beauty and size is indeed in the eye of the beholder...

OK So I must preface this blog post with 2 things: 1. last night was easily top 5 worst nights ever at work, at least as far as busy-ness was concerned, and 2. I have PMS. Also I'm already home and ready for bed with my shades drawn tight and my earplugs snugly in place which in essence means I can't hear or see myself typing which I imagine must look pretty foolish. I might also add that I have already take 5 mg of Ambien which generally speaking can be expected to take full effect in about oh, say 5 minutes after you take it, which incidentally was about 7 minutes ago.

However, despite the sheer exhaustion and the utter despair that I feel at this moment, I will blog for the sake of sharing this information with those whom might glean some benefit from it. I have PMS. I discussed this the other day. PMS makes me moody. It makes me gain weight both real and imagined and it makes me feel like I should burn my skinny pants and given my bikini to my sister and just resign myself to wearing a potato sack. Perhaps with accessories. In any case. I'm pretty tough on myself about my fitness and training routine, my diet, my weight, the size of my R calf, my L bicep, my waist at the widest point and the smallest and of course my hips. I guess it would be fair to suggest that I'm pretty tough on myself about pretty much anything. Weighing 140.4 on Thursday and then 146 yesterday was discouraging to put it mildly. Partly "bad carb" weight as I refer to it, also water weight and PMS pounds. Whatever sounds most plausible. OK No more typing for now... Ambien working and soon Joni not making sense...

OK returned post nap and ready to finish. I won't go as far as to say well rested but I will say rested in any case. So where was I? Hard on myself. PMS. Crappy night at work. Around mid shift I admitted the wife of a friend of mine who was having their first baby. OK I haven't seen this person in a couple of years, which is to say, I have not seen this person since nursing school, which is to say I have not seen this person since I weighed less than 170 pounds. The reaction, was, I'll admit, not what I had expected. It isn't uncommon for people to not recognize me these days, or at least not people I haven't seen in a while. I didn't think I was that big but I guess I was. And secondarily, I still feel like I need to lose about another toddler before I'll be "skinny". Which brings me to my point. My friend, an African gentleman from Nigeria, did not say "wow you look great." He did not exclaim "holy cow where did you go?!?" Instead he just approached me and said, jaw open, "What happened to you?" As if to imply I had lost my hand in an unfortunate smelting accident or my hair from chemo. That was the inflection. Not, you look fantastic, inflection, but instead, holy cow what did you do to YOURSELF inflection. Later he asked me where my butt went (one of my more pronounced former  assests so to speak). This may sound in appropriate but You'd have to know the gentleman to know it is not. Instead it is just honest. Later still he told me he couldn't understand why I'd want to be "so skinny". He like how I looked before, like a "womanly woman" (hands forming an hourglass curve). Even later still he told me my thighs looked like rocks (hands forming fists like boulders). He spent a bit more of the night worrying about "where I went" than I cared to hear about. But I felt very privileged to be part of the birth of his baby.

So while I hesitate on any given to day to even willingly ACCEPT my body as it is, this person sees it as less that perfect, in the opposing direction. And this got me feeling pretty philosophical about size and how we as women so easily start to focus on a size or a number (I just want to be a 6 or 8 or 2 or I just want to weight 140 or 120 or 110) rather than seeing the inherent beauty that exists in our features as they are now. The hips and butt that so readily annoyed me 35 pounds ago, were exactly what this fellow found most lovely about my shape. 

Now I've finally started my period so the PMS can stop. I can stop inhaling all food within my grasp. I can stop feeling the size of a bus and I can stop obsessing about the scale number again. But I'm going to remember last night the next time I nitpick my behind or my thighs. I'm going to try to remember that the beauty of you thighs is more in your eyes than you think...

Yoga to live. Live to yoga.

I might have to change the name of this blog because if I keep running I'm probably going to injure all the parts that are required for running and thus be unable to run. Yesterday morning I did 3.5 on the elliptical which is safe but not really much like running. Last night I did 2.5 ish on the treadmill which I hate. Essentially I spend whatever length of time I am on said treadmill cursing silently and praying that I do not die. I realize I'd pass out and fall off before I'd die but still with my luck I'd probably hit my head on the way down and the paper would read something like this: Local Woman Dies in Tragic Treadmill Accident Because She INSISTS on Running Despite Warnings to the Contrary ... OK it wouldn't say that because that is waaay too long but in any case, in this little town it would probably be front page. Then people would feel bad, but inside they'd be laughing because of how ridiculous it is to run yourself to death. 

Anyway, I've found that I really love yoga. I'm a quick mover and a busy all around gal and yoga, in the right setting, puts me in touch with myself and the earth which I enjoy. I might preface this by saying, I tried to dance as a kid. I took all the classes that were feasibly taken. Ballet. Jazz. Tap. New age blah blah something. And... I sucked. I sucked at all of them. Or maybe I just felt like I sucked but either way I didn't stay in the classes, probably because my mother was too drunk to drive me. Come to think of it, she might have been the one who told me I sucked so that she could drink INSTEAD of drive me. Well, it's all tequila under the bridge. But I didn't stick with it as it were and I always wished I had. It's my one adult regret. I want to be a ballerina. Mostly cause I like leotards and little skirts. But I'm too short, because I think a height of 5'8" minimum is required to even TRY to dance much less succeed. And I'm kind of clumsy. Like fall UP the stairs clumsy. That makes yoga a good choice. Well not Bikram so much but Vinyasa for sure. If you move slow enough you probably won't hurt yourself. Plus the clothes for yoga are comfortable and it's a good excuse to not wear a bra.

Losing and losing

Weight. My Mind. Not necessarily in that order. I promised the dep that I would take a week off of "weight bearing" training. My plantar fascitis is almost completely pain free. I hesitate to say gone for fear it will return but it's 95% of normal I'd say. Yesterday was a gorgeous day here. 72 degrees. How could I stay inside? I just COULD NOT. So I opted for a walk, which of course became a jog, which naturally turned into run. A little teeny tiny one but still. Running no less. I just HATE not running. It makes me just feel like a total blob. YUCK. So I did it. Against my better judgement. But only two miles and NO PAIN! And my plan was just to neglect to mention it to the dep when he got home. You know, not lie, just not bring it up ;) Little stinker. He knows me too well. He wasn't home 5 minutes before he said "TELL ME you didn't run today."

Me: I didn't run today (whisper... much)
Dep: You DID NOT RUN TODAY.
Me: No. I did not run (very much).
Dep; You said you wouldn't run and you did. You broke your promise
Me: EXCUSE EXCUSE EXCUSE (it was sunny. It didn't hurt. I walked more than ran I promise)
Dep: You are a retard.
Me: I know you are but what am I.
Dep: Fine you ran. You choose dinner. If you break your other leg I'm going to laugh at you.

Anyway that was the extent of it. I told him I wouldn't push it. He shook his head disapprovingly and we moved on. Today I'm going to swim and lift, not because my foot hurts, but because I feel guilty.

On the scale front.. you know. I'm up. I'm down. I want to lose 10 more. I don't give a flying fetch what I weigh. I'm weight bipolar. But I'm at 142 today. Last week I was 144 ish so I'm inching off some pounds without point counting or strict calorie guidelines. I'm pretty resolved to shoot for about 135 or so which would put my body fat somewhere in the vicinity of 20% I think. But I'm in no rush to get there at this point. My big beef is with my stomach and I'm doing lots of ab work so there is plenty of muscle there, just also plenty of fat to cover it.