square # whatever.

i got to start using this space again. because not using this space is not working anymore. tautology ftw! i've been struggling with being healthy, lately. which is good, i guess, because struggling means that you haven't given up yet, right? isn't that how the saying goes? fact is: life's been hectic in recent months, and with life being hectic came missed gym dates and crappy lunches and cake in the afternoon, because life's been so hectic. and then there were two wonderful holidays without workouts and three weeks looking after the kiddo, and then the time was switched over last weekend, and now it's dark, all of a sudden, and my clothes fit weird and i'm not feeling so great. also, this morning i got on the scale at my gp, and even though i swore that i didn't want to know the number, i saw it. so there. it's still different, life. and better, of course. i've just lost my track a bit, and i'm hungry, so hungry (haha!), to regain it. to be more conscious about everything again, above all myself and what's happening to me and how i'm making the best of everything. haven't been doing that lately, really. i suspect that my being hectic and my not looking after myself so well is an attempt to make myself miserable in the most easy way so that i've got something to spend my time on and don't get a chance to tackle the stuff that's actually important. or something. weird theory, that one, i admit. and yet. i ran a lot, this summer, spending 16 weeks preparing for a 10k. it was hard work, but it was worth it. i reached my goal of running the 10 in less than 60 minutes. running that much really burned me out though. i was barely able to do anything besides running, was always superhungry and while my stamina improved, the rest of my physical skills really declined. after the race, i took some time off running, started lifting weights again and did tons and tons of ashtanga (three or four classes a week), and that was fine and dandy, but then came the holidays and the stress, and now i've been sitting on my bum for weeks, being hormonal and miserable. speaking of hormones: i suspect it's my weight gain that's made my cycles all wonky, out of a sudden. they'd been quite alright and more or less regular from june 2010 till june 2011. maybe the weight i was then was the best weight for my wonky pcos-enhanced endocrine system. who knows. fact is: right now i'm not feeling too good, and i want to feel better. and clothes i want to wear without tugging on them all the time. and there's this half marathon that i want to run on april 1st and that i'll have to start training for in mid december. so i'll get back to basics: good old weight training three times a week & points counting. and i'll take it all from there. been there, done that, right?

status update.

it ain't easy, this trying to eat well and move and listen to my body-thing.

i've been very gently watching what i eat and couting points and am amazed every day by how quickly i run out of points. i'm even more amazed, however, by my urge to eat and eat and eat, even when i'm not hungry, even though it's much less stressful at our house right now (omg, no houseguests in five days! oh, look! that'll change tonight again! blergh.), even though we're heading off to italy tomorrow.

i finally started reading 'breaking free from emotional eating' (i bought it right after reading 'when food is love' in april) and it's an eye-opener in every way. no wonder i put off reading it for months, and even now, i've started (and almost finished) another book. just thinking about all this is tiring and touchy and whatnot. ordered the workbook to go with it, and will force, no, gently coax myself through it as well.

i'm just not feeling that great physically. i'm supertired and demotivated at work, and i threw my back out yet again over the weekend, and practically haven't moved my head since sunday (imagine me riding my bike home yesterday....that was not road safe.). saw a doc yesterday who told me i should simply take painkillers (helpful, that, who would have thought!), got myself am appointment with my ortho next week, and am seeing chris in just about 90 minutes (for the third time in two weeks, mind you). oh well.

on top of everything, the weekend was...indulgent. i drank booze for the first time in months really (made me realise while i haven't done that in a while), there was my boss' wedding (where the food was kinda crappy, but where i ate too much of the only food that was nice - cake!), an excursion to a winery on sunday and some salty food, and now i'm retaining water like crazy (which made me realise, yet again, why i stopped weighing myself). i feel all swollen and squishy and uncomfy and am (seriously, someone kick me for typing this) hoping this is not my cycle again (cd 17 today). reminding myself to drink lots, and tonight, i'll do some kind of workout and follow up with the sauna. likely a yoga class, anything else would be a very bad idea.

baby steps, baby steps.

all work and no play.

things are going better. i'm feeling a lot better about everything already, and it's not due to the fact that i'm counting points, it's due to the fact that i'm taking care of myself again. i felt hunger for the first time in weeks these past days. and it felt good to feed myself because i was hungry (and to make a good choice then), not because i was stressed out tired or because it was lunchtime.

i'm still super tired, though. and i realised what my main issue right now is: i hate the fact that everything feels like work right now. there's my main, bill-paying job, obviously, and on top of that there's a gym habit that feels like a part-time job at times, i'm like a b&b host for the houseguests, cook & housekeeper for the bf and i (even if i go to the gym after work, i'm usually home before him, so if i don't want to wait hungry...), go-to-problem-solver for one of the kids who's in a dire situation right now, and on top of that i'm me, girlfriend, daughter, sister, friend. i seriously suck at the latter, btw, because the first few things take up so much time and leave me so exhausted that i just can't deal with anyone or anything at the end of the day. like right now, for example, when i'm surprisingly home by myself for a few hours. there are so many things i should be doing (laundry, some extra work, prepare a skit my friend g. and i will be doing at our bosses wedding on saturday,...) but i'm making a conscious decision to not do any of that and to just hang out in bed for a while, blogging. here's to some me-time, hooray!

however. i need to figure out some things, and i need to do so, soon.

the main one is my or rather - our - living situation. due to the way r. and his business pal changed their shop concept last year, there will be a recurring need to house people for a few days or a few weeks. there is no way around it. this summer, r. and i hosted the majority of 'em for a variety of reasons. when we didn't have work people stay over, we had family staying because of various dramas. r. wasn't (and isn't) phased by either one bit. he's used to living in hectic households, and hey, these were his colleagues, and his (previous) family, not mine. i'm different. while i like having people around, i am seriously bothered by hecticness and things being out of place, and also by some specific people we've had to host. i'm the one with the regular job, the one who has to get up first every morning, the one who gets the groceries and the toilet paper and does the laundry. and i've reached my limit, to be honest.

and i'm not sure how we can solve this, really, not sure what rules we can instill that will make life better for me. install date night? (when?) enforce breaks between houseguest? (not possible, most likely). i know that small things cans make a big difference (we swapped wardrobes, btw, which gave me the one in our bed- instead of the guestroom, which made life a lot better instantly), but i find it hard to find and name these small solutions. and even if we set rules: how are we going to make them work with our hectic, always changing schedules and unexpected happenings?

the weirdest bit is this though: i still have my little appartment. an appartment i haven't slept in for months. i can't imagine spending a night there, again, really, and yet i've kept that flat. as a security blanket (a really expensive one, too). however, i weigh living with r. against peace and quiet (and loneliness), living with r. wins. and yet. it can't go on like this. because the way things are right now is making me unhappy.

part of it is probably because i feel so uprooted here. my things aren't here, this isn't my home (yet), this is still very much r.'s house. maybe i feel so threatened by this string of houseguests, because they make me feel like a guest as well. i'm so worried about whether we will be able to make this my home. i'm worried about whatever moving-in-related-crap we might argue about, worried about our clashing lifestyles. worried about what will happen then. hello, fear of committment, what the hell are you doing here?

i wish i had a conclusion here, but i don't. apart from this one, maybe: my eating habits these past few weeks have very little to do with food, and a hell of a lot to do with my feelings. who would have thought?

the summer of my discontent.

in late june, i stopped weighing myself. i just didn't feel like it anymore. i also stopped counting points, which i hadn't really been doing for a while, anyway, and i stopped reading weight loss and fitness blogs and books about food and eating. call it an experiment in normaldom, if you wish, even if it wasn't a conscious decision to attempt intuitive eating, even if it wasn't a conscious thing at all.

i guess i was just tired of it all.

and then i had a hellish four weeks at work, had major intestinal trouble that sent me to my gp first, and then to a gastroenterologist, then i had to get a tooth pulled and despite all that my body somehow managed to do something my body practically never does: i had a cycle and menstruated a few times (horray for the effort, boo for the pms and the bloating and the boobs), and there was a bunch of travel that had me away from r. for way too long and i found myself being totally fed up and bored at the gym even though i still went three times a week and......and did i mention that we had houseguests for eight weeks straight? it wasn't because of them that i started being sneaky around food, but i did, and i somehow forgot that i feel best when i plan my daytime meals, so i was starving at work because i forgot my brekkie, started having cake for lunch or 500g of full fat vanilla yoghurt and half a bag of crunchy granola or a bag of wasabi dusted macadamias.....and somehow i started prefering some clothes over others, and during bikram class, i couldn't slide into garurasana as deeply as i used to because my thighs seemed so plump (must be the water weight!), and then yesterday i realised that i had to put on my largest jeans for the three hour hike with the dog, which made me feel so bad that i couldn't stop reaching for the (homemade, healthy, vegan) biscuits after dinner.....and this morning i finally stepped on my scale again, and i weigh 71.3kg.

the number doesn't matter. i'm actually really surprised that it really doesn't matter. what matters though, is that i don't feel well, haven't really felt well for these past eight weeks, and probably the eight weeks before that, too, back when my weight was creeping up and i was in a total panic about it. it was good to stop being panicky. it was not good to stop being...me.

i've been looking after myself crappily, not feeding myself well, being secretive about food, taking extra servings (always so scared to miss out, to go hungry, to not have enough, unable to stop), and now my clothes don't fit, and and yes, i could buy bigger ones, but i really don't want to. i like my clothes. i liked, no, loved the way i felt in my body in the spring. i miss that feeling.

i love myself. i love my body. i'm not angry with it, for wanting and holding on to some extra weight, so soft on my hips and thighs (extra padding to distance myself from all these people invading my household, my life?). i'm not angry with myself for gaining these five, seven, eight, whatever, kgs. i'm just sad about this summer, which really lacked in the fun and happiness and sunshine and eating strawberries department, sad about the stress and the worries and about being unable to reach out.

i tried, in a variety of ways ways, actually. sitting in my docs office, whining about my intestinal worries and about life, to which he recommended homeopathic anti-anxiety-medication which i tried for two weeks and hated. i had a trainer appointment the week before last, where i complained to c. about being run down, and she told me to relax, to do less, to change my routine, to go to the sauna after class, and who let me weigh in without me knowing the number. that helped, somewhat. and yet last week, i had to crawl into my physio's office after throwing out my back in pump class. how many more messages from my body do i need? message received, body. it's time to look after you better again.

i know that it'll all get better. everything will get better. r. and i we're figuring out how i'll finally, properly move in this fall. we'll go to italy, twice (and i won't think twice about wearing a bikini), and in early october, i'll fly out to chicago for a long weekend with my dad to see my brother run his first ever marathon.

i owe it to myself to make good choices for myself, to really work out (and not just go through the motions), to relax and stretch and quiet my mind in yoga class and to feed myself well and to treat me gently and look after my emotions. i'm trying to keep it simple, right now. all changes that i do right now have to be substainable. no extreme measures, no bootcamp.

for now, i'm starting to weigh myself again daily and to track my food by counting points again.

so there.

we're having a love affair.

....that green drop and i. a hot and sweaty and happy love affair with lots of quality time at the gym and a bunch of great food.

i feel like myself again.

and that is all.

my life is complete.

i finally found edamame in a local store. hooray!

bootcamp, day five.

dudes. i am feeling so much better. SO MUCH BETTER! i've been eating well and lots and yummily, and i've been working out, well and lots and yummily. yesterday, i did a nicely hard weights session, and today i did my third long cardio session, while watching an itunes u political philosophy session from harvard. mens sana in corpore sano. right?

(still whispering weirdly. also forgot my headband and had a bad hair day after getting rained on three times.)

just 17 hours on the bike to go! afterwards i took a 90 minute yvengar class, my second, and because i'd forgotten to bring a second t-shirt (the first one was sweat through), i took the class in my sports top, which no one ever does at my gym. well. bit uncomfy, that.

the yvengar, however, wasn't uncomfy. it was fab. you know, theoretically, i hate yvengar. it's stupid accessories driven yoga. for non-flexible losers. or whatever. too bad it works so well. it's freaking hard, and i love that it's so detail obsessed. will continue to go, in the absence of a bikram studio.

the rest of my bootcamp stuff is going well, struggling most with drinking 80 oz of water a day, but that's no biggie.

so yeah. i feel so much better. oh yes.