cindy's world

Mr. W’s suggestion on the diet portion of my weight loss attempt: eat all my meals, small amounts of calories per meal, and when I’m eating out with him, we’re splitting a meal. So yesterday was day 2 of the strictly limited caloric intake.

Breakfast: Mr. W made bacon (3 strips, which I wrapped and patted in paper towels first, and peeled off some of the fat), banana-nut french toast (I skipped both butter and syrup) and a grapefruit-grape-apple-garlic-onion-scallions-raw oyster-lawngrass smoothie. (Okay, it wasn’t that bad. But it was darn healthy and I chewed a lot of fiber in the beverage.)

Lunch: We split a BBQ pork po-boy sandwich from The Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney. It came with fries, which I ate probably 3 or 4 of, and a Diet Coke. This was, of course, before Erin informed me in her comment that Diet Cokes make you fat by increasing your appetite. Oh wait. I just remembered that he introduced me to Beignets, which is “A New Orleans classic. French donuts deep fried and topped with powdered sugar.” I had 2 little squares. That was my sin for the day.

Dinner: He made a buffalo chicken patty on a whole wheat bun with a ton of raw little baby carrots on the side. I ate so many baby carrots (I was STARVING by that time) that I woke up this morning expecting my skin to be orange. Baby carrots are amazingly delicious when they’re really cold straight out of the fridge.

Dieting sucks.

Okay. So. My trainee had a doctor’s appointment today, which allowed me to go to the closer gym. I got there early, ran 3 miles on the treadmill plus 1 lap cool-down. Then I hit the weights for 30 minutes, crammed 5 exercises in. I was sweating like a pig (do pigs sweat a lot? or are they referring to cops? like when a cop’s overweight from all the donut-munching that they’re sweaty and out of breath chasing a suspect for half a block? of course I’m just saying this to jab at all the sheriffs who work with me), I even got a blister one the side of a toe, just like I used to when I packed on the running mileage. The run was still terribly boring and seemed to last forever. I couldn’t wear my MP3 player until after the run cuz any contact with anything would cause it to reset, and as it was, it reset 3 times when I was doing weights. I need to get a better MP3 player. Any recommendations? The music was very helpful in hyping me up. Weights feel lighter with “I wanna fk you like an animal, I wanna feel you from the inside…” screaming in my ears.

Food count so far:
Breakfast – 1.5 cups Silk vanilla flavored soy milk (150 calories)
Snack – Chocolate Amond Biscotti ZonePerfect bar (210 calories)
Post-Workout Lunch – Chocolate Peanut Butter ZonePerfect bar (210 calories)

570 calories…that’s a lot, consider how little food that is! I expect to receive a phone call soon from Mr. W saying, “WHAT? That’s all you ate all day?! You need to eat more!”

In late 2002 or early 2003, I was at the gym and something my ex-roommie Brian, who was training a client near me, said to me caused me to respond, “Hell, I’m even scared to jog by the KFC cuz knowing my body, I’d smell the fried food and my body would take that scent molecule and turn it into a fat cell.”

I think my body also takes happiness and turns that into fat cells.

I have gained 15 pounds since the 2nd week of September. Actually, I think it’s the accumulation of lots of factors.
1.) Training someone at the gym means I’m not getting my usual 20 mins cardio plus 6-7 exercises every lunch. Because I have to go to a farther gym to train my coworker, that also cuts into the lunch hour. A typical session of ours is like 8 minutes of cardio warmup, 3 exercises with weights. (Which is why I don’t understand how she’s losing all this weight and gaining such great muscle tone.)
2.) Before the summer was over, in addition to my great noontime workouts, I used to do jujitsu 4 evenings a week, 2 hours per evening. I’m now down to 2.
3.) For 1.5 weeks straight before Cancun, I had to work thru every lunch and stay overtime till 7:30p and come in 2 Saturdays. That means no evening workouts and no noontime workouts. That must’ve greatly slowed my metabolism to cut out all exercise that suddenly.
4.) During Cancun, altho we worked out (HARD) twice a day, we were eating gourmet food probably cooked in lard, and I was pigging out cuz it was all-inclusive, so the working out did not offset the sluggish metabolism and the extra calories.
5.) I haven’t changed my eating habits to match my significantly less intensive exercise regimen.
6.) I’m happy, which means I have a great appetite. I’ve never dropped weight so fast as when I was going thru the crap the ex put me thru; I had no energy, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep at nite, and all I did at lunch was sleep in the jury room as my escape. My body dropped 20 lbs in a month.

Anyway, I am determined to lose the 15 pounds I’ve gained. Which means
* no junk food, period. I am applying the same stubbornness I had when I said, “Soda has 7 teaspoons of sugar per can?!” and stopped drinking soda for 9 years until I discovered Diet Coke.
* trying to get to the gym 10 mins earlier at lunch to get 20 mins of cardio in on M, W, F before I start training sessions w/my coworker
* running 3-4 miles T, R, and one weekend day (which is no problem because I’m sure Mr. W wouldn’t mind running with me)

Wish me luck! I’m sick of not fitting in my size twos.

I had an early morning outdoor run with Mr. W today. This is the first time I’d run outdoors in probably a year or more. He said the run’s 3 miles. It’s a very nice open area to run in where he lives. Not a lot of traffic or noise, lots of park-like settings, grass, trees, people walking their dogs, people playing sports. Altho I hit 4 miles on the treadmill a couple of times already, I really wondered whether I could pull off a real outdoor run. It was weird. My brain wanted me to quit, probably out of boredom, but I listened carefully to my body and my body was doing fine.

My mind’s tellin’ me no,
But my body, my body’s tellin’ me yes, baby
I don’t wanna hurt nobody
But there’s something I must confeeeeeess…
I don’t see nuthin’ wrong…

Yup, R. Kelly’s what went thru my mind as I analyzed the fact that my breathing’s fine, the oxygen-exchange is efficient, my legs weren’t aching, but my head just wanted to stop. However, I’m happy to report, I didn’t. And completed the run. At the end, Mr. W gave me a middle-high-5, Special Olympics style. YAY! Good job, me!

The doctor I saw at after-hours Urgent Care just happened to be an OB/GYN on the regular staff who just happened to be volunteering for Urgent Care as a part of a pilot outreach program because she normally works regular hours. She was wonderful. Usually I’m happy if they believe what I’m saying and give me the prescription I need, but this one took me under her wing, said it was ridiculous that I go thru this at this frequency and she needs to find out what’s causing it so we can do actual effective prophylactic measures, instead of me doing everything I can to prevent it and still going thru this with this frequency. I asked her what other measures I could take. She said she believes I’m doing everything I can on my own already, so she’s going to see to it that we figure this out at the root and she’s going to keep tabs on me. We talked in detail about some stuff and I learned a lot of things I didn’t know about the “traumas” that would lead to my recurring ailment. She had me do another culture, ordered extra tests, and put me on a new medication. She also gave me her number at work and told me to schedule with her directly so we can get this under control or refer me to a specialist if it turns out to be bigger than she anticipates.

I could cry! I may be done with this crap soon! Yay!

P.S. The medication I’m on, I apparently can’t have dairy with. Or calcium or magnesium, i.e. vitamins. Wow. I’d never heard of restrictions like that. I’ve never wanted ice cream more. Except the time I was on a diet.

Sounds creepy, doesn’t it? “The Waiting Room.” Thunder and lightning, loss of electricity, then a strange glow moves from one window to another. Only when the patients and small Kaiser staff realize they’re locked inside the waiting room does the aging head of the nursing staff find it necessary to inform all present of the gory murder/suicide of another staff member and a patient years ago, and of the strange, inexplicable occurrences since then…the bloody handprints on a ceiling too high for any of the staff to reach, the missing scalpels, the DNA retrieved from tuft of hair last week which matched the DNA of the murdered patient dead and buried half a decade before…
***
Okay, well anyway, lemme tell you of MY waiting room experience. My appointment was at 5:50p, so I thought if I got there early, I’d be seen early. Wrong. For nearly an hour I sat in extraordinary stillness watching the kids run amock around me as patients who checked in after me were called in. Next to the check-in windows was a flu shot table. The bored nurses giving the flu shots invited various patrons to their table with shouts of, “You get a flu shot this year already, honey? Ya want one? We just need to see your Kaiser card, dear. Don’t worry, we don’t bite. We just sting a little. Ha, ha.” People entering the waiting room for entirely unrelated ailments wafted to the flu table on pure whim. I was especially interested in the mother dragging her two sons in, ages 8 and 11 (I evesdropped…er…overheard). The mother made some inquiry to the counter, and the employee’s response was that the flu shots here are for adults only. The overweight mother looked annoyed and said, pointing to her knee brace, “I just dragged them all the way from pediatrics Building C down here, and I AM NOT going to climb stairs again!” The nurse at the flu station stood and asked the kids’ ages, then said, “Yeah, that’s okay, we’ll do ’em.” The younger boy immediately started to panic. “I AM NOT going to have a shot! I DON’T WANT a shot!” He gripped the counter and started to cower underneath it. The mother dragged him out and I didn’t hear what she said over the older boy’s declaration of, “You LIED to us!” The boys were eventually forced over to the flu table and the mother gripped the younger one, turned his head to herself, as the wailing started. “Look at your mom, it’ll be over with real quick,” the nurse with the big needle said to the boy. Almost before the wailing reached its full fever-pitch, the nurse was done with the shot. The boy was left looking rather sheepish as another boy about his age, in line with his own mom behind this boy, said, “I’m ready for my shot. I ain’t no chicken.”

There were several moments when the flu shot table was entirely open with no one in line. I have never taken a flu shot and I rarely get the flu. I’ve always reasoned it was unnecessary for me to pay the $25 to the mobile nurse that comes to the courthouse every year to administer flu shots, because I’d likely be sick from my immune response to the shot whereas if I chanced it, I wouldn’t even catch the flu. My parents had gotten flu shots before and both of them were sick as dogs. (I personally have never seen a dog sick, but if the saying has any logical backing, dogs apparently get very, very sick.) I figure my genetics are similar to theirs so my body would react the same way. Another genetic thing passed down from them to me tho — the Asian thrift gene. Despite my severe dislike of needles and all practical aversion to getting flu shots, I found myself seriously contemplating going to the table because, well, the flu shots were free. Even if I don’t need it nor want it, here is a hospital facility offering something that is normally in high demand — for free. And there’s no line.

What eventually saved me from taking up that painful and unnecessary offer was seeing an Asian woman and her son, who had received their flu shots about 10 minutes prior, come back into the room and walk up to the flu table. She asked the nurse some question. The nurse responded, “This is just the regular standard flu shot that they give us every year.” The woman said something else. The nurse replied, “No, it doesn’t protect you against anything specialized…no, it’s not the bird flu vaccine…well, the bird flu isn’t even in the United States yet…if it gets here, we’ll have to do something about it then, but right now you don’t gotta worry about it cuz it’s not here…” The woman eventually left with her son. I knew that the Asian newspapers and TV news and their overblown propaganda had gotten to her and she was uninformed as a lot of these Asian housewife types are. The Asian thrift gene suddenly lost its pull on me.

I took the day off of work yesterday. I called my supervisor and explained that my bad infection of a couple weeks ago, for which I’d recently finished my entire 10-day round of medication, did not go away.

Today is much worse than yesterday, altho I did struggle in to work. I feel like my entire lower half is revolting against me, and the pain is keeping me from being able to even straighten up. I’d been breaking out in cold sweat all morning, and now I’m on hold with Kaiser trying to get an after-hours appointment. I’ve been on hold for 11 minutes 35 seconds as I type this. Not good. If it’s this busy now, there’s probably no appointment times left today. UGH. I feel like crap.

Update:
Got an appointment for 5:50p this evening. It’s a bit late, but I’m desperate.

I kicked some serious butt in jujitsu last nite. I’m itching to actually hurt someone. Went thru a round of backhand hits, front snap-kicks and punches this morning before getting ready for work.

Jimmy, I know how to handle a choke-hold from behind now. Let’s try it again in 3 weeks when I get up there.

I was feeling so good driving back after lunch. Encouraged by my successful 5K run last week, I figured I’d go for a 4-miler today. I did 4 miles (in 42 mins) plus another lap for cooldown, and aside from the boredom, it wasn’t painful at all. Took a nice hot shower at the gym, chit-chatted with a coworker who was also getting ready to come back to work, drove back to work feeling productive, pulled into the parking structure, parked, turned off the ignition, reached over for my purse. Not there. I looked in and under my gym bag. Nope. Damn it, I left my PURSE at the GYM in the LOCKER! As it was the end of the lunch hour already, I considered going in and checking in first, but instead just backed out the car and went back to the gym. Luckily, it was still there hanging on the hook in the locker. Drove back to work. Walking from the structure back into the c0urthouse, now almost 15 minutes late, I saw one of my supervisors outside overseeing the unloading of some equipment into the front door. DAMN! I walked by him and explained what happened with my purse in a sort of rant. Went to the elevator, waited for the doors to open. Another clerk walked up to me. “Hi. You missed the meeting.” “WHAT meeting?” “The employee meeting at lunch today!” DAMN IT. That meeting date had been postponed so many times that I forgot it was today. I told her, “I just passed by [supervisor] outside and he didn’t say anything.” She said, “Well, he probably didn’t notice you weren’t there. There were so many people there that you may have gotten away with not showing up.” “Except for the fact that I already CONFESSED to him outside that I was at the gym!” I said.

I thought I was functioning so well today, having been up and at ’em since 2:30 a.m.. Instead, it turns out I’m totally absent-minded. As we say in Mandarin, “Toh nau xao yi gun jing,” or “Brain missing one neuron.” Colloquilly (if that’s even a word), roughly, “One card short of a full deck.” Yup. That’s me.

The plan:
4pm – come back from Kaiser, eat something healthy like oatmeal and take my first pill (they gave me Nitrofurantoin Macro instead of my usual Macrobid, hope it works the same)
4:15pm – sort and do at least the load of laundry that includes my gi cuz that sucker needs to hang dry 2 days
4:45pm – while laundry’s going, shower
5:15pm – watch TV and do laundry in jammy mode, curl up in bed and watch DVDs on my laptop, maybe take up on Mr. W’s offer to go over there so he can take care of me (since I need to be there by 10a tomorrow anyway)

The reality:
4pm – stopped by Boba Loca and got a large green tea frapp w/boba and a fat free blueberry muffin (green tea’s got antioxidants…)
4:30pm – finished eating above items and popped a pill while watching TV on the couch downstairs
7:15pm – woke up on couch, read on prescription insert “This medicine may cause drowsiness. Do not drive, operate machinery, or do anything else that could be dangerous…”
7:45pm – drag myself upstairs to open windows and relieve the 90-degree stale air in the house, and to sort and do laundry
8:10pm – still laying on my face on my bedroom floor, next to unsorted bag of dirty laundry
8:11pm – get on phone w/Mr. W; lots of whining about how I can feel my organs when I’m laying flat and how my skin and hair hurt. Listen to his threats to call my parents and tell them what a bad patient I am and how I’m not taking care of myself. Sort laundry.
9:15pm – first load of laundry is in the washer. I hang up w/Mr. W and keep laying on my face, alternating with laying on my back, unable to fight the unusually strong pull of gravity this evening
9:30pm – shower, do nighttime routine
10pm – laundry is in the dryer; gi is hung up to dry, and I’m blogging. And annoyed because I haven’t gotten my stuff ready for all the stuff on the agenda this weekend. ARGH. Need to fill out stupid forms to volunteer for Special Olympics tomorrow in Fountain Valley. And get clothes ready for that event, my cousin Diana’s b-day thing after that, and for Sunday’s trip to UCLA, and Sunday evening’s dinner w/roommie Diana. ARGH! The stress is making all my organs hurt again.