Most stereotypical female blogger post ever. EVER!
I've been in a pissy mood all day.
Not depressed, not angry, not rational... just peevish. Pissy.
Like I want to pinch small children and animals. Hard. And then twist.
I've been debating whether to write this post or not. When I reanimated (iiit's aliiiive) this tired old blog, I didn't really have a clear direction in mind for it.
Was it going to be as glaringly personal and raw as the old teejmahal.com? Or was it going to take a more mature turn, and finally put a lid on the emotional babbling of former years?
If you write a blog that has a 'funny' label attached to it, there's a pressure to maintain that image. People expect lighthearted flippant and snarky writing, not raw honesty. And I felt like I needed to do raw honesty for a bit.
So instead, I haven't been writing anything.
Good solution. Dickhead.
The reason I am in a pissy mood is that I have been working my ass off in every sense of the word for the last few months.
Career wise, I have transitioned to a permanent employee with my company, doing my dream job (after two years as a pond scum but rather highly paid contractor), so that's going really well. I'm even doing my Masters next year. Aaagh.
Personal life wise? Well, I'm getting there. I have a crush. Ahem. A bad one. Although I must admit I'm enjoying have that tingling, stomach-fluttery feeling when you see a particular someone walk into a room and smile at the sight of you. I haven't felt that for oh...about six years. I've dated quite a few guys during that time, sure, but that feeling? That level of attraction? That's rare for me.
(The obscure reference I made in an earlier post was about this guy. He's a champion (read: Australian rep) cyclist, and during a lunch together a few weeks ago my mouth ran away from my brain, as it is wont to do. I started telling him about how I needed to buy a new bike (I don't) because I was quite interested in getting serious about cycling (I'm not) and could he please help me choose one? AAAAAGH! SHUT UP MOUTH! YOU DON'T MEAN THESE THINGS!!! STOP ACTING LIKE A DIPPY SCHOOLGIRL!!! So the other day he perched on my desk with a catalogue and pictures and babbled stuff about carbon frames and model hybrids and 278 gears, while my face went green at the price tags. They'd want to be designed by NASA to cost this much. What the hell am I doing? SHUT UP MOUTH!)
However, the main changes I've been making in my life at the moment have been around my health.
That nasty stomach surgery earlier in the year really threw me. I don't have the right temperament for invalidism, and I didn't handle it well - especially when all I could do was eat soft foods and moan on the couch. Recovering from that, combined with ongoing problems with my torn hamstrings and my stupid popped shoulder, and that thumb that had to get sewn back on (fuck I'm a mess) meant that the extent of my fitness routine was half-hearted badminton once a week.
And I was eating food that was terrible for me.
Foo's a food-lover, a brilliant cook and prepares the most fantastic meals. I love them - they are so damn tasty. Rich, decadent, usually quite cheesy and/or creamy. And they're generally all really bad for me, goddammit. Unfortunately I only have to stand in the same room as a piece of cheese, and it will have teleported its equivalent fat mass on to my body. I can't get away with what he can.
He was by no means the sole cause either - I was doing a pretty awful job of it on my own. I was sluggish, and miserable, and chunking up in a serious way. Now, I never got above about a size 16 (AU size which I *think* is about a 12 US - disclaimer: remember I'm 6'1"), but I was in pretty bad shape health wise.
So I finally got the shits, and went to the gym. I've been doing cardio+weights x twice a week, 1 pure cardio (interval training) x once a week, and badminton x twice a week. That gives me two rest days (Wednesday and Sunday) to let my beleaugured limbs recover. I'm finding this quite an easy routine to stick to - it works for me and I have the flexibility to shuffle it if I need to. I've barely missed a single session.
I've been working on my current program for a bit over three months now, but I just had my formal 9 week re-assessment yesterday. The stats have really really thrown me.
9 weeks:
Weight down 9kg.
Chest down 8cm.
Waist down 11.5cm.
Hips down 12cm.
Thighs down 7cm each.
Arms down 2.5cm each.
Body fat down 11%.
Goddamn. That's a lot.
I feel different. I look different. Kinda. I just wish the changes were more obvious. Being as tall and broad as I am (my trainer measured me shoulder to shoulder and basically said to ignore anything to do with a BMI because apparently I am made out of a combination of solid concrete and lead ball-bearings), I need to lose huge numbers to have any kind of highly visible impact.
And that's frustrating. I see other girls who can lose 5kg and go down three dress sizes - I simply don't work like that. I've put on a lot of muscle (most of my weights have at least doubled in that last phase and I'm out-lifting some of the guys), and that will skew the kgs down score a bit. So I'm basically ignoring that. My face doesn't go pink, let alone purple anymore, after two solid hours of badminton. My stomach's perfectly flat and I can stick my thumb under my collarbones. The numbers don't matter that much.
That said, in terms of numbers, I'm wearing size 14 (AU) jeans right now and they're falling off of me. I need to wear a 12, but they're always too short in the legs for me - I keep doing a weird hitching shuffle when I walk to pull them up, because I can't do belts (stupid belly scar). In nine weeks, I've managed to almost get back to the size I was when I left the Navy - I'm only about 5kg off my official discharge weight now.
Man. I was expecting some results, but not this.
And damn I'm in a pissy mood about it.
Huh? This makes you mad?
Yeah.
Frankly, I'm grossed out that I can lose huge numbers like that without looking amazingly different.
I'm grossed out that I had those huge numbers to lose in the first place.
The scary thing? I didn't even realise. I didn't know I'd gotten that big.
Even Foo said it when I showed him the piece of paper with the results on it. The first thing out of his mouth was "Whoa. You were fat".
And yeah, I think I was.
You see, there's only so far you can ride on the 'voluptuous Amazon' tag, and I crossed it about six months ago.
I am, however, thankful that I only had to live like that for about six months. I've caught the slide very early. I'd remained reasonably active, my cardio was actually excellent when I started (all things considering), so it wasn't that rough a transition for me into my new routine.
I'm also really really enjoying it. I love the gym, I love running (shuffling, waddling, whatever) with my iPOD, and I love the sweaty afterglow. I never thought I would. My new program starts tonight and it's twice as hard. It's going to completely kick my ass, and by god I'm actually looking forward to it.
It's killing me to admit all this though. I've always been an athlete in one form or another, and it makes my (shrinking) stomach feel like lead to think that I let 25 years of hard work go through laziness and apathy.
I know I'm heading in the right direction now, before everyone jumps in, but I'm still really angry at myself right now. I'm allowing myself precisely one day of pathetic angst about it before I let it go and get on with things. Bear with me. I'm getting there.
*pinches*
*twists*
*eats cheese*
