Saturday, March 26, 2011

Self-Portrait

It's all about how you see yourself... I saw this in a shop window while walking around the French Quarter with my mom last week. So very true in so many ways. Click here to read more...

Friday, March 4, 2011

-20%? Really?

I've been training with my friend Jason twice a week for about 6 months now, give or take time off for holidays/illness/work conflicts. In this time, my weight has fluctuated a bit, but overall, I have lost 0 lbs. I am not really bothered by this. The way I figure, with my life as chaotic as it is right now (full-time nurse practitioner student in clinical rotations and working half-time at the hospital, among other things) and given my propensity to stress-eat, I am pretty pleased with the fact that I haven't GAINED weight this (academic) year. Jason, apparently, does not feel the same way, as I found out last week. At the beginning of our session on Thursday, he told me that my homework for the week is to do calorie counts. Easy enough. I've been keeping food journals the entire time we've been working together. Initially, he would have me send him weekly reports, which he then picked over and criticized, but eventually he either lost interest or became fed up with my obstinacy and stopped giving me any feedback on them. So, I stopped emailing them to him. I thought that perhaps I was off the hook, but alas, 'twas not the case. Jason reminded me that "we only have four weeks left." Until the season starts, that is. BIKE SEASON.

And thus, I am now to do calorie counts in order to present him with a number that he will then hack, by at least 20%. He says that we are going to be increasing the intensity of our workouts and we will also have to "teach your body to do more with less." That doesn't make any sense to me. If you are making a more powerful engine, don't you need to give it more fuel? Not less? Lest you risk it breaking down on the side of the road?

I am very resistant to his suggestions when it comes to my diet, and I pay for my attitude in the form of a very frustrated trainer. I want to listen to him. I do. I don't want my friend/trainer getting so aggravated that he threatens to "break-up" with me because I won't listen to him.

But I just can't completely trust/believe him. Yet.

My body and eating habits are the MOST sensitive topics you can ever approach me about, and
I have been so disappointed and so hurt by countless other efforts to change that yielded no results, that I suppose I am hesitant to believe anybody anymore. I suppose it's a perfect example of sabotaging yourself- I am so afraid of failing yet again, that I stop myself from *really* trying.

Maybe I can stop that vicious cycle this time.
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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Inner Peace (relationally speaking anyways)

I went to breakfast this morning with a good friend who also happens to be an ex. How that works, and how we can manage to still be so close is another post entirely; for now, I'll just say that since we broke up, he has been one of my biggest cheerleaders when it comes to relationships. He wants me to be happy but will also give it to me straight when someone isn't treating me right and I'm too blind to see it. He's that guy who will tell a gal pal "you deserve better," then follow it with a big bear hug and likely a few tears shed when you realize he's right. My current boyfriend and I have been together just shy of 3 months but have lived together since before our first "real" date. Not a usual sequence of events, but somehow it has worked. So naturally at breakfast, Claude asked me how things were going, and if I thought this was "the" guy. I was a little taken aback by the question, since Claude doesn't usually go down such sentimental roads, but also because I was surprised to find myself not stumbling for a response. "Yeah, I think so," I said, as calmly as if he'd asked me about the weather. But, why was I so at ease? 'Twas a pretty hefty question he asked me, after all And I've been as guilty as anyone when it comes to worrying about finding Mr. Right, walking down the primrose aisle and arriving exactly on schedule to "the rest of my life." But lately I haven't really given it much thought. Maybe I've just been too busy between shifts at the hospital, clinical rotations and other grad school course work to worry much about it. But I don't think that's it, because when I'm really honest with myself, I will tell you that I absolutely have big dreams about sharing my life with this man. I have so many ideas of places I want to show him and adventures I want us to have. It's just that this time around, there doesn't seem to be that usual sense of urgency about any of it. My heart simply brims with a brilliant calm energy when I think about the two of us. Maybe I've finally figured out that things rarely happen when or how you want them to, and if I just relax and let go, everything will work out fine. Maybe I realized that I'm a pretty rad lady and whether I "have a man" in my life or not does not define my worth as a person. Maybe I finally realized that my life is already happening right now and I should stop worrying so much about searching for "someone special", and then, as if on cue, he came along. (Damn all those people who say "you don't find love, it finds you" for being right!)

So, the question then, is, where does that leave this blog? Heretofore, this has been primarily an outlet for my relational frustrations, a place for my broken heart to cry, but I've tired of this line of writing and need a new direction. Perhaps then, I shall write about my newest endeavor: bike racing, in all it's glory and aches and pains...

Stay tuned...
Click here to read more...