Aortic Massacre

Have you ever seen the movie Kill Bill? Imagine the most gory, gruesome, brutal scene and that's how any part of my body striving for health and well-being was brought to an untimely death. Capillaries carrying anti-oxidants, vitamins, and minerals had their heads violently lobbed off by three cheese pasta given free reign while I slept and held the endorphins at bay. Why would anyone release such an attack on their body? Why would anyone want to make themselves a victim and treat the very vessels that carry us from place to place, day to day, making life worth living, as if it was a flesh colored hefty bag of crap?
I haven't figured out the answer to that question. Maybe that's why Lindsay Lohan is a cutter and Johny Knoxville plays with poisonous snakes.
I had a pretty good week of walking a mile during my lunches, swimming laps or walking on the treadmill and eating fairly decent food. By the time the weekend rolled around, I was actually feeling pretty good. The slip up started slowly and I'm not sure which is sitting heavier on my heart right now, the guilt, or the glut.
I had known Friday was going to be a "free day" of sorts for me as that is the day that we officially ran out of all edible food in our apartment so it would become dinner and a movie night.
I could have left it at that.

It started when I didn't eat the cereal I had measured and packed for my lunch. Instead, I went out to Chik-Fil-A to celebrate the end of a photo shoot in which I walked back and forth with a clothing rack. The shoot was a blast and lunch was fun. It wasn't completely horrible that I did that. I could have done better elsewhere, but when dinner rolled around, I was "gnaw off my own arm" starving. We arrived at Roadhouse and my recent love of peanuts was satiated, but then we also got an appetizer... loaded with cheese. My meal of choice? The Rattlesnake Pasta, a certain creamy death with a dash of jalapeno spice. It was excellent, of course, but we still got a large soda and popcorn at the movie theater. In my defense, we didn't really eat any popcorn. Still.The plan was that the next day, we would replenish our fridge and I would cook a meal that didn't land quite as close to an early grave. After taking the dogs to the dog park, making a lunch of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (are we seeing a trend here?) we ended up doing a whole lot of shopping that had nothing to do with groceries. SO. Pizza for dinner. In a vane attempt to not be a glutton, I got a thin crust mushroom pizza- small. But I polished that off with a few buffalo wings.

My only saving grace for Saturday was my dedication to going to the gym. I spent 35 minutes swimming laps and an hour on the treadmill- burning over 500 calories and obliterating my fried cheese lunch sandwich and soup. I ended up feeling that Saturday had actually been fairly successful...

Sunday, bloody Sunday. If I could just go back to that morning and redo the mess that I made, I would be so happy. First of all, I didn't work out at all. We didn't even take the dogs to the park. We got up and both polished off the remaining pizza, which we didn't even enjoy to begin with, and headed out for more shopping. We finally had food and supplies and all the other things we had been needing for way too long now and after a late night Saturday, we got in fairly late Sunday. We swung by the Wendy's that's practically an extension of our apartment on the way home. That alone was all I really needed to eat for the rest of the night.... but we ended up going out to "dinner" (squared?) at Applebees around 10:15 at night. I haven' t been to an Applebees in a long time and I wasn't sure what I wanted, but the waitress was ready to take our order so I spit out the first thing that I would have chosen if I didn't need to worry about my food slowly killing me and sucking out my will to live--
Wait--would have chosen? That's what I did choose.
Sigh.
Then I went to bed.

I started my week this week no better. I actually thought that I wasn't doing too bad. I got up earlier than usual. Not early enough to work out, but early enough not to go to work looking completely haggard. I walked a mile at lunch-- but I didn't eat my cereal. I waited too long to eat and was too hungry so I went to Subway.
I entered all of my dinner information into the computer to calculate how much I needed to eat to save myself from that mistake. But I just ate whatever I wanted from our tostada platter, anyway. I polished off almost two small bags of cookies while answering emails and writing to friends and ate way too much of the bad stuff (aka sour cream) during dinner. I topped the night off by skipping the gym and watching "Hell's Kitchen" on the Food Network. Seems fitting somehow, doesn't it? I told myself that at least I would do better tomorrow. I would go to bed earlier, get up earlier-- tomorrow is fresh with no mistakes in it...
Except now its 10:53 and I won't be making it into bed until 11:30.

Oh heart and arteries, I am so sorry. Veins and bones and organs, forgive me! I need to stop the madness. I'm not in school anymore, I'm not working two jobs-- and even those were shabby excuses for not allowing myself to live healthy and enjoy the fruits of what I worked so hard to achieve.

I suppose all we can do is try harder tomorrow and thank God if its not too late.
Sombering thought.

Don't Quit Now, I Still Need You!

My feet have put in their two weeks notice. How sad is it that your feet decide that they will no longer support your body weight? I have noticed for the past two days that when I get up, my feet have hurt like crazy-- and it wasn't from walking the earthy terrain with one shoe. I don't know what it is. Then, when I got up from my desk today, the stiffness was back. It was like my feet simply couldn't bear the thought of hauling my fat ass into the breakroom for some water. They probably thought I was going for some pie or something. Anyway, I figure that once again, its time to reaffirm my commitment to a healthier lifestyle. Hooray for small steps. I haven't had any fast food in a pretty long time. That is my biggest down fall. I have made myself cook each night, no matter how tired I was or how my feet protested. Infact, even tonight, after arriving home at 7pm (it was raining so that triples my commute time.) I managed to whip up something I like to call Sloppy Joes. Sure, its garbage in a can, but its actually not too bad for you. I had wheat hamburger buns and since they don't taste good- one is plenty satisfying!
I returned to the gym today for my half hour swimming, concentrating more on my legs than usual, and a few minutes in the sauna always makes me happy. The gym sauna is so much different than the sweat sauna I get from my 20 minute walks at lunch.
This sounds all fine and good, but the reason my feet have decided to retire early would probably be the brownie I shoved in my mouth this morning for breakfast. I have to eat something to take the rest of my kidney meds, but I'm not sure brownies are it. I also did an encore presentation of the brownie gorging while the sloppy crap was cooking since I was damn starving. I was picking at them, but if I had to guess, I would say I polished off about two and a half of those suckers. So I've won no victories. I wonder if its too late to convince my feet that it will be worth it to stick around. I really don't want to be a motorized cart troll.

At What Point do you Say, "Hey... Somethin's Missin'"

Does anyone else notice that there seems to be an abundance of mateless shoes discarded along the road? I find them all the time. I first noticed this when I was going to Michigan State and thought to myself, "I can probably haul my bike up three floors of stairs on my own." During one of my many breaks, I noticed that someone had lost a shoe, right there in the stairwell on the second floor. I didn't really think much of it because, well, it was MSU and we had the riots just around the corner at Cedar Village anyway. Seeing weird shit was pretty normal. Now that I live in Florida, I still continue to see soulmateless shoes pretty often. Today there was actually a pair of white strappy sandals on I-4. I find sneakers, boots, etc. I wonder if this is some kind of sign from God and I should start trying to analyze its deeper meaning or whether people are retarded and just lose freaking shoes.

I think I would notice if my shoe came off.

Just wow. "AH DANG! My footsa hurtin' somethin' fierce. Now whare in Tarnation is my right kicks?"

OH THAT'S RIGHT. I LEFT IT ON THE CORNER OF MAIN AND SUMMIT.

What the hell, people. There are shoeless people in Africa who would kill to pay better attention to their orthapedic belongings.

In other news. I didn't swim today. As far as food goes, so far I have eaten pretty good, but I was bored so I made brownies and I know I'll eat one. If I wasn't so damn tired today, I would like to believe that I would have worked out. I did walk for 20 minutes at work and since it was about 90 degrees out and I was wearing jeans and two shirts, I consider that to be a workout in its own right. I felt pretty bad about the probability that I didn't smell very good after lunch, but there's always tomorrow to make more friends.

Water Buffalo

I slipped a dainty hoof into the water for the second time this week, particularly aware of my reflection in the surrounding windows. I realized that as I took my place in one of the swim lanes, I looked like a glistening ham flailing about helplessly in the water. Not that I can't swim. I can swim just fine, but when it comes to doing laps, I'm not someone who diligently pushes forth using a butterfly or breast stroke... I flail. I just move my arms and legs and hope it gets me to the other side of the pool.
For the second time this week and more importantly, the second day in a row, I swam laps for a half hour. It wasn't earth shattering, but it was a start. It was something to get my heart rate going that didn't have the words extra cheese in it and my blood flowing that didn't have the word "accident" in it anywhere.
This is my new idea to get me motivated because I actually like swimming and the thought of it is much easier to bear than an hour on a treadmill where I always feel like I'm walking at a brisk pace and accomplishing a goal-- until I look in a mirror and see that it infact appears that I am barely moving at all.
It doesn't take Einstein (the genius, not the bagel brother) to point out that its only getting harder for me to have good, functional workouts since my health is on a rapid decline and my gut is trying to swallow the rest of me away.
Getting back into a routine is more than just working my way up to actually completing a workout session that will make me feel proud. For me, as a female, it is also about remembering to bring everything you NEED. This is a frightening concept for anyone who wants to work out in the mornings.
Work clothes. Shoes. Clean Underwear. Make up. Brushes. A decent hairdryer. Socks. A towel bigger than the ones they provide because, well. You know. Anything you need to bring to work that day. Cleaning products that include deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, body soap, a loofa, a toothbrush and toothpaste. I'm probably even forgetting something else.
Well, this evening, without even needing work clothes or makeup, etc. I forgot to bring a bra to change into after I was through swimming. Super. I put on my workout clothes anyway, since they were dry and looked in the mirror hoping that you couldn't tell. Unfortunately, my left boob had entered itself into a wet T-shirt contest and I knew that no hard-working, decent human being needed to see that.
Thusly ended my Monday evening workout. 30 minutes of swimming followed by 10 minutes in the sauna and a wet boob.

Now so far, this has been a boring story, so I wouldn't dare end it there. My fun at the gym continues. I flung my wet bathing suit onto a hook in the locker to keep it from getting my gym bag wet. Why that seemed like a good idea, I don't know. When it came time for me to get it down, I realized short people shouldn't hang things on hooks.

I couldn't get it to flip off the hook. I tried and tried. Panic started to ensue. After all, where else would I get a swimsuit that looked like it was trying to be a prom dress? Finally, I realized the benches weren't cemented to the floor so I was able to drag one over to the locker. My locker was in the corner, so when I stood up on the bench to reach over and detatch the wet cow frock from the hook, I had to reach as far as I could. So what do you suppose happens next? Well. My 800 pound body apparently was able to counteract the weight of the entire bench and so I went down... the bench went up... and surprisingly enough, I didn't end up in the hospital.

So. Narrowly escaping bruises and broken bones, I took my swimsuit, my wet boob, and went home.

I suppose I'll try again tomorrow.