Calling myself out

Ok, I started this in part to keep myself accountable. So, now I have to do that.

That means admitting I've been off the proverbial wagon for the last seven days. It's hard to admit this, because it means admitting the bad choices I've made, and the fact that I knew they weren't the most helpful choices as I was making them. It's not like I can say, "What?! I had no idea that it was a bad plan to eat that cake!"

I needed things I wasn't getting, so I put other things in place that were not what I needed but made it seem like I was getting by. I loved my friends' visit, but of course being "on vacay" or having people visit from out of town often means eating out. Still, though, while there were some extravagances during their visit (most notably more alcohol than I generally do, risotto, some apple cake - delish by the way - and some self-serve fro-yo) there was also a lot of vegetables, a lovely salad lunch, and some exercise. What really was caused me to fall over the edge was not their visit or my semi-vacation eating, but instead all the things leading up to it. If anything, the semi-vacation time in my own city brought some balance back to "the force."

See, September put me on the road every day but three, and it wasn't good for me. I needed more time, more support in my work and personal life, more practical help from my office, more sleep, a more solid plan to eat well and exercise, and some downtime so that I could process, think, and set myself up to make good decisions. What I got was an average of 5 hours of sleep a night, the need to do all of my cooking in two hours a week, having to make myself go to the gym after 9pm and after 10-14 hour work days, eating in the car, and working longer and longer hours and falling more and more behind on administrative office work. I got a lot of tired, a lot of unanswered personal and professional questions, and a lot of pressure to do and be more.

I am glad to report that I missed only two of my workout assignments from my trainer in September, and worked really hard for all of the days September, to eat healthy. I walked in the mornings, though the beginning of the end of my commitment was when I stopped getting up at 6am to do that regularly. I ate a lot of healthy food, but the FRED voices worked their way in. I was tired and stressed out pretty much every day, all day and there was a stress toll paid as well. I've noticed that FRED has a lot less to do with bad food being present, and a lot more to do with addictive eating, emotional or stress eating. FRED has almost nothing to do with being hungry, but for sure being tired is a big predictor of what I will hear loudest inside my head.Yes, that's right . . . like a schizophrenic, something I'm starting to learn about myself is that there are some internal voices I need to make friends with; those that ell me it's a good idea to have the whole box of Cheezits, as well as those that clamor for kale salad and chicken breast.

It started so innocently. I baked some gluten free pumpkin bread for my singing class. I didn't intend to eat it, but to give it away. But then my class was canceled and I had a serious carb (with chocolate!) on my hands. I had a few pieces and then decided it was wiser to throw it out than keep it. Good job, Christie, good job.

Then the next week I had done 10 hours of working out, and I needed to add a couple of hundred calories to my day - pizza. A week later, I had joked with my boyfriend about cheese fries and he showed up with them. None of these things derailed my results, so it was easy to treat them as isolated incidents, instead of a pattern. Looking back though, there was a result I hadn't taken into account - how I felt about what I was doing, and an erosion to my resolve and my choices. Pumpkin bread, pizza, and cheese fries became sandwiches, a cookie, and a scone. And soon, September ended and I was tossed into a two day conference in October. Have you been to one of these things? It's food allllll dayyyyy loooooooong. It's also a sit-fest and an expectation to be professionally "on" all day, up to 10 hours, and then still somehow make up for the phone calls and emails that have been missed afterwords. I found myself in a hotel, not all that far from home, but it might as well have been in Srilanka for as far away as I felt from the semblance of eating-and-exercising routine I had established. We were at breakfast at 7:30-8, in workshops from 8-5:30, and then had networking sessions. I wasn't obligated to be at the networking sessions, but with as many people as I'd been in small group exercises with, and as many people there from my company, it would have been rude not to go.

My first day at the workshop went like this:
7:30  Breakfast of fruit and bagel. I swear, that was the healthiest choice
10  Snack - the same foods as offered at breakfast plus a rack of chips
1  Lunch - I ate salad because it was the best choice, but there were no protein sources I felt comfortable with so I knew I would be hungry in the afternoon . . . damn.
3ish Snack - chips, veggies and dip, candy bars, ice cream offered. I had veggies and dip and Smartfood popcorn. I was really hungry from lunch. I stared down the candy bars . . . it was hard to walk away.
5:30 Our cocktail hour and networking session. Beer,well drinks, wine, sushi that I couldn't eat because it had mayo in it (you really don't want to know how much I hate mayonnaise. Trust me), fried spring rolls, fried cheese, cheese and crackers, veggies and dip, meat I couldn't make myself eat because I didn't know where it came from, and a whole mess of desserts. I had two beers, three pieces of cheese, veggies and dip, and one tiny fried spring roll. So, I knew I was still hungry.
7:30 I knew I was in trouble when I headed into my "make-up work" session. I grabbed an apple, a bottle of water, and headed for the lounge hoping to scoop some wifi and knock out some emails. What a mistake. It became social time as more and more people joined us, and while I loved it, after that day, it was hard not to have a couple more beers, snack on some calamari . . . oy.

Going into the second day, it got harder and harder to stare down the chips and candy bars, and I won some of the battles, but not all of them. And so I began to feel I was losing the war. That's the mentality I carried with me going into picking my friends and being in the mode to enjoy their visit and my time off. Do you see how a few pebbles can so easily become a landslide?

I feel like the J.K. Rowling quote becomes my life when I look at these patterns and what it will take to break them. "Constant Vigilance!"

So, I began calling myself out while my friends were here and mentioning why yes, I do very much want dessert, but I'm putting fruit on my fro yo. Or, I'm aiming for more vegetables today. Or, i really need to work some exercise in. Not perfect, but looking for that balance in enjoying myself and living life and also not going hog wild at the trough.

I hadn't really planned it this way, but when I made my appointment with the nutritionist I made it for 3 hours directly after leaving my friends (with lots of hugs, gratitude, and love) at the airport. It was kind of perfect. (it is moments like these that I really think things happen for a reason.

Several people commented, "After all of your self education about your medical conditions and carbs and food do you really think she can tel you anything you don't know?" I went in there with the attitude of, "For me to get better results, I have to consider that either I don't know everything or that I do know things but haven't been accountable to that knowledge." It was my plan to challenge this woman to give me my money's worth by helping me come up with some systems of accountability and some ways to really get the kind of results that are realistic but also keep me motivated. We worked very hard with a lot of information to plan what we felt was doable, what my body can handle without faking itself out, and what allows me to still live my life - a lifestyle that we had to frankly acknowledge does not make it easy for me to get big results.

I did hear a lot of things that were news to me, and I heard things that helped me or taught me something new. More on that in coming entries, but for now, a renewed sense of what I'm tackling, my goals, and a better map of how to walk that road.

Best of all, when she wanted to weigh me, we had a very hard discussion where I said, "I'm normally fine with stepping on the scale, but it's been a week of eating off of my plan and not exercising as much. I'm not sure I want to weigh today." she gently said, "We will have a much better idea of what is working if we can track the change on my scale each time you come in." Like the giant nerd that I am, I said, "I can get behind looking at the delta, not the number." As we walked over to the scale she said, "We're not going to marry this number, we're just going to meet it."I liked that. I'm not married to this number, I'm just using it for tracking purposes. I liked even better to find that I had only gained 2.5 pounds. I hate that I gained since my body is such a fighter when it comes to letting go of the weight, so I know mow much time it takes to take off 2.5 pounds. i like that my hard week doesn't mean I am a total failure or have completely backslid.

It's an important lesson to me - accountability is important, and something I continue to need to work towards, but life also happens and I need to know that not every week can be a perfect week. Better even than that, I need to plan that when things aren't perfect, I need to not let it continue to roll out of control. But, like many things, I can't see it clearly inside of it . . . what felt like certain doom to me, was actually 2.5 pounds and a roller-coaster week where what I saw was the cake, the waffles, the ravioli and risotto, the for yo, and the little tastes of chocolate. What I didn't account for was the best run of my life, a hike, a lot of "out-and-about" walking, and some choices that were amazing! I ate vegetables at the conference snack, not ice cream! I made sure we had three servings of vegetables at our dinner party!

So, I'm calling myself out for not logging my food last week, I'm calling myself out for not making time for myself at that conference, because really, 10 hours of work should've been enough so running and giving myself an hour was more than reasonable. I'm calling myself out for the things I ate that were just ridiculous. Not the ravioli. Not the risotto. But things like the fried spring roll and the candy bar. Just unnecessary. (Some of the other choices were good food, made in good ways, just food that happens to be a little carbier than is optimal on a regular basis. Fried food and processed candy, not so much.) But I'm also calling myself out for being so hard on myself that one error feels like the end, because that is likely where the crack in the foundation formed causing things to fall down a bit.

So, I'm back, and I'm ready to make the rest of this month be about what this should be about: accountability, and a goal to take care of myself, not to beat myself into the ground. Off to finish all of my doctor's appointments (I hope) for the rest of the year!

The importance of being LAZY

Laziness is the oft overlooked key to balance. Laziness allows people to rest, to process, and to enjoy one another. Laziness is one of my best skills, and the best way to spend three day weekends. Yet, laziness is the thing I tend to overlook when planning fun.

I once had an amazing vacation with a wonderfully good friend. Here is what we did: we met at my home in NJ and drove to the town 45 minutes outside of the lake area we would be staying at. We bought liquor and groceries. We each had packed games, books, and DVDs. We then continued driving, arriving at the vacation home we were borrowing. Here's what we did not do: plan anything beyond which groceries to purchase. What followed was an amazing week where I would wake up between 7 and 9am and read. He would wake up around 9-10am, making is way out to the great room some thirty minutes later. Without ever discussing it, it became our habit to play dominoes or SET (live, not online) while eating a simple breakfast of fruit, cereal and/or yogurt. Then he would go to read or nap while I went to swim or walk. I would arrive back at the house and quietly grab a snack, clean up, and sit out on the porch with a book or journal, sometimes doing nothing more interesting than staring at the leaves. Then we would reconvene (again, with no discussion or plan, just a natural sense of the rhythm) and drink, talk, cook dinner (generally LESS simple fare as we both were itching to cook for the other), and watch 2, or if it was a particularly ambitious evening, three movies while doing a few shots. There was a lot of deep discussion and a lot of laughter. It was one of the best respites of my life, and the time I felt closest to that friend. I have had wonderful vacations since then, but never have I felt that completely rested again.

Now, however, when people visit (or if I'm being very honest, in the 6 weeks before anyone visits; why yes, I am a type-A planner, thanks for asking.) I find myself making lists of where to eat, what to see, and what we will do. This visit, by two of my oldest and dearest friends, has been no exception. I wanted to hike, and that was thwarted, so we replaced that with happy-hour-hopping with one of my awesomest friends who is here in Boulder. We three planned a dinner party (which included lentil soup, kale salad, green beans with roasted garlic, homemade butternut squash ravioli with brown butter and sage sauce, a corn bread and rosemary encrusted pork loin, and a homemade apple cake . . . so, you know, a nice easy meal to prepare), made sure to see some of their family, some natural beauty, and some touristy wonders, and have gone for a run. Today was supposed to be another run, some time in town, and another dinner. This is similar to most of the time I have taken off in the last two years, whether it be for a visit to someone else, or the happy occasion of someone coming to visit me. Run around, eat, see this, see that, eat, see something else, do something cultural or touristy, eat again, get in some exercise, see or do something local, and did I mention eat?

It was kind of a relief when my best, best friend, and the only person to know me for so long that the time is measured in decades, not years, woke up and crawled into bed and said, "Maybe we could just skip the run and make a big breakfast instead." When I spend time with him and his husband, it is usually at their house and there is usually a great deal of cooking, but also a great deal of quiet, chilling out time. It's strange that I didn't think of that as part of the recipe when they were coming here. (Though of course, recipes and ingredients were key for the day o' cooking we had on Friday. and can be passed along to others by request.)

I don't advocate lying around and doing nothing if it means lapsing into a regular habit of failing to get things done at work, or in ones' personal life. It would be a bad result if this idea of needing to rest meant that the laundry never got done, or that colleagues at work felt I was unreliable. In my case, the greater danger is if laziness turns to inertia when it comes to exercise. That quickly leads to a lack of motivation to work on my fitness, and that quickly cascades into apathy about preparing food, which in turn triggers eating less healthy, which then makes it impossible to fight off the voices that call on me to eat things that are just ridiculous . . . whole boxes of Cheezits, three slices of cake, frozen pizzas, etc. But on the other hand, what I learned from the non-stop pace of September is that if there is no break, sooner or later, the system of working hard and working out hard gives way under the strain. Once the wheels come off the cart, it's impossible to steer it to a gentle stop.

It's hard to know what to do about this. Essentially what I'm saying is that I need to find balance within my approach to find balance. I need to locate the balance, but not lose perspective and homeostasis between rest and seeking as I look for the end point. I don't want to leave rest out of the picture, but I know that spending too much time inactive and without purpose is dangerous. So, as I seek the place where those pieces are all accounted for and snapped into the puzzle, I need to both work hard, and rest deeply.

It's hard to know how to get to a place you've never been to. I've never had a lifestyle that meant I could workout the 8-10 hours a week I need in order to lose weight, while also having the 2-5 hours a week for fresh food preparation, and being able to get 6-8 hours of sleep, some quiet time to just be, either with myself or with people who help me feel like my best self. I've never had that. In fact, I generally only have that for 3-6 days at a time when I visit these two friends in Boston.

It is a wonderful and lovely gift that they came here to visit me, and to see the life I have made for myself here, through a lot more hurdles than I bargained for when I first conceived of this move. It is even more significant that they brought with them, without perhaps knowing it, the very timely reminder that rest is not an indication that I'm not serious about my work, my endeavors to work on myself, or my life.

The trick of laziness for me, personally, is to be lazy enough to re-charge, but not so lazy that it becomes a slippery slope or a hole I feel I can't get out of. (Remember how tricky holes are for me?) The careful work of making lazy exist in correct proportion to fun and activity when creating good times with other people always involves two important things: communication and flexibility. I have the one in spades and pretend that that makes up for the dearth of the other (blush).

In fact, as I was writing the first draft of this post, we were all enjoying the post-waffle glow and slowly making our way through showers, second cups of coffee, checking email, and all the other hazy to-do items that are so much more pleasant when done slowly, among good company, and langourously. As I was typing, a voice piped up over the music and clack of keyboard saying, "Ummmm, so, are we taking a walk downtown? And are we still talking about a hike?" It was a reminder to me that while sitting around un-make-upped and deep in thought was perfect for me at 1pm, that for others, the lazy quota was full.

So, we did hike (finally! Redeemed from the thwarted hike of Thursday), saw great views of Boulder and of the Flatirons, and then headed downtown for some of what I think of as quintessential Boulder: Pearl Street Mall and dinner at Mountain Sun. Then finishing the day off with some self-serve frozen yogurt (which is fast becoming deeply associated with Boulder since we now have four of these locations, rivaling our number of Whole Foods groceries) (ummm, also, I know it's bad form to have two parenthesis, but I cannot mention Whole Foods without mentioning the totally brilliant youtube vid about the Whole Foods Parking lot. It really reaches it's apex when he rhymes "bra" with "quinoa." ), chat, and the bi-annual music exchange.

I say this whenever I am on vacay, but it really strikes me that when I walk more, eat less (but what I want), sleep enough, laugh more than enough, have a few drinks, and have positive human contact, life seems much more doable to me. I sometimes make pledges on vacation and say that I will find ways for there to be, "more gin! more pedicures!" and then it never works once I'm back in the thick of things. The pendulum swings hard to the right, and I become a worker bee. Then the pendulum swings far to the left, and I crash. Vacation, time with friends, that's the only middle ground. I also have the opportunity, as I happened this morning, to have this imbalance modulated not just by my own motivation, but by the needs, wants, and suggestions of others. So, my pledge is this, I will try to have some balance as I seek more balance so that there is laughter, sleep, and some time for laziness.

Thanks to my friends for coming, for loving me, for putting up with my ridiculous need to plan everything and the difficulty with which I part with those plans, and for understanding that I rarely find the middle ground between lazy and busy. It's quite something for the two of them to have known me this long and still like me this much . . . farewell, you two, see you for some more epic cooking and relaxation over New Years!