The Episode In Which LRA Becomes A Carnivore

A few weeks ago I volunteered for my city's Race For The Cure with a few other people from my company. There were pictures taken for the company's in-house magazine and they were forwarded along to us. I was only in one. That was plenty because I looked completely awful in it. I know it's said the camera adds ten pounds, but I didn't think that would include a double chin and a bright red face.

So I slowly gathered my resolve and three weeks ago I cut all plant life out of my diet. I eat mostly meat, some egg whites and a little cheese and butter (and I'm, ahem, cutting the cheese once it's gone). I do have green stuff with one meal on Saturdays but that's it--yep, I've turned into the freak for whom vegetables are treats. And ... I'm feeling better. One thing I noticed immediately is that my normally crappy gums look gorgeous now. I have a cleaning in three weeks--thanks to said crappy gums and teeth I have to get quarterly cleanings, but I am hoping that this new regimen might aid in getting me down to twice a year like normal people. I've lost three pounds, down to 211, and in addition to my gingivitis clearing up my face is a little less red (I suspect I might have rosacea and this regimen is supposed to be good for it), I'm not bloating/retaining water and I'm sleeping a lot better. I've also returned to the gym with a vengeance, back to my 6x/week workouts. I have to do that since I spend the majority of my time sitting on my ass staring at a computer screen. Best of all ... I'm not hungry. I don't have the urge to go face first in a bucket of cream sauce or cheesecake (even if it is low-carb). I eat my two meals a day and I'm good to go.

Mmm, meat--om nom nom nom ...

WTF?

Hi, here again. (waves)

A couple of weeks ago I went up to Boston to visit with friends and take in a Yankees/Red Sox game at Fenway Park. Since I am a Yankees fan and was decked in navy and gray from head to toe, I am almost certain that a Red Sox fan saw this, went "ooh, Yankees fan!" and coughed on me. My certainty comes from the fact that the next day I was constantly clearing my throat. On the plane home my throat was sore and with dismay I could feel my temperature rising. The next morning, I awoke with a 102-degree temperature and horking up stuff that looked like alien life forms. I went to the local urgent care center (which is also my PCP) and after they got my info they brought me in and popped me on the scale. Last time I had weighed myself I was still in the 215 area. The urgent care scale, however, showed 224. "Maybe it's your clothing," suggested the nurse. Um, no, I don't think a sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers, underwear and socks weigh nine pounds. Conclusion--my scale is off.

This morning for the hell of it I weighed myself. 209. I'm still only eating one meal a day (and not exactly sticking to low carb) so I chalk it up to the recent illness. I must admit I'm considering buying another scale (analog this time) to see if my current scale, which is digital, is off. Or maybe the urgent care scale is. I haven't noted loosening clothes, but then they haven't tightened either. Hmm.

I'm still rundown, but I've been sleeping a lot and I need to get this place fired up again.

Buckling down

I have been inspired by the ever-awesome Tracy at Fear and Loathing in the Kitchen and her posts concerning being a total carnivore. With the exception of some carrots in a stew I made Sunday, a few marinated mushrooms (Costco sells them, oh dear Cthulhu they are the bomb but I do mean only a few, maybe fifteen for the entire week) and some almond milk I have eaten nothing but meat, eggs, a little cheese and fat since Sunday. I'm still doing the one-meal-a-day thing. The other night I killed half of a fairly sizable chicken, did steak and eggs a couple of times. I made rev rolls last night, but instead of six I made twelve little ones. I bought some sausage patties, cooked them up, and made the wheat-free version of one of my favorite treats, sausage and biscuits, with the rev rolls. Yum. Oh--and I've dropped about five pounds. Up yours, low-fatters.

As I said in my previous entry, I'm practically positive that the intermittent fasting has played a huge role in me being able to maintain but not lose weight. The non-loss of weight I blame on alcohol. I love to drink, always have, but lately it's just been getting ridiculous. Let's put it this way--if I gave you amounts someone would be coming down and either hustling me to an AA meeting or throwing my ass in rehab. However, compared to a few months ago when I was getting smashed pretty much every night, more recently I've been confining it to the weekends. Now? It's out of the picture, at least for a while. I'm fortunate in when I decide to quit something I can do so pretty easily. I smoked for twenty years, but nine years ago I decided to quit. The last time I had a cigarette, two years ago, it tasted so fucking awful I thought to myself "How the hell did I do this for so long?" There was a period of five years where I didn't drink. That's the whole point of anything--quitting smoking, quitting drinking, quitting a bad habit, losing weight--you have to WANT to do it. If you don't want to, no amount of rehab or meetings or patches or support forums is going to help your ass.

However, I'm trying not to look at this as a "just lose weight" thing. I tend to fixate on that and it's not good for me to do that. Right now it's basically detoxing. I'm feeling better, I'm starting to sleep better. And the gym is calling my name. I want to start pumping iron again, get some strength and stamina back. And when I want to do something, I do it. One day at a time ain't just a seventies TV show, you know.

Hello. (waves)

Yeah, I've been gone for a while. Had a LOT of stuff to deal with that I don't really want to get into--it'd bore you anyway.

The deltoid pull actually turned out to be a small tear, so I was on doctor-mandated "no weights" orders. As a result, I've pretty much stayed away entirely from the gym. However, I just got clearance to start again and to stay the hell away from the fly machine that injured me in the first place. Dude, I don't do machines anymore.

I haven't lost any weight, but I haven't gained any either--I stay right around the 215 mark, and the jeans I bought in my last entry still fit nicely. Lately I've been only eating one meal a day, through I throw in an extra here and there just to shake things up, and I credit that for the maintenance. I will admit to breaking down and eating flour and rice once in a while. I can do rice, but flour ALWAYS makes me regret it.

I got a Nano and wireless headphones for Xmas which I'm dying to try out at the gym.

Anyway, I'm back. Hope someone missed me.

Victory in denim

Between vacation and a nasty cold I picked up after we came back I went exactly a month without going to the gym. Since I ate off-plan a lot during the trip (with the exception of an absolutely magnificent display of carnivorisity at a Brazilian steakhouse in Vancouver, literally one of the best meals I've ever had) I kind of wonder if somehow that weakened my immunity and caused me to catch the cold. But I got to the gym twice this week including yesterday, which was my birthday. I remembered last year, which was my Big 4-0, spending the weekend getting drunk and eating crap and watching football. This year my big luxury was going to the gym at 7:15 instead of 4:30. Fear my audacity.

Thanks to various gift certificates and moolah laid on me in honor on the natal day, I decided to shop--specifically for jeans.

The back story: last year before our vacation I decided that I was going to buy jeans. I didn't own any and was tired of wearing sweats. I ventured into Lane Bryant with a sense of embarrassment. I don't care how they tart up the place, it is and always will be the Fat Chick Store. Once there, I did find jeans ... in size (gulp) 24. And although they were stretch they were still tight around my non-existent waist. I bought them, but I drove home severely bummed, and after the trip they hung in my closet, dark blue testaments of how far I had fallen.

Fast forward to this year, getting ready to rampage in the Pacific Northwest. I'm rummaging in my closet and find the jeans. For the hell of it, I try them on ... and I look like a gangbanger because they're so loose. I don't particularly want to buy new ones, so I take them to our tailor and have them taken in a bit. They're still huge, though--I can literally pull them on and off while buttoned and zipped, but since they're stretch I brought them anyway just so I could have the pockets. There were a couple of times during the trip that I literally feared they'd fall down around my ankles because I had stuff like my camera in the pocket.

So yesterday I ventured into TJ Maxx in search of cheap "transitional" jeans. Since the jeans I had were 24s and I'm a crappy judge of sizes I picked out a pair of 22s and a pair of 20s to try on. But then I thought "wait. Should I maybe try an 18?" I found a pair from a different maker than the twenty-something sizes in an 18 and brought it in, figuring I'd try them first.

And ... they fit. They were tight, but they fit. I didn't care for the styling, though, so I went out to see if I could find a pair like the twenty-somethings sizes. I did ... and they fit perfectly.

I have not been able to fit into a size that started with a one in roughly five years. My squee of joy echoed throughout the dressing room.

Progress.

Eight more things about me, or I'm Being A Post Whore

The indomitable Tracy of Fear and Loathing in the Kitchen apparently didn't scroll down far enough to see that I'd already done the Eight Things About Myself meme, but since she is a most cool and funny chick I figured what the hell.

1. By nature I am not a superstitious person, but whenever I fly I always wear my Yankees cap. Even if it clashes with my outfit. Then again, navy goes with everything.

2. I ADORE the NFL (in case the name of the blog wasn't a tipoff). The ONLY reason I have digital cable is so I can get the NFL Network. I have a brokerage account whose sole purpose of existence is to pay for tickets and trips to games. I frequently break the "if you're over 30 you're too old to wear jerseys outside of games" rule. I have three fantasy teams this year. Ironically, I couldn't care less about college football, although the bowl games were handy mind-occupiers in my younger years when I was recuperating from New Year's hangovers.

3. Outside of sports, I rarely watch TV. Name any popular show and I can guarantee you I've never seen it (with the exception of one episode each of "The Sopranos" and "Desperate Housewives"). This year I even missed the Oscars, the one non-sports event I look forward to, due to being exhausted by travel. I went for several years without owning a TV and just kind of fell out of the habit. However, I can and do put in twelve-hour couch potato sessions during football season.

4. I used to be a voracious reader, but being on the internet almost non-stop seems to satisfy my print addiction. The last book I read was the new Harry Potter. I used to spend a fortune on books and come home from the library with armfuls of stuff, but not anymore. When I do read it's usually historical fiction or biographies, with the odd mystery thrown in.

5. One thing that I ALWAYS need is music. Even when I was absolutely dirt-poor I always had some source of it, even if it was a shitty 1970s-era cassette player. Now, of course, I have my iPod. I am not the one to come to for the trendy music. In my mp3 list I have everything from 50 Cent to music written for a 15th-century wedding of a Medici and a French princess. My current favorite band is Within Temptation, a Dutch band with a female singer whose music is described as "symphonic metal." If you have hard guitars with a chick singing I'll listen to it, since during my teen years I worshipped Pat Benatar.

6. It is rare that even armed with a map and a decent sense of direction I do not make at least one wrong turn when going someplace I've never been before. However, once the place is found I will always be able to find it again from memory, even if decades pass between visits.

7. I can vomit at will without the aid of fingers or implements down the throat. This was a skill I learned in childhood because my mother, a nurse, demanded, uh, hard evidence that you were sick when you claimed it in order to stay home from school. I often employed this to avoid alcohol poisoning in my younger years. I'd be a hell of a bulimic.

8. I can talk about myself endlessly. :D

I'm not dead!

Sorry for the long silence. Mr. LRA and I are currently in Vancouver on our vacation, which started (and will end) in Seattle. It's been a couple weeks since I've hit the gym due to a nagging deltoid pull, but I've pretty much been on plan and am endeavoring to do so on the trip, more so by avoidance than anything else. I do not, however, regret the amazing scoop of caramel/coffee gelato I had at Butchart Gardens yesterday, which along with some macadamias and sugar-free apple drink was about all I ate. I do have a couple of small indulgences planned--garlic fries at Safeco Park during the Mariners game, which if they taste halfway as good as they smell (they also serve them at Qwest Field, where Mr. LRA and I took in Seahawks/Bucs on Sunday) will be awesome and some rice with my shawarma at a little place here in Vancouver that comes highly recommended and happens to be conveniently located in my hotel plaza--but other than that I'm staying reasonably paleo.

The arm is feeling better, so once home the weights will be hit with a vengeance.