The Monday Round-Up #2 and Wednesday Round-Up #3

Alright, so I fell a little behind last week due to a LOT of singing, which means a lot of sitting.  But this week I'm back on the horse and doing a retrospective of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the past couple weeks.

The Good

• Sticking with this thing. I have royally surprised myself by sticking with this diet plan and not just sticking with it but actually kinda finding the groove.  Admittedly, I now understand the importance of the first week of fasting and general "no fun"-ness because it's been long enough now that I've forgotten what artificial delicious tastes like and I am just enjoying the food that I actually do get to eat.

• Cooking for myself is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  I think this is also part of finding the groove.  I'm getting better at basic things--like understanding spices which, admittedly, have always been somewhat of a mystery to me.  
• Best Find of the Week Ingredient: Nutritional Yeast.  Man, if you're not eating real cheese, this sure does do the trick in making you mostly, sort of, think you are.  Also beloved because the natural community types call it "Nooch" which I think I love.
• Best Find of the Week Utensils: Mason jars.  This is the one key I've not found before in the ever-growing challenge of bringing my lunch: fun and functional.  Turns out, I fucking hate Tupperware.  These glass jars literally will carry everything and they're a weird, fun talking point with people who have not been clued in to this geniusness in food packery.

• Momentum is building. I'm starting to find that wonderful little spot in the process where that feeling of being "pinched" grows less and less.  Also helpful there is my jeans growing looser and looser and, thus, helping me fully realize this metaphor.  Starting to see some results.  I feel so much better I can't even begin to explain and imagining living like this for a good while becomes less daunting and (gasp!) even starts to make sense.  What?

The Bad

• Food Cravings are real and will break you.  They haven't broken me yet, but they've threatened.  Thankfully, they go as quickly as they come so I don't feel completely obsessed.  But I can't stop thinking about donuts.  And cupcakes.  And pastry.  I've even started allowing much more pedestrian things like cinnamon bread enter in to the yearnings.  This has brought about a whole host of things I've tried to just stay focused on what I'm doing.  I'm very sorry fitness professionals, but drinking water and having a nice piece of sugar-free gum didn't make the list.  I just try to hang in there until the feeling is gone--usually having a tasty beverage (Zevia, bless you) does the trick.

• Anti-socialness is a familiar bedfellow. I hate to say it, but this eating plan is not friend friendly.  I was flummoxed by my brazen willpower at a birthday party this weekend 1) at a bar 2) with mounds of delicious cupcakes (I can only assume) 3) full of fried food potential and 4) with the best beer in the world on tap.  I drank white wine.  That's it.  But my friends of old looked at me with supportive-cum-stupefied eyes.  I know, kids.  Big changes for everybody.  It's so much easier to do this plan in the shadows of my own little cave with my low-calorie EVOO spray and fake butter-flavored god-knows-what to spritz on my third serving of eggs.  I tend toward anti-socialness anyway so this is such an easy slope for me to slip into.

The Ugly

• All metrics are out to thwart me. I need to keep a real eye on getting obsessed with readings on the scale and the ketostix.  I'm prone to this anyway but, once again, I can feel that both have come to rule my life and are literally the only things that cause me to panic on this plan.  Eating no sugar, fine.  How 'bout cutting out coffee? Um, okay...sort of.  No food that causes any kind of immediate delight? Great.  All of those, I take in stride.  But even knowing that the scale is influenced by so many things does not change the fact that when I get on there and that stupid number hasn't moved in a few days or (gasp! again) it goes up, it ruins my day.  I start to doubt everything.  If the ketostix are beige, I'm failing.  I know how I got this mindset.  Now I need to start changing it.  I can't live at the will of these stupid metrics when they are only one kind of indicator of 1) my progress and 2) my health and 3) my happiness.  In fact, there not indicating anything about my happiness.

Alright...that's the story today.  More updates to come at some point in the future.

The Will to Post

It's been an interesting couple weeks.

I've been starting a new diet plan that normally I would say takes the joy out of eating: no sugar, no alcohol, no dairy, no grains, no processed food, no processed oils.  What's left?  Meat and vegetables (except potatoes: no starch) and some fruit (no bananas, no dried fruit...). And thank god for eggs...the source of all life for me.  This humongous (and I actually mean that) shift in my eating has the usual side effects--the ones we all know so well: hunger pangs and...

One would think there would be other side effects that I've found but no.  Just the feeling of hunger.  But in my goal to be much more intentional about everything (and thusly "doing yoga"), I've really come face to face with just how emotional eating is; all the side effects I've had so far except for the feeling of hunger are social and emotional.

I've had to come face to face with all the things food has been hiding. The boredom, anxiety, and dissatisfaction that comes with, in many ways, just being unhappy.  With things.  With myself, with my life.  And there's a certain freedom and relief in that realization.  I've always known about the boredom, anxiety, and dissatisfaction.  But I never felt a physical connection to those.  What I've come to see even in just the few weeks I've really, let's say, simplified my diet is food for what it is: sustenance.

It's not a babysitter.  It can be, but then it messes with you.  It's not fixer of maladies (except hunger).  It can be used that way, but then it messes with you.  Without all that stuff--at its most basic--food sustains you physically.

And, boy, does life get so much more interesting.

Despite very few calories every day, I feel the flickerings of an energy I haven't felt for a very, very long time.  I wake up and can see brilliant ideas, concerned and compassionate ideas, flash past me.  I have the will to do things that I haven't for awhile: like chores and being efficient around my apartment.  (Don't leave those pants on the floor; I should deal with the dining room table situation; put the dishes in the dishwasher). I feel like writing again on most days even if I don't do it.  The pull toward the tv and my couch is one I can mostly battle against successfully.

I've also learned just how awful caffeine has been for my emotional state...for the past 20+ years.  I have always been a high stress kinda gal, expecting a lot from myself and others.  But I had no idea how manic caffeine was making me.  Coming off of it was almost a totally emotional process; I had weaned myself off any physical need for it probably weeks ago but last Monday I went emotionally cold turkey.  While it felt hard and like I wanted it, in every other way I felt such a sense of relief.  I feel so much less anxious, with a clearer head, and with so much less anger. I didn't expect that caffeine was a cause of aggression but the result for me was stunning.  I miss the kick but not enough to adopt it back fully (I'm drinking decaf when I need the taste...it's fine...it's appeal will wear off completely I think eventually).

In a lot of ways, it's been a whole new way of life and I like it a lot.  I feel saner and in a funny way less burdened. It's like driving a car out of the car wash or getting your hair cut; shedding that unnecessary outer layer is good for the soul.  For so long, I've operated under the assumption that the mind-body link worked in one way: the mind told the body what to do.  The mind was superior. Recently, I've begun to see and feel the need to wonder what happens to my life if I reverse that relationship: how can the body feed the mind, literally and figuratively?

Obviously, they both feed each other.  But for so long I've ignored the power of the body.  I'm really curious to see where that balance can take me.

A Recovering Grad Student

I'm not sure the actual point in my life that I became "couch-potato" level sedentary...oh wait, I can...it was my dissertation. 

In my life, I can remember having only one lasting, steadfast dream.  I wanted a PhD.  Not ardently.  But realistically.  I've always been "the smart one" and a PhD felt like climbing the Everest of intellectual capacity.  I wanted to see if I could do it.  I wanted certification for my smartness

[Sidebar: A PhD does none of those things.  I know that now.  My disappointment in that was so real and vast.  If I'm disillusioned about academia that's why.  It's like arriving to a mountain across the globe that you've dreamed about climbing your whole life and wallpapered your room with posters of only to realize once you're there that it's made out of garbage.  I can rant about academia (and probably will) longer than I should.  Sidebar over.]

Basically for ten years my usual schedule involved waking up around 9am, getting a cup of coffee, sitting at my desk and reading/writing/thinking for six hours.  Repeat the cycle 3 times.  Maybe sometimes around 10pm, I'd go out to a bar with friends and drink beer until the wee hours.  Then the next day would start hung over.  In between, I'd pepper that schedule with whatever food I could muster.  Sometimes I was extremely healthy, sometimes I ate whatever crossed my path.  Sometimes I would work out like a crazy person.  Mostly I would not.

This was an epic 10 year moment.  And I kept telling myself, "It's not good but it's temporary.  You're doing the best you can."

And I certainly was.  For the last 3 years of that 10 year moment, I worked full time.  So now the schedule was governed by an 8-hour day of sitting at a desk and stress about how much I didn't love working.  Then going home to the reality of having to sit back down at my desk for 6 more hours to read/write/think.  Later on in the process I started working out with a trainer (Cristina was the best) and I loved doing it but I knew I couldn't sustain it enough to make me feel good about it.  I was mentally and emotionally exhausted.

Though it nearly killed me, mentally and physically, I finally finished that goddamn thing.  I climbed Garbage Mountain. And the relief was massive, washing over me for about a month like the coolest, most satisfying, most brilliantly colored wave of awesome.  My head felt so much lighter and my heart was utterly relieved.  But about two months into my reverie, an incredible, all-encompassing fatigue set in.  Massive fatigue.  It was hard to move.  It was hard to think.  Nothing felt satisfying or worthwhile.  I could find no comfort in any facet of my life.  Surprising to me, that I finished that turmoil nearly two years ago and there are days when I still feel exhausted by it.  

[Sidebar: Even writing this, I can't deny this sounds very much like depression.  I actually went to counseling for years while I was writing my dissertation and it did help very much.  Neither my therapist nor I ever called this depression.  It wasn't clinical.  It truly was abject exhaustion which, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if more "depressed people" were actually suffering from.  Sometimes we all just need a BREAK.]

The first year after was the worst--almost worse than the actual last days of the project itself.  I made a treasure trove of bad decisions the worst of which was that I took an awful job that I would grow to hate over that upcoming year.  I use that word sparingly but the amount of anger and resentment I still carry about it makes me think it's appropriate. The stress of a bad relationship with a boss who I thought was an ally but really wasn't combined with a much longer commute through city traffic meant I was suffering the same level of stress, lethargy, and anxiety I had with my dissertation just with a different view out my window, usually car window.

And then I left that job (WIN!) with nothing else lined up (LOSING!) and staggering student loan payments (LOSING MORE!) and a complete loss of self really (LOST!); I had this tabula rasa moment about my life.  I didn't know what to do.  I lost a couple long-time friends (that maybe now I see were not as 100% wonderful as I had thought).  I didn't know how to do anything.  I couldn't focus, reading books was torture, and smiling wasn't really happening enough...if ever.  I was drinking a fair (but not corrosive) amount. I was having a literal hard time getting out of bed, not because I wanted to kill myself but because I was so fucking tired. 

And then there was rest.  Last summer, I was unemployed for about 3 months.  And it was the best time of my life.

To the chagrin of friends and family, I forced myself to not sweat not having a job.  I sent out some applications, I perused the job boards, but I limited the room for that kind of anxiety to 2 hours in the early morning.  The rest of the day was about addressing what had become the me that I didn't want to be anymore; a me who was a downer, who couldn't fit into any of my clothes, who looked like crap.

I slept like I've never slept before.  I wore yoga pants and didn't worry about it. I started actually caring for myself.  I had the luxury of really thinking hard about what I needed.  And the fruits of that glorious 3-month process were some of the most promising, most enlightened thoughts and feelings I've ever had.  I started eating better.  I started working out with more regularity.  I tried to assign guilt less when I didn't come through on things.  I tried to be more discerning in what I did, prioritizing fun, lightness, and joy over anything else.  I started playing tennis and sweating like a crazy person, outside, with new friends.  I could feel a surge of normalcy hit.  And I was so grateful.  Something was working.

The path still was (is) not clear but the recognition that this is my life and I only have one to make of it what I will was so strong.  I had never thought that before.  I now have the seeds of a much more interesting, worthwhile journey.  

In the meantime, I got another job, I started looking for fun and joy much more intentionally, I'm getting kinda good at tennis, I dyed my hair completely purple.  I started minding myself, thinking through the moments I need to push and the moments I need to just give myself a pat on the back. I've rebounded in a lot of ways and I'm working on planning rebounds in others.  But thank God for that 3 months last summer.  

It was nothing short of divine intervention.

Praise Jesus and Namaste.

A Storm's A' Comin'

I play tennis on Thursday nights, among others.  Usually I find myself harried, driving down Lake Shore Drive like a demon, late to the gym in Lincoln Park that has indoor tennis courts.

I wasn't looking for this particularly, but as I was cursing the idiot driver in front of me, going 20mph, I pulled onto LSD on this day and this view presented itself to me.  This is such a rarity to see the Drive stretch out virtually empty in front of you.  Add in the eclectic mix of clouds--some menacing, some beautiful, and a tad of blue sky in there somewhere--and it was a sight that did not literally stop me in my tracks but inspired me enough to shoot this picture "on the fly" in a couple different ways.

This really spoke to me today.  Beautiful in its disarray.  I immediately felt like this image summarized all the possibility (and also the foreboding) to come in the next months.

More on that soon.

Suffice it to say, I've decided to make some changes that I know will be challenging, that I will fight against either immediately or eventually, and that will impose themselves and their own rules on me as I make my way through.  And that's okay; in fact, that's great.  That's necessary at this point.

But this view today, presented as a gift I'm sure, reminded me that even foreboding, even challenge, even storms, even a confusion of all of them have their own beauty and space in a world that may seem overly known.

And beauty isn't always sunshine and rainbows.

Sometimes, the world needs several layers of clouds and the restlessness of a storm moving in not because it helps us appreciate the sun, but because it in and of itself is something to truly behold.