Primal Journal of VeloCity.X - wheeling through the Mound City page 11

[VeloCity.X]

Thursday, December 29th.

Actually keeping up with a journal entry. Imagine that. Even though I have little to share. Had a half day off with the kids in the morning but pretty much just had time to get up, get ready, give the kids breakfast then hit the bank before DD's playdate. With a boy. But she was quick to emphasize that it was just a play date, not a real date. She's only 8 and way to young to be dating boys, she says. Ha!

So got her dropped off, ran around w/ the boy a bit, then my mom came to pick him up, and I got to go to work at 11:45 and stay until 7:30. What a way to spend my vacation, huh? And I'm doing the contractor's job for them because I know otherwise they won't get it done and I'll still be the one left holding the bag. And due to needing to come in so much at the end of the year, I'm going to have more hours of vacation left than I am able to carry over and am going to lose 8 to 12 hours. Ugh.

So with all of that, probalby not a surprise that the diet was not great today. Forget not great, it was not good. Not existant. So I'm just going with it until the end of the year then essentially starting over. Had a soft pretzel, a hot dog, and Pad Thai for dinner. Yep, about as bad as I could go. But going with it for right now. Oh, and a coke. Not sure when I had one of those last.

One good thing was running across a playground just a couple of blocks from my house. Had been there once before, years ago, but had totally forgotten about it. It's mid-block on a lot where a house had stood, so easy to miss. But it has some cool jungle gym stuff, including a short run of monkey bars, but a longer run of more parallel bars. Imagine hanging and sliding your hands along bars if that makes sense. Really looking forward to doing some good primal-style workouts there. Will have to get the cross-fit group to go there some time when the evening exercises in the park start back up again.

Ok, to bed. Got at least a half day of work ahead of me.

Last thing. So ETB asked if I wanted to come over there for New Year's Eve, since some friends are in from out of town. Can't see doing it. Can't see it will help my mood. Am I being too negative? Hmmm....

[VeloCity.X]

Happy new year!!

Ok, a resolution of mine is to kick some of the bad habits that have been creeping in over the last month or so. First one is to get back to journaling regularly. I think it's actually doing quite a bit of good. Not only with the primal accountability, but I think it's been helping me work through all the other issues. Also trying to work my way back solidly into the primal state of being, at least from the eating standfront. Way too many cheats, way too many sweets, late night snacking, etc. I'm going to take it a bit slowly (as will be evident in a bit) but heading back there. Also trying to get back into the habit of consistantly working out. Missed far too many due to the project and now feel weak. Feel like it is easier to just say screw it and skip. Need to get the drive back.

Now one thing that has led to the skipping is that I've been working, quite dilligently actually, on getting my house in shape. I've put down carpet tile in the basement living area, got that cleaned up, got some storage shelving in the rest of the basement and got more of that area cleaned up as well. Getting rid of a bunch of old clothes that don't fit or are way out of style. Got rid of a bunch of flannel shirts. Packed the way too big pants away. Don't want to sound defeatist, but can't quite get rid of them yet. Also framed a couple of my old jerseys and have them hung up in my room. Did my state championship, race in france, and alpe d'huez jerseys. Included my medals with state champ and france. My therapist said that I do a poor job of celebrating my successes, so I'm trying to do better. It's just that celebrating such minor accomplishments seems both arrogant and making a big deal over nothing. The heights I've achieved have been pretty low overall.

So yesterday was my last day off. Spent the day working on the house again. Lets see.... had a couple of scrambled eggs with ham over mixed greens for breakfast. Think I had a small BAS with greens and turkey for lunch. Was doing a chicken in the crock pot when I found out that friends were meeting for dinner at a bar a friend owns. So I had just a leg from the chicken and then went to meet them. Had 3 Bulleit bourbon on the rocks. Should have stopped with 2. Had the brisket tacos (did eat the torillas) and the side of brussell sprouts. Not the best, but not terrible. But when I got home I had some cereal I keep around for the kids. Craving the sweet. That's why I should have stopped with 2....

Today was my first day back at work. Running late, skipped breakfast. Not sure the leangains thing is really working for me. Think I may need to start having breakfast regularly again.... Had a small salad and some of the soup I made over the weekend for lunch. May be my best soup yet. Running out of bone broth, though. Need to make up another batch. Was starving later in the afternoon so I did go and get some sunflower seeds from the shop in the next building. The package said the bag had 2 servings of less than 200 calories each and I know I ate less than half the bag. Did a good job of tiding me over though. Soup and salad was a bit small w/o breakfast though. Went out to my parents for dinner and had leftovers there. Steak, turkey, some roasted and mashed white potatoes. Didn't have a lot of choices for veggies. Did have a bit of left over stuffing. That's what I meant about going slowly. Oh well, could have been much worse.

I've got a roast thawing in the fridge and a spaghetti squash waiting to get cooked up, so I'll have better meals soon.

Taught my spinning class for the first time in a couple of weeks today. Got in a few sprints, some good HIIT, but I could sure tell it had been a while.

On Wednesdays I had been taking a TRX suspension class at the Y, but it's now a pay class, so I guess I'll be back on 5 essential movements/body weight work. Will be interesting to see how much that had deteriated over the last month plus.

Bed time now. Would keep writing and do some complaining, but nah. That's enough for tonight.

[VeloCity.X]

Ok, where are we.... Wednesday, January 4, 2012... Even though I'm posting early Thursday morning...

I guess I did do a post last night... Huh.

Ok, so obvioulsy sleeping is becoming a bit of an issue. Need to get to bed earlier.

Today I had a small thing of greek yogurt w/ honey for breakfast. It was one of the pre packaged things, and it listed sugar on the ingedients, not honey, so I'm thinking I probably just need to start getting plain yogurt and add my own honey. I do that when I make yogurt, so I don't see why this woudl be any different. Eating the yogurt 'cause I am still having some stomach issues, I think it's still recovery from the antibiotics. The summer after I was in the hospital and those huge rounds of antibiotics I had a terrible time recovering. Lots of digestive issues, and assorted... complications. So trying to get a few more pro-biotics to beef things up. So yogurt and berries for breakfast.

Lunch was a bit of the crock pot chicken that was left over. Ok, so this wass a slightly different recipe, but much better results. I really need to try it again 'cause this time it was a chicken from the farmer's market - so much better fed and raised. I have another conventional chicken in the freezer, so I'll have to try that recipe again and see how it turns out. I guess a couple of years ago the weekly alternative paper here did a test of making the same recipe with chickens from a standard supermarket, a cut rate supermarket, and either whole foods or the farmer's market. They said that they were prepared to be all smug and say that there was no real difference, all chickens were the same, etc. but that was not the case at all. The better quality chicken was apparently vastly superior. Wonder if that was the case w/ the crock pot chickens... must keep experimenting. So I had I guess a thigh, leg, and portion of breast with some carrots, onion and celery that cooked with it. And a somewhat small side salad.

I had also brought along some of my soup, but decided I wasn't hungry enough to eat it. Instead I snacked on some sunflower seeds in the afternoon. Again, low calorie high fat and protein snack, more to keep my hands and mouth occupied while I'm at my desk. But I think the salt may be an issue though. I started to get a headache later on, similar to dehydration headaches I'd get after long rides or races. Wonder if the salt was pulling all the water out of me. I may have been a bit dehydrated after going to the Y but not that bad.

One little triumph, sort of. In december I had been indulging more in the office treats. Today was the birthday of two gals in the office, and other gals brough in stuff. No donuts or cake for me. Did have one small chocolate chip cookie and a couple of shrimp flavored snack puff type things.

Dinner was a bit more of that chicken. I think the other thigh, breast tenderloin, and a wing. Still have some carcass to pick. Also had more of the roased veggies. Was still hungry so took some left over taco meat, threw in some cheese and melted all together and put on salad greens for an improptu taco salad. Yummy. No cheats during the rest of the night.

Tonight was my session (very good one I'd say) so I didn't get home until later. Evening consisted of geting my dinner together, getting the kitchen cleaned up, which was kind of a mess from the last couple of days, and then getting a bench put together for by the front door. It's a place to sit down and take off shoes. It has 3 baskets underneath, one each for the kids shoes and one for gloves and the like. While I was doing stuff I watched 'Downton Abbey' on Netflix. Awesome show. Up so late so I could finish an episode. Also laid out the are for some furniture that ETB found on Craig's list. She does want me to be happy and settled in. But I'm not getting into any of that stuff tonight.

Went to the Y over lunc, did my first body weight training in a while and went better than expected. Started with 15 minutes on the ellptical trainer. Didn't mean to do that long but got caught up in some show about celebrity divorces. Had to listen to them talk about Dita Von Tease and Marilyn Manson. I pretty much hate celebrities, but still got sucken in. After that 3 rounds of pullups (10nto 6) squats push ups, side planks, lunges, jack knife push ups, and planks. Each being 30 reps or 30 seconds. After the first round my hamstrings were killing me! When I started to do my second round of squats I was shocked. I guess I haven't been running over the last month, and when I've been riding it has been extremely slow and casual.

But overall I think it went as good or better than I could expect, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.

After 1 now so i'm going to bed.

[VeloCity.X]

Goddamit. I lost everything again. Why does that keep happening? I hate this keyboard.

Ok, starting over.

B - handful of blue and blackberries, honey flavored non fat greek yogurt and a banana
L - small tossed salad and some of my chicken vegetable soup.
S - a few sunflower seeds. not many. no where near a 'serving'.
D - was supposed to put a pot roast in the crock pot but forgot to set the diswasher last night, so the pot was still dirty. So instead I put a spaghetti squash in the oven then went to run some errands. When I got back I browned some hamburger, threw in a jar of (conventional) spaghetti sauce, and had bolognese primal style. I must say that I am pretty darn satisfied with spaghetti squash as a substitute for pasta, which was always one of my favorites. Will need to see how it does with say a clam sauce, but with red sauce it seems to do fine. Was starving and ate a ton of it, picked on a chicken carcass, and had a few slices of braunschweiger. Probably should have thrown in a salad. Oh well. At least other than perhaps some sugar in the spaghetti sauce, I'd say it was a pretty successful primal meal.

Taught my spinning class today. Got in some HIIT. Felt tired from not sleeping enough and my legs, hamstrings especially, are sore from LHT yesterday. Strange 'cause it hasn't been *that* long since I'd done squats I thought.

Just finished watching 'Downton Abbey' on Netflix. It is awesome. I'm a bit of a sucker for the english period pieces - especially those that show upstairs/downstairs intrigue, like Gosford Park. And this is a good one.

[VeloCity.X]

Since I lost everything before I decided to continue with another post in lieu of keeping typing. 'cause I was about here when all disappeard last time.

So one thing I wanted to add just so I would remember it. Ran into a friend today who is also going through a divorce. And she was talking about how they too are also getting along really well and she was wondering why it couldn't be like that when they lived together. Her therapist said that they have a good partnership, which is important in a marriage, but they are lacking the emotional connection, which is vital. Struck a chord. I think that's where my marriage ended up. My parents certainly seems like that. But my ETB was the one who recognized that and realized it wasn't what she wanted. And in my own therapy I'm realizing it isn't what I want either.

Oh, and she was also talking about a friend going through a divorce who just despises her ex. My friend said it would probably be easier that way. I've had that exact same thought. A guy in my office is having a nasty divorce and I've thought that many times. But I suppose in the end, especially with the kids, it's a lot better that we get along. Still makes me sad, though.

[VeloCity.X]

Friday, January 6, 2012

Ok, was going to type this last night but just got too tired.

B - 2 of those small Activia yogurts and the last of the blackberries and blueberries I had
L - Bit of left over carrot, onion, celery from the roast chicken I made. Last bowl of my chicken vegetable soup. Mixed green salad.
S - Did have a tiny bit of chocolate at the office. Was some sort of chocolate covered almond bark or something like that. About the size of one of those Dove squares I think.
D - Slow roasted a beef chuck roast during the day. Kids were over so I also made Kale chips, microwaved broccoli with butter and lemon, and mashed russet potatoes. They opted against mashed sweet potatoes and I caved since it was their first night here in a while. There were also some onions, carrots, celery at the bottom of the roast. Also yummy.
Dessert - After dinner the kids and I had to run an errand, and since it was so unseasonably warm I did take them out for some of the local favorite - Ted Drewes. I had a small single cone. Worthwile cheat.

Taught another spinning class today. Legs weren't nearly as sore as I was expecting 2 days out from my LHT. I think yesterday's spin class helped with recovery. Still not 100% though. The idea of going for a run sounded like agony still. I'd say I did more heavy/intense work than speed work in this class.

So I think my gut must be settling down. Maybe the yogurt is working. Thursday dinner I had the spaghetti squash with red sauce, and it was actually pretty close to bed time. Typically this would cause reflux, but did not wake up with any problems where I was both pre-Primal and after I had those antibiotics in early December. Looks like I'm back into the swing of things.

Have noticed that as of right now I'm feeing hungrier and the idea of any sort of IF sounds particularly unappealing. Not sure what's going on with that.

Uh... ok only other thing to mention is that last night I sat around paying bills and watching my alma mater, Kansas State University, lose the Cotton Bowl to the Arkansas Razorbacks. Poor Wildcats.

Think I may have found some furniture for my place! Actually my ETB found it on Craigslist and I'm going to look at it on Sunday. I guess it's good that she's trying to help me get established. I don't know, still seems kind of weird.

[VeloCity.X]

Saturday, January 7, 2012

B - I made up a bunch of bacon and scrambled eggs for the kids and I. I made 2 servings of mine and put one away for one day next week. So mine ended up being about 2 eggs with 1 bell pepper and 1/2 small onion mixed in. I probably had 2 or 3 slices of bacon.
L - Didn't really have much. Was out with the kids who had a couple of birthday parties. Did have some cake at the birthday party. And a tangerine.
D - Long long day at bday parties. Ended up just taking kids to Sonic on the way home. I did have a corndog for myself. Had a tiny bit - the last - of the pulled pork I made over a week ago. Had to get it cleaned out. A couple of the boy's fries, last 2 slices of Braunschweiger and a couple of big bowls of salad. A lot of typing to say that I pretty much grazed at dinner, but I'd say I still didn't eat that much. It's late now, so feeling a bit hungry, but going to go to bed and wait until morning.

Hanging out w/ kids and stuff so no real opportunity to exercise today. Should have done some LHT but never seemed to find the time. So stil room for improvement.

Ok, that's it for now.

Oh, and today I wore one of the pairs of new jeans a friend gave me as hand-me downs from her husband. Saw her for the first time in that and she thought I looked great. Very happy to see me wearing somethign other than clothes that are way way too big.

[VeloCity.X]

Ok, so this was a message to a friend that I had been meeitng to write for a while. Just wanted to paste it here as a reminder, since it seemed like a bit of a summary of what's been happening the last month or so. Sure it's not really about primal stuff, but hey, it's my journal and I'm not sure anyone else reads this. Which is just fine.

-------------------------

Hey, I figure it's about time I finally write you back. December ended up being just crazy. My project ended up needing to have all this stuff done by the end of the year and it was insane. I was supposed to have a week and a half of vacation (the whole time the kids were off school) but I ended up taking less than 2 days, plus the 2 official holidays. So instead of using all my vacation for the year, I ended up carrying over 40 hours, plus I lost a day that I couldn't carry over since 40 is the limit. But the stress of all of that is over, so I'm feeling much better about that.

Things on the marriage/divorce front I guess I'd say haven't really changed or resoved at all, but I guess just different levels of goofy-ness are going on. So let's see. Don't remember what I had said last. We got together to talk one night, probably about a month ago. It's strange, she clearly doesn't want to be married anymore, but she seems to be having problems actually doing anytithing about a divorce. It's like she'd be happy to just keep things going exactly as they are forever. But I suppose that's not really surprising. She doesn't really have a need to 'move on'. I know I"ve been saying this before but it keeps getting confirmed that basically I'm going to have to be the one to really do all the work on this. And that is kind of daunting. And her reluctance, I don't know, I think it makes me think that she's not really committed to ending our marriage.

But at the same time when we got together she was talking about how she doesn't want to be married, she doesn't really want to live with another person, and how she does (always has always will) love T***. Which is really just her talking out of both sides of her mouth as Tony is living there. But I think she likes the temporary nature of the whole thing as he could (and may) leave at any time.

I don't know what I told you about him, but he's a real mess. They met in highschool and I guess he was always the 'one that got away.' I should probably say first that he was not the cause of our break up. While he was definitely involved, we were well along our way before he came around. But anyway, after college he went into the military and ended up going to Iraq as an interregator. So he has PTSD, which I think was just an exacerbation of depression issues he already had. And he's tried to self-medicate w/ alcohol. So what's made things so screwy lately is that he's supposed to go into a treatment facility in I think Topeka, KS for I think 8 weeks, but they keep waiting for a bed to open up. So he's been in and out of the hospital a couple of times over the last couple of weeks as slots have opened and closed. So who the hell knows what will happen with that.

But all of that has filled me with some anxiety as I'm actually kind of afraid that after he leaves she's going to realize she's made a big mistake and think she can just go back to the way things were before any of this started. There are of course a lot of problems with that, but two things off the front are that she is cleary in need of some professional help/counseling, but I know she's not going to do it, and the other is that I feel like I'm growing a lot. I feel like I've learned a lot and am actually starting to turn the corner. I now see a lot of the problems in our relationship, and I don't think I want to move backwards.

And to that, I pretty much spent the last 6 months in a funk and not really able to do much. And I think it took the death of my sister to somehow show me that I wasn't dealing with the end of my marriage nearly as well as I thought I was. But I think I've been taking some good steps now. During the couple of days I did take off I had some people over to my place, and I kind of used that as an impetus to finally start really 'moving in'. I actually stayed home all New Year's weekend working on my place. Got a bunch of carpet tile from my office and now have a 8x11 carpet in the basement, made a work bench in the basement, got some shelving and storage stuff put together, hung a few more pictures and framed some old racing jerseys and medals. Tomorrow I'm going to look at (and hopefully buy) some furniture for my living room. That's really the last big thing before I can really say I'm moved in. Got a ton of stuff to do still, but it's actually starting to feel like home and not just a place to live.

[Rasputina]

Just to cheer you up a bit: Downton Abbey returns to PBS on Sunday! I don't know you, obviously, but I am sorry to hear about your marriage problems. When things get really tough, the question my husband and I ask each other is " If you left today and I could never see you again, how would I feel?" If that answer provokes extreme sorry and tears in both of you, then you know it's worth fighting for.

[VeloCity.X]

Hey, thanks for responding Rasputina! (sure hope the name isn't in reference to having similar beards.... )

Yeah, I'm trying to find a way to watch it. Unfortunately in an urban environment and the change to digital TV transmission all the clutter just *kills* my PBS reception. Maybe the kids and I can hang out at my parents' longer this evening. Hmmmm.....

And I appreciate the thought, but I'm afraid we are beyond that point now. We unfortunately did not address those things early on and just let them grow until we got to the point we're at now. We should have been doing that sort of thing years ago and address our problems them.

And wow, that last post of my that... that... was some seriously intensely personal stuff. I'm a bit embarassed reading it. Oh well. This is the spot I've chosen to be honest/open/vulnerable yet hopefully some degree of innerwebs anonymous so I'm going to let it stand.

Again, thanks for your concern.