Quasi Nap Time

My mind has been uninspired of late in terms of my weight loss.  Some weeks I just have thoughts that pour forth and other weeks it’s like an arid desert….nothing there.  Ironically enough, this lack of deep thoughts (hey, they may be deep for me) usually coincides with a downward spiral in my weight loss efforts.  I know for this past week this holds true.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I was not off the charts bad with my eating.  But I have to admit that there were two days that I ate quite a few calories. (Stop worrying, quite a few is about 1800 calories….so that is still nothing outrageous…and honestly is more of a ‘maintain’ level of caloric intake.).   However, I know that while my body can handle a few days of that type of eating without showing any negative effects I know that my mind gets twisted around and messed up when I eat like that.  You see, it is so easy to start the downward spiral and all it takes is a day or two of being off track and all the old habits start to resurface.

 

I’ve been lucky in that this past week I’ve maintained my weight.  I’m ok with that…ecstatic actually.  But I know that I need to tighten back up if I want to lose again. 

 

I have been trying to ride.  I rode with my brother on the Fourth of July.  I was quite apprehensive about the ride.  Seriously? Looking at it now, I wonder why.  It’s not like my brother hasn’t always done what he can to take care of me. (Yeah, I’ve got a good….no the best, brother, and I’m not saying it because he reads this blog, I’m saying it because it’s true!)  I intrinsically knew that my brother would not have pushed me further than I could handle or leave me in the dust or laugh at my efforts.  He’s not that type of brother (well, he does laugh when I do something stupid…..but that’s his brotherly right).  So why was I afraid?   Dang, now I’m back to these irrational fears that I have.   What better way than to own up to those fears and lay it to rest.  So out riding with my brother I went.  I was nervous about the hills, I won’t lie.  I also won’t sugar coat it.  After one hill, about 5 miles in I needed a drink.  I stopped.  The world started spinning so I got off the bike and laid down beside the road for a few minutes.  I got back up and rode after a few minutes.  I THINK I was just hot because I’m not used to biking in the afternoons…in heat.  I usually ride in the early morning when it’s relatively cool.  It also could have been that I psyched myself out with this irrational fear.  Either way, I rested for a few minutes and then got up.    I usually don’t stop and put my feet on the ground for anything (other than stop signs) so I was disappointed with myself for that.  I completed it.  At one point he gave me the bail out option (very shortly after my little quasi nap on the side of the road) and my words to him were “I’m not a quitter”.   For so long I quit when it got hard.  If it hurt, I quit.  If it posed a difficult challenge, I quit.  I’m tired of being that girl. I’m tired of being that girl.  So we went onward, I just took extra precautions to drink a lot.  I’m not going to lie.  By the end of the 14.37 mile ride (with 223 feet of climbing according to mapmyride.com) I was tired and just ‘off’ from the earlier bout with the heat exhaustion. (the quasi nap helped me continue on but didn’t take all the effects away).   After some nice refreshing diet coke (ok, that’s what I laid on the side of the road longing for) and some cool air at my parent’s house, I bounced back and felt great.    Once again, the stupid fears turned out to be totally irrational.

 

And just to prove that I could beat the heat….on Friday after work I went out for another ride!

 

This weekend will prove to be a rough one for me.  The weekend plans hold quite a bit of unavoidable walking.  Normally I’d be jumping for joy because that gives me more activity.  However, with my foot I’m a bit nervous. Oh well, can’t help it.  So onward I go!