Hollow Man

No, I’m not talking about the Kevin Bacon movie.

I’m talking about this:

This move is great for toning your lower abs (one of my biggest problem areas). I’m thrilled to report that I can now do this move for a full 30 seconds as part of my circuit training workout. This chick makes it look easy but it’s not. No, really, try it and you’ll see.

The reverse of this move is called a Super Man. Which looks like this:

The Superman works your lower back so it’s a good move to complement the Hollow Man and work the whole core. While I’ve never had much trouble with the Superman the first time I tried the Hollow Man I think I lasted ten seconds, maybe even less, and gave up with tears of pain welling in my eyes.

Exercise, like life, can often feel like drudgery and it’s easy to give up on both.  But while life rarely grants little rewards so clearly defined exercise can consistently reward if you are possessed of a certain amount of sticktoitiveness.

I couldn’t do this and now I can–therefore I’m stronger. So simple. What a beautiful thing.

Adventures in Dieting

A Quote:

(From Absolutely Fabulous Season 1: Episode 2)

Saffie: You’ve tried every fad drug, every fad diet ever that every existed. More money’s been poured into your quest for twigginess than goes in aid to most third world nations. Yet somehow mum, somehow, you remain two stone overweight.

Edina: One Stone! Well…for my height.

Saffie: How tall?

Edina: Six foot.

The Low Carb Tango

As I remember it, my first proper diet was The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet a predecessor to the still popular Atkins Diet. It was low carb before low carb was the thing. Incredibly restrictive, the diet called for meat at breakfast, meat at lunch, and meat at dinner. I believe two slices of low carb bread were allowed per day but the meat allowance was limitless. I had a gym membership then and I went from time to time when I didn’t feel so tired I wanted to die. I remember my mother encouraging me to add in some yogurt or fruit or an extra slice of bread which I did when the hunger gnawing at my stomach was too much. My greatest savior in those days was Diet Dr. Pepper, which I consumed by the truckload. It was probably the only thing that kept me going.

The M.D. who championed The Scarsdale Medical Diet was murdered by his lover/secretary in 1980. I used to wonder if the murderess had been a victim of his diet and killed him in a fit of fatigue and irritability. I know that I often felt like murdering someone myself as I shoved another plateful of hamburger into my face.

To its credit, the diet worked quickly and produced dramatic results as it claimed it would. There were weeks when I lost as much as 10 lbs. I would, however, attribute those dramatic totals more to the absence of sugared sodas and ice cream in my diet than to the 5 lbs of meat I ate every day. My first experiment with The Scarsdale Medical Diet was short lived. I think I made it a month before quitting and maybe only a week before cheating (usually in the middle of the night–if you consume calories and no one is watching those calories don’t count–right?). Yet, I returned to the diet time and time again when I wanted to lose a quick 10 lbs (and then gain it back again two weeks later).

Play by the Rules

Next I tried food combining Suzanne Somers style with Eat Great, Lose Weight. The beauty of this diet was that you could eat as much as you wanted of whatever you wanted (with twenty pages of rules and exceptions). I don’t remember every rule Somers outlined, I had to carry a cheat sheet even back then, but I do remember two of the primary rules.

1. Do not combine fats or proteins with grains. You must wait three hours after a grains meal before eating a protein meal or two hours after a protein meal before eating a grains meal.

I remember this rule because I spent a lot of time counting the hours as though I were the rain man of dieting: “25 minutes until pasta…25 minutes until pasta.”

Following this rule did help me to lose weight but not because my body needed whatever combination of foods to function (I remember an entire chapter explaining the scientific evidence behind this but could not cite the dribble now nor would I care to). Even at sixteen years old I realized that it was just another diet trick. If you can’t have carbs and fats/proteins together you can’t eat pizza or any of its delicious friends and if you are forced to wait two or three hours between eating carbs and fats then that’s two to three hours that you are not eating at all. Tricks=no treats.

2. No white flour, starchy foods, or sugar.

In other words no fun. I think Somers even outlawed diet soda, claiming to have some scientific evidence that sugar alternatives made you fat, but I blatantly ignored this rule and continued to get my fix of D.D.P. Ironically, the recipes in the desert section of the diet cookbook were filled with sugar alternatives but I shan’t nitpick.

The other difficulty with this rule was finding white flour alternatives in our small town grocery store. I’m sure Somers did not think of the unwashed masses to the East while dictating her book from her Southern California mansion. Today, most regular grocery stores offer a relatively large selection of healthier grains but in the 90’s in Vero Beach there was only one place to get these things: the health food store. Vero’s one health food store, I can’t even remember the name of it, was a small hole in a strip mall that smelled of body odor and incense. Yet, for some reason the place fascinated me. Shelves full of brands I never heard of that promised better health and wellness drew me in and made me buy buy buy.

Then I tasted the mushy rice pasta and the brown hard hippie bread. Blech! Either better alternatives have become available since then or else my palate has changed but, oh, how I hated that stuff.  I eventually began to backslide and disregard the white flour rule out of desperate need to eat regular spaghetti.

There were other rules about which fruits, veggies, and meats were best and which ones were outlawed. When I think of these lists now I realize that they bordered on the ridiculous (no beans? what? no bananas? what? no nuts? Ahh! These are all healthy foods!). Even someone with the strongest of wills would freak out over these restrictions.

I, for one, am relatively weak willed, particularly when it comes to sugar. I remained clean for a while, maybe even a few months this time, but before too long I was sitting in the parking lot at school snarfing down Reese’s cups while ducking below the windows of my car so that I wouldn’t get caught by…well…anybody. While most high school juniors were hiding their cigarettes from the school authorities I was hiding my candy as though it were some even headier contraband.

Type Casting

Somewhere before or after Eat Great, Lose Weight I had a brief affair with Eat Right For Your Type. This diet book claims that you should eat certain foods according to your blood type. I must not have tried too hard to eat right for my type because I only have vague memories of looking at the book and then never opening it again.

Who you Gonna Call? Sugar Busters!

Okay, so I never actually read Sugar Busters so I have no idea what the diet plan entails. I did, however, decide for a time that I was going to eat whatever I wanted as long as it had less than 4 grams of sugar in it. Why 4 grams? I have no idea. And guess what? I didn’t lose a bit of weight on this self-made diet. Worse still, before too long I was shoving candy in my face while hiding in bathroom stalls or in my car or in my room with the door shut and locked.

Smoke ’em if you Got ’em

By far the most shameful time in my dieting life has to be the smoking years. By the time I went off to college I had lost maybe 30 solid lbs and kept it off. I would attribute this weight loss more to exercise and cutting sugared soda out of my diet than I would to any one of the diet books listed above (I think there were other diets as well but I hardly remember them).

When I started college I was dumb, impulsive, and reckless. More than anything I wanted two things out of my college experience:

1. To be cool.

2. To be thin.

It’s hard to admit it now but it’s the truth. While some went to school to study hard all I wanted to do was party hearty. At least for the first two years or so. And so I did, picking up smoking along the way, emulating one of my childhood heroes: thin, elegant, party girl Holly Golightly.

I chose to love her for her beauty and grace and ignore the fact that her life was terrible. Go back and watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s, really watch it, and tell me if it’s not one of the saddest movies you’ve ever seen (the book is even more depressing). There’s a lightness about the movie, a romantic flair, but underneath lies the pain of a young confused girl.

Woah, a little too heavy? Moving on.

Anyways, the smoking diet certainly made me thin. Cigarettes were the tops when it came to appetite suppression.  I dropped an additional 20lbs without exercise or food restriction but my health suffered tremendously. Like so many smokers I became afraid to quit because if I did I’d gain all the weight back. So I continued on with it until, all of a sudden, I couldn’t eat anything at all. Every morsel of food became wrenching pain in my stomach.

I visited the doctor, convinced I was dying of cancer. Thankfully, I only had an ulcer. Yippee! And there began the end of my smoking diet (the end of the end of my smoking diet happened several years later–quitting smoking has to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done). I gained back the dreaded weight and began struggling again to lose that last 25lbs.

Organic Panic

After quitting smoking I became obsessive about food in a different way than I had been before. I mostly blame this on Asheville and Michael Pollan.

When I moved to Asheville I was suddenly immersed in a culture where good clean food was readily available and didn’t taste like a hippies’ armpit. Green Life and Earth Fare were the cat’s pajamas compared to the hole in the wall health store in Vero Beach.

Then I started reading about the virtues of “real” food and began learning from friends and coworkers about food politics and holistic medicine. A friend recommended that I read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food.  After that book I was an organic food convert–I joined the cult, I drank the (all natural and organic) Kool Aid.

Pollan claims that to be healthy and have a healthy planet you must: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. He spends pages and pages explaining the harmful impact that fast food restaurants, diet fads, and big brands have had on our ecosystems and our bodies. The book made me angry on the one hand and on the other hand I saw a diet opportunity. I thought that maybe if I followed Pollan’s food rules I could finally diet without dieting. Oh, the irony.

Again I found myself on the merry-go-round staring wistfully at the cotton candy stand. I was able to keep up the pace for a while but eating nothing but fresh organic foods became not only expensive but also super time consuming. In order to buy everything fresh and cook it from scratch I had to dedicate hours to grocery shopping and cooking. If I had been a housewife or had a personal chef I could have kept up with the demand of eating clean food–but since I am not and have not the toil became exhausting.

I have never fully abandoned Pollan’s way of thought nor do I disagree with him. I just don’t find it practical for my situation. Though Pollan did help me develop a few good habits. I now try to avoid high fructose corn syrup and meat treated with antibiotics whenever possible, I don’t drink soda of any kind, and I try to avoid eating fast food.

Oh, and I didn’t lose any weight eating organic and making my food from scratch. Not a pound. In fact, I probably gained a few pounds. They do make organic butter after all (and it’s delicious).

Let’s Get Physical

For the last year or so I’ve been on what I would call the “exercise until you are too tired to eat anything anyways” diet. Five or six days a week I run or yoga or kick box or circuit train or tai chi or whatever for between 20-90 minutes depending on my level of enthusiasm for the day.

Over the past year I’ve gotten stronger and stronger and am only occasionally plagued by overuse injuries. Yet, while I’ve gained muscle, I’ve lost very few pounds proving that exercise alone just doesn’t cut it when you want to lose that last fat roll. In exercises’ defense–it does make you feel great even if you aren’t dieting. In fact, it’s the best stress reliever I know. Why do you think Olivia Newton John was always so cheerful?

Another Quote:

(Again, from Absolutely Fabulous)

Saffie: All you have to do is eat less and take a bit of exercise.

Edina: If it was that easy everybody would be doing it.

Unnatural Selection

As a fat girl with much dieting experience I know that having the body you want (and not the body you have) can be frustrating. Most fat girls and boys, at one point or another, will say to themselves: “maybe I’m just meant to be fat.”

I’m here to tell you fat girls and boys of the world you are meant to be fat. That’s why it is so hard for you to be thin. Your body doesn’t want to diet. It wants to survive the cold winter, the famine, the illness. In my opinion, we are so fat as a nation because we no longer experience the same hardships that our bodies have evolved to survive. Not to mention 24/7 access to unhealthy convenience foods that we have been conditioned to crave since we were children (commercials for kid’s shows promise nothing but toys and candy). That’s why losing weight is so bloody difficult in this age of prosperity.

And that’s why restrictive diets don’t work.

Our bodies may seem like some mysterious entity we can’t understand but really it’s all a numbers game. We have to expend more calories than we eat but not too much more–just enough that our bodies don’t think we are starving. If we were working out in the field all day and eating bread and gruel and raw veggies for dinner this wouldn’t be a problem. But we sit at desks and drink Venti Lattes instead.

So we have to work to get the balance right because we live unnatural lives. But counting calories is a pain and not very glamorous so we choose The South Beach Diet or The Mediterranean Diet  instead because they sound like a vacation rather than work. But in my experience diets plans do not work (and they are no vacation). I’ve been on one or another for half of my life and I’m still 25lbs overweight. So now it’s time to do some work. Now it’s time to suffer the math. Oh, wait, now I have technology to do that for me.

A few weeks before I started this blog I finally gave in to counting calories–thanks to technology and my mother-in-law–using the free calorie counter at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/

This calorie counter includes protein, carbohydrates, and fats numbers and keeps your food journals and goals online for you. I’ve found that having access to these numbers and being able to visually see what I have consumed for the day has been very helpful. I also think that choosing what you eat and working an occasional treat into you calorie allowance has to be psychologically better than never eating X food again.

I hope I don’t have to journal my food and count calories for the rest of my life. But if I do I think it will still be infinitely more appealing than eating platefuls of meat at every meal, or counting the hours between a breast of chicken and a bowl of pasta, or never eating sugar again.

Hopefully, I won’t eat my words on this one.

Retail Therapy

A Quote:

I love to go shopping.  I love to freak out salespeople.  They ask me if they can help me, and I say, “Have you got anything I’d like?”  Then they ask me what size I need, and I say, “Extra medium.”

–Steven Wright

The Cost

When comfort food is not an option and exercise doesn’t help try retail therapy. Sure, it’s more expensive than going to McDonald’s but in the long run you’ll save money.

According to The Journal of Health Economics, obese women, on average, spend an additional $3,613 in health care costs annually and get paid 11% less than women with healthier BMIs. That’s much more expensive than anything at McDonald’s.

So skip the Mocha Frappe and the Big Mac and go shopping instead. Perhaps it isn’t the noblest of pursuits but sometimes you just have to indulge. At least that’s what I’m telling myself since I already pulled all the tags off and threw away the receipts.

Knowledge

A Quote:

“Knowledge is something needful to thinking people–it takes away the heat and fever; and helps, by widening speculation, to ease the burden of mystery.” –John Keats

Taking Care of Business

A Quote:

“Fear cuts deeper than swords”–Syrio Forel (Game of Thrones)

Micro Economics

I was pleased this morning to wake up with renewed vim and vigor. I’m sure that getting back to my diet and regular sleep schedule has helped renew my spirits. After only hitting the snooze button once (or maybe twice) I was up and fighting with a kick butt kick box session. The rest of the day has been a spirited scuffle to the finish with the prize being some left over time to read and write. I even purchased some new tunes to keep my spirits up for the remainder of the eve. Now I intend to take a stab at the short story I began a few weeks ago. But first, a snack.

I’ve become enamored with 100 calorie packs. I suppose that being able to finish a bag of something satisfies the fat girl in me, even if the bag is small. I am also greatly amused by the size of the snacks. Instead of a few regular sized whatever they give you many tiny whatevers.

<———-See? Tiny.

When I eat them, I feel like a giant. A giant feasting on many tiny, tiny, crackers (or regular sized crackers since I am now a giant). I know it’s a trick, like tiny dinner plates, but it works for me so I will choose to ignore the ruse. Also, I like pretending I’m a giant.

Everyday Rhapsody

A Quote:

“I’m just a poor boy nobody loves me.” –Freddie Mercury

The Game of Life

Yesterday was my final day of vacation–it was an awfully long day. I awoke at 4am and could not go back to sleep so I shuffled into the study and wrote for hours and hours. Then there were household chores to do and a grocery list to write since there was virtually nothing to eat in the fridge.

Before heading out to the grocery store I had a frustrating conversation with my insurance agent and then I squeezed in thirty minutes of circuit training.

During our vacation I managed three short runs, some canoeing, and an hour of (almost) upright paddle boarding. I would consider this a decent amount of exercise for a vacation but in general my activity level was very low compared to what has become the norm for me. In addition to working a job where I am constantly moving and on my feet I usually exercise five or six days a week doing everything from running to circuit training to kickboxing to yoga. It took me more than a year to build up enough strength to operate at this level without feeling pooped all the time.

It took only one week of vacation to leech all that strength right out of me.

Okay, so I’m sure my strength hasn’t totally faded, but that thirty minutes of circuit training felt like hours of hellish torture. Maybe I was tired, maybe it was the fact that I had spent a week eating differently, or maybe I just wasn’t into it. Whatever the reason the workout totally sucked.

I’m sure some of you are thinking: “doesn’t working out always suck?” No. At least not for me. When I was younger maybe I would have agreed but these days I like working out. I look forward to it. Dare I say it? I love it. The only reason I haven’t reached my fitness goals has to be my love of food. I’ve learned that you can eat your way through any amount of exercise. But that’s a subject I’ll save for another day.

After my awful workout I remembered I needed to go to the DMV tag office where I spent the next hour trying to contain my frustration, as one usually does at the DMV. Then it was off to the grocery store and home again and eventually to bed (after way too much internet surfing and Game of Thrones). I set my alarm early enough to work out this morning.

When I awoke I felt like I was five hundred years old. Every inch of my body was sore and I felt so…damn…tired. I knew that I couldn’t manage intense exercise so I did some light yoga instead.

As I was getting dolled up for work I felt a dull dread in the pit of my stomach like I was going back to school after summer vacation. I sat in the car for a long time trying to psych myself up before finally heading off but the rain and gloom kept bringing me down. I tried to sing some good tunes during the commute, which usually cheers me, but I just couldn’t catch the spirit. Work was the usual, except with more books, since they had been busy over the holiday week. I stayed late and then got stuck in traffic I’d classify as “unusually dense” for Asheville.

It seemed as though the downpour of the day had caused accident after accident along 240. I found myself getting more and more frustrated as I sat barely moving on the highway. The sudden onslaught of every day life after the fun and sun in Florida was picking at my brain causing my temples to pound. I clenched my jaw and tried to tell myself that I was overreacting. It’s just life. At least I’m not a refugee or a child prostitute or a prisoner of war. I reached into my lunch bag for my emergency crackers (yes, I keep emergency food with me at all times-don’t judge) and commenced to eat them greedily while feeling sorry for myself.

I couldn’t take inching along on the highway any longer so I exited early and went the back way along the river. As I was crossing the bridge over the brown rushing French Broad “Bohemian Rhapsody” started to play. I had forgotten that Queen was in my CD player until that very moment but the next 5 minutes and 55 seconds reminded me.

I would not consider “Bohemian Rhapsody” an optimistic song but there’s something about it, especially from that guitar solo on, that just lifts the spirits in a way nothing else can. I hear it and I can’t help but sing. I’m know I’m not alone in this. Whole books have been written about the power of music by experts in the field. I own a few but have yet to read them so I can’t say much on the subject. I’m not really sure what about Freddy Mercury’s voice or words touches my soul I just know that it does. My mood went from crap to fantastic in less than six minutes.

One song changed my day and that’s an extraordinary thing.

Thanks Freddy, you were a king among men.

Panic at the No Fear Disco

A Quote: 

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat” –Brody

Magic at the Movies

I remember the girl kicking her legs alone in the water and then the screams and then the growing oval of red. You never saw the shark. The animatronic jaws were broken, the paint job was poor, the body’s propulsion was jerky. That’s why they never really showed it. No matter. The image of the Great White in my mind ran like clockwork. The pressure of the jaws, the sharpness of the teeth, the staring of the beady black eyes. I thought about the shark while in the ocean, in the pool, in the bathtub. Even looking at a picture of a Great White would send chills up my spine as a child–okay, I admit it still does (I couldn’t even bring myself to post a picture of one here).

I don’t remember who let me watch that movie at such a young age but I’ve always blamed them and Steven Spielberg for my fear of the ocean. However, these days, as I’m starting to hash out my fears, I realize that I’m the only one to blame. Sure, there are shark attacks, but there are also car crashes and I get in a car every day, no problem. I suppose the first difference lies in my mental projection of the situation. I don’t sit in the driveway imagining a car crash but I will sit on the beach imagining a shark attack. The second difference involves control. The genius of Jaws was like the genius of a Hitchcock movie. You didn’t really see much. For the most part the violence was implied. If the animatronic shark had not malfunctioned, limiting its exposure in the movie, the movie may not have been nearly so frightening. My fear works in the same way. If I could see everything in the ocean, be in control, have an escape plan, the fear would not be able to fester in the dark reaches of my mind labeled: unknown.

Just do it

My fear complex is not limited to shark attacks. And I certainly don’t think about being eviscerated by a Great White every day since I now live on the Blue Ridge rather than the Atlantic (not so many mountain shark attacks–unless you count the illusive land shark). I mention Jaws only because it allows a metaphor and I so love metaphor. Oh, and also because I spent the last week in South Florida.

While sharks are a good solid fear to wax nostalgic about it’s the unknown that I really fear: germs I can’t see, a future I can’t predict, the actions of others that I can’t control. I could go on and on with examples but I’ll save that for therapy. Suffice it to say that my new motto in life has been not to sit on the ocean thinking about the shark attack. Instead, I will jump in the water before I have time to think. As the Nike ads say “Just do it!”

Just doing it is surprisingly effective particularly if you can just do it immediately. Sadly, the opportunity to just do anything immediately rarely presents itself. You always have to queue up and get ready first (insert anecdote about young me fleeing the line for the King Kong ride–they shouldn’t try to scare the bejesus out of you before you even get on the ride). You might have to wait hours, days, even months before the doing it occurs. So how do you just do it then? I’ve found it helps if you announce that you are going to do it, loudly and publicly, set a date when you are going to do it, get someone to do it with you if you can, and then lay down enough money to prevent you from not doing it. For example, when Travis asked me if I wanted to do the Warrior Dash with him I immediately said yes without thinking about it, told everyone I knew, and then signed up as soon as I possibly could. While I’ve had times where I regret the decision I can’t back out because I’m committed.

The same happened when my sweet sister-in-law sent me a facebook message asking if I would like to go paddle boarding while visiting her in South Florida. Immediately I said yes. I didn’t think about what it was or the fact that it would probably take place in the dreaded ocean. I just said yes. There was a quick reply: “Excellent! I got a Groupon for you and Travis!” Committed-Check! Paid for-Check! Later that day I googled paddle boarding. I’d never heard of it but apparently it’s a popular thing. Here’s what it looks like…

Well, doesn’t that look nice? Calm water, blue skies, and a smile on her face. Looks like surfing, only less intimidating, perfect for someone like me.  Then I had a week to think about it. Every day I imagined a new excuse: “I’ll look stupid,” “I’ll get hurt,” “I’ll get sunburned,” “A shark will bite my arm off.” Once in Florida we managed to put off the trip to the paddle boarding place for several days. As we drove around the town I couldn’t help but notice all the shark billboards for the shark exhibit at a local museum. Several times I touched the Groupon and hoped for rain or some other inconvenience to conveniently present itself. But my mind voodoo didn’t work because I kept saying out loud “we really need to go and use this Groupon!”

The No Fear Disco

Finally on Friday we got a ride out to Pompano Beach and hoofed it across the scorching sand to Life’s a Beach! water sports. At a little tiki hut by the ocean some tan teenager who badly needed a hair cut asked us if we’d ever been on a paddle board before. We said no. He laughed, “well, it’s a little choppy out there!” Sirens went off in my head, “Like, dangerously choppy?” I asked. “Well, it’s not like Hawaii or anything,” he replied with a look that said stupid tourists, “but you’re going to get a workout.” I looked out at the ocean and then back at the kid. “I like a workout–that’s what I want–let’s go,” I said with false bravado. Another tan kid handed us life vests and said we could use them if we wanted to go out beyond the buoys. He then jumped on a dune buggy and said he’d meet us at the water.

Approaching the shoreline I tried not to think of anything. I’ve heard that positive visualization helps many people but it doesn’t work for me. Once I put the scene in my head the portal is opened for the scene to go wrong–so I find it’s better not to think of anything at all. The second tan kid gave us the briefest of tutorials, in his best Keanu Reeves impersonation, ending with “so just go out there and have fun ‘kay?”

We dragged the boards out into the surf. Well, I dragged the board, clumsily, dropping it repeatedly, while Travis more sort of tossed his in the water effortlessly. I could hear the shark attack theme in my head “du-na-du-na-dunadunaduna–screech!” but I forced myself to shut it out. We had gone swimming in the ocean a few days before but at a different beach where the water was calm and clear. If I stay in the shallow end I can usually handle clear water. I guess the logic is that I can see the threat coming and get away from it quickly. Today the choppy water at Pompano Beach was relatively dark and spotted with seaweed. No bueno. I pulled myself up onto the board quickly once it was in the water and made a joke about trying not to look like a seal.

Before too long Travis was standing and falling repeatedly, steadily improving with each try.  I was a little slower to try to stand, first progressing from my belly to my knees, feeling awkward with the paddle in my hand. Several times I fell off the board while in the kneeling position then scrambled back up out of the choppy water with the fear of sharks on my mind. After a while I attempted to stand, reckless in my sudden resolve, not noticing the large wave coming from the wake of a nearby jet ski. Down I went, gulping another mouthful of salt water and failure.

Thirty minutes of practice and Travis was gliding along fully upright, rarely falling from his board, while I was still sucking salt water regularly and had not yet evolved past gibbon. On the bright side, I was no longer afraid of shark attacks because I was too focused on my anger. “LIZA SMASH!” I growled as I emerged from the water once again, trying to remain jovial. I grunted back up onto the board and began with a new strategy. Instead of just trying to stand I started to focus on standing. I chanted “you will stand, you will stand, you will stand.” Around minute forty-five I finally stood–for a about ten seconds.

I’m not sure what happened when I fell but I’m sure it was not graceful. When I hit the water I noticed a sharp pain in the palm of my hand. I could see blood gushing down my arm and I immediately thought of chum frenzy. I got back on the board, exhausted, and made some joke to Travis about the sharks smelling my blood from miles away. Normally I would have just called it a day right then and there, ending my trials in error, as per usual. Instead I rinsed my bloody palm in the Atlantic and tried again.

Unfortunately, the wound made it harder to do just about everything. Every time I attempted to steady myself on the board or hold the paddle correctly I would hit the raw skin and blood would gush out freely. I’m certainly no Kerri Strug and there was no gold medal at stake so I only tried to play through the pain for a while longer before giving up–but I was proud of myself for not giving up immediately, hell, I was proud of myself for even doing it in the first place. And while I didn’t earn any gold medals on Friday I did earn two medals of honor: a gash on my palm and a killer bruise on my thigh. I took pictures of these things but since they are far too ugly to show here, and I since I don’t have any pictures of us paddle boarding, here’s a requisite beach picture of my toes in the sand afterwards:

So, yes, I did hurt myself, I did look stupid doing it, and I did get a sunburn. However, all my limbs are still in tact and I certainly got a killer workout (my thighs are still a little sore). Most importantly, I managed to take the unknown by the you-know-what and show it who’s boss–and that’s totally worth a few cuts and bruises. Maybe I’ll even try upright paddle boarding again–in more placid waters.

Recreational Calorie Burn

Exercise: Canoeing + swimming = calorie burning fun for the whole family. As my husband and I paddled down a scenic South Florida river today with our family we discussed the fun that could be had owning a canoe. Fitness can often feel like drudgery when every day you are greeted with another exercise video or hour of mindless running. Integrating an “exercise that feels like fun” such as canoeing can break up the monotony and burn mega calories (moderate canoeing burns about the same amount of calories as running). Conclusion: we need to get a canoe.

Nutrition: It’s 4th of July. Pass.

Writing: It was difficult enough to find time to write today’s post.

Reading: Guess what? That’s right, Game of Thrones, again.

Sweating Without Effort: The Perils of Running at Sea Level

Exercise: Running in Asheville can be difficult with all the uphill-downhill-uphill. Your shins, calves, hamstrings, hips, ankles, and knees all take such a dynamic beating on every run that you begin to feel like some sort of running super hero if you make it to the end without walking. “Well, if I can do this then running on flat land will be a snap.”

So yesterday morning I woke up, sat around and drank coffee for an hour or so, then donned my running gear and stepped out into the South Florida sun.

At first it didn’t seem so bad. I started out with a slow jog and in a minute or so I was already covered in sweat–not the sweat of effort but a tropical sweat–a dermatological dew point. Ten minutes later I was simply dripping, the humid air rattling in my lungs, my hair plastered to my skull. I felt a little light headed and looked down for a moment. On the sidewalk I spied a lizard, then another, then another, all scurrying away from my shuffling feet. I looked up and noticed that I was passing someone, who was leisurely walking by, staring at me like I was the craziest person on earth. I tried to speed up (perhaps to impress the passerby with my mettle) but I just couldn’t make my legs go any faster or lift any higher. I felt so thirsty. I made a second lap, finishing a pathetic two miles, and then resigned myself to the pool.

I’ll take hills and low humidity any day over flat land and a coat of wet hot air.

Nutrition: It’s my birthday. Pass.

Writing: It took me two days to write this. I fudged and changed the posting date because I had a birthday cake coma. The American Journal of Medicine claims that high fat and high sugar foods actually slow down your brain function. I can attest to that.

Reading: For as long as I have Game of Thrones to read this category won’t be a problem–particularly if I have a pool to read next to.

Goody Little Two Shoes

Writing: You’re looking at it.

Exercise: Does hefting an overstuffed roller board into the overhead compartment count?

Nutrition: Bleh. Traveling often leads to poor food choices and the airport terminal, like the freeway, presents itself as a gauntlet of unhealthy food. I suppose I could pack a bunch of healthy snacks–but how does one fit apples in their carry-on when they have already crammed it full of more books than they could ever read in a week and more clothes than they could ever wear in a week?  Yes, I know I have a problem.

For the rest of the week nutrition will be a challenge. I always slip into the mindset “Hey! I’m on vacation! All bets are off!” But, really, a holiday shouldn’t be an excuse to binge on crap.

Reading: 2+ hours Game of Thrones.

Traveling by plane always leaves a lot of time for reading if you can manage to ignore the other passengers. I find it strange that some people, who would never otherwise converse with you, often attempt “getting to know you” conversations on airplanes. I suppose it could just be the result of boredom or maybe even a way to stave off feelings of fear. Are they thinking: “I might die so I better be nice my last hours of life” or “The person next to me could be the one who saves my life if we go down so I better suck up.” I know, I’m far too cynical.

While there were some loud talkers around us today the woman sitting next to us was relatively quiet. However, her general attitude annoyed me greatly. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the things she did to set me off but I’ve always been really hyper-sensitive to other people’s actions, particularly when they do things to deliberately break the rules. I’ll admit, I’m not always good, but I’m the girl who doesn’t speed, who always buckles her seat belt, who never litters, etc. I’m particularly well behaved on airplanes, mostly because I just want to get the flight over with, and what’s the point of making the poor flight attendant say (for probably the hundredth time) “could you please put your seat back in the upright position”.

The woman sitting next to us obviously did not feel the same way. It seemed that everything she did was directly contrary to the flight crews instructions. She used her phone long after they asked that devices be shut off. Once her phone was off she immediately put her seat back and then acted annoyed when the flight attendant asked to upright her seat. She unbuckled her seat belt when the fasten seat belt sign was still on. And so on. Then, right before we deplaned, the pilot asked over the PA if we would make sure the air vents were open to keep the plane cool for the next passengers. So what did this woman do? She asked me to turn her AC vent off for her. Even though she was about to get up and they had just asked us to open all the vents–even though the vent pointing towards her had been open the entire flight. I protested but she insisted “turn it off please.” So I did.

I know what your thinking. Why do I even care? I guess I could have let it all go if it hadn’t been for that final moment where I helped her defy the requests of the pilot. Even now I’m still angry that I did what she asked. Why did I help her even though I disagreed with her actions? Maybe I’m just a pushover.

And that’s no way for a warrior to behave.