2018 - A Healthy Start

I woke up on January 1st, 2018 and knew that something needed to change. Okay, maybe it was January 5th, I don't know. But the important thing is, I knew that I couldn't continue on the way I had been. I have not been particularly unhealthy, really, but I have been on a path that does not bode well for a great quality of life, and especially as I get older.

Perhaps more importantly, I have not been particularly happy with myself. I feel restless, not content. I don't feel like I have been living my best life. I've just been coasting in a lot of ways. Okay, I'll admit it, there has been a good amount of self-loathing involved here. Actually, I have battled varying degrees of self-loathing for my entire life, but let's not go there right now.  Anyway, the bottomline is that I knew I had to change some stuff.

I started by deciding to immediately revamp my eating habits. I've been really loose-y-goose-y in this area for most of my life. I don't eat a ton of junk food, especially in recent years. I can't tell you the last time I went to a McDonalds/Burger King/Taco Bell/KFC. But I also have not been very careful about what I eat. My choices have trended towards the type of food that isn't the most conducive to optimal health, or even feeling that great. Think, a lot of pasta, bread, convenience food, steak, sugar, not much in the way of vegetables.

So, this is how I started:

• First, there are no rules. Nothing is off the table (ha, see what I did there?) I hate the word "diet". I wanted a sustainable eating plan, not a short-term diet. If I labeled a food as bad or not allowed, there is no way that I could be successful. So, I decided that I can eat or drink anything at any time. But, I want to ensure that I choose healthier options most of the time. If I decide that I want pizza and beer someday, I will have it.
• Vegetables are a priority. Think about what I like and figure out how to incorporate lots of them into my life. 
• Avoid processed food as much as you possibly can.
• I love fish, why am I not eating it more? Eat more fish. 
• Red meat is okay, but maybe it should be more of a once in a while thing. 
• Chicken. Lots of chicken. But blech on steamed, skinless chicken breasts. Make chicken (breasts and thighs) all kinds of ways. Find new ways!
• Fats are okay. But think about the quality of fats. 
• Be mindful. Don't make food choices based on what is easiest, or on a whim (like walking past the hot bar at the grocery store where the crispy wings smell so good). Think about what you're choosing. 
• Figure out where sugar is coming from and do everything you can to cut it out. 
• Cook at home/prepare food at home the majority of time. 
• Alcohol: Drink it! But think about it. Do you really want it on a week night? (usually the answer is "no"). Do you really need it on Friday night, just because you're not working tomorrow (usually the answer is "no"). 
• Diet Coke. Actually, this is bad. Don't drink it. 

I am still trying to figure out some other stuff. Some are around:

• Fitness
• Social 
• Work/Career
• Money
• Home
• Future (retirement)
• Feeling of Contentedness/Balance/Happiness (this is hard to define)

I will make future posts around how I am doing with my eating plan and some of these other areas of focus. For now, this is a start. 

Fear

I mentioned before that I am going through a cycle of fear with my riding. Specifically with jumping. There is no real reason for it (at least this time around). Nothing bad has happened, I have not had a fall, or even (really) a terrible jumping round. No, I just haven't been jumping a lot and the less I jump, the more my fear grows. It's unreasonable, and even a bit nuts, but fear is a hard emotion to get a handle on.



I think I have my trainer convinced now that I can't handle anything "big" and that I hate to jump. This is not really true, however. What I hate is the anticipation of jumping. Once we're on course, I'm usually okay. I'm also better if I go earlier in the rotation, rather than later (if there are three or four people in the class, my nerves are much better if I jump first. If I jump last, I tend to start freaking out more). Once I start a course, however, I'm fairly calm and able to function okay. When I'm looking at a jump course and the jumps are relatively big ("big" for me means around 3 feet), I'll start to freak out, but once we start jumping, I seem to settle into the work. Actually, the bigger ones tend to jump a little nicer, so I might even relax a bit on course with larger fences. Oddly, I am the most relaxed when jumping cross-country. Jumping stadium courses in the ring, I tend to think and worry too much and just want to "get it over-with". Send me out in the field and I'm up for a nice gallop, jumping anything that gets in the way. After a jumping session, I usually feel pretty exuberant, excited that I did it, happy that it went well, a bit of an adrenalin rush. It feels great.



I think the fear is partially physical fear and partially a fear of failure. The physical side of this tends to ebb & flow with how much I’m jumping in any given season and how well it’s going (and, typically, the more I’m jumping, the better it tends to go, things are funny that way). But something I struggle with in many other parts of my life, in addition to riding, is the fear of failure. I can intellectualize the logic of my resistance to starting down an unsure path where success is not assured, but I really struggle with the emotions around this and the resulting inertia. I worry about failure, and so I don’t even try. I worry about looking foolish or stupid. I doubt myself and self-loathing rears its head. It sounds so simple and stupid, just put yourself out there, you don’t have to be perfect! I know, I know, I agree, but it’s just not that simple. It’s an extremely complicated and layered emotional thing. It’s a little easier to see the illustration with something like riding, since the physicality of the activity makes it a little more simple, more black & white, but it’s still there and a very real feeling that paralyzes my willingness to take chances.



Because of my fear issues, in addition to being pretty resistant to jumping in general, I have not been willing to sign up for any competition this year (there is a logistical and time component to this too, but the fear is probably the biggest element). I chickened out on an invitation to go to fox hunting (the opening hunt) this past weekend and I have chickened out on multiple opportunities to go cross-country schooling this Summer. Oddly enough, I have had absolutely no problem with motivating myself to go out hacking alone, including galloping down the trail. Maybe it’s because no one is watching? My horse has been so good in general, that I have reached a point where I really do trust her. I just need to trust myself more. In the meantime, my peers at the barn are all competing and advancing and all doing very well and I am completely left in the dust.



If I am to be honest with myself (and, really, if you can’t be honest on your blog, why even bother?) I will also have to admit that there is another component to my current fear issues. Being significantly overweight and out of shape wreaks havoc on my ability to ride well -- my physical ability to actually do the activity (let’s face it, the tighter and more athletic you are, the more solid and balanced you are going to be careening around a stadium jumping course, and the more solid & balanced you are, the more confident you’re going to feel overall). It also affects my perception of myself, my willingness to take a chance and put myself out there and out of my comfort zone, my concern for looking silly or ridiculous. Hell, when I feel that I am even more porked out than normal, even my willingness to meet new people or interact with people I already know is affected. It’s a vicious circle too. The more self-conscious I am, the more self-loathing sets in, the less likely I am to expose myself to activity and situations where I could look silly or ridiculous or not competent. So, I hide and don’t try new things or put myself out there in general, and of course my activity level decreases. Add to that a 50+ hour a week desk job and any willingness to pursue enough activity to make a dent in my fitness level really suffers. Most weekdays are crazy and I am committed to riding at least three workdays out of five (and both weekend days). I used to be able to schedule gym or running time on my lunch hours at work, but I now have so many lunchtime meetings and commitments, that it hasn’t been realistic in a long time. I am generally at work by 7 and I ride after work, home around 7:30-8 PM and in bed by 9. So there isn’t a lot of wiggle room on these days for fitting something else in (especially something in the mid-day when I will need a shower afterwards). What I must do, however, is make a commitment to do some other activity (running, yoga, spinning, even just a long walk with the dogs) on the days where I don't have riding commitments. Thursdays are a good target (I have lessons on Tuesday & Wednesdays and usually plan to ride on Mondays as well). If could just get myself to run or take a yoga class or go to the gym on Thursdays & Fridays and one day (in addition to riding) on the weekend, I think that would be a great start. It would also really help if could sleep better during the week and not be so unbelievably exhausted by Thursday. Okay, I’m making excuses. I just need to suck it up and make a plan.





A long and rambling post to my conclusions … I absolutely know what some of these things are that are holding me back, in life, in general, but in riding in particular. But how do I overcome them? That is really the meat of the problem. I can blather about it all endlessly, I can self-analyze with the best of them, but what I really need is a concrete action plan. Hmmm, more on this in future posts, I think …

This is incredibly inspiring.

Self-Doubt & Loathing

I had a bit of a meltdown in my jumping lesson last week. I'm still not even quite sure what happened. I do know that I was nervous all day for the impending lesson, but that's not anything new. I just started riding and I felt like I couldn't ride to save my life. I was full of self-doubt, convinced that I just Cant. Do. This. I'm not really sure where that was coming from.

When we started jumping I just felt so unfocused, not sharp and questioned every tiny decision I was making. I also was sort of hyperventilating a little bit and was light-headed. I was riding a jump course, generally about the height that I have been competing at, with one or two jumps maybe a smidge higher (but not by much). I had jumped half the course, had just finished a line down the long side, when I pulled up and said that I just couldn't do it anymore that day. I really kind of lost it and a week later, I'm still not really sure why. Nothing bad had happened, Ruby was acting fine. I just suddenly had a real loss of confidence for some reason. I don't know, I'm a bit of a freak, I guess.

This sort of illustrates a general on-going refrain in my life overall. Self-doubt, self-loathing, insecurity, lack of confidence that I can accomplish ___ (fill in the blank with whatever I'm worried about at any given point). With my new running program, it's more of the same thing. I am filled with thoughts of 'who do you think you are ... '. As I struggle to complete whatever running intervals that are on the schedule for any give day, I am completely self-conscious and mortified to see other people while I'm out trying to struggle through. It can totally get into my head and kill any ability to continue running. With work? Well, I don't even want to talk about work.

I have to figure out how to create more self-confidence in my life. This really affects everything from, being successful in my job, to feeling like I am able to have the lifestyle that I want to have. I am such a head case, it's just so strange how cyclical this can be. I can be going along, everything is fine and crash! I'm just a mess of doubt and self-loathing. Of course allowing the self-doubt to cause a meltdown such as with the jumping last week breeds even more self-loathing and utter disappointment in myself. It's just a vicious, ugly circle.

Postscript: The Tale of the Evil Mounting Block.

The day was not without some casualty however. Because of my incredibly sore rear area, I was having some trouble moving and bending. I could not lean over the save my life, had to crouch down to pick anything up. And mounting was a serious problem. I couldn’t bend my leg to get it in the stirrup and mount the way one normally would do. I had to stick my leg out straight, which meant sort of cantilevering my butt out at an angle in order to get in the right position. Well. When I was preparing to get on for my stadium round, I was awkwardly trying to position myself in this way and somehow I managed to upset the balance of the mounting block! The thing tipped over and threw me to the ground, hard on my sore butt. I was embarrassed more than hurt -- two people riding past as this happened were doubled over hysterically laughing.

But apparently the mounting block was not finished with me. Later in the day, when I was all finished riding, I had changed into shorts and was packing some of my stuff up into the trailer to get it out of the way. Well, I stepped out of the dressing/tack room and onto the mounting block, but I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention as I somehow stepped onto it on the edge of it, again completely upsetting the balance of the thing. Only this time I was flung into the air and ended up crashing down on the mounting block, hard (front first). I did some serious damage to myself, I look and feel like someone beat me with a baseball bat. Huge purple bruise that covers my entire left thigh. A less dark, but more painful bruise that goes from knee all the way down my calf. A black-purple contusion on my stomach. But worst of all, I’ve done some damage to my ribs, my upper right ribcage is so painful that I can’t roll over, or sit up easily, or breath deeply, or cough, or sneeze, or even really touch the area without significant pain. I haven’t tried to ride yet, but have trouble imagining how I’m going to be able to. The damn mounting block seriously had it in for me that day. SHEESH. If I wasn’t so banged up, I’d find it funny. At least it did take my mind off of all my sore hind parts. That mounting block did far more damage than falling off the horse did, by a long shot.

Hypnosis: Check-in on Progress

It's been a little over a week now since I had my hypnosis session and I have to say that I think it's been going very well. I definitely feel calmer and I am amazed at how much more in control I feel of my eating.

There were a number of times during the week when I've let myself get pretty hungry and I started craving bad stuff as a result, yet I still managed to stick to the chicken & asparagus or the whole wheat pasta or the yogurt that I already had in my fridge. I went to the grocery store at 7 PM one night, before I had had dinner and yet I managed to come away with all healthy stuff. I did not buy even one sweet or prepared meal (other than Lean Cuisine) or pizza or whatever. I'm especially amazed that I was able to carry all of this through the weekend. The weekends are definitely my weakest times, but I did not stray off of my plan even once. I feel so much more on top of this than I have in a long time.

I was also better about exercising in general, but still not quite as good as I want to be. I definitely let poor sleep, work busy-ness and poor planning interfere with exercise, so this is something to be aware of and know that it is something that I need to push myself through.

Perhaps most amazing of all is how my levels of stress and anxiety have been affected. I can't say that I haven't felt any of the above, but before the hypnosis, what would have caused galloping, out-of-control anxiety and stress for me, triggered a reaction that has been more like butterflies. Just flutters, really.

So, I have to say that so far I'm a fan of hypnosis! I'm not sure if maybe it's the "placebo effect", but something seems to be working for me.

Sundry

* I'm not quite sure why, but every conversation I have with my father leads to my defensiveness and even sometimes irritation, over the most mundane of topics. Case in point: Today he was asking how Tig's obedience class was going. And then he went on to say something to the effect that I must have a goal to make him "sane". What? He's just an excited dog, but he's a good boy. My response was, "no, the goal is for him to be happy. To give him something fun to do. To engage his mind. And to reinforce our bond." Whatever.

* Speaking of Tig, I took him on a very nice, long walk/hike/run/whatever in Mine Falls Park today. We saw a good number of other people, as well as dogs, during our outing and Tig was each time completely focused on me and willing to stick by my leg on a loose leash. He's really come a long way.

* On my way to the park this morning, I took a drive through the condo complex that I'm interested in, just to get a feel for the area. The place seems pretty nice and there also appears to some conservation land that abuts the property to East, which is a plus. Also, I noticed that the decks on the townhouse units are actually a bit bigger than I had originally thought. Still smaller than what I currently have, but larger than I had been thinking, so that's a plus. It was nice to see how close we would be to Mine Falls Park and other trail areas.

* I'm still a little bit traumatized by our nor'easter/hurricane/tornado or whatever it was that hit Southern NH on Thursday night, into Friday. I do not want to have to repeat that experience any time soon -- it was crazy! And now I'm rather overwhelmed with the task of figuring out how I'm going to address my damaged roof and porch. GAWD! It's always something. Add THIS to the pro list for moving to a condo townhouse.

* Post-hypnosis seems to be going well so far. I have not been tempted to binge (or really, to eat anything not in my best interests) and was motivated to do the walk today.

* I had some text messages from the kid who was riding Ruby this week down in Aiken for my trainer's "Kids' Camp Week". She sent me updates through the week and gushed about how much she loved Ruby. I always enjoy hearing when someone loves my horse and I really appreciated the updates. I told her that she could ride Ruby back in NH if she wants to. I am thinking especially for the weeks I'm on-call when it is hard for me to count on being able to ride at all.

* I'm enjoying this weekend quite a bit, I wish it was a long one!

Hypnosis on a Saturday Morning

I had my hypnosis session today and I think that I'm still trying to process everything. Actually, I think it's going to take me a few days to really get a feel for whether it is working, to see what I'm getting out of it. So far, however, I'm thinking that the result has been positive.

Since this was my first time, the session started with a long talk with the hypnosis therapist. We talked a lot about my goals, my life, both past & present, my feelings, what stresses me out, what fulfills me, what I see as a healthy ideal. It was a very long discussion, but an interesting one. It actually kind of felt like therapy and I feel like he knew me pretty well after all that. Then he spent a little bit of time explaining how the mind works and how hypnosis works and how these things fit together. He told me what to expect and then asked me if I had any concerns and I said, "nope". I guess most people have concerns, but whatever.

Then it was time for the actual hypnosis. I sat in a comfortable recliner and basically just listened to his voice. At no point did I really feel any different. I didn't "go" anywhere or ever feel like I couldn't just open my eyes at any moment. Random, unrelated thoughts did cross through my mind from time-to-time (stuff like, 'what errands do I need to do after this?'), but I was able to let them drift past without latching onto anything. During this session there were a couple of distinct periods where he talked me through deeper & deeper relaxation (mostly by counting and imagery) and the rest of the time he just emphasized the behaviors to help me reach my goals, as well as emphasis on my positive attributes. When it was time to end, he counted me out of it and I opened my eyes and that was pretty much it.

I can't say that I felt any different. I felt pretty relaxed, but at the same time, less tired than I had felt when I had arrived. I was amazed to learn, however, that our hypnosis session had lasted 40 minutes! If someone had asked me, I would have sworn it was no more than 15 minutes, if that. The jury is still out on whether this will have any effect on my behavior in my real life, but I'm willing to be open-minded about it. Already I can say that all I wanted for dinner tonight was a Lean Cuisine, even though I have a steak in my fridge. So that gives me a little bit of encouragement. It will be interesting to also see if there is any effect on my stress/anxiety levels. So I have a lot to think about this week and will be posting updates!

All-in-all, I was there for over 2.5 hours! I signed up for another session for next week, this will be a much shorter session, just the hypnosis part, I think. The therapist said for this type of work that three sessions are recommended. He said that after the three, most people are pretty well on track. We'll see.

Hypnosis Scheduled

Well, I have an appointment set for the hypnosis place. Unfortunately, I couldn't get anything before next Saturday, but it will be here soon enough. Should be interesting, I'll make a point of posting about my experience.

Hypnosis

Heaven help me, but I just sent an email to a hypnosis center in an adjacent town. I have to find a way to combat this continued anxiety, and the idea of hypnosis has always intrigued me. I would also be interested to see if it could help me with fitness goals, general focus, finding a "center", etc. I guess it couldn't hurt to check it out anyway, if I don't feel it's for me, I don't have to go back. If nothing else, it might make for an interesting blog post.

Working Out

Well, I'm trying to start off the new year on a more or less good, or at least healthy(ish), note. I believe I mentioned that I joined the "Y", but I didn't actually go for the first time until this past Saturday. For my first workout I was just going to do about half-an-hour, but I surprised myself by working out for almost an hour. I even managed to throw in a few running intervals.

Tonight I went back to the "Y" for more of the same. I spent half-an-hour on the elliptical and then walked for twenty minutes on the indoor running/walking track. The indoor track is really a great alternative during the Winter as the short, dark days, the frigid weather and the ice and snow (and snow banks) everywhere here make it pretty tough to run outside. The track is also considerably less tedious than the treadmill. I still want to keep sessions on the treadmill in rotation as I think I force myself to maintain a more consistent pace (whatever that targeted pace may be) and it works really well for adding intervals. Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with my motivation so far. I have signed myself up for a spinning class on Thursday night. I'm pretty nervous about that, it's been over a year since I've taken one and I'm hopelessly out of shape.

On the food front, I've been okay. Not perfect, but not bad. I've stuck to my breakfast resolve, eating yogurt or oatmeal 6 days / week. Most lunches have been reasonable -- I've actually been getting the entrees at the cafeteria at work (when they have a healthy one). Usually the portion is right and I'll get two vegetables as sides, something I tend not to eat much, when cooking for myself. I've been cooking a lot and have not had much in the way of sweets or other junk. I'm sure that I can get better in this area, but I feel pretty good about my progress at the moment. Oh! And I have increased my water intake and decreased the soda, so that is also a positive.

I think I need to have a different attitude about this health & fitness stuff than I have had previously. Always before it's been about weightloss and looking better. Well, maybe it hasn't been only about weightloss, but that always seems to the most prominent part of any new, healthy resolve to me. And this is also one of the reasons why I become so discouraged so easily, so demoralized when I can't ever seem to reach even a fraction of my ultimate goals. I throw my hands up in despair and figure, why bother? So, I think I have to completely throw weightloss out the window. I hope that weightloss happens, but I don't think that it can be the focus of my efforts any longer. It has just contributed to too many years of self-loathing and disappointment for me.

Instead I am now focused on heath and on training. When I don't want to work out, I have to remind myself of my (Eventing) competition goals. When I want to eat junk, I have to think about the health element and how it will make me feel. If I do eat junk, remember that bad physical feeling, rather than kick myself for having no will power or for setting myself back in my weightloss goals. As they like to say at Jenny Craig, "It's Progress, Not Perfection". At least, I think that was Jenny Craig. Whatever.

Goals for 2010 (non-riding)

My goals for 2010 are going to mostly be about behavior. I find that it's useless to make promises to myself like, "lose 30 lbs" or, "get a promotion or a raise (or whatever) at work", it's much more concrete and attainable to make goals around the specific behaviors or tasks that I can make a choice to do, or not do, on any given day that fulfill the goal and inch me closer towards the person that I want to be, towards the life that I see for myself. I believe my goals for last year were made with this idea more or less in mind, but I think that I am a little bit more mindful of that now.

Work

I feel that I am already on the path that I want to be on for this year at work. There were some changes to our group over the past six months or so that have opened up some additional opportunities for me to learn new stuff, take on new work, increase my value to the team, as well as expand my exposure to the enterprise. This, along with some new projects on the horizon are giving me the opportunity to learn some valuable new skills that are much needed in our group, so I am starting 2010 actually pretty excited for the work year ahead.

The work goals that I want to work on, in addition to the above, center on my management of fear. I'm not sure how much control I may have over stress and anxiety, but I can address the fear that sometimes holds me back at work. Fear of failure, fear of not knowing something, fear of looking like an idiot, fear of admitting that I'm unsure. You name it, these things crop up consistently for me and to the detriment of my forward progress sometimes. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a meeting when some issue comes up and, if I have an idea, but am not 100% sure it's the right answer, I keep my mouth shut, only to have someone else pipe up with the same, or a similar, thing. I sometimes start off new projects terrified that I'll screw up. Learning something new, convinced that I'm going to fail -- so I am sometimes afraid to take that chance. So, my goal for this year is to get over it. When new opportunities come up, take them on. When I am shown something new, take a chance at trying it on my own the next time (with the usual caution of backing up what can be backed up, etc.) Don't be afraid to voice an opinion. And (perhaps most importantly of all) don't let the attitude, condescension or bad vibes of anyone else taint my self-confidence or self-esteem.

Home

This is a new category for this year. About a month or so ago, I got this bug about cleaning and organizing and throwing crap away. It feels good. And it also feels really good to be living in surroundings that are a bit more serene. So, my goal is to keep throwing the excess away, keep up the dusting and vacuuming. Keep on top of what's stuffed into the refrigerator. Keep the fireplace clean. Shred everything that needs to be shredded on a weekly basis, at least. Get rid of the catalogs, cut down or eliminate magazine subscriptions. Go through clothes that haven't been worn in a year. More storage bins for the books and other stuff that I don't want to throw out, at least get it organized in the basement. Finish hanging the rest of pictures lying around the house (I actually just hung a few last week).

Other very specific home stuff:

* Get the garbage disposal / dishwasher fixed.
* Get the screening on the screen porch fixed or replaced (probably not until Spring or so).
* Get the deck stained. I think there is a loose board there too that needs to be fixed.
* Hang a new curtain rod in my bedroom (the one that's in there is hanging by a thread).
* This old electrical outlet thing that (I think) used to be part of some alarm system (previous owner) needs to be made inactive or closed or whatever. Anyway, need an electrician to take a look.
* Have light bulbs replaced in the garage opener and the overhead garage light (sounds silly, I know, but I can't reach either, even with the step stool!)

Finances

Oh, I really don't know. In 2009 I feel like I really didn't buy nearly as much random stuff in general that I have in previous years. I definitely did not buy many clothes or make trips to Target regularly, I haven't been to a mall in YEARS. Can't remember the last time I ordered anything from Crate & Barrel or William Sonoma or Pottery Barn. But I did buy a horse last year and so have also been spending money on all the stuff that comes along with horse ownership. So I can't say that this newfound restraint has saved me anything. It's just flowing out the other side. At least I recognize that I have to make adjustments if I am to pay for the things I want and need for the horse, so I guess there is something positive in that. I guess I just need to continue to make better and better decisions about how I spend my money. Think about something before I buy it. Cook more (I am doing this already). Review the cost of stuff in the grocery store. That kind of thing.

Social

I've decided that I don't have any social goals. I am an introvert. Sometimes I don't want to go to a party or socialize, that's just the way I am. I am no longer going to force myself to do something that I don't want to do. If I want to stay home, why shouldn't I?

Health, Fitness & Weight

Well, first of all, I can't obsess about weight, as terrible as the situation may seem. Worrying about the scale and obsessing about my weight and berating myself for it does nothing for me but cause sick heartache, stress and, most of all, extreme self-loathing. Again, the goals are about behavior, about the things that I have a choice to do, or not do, on a daily basis. The hope is that the consistent good choices may have some effect on the weight and fitness. So here is what I'm thinking:

* 3 days a week of some non-riding kind of exercise. I am thinking mostly of walking (with the hope to get to some amount of running eventually), spinning classes, yoga and maybe some other cardio-machine stuff. (I joined the "Y" this week!)
* Yogurt or oatmeal for breakfast. Allowed to have one "treat" breakfast a week (like egg with turkey bacon, for example).
* Take-out allowed once every three months.
* A 12-16 oz water with lunch everyday (I have a terrible Diet Coke habit). Eventually restrict DC to weekends only.
* Cook dinner at home (or heat up leftovers, or at the least, have yogurt) six nights a week -- some kind of frozen or prepared meal is allowed one night a week. I've actually been increasing my cooking over the past couple of months so I'm almost already there. This also helps greatly in the finance sector.
* Get someone in to look at the treadmill. The belt seems to be slipping (maybe belongs under the "Home" category).

Talk to my doctor or someone about my increasing levels of anxiety and stress. Maybe I can get some therapy or something. I was even thinking about looking into hypnosis -- could help with both the anxiety and weight-loss.

Follow-up about some of the medical stuff that I've put off, like a mammogram and a mole/skin check.

Well, that's what I've come up with. I do have some additional riding-specific goals that I want to write about in a separate post. I have to continue to think about how the choices I make each day bring me closer to who I want to be, or whether they move me farther away. If I can be conscious and mindful of these small, daily things, then I should be in a good place by the end of 2010. We'll see.

2009 in Review (non-riding)

I feel like both 2008 and 2009 were pretty good years for me. However, I set some goals for 2009 and fell short of many, if not most of them.

Riding

As I stated in a previous post, I reached all of my riding goals. In fact, I actually surpassed them, so I ended 2009 extremely happy and satisfied in that regard.

Finances

I had a goal to save more money. Nope, didn’t happen.

Social

My goal in 2009 was to be more social and I can’t say that this really happened either. I did go to a couple of parties and social events. The Adult Camp in Aiken trip in March was pretty social. But in general, I was not very social at all.

Health, Fitness & Weight

Probably my biggest failure in 2009. These are the goals that I set last January:

• Re-commit to Jenny Craig. Be more careful with lunch (I don’t eat JC for lunch). Continue to use JC meals for breakfast & dinner.

I did start off the year very committed. I went back on JC for most meals and was very good about sticking to it. I kept it up for about two months with no results whatsoever. It was so frustrating because JC had worked so effectively at the start of my weight-loss effort. I guess I just had reached a point where I needed something else, I just didn’t know and don't know what that something else is. After two months of miserable failure and frustration, I gave up. At that point I had been on a Jenny Craig meal plan for almost a year and had had enough. I’m still a fan of the program, I just couldn’t do it anymore.


• Get back on the scale (both at home and at JC).

I did this in January & February while I was religiously following JC. I did stop once I stopped going to JC however.


• Start eating fruit mid-morning at work again.

Nope. Well, I can’t remember, I probably did start off the year doing this. I did not carry it through the year, however.


• Alcohol for social occasions only.

Actually, I was pretty good in the alcohol area. I can’t say that I only had a drink during social occasions and at no other time, but I have cut down on my alcohol consumption considerably over the past few years to the point where I now many times will go weeks without a drink. If I do have something it is usually only on a Friday or a Saturday night (and rarely both). I have also found that I get headaches pretty quickly once I start drinking alcohol (that never used to happen) – it’s almost like my head is reminding me with a small hint, what a hangover feels like, so don’t go there. Anyway, alcohol has not been a problem and so I also don’t feel like I can blame any of my weight issues on that.


• Continue 2x/week personal training sessions.

I did continue these through March or April, but stopped for a few reasons. First (and probably the biggest, at least most immediate, reason), is that it is very expensive (even with the company discount) and once I bought a horse, a lot of extras had to be cut. Work heated up and became very busy where I had trouble fitting it into my schedule, in addition to carving out time to ride everyday. Lastly, I really did not like the bulkier muscles that I felt that I was building. I really liked the training sessions for the motivation, the focus and to keep me on track. But I feel that I have the kind of body that builds muscle too easily. Fine, if you’re a guy, but as a woman (particularly a short woman) it is not doing me any real favors. I think that maybe my body would benefit more from the pilates/yoga-type of resistance work.


• Pick up the running again – run a minimum of 3x a week through March.

I was actually pretty good about running. Until sometime in March. I unfortunately had a fall from a horse while I was at Adult Camp and, while I wasn’t really injured, my hip and shoulder on one side was very sore for a very long time (well over a month). It was too uncomfortable to run and so I fell out of the habit. What I didn’t do that I should have was walk during this time, walking did not jar my sore areas. But I guess I probably used this as an excuse to fall off the wagon.

I seem to have this love/hate relationship with running. I am not a natural runner, so it takes quite a lot to get myself into any kind of running shape. There is a lot of ground work that has to go into getting myself to the point where I can run for more than a 30 second-1 minute interval at a time and my ability to run falls away very quickly if I am not being consistent. So, when I do fall off the running wagon, the thought of what it’s going to take to get me back there is very often just completely overwhelming. It also takes me a very long time to reach a point where I enjoy the running. So a long step-up period during which I am mostly miserable is just a hard mental hurdle for me to get over when I’m not in running mode and am trying to psych myself up for it. On the flip-side, however, I always feel pretty good after I’ve had a run and when I can get into the swing of it (and I’ve done that ground work to get me into that place where running comes a bit easier) I feel pretty fantastic.


• Plan to bump up mileage and/or the number of running sessions per week after March (hopefully the snow will start to be on the wane by then and I’ll be able to use some trails).

Yeah, not. The opposite happened. I stopped running all-together.


• Weather, snow & salt permitting, walk dogs on significant walk (or run) – minimum 2 miles, 2-3x per week.

Nope. Poor dogs.


• Look into a “Y” membership, or re-up with the Spinning studio.

Nope.


• Ride 4x a week (includes 2 training sessions/lessons per week).

This I pretty much did, at least through the competition season.


Work


Work was actually pretty good for me in 2009. I think that I took on a lot more over the year, increased my responsibilities as well as my knowledge-base. I was exposed to more customer and partner groups, expanded my relationships with team members and other peers and widened the scope of my professional expertise overall. My year-end review was probably one of the best that I've received, so I ended the year feeling quite positive about my professional life.

What I didn't do very well this year (in particular with regards to work) was manage stress and fear. It was a very uneasy year in the world and my company went through upheavals as many other companies did. I found that I can very easily be sent into panic mode and that it also doesn't take much at all for me to doubt myself, feel a loss of confidence or feel threatened -- I'm not an idiot, I realize that it mostly comes down to self-esteem & insecurity issues. When these "panic times" cropped up I could pretty much always recognize that I was not dealing with them well, I could intellectualize the logic of the situation, but the emotions and the chemistry of the situation almost always took over.

So, some of my 2009 goals were successful, but I continue to disappoint myself with my lack of commitment to health, diet and exercise. That is one area of my life where I have continued and sustained failure. I can get into a mode where I do exercise consistently, where I eat generally healthy and more or less correct portions, yet I can not seem to keep it up long-term. I also think that periods of stress and fear, as well as loneliness, greatly exasperate my issues with food and interfere with my willingness to stick to exercise commitments. Because 2009 was a pretty stressful year for me (even though it was a good year, in aggregate), my diet and exercise habits were affected in direct proportion.

With all the above said, however, I ended 2009 pretty satisfied overall and pleased with the year I had.

In a Funk

Have you ever gone through one of those periods where you feel so crappy about yourself, that you feel like you just can’t do anything right? Where you feel so down about yourself that you’re at your happiest when you’re asleep?

I’m kind of going through one of those periods right now. I’m not sure what has caused it, but I sure would like to see the end of it now. In a way, I think I’ve been a bit self-indulgent about it, I think living alone for a long time can do that to a person. When you don’t have anyone to talk to much, someone to stick up for you and to even tell you when you’re being ridiculous, you tend to have a self-dialog that can spiral in the wrong direction fairly easily. I don’t usually mind being single, but it sure can get lonely sometimes, especially as I have little to no close family either.

When I get like this, I also tend to indulge in somewhat self-destructive behavior, like eating a lot of junk food and not exercising. And (of course) the worse my eating habits become, and the longer it’s been since I exercised, the worse I feel about myself and the more I want to eat inappropriately, etc. So that becomes a vicious circle that is very hard to break out of. I feel low, eat some comfort food, hate myself more, need more comfort food, really hate myself -- I’m self-medicating and the worse part of it is, I (obviously) realize what I’m doing, yet I still can’t seem to stop. Crazy. Vicious. Cycle.

Being around Ruby (and horses in general) and riding makes me extremely happy and very often will help me forget about all of this crap, but I haven’t even been out to the barn since last Wednesday! Part of it is that work has interfered a little bit, partially that I’ve had a bug that I’ve been fighting off and have not felt very well, partially because I was so disgusted with how poorly I was riding last week (causing me to hate myself even more) and a good part of it is just this funk that I am in. It is causing me to be in a serious torpor. I have a competition this weekend and there is no way I’m going to be even remotely prepared for it. I almost feel like I should scratch maybe, except that I’ll then hate myself even more if I do, I’m sure. After one unfortunate ride last week, my trainer told me that I’m really too hard on myself, that learning to ride (really ride) is a frustrating, life-long process and that she feels that I’m doing well and am right where I should be (given where I started) and that there are just some things that aren’t going to happen overnight. I know that I should cut myself some slack in this one regard, I know that I’ve only been back to it for a year after a very long absence and, from a distance, I am even a little bit amazed that I’ve been able to compete as I have. But when I come away from an hour on my horse feeling completely incompetent, it’s hard to have some perspective. I can intellectualize that I’ve come along way, that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, but it’s hard to actually feel that way on an emotional level. I start to feel sorry for the horse too, like I’m not doing her justice at all.

I seem to swing back & forth between confidence and feeling like the most inept person on the planet at work too. Sometimes even over the course of one day. Sometimes I feel plugged in, that I am valuable and contributing significantly and the next moment I can feel like I’m completely clueless and a waste of space. I know that I let these negative thoughts take over my brain too much and that I’m also too easily affected negatively by the overconfidence of some of the people in the office around me. It’s almost like the more that I encounter this overconfidence in some, that my confidence lowers in direct proportion. I know that a lot of this is tied to the economic down-turn of the past year too. Things just feel so uncertain and sketchy and that makes me feel paranoid and unstable and (frankly) scared. Still, the work thing has been a factor for good while now, I don’t know why I suddenly feel worse about it. Probably I’m just in a more vulnerable state of mind and so it’s infiltrating my mind more because of that.

Maybe this is all just a matter of chemistry. I know that when I’m riding consistently (5-6 times a week) that I feel better. If I can manage some other exercise on top of that, even better still, although finding the time is rough. The endorphins and whatever other chemicals produced by the activity seems to keep me on a more even keel. Riding and being around horses also fulfills me beyond that on a more emotional level. I don’t quite know what the answer is, but I have to pull myself out of this funk somehow and hopefully make it a more permanent thing. Cycling endlessly through these periods has become rather old.

Ambien = Miracle Drug!

I’ve written here repeatedly, and with increasing frequency, about my on-going battle with insomnia. It’s gotten to the point where my sleepless nights are out-numbering the nights where I actually manage to string together a few hours of sleep (and I can’t even call those restful nights).

I had an appointment with my doctor last week for an actual physical – that may actually have been a first, I tend to go the doctor if something is wrong, or for a fifteen minute consult about whether my thyroid levels are correct, but an actual, real physical, I can’t remember the last time I had one of those. Well, the results were that I’m pretty healthy. My cholesterol has actually come down quite a bit over the last year or so (was somewhat high, but is now normal). My BP was something like 100/60. Everything else was great, but I brought up the insomnia and how it is affecting my ongoing quality of life. The doctor seems to think that it is hormones (I’ve been thinking that too). Fine, but do I really have to live like this? She mentioned that it was okay to continue to take Advil PM or Unisom or some other OTC stuff. Great. But then I asked, “Well, could you prescribe Ambien to me?” She looked at me for a beat and then said, “Sure. I could do that.”

So with an official prescription in my greedy little hand, I trundled off to the pharmacy and got it filled. I decided to take it for the first time on Friday night since I didn’t know how it was going to affect me and I preferred to sort that out on a weekend, rather than struggling to be at work or something while under the influence. Well. Let me say that I had just about the best nights sleep that I can remember ever. I took the pill right before I was to climb into bed (I had visions of otherwise falling asleep and drooling on my couch with all the lights and TV on, etc.). I remember turning off the light and then nothing at all else until about 5 AM when I very naturally and gradually woke up. No repeated trips to the bathroom (which even happens when I’ve taken Advil PM), no waking up to see the clock and going back to sleep (ditto), no repeatedly changing positions in the bed. Just deep, blissful sleep. Once 5 AM hit, I was able to sleep lightly for another couple of hours, it just wasn’t the deep sleep that I had for the rest of the night. When I was up for the day I felt no residual tiredness or sleepiness. No sleep hangover. I felt awake and refreshed and was not looking for a nap suddenly later in the day.

So, for me, I conclude that Ambien is BRILLIANT! I can’t believe I’ve lived in this misery and that I’ve waited this long to ask about it. Now I am in dire fear that my doctor and/or insurance company will someday become stingy with the prescription! ACCCCCCKKKKK!

Sick & Miserable

Ugh, I am so not used to being sick. Traveling and no sleep and whatever really allowed this bug to take hold though and I've just been miserable ever since I got home. Coughing and sniffling, fever, chills, headache, body aches, sore throat, you name it, I seem to have it. Add to that that my upper-back/shoulder area is a bit injured from my fall last week, so now every time I cough (and I'm coughing a LOT, seems to come in fits) it jars the injury, causing even more pain. I went to the grocery store before work this morning to buy orange juice and cough medicine and I just walked around the aisles literally crying because I was so miserable. I'm a freaking baby. I rarely get very sick, so I guess I just can't handle it when illness does strike. I just want to feel normal again! ARGH!

Sleep

This seems to be a recurring theme with me, and it is an issue that affects pretty much every aspect of my life. I’ve been suffering from crushing insomnia for the last few years now and it just seems to be getting worse. Add to that early morning meetings (like, 7 AM early), colleagues who like to be at the office early (like, by 7 AM) which motivates me to want to be in the office early as well, coming home late from the barn (9 PM) – looooooong days mixed with short nights and lots of trouble sleeping and I’m pretty much a walking mess much of the time these days. Of course this all ends up bleeding into my weekends because I then need to spend the entire two days in recovery mode trying desperately to catch up on sleep. As a result, I spend most of my weekend time like a zombie with no motivation to do anything other than sleep and zone out in front of the TV. It’s a frustrating and ugly vicious circle.

Tuesday morning I had another of these scheduled 7 AM meetings. Well, Monday night. I didn’t sleep. At all. Finally by around 1:30 AM, I gave up, realizing that it wasn’t going to happen and frustrated with all the tossing & turning in the dark. So I did some channel and internet surfing for a couple of hours. Tried to sleep again, when that didn’t work, went back to my channel and internet surfing. Finally, around 5 AM I fell into an exhausted sleep for about an hour, waking up around 6 to get ready for this bloody 7 AM meeting. The meeting was canceled 10 minutes before it was due to start with no explanation given. I was ready to kill someone! Of course the meeting organizer rescheduled the meeting for Thursday at 7 AM, which will just add another huge brick to the wall of sleep-deprived misery that I’m building here.

The lack of sleep thing just affects everything! Besides feeling completely crappy, being exhausted means that I’m less sharp at work, I crave carbs (especially junk food carbs) and I am completely unmotivated to exercise. I’m honestly surprised that I haven’t gotten sick. Anyway, so I've been feeling a little down and unmotivated and a little demoralized lately and I think the sleep problems are a big part of that picture. I am so thankful that I at least have the two riding lessons and the two personal training sessions scheduled each week because I know that I'm at least going to be active for those sessions, as much as I sometimes dread the effort before each appointment. I'm always thankful that I went after everything is said & done, of course, so I am very happy that they're on the schedule anyway.

So, I don't know what the solution is, but I've got to come up with something! I just am not functioning on all cylinders the way it's going right now.

Mornings are HARD

I don’t know how I used to work out in the early mornings, because let me tell you, my equilibrium is definitely not up to par very early in the day.

I had an early morning training appointment scheduled for this morning, so I got to the gym a half an hour early to do some running. I did:

* Walked for 3 minutes: 16:12 min. mile pace.
* Ran for 7 minutes: 10:54 min. mile pace.
* Walked for 2 minutes: 16:12 min. mile pace
* Ran for 5 minutes: 10:31 min. mile pace.
* And then I alternated 1 minute running (10 min. mile pace) with 1 minute walking (16:12 min. mile pace). Except that the last running interval was a little longer, I think, to round it out to a total of 2 miles.

All this isn't so remarkable, but for the same effort later in the day, I should have been capable of faster paces. But then I had my training appointment and everything was harder. The first thing he had me do were these walking lunge things carrying 10 lbs in each hand. Well, very quickly I felt very light-headed and even a little nauseous. I managed to finish the exercise, but I really felt borderline like I was going to either pass-out or throw up for a good part of it. That was about the worst of it, but everything seemed so much harder than it would have been a little later in the day. UGH.

But I got it done, that's the most important thing. And I feel pretty good now and happy to have it checked off my list for the day.

Jenny Craig Freak

So, I blew off the Jenny Craig appointment that I had scheduled on Monday. It was a holiday and I felt like I just couldn’t deal at all, so I just didn't go. I’ve never done that before. I knew that I more or less had enough dinners left in my freezer to make it through a week, but not enough breakfasts. I considered just waiting until next week for the next appointment because breakfast has never really been much of a problem for me and I could eat oatmeal and yogurt for a week. But I decided that it was better to try and fit something in.

So, I called JC yesterday to reschedule and the woman who answered exclaimed and gushed, “oh I am SO glad that you’re going to reschedule! It means that you’re sticking with the plan!!!” (yeah lady, whatever) This implied that she was just oh SO excited about my commitment to the program, the crazy freak, but it of course came across as completely insincere. Do people really fall for this crap? I knew exactly who this woman is, she is nuts and I always try to avoid her when I go to the center. When she told me that Sue (my usual counselor) was not in yesterday, but that there would be “someone” available to see me, I just knew that it was going to end up being her.

I was right. Once I got there and realized that I was going to be dealing with her, I told her flat out that I was not going to be weighed by her. She wondered that I didn’t want to know how I did – does she think that I don’t own a scale? The last thing I wanted to do was hash out my lack of progress with this completely insincere person who I can’t stand. At least Sue is low key and real, I just can’t stand phonies. When she realized that she was getting nowhere with me on the scale thing, she dragged me into an office and started gushing and exclaiming over how great I look and about how much weight I’ve lost. It was all a bunch of total bullshit. Then she launched into the whole “what are your motivators for losing weight” thing and I just completely shut down. I had been talking to her and trying to be polite, really biting my tongue trying not to snap at her. But when she came out with this, I just stopped and said, “You know? I really don’t want to do this. I just want my food”. Yes, I was a total bitch, but I couldn’t stand one more second of it.

I mean, as I’ve written before, I know that this is just some BS Jenny Craig rhetoric and that they’re scripted to ask this kind of thing. But I have many varied and personal reasons for wanting to lose weight and to get fit. I am certainly much more athletically minded than anyone in the JC office and my goals have very little to do with wanting to wear a size 2 dress or whatever. Absolutely nothing anyone in that office is going to say or ask is going to make me wake up and suddenly think deeply about some life changing reasons that had never occurred to me before. That is just never, ever going to happen with these people and especially with some silly phony like this crazy woman (and, by the way, Sue had told me before that there have been a lot of complaints about her, so I’m not the only one who feels this way).

My reasons and motivations for losing weight aren’t really all that private, frankly. I mean, I certainly discuss them enough here. But I just have no desire to sit in a room and go over them with some clueless, ridiculous, stranger who is just reading off some stupid script and wants write my answers down on a piece of paper so she can enter it in a database to prove that she “did her job” or whatever. No freaking way. This is my life, my life and my problems or issues are not open to you just because you have some stupid script to follow. I’ve been doing this for a year now and I’m just exhausted and these kind of BS questions make me even more weary of the whole thing. Don’t get me wrong, I am still a Jenny Craig fan and I think the program works. It certainly has worked very well for me for about 50 lbs. But I really could do without silly, phony people like this woman and their canned questions. I really just don’t have the patience for any of that at all, at this stage. I wish I could just go in there, chat a moment with the counselor of my choice, get my food and leave already.

Sleep

Is there anything more frustrating than not being able to sleep? I am completely guilty of not allowing myself enough sleep time during the work week. I definitely stay up too late, usually for no good reason, just milling around, or watching something terrible on TV and then reading in bed for far too long. So I am pretty much chronically tired during the week and I feel this most when trying to motivate myself towards physical activity. It is hard for me to convince myself to run for a few miles or something when I feel wretched from lack of sleep. But the time that I do allow myself for sleep usually ends up of generally good quality (well, except for all of that getting up to pee multiple times business). But for the last couple of nights I haven't even been able sleep hardly at all and it's killing me. I go to bed, but then wake up around 2 AM and can't for the life of me get back to sleep. For the rest of the night! Last night I finally just turned on the light and decided to read. So this morning I of course felt completely lousy. So frustrating! I feel really, really guilty, but I decided to take a sick day today because of this, even though I'm not technically sick. I just feel exhausted and horrible and know that if I don't take care of myself, that I could be sick for real in short order.

Oh, glorious sleep! I am usually such a good snooze hound that I really, really miss it when it evades me. I blame hormones.