




wearing stuff in layers is fun!

i never wore layers in my fat days and never got how people could stand wearing plenty of layers. doing so made me supremely uncomfy. i always felt constricted and bulked up and horrible when wearing more than one layer.

i was also often cold.

those days are over. right now, i'm wearing aa winter leggings (oh, i love you!) and socks and legwarmers and a cami and a dress and a cardigan and a scarf. oh, the options!

12/27/2009

61,8kg

arbitrary number? totally. still awesome to reach it?
oh yes, indeed.

[and yay for not-stressing over christmas, eating white chocolate mousse and lasagna and still losing weigh. oh yes. and now i want to find my happy space between 60 and 62kg somewhere.]

12/26/2009

to lose or not to lose.

i'm at a supremely weird stage in my weight loss right now, at one pound away from goal (or so). the closer i get, the more i wonder what (if anything at all) that goal actually means. the answer i get to on most days is: nothing. it's just a number. a number that i kinda randomly chose. a number that is not important at all. a number that doesn't mean anything.

because very little will change, once i see that number on the scale. and because, in so many ways, i have already reached whatever goal i had. i am already there. no: here.

i can (and do!) buy clothes everywhere, in smalls and 38s, and sometimes in 36s, and as a result i own a shitload of beautiful clothes and i dress up each and every day. i work out three times a week and it makes me feel strong and badass and awesome, and i love the sweat and the hard work. i don't feel self-conscious about my body anymore. i weigh between 62 and 63kg, my bmi is 22 and my body fat around 20%. and i can run 5k in 26:10 minutes (if i have to).

and all that is very, very, very odd. these past few weeks have had me in shock about what i look like these days. it's like i haven't looked in the mirror since june or so (but believe me, i have), but there's this skinny person looking back at me, and it is me. and when i say skinny, i actually mean it. i'm pretty lean, apart from my thighs. my chest has got bony bits in them, my arms have got definition and (when not constipated) my belly is flat and muscly.

on thursday at a christmas get-together a friend of mine whom i hadn't seen in a while worriedly asked me whether i "still had that weight loss thing under control". that same day, another friend asked me, whether "i still wanted to lose even more weight". the bf reckons i should be done as well. and this morning at the gym, pt thomas (whom i hadn't seen in a while) said "so that plan we got you is working, eh?" and it is. and it has.

now. what do i want? what do i want to look like, what do i want to achieve fitness-wise, what do i want to weigh? i'm still not sure.

my head is full of various non-scale goals for 2010: 5ks, 10ks, being able to do a real pull-up, that mini-tri. but what else do i want? what does all that mean?

i'm still not sure.

fuel vs. happiness.

ben wrote something smart this week:

"food is fuel for the body, not a source of happiness.
this is something i constantly need to remind myself."


and he's right, of course.

however.

for me, good fuel is also a source of happiness. fresh, homecooked, healthy and delicious food that i want to eat and that makes me feel good makes me happy. it's an expression of self-love, that good food. i feed myself well, because i love myself. and that self-love? makes me happy.

this morning, after i got home from the gym (i went to the gym at 9am on boxing day, crazy me), i snacked on an apple, a banana, a slice of honey cake that i'd baked yesterday, a zimtstern that my mom had sent from a bakery at home and two organic marzipan potatoes with 70% almond content (super high quality). and that? made me happy. because it was a snack that was just right for that very moment. indulgent, kinda. but just right. and a much better choice than anything i'd eaten say, a year ago. back in the day, i would eat entire bags of marzipan potatoes as dessert after my work lunch. which didn't bring me any lasting happiness at all, i might add.

the past few days were full of good fuel that made me happy. the bf and i, we've spend a good long time every day in the kitchen, cooking and baking and cleaning up afterwards. and all that made me happy as well. we always cook from scratch anyway, but having the time to cook elaborate stuff is so! much! fun! yesterday, he made monkfish wrapped in pesto-covered eggplant, which was healthy and heavenly and happiness-inducing, at the same time. ignoring and/or denying the happiness aspect of that meal would be plain evil. and well: a lie.

and yet.

i am well aware that the reason i finally lost weight this time around (and why i believe it will stay off for good, too) is because i primarily eat for fuel, and because i have retrained myself, as to what food happiness is. these days, it's not pringles and choco crossies. it's making healthy choices. and it's a much better, much longer lasting feeling, that happiness: it's feeling good before, during and after a snack like this morning's, not for the two minutes (if at all) that wolfing down a bag of cheap marzipan potatoes at my desk used to take.

maybe fuel and happiness can be comrades, not necessarily enemies. or so.

12/22/2009

overeating on healthy stuff.

i ate too much healthy food this past week. my hastily cooked oatmeal-servings were a bit large, i had a few nicely un-ripe bananas, and a super-large serving of yellow lentils.

and then, nothing happened.

as in: in my bowels. all day saturday, i felt like i had swallowed a bunch of bricks. had cups and cups and cups of supposedly digestion-enhancing herbal tea, drank a lot of water, took some homeopathic drops and lay around with a hot water bottle on my belly. all to no avail. ouch. not really my kind of problem, that one. it has since improved somewhat, but i'm still feeling bloated and uncomfy and just...not happy. duh. and it's gotten worse tonight, even though i ate super-healthy and totally normal portions of veges and fruit all day.

had that problem prolly three or four times since starting to loose weight, very odd. i seem to notice it more since there's less belly. much harder to ignore what's happening (or not) in there, when there is so much less padding and all.

according to dr.google, i shouldn't have been surprised by the sudden stoppage, really. all that stuff i've been eating, all that fibre, was kinda like eating concrete. the oatmeal should cook longer, the bananas should be riper, i should be drinking even more and eating more fats. same old, same old.

but what can i do right now? since i got home from the gym tonight, i haven't really felt like eating at all, so i just sipped some miso. but this is supposed to be my carb free protein rich dinner-night. boo.

and: ouch.

christmas shopping.



there are so many eggs on our christmas food shopping list one might think we actually want to celebrate easter this week.

on our menu are lasagna (without meat, though, obviously), monkfish with chestnut-sweet potato-mash and veges, romanlily's mustard-maple salmon (without hollandaise, though) and pumpkin soup.

and tiramisu, white chocolate mousse, an apple pie and a honey cake. oh yes.

desserts - if not now, when?

12/21/2009

goals for the week. [#3]

my weight on monday morning:


how was my week?

work was as nightmarish as expected and my cat died. it sucked. but give that, i did relatively well, really. am so very tired right now, though. can't wait for three days off and nothing to do.

i've had a bit of stomach trouble in the second half of the week: was kinda stopped up, super uncomfy and bloated. guess i'll have to cook my oatmeal longer and eat less bananas (or let them ripen more) and switch back to my old fave meal of carrots and quark every once in a while

how did i do on my goals?
  • no bread - only had bread once, at that dinner-thing on saturday, that was totally aimed at meat-eaters and where i'd been hungry, otherwise, so totally okay;
  • no booze - absolutely easy-peasy;
  • no sweets apart from the daily piece of chocolate - failed this one. there was that mindless christmas cookie incident when i was super hungry, have already forgiven myself though;
  • diligent point-counting and hunger tracking - tracked everything, go me!
  • write a blog-post on body image and goal weight - still owe this one;
  • decide the christmas menu with the guy and come up with a plan for the holidays - done!
  • ice my knees twice a day, every day - done!
nsv of the week:
sauna-ing with the bf without a moment of feeling self-conscious about my body (germany, land of full on nudity saunas).

what will i do this week?

enjoy christmas! i've decided that i don't want to be super-restrictive over christmas. i won't let my guard down completely (pretty sure i wouldn't be able to, anyway), and i'll still be counting points, but it's going to be, well, christmas. and there will be dessert.

the bf and i, we've figured out, what we'll cook, and it's a nice combination of kinda indulgent (as in: not everyday) stuff and regular meals. we'll have lasagna on christmas eve, monkfish with mashed chestnut sweet potatoes and veggies on the 25, or fave baked salmon on the 26 and our fave pumpkin soup on the 27.

i'm so very good at making dessert, and i just never ever do that, these days, so i'll be making white chocolate mousse, tiramisu, apple pie and a christmas honey cake. we'll have friends coming over sometime to help us finish those off, so that's all good. i'll also buy a tiny bit of high quality christmas sweets from our fave bakery, and that'll be it.

when will i work out and what will i be doing?

tuesday, pm: (30 minutes rowing or other cardio; 2 rounds fat burning circle, 30 minutes hypoxy, stretching), followed by no-carb-night
thursday, am: gym (2 rounds strength circle, weights, 30 minutes rowing or other cardio, stretching)
saturday: gym (2 rounds strength circle, weights, 30 minutes rowing or other cardio, stretching)

also: long walks with the dog, who'll be with us from the 25th on.


weekly goals:
  • no bread, still the best rule of all,
  • no booze;
  • ice my knees twice every day
  • enjoy christmas; and
  • hence: maintain. 'tis the time of the year and all.

now that i've lost weight. [#6]

it's uncomfy to sleep on my side with my knees aligned.

r., who has been skinny all his life, assures me that that's normal. apparently, some skinny people actually put blankets or pillows between their knees to remedy that bone-on-bone-feeling. i never knew!

12/18/2009

tired.

i'm tired, folks. it's been a weird, sad week, this one.

see: my dear old cat that i've had for half my life died on wednesday. i've been exceptionally sad about it. not just because she was a good cat (she hated me, really, but she was just the kind of cat our family needed and deserved, just as weird as all of us), but also because of what she meant for the family. when we had nothing to talk about, we could always talk about the cat. when we weren't talking to each other, we could always talk to the cat. i keep thinking about all the tiny little things i loved about her (her awesome ears, her hatred of certain types of music, the way she'd welcome my mom every moring), and get all soppy about 'em. and then i think about my friend s's girlfried, whose dad died of lung cancer within seven days of being diagnosed, and feel all ridiculous being sad about a cat. so there.

everything else has been pretty ok though, really. have been to the gym three times already this week (and will go again on sunday; change of plans and all), haven't had a drop of booze, have been eating well, yadayadayada. am still on a roll, kinda. hopped on the gym's fancy fat scale on wednesday, and while i only lost a tiny bit of weight in the past month, i dropped two kg of fat (!), so it proclaimed a giant 10% body fat loss since june. good stuff. i also bought some skinny jeans this week. which is extremely weird. and awesome. love 'em.

but the dominating feeling right now is exhaustion. i'm so very very tired. and it shows.

this arvo, i didn't get a lunch break till 3pm. walked to the bf's shop during said break, superhungry, and immediately gorged down some christmas cookies just because they were there (the bf and his colleague are -get this- currently giving a mighty discount to every customer who brings homemade christmas cookies). they were not worth it, i briefly felt shitty about it (and really, my behaviour was rather worrisome) but then forgave myself immediately. i need to look after myself better, not let myself get that hungry and exhausted and let myself enjoy some high quality christmas stuff in a situation that's actually enjoyable. oh well.

speaking of exhaustion: time to head to bed right this very minute. more tomorrow.

12/16/2009

now that i've lost weight...[#5]

i wear skinny jeans. can't quite get my head around that fact.

12/13/2009

goals for the week. [#2]

my weight on monday morning:



how was my week?

my week was pretty spectacular! had a fab time in berlin (and off work), ate a lot of superyummy food while staying within points, hung out with lots of friends, did bikram yoga three times (oh, yay!) and had a bikram related epiphany. and i also lost a tiny bit of weight - 0,4kg, one pound. a bit more would have been nice, but is maybe a bit much to ask after a few days of late-night eating and partying, even if the latter has been booze-free.

see: we got to talk about booze. i will not drink any alcohol until april 1st.

i would have abstained from january 2nd until april 1st anyway (the bf and i did that this year, and it did us both extremely well), and this early start is a gift to my friend s. to cut a long story about a not so spectacular part of the week short: our partying on wednesday night got out of hand, and the same happened to her when she was out by herself on thursday, and i held her hair as she puked and collapsed on her bathroom floor when she got home just after i did. then she hyperventilated, and her eyes got all weird and i seriously considered calling an ambulance, but then managed to get the whole situation under control.

now drinking too much every once in a while is kinda okay (if kinda stupid, still)
when you're 19, but a whole lot less okay when you're 39, and most definitely not okay at all when you drink to deal with problems and if your hangovers are so bad that you can't get up for a whole day. this wasn't the first time stuff like this has happened. last year, she ended up in hospital after a festival, and every time she and i have been at festivals, she collapsed because of booze. her boyfriend (who had a definite booze and drug problem) just left her, and the last time that happened, she got into the habit of drinking two bottles of red by herself at home at night. which was most definitely not okay, either.

the one way i could convince her to quit booze was telling her that i'd do it as well. even though i do not have a problem, and barely drink, really, ever since the bf and i went cold turkey this past january; which totally turned all my booze drinking around. and so i am. doing so will be hard, and has been hard, already. had nothing but mineral water at saturdays' office party, and got to dodge two "are you pregnant?"-questions. there will be christmas. and new year's (among a whole bunch of people who love to booze and else). everything.

now, s. and i, we're so far apart (800km), that neither of us would know, if the other one did booze up. but i really want to be honest and make this work. because i really want her to stop drinking. and not just for the next three months, but for good.

so yeah. all that kinda made my week a bit less spectacular. but i'll make it work.

still lovin' the new ww programme: i get to eat so very much! all the time! it's very easy and very enjoyable, and i feel much less deprived than i did on the previous programme.


how did i do on my goals?
  • no bread: did ok! (apart from those evil christmas cookies at the office christmas party and the burger i had friday night)
  • relaxing no booze-rule for two nights: done! had drinks on one night only: wednesday, and diligently jotted down their points.
  • diligent points counting: done! (even though i did eat my weekly allowance; amassed a glorious 53 activity points though, that i didn't dig into at all)


what will i do this week?

this will be a regular, if kinda crazy pre-christmas work-week. will have a lot of work on monday and tuesday, and there's a friend of the guy visiting, so we'll go out for dinner tonight. will cook tuesday night, and do my usual no carb-night on wednesday. saturday might get a bit difficult, food- and boozewise: the bf and his best friend and workmate are throwing a dinner party for everyone who helped with their shop reopening this year. it'll be hard, but i'll manage.


when will i work out and what will i be doing?

monday: gym (2 rounds strength circle, weights, 30 minutes rowing or other cardio, stretching)
wednesday: gym (30 minutes rowing or other cardio; 2 rounds fat burning circle, 30 minutes hypoxy, stretching, sauna)
saturday: gym (2 rounds strength circle, weights, 30 minutes rowing or other cardio, 30 minutes hypoxy, stretching, sauna)


weekly goals:
  • no bread;
  • no booze;
  • no sweets apart from the daily piece of chocolate (got another yeast infection, hooray!);
  • diligent point-counting and hunger tracking;
  • write a blog-post on body image and goal weight;
  • decide the christmas menu with the guy and come up with a plan for the holidays (and write about it); and
  • ice my knees twice a day, every day.

12/12/2009

burger & fries.

i had (veggie) burger & fries last night. and they were totally worth it.

had a discussion with the guy sometime last week, about when and why i'd eat some fast food. turns out last night was one of those nights. met a friend at a legedary local burger place (at his insistence), where they actually home-make the veggie, bean and tofu patties that they put on their veggie burgers. which of course makes them superyummy. so i had a burger & fries, and they totally hit the fast food spot last night. even though i could have chosen not do eat anything, because of the weight thing. and weirdly enough, after i allowed myself to enjoy this splendid crappy meal, i only ate about 1/3 of the (small) serving of fries. because they were yummy, yes, but i really didn't need em that much.

is this how normal eating people eat fast food? i wonder.

now back to hometown. i'm kinda sad.

12/11/2009

bikram. [#03]

i had an epiphany after class today. (blessed be those bikram endorphins.)

i will become a bikram teacher.

yesterday was a supremely weird day. i was somehow, somewhat, kinda offered a job for next year and a writing gig on the side for now, and someone else (the conference in chile guy) liked my initial ideas a lot and wants me to take part in another conference/teaching thing in summer. and it all got me thinking about what's important in life, namely: how important is my job in the grande scheme of things? would i move to berlin for a job? (which would mean a definite end to my relationship, because i will never ever have a ldr again, and because r. cannot relocate because of his business) it really got me down a bit, all that. talked about it with friends for most of the night and all.

and then i had class today. it was taught my f., and he was as high-energy and awesome as on wednesday, and the class was SPLENDID. very hot and sweaty and fun. i had a fantastic time, really. i put my head and elbows on the floor again and even - get this - could let go of the floor in toe stand and put the palms of my hands together in front of my chest. i was smiling through the rest of class after that, and the entire floor series was fabulous. rabbit was great, and in tortoise, i touched my forehead to the floor before my hands for the very first time ever. crazy.

afterwards i was high and happy and kinda sad, and when i left and said goodbye, f. commented on my smiling: "it's so lovely that you smiled in class today, i had a class yesterday where everyone was grim, and it's so nice when someone lifts the mood." i told him how much i'd enjoyed it and how sad i was to not have a studio to practice and whatnot, and then he said, out of the blue: "do teachers' training." "what about the requirement of a 6 month studio practice?" "i had a guy in my year from scotland, who came out of a home practice as well. you can do it. ask h&k (from our previous studio) for a recommendation. you're such a vibrant, positive person, you'll do well."

and a lightbulb went off in my head: there are so many options. i don't just have the choice between crappily paid superstressful (but awesome) journo jobs in my hometown (the one that i have) or in faraway places. i don't have to choose between interesting work and happiness. i don't have to freak out because of this media crisis thing right now, and be scared about a potential job loss. this is not a definite plan by any means, but i could be self-employed and a bikram teacher while i write on the side. and there are a zillion other things i could do. i know that my life has been so much better with r. in it than ever before. what we have is above everything else. my life has also been so much better since i threw bikram into the mix. i need this yoga. i want this yoga. it has made me happy and healthy and skinny. i want more of it.

i called r. right after i left the studio, crying happy tears (no, seriously, endorphins are killer!), and after i'd stopped telling him that i really really want to become a bikram teacher, he said "i love you. not the journalist c. you are so many things. you can and will do this, if you want to."

so there.

bikram? is freakin' life-changing yoga. and i feel so much better already. so much less scared about my job stuff. i can be a bikram teacher.

i will be a bikram teacher.

12/10/2009

bikram. [#02]

i'm such a rockstar.

my friend s. and i stayed out drinking till 2:30am last night. and 7 hours later, i was sweating on my mat at bikram. oh yes. sweating out beer, possibly. he.

the class was good, but not as good as yestersdays': it was taught by b., whose dialogue is too soft; she's not very specific, kinda sloppy, not strict and even her tone of voice is not hard enough, really. in turn, her classes (and i've taken a few of them, both here and in my home studio) are always kinda wobbly and the energy isn't very high. tried to remind myself during class, when i felt resistance to her teaching welling up, that this was one more opportunity to work on non-attachement to everything surrounding the yoga, by doing my best, despite the crappy dialogue. oh well. 't was lovely anyway, and halfway through class, my towel looked like the shroud of turin from the sweat.

was a wee bit sore and tight today, but nowhere near as bad as i feared. managed to put my head on the floor in standing separate leg stretching pose and my elbows during head to knee stretching pose, and my standing head to knee and bows were pretty damn fine. in fact all my backbends were pretty fab. really felt a good lift in full locust, which never ever happens, really.

awesome, all that.

now off for a busy afternoon meeting various business contacts and friends; the grande outing i'd planned with my pal s. for tonight fell through though. bummer. got other plans already, that will quite likely be better for my health and wellbeing though. :)

yay for bigcitylife and bikram!

12/09/2009

bikram. [#01]

my first bikram class in eight months was awesome. oh, so very awesome.

one of my teachers from my previous studio taught todays' class, and it was intense, and hot and oh-so-familiar. like coming home. f. has got a superstrong dialogue, and i kept hearing out joint teachers in his voice: h. from our home studio, craig and bikram himself, obviously. it was lovely.

the whole class was lovely and amazing and weird and great at the same time. i felt fantastic. i loved the sweating and i was close to happy tears during my old foe, camel pose. it feels so good to move this way, so natural, so familar. so good. even though everything was different. i can do the poses so much better these days. i can wrap my toes around my calf in eagle. i can actually see my bellybutton during rabbit. there is so much less of me, that there is so much more space to move my body. it's very very odd.

the weirdest thing was looking at myself for 90 minutes though. i've never done that, obviously (my gym, which is of the health variety, only has mirrors in the free weights area, and in the class rooms; and when i'm there, i wear significantly more clothes than during bikram); especially not in shorts and a bra and while moving and using my muscles. and by god, i have so many of 'em, and so many bony bits, too!

it's weird. i really am a bit disconnected, still, from my new, kinda skinny body. i haven't quite realised that it's mine. but it is, and it's mine to keep.

and yeah: next class, tomorrow morning 9:30am.

12/07/2009

melting away.

"you look fabulous." she has complimented me months before and we've said hi every time we've seen each other at the gym since then. "you look really fabulous, it's like that weight has been melting off you." "thank you", i reply. "it's been a lot of hard work and it's lovely that you're telling me you've noticed." "really, how could one not notice! keep it up!"

[<3]

goals for the week. [#1]

my weight on sunday morning:


how was my week?

superbusy and good. had a lot of stuff at work that turned out alright, and some patchwork family stress that had me upset for a while, but that i see much more clearly now. the weekend was lovely and relaxing and good. my eating was ok this week, apart from wednesday night, when i was at a business meeting and fell into the pretzel trap. love the new ww plan, and am really motivated right now. only real bummer: still some knee pain.

what will i do this week?

monday and tuesday: work
wednesday till saturday: berlin trip
saturday: office christmas party
sunday: relaxation & kid-visit

when will i work out and what will i be doing?

monday: gym (2 rounds strength circle, weights, 30 minutes rowing or other cardio, stretching)
wednesday: 8:30am bikram class
thursday: 9:30am bikram class
friday: 9:30am bikram class

won't manage to go to the gym on saturday (will get back at 5:30pm or so, and have to be at the party by 7:30 or so), and realistically won't be able to (and won't want to) work out on sunday (kid's here, there might be a hangover and there will definitely be some exhaustion and post-bikram pain, so i'll veg out and enjoy it). will get back in the swing of things next monday, with my usual monday-wednesday-saturday-routine

weekly goals:
  • no bread (that's doing me so very good!), not even during the train trips (got to plan my train trip meals!)
  • general no booze-rule will be relaxed for thursday (hanging out with friends) and saturday (office party)
  • diligent points counting (no digging into weekly extra, if possible)

how did i do on my goals?

hadn't set them well enough this past week.

12/05/2009

pardon me?

the woman, mid-fifties, probably, comes over to me while i am doing my second round on the weight circle, just as i am adjusting everything for the last but one exercise.

"you really shouldn't grimace like that while you're working out", she says, smiling conspiratively. "you'll get wrinkles."

[i really wish i'd had a good reply. instead i stared at her in disbelief before mumbling something along the lines of "i won't mind wrinkles once i get them, that's life." thing is: i know i grimace. i'm really pushing it during my workouts these days. i sweat and grimace and breathe hard (and try not to moan). i'm at the gym to work out, not to look good. if at all, i want to look good outside of the gym. tsk.]

12/04/2009

downhill.

hooray. the worst, it is over. not just for the week, but probably for the rest of the year, really. it's all downhill from here. i took it really easy at work today, so there's quite a bit of stuff i need to get done before i head off on tuesday (might have to sneak in an hour or two of uni-course stuff this weekend, actually), but it's all manageable. no terrible deadlines, no presentations, nothing.

pheww.

made sure the new year wasn't going to get too boring though: i was asked today to give a presentation for a conference in early january on using the net to create change in the real world (or something, still not fully discussed that with the organisers). the conference is in - get this - santiago de chile. and they'd fly me out, which would be superawesome, but is totally not doable, with the amount of holidays i can take this coming year. so it's going to happen via video. which is kinda funky, but very sad. the more i think about it, the sadder i get. chile! south america! i've never been! and then i think about air travel, by myself, and doing it via video suddenly seems super attractive again. meeting the guy in charge in berlin next week, to discuss the whole thing. kinda weird, but fun. good stuff.

other good stuff about berlin: will definitely hang out with my guy pal s. on thursday; last time we did, at an award-night in june, it ended in a gloriously drunken night out dancing: we were the overdressed people drinking real champagne on the dancefloor of the indie club. ha.

not so good stuff about berlin: my friend s. is sick, possibly with bacon fever (h1n1), and has serious asthma issues. saw her doc today, who wants to have her admitted to hospital this weekend, if things get worse. no matter what: things are not looking up for my visit, really. duh.

will see.

food wise, all's good. loving the new and obviously improved ww plan here in germany (they call it propoints). have been diligently keeping diary, and so far it's been good (apart from my pretzel pig out at a work meeting last night). am much more motivated, right now, and love the new hunger-tracker; great tool to check out why you're eating, which is such a problem for me sometimes.

so happy it's friday night, so happy i don't have to get up at 7am tomorrow, so happy i get to work out and go shopping and cook and bake cookies and take a long walk with the dog and sleep in with the guy and just exhale.

oh yes.

some more befores.

while searching for some pics on my computer at work, i once again stumbled across some photos i'd forgotten about. and that i can't stop looking at.


july 2007
oh, boobs: i miss you.



april 2008
this is a crappy hotel elevator mirror shot that i took a few days before i finally started weight watchers. i remember that day pretty well: a band that my then-bf managed played their final show that weekend, and i remember making sure to dress up: in jeans and a jersey shirt (clothes i wouldn't even wear to work these days), and i remember how tight the jeans were, how the shirt felt too short and how uncomfy i was all weekend.
i'm in shock really, how puffy my face was. so very different now.


july 2008
this is a 'during' shot, taken in late july 2008. i'd lost about 10kg by then. and when i saw this pic (and others), i couldn't quite get my head around the fact that i was still chubby.

12/03/2009

it's thursday, and i'm angry.

i'm ANGRY this morning, and i HATE it.

first off, the it department did an automatic update on my work pc, which killed all my browsers (bye bye, bookmarks, you'll be missed). and then i hear that the guys' immediate ex, n., who dumped him, oh, just about 20 months ago , is currently hanging out with the family.

(this is, where it gets complicated, because it is: the family, that's the bf's first wife. not the one we hung out with this past weekend, but l., the mother of his grown daughter and non-bio sons).

and this? just rubs me the wrong way. which is pretty silly, really, and most likely a serious case of patchwork family growing pains.

see: ex-wife l. recently ended up in a freaking nigerian romance scam (yes, that shit really happens to real people), and i've basically spend the past six weeks on the phone to her every single night. it's been a shitload of emotional work and so freaking hard.

when the stuff l. told me about her online relationship started to raise a whole army of red flags, back in september, i really wanted to help her, wanted to save her both the emotional and the financial pain. i was all gentle and instead of telling her i thought it was a scam all along, i pointed out the inconsistencies, until i finally had to be direct. i totally failed, really, and she got all angry with me for being so negative about her relationship. and when it dawned on her, weeks later, that i'd been right all along, i had to work through all her shitty feelings towards me.

i was super gentle and patient and helpful. i was on the phone with a woman who does a self-help group for victims. i read books on the topic. i did ip scans and checked databases for the scammers photo. and above all, i really worked hard at getting through to her and helping her cope, which was really frustrating, because some part of her? is still, even now, in denial, making up possible explanations for this shit.

and after all that, she's now hanging out (for a few days, even) with n.? n., the immediate ex of the bf. n., who rings our freaking doorbell at 3am in the morning, high on some shit, on a night when she thinks i am not at home, wanting to be with the bf again.

i'm not supposed to like that, am i?

i know i'm all ridiculous and whatnot. it's their lives, their relationship, and neither has a direct impact on mine. but really: it still feels shitty. it feels like one more way that n. is trying to sneak back into everyone's lives (specifically the bf's). and it feels like l. does not value what i've done these past months.

argh, argh, argh.

hello, insecurities, haven't seen you in quite a while.

12/02/2009

pheeeeeew.

that sound? that was me, exhaling. these past few days and weeks have been evil. the weekend trip to r's not-yet-ex-wife and her new boyfriend was lovely, if carb-loaden. the best part was shopping at aa with the bf on monday, where i finally bought the school girl skirt i've been ogling for months. it's super-hot, and i have no clue (yet) as to how to wear it without coming off all 'hit me baby one more time'-like, but i'll figure it out. i'm seriously lusting for all those new crazy aa tights, btw, but resisted. good me! so while monday was all relaxing, tuesday and today were super-crazy again with a doc's appointment (hello, viral infection that shall not be named!), a shitload of work and the first part of this semesters' teaching gig at uni tonight. it was all super stressful, really, but it's all downhill from here on, oh yes.

there's still a lot of work and whatnot (isn't that always the case?), but i'll leave work at 4pm tomorrow (come hell or high water) and get my hair cut (so very necessary!), before a work gig/media roundtable thing in the evening. i'll sail through friday, and then it'll be the weekend, which i'll spend with the guy and the dog and at the gym and baking cookies for the office christmas party. and then i'll sail through monday as well, have more fun at the gym, and on tuesday after work, i'll hop on a train to berlin, where i'll spend the rest of the week with my best friend s who i haven't seen since april. i'll also get to do bikram yoga, every single day.

but that's next week.

this week has been going ok in the fitness and food department (at least since returning from that weekend away), had a good workout today, even though thomas had me ditch the rowing machine because of knee pain. used a stationary bike and nearly died of boredom instead. whine, whine. (seriously wondering though: was i really on pain, or just too tired for the rowing machine? i wonder, really.).

on no carb night tonight as well. almost ruined it, when i realised i didn't have any of my fave chocolate for dessert and grabbed a chocolate covered rice cake. before i could open its wrapper though, i realised the mistake. found some other choc in the fridge, took a piece, and threw it away, when the first bite tasted stale. changes, people, changes! got to buy choc tomorrow, though.

final note to self: those granola bars with maltitol? are totally not worth the gastro-trouble they cause. oh no. (had one this arvo, and felt bloated and crappy for the rest of the day. crazy. am i getting more sensitive to that crap? no more!)