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McD’s and car hysterics

Well, I have now finished the couch-2-5k program. Never ever thought in my life that I’d be able to do that. In my life. Running, on purpose, with no one chasing me. And now I do it! I’ve been eating healthy, lots of veggies, and exercising at least some almost every day. I am now just an overweight lady, instead of an obese lady.

I missed my athletic self. I used to bike everywhere, had tons of energy, hiked a lot, and it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do that. But I’m back, baby! I even talked to my buddy Bev over at Cocktail Hour on her Barbell show a little bit about the changes I’ve made, while discussing two excellent health documentaries. Check it out here!

I’ve been doing super well! Of course, I slipped off the wagon today by getting a quarter pounder with cheese meal on the way home from the climbing gym. There was no force large enough to prevent me from eating it.  I had it, and it was greasy and good. One slip! I promise!

My little icing on the fat cake happened once we got back on the highway to head home. Suddenly, a screech comes forth from the passenger seat. A panicked hawk-like hysteria flew out of my wife’s mouth, once she found a bug (she claims a spider, it was a bug) was crawling on her chest. Arms flailed while noises I didn’t know could come from a human filled our little space.

I did pause in my uncontrollable laughter long enough to tell her to smack it, then it’ll be fine! She did! And it wasn’t. By this point, I am attempting to not drive off the road in weekend traffic, while crying and beginning to lose control of my appendages. She squeezes the hell out of the t-shirt (carefully avoiding any contact with the creature) and has decided that either it was biting her through her shirt, or she was pinching incredibly hard. I believe it may have been the latter…

Luckily, a rest stop came upon the horizon. I pulled over, laughing and crying still, with Kate continuing to freak out. Once we parked, I had to spend a good 5 minutes trying to stop laughing, because I could literally not force my hands to do what I wanted them to. They were crippled by my overwhelming hilarity. Now, before you think that I am just a complete douchebag that has no sympathy for the love of her life, she was laughing too! Hers was just touched by terror.

Eventually, I took care of the situation, then we continued on our way. Kate was able to recover enough to call her dad, who was deafer than normal, and she was screaming the story into the phone so he could hear it.

So, that was our Sunday.

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Break night

I decided to not exercise tonight. The dog snuck some of her brother’s food, causing her to be sick throughout the night. I didn’t tell you about that, did I, Internet? Well, my one dog is allergic to corn. My other adorable fuzzy creature became allergic to wheat after feeding them lamb and rice for a few years. Then she became sensitive to either herring or sweet potato (never figured that one out), so we switched to chicken and rice. And now she is sensitive to chicken. CHICKEN. So we have now switched her to bison. They make bison food. Because any other protein I see, she may already be sensitive to. So now we have to switch proteins on the regular so she doesn’t get sick every two hours at night.

Fuckin dogs. It’s a good thing she’s adorable. So instead, I am tiredly knitting my mom’s scarf that I was planning on making her for Christmas. Last Christmas, y’all…

Do me a favor, internet, and smack me right in my face next time I say I want to make something with fancy thin thread-like yarn. Cause fuck that noise. At least it should turn out pretty. It better! Or I will not be responsible for my actions!

Anywho, I get to go on a form of vacation in three weeks. I’m heading to Dallas to meet a bunch of humans from the internets, where we’re gonna talk about lesbian books and drink alcohols. Here’s hoping none of them are scary psycho hosebeasts!

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Progress, bitches!

I can almost run 3 miles. I ran 2.5 the other day without stopping or vomiting. Yes, I recognize I’ve done almost all my running up to this point on a treadmill, and running outside is so much harder and stuff. But still! 2.5 miles! When I couldn’t even run for a minute 7 weeks ago. 60 seconds. That was my LIMIT.

This whole couch-to-5K thing knows what the fuck it’s doing! Now I’m also excited for the extra special super bonus of all this energy and strength I’ve got lying around. We went climbing for the first time in ages, and it was delightful! I am still on basic routes, but I don’t care. I enjoy the hell out of it, and it’s not so hard to lift my ass to that next hold anymore. Fuck yeah, progress!

And something kind of awesome happened this morning. I went into the kitchen, where the brother had put these tasty looking huge cinnamon rolls with dripping icing. And you know what? It actually didn’t look appetizing to me. When I saw it, I just thought “that’s not worth it to me.” And I used to pride myself on my shitty willpower! Now when confronted with tasty-bad-for-me-things, I can’t be bothered. Aside from the occasional cookie, of course. I’m not an ANIMAL.

I just don’t want to waste all this effort I’m putting into something. I’m excited when I see results, and I don’t want to stop!

Or perhaps my brain is starting to be smarter than my stomach. That’s how it works with my newly discovered lactose intolerance. I fucking love all things made with lactose. LOVE. But now I see a hunk of brie (and though I recognize it for it’s deliciousness) I quickly remember what that would do to my colon, and that makes it surprisingly unappetizing!

So keep on keepin’ on.

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At least I’ll be able to jog from the cicada horde

I’ve been battling allergies. It seems that once I turned 30, I got that one last bit of pollen that made my body say “Alright, that’s it, everybody out! You don’t have to go home, but you gotta get the hell outta my sinuses!” My eyes don’t bother me too much, I just get drippy with godawful sinus pressure/pain. Which just makes me (and probably people that are tired of my bitching) miserable. This year has shaped up to be quite the doozy. DC is on the war path, so when the cicada hordes come, I’ll be weakened and ill-equipped, and likely buried under the plague of them.

On the plus side, I’m still exercising! Last night (for some reason my allergies are much better by late afternoon) I started week 5 of my couch to 5k program, and afterwards I thought “I think I want to do some weights now.” Like, I wanted to do some weights. When I got home from the apartment’s gym, I then wanted to do some planks (not that weird stupid Facebook planking thing, the kind that teaches me how much of a core I do not have). I still haven’t dropped below the “hey, you’re fat!” line, but I am not yet failing, so that’s good.

Keep you fingers crossed, internet, that I don’t die by sinus or cicada burial when I attempt to run a 5k outside in week 9…

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Readers and authors

I follow Andi Marquette‘s blog, where she posted a link to a bookriot rant titled: Readers Don’t Owe Authors Sh*t. I’m guessing a lot of authors are gonna get pissed about that, but honestly, it’s the truth. The reader doesn’t owe you a damn thing. Say someone likes one of your books, and even said they liked it publicly. Well, they are in no way duty bound to pick up another one of your books ever again. That’s just the way it is.

I have found that the boundary between an author and their readers can become very blurry. I’ve particularly noticed this in lesbian fiction, where the community is much smaller than their mainstream counterparts. I also think this shady boundary leads to rabid fangirls who will pounce when they sniff negativity towards their author of choice, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

There have been times when I have mentioned a book on Goodreads  and said ‘eh, I’m not really interested in that book because the plot just doesn’t do it for me’. One was written by an author who’s books I had previously enjoyed and rated highly. I then received private messages from the author, where they tried to convince me to buy the book, even though I have no interest in reading it. I consider that an unacceptable level of harassment, not to mention awful salesmanship. In my opinion, if you want fans, you put out a quality product. If people like it, they will continue buying it, positively review it, and even yell from the rooftops that they think it’s great. But being in the business of writing (or movie making, or the construction of any consumer-based product whatsoever) there is an inherent risk that people won’t buy it, or like it.

And you take that risk, balancing it against how much you enjoy putting out said product. If it’s worth the risk, you go for it! But don’t go hassling people and begging them to read it, cause you just come off looking like an asshole.

Them’s my two cents. Take it or leave it, as you are under zero obligation to ‘like’, ‘share’, or agree with said post. Print it off and wipe your ass with it if you want! Free country, and all that.

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Fuck off, obesity!

Since I began my weight loss journey, I have been ignoring the scale like it was a Dementor. And boy am I glad I did, since after an entire month of working out almost every day, I hadn’t lost a single goddamn pound. To say that didn’t let the air out my sails a bit would be an understatement. But I didn’t want to give up, since I had so much more energy from the workouts, and I really was feeling better about myself.

I jumped on the scale last week to see if I was still not losing anything, and low and behold I had lost 2.5 pounds! That made me squeal with joy! Frickin finally I was getting some sort of numerical proof that something was happening with my body, instead of just saying “I think my pants are looser”. I still try to ignore the scale (I think weighing yourself a lot can do nothing but depress you) and I’m trying to focus on how much better I feel and how much easier it is to run now instead.

I know I just said I was ignoring the scale, but I did see this morning that I lost another 2 pounds. TAKE THAT, FUCKER! You probably don’t know how particularly proud I am of this weight loss, as this marks the very first time in the last (3 years? 4?) that I have toed the line of being “Obese” on the Wii fit. I fucking hate that obesity line. It just sits there, taunting me next to my inflated Wii avatar. But one more pound and I’ll only be “overweight!” Which sounds so much nicer than OBESE. Even the word is depressing looking. I’ve also been able to maintain my motivation for a hell of a lot longer than ever before. I’m still wanting to work out (well, not every day, but getting some solid cardio in and biking more) and I am over halfway to being able to run a 5k. Which I NEVER thought I’d be able to do. Bring it on, world, I’M COMIN FOR YA!

 

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I fall off perfectly good bikes

I went for a lovely bike ride yesterday. It was gorgeous weather, and I enjoyed the hell out of riding on the twisty paved path through the pretty trees. The birds were chirping, there was a cool breeze, and I was able to clear my mind of the awful goings on from last week and just be. So delightful. I biked for about 12 miles and when I finished, I was prepared to just walk my bike up the hill to my apartment. Then, I made a last minute decision to bike through a parking lot to bypass the major roads so I could bike just a little bit more.

This is probably a good time to mention that I have bike shoes that clip onto the pedals. You have to twist your foot to get your shoe unattached, which I have never had a problem doing-except for this one time. I slowed to a stop to wait for cars to pass so that I could turn left. And for some insane reason, my foot just didn’t do what it was supposed to do. It’s like I had a brain fart and couldn’t remember how to release my shoe. so I keeled over onto the road in front of a bunch of cars and humans. Which was pretty classy, I think. Anyway, I got this as a souvenir:

Ouch

My tortured elbow

I woke up bruised and aching this morning, and was making a new kind of crinkle noise in my knee. Presumably from the running I’ve been doing. Well, that’s what I’m gonna blame it on, anyway. Additionally, after all this exercising I’ve been doing (nearly every day for the past month) I weighed myself to have the little Wii guy tell me that I hadn’t lost a single damn pound. WTF, body? I didn’t expect a huge difference, but a LITTLE one would have been nice. On the plus side, I’ve got more energy than I’ve had in a long time.

Onwards and upwards and all that jazz. Meh.