cindy's world

Ugh, I am nauseated to an extreme from konking out early in the spare room and having a fitful, restless sleep haunted by conversations that never happened. *choke* You’d think people could just shake this stuff off, but I’ve so far been unable. So I thought I’d blog.

Work: We’re now engaged in a 3-4 week civil jury trial on a product liability case. The female plaintiff is suing the manufacturer of a pallet jack machine (kind of like one of those lawnmowers you can ride on, only it lifts pallets instead of cuts grass. You’ve probably seen one at Costco.) for taking off her feet. (You think YOU’ve had a bad day at work…least you got to keep your feet!)

Home: Mr. W is a defiant patient. He can’t sit still, doesn’t want to, and has been in an unfriendly mood due to the side effects of his medication. I was directed to tell him a story a judge in the building told me this morning, about just why patients are ordered not to exert themselves after a stent is put into a heart artery. Apparently, a new stent that hasn’t incorporated itself properly into the body yet can dislodge with strenuous exercise and “torpedo” into the heart. Instant death. Mr. W’s response: “Don’t tell me stuff like that! I was going to go back to the gym in a couple of weeks regardless of what the doctor said!” *sigh*

Dodo: Adorable. Furry. Perfect.

Me: Exhausted by day, insomniac by night. I’ve been aiming for a 9pm bedtime as in my short-term goals, but it feels like there is just not enough time in the evenings to get anything done! I’m usually able to be in bed by 9:30ish, but sleep doesn’t come just because I’m horizontal. I have been able to get out of bed by 6ish. Anticipation of a long drive in my great car listening to great stuff coming out of my speakers helps a lot. I’ve lost a couple of pounds on the scale, which really isn’t the goal, but I’ve also dropped some fraction of a percent in body fat, so I’m okay with that. (Yeah, my boobs are shrinking. Oh well.) I’ve managed to hit the gym every lunchtime this week except for today, when I had to work through lunch due to case complications. I hope to get in a long (3+ mile) jog this weekend to make up for it. I wish I had the iPod tuned up, but I’ll deal.

I’d like to point out the biggest lesson from Mr. W’s recent experience.

People are consistently shocked that HE of all people had the heart attack episode, and I’ve been hearing lots of comments about, “Tell him to eat a burger and fries, cuz clean livin’ didn’t make a difference at all.” I think what people are not realizing here is that the clean living and gymming was something I made him do and he’d only started this 2 years ago. The first year of our relationship was his fighting me with comments like, “Healthy food? Yech. Organic? Sounds like bland and tasteless to me. Salt IS a flavor! Give me more salt!” But now, after laying off the crap for awhile, he realizes how much better he feels without chemicals in his body and his tongue is finally able to distinguish all the great actual flavors between ingredients. That’s the immediate advantage of cleaning up your food intake. (I’m still working on reduction of his espresso intake and alcoholic beverages, but at least he stopped the crazy energy drinks!)

In his situation, everyone in his family (both parents, all brothers) has a genetic predisposition for high cholesterol, hypertension. They’re on many prescription drugs to handle this. Some people’s livers just don’t handle cholesterol intake well — can’t filter it out, keeps producing more of it. Mr. W was determined to not get on meds, so he relied on maintaining his weight. You guys know he’s in great physical shape, which is NOT indicative of what’s flowing in his arteries. A 95% blockage in his main heart artery, plus 40-50% blocks in many different places in his body according to the operating cardiologist, means plaque build-up starting from his early 20s. If he wanted to rely on diet/exercise alone, he would’ve had to start way back then, not just two years ago.

Most health problems in people’s 40s and 50s start developing in the late teens, which is something I realized in college, so rather than count on the advent of a time machine in the future, I decided to take matters into my own hands early and do the preventative thing. I haven’t had fast food in years, and I can’t remember the last time I had a soda. I did eat at In-N-Out this month (my only exception to fast food because it’s fresher and less processed), but I only got the burger and skipped the fries and soda. I’m assuming most people don’t have the dramatic genetic predispositions of Mr. W’s family, so maybe you don’t quite have to go back SO FAR in time to make a difference. I’m gonna say, DO IT NOW.

Don’t have a future day of, “If I only knew then what I know now.” You KNOW. Do it.

1.) Drop 1.5% body fat. (Now that I’ve reached the weight I want, I’m still not happy with certain areas of flab and I think 22% body fat is generous enough. But knowing my body, if I succeed in ridding 1.5% it’ll all come off my boobs. *sigh*)
2.) Go to bed at 9pm. (I expect to be laying there bored and fully awake for hours. And I’ll sorely miss my 11pm “Friends” episode.)
3.) Get up in the mornings at 6am. (That’s only half an hour earlier than I get up now anyway. Plus I’m gonna need the extra half hour as I’ll be driving alone to work for the next couple months and I won’t have the benefit of the carpool lane.)

Goal deadline: end of April, 09.

Cuz, Florida, here I come! =) (Jordan better have already put in for the time off like she said she would.) There’s a 3-hour time difference between CA and FL, and I don’t want my gracious hostess to be all exhausted as I’m still bouncing around going, “Come ON! It’s only 9pm in California! Let’s go DO something!” We expect to run around Disney World, etc. like a couple of crazy people, taking photographic evidence of our antics. Oh, that reminds me:

4.) Stay healthy and uninjured. (Yesterday, my parents came over and played Wii…

and I watched them from my vantage point at the top of the stairs. Occasionally I’d hear an “OW!” from my mom when my dad accidentally punched her during Wii boxing, and he’d say, “Look where you’re standing! You started THERE and now you’re in my space HERE!” So my mom would hop to her right a few steps. And then later I heard shouts of “Shoot Obama! You gotta shoot Obama!” so I went again to investigate. Turned out they were playing a target shooting game against each other and my dad was using an Obama Mii and my mom was Charlie Brown. I thought I’d warn them to keep their voices down before the Secret Service or FBI come blasting in our front door, but first I bent to sit on the top of the stairs, and somehow in bending forward I almost plunged headfirst down the stairs. I saved myself and regained my balance quickly, looked down and saw everyone was too absorbed in the Wii gaming to have noticed me, and retreated back upstairs into the bedroom. =P My hands were tingling from my near-death experience for the next few minutes.)

Someone had suggested to me a long time ago to photo-journal my workouts at the gym, but I never did because they don’t allow cameras or cameraphones in my gym.  Yesterday, however, I thought I’d take some photos.  Gym Trainee and I threw the cameraphone around between sets.

You see how my Nike gloves match my shoes? Huh? Huh? It wasn’t on purpose.

Push, Gym Trainee! Push! Or, err, something less maternity-ward sounding.

Pull, Gym Trainee! Pull!

I love the look of determination on her face. Like a woman with a mission.

I had kind of a crappy workout, despite the smile. I thought I may have been anemic, but then afterwards I realized it was cuz I skipped breakfast and hadn’t had lunch yet. =P

Vicky offered to sign up for a half-marathon with me. I want to do the Pacific Shoreline run in Huntington Beach (cuz it’s pretty scenery and it’s nice cool ocean weather). I had already run two 5Ks there. Their finisher medals are also pretty cool-looking, metal surfboards. We’ve got one year to train. I think it’s a nice goal. Altho the last half-marathon I ran, I didn’t train fully for it and lost a toe nail. Yech.

I’d expected my weight to go up a bit when I started hitting the weights again, but holy crapola, it went up almost 5 pounds this year!  And I’ve been hitting the gym consistently, too.  I am now terrified I’m gonna get into the next “tens” on the scale.  That is simply NOT acceptable. 

I assume what happened is that as I stopped working out, the weight didn’t go up significantly because more horrifically, my body was losing its heavier muscle and gaining lighter fat pounds.  My inches increased without the scale budging much.  Now that I’m putting the muscle back on, they’ll  need more time to start burning off the new fat, so I’ll be heavier with the increased fat and increased muscle until the proportions tip over the other way, and then my fat percentage will drop more quickly.

I haven’t been eating poorly, so all I can think to do is increase my cardio.

I’m also clinging desperately to the hope that I’m just bloated right now due to “that time.”  My boobs certainly feel tender, rounder and heavier.  (Sorry for the TMI, but that’s my hormone litmus test: grabbing my boobs.)  I hope the pounds will fall off the scale in another week or so.

***

But I would be SO HOT in Mississippi.  Where does your state rank in the Fattest States of 2008?

The Santa Ana winds came back last night. Each new gust would start as distant rustling, like a forest of leaves moving around. Then, in seconds, it reaches us in a whoosh and roar and the house would rattle in response. A high-pitch whistling also accompanies the sounds, along with clunks, rattling, sounds of scraping as people’s outdoor belongings fly around the street as if caught up in the dance of a tornado. I stumbled down at 3am to rescue my little avocado tree, which had indeed fallen over at the front door. It’s just inside our front door now.

This pretty and bright morning proved a great day to not go to work. I left the house about 8:15a and drove almost 2 hours to Pasadena for my 10am appointment with Dentist Andy. I made sure to bring a box of assorted glamour cookies for him and his staff, because the crazy guy is working today on his 34th birthday. We hugged hello, chatted a bit about his recent vacation to our homeland in Asia, and made plans for a group brunch this weekend in one of his favorite restaurants. “Gotta warn you though, the food is really good, but pretty rich.”
I hesitated just a moment and then resolved the internal conflict with, “That’s okay, I’ll just run my 6 miles beforehand.”
Almost 20 minutes later while he was working on my teeth, he said, as if it just hit him, “Do you really run 6 miles?!”
I just said “Ah-hah” which is the best I could do since sharp things were in my mouth preventing me from explaining that I used to run way more than that and am working my way up to it again. Besides, I’ve run 5K twice last week; nothing says I can’t do a 10K by the weekend.

The 50+ mile drive back home was only an hour long, now that I was past the morning traffic rush. I think I tanned, sitting in the car that long in 86-degree sun. Now that I’m home, I’ve cut up some carrots, onions, mushrooms and beef to throw in the slow cooker, and was going to use red potatoes but realized that their normal storage spot on top of the fridge (thanks to Mr. W) has been conducive to sprouting. Very, very conducive. So now I’m online researching how toxic sprouted potatoes are, before I ruin an entire pot of stew. (I learn that the sprouts are poisonous, but not the potato itself. I’ll know I didn’t successfully cut out all the sprouts if Mr. W gets headache, nausea, fatigue, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Stay tuned! >:) )

My immediate future plans: get the stew going, hit the gym, come home when Mr. W arrives from work, have stew. If I can get all those things done I’d feel productive today.

As pleasantly surprised as I was at my cardio ability yesterday, I was inversely dismayed at how weak my abs are today. I wonder how I even sit up in the mornings. Nevertheless, I hit the weights, did 3 sets of each major muscle group in resistance training, 5 minutes of stairclimber, bunch of abs. That cute little inspiring DA smiled at me and settled into the ab bench next to me. MAN I felt fat next to her. Well, in time…

Meanwhile with two workouts under my belt, I’ll feel less guilty about seeing my friends. I met up with Anny last nite and had a tasty shrimp angelhair pasta in a light tomato cream sauce, and today I’m meeting up with Vicky at her new house (which I’ve never seen), then catching some drinks and maybe dinner with Dwaine after that. As I’m heading to Vicky’s directly after work, I made sure to bring a change of clothes that are looser-fitting for food and alcohol consumption.

(photo of the beautiful 5’2″ Alyssa Milano courtesty of www.sofeminine.co.uk)

I haven’t had a meaningful workout since before the wedding. Yup, you heard me right. Some days after the wedding in early September I stood in front of the mirror staring at my smaller boobs and the bones poking out disgustingly in between them, while grabbing and jiggling the omnipresent lower abdominal fat roll, and thought, “Geez, I can’t lose any more fat, I already look kinda gross and my curves are disappearing, and it’s apparent my body isn’t gonna burn up fat from where I WANT it to burn up.” So I decided that I’d rather put on a few more pounds and bring the curves back. Rather than being gross AND lumpy, I could just be lumpy. In the following 3 months the holiday chaos made working out at lunchtime pretty difficult; either I’ve had to work through lunch, or Gym Trainee (my ride) had to, or we both just didn’t feel like gymming and would take a brisk walk around the neighborhood instead. Our handful of gym days produced unmotivated and uninspired workouts. Knowing I wasn’t giving it my all in the calories spent area, I made an effort to control the calories taken in. The results aren’t bad; I probably gained 2-3 pounds since before Thanksgiving, maybe 8 overall since the wedding. My weight and fat percentage are acceptable, but I’d like to look more toned, so I knew I was gonna have to find my motivation somewhere.

New Year’s Day, Gym Trainee and her son woke up at our house from spending New Year’s Eve with us. More acurately, with me; Mr. W spent much of the evening playing a computer game while the remaining 3 of us hung out. He explained it was the only way he could stay awake. He eventually, after deflecting half a dozen death glares from me, left the computer and came to sit with us in the living room, and then called it quits and went to bed at 11p. So I rang in the new year with Gym Trainee and my godson with Martinelli sparkling cider. I’d actually missed the transition and countdown while I was in the kitchen struggling with the bottle opener. Oh well. I’ve had worse new years. So anyway, New Year’s Day we watched a marathon of The Biggest Loser, Season 3, and Gym Trainee and I got so inspired to work out. She has this week off on vacation, but promised to hit the gym and catch up on her cardio training on her own so that we can meaningfully weightlift next week when she returns. I’d invited Mr. W to go on a jog with me that day after our guests left, but he declined. You see, he was not as inspired because instead of watching The Biggest Loser with us after watching the 120th annual Pasadena Rose Parade, he was in the backyard digging big holes and planting rose trees. I look forward to all the colors that will pop up next spring.

Over the weekend Mr. W and I discovered a new show called “What Would You Do?” or something like that, in which 3 “out of shape” people in each episode are faced with a simulated disaster and they have to go through a sort of obstacle course to survive the disaster, or save a loved one. Like, there’s been a major earthquake while you’re at a movie theatre and various things collapsed. They had to climb over some collapsed theatre chairs, pull 5 sandbags off a large wooden box blocking the pathway, then pull the box out of the way, get down and crawl underneath a low obstruction, then up some narrow fire stairs after pulling a beam out of their way. Or they’re driving along an unpopulated road when they blow a tire and skid into a pile of stuff on the side of the road. The driver has to run around to the passenger side, pull a 250-lb barrel out of the way, grab the passenger (a dummy) who simulates a loved one knocked unconscious and carry/drag it 100 feet away in case the car blew up, then jog the 1 mile up the dirt road to a gas station where they could call for help. (I, too, was thinking, “Why don’t they have a cell phone?!”) Of course everyone fails the challenge the first time around, either because they couldn’t complete it or they took longer than the time allotted which is calculated by how long it would take an average “fit” person to complete the scenario. Then the 3 people are monitored by a doctor provided by the show, given nutritional training and fitness training by three Marine Corp drill sergeants (the hot young one was also a kinesiologist) for one month, and then they get to repeat the challenge. Most of them pass this time, or get really close.
Mr. W and I were like, “MAN. I wanna do those challenges and see how well we do!!! Why don’t they have stuff like this for non-obese people?!”

Today, the postage stamp sized iPod Shuffle that Mr. W gave me our first Xmas together is finally charged after years of neglect, and I was inspired to push myself. Just a little, though, don’t want to burn out. I figured I’d see if I can run a mile on the treadmill and then do some light weights. Ideally I’d do more cardio than that, especially when I haven’t conditioned my cardiovascular system for so long, but I didn’t want to get discouraged right off the bat. I started a light and easy jog pace. To my surprise, a mile flew by and I was so spirited I felt like I could run forever. Each new song I hadn’t heard in so long pumped new adrenaline and excitement into my veins so that as my hands tingled with it, I wanted to sprint right off the treadmill and through the walls. Everything was motivating; the large women on the elliptical trainers in front of me struggling through their new year’s resolution, Kanye West talking in my ear telling me to “work it, make it, do it, makes us, harder, better, stronger, faster,” and that what “don’t kill me can only make me stronger,” and seeing in my mind that I was running toward my goal, the look I want in tangible forward-running steps so that if I just run those steps it will lead me to looking how I dream (forgetting for the moment that I’d need liposuction in certain areas to actually make that happen).
And then mile 2 hit and I was bored. I took a sip of water which threw off my breathing, and I had to struggle for concentration again. Step step inhale, step step exhale. Mr. W appeared in front of me another half mile later, pale and dewey. “I’m spent,” he complained. “How much more’ve you got?”
I glanced down at my digital stats. “I’m working toward a 5K,” I explained in a stronger voice than I thought I had the energy to produce. I saw his eyes flutter wider in surprise. “I didn’t mean to — I was just hoping to do a mile, but I felt good, so…”
“That’s good, I’m gonna go shower and if I’m done first I’ll wait for you,” he said eagerly, and limped off toward the men’s locker room.

Well, I finished that 5K (3.12 mile) run and walked another eighth of a mile for a cooldown, teetered off the treadmill, and wobbled my way into the locker room, where I ran into a really cute new district attorney a few years younger than me, a little shorter than me, who has the anomaly of sharing my last name. I thought I saw her on another treadmill farther down but wasn’t sure, and now that I see her in her tight jogging clothes I thought, “I have GOT to look like that.”

Look who’s back to his old self…!

Whose back is this? Is it…is it…

*gasp* it IS!@#$

On our day off Tuesday, the vet called and did a followup phone interview. I told him that Dodo was still rubbing his eye on stuff and actually scratched his right eyelid bloody. He said he had time if we want to bring Dodo in for Plan B: cortisone shot. I asked what the side effect would be and he said that cats tolerate this steroid very well; if there are any side effects whatsoever, it would be Dodo drinking more water and going pee more, and that’s it. So we brought him in. Dodo was NOT happy to be back in his cat carrier, and even madder to go for another hated car ride. He was SO loud complaining in the car that I recorded him yowling and sent it as a voice message to Jordan and Flat Coke & Flies. (If you have Verizon cell service, I can send it to you, too. Just ask or email me.) Jordan was like, “What did you do?!”
So anyway, a quick shot later, he came back in the carrier and we were instructed that this isn’t a magic shot so to not take the cone off cold turkey; we were to do it under supervision in small increments. If it does work, the vet said, we’d notice it between a few days to a week, and the effect should last from multiple weeks to 6 months or so. I hope so, because my court reporter told me today that these things tend to be damaging to kidneys. Today is day 3 and Mr. W noticed Dodo seems less interested in having his face scratched. So we tried taking the cone off for the first time since the shot. He did clean himself quite a bit, but this time, even though I still feel the attention he gave his eyes were more brutal than a normal cat, he didn’t scratch himself bloody! YAY! We may have found a temporary solution. I’m so happy he looks like a normal cat now. Mr. W can stop with the stupid martini jokes finally.
He is drinking a lot of water, tho. Hope his kidneys are gonna be okay.

Isn’t he bootyful?

Mr. W is VERY excited to have a normal cat, as you can see.

Yup, that’s what he’s doing next to me as I blog this.

Murphy’s Law –
I finally get to my lowest weight since, like, forever, and the month before the wedding, my period comes 4 days late. The month OF the wedding, my period comes 2 days late. This pushes the bloating to DURING the wedding. I try to make myself feel better saying I’m 118.5 lbs at the wedding, 22.5% body fat, that’s not that bad. And then 1 night AFTER the wedding (i.e., late last nite), menstrual symptoms subside and I pee like mad. This morning, I’m 116 lbs and 21% body fat. ARGH! I’m gonna look bigger in all the wedding photos. *sob* At least my skin didn’t break out. And the wedding went by so fast and so much in the dark maybe people didn’t notice.