i love a good plan.

i feel so much better. i guess it had all been a bit much, lately. and i had failed to plan. which means planned to fail, obviously.

the other day, my fabulous motivational matchup, lizzie reminded me that i've been here, and done that before (mystery weight gain, hunger, everything) and that switching up my gym routine always makes me hungry, and renée of lowfatpie gratiously offered via twitter to look at my foodlog. which has been awesome, because it has made me track better (and well, there are obviously a few more points on my logs, than anticipated) and want to choose more variety. just two days have made a difference in how i feel. so thanks, you two!

last night, i was super exhausted and got out of the office later than hoped, so when the 'i don't want to go to the gym'-talk started in my head, i called r., told him i needed a pep talk, and he delivered. and it was all good: working out last night even though i didn't feel like it, really helped me clear my head and made me feel good. gotta remember that!

this week has been super stressful. i'm about to head up north for four days in a few hours. tonight, i will be moderating a four hour live stream from an event up north, so if you want to see & hear me live in action and wearing dressy shorts and a flowy grey top, go to http://tinyurl.com/2a45a6b (no link, because i am soooo sneaky about the weight loss blogging!). we start streaming at 8pm cet (7pm gmt/2pm edt/11am pdt), and users can participate via twitter and facebook.

and me? i'm super stressed. have never moderated for this amount of time, feel totally out of my league because i'm not quite up to par with the local political and art scene (have decided to just make that my thing for the night - not being a local). and of course i'm doubting my ability to do that kind of thing in the first place (ye older "i am an impostor!"-line of thought) and worried stupidly about looking stupid (and saying stupid stuff) and ugly. bought new clothes (dresscode for us was 'smart casual', which means what exactly for women again?) and got a make up appointment this arvo. it'll all be fun. i hope.

spending two days at my parents (instructing my mom on exactly what kind of lärabars to bring home from the us - they'll be visiting my brother next week, yay!), and then on tuesday, i'm heading to a work event, where i'll be representing that award i've been involved in. big press conference, where the results of what we've been up to these past few months will be unveiled. also worried about looking capable, smart and good there.  ahem. 'tis always the same. wondering whether people i admire professionally also feel this way.

so keep your fingers crossed, everyone. and tune in tonight. just 13 hours to go! eeep!

off.

i'm not happy right now, people. i'm off, ever so slightly. my gym going and working out is great. my eating, however, these past few days, just hasn't been up to par. i'm hungry, hungry, hungry. my appetite is bottomless. i worked way too much on monday and tuesday, planned my meals badly and ended up eating crappily as a result. today i brought lots of yummy snacks to work, and i ate them all way too quickly. i haven't tracked my points. i feel puffy and bloated and swollen.

i keep thinking that this is pms, but my period still hasn't show up. so it's all in my head. the kid' visits, work, a big assignment coming up this weekend that really, really, really scares me. no wonder i'm reaching for the banana bread as consolation.

i will make better choices starting right this very moment. i will start tracking again at my next meal. i've got a busy few days ahead, i need energy and clarity. i can do this.

goals for the week. [#12]

my weight on sunday morning:

65,2kg. seriously, what is up here? i'm absolutely perplexed by what's been happening on the scale lately. yes, i've been eating all my points (but not my activity points). but i'm exercising a lot. and riding my bike everywhere. i should not be gaining weight living like this. is it water rentention? (not sure, the bodyfat measurements on my scale fluctuate kinda wildly.) and if so, who and what's to blame? pms? (cd 112, yeah!) the warmer weather? not drinking enough?

how was my week?

busy but much happier than the one before that. r.'s back and that's lovely. i revamped my workout plan. was adequately flexible with said plan. and spend a 20 minutes on the crosstrainer for the first time in months. and now? i've got knee pain again. duh!

how did i do on my goals?

• sleep more than 6 hours every night - yup! these past two days i've really caught up on much needed sleep;
• work on my pull-ups - yup!
  
• no baking - yup! just barely, however. got some dying bananas on my kitchen table waiting to be resurrected as banana bread.
• eat reasonably at the birthday party - failed. kinda. i ate really reasonable first and second courses. but then came the cake and desserts. felt sick for the rest of the day, no fun.



nsv of the week:



didn't really have one. however, i dealt with an urgent nolunchbreaksuperhungrymeetinginfiveminutes-crisis by eating two spoonful of nut butter and eating some fruit. in the past, i would i've sprinted down to the bakery downstairs. well done, gal.

where's my head at?

i'm surprisingly stressed by the number on the scale. and i hate that.

what will i do this week?

it's houseguest time again. r.'s daughter is here, and when she leaves on tuesday, his son will show up. they're much easier (and fun!) to have around than strangers, but still disrupt our routines. on friday, i will head north to my rents for work for five days total. boo. not feeling like travelling yet again at all.

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

• monday, am: gym (2 rounds fat burning circle, as much cardio as i've got time, stretching)
  
• wednesday, am : (2 rounds fat burning circle, as much cardio as i've got time, stretching), pm: yoga class, sauna
  
• friday, am: gym (2 rounds strength circle, weights, as much cardio as i've got time, stretching)
• not sure yet, what i'll do while at my rents, can't run, so possibly some homemade bikram or sp.

weekly goals:

• stay away from the crosstrainer and be kind to my knees;
• really, really, really count points again;
• i suspect my portion size is totally crap, so i won't be doing "satiety portions" but actually weigh out all portions instead; and
• less fruit, more veges. and when and if i have fruit, always add some good fat for more satiety and to lessen the high.

the big issue.

this past month has been a bit rough. i travelled a lot, i worked a lot, i slept little. and then r. got stuck on the canary islands for an additional week because of the volcano whose name i am too lazy to google and copy and paste, and in the middle of it i realised that i was just a tad bit lonely. which i hadn't been in months. and it felt like my life before. before happiness, before weight loss, before r.

and damn, did that ever suck.

i suddenly realised that this lovely life that i have is pretty damn fragile. that while everything is so much better these days, deep deep down? nothing much has changed, really. and that realisation motivates me to work hard at enjoying and working on this beautiful, fragile life that i have. and to change.

shauny posted a quote by jen of  awesome sauce today, that really resonated with me:

"i don’t think i gained weight in order to hide from the world—i think that weight and size are much more complex issues than that. but i think it was comfortable and easy to let fat be my whole problem. and when i was left with no fat, but plenty of problems—i was the only one left to blame. it’s like i’ve cleaned out the flooded basement, which is great and all, but now i have to actually address the cause of the flooding, and it’s harder than you think.

[btw: my real basement is actually still full of stuff i should throw away unseen, because i haven't needed anything that's down there in, oh, two years. i am kinda scared of the stuff in my basement, though. as in: overwhelmed. that's why it's all still there. don't want to dig through it, because digging through it will remind me of those years i wasted in my twenties, which will make me sad.]

i wouldn't say that i've got plenty of problems. my life is pretty damn fine. and yet. my issues are still the same as they've always been. i am still me, even at 60lb (give or take) less. my ass is smaller (and it's so much more fun to move and dress it), but the rest of me is still, well, me: always laughing, always talking too loud, often over-excited and overly critical. and with depressive tendencies, fear of doing taxes and general anxiety about thefuture.

of course i am still me.

and yet i'm all shocked by that fact. that i am not a completely revamped, perfect person, but still me, just with more muscles, less fat. who would have thought that my actual self had little to do with that weight?

i just finished reading "when food is love" by geneen roth, which it's all about the fact that fat and food and how we deal with both is actually not about food and fat, but about love and pain and death. and yes, that is just as grim as it sounds.  the book had me nodding heavily in place and then recoiling in horror at others because it's just such a downer when someone suggests that you're the person you are because of some crap that happened when you were a kid...and yet all of it felt true.

when i eat too much lentils for dinner when i'm by myself these days, i am replaying what i did those afternoons alone at home when i was in junior high and would eat 2 cups of freshly cooked vanilla custard. i'm trying to fill a hole inside myself with warm, slurpy goodness. and yet that hole cannot be filled with food, ever. and of course i know, these days, that eating doesn't make that pain go away. it can only be dulled, never eradicated, by feeling stuffed.

in so many ways i'm still struggling with a lot of the crap i struggled with in my twenties (and my teens). and nothing will change if i don't change. because no one is responsible for my life but me.

three things of note.

• i eat when i am stressed. or unhappy or lonely. i eat until i am more than full. i really need to work this.
  
  
  
• i had an impromptu session with thomas last night, and we revamped my schedule. just a bit. i want some more definition, especially in my legs, and that's why i will be doing two fat burning circuit sessions and one weights/whatever i feel like-one instead of the other way round. and up my low intensity cardio. which means less time with sean, i'm afraid. which sucks. i'll work it out.
  
  monday am: run to the gym or warm up there (10 min), 2 rounds fat burning circle, pull up-work, knee strenghtening work, low intensity low impact cardio for as long as i've got time (i.e. hypoxi)
  monday pm: ashtanga yoga
  
  wednesday am: run to the gym or warm up there (10 min), 2 rounds fat burning circle, pull up-work, knee strenghtening work, low intensity low impact cardio for as long as i've got time (i.e. hypoxi)
  wednesday pm: kundalini yoga
  
  saturday: run to the gym or warm up there (10 min), 2 or 3 rounds weight circle, pull up-work, knee strengthening work, weights, vibraplate, cardio coach work out
  

• oh, and then i got into a fight with a new pt at my gym.
  
  his name is robert. he's young, early twenties, and working on nights that i'm not usually there. such as tuesdays. so he doesn't know me. doesn't know how much i work out, how much weight i've lost, what improvements i've made. thursday last week, i was just starting my cardio coach ride while casually chatting with a dude working out in that corner of the gym. we were talking about weights, and the guy said "yeah, but i actually don't care about lifting iron, i care more about being able to lift my body weight", which got us into talking pull up variations. at about that time, the pt joins us. the conversation is almost over, i put my headphones back in, while pt lingers, and he flexes his arm, i do it, too (as you do, at the gym), and he points to my triceps, points to his, makes a wobbling motion and laughs "well, your triceps sucks, like it does on so many women." no. i didn't laugh, either. later, as i was working on pull-ups, coached by another pt, he kept laughing about my not managing one. i explained to him that i was working on them because i couldn't do them, and that i expected coaching from him. not meanness, not jokes. "well, she's here", he said, poiting to a female pt, standing by. "she can cheer you on." he totally didn't get it, and i was flabbergasted. and fuming throughout the rest of my workout, pondering whether i should tell someone, like head of training, frank, straight away. i didn't, though, wanting to give robert the chance to apologise. so that was thursday.
  
  so he was at the gym again last night, says hi, asks whether i want to work on my pull-ups again, and i tell him that yes, i was going to work on my pull-ups. "and what about you?", i added. "planning on making unhelpful jokes about my triceps again?" he was all "i didn't mean it that way" to me. sorry. not enough.
  
  so i gave him a serious talk about his comment not being okay, about what it means to be fat and to feel like you are constantly judged by your body. and that the gym should be a safe-space (i chose this expensive, health-focused, mirrorless gym because it strives to be just that). a place of challenge, yes, but also of cheer and of constructive critism. and that jokes were uncalled for, unless you know someone well. and that he didn't know a single thing about me, and hence was in no position at all to joke about me or my effort.
  
  and you know what? he didn't say a single word in reply. he made some 'i'm listening'-sounds, but didn't say a word. didn't apologise. and then he ran off. i followed him, and completed what i wanted to say. and he was all "it's okay, it's okay", as if *i* had to be sorry. phew.
  
  i started working out, and five minutes later, frank, head of training, came over, and asked me, what had been up. and so i told him. and he agreed, that roberts' behaviour sucked. so there. loser.

goals for the week. [#11]

my weight on sunday morning:

64,7kg hello, bloat!

how was my week?

busy & lonely. can't wait for r. to finally, finally come home.

how did i do on my goals?

didn't set any.



nsv of the week:



i wore a shirt dress today, that i bought as one of my first skinny pieces (back in august '08, when i weighed 12kg more than i do now). it's huge. i shouldn't be surprised, i know. but i am. there was all this loose fabric around me, and i remember it being tight, not so very long ago. how odd.

where's my head at?

well. i've been lonely, this past week. and the week before as well. i need company, and proper me time and some loving. i'm pretty sure i won't crave chocolate that much then. and not eat until i'm uncomfortably full. the latter has been really weird. got to think about it some more and write about it.

what will i do this week?

work. sleep. have a date with r. get back into the swing of things. go to r.'s dad's 70th birthday on saturday.

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

• tuesday, pm: gym (40 minutes cardio coach, 2 rounds strength circle, weights, stretching)
  
• wednesday, am : (30 minutes cardio coach; 2 rounds fat burning circle, stretching), pm: yoga class, sauna
  
• friday, am: gym (30 minutes cardio coach, 2 rounds strength circle, weights, stretching)
• sunday: not sure yet; (40minutes cardio coach, and some kind a gym group class).
  

weekly goals:

• sleep more than 6 hours every night;
• work on my pull-ups;
  
• no baking; and
• eat reasonably at the birthday party.

sunday as a single.

today was pretty damn fine. went to the gym this morning, where i took a ride with sean o'malley and cardio coach volume 3 (and took challenge 2 twice, yay!) and then went to a bums, tums & thighs class, which i hadn't done in years.

it was supremely weird: this class was like pretty much every btt class i've ever been to, as if nothing about working out had changed in the past, oh, twelve years or so. it wasn't a bad workout per se, it just felt...inefficent. not because i didn't feel any burn (i did), but because it just didn't feel that challenging, or so. in any way: (and this'll sound weird, i know) it was actually kinda nice to look at myself in the mirror for an hour. never do this (i think i've mentioned before that my gym doesn't have a lot of mirrors), so i got a decent reality check as to the state of my muscles. i might feel bloated and chubby, but i am nowhere near.

so the bloat is still around, yes. the boobs are still there and feeling kinda full, and when i started riding the stationary bike this morn, my thighs were jiggling in a way that felt like something was sloshing around in there. which kinda hurt, too, but got better after some riding. weird.

so that's that. had some fine meals, even though i dug into my weekly allowance (i tracked the extra, go me!), worked for a couple of hours, finished tidying the place up. can't believe the guy is finally, finally coming back tomorrow night. i'll have to pick him up at the airport, which is a freakin' two and a half hour drive (and back!), so there won't be any gym going before work tomorrow. i really really need some sleep (actually took a one hour nap today, as well). and i need to finish an assignement tomorrow before work as well. gotta set priorities.

i'm actually really concerned about the driving. don't like driving that much at night (especially when i've been sleeping a

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s little as i have been these past few weeks). got no choice, will drink coffee and take caffeine pills and won't be alone for the trip back, so it'll be alright.

anyway: time for bed very very very soon.