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Archives from 2002-2006

Every now and then I like to write about where I’m at with diet and exercise, so if that isn’t your thing, you should probably skip this post and watch Hanna Hart’s awesome “My Drunk Kitchen” YouTube videos instead.

So! Diet and exercise. Last fall when I first started working from home, I pretty much instantly piled on a bunch of weight like it was part of my new daily routine. Write article, start laundry, gain fifteen pounds. It wasn’t that I was spending the entire day shoveling the contents of the fridge into my Snackimals-hole, exactly, it was more that I fell back into a habit of eating some really crap food late at night. Adjusting to being home all day, using food as a reward for that tiny slice of evening that was kid-free, blah blah blah excuse-cakes.

(Mmmmm … cake.)

My strength and endurance improved when I started doing CrossFit, but I think my eating actually got harder to control. I had a lot of days when I was so incredibly epically ridiculously sore from a CrossFit workout that I found it nearly impossible to avoid snacking on carby foods. I really doubt that’s a common problem among serious CrossFitters, but for me I’ve learned what triggers my MUST EAT ALLLLL THE SUGARS cravings, and one of those things is feeling fatigue and pain. Like, when you can barely walk up a flight of stairs without sobbing, sometimes you just want a donut with self-pity frosting, you know?

Anyway, I’ve been much happier since I switched to doing my own workouts. Not only am I relieved to no longer be forcing myself to do something I wasn’t enjoying, but it’s been easier to make healthier food choices. I tend to spend my weekdays eating mostly lean proteins and vegetables, with weekends set aside for scheduled overindulging. I could definitely be leaner if I didn’t inhale everything in sight like a starving teenager a couple days a week, but … well, life’s short, right? I have many ice cream related needs.

As for exercise, I’m just cycling through a bunch of different things. I might do a workout DVD, or go for a run, or shove the lawnmower around our hilly-ass front lawn, or blow the cobwebs off my sadly neglected bike. I keep thinking I might want to take another class of some kind soon (which led me to trying Bikram yoga the other day, which I would describe as Horribly, Masochistically Vomitous with a side of Never Fucking Again Oh My Christ), but overall I feel like I’ve reclaimed that good feeling of enjoying physical activity, instead of dreading it.

Back when I felt like I was really sliding off the rails with my fitness, I took some highly unflattering photos. Just to document what I hoped was a Before state of being, I guess. I took some follow-up photos a couple weeks ago, and I’m pleased to see the improvement.

I suppose I’m sharing this because I find it useful to talk about backsliding. It happens to everyone, and it’s shocking how fast you can go from feeling like you’ve got everything under control to … well, not having anything under control. I wish like hell it wasn’t so hard to stay on track, but that’s how it is for me: I have to pick myself back up on a regular basis. The only damn thing that works for me is continually figuring out what works, because it’s always changing.

Some people find their exercise or diet passion and are able to stick to it for years, and some people keep falling into ruts and need to periodically kick themselves back out with something new. It can get discouraging, being in that second category. Like you’re in a pointless uphill battle, like you’re incapable of real longterm change. But I also think that at the end of the day the two categories aren’t that different. Neither one is easy. Both simply require that you don’t give up.

If there’s one thing that seems to be consistently true about children, it’s that they’re almost always (but not, of course, to the point of being consistent) inconsistent in their behavior. Which is to say, I expected the absolute worst last weekend, but it turned out that bringing two rambunctious boys to a funeral was perfectly fine. Riley preened in his clip-on tie and shiny black shoes and handed out memorial flyers in an adorable fashion, while Dylan played quietly with a muted iPhone until the precise moment when the minster asked everyone to observe a moment of silence for Uncle Jack, at which point he slithered into JB’s lap and fell into an angelic, rosy-cheeked slumber.

Of the various outcomes I had imagined, boy, Being Helpful/Quietly Napping didn’t even make the top 50.

Anyway, we’re back home again and still catching up on laundry. This time we broke up the trip with a couple of hotel stays between here and Coos Bay, cutting down on the driving-related insanity but upping the overall sense that road-tripping nearly 1,000 miles with kids on a regular basis really shits the bed. Oh, I am crossing my fingers that 2011 is our year for figuring out how to move to Oregon. We should be closer to family, for so many reasons.

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