Awesome Walls and Climbing

After the great travesty last week regarding the two pound gain I decided that this week I was going to diet, get real active and try something new.  Now I can get a bit scared trying something new alone so I roped my work husband Doney into accompanying me to Awesome Walls in Finglas, the Mrs has a fear of heights so was uncooperative when I tried to get her to overcome her fears and take to the sky, or roof as was the case.  I had read that climbing is a great core sport and is great for the burning of calories so I thought I might get active by doing something fun. 

Now I’m not saying that running or spinning isn’t fun, I’m just saying that they are not fun for me.  I know I’m not pushing myself enough physically, I need to enjoy whatever exercise it is that I am going to partake in otherwise I am just going to plod along doing the same boring routine at the gym and will get so bored I won’t go or will find reasons not to go.

So we booked a mid-day training class and met with our instructors who spent an hour with us showing us all the equipment and how to tie the knots that will keep us from plummeting to our deaths, or becoming the victim of a serious injury.  After we had completed our basic training we were allowed off to our own devices and experimented with some wall climbing.  As the day went on my arms and legs started to burn.  When we eventually stopped for a break, hours had passed and I realised I was starving.

Doney wanted to go out to eat but I decided to cook something healthy for us instead and eat in.  The journey home was agony.  There was a hairy moment on the M50 when I  came to my exit and was worried that the muscles in my arms wouldn’t be able to turn the wheel to make the very hard turn that led to home, but we made it home and I managed to throw together a lovely, healthy steamed salmon dish that filled us and didn’t ruin the hard work we had put into the day.

As we sat on the couch, knackered and sore, watching an old Star Trek film, possibly because our arms were too sore to hold and aim the remote control we made plans to do it again.  Four days later, after the pain had subsided, I was back in a harness again attempting to climb to the top of the building and burning the calories while really enjoying myself.  When I got talking to one of the girls there I was invited to attend a free women’s coaching session on the Wednesday.  I signed up and am currently praying the pain I am enduring now is going to be gone by Wednesday.

While Karen always says that losing weight is 90% about diet and 10% about exercise, I think that exercise gives you that boost to help keep your mind on the diet.  I already am thinking about losing weight so that I don’t have to haul all this weight up the wall.  I want to tone up and get strong and if staying away from the pies is going to help me with that then bring it on.  I’ve a week left with Magazine + and know that this week is a definite turning point for me.  Maybe it’s the smell of Spring in the air but I’m feeling rejuvenated.

Its My Travesty

There I was thinking that the start to this week was going to go fine.  After the skin thing last week and my partners birthday my body went into total crapville.  I got a real bad chest infection.  I was on antibiotics and taking cough bottle to beat the band. I was bed ridden and in no form for anything.  I did no walking, not a lot of talking (I know, hard to believe) and mostly felt totally crap about everything and everyone.  Dieting was the last thing on my mind. 

Now I didn’t do the dog on it at all. I realised that being sick was no reason to lose the run of myself, that and the fact that there was little of badness in the house when it came to food.  I didn’t eat too much at all really.  I was downing the cough mixture, which I later heard is full of sugar and spent the days lying between the dent that I had made for myself in the couch and my bed.  Life really doesn’t give a damn about whether or not you are trying to meet a deadline or lose the remaining pounds before you finish a diet challenge. 

This is probably a really boring column as I don’t really have much of anything to say because I didn’t do much of anything to note.  I was too sick to go see Karen from Transform4Life but she offered me support via the phone and assured me that she was only a call text or tweet away.   We decided I would weigh myself as I was too sick to come in and it nearly tipped me over the edge as I was two pounds up.  I was nearly brought to tears only I think I was so dehydrated there was no moisture in my system to muster up a tear.  My throat was so sore I let my intake of water slip.

I spent hours thinking about how this travesty happened.  I hadn’t eaten anything of note, let’s face it, when you can’t taste or smell what you are eating, what is the point.  I know my water intake was poor, this could have been some trigger, water weight? Who am I kidding.  The steroids the week before probably caught up with me.  But no matter how long I spent beating myself up about it I had to take solace in the fact that once I kick the infection I am just going to have to start back at square one.  I was broken hearted.  Truly. 

I remember when I was in my twenties, I could lose weight much easier.  I started cursing getting older, my metabolism and started reading about how illness and age affects weightloss.  I spent the time totally unproductively and miserable.  Dieting sucks.  Being sick also sucks, this week everything sucked, especially me. I’d say my partner wanted to beat me within an inch of her life but like normal she just nodded, smiled and was being really helpful, even this annoyed me. I could take being up if I had been really bad but I was just ill with a little nibble here or there. 

I then blamed God for a bit, then apologised and asked for forgiveness. As I write this I am still congested and spluttery but can see the light at the end of the sickness tunnel.  Sometimes feeling sorry for yourself feels more important than dieting.  This week I really wanted to give dieting the two fingers but I swear as soon as I kick this thing I am back on the scales.

Wine Tasting and Tid Bits

How did I start this week?  Not well, that’s for sure.  After The Big Bang sit in of Week 14 my body went into a state of shock when I tried to pry it away from the hole in couch I had made for myself and went into complete and utter shut down.  I have a weird skin condition called palmer planter that flares up every so often which leaves me full of steroids and smeared with what can only be described as a witch doctor cream which leaves me smelling of cat pee and cold tar.  Then to top it off I got a chest infection and a dose of the I feel sorry for myself blues’.  Luckily enough it didn’t last too long and I was back to myself in time for my partners birthday.

What do you get the woman who has everything?  While I am always one for pulling out all the stops, this year was a hard one.  She’s not one for tablets, or devices.  She’s no interest in jewellery.  She has the golf clubs, the bike, the gym gear.  Now there is always flowers (no chocolates this year) so what do I do…….I buy a wine tasting and supper experience.  Probably not the best idea for someone trying to lose weight but this wasn’t about me, this was about her.

We had never been on one together before.  I say together because I had been on one years back but I was young and it was more like a wine sculling course and I don’t remember learning much about anything.  Initially it was supposed to be in Ely Wine Bar in Dublin 2 but was changed to Ely in IFSC. I had never been before and when I approached it I was a little apprehensive when I saw all the young hipster type crowd out enjoying themselves but when we went downstairs to what looked like an underground vault I was impressed.

The room that the tasting was in was beautifully laid out and two tables set out for six were on either side of it.  There stood six wine glasses in front of each chair, three red and three white.  I started to get nervous because I started to feel out of my depth.  At the table to my right there was a young Asian lad who looked about 14.  I wondered if he was there as a way to consume alcohol while underage but realised when I saw him swirl the wine around the glass he was probably way more experienced than I was. 

Ian, the guy in charge introduced himself to us and we explained that we were new to this and he put us at ease explaining the process.  You pick up a glass, give it a swirl, stick your nose in and inhale, not too much or you will inhale the wine and choke causing one much embarrassment, trust me.  I wasn’t sure this whole experience was for me when the power couple at our table stated rather loudly “ohhh, the nose on that”.  I was actually looking for someone with a large nose but realised that they were just using a wine phrase.

There was a lovely PE teacher from a very affluent school in the City Centre sitting next to us and we got talking about dieting and being healthy, it seems that I always end up talking about dieting, I must be a pain in the butt.  While I know I am writing every week about dieting I realised that I still just have to be myself and live how I do.  I am going to have to do this long after I finish with Magazine+ and can’t beat myself up every time I want to do something that involves eating or drinking.  I’ll just have to enjoy the experience and be good every other day.

The Big Bang and the big sit in!

A couple of years ago I got conned into participating in an event called Hell and Back.  This was a 14k run up and down a mountain in the freezing cold, sometimes carrying a log, or tyres and involved a lot of climbing.  There was a section of the course where I had to climb up two burley men who then flung me over the top of a wall which I was supposed to grab and climb gracefully over.  Needless to say there was nothing graceful about me overshooting the top and falling the ten feet onto a pile of tyres.  Stay with me, this story is going somewhere.  When I hit that pile of tyres and ran to my partner I thought I had reached the end and was delirious with relief. I had not.  I was quickly informed I still had 5k to go.  That is how I feel at the moment about dieting.

Not trying to be melodramatic but I can see the finish line but I’m not even half way there.  I really am being good with regard to food.  I’ve had salads for dinner three times this week.  While I really like salads, I also really like a chipper.  The toughest part of being on a diet is not watching what you eat, its watching what other people eat.  With only a few weeks left I really want to make the two stone.  I know I have miles to go after I finish this challenge but I genuinely think I will continue to do this.  I might not be meeting Karen every week or writing for Magazine + but I have definitely changed how I feel about food.

I obviously have an addictive personality.  This is a problem when you love food so much.  This week I had the opportunity to have a wind down.  This is a rare and exhilarating experience for me.  I’m usually so busy that I don’t have time to scratch myself but this week I had four days to do whatever I felt like doing.  The first day I cleaned my house from top to bottom.  It is now an OCD haven.  My fitbit calculated way over my 10k steps after the scrubfest. 

The second day I did a very stupid thing.  I logged onto Netflix.  First error. There was a recommendation for me to watch a programme called The Big Bang Theory, I clicked in.  Second error.  Two days later, four seasons in I am admitting to myself I have a problem.  While I haven’t eaten anything bad or drank anything that will leave me in a state of inebriation, there is now a Joy shaped dent in the corner of my couch.  I’m also dreaming about being in this show, this is never a good sign.  My fitbit calculated under 10k steps both days.  Don’t worry, I am hanging my head in shame. 

The only solution to this is to place a large full length mirror under the TV and maybe eat dinner naked while looking into the mirror.  I believe this would be a great tool in the war against gaining weight.  I certainly know that if I was to watch myself eating naked in a mirror it would be enough to turn me off my food.  Anyway, when I spoke to Karen this week I explained how I was feeling.  There is no quick fix to losing weight.  She encouraged me and told me I was losing weight the right way, slow and steady and I am on the way to winning this race!

Shebeens, Rap-Offs and Debauchery

So I’m settling back into my routine and am out doing more than my 10,000 steps most days.  I was down the country again, this time it was the lovely Limerick.  Now, I’m not going to lie, I had a ball.  I ended up in a Shebeen called ‘The OutBack’ in the middle of nowhere dancing to the soundtrack of Dirty Dancing and ending up in a Rap off, Dubliner against –not sure what you call a person from Limerick but either way they annihilated me. 

Sometimes, when I am surrounded by people I feel comfortable around I have a tendency to let a little over excited, actually not sometimes, all the time.  I am a very happy lady who loves being around those who love life as much as I do.  That said I should be mature enough to have control over my willpower. I let myself down a bit this week.  I had bread.  I also drank.  Believe me I did hang my head in shame.  I also hung it into a toilet bowl for some time also.  I feel like I got too excited and let go a little too much.  I know we are all entitled to let ourselves go once in a while and in my opinion I had been doing really well, but this week I was bad.   I have a vague recollection of a box of pringles along the way somewhere.

Now I know in the aftermath of the fun and frolics I am probably over thinking all I ate and drink, realistically I probably only had two bad days and five really good days.  But the scales never lie.  While I didn’t gain weight after the debaucherously enjoyable carrying on over the week, I didn’t loose anything either.  That was a kick in the teeth.    I am so used to being down that I was furious that I hadn’t lost a pound.  Not one.  Who’s fault was this.  Mine.

I had been exercising and watching my food and drink for five of seven days and feel like I was entitled to enjoy myself for a little bit.  But when you have a fun filled couple of days your mind pulls you back and you realise the only person you are fooling is yourself.  I knew as I pranced around that little bar with a glass of Moet in my hand I was going to pay the price.  I could hear my inner voice going “Joy, calm down, there’s no need to be going crazy, put down the Pringle”.  My evil inner voice replied “Ah shut up you ye thick, what harm is a few Pringles going to do”….Well I can now tell you the harm.

When you wake up after drinking all night and eating crap you do not feel human.  You feel like a much less evolved version of the species.  I’ve been so good with regard to the drink lately that I had forgotten the effects of overindulgence.  I spent several hours between the bed, the couch, the sink (because I couldn’t make it to the toilet in time) and back to the couch.  I was so hungover I couldn’t even lift my hand to change the channel on the remote control.  Parents, if you ever want to turn your teens off the drink you should send them over to me after a night on the Raz.  Needless to say I have made the decision, again, to never drink again.  At least until after my final week with Karen.

Fitbits & Feasts

After a long and arduous flight in which a passenger vomited all over the food trollies and spent the entire flight hurling up in front of me I eventually made it home.  I didn’t realise how happy I was until I saw my partner at that arrivals gate with a fresh coffee in hand.  Not an hour had passed before she was talking about dinner and what I would like to eat.  After being extremely good in New York I decided first things first, a bottle of champers was going to be downed and we popped open the Moet.

After a magnificent feast of diet friendly food and overindulging with alcohol I knew that a little slip is allowed and I wasn’t going to beat myself up about it, after all, who goes abroad and loses two pounds.  I was going to start afresh on Tuesday and that is exactly what I did.  My sister had surprised my partner and I with a Fitbit Surge.  This is a little device which works as a watch, merges with your smartphone to collect messages and calls but most importantly is a super duper fitness calculator.  We got up on Tuesday morning and after tracking and comparing our sleep patterns on our new toys, we decided to put them to the test.  Gone was the crappy pedometer I had bought prior to my trip.

The Fitbit gives a person a target of 10,000 steps a day.  You would be surprised at how competitive you become trying to achieve this.  As the week progressed I found myself running around the house trying to get to the 10,000 done.  One of the days I only got to 8,000 and was in a state of frustration for the entire night which made my sleep all crappy (according to my Fitbit).  My diet was going well and I was staying on track all week.  Bringing food with me and making sure I had lots of fruit on hand.

While on my travels during the week I ran into two guys and we got talking about the General Election.  In about 3 minutes we were all talking about dieting.  One of the guys was on Weightwatchers and the other was part of a college medical clinical diet test.  We talked about struggling with weight and foods that we enjoy and what was working for each of us. Never did I think that I could be sitting with two men who were unknown to me and talking comfortably about my weight.  I think that no matter who you are, no matter what gender or size you are, everyone has an opinion on food and weight management.  I know I am losing my weight slowly. I always hope for a higher loss on the scales, I’d be lying if I said I was happy with the one pound downs, but it is down.   

I always assume that people expect me to be down four or five pounds a week but that is unrealistic for me.  My schedule is always so varied and while I have a routine, it’s a routine that wouldn’t suit others.  I’m not a nine to five girl so I can’t  have a nine to five lifestyle.   I have learned that just because two people are on a diet at the same time eating the same food, it doesn’t mean you lose the same weight.  

Tipping My Hat To Full Time Moms

I have to start this week off by tipping my hat to full time mothers.  How you find the time to wash yourself, let alone eat is beyond me.  I can’t exactly write about food because I can’t actually remember eating. Last weeks column ended with my sister having a C-Section and me being delighted.  While my sister recuperated in hospital I took charge of her four year old daughter Ella, my niece.  Ella is the most well behaved little ‘gringo’ (as I called her) I have ever had the joy (pardon the pun) of being around.

That said, I am worn out.  An average day involved getting up, making sure she was fed. Playing and dancing for a while.  Off to the hospital to visit mom, dad and baby.  Then feeding her again. Some more dancing and singing. Then getting her home for dinner.  Some more playing.  Then came bath time.  Then book time. Then sleep.  By the time she drifted off I was falling around with tiredness.  Every night I was in bed by eight thirty.  I didn’t eat regularly, mostly just picking at what I made Ella.  I didn’t drink much water, just the odd sip from her little travel jug.

I shall never again take for granted the joy of being able to get up and prepare myself a breakfast.  Then saunter around preparing myself a chilled drink that I am able to carry around all day and drink at my leisure.  Not to mention the leisurely stroll around the supermarket being able to choose what I like and when I want it.  All you women who hold down jobs and raise children are my heros.  I honestly do not know how you do it.  I barely had time to use the lavatory.

When Kim and the baby got home after four days things got hilarious.  My sisters hormones were all over the place.  The house resembled that of the display window at Mothercare and no amount of cleaning made the place look tidy.  Then the baby refused to take the boob so I had to drive her to get a breast pump. This was hilarious.  The massive selection of pumps made my head spin.  The electric one she had was too hard on the nipples.  There was one I tried to convince her to buy that had too bottles which you strapped to your boobs, the photo had a topless woman working in the office.  Kim declined. 

We settled on a normal pump which when you pumped real hard made your nipples look like coctail sausages. This was enough to make me thank the lord for not blessing me with children.  My partner and I have been unfortunate in the past and experienced the loss that comes with miscarriage.  While we would have jumped at the chance of having children and I know we would have made great parents I have come to realise that there are pros and cons to having children. 

My sister is one of those women who was just made for mothering.  I am the fun Aunt that sings and dances and is always there to lend a hand but I would be lying if I said I’m not looking forward to getting back to my routine.  I’m writing this while waiting to board my plane to return to Ireland.  I left Kim, Ella and Charlotte all crying for different reasons and as I type this at the boarding gate at JFK with tears in my eyes I cannot wait to see my wife.