I have a cold. Everyone else in Edinburgh either has it, has just had it, or (I'd guess) is incubating it.
Mine is mostly sitting in my sinuses, throbbing quietly.
There will be no triumphant tales of exercise exploits this week, because I am just too tired. Normally I'm a night owl, but I've been in bed well before 10pm twice this week, and am about to go there now.
*whoosh*sniff*whoosh*
Night-night.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
New clothes
The whole biking thing must be causing me to gain some muscle, because although the number on the scales is resolutely remaining in the 180s, my jeans are falling down. I have two pairs of jeans in regular rotation: the black ones, which are soft and comfy if a bit faded, and the blue ones, which are annoying.
Whoever it is that designs women's jeans did not have me in mind. The ubiquity of low-rise styles in recent years is a particular problem; I am high-rise. Even if the jeans aren't very low-rise, they are going to fall off me. I have a relatively small waist and a large bottom, so I need jeans to come higher than my hipbones if decency is to be maintained.
The only answer to this has been to buy boys' jeans, which works better than you might think. I feel there is something wrong when boys' jeans accommodate curves better than women's, but there we are. The only snag is that they're not as roomy in the thighs, which is why the blue jeans are annoying. Mostly, when you buy jeans, they stretch after you've washed them, right? I bought the blue jeans slightly tight for this reason, and they've stubbornly remained slightly tight ever since. Not unwearably so. Just enough to be annoying.*
However, they've become noticeably less annoying over the last month or so. The black jeans, on the other hand, have started to require a belt, and also started to unzip themselves every so often... It's good that they're loose; the auto-unzip isn't quite so good.
So I've bought some new black jeans. And somehow managed to acquire two new black tops. Because owning upwards of twenty black tops isn't enough, obviously.
Dietgirl posted recently about how she feels she hasn't yet learned to dress for the way her body is now, and hasn't learned to enjoy putting outfits together. That prompted me to think about my own attitudes to clothes over the time I've been doing this.
I've always liked clothes, but I used to be very, very conscious of the things I could and couldn't wear, particularly when I was in my late teens. I needed to have the right clothes for every situation, and I also needed them to be impeccably modest and body-disguising. But mostly I needed them to be Really Good Clothes, because if my clothes were perfect then maybe nobody would notice the body underneath them. Times when I couldn't control what I'd have to wear, such as school gym classes, were real ordeals. I can remember it perfectly well, but I have difficulty remembering why I felt so strongly about it.
All over the place I've read posts about how you should be able to look great (and find the clothes that you want in order to achieve this) whatever size you are, and I agree with that completely. But I can also see the attraction in not trying quite so hard. I always used to envy the skinny girls, because they seemed not to have to worry whether something suited them; it would look good anyway. What looked carefree and informal on them looked frumpy on me. (Of course, all thin girls don't have an effortless ability to look good whatever they're wearing. It just seemed so at the time.)
These days I don't try nearly so hard. Probably it's partly because I've grown up, and I know what suits me by now; also I don't care so much. When I'm not at work, I wear the same jeans and T-shirts a lot of the time, and it doesn't particularly matter to me whether they suit me. (I make slightly more effort when I am at work, but that doesn't extend to wearing makeup, or buying a proper suit.) I suppose as I get older, it matters less to me that people think I'm pretty or stylish. In my interactions with most people,that couldn't be less relevant (and J thinks I'm pretty, and tells me so, even if I'm in my jeans and T-shirt with my hair scraped back). I'm not nearly so worried about concealing my flaws, even though they're still there, just slightly smaller than they were. There are still things I wouldn't wear in public - shorts come to mind, and I don't think I'll ever do strapless - but I don't agonise over it.
I wonder what would happen if I ever managed to achieve "thin"? Would I go out in sleeveless tops and shorts at last? Or would I retreat further into scruffiness, content in the knowledge that I can now Wear Anything?
*What they haven't done is wear out between the thighs. When I was younger, my jeans always used to rip at the knees when they wore out (and sometimes I kept wearing them like that. It was the 90s.) But when I was at my heaviest, they inevitably ripped at the inner thigh first, which I found really mortifying. I'd be doing well if I had jeans last a year without ripping there. While my thighs are still far from lean, I've now had jeans last more than two years without this happening. It's an odd achievement, but it makes me happy.
Whoever it is that designs women's jeans did not have me in mind. The ubiquity of low-rise styles in recent years is a particular problem; I am high-rise. Even if the jeans aren't very low-rise, they are going to fall off me. I have a relatively small waist and a large bottom, so I need jeans to come higher than my hipbones if decency is to be maintained.
The only answer to this has been to buy boys' jeans, which works better than you might think. I feel there is something wrong when boys' jeans accommodate curves better than women's, but there we are. The only snag is that they're not as roomy in the thighs, which is why the blue jeans are annoying. Mostly, when you buy jeans, they stretch after you've washed them, right? I bought the blue jeans slightly tight for this reason, and they've stubbornly remained slightly tight ever since. Not unwearably so. Just enough to be annoying.*
However, they've become noticeably less annoying over the last month or so. The black jeans, on the other hand, have started to require a belt, and also started to unzip themselves every so often... It's good that they're loose; the auto-unzip isn't quite so good.
So I've bought some new black jeans. And somehow managed to acquire two new black tops. Because owning upwards of twenty black tops isn't enough, obviously.
Dietgirl posted recently about how she feels she hasn't yet learned to dress for the way her body is now, and hasn't learned to enjoy putting outfits together. That prompted me to think about my own attitudes to clothes over the time I've been doing this.
I've always liked clothes, but I used to be very, very conscious of the things I could and couldn't wear, particularly when I was in my late teens. I needed to have the right clothes for every situation, and I also needed them to be impeccably modest and body-disguising. But mostly I needed them to be Really Good Clothes, because if my clothes were perfect then maybe nobody would notice the body underneath them. Times when I couldn't control what I'd have to wear, such as school gym classes, were real ordeals. I can remember it perfectly well, but I have difficulty remembering why I felt so strongly about it.
All over the place I've read posts about how you should be able to look great (and find the clothes that you want in order to achieve this) whatever size you are, and I agree with that completely. But I can also see the attraction in not trying quite so hard. I always used to envy the skinny girls, because they seemed not to have to worry whether something suited them; it would look good anyway. What looked carefree and informal on them looked frumpy on me. (Of course, all thin girls don't have an effortless ability to look good whatever they're wearing. It just seemed so at the time.)
These days I don't try nearly so hard. Probably it's partly because I've grown up, and I know what suits me by now; also I don't care so much. When I'm not at work, I wear the same jeans and T-shirts a lot of the time, and it doesn't particularly matter to me whether they suit me. (I make slightly more effort when I am at work, but that doesn't extend to wearing makeup, or buying a proper suit.) I suppose as I get older, it matters less to me that people think I'm pretty or stylish. In my interactions with most people,that couldn't be less relevant (and J thinks I'm pretty, and tells me so, even if I'm in my jeans and T-shirt with my hair scraped back). I'm not nearly so worried about concealing my flaws, even though they're still there, just slightly smaller than they were. There are still things I wouldn't wear in public - shorts come to mind, and I don't think I'll ever do strapless - but I don't agonise over it.
I wonder what would happen if I ever managed to achieve "thin"? Would I go out in sleeveless tops and shorts at last? Or would I retreat further into scruffiness, content in the knowledge that I can now Wear Anything?
*What they haven't done is wear out between the thighs. When I was younger, my jeans always used to rip at the knees when they wore out (and sometimes I kept wearing them like that. It was the 90s.) But when I was at my heaviest, they inevitably ripped at the inner thigh first, which I found really mortifying. I'd be doing well if I had jeans last a year without ripping there. While my thighs are still far from lean, I've now had jeans last more than two years without this happening. It's an odd achievement, but it makes me happy.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A multitude of things that have happened since last I posted
We went down to the in-laws’ and spent a pleasant Christmas despite my horrible cold. Although I had assurance from the doctor that it was just an upper respiratory infection, not a chest infection (which my little brother tells me is doctors’ less-alarming-speak for pneumonia, so I'm quite glad it wasn't), I was ill enough to get sent home from work the day before we flew down. Which is not like me. So I spent quite a bit of the festive period lying on sofas and coughing.
As a result, I spent a quiet New Year’s Eve with my family. Though I’m not sure we’d have gone and partied on Princes Street even if I’d been feeling better. I have done that while running a temperature in my student days, but – sigh – am probably getting a bit old for that sort of carry-on.
After that, I sank into work for an end-of-unit assignment for my degree, which sort of ate the first week of January. It was supposed to be handed in on the fourth, but I got a few days’ extension because of the aforementioned cold. I really hate getting extensions for things, because the extension starts to eat into the time for the next thing. It was only three days, but I feel I’m still trying to catch up, even now. Which partly explains my blog silence. I have still not completely caught up with everyone else’s blogs, either. Sorry.
Once the Assignment of Doom was finished, J and I spring cleaned, and I had a blissful week of no homework, in which I finished a variety of craft projects that have been lying partly-done in plastic boxes in my spare room. See in my sidebar where it says I do crafty things? I really do! Or I do when I have time to. Pictures on Flickr, details on the LJ if you’re interested in that sort of thing…
However. What of my fitness and so forth? On the third of January, J and I ventured to the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative and, at long last, bought my new bike, a Revolution Streetfinder. Although I’ve been pretty sure this was the one I wanted since about September, I’ve been dragging my heels on actually buying the thing. We were helped in our decision-making process by the bike shop guy telling us that this was the last bike in this model and frame-size anywhere.
Why did I spend so long vacillating, given that I had been given the money for my birthday by my loving parents, and that I haven’t had a new bike since 1992? Partly it was sentimentality: my trusty old purple-and-lilac Raleigh Cassis has carried me faithfully through my teenage years, university, and through my twenties thus far. Partly it was a sort of sense of environmental frugality. OK, cycling is pretty green in itself, but there is an environmental cost inherent in manufacturing and transporting a new bike, even if it’s fairly carbon-neutral once it’s been bought. Did I really need a new one?
And partly I wondered whether the new bike’s light frame and 21 gears would turn me soft. I mean, I CAN get up the hill on my old bike. Just not very quickly. And it certainly gives my leg muscles a good workout. (Also… how am I ever going to learn to work 21 gears? My old bike has 5!)
However, the bullet has been bitten, and I’ve ridden the new bike to work on every possible day, sun, rain or hail* (not the ones with 70mph winds, though) and over to my parents’. I can confirm that it was a good buy, and am now wondering what all the dithering was for. I can now, for example, go up the hill without wanting to die halfway. And I can change gears without suddenly losing all momentum, because the intervals between the changes are much smaller. If I want to work harder, I can always change up.
The only snag about the new bike, as far as I can see… Well. The old bike, as I mentioned, is purple (Cassis is French for blackcurrant). Which is not exactly my favourite colour, unless it is a very dark purple verging on midnight blue. I made many comments in the run-up to buying the new one that I’d finally get a colour I like. Red or blue or silver. The catalogue lists the Streetfinder as matt silver, which is what it looks like in the photo.
Well, it’s actually silvery lilac. Or as J says, lilac-y silver. Probably more silver than purple, but still!
But it’s got every feature I want, so I decided it was petty to quibble over the colour. Maybe if I’m still riding it in 2024 I can have it repainted. (Another thing: I have a snazzy new pannier too! The old one was bought when I went to university in 1998, had had hard use, and was held together by duct tape and prayer.)
I still have my old bike in the shed, and have given it a good clean and going-over in preparation for finding it a new home. Yes, it's old, but it's been well-cared-for and I hope there's a student or someone out there who could make good use of it. (And if you are she, do leave a comment, obviously.)
Meanwhile, I keep forgetting to weigh myself. I wish I could say this is part of some grand psychological plan, like PastaQueen's. What I need is more awareness of the numbers and patterns, not less. I just keep forgetting. Back in the summer, I was trying to get into the habit of weighing myself first thing on Monday mornings, so it would be easy to remember. Trouble is that I did it without my clothes on. Now that it's winter, I jump out of bed and instantly throw clothes on, and it's only as I'm wandering downstairs that I think "Oh no! didn't weigh myself!" But by then it seems foolish (and chilly) to get undressed again just for that.
However, I did manage to weigh myself last Saturday. I was 183 pounds, which is exactly what I was last time I did it. It was immediately pre-period, though, so I'm hoping for something better when next I do it. Apart from a brief visit to 179 during the summer of 2006, I have been stuck in the 180s for... more than two years, probably. It is time to move on.
*Not on purpose. It wasn’t hailing when I left the house, but by the time it started, it would have taken longer to go back than carry on. And I am claiming full points for hardcore-ness anyway. Hail stings when it’s coming right at your naked face!
As a result, I spent a quiet New Year’s Eve with my family. Though I’m not sure we’d have gone and partied on Princes Street even if I’d been feeling better. I have done that while running a temperature in my student days, but – sigh – am probably getting a bit old for that sort of carry-on.
After that, I sank into work for an end-of-unit assignment for my degree, which sort of ate the first week of January. It was supposed to be handed in on the fourth, but I got a few days’ extension because of the aforementioned cold. I really hate getting extensions for things, because the extension starts to eat into the time for the next thing. It was only three days, but I feel I’m still trying to catch up, even now. Which partly explains my blog silence. I have still not completely caught up with everyone else’s blogs, either. Sorry.
Once the Assignment of Doom was finished, J and I spring cleaned, and I had a blissful week of no homework, in which I finished a variety of craft projects that have been lying partly-done in plastic boxes in my spare room. See in my sidebar where it says I do crafty things? I really do! Or I do when I have time to. Pictures on Flickr, details on the LJ if you’re interested in that sort of thing…
However. What of my fitness and so forth? On the third of January, J and I ventured to the Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative and, at long last, bought my new bike, a Revolution Streetfinder. Although I’ve been pretty sure this was the one I wanted since about September, I’ve been dragging my heels on actually buying the thing. We were helped in our decision-making process by the bike shop guy telling us that this was the last bike in this model and frame-size anywhere.
Why did I spend so long vacillating, given that I had been given the money for my birthday by my loving parents, and that I haven’t had a new bike since 1992? Partly it was sentimentality: my trusty old purple-and-lilac Raleigh Cassis has carried me faithfully through my teenage years, university, and through my twenties thus far. Partly it was a sort of sense of environmental frugality. OK, cycling is pretty green in itself, but there is an environmental cost inherent in manufacturing and transporting a new bike, even if it’s fairly carbon-neutral once it’s been bought. Did I really need a new one?
And partly I wondered whether the new bike’s light frame and 21 gears would turn me soft. I mean, I CAN get up the hill on my old bike. Just not very quickly. And it certainly gives my leg muscles a good workout. (Also… how am I ever going to learn to work 21 gears? My old bike has 5!)
However, the bullet has been bitten, and I’ve ridden the new bike to work on every possible day, sun, rain or hail* (not the ones with 70mph winds, though) and over to my parents’. I can confirm that it was a good buy, and am now wondering what all the dithering was for. I can now, for example, go up the hill without wanting to die halfway. And I can change gears without suddenly losing all momentum, because the intervals between the changes are much smaller. If I want to work harder, I can always change up.
The only snag about the new bike, as far as I can see… Well. The old bike, as I mentioned, is purple (Cassis is French for blackcurrant). Which is not exactly my favourite colour, unless it is a very dark purple verging on midnight blue. I made many comments in the run-up to buying the new one that I’d finally get a colour I like. Red or blue or silver. The catalogue lists the Streetfinder as matt silver, which is what it looks like in the photo.
Well, it’s actually silvery lilac. Or as J says, lilac-y silver. Probably more silver than purple, but still!
But it’s got every feature I want, so I decided it was petty to quibble over the colour. Maybe if I’m still riding it in 2024 I can have it repainted. (Another thing: I have a snazzy new pannier too! The old one was bought when I went to university in 1998, had had hard use, and was held together by duct tape and prayer.)
I still have my old bike in the shed, and have given it a good clean and going-over in preparation for finding it a new home. Yes, it's old, but it's been well-cared-for and I hope there's a student or someone out there who could make good use of it. (And if you are she, do leave a comment, obviously.)
Meanwhile, I keep forgetting to weigh myself. I wish I could say this is part of some grand psychological plan, like PastaQueen's. What I need is more awareness of the numbers and patterns, not less. I just keep forgetting. Back in the summer, I was trying to get into the habit of weighing myself first thing on Monday mornings, so it would be easy to remember. Trouble is that I did it without my clothes on. Now that it's winter, I jump out of bed and instantly throw clothes on, and it's only as I'm wandering downstairs that I think "Oh no! didn't weigh myself!" But by then it seems foolish (and chilly) to get undressed again just for that.
However, I did manage to weigh myself last Saturday. I was 183 pounds, which is exactly what I was last time I did it. It was immediately pre-period, though, so I'm hoping for something better when next I do it. Apart from a brief visit to 179 during the summer of 2006, I have been stuck in the 180s for... more than two years, probably. It is time to move on.
*Not on purpose. It wasn’t hailing when I left the house, but by the time it started, it would have taken longer to go back than carry on. And I am claiming full points for hardcore-ness anyway. Hail stings when it’s coming right at your naked face!
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Radio silence warning
Just a quick post to say that we're going to the in-laws' for Christmas, and I don't expect I'll be posting while I'm away (though you never know). I also have an end-of-module assignment for my course to write when I come back, so I definitely shouldn't be posting then...
A rundown:
J has put lots of pictures of our piggies up at this Flickr site. Cuteness abounds: comments welcome!
I have a rather anti-social cold/sore throat/cough. I am really disgusting. I feel my in-laws will recoil from me muttering "unclean!". Of course they're far too nice to do this really; also, their boy has it too.
Although I cycled about six miles (on two occasions twelve) every day from Wednesday until Monday, I managed to gain three pounds from somewhere. (And the body fat monitor on the scales doesn't think it's muscle). However, since I got the cold, I have not felt much like eating, and am hoping that they will be gone next time I weigh myself.
No, I haven't given up food altogether, but my throat is sore enough to rebel at the thought of eating anything vaguely cornery, acidic, or strongly flavoured. Which cuts out quite a lot of my normal diet. If only rice pudding was a health food, I'd be fine...
However, all my Christmas presents are wrapped.
And I'm going to have a hot bath to soothe my aches.
Happy Christmas, people!
A rundown:
J has put lots of pictures of our piggies up at this Flickr site. Cuteness abounds: comments welcome!
I have a rather anti-social cold/sore throat/cough. I am really disgusting. I feel my in-laws will recoil from me muttering "unclean!". Of course they're far too nice to do this really; also, their boy has it too.
Although I cycled about six miles (on two occasions twelve) every day from Wednesday until Monday, I managed to gain three pounds from somewhere. (And the body fat monitor on the scales doesn't think it's muscle). However, since I got the cold, I have not felt much like eating, and am hoping that they will be gone next time I weigh myself.
No, I haven't given up food altogether, but my throat is sore enough to rebel at the thought of eating anything vaguely cornery, acidic, or strongly flavoured. Which cuts out quite a lot of my normal diet. If only rice pudding was a health food, I'd be fine...
However, all my Christmas presents are wrapped.
And I'm going to have a hot bath to soothe my aches.
Happy Christmas, people!
Saturday, December 08, 2007
The cycling and chocolate regimen
I have lost four pounds (I won't say "this week" because I forgot to weigh myself on Monday, and quite probably it would only be one or two since then). This is good. The current number is 182 (35% bf).
It's something of a surprise since I rather thought this had been an unhealthy week - they have chocolate biscuits at work, and I've been eating them. On the other hand, there's the cycling, and three flights of stairs to climb to get to my office - but would you have thought that was enough to make a difference? I only work three days a week.
I didn't get to bike in on Wednesday, indeed, because it was so windy that J was worried I'd be blown under a lorry. The wind is the main disadvantage on my route - the traffic isn't actually too bad, especially in the morning. Oh, and the Big Hill. That's fairly disadvantageous. It takes me about ten minutes longer to cycle up it than to go down it.
The weather's been fairly kind to me so far, but it doesn't really matter if I get wet. I wear aged tracksuit trousers and a T-shirt under my obnoxious fluorescent jacket, and then execute a quick change in the ladies' once I get to work. It's a slight pain, but probably better than getting one's respectable clothes damp/sweaty.
I never used to worry about that when I was at college. Almost everybody biked everywhere and we never gave a thought to whether we smelled sweaty in tutorials. Maybe everyone does, and they just don't notice because they're used to it...
I am about to head out into the dark to do some Christmas shopping (yeah, it's 3pm and the sun doesn't appear to have risen today). Meanwhile, here is a picture of Pumpkin sitting on my sister. Because it wouldn't do to have a post with no guinea pig content, would it?
It's something of a surprise since I rather thought this had been an unhealthy week - they have chocolate biscuits at work, and I've been eating them. On the other hand, there's the cycling, and three flights of stairs to climb to get to my office - but would you have thought that was enough to make a difference? I only work three days a week.
I didn't get to bike in on Wednesday, indeed, because it was so windy that J was worried I'd be blown under a lorry. The wind is the main disadvantage on my route - the traffic isn't actually too bad, especially in the morning. Oh, and the Big Hill. That's fairly disadvantageous. It takes me about ten minutes longer to cycle up it than to go down it.
The weather's been fairly kind to me so far, but it doesn't really matter if I get wet. I wear aged tracksuit trousers and a T-shirt under my obnoxious fluorescent jacket, and then execute a quick change in the ladies' once I get to work. It's a slight pain, but probably better than getting one's respectable clothes damp/sweaty.
I never used to worry about that when I was at college. Almost everybody biked everywhere and we never gave a thought to whether we smelled sweaty in tutorials. Maybe everyone does, and they just don't notice because they're used to it...
I am about to head out into the dark to do some Christmas shopping (yeah, it's 3pm and the sun doesn't appear to have risen today). Meanwhile, here is a picture of Pumpkin sitting on my sister. Because it wouldn't do to have a post with no guinea pig content, would it?
Saturday, December 01, 2007
The new job
In answer to your questions: everything seems to be going OK so far. Yes, I can see out of a window with a beautiful view over Edinburgh and down to the sea. My chair is all right, though it has no arms. I keep trying to rest my elbows on thin air.
I used to work in this place a few years ago, so I know many of the names already, and the staff fridge is near-empty, so plenty of room for my cottage cheese. Nobody but me seems to drink coffee, but I have supplied myself with some of my preferred brand (and some herbal tea). One of my favourite coffee shops is also just over the road. Other comments (about guinea pigs etc) have been responded to below!
The job is in the records field. I'm not going to tell you where it is, except that it is about 30 minutes by bike from my house, all uphill. Despite this, I have now cycled in twice, and intend to keep at it - it wakes me up a bit (I'm not at all a morning person) and it's a lot less frustrating than waiting for a bus. I'm really good at just missing buses.
The great advantage of it being uphill on the way out, of course, is that it's downhill all the way back. And I hope once I get my new whizzy bike, I'll be able to get up the hill a bit quicker.
I'm currently riding a purple hybrid mountain bike which I've had since I was thirteen. Yes, fifteen years. It carried me well through several years of university, but Oxford was a lot flatter than Edinburgh, and I'm beginning to feel the weight of the chunky steel frame and the limitations of the gears (five) as I toil up that hill. The road bike I have my eye on is nice and light and has 21 gears. I will try to find my old faithful a new home, though.
I haven't yet joined the gym, partly because I haven't got my staff card yet (which I'd need) and partly because... am I really going to have the stamina to cycle AND gym? Theoretically, of course, I could go to the gym on any of the four days out of seven that I'm not at work. But would I? I'm not exactly overburdened with spare time at the moment. I think I'll give it a week of biking and see how it goes. I'm pretty tired at the moment, but that happened last time I started working after a break, too, so it may pass.
But now, the news I'm sure you've been aching to hear: the guinea pigs have names!
On the left, Pumpkin; Cupcake in the middle; then Brownie. I suppose we really ought to have called Pumpkin "Gingerbread" or something. Excuse the fuzzy picture: it was taken on J's phone!
I did probably iron that top at some point, too.
The guinea pigs are already making their personalities felt. Pumpkin is the cheekiest (and obsessed with burrowing under and into things. Such as the gap between one's body and arm, which isn't always convenient.) Cupcake is the most docile with us - she'd let herself be picked up straightaway without running away, which the others didn't. She's also fallen asleep on someone at least once so far. However, she's quite assertive with the others. Brownie isn't bossy - she does definitely still have the loudest squeak, though!
They all like carrots, cabbage, hay, and running around like mad things.
At the moment, Pumpkin weighs one pound three ounces, Cupcake one pound four, and Brownie one pound four and a half. Which is a lot less than me (186 still on Wednesday, but that was almost certainly hormone-influenced). I will update next Monday with the current number.
I used to work in this place a few years ago, so I know many of the names already, and the staff fridge is near-empty, so plenty of room for my cottage cheese. Nobody but me seems to drink coffee, but I have supplied myself with some of my preferred brand (and some herbal tea). One of my favourite coffee shops is also just over the road. Other comments (about guinea pigs etc) have been responded to below!
The job is in the records field. I'm not going to tell you where it is, except that it is about 30 minutes by bike from my house, all uphill. Despite this, I have now cycled in twice, and intend to keep at it - it wakes me up a bit (I'm not at all a morning person) and it's a lot less frustrating than waiting for a bus. I'm really good at just missing buses.
The great advantage of it being uphill on the way out, of course, is that it's downhill all the way back. And I hope once I get my new whizzy bike, I'll be able to get up the hill a bit quicker.
I'm currently riding a purple hybrid mountain bike which I've had since I was thirteen. Yes, fifteen years. It carried me well through several years of university, but Oxford was a lot flatter than Edinburgh, and I'm beginning to feel the weight of the chunky steel frame and the limitations of the gears (five) as I toil up that hill. The road bike I have my eye on is nice and light and has 21 gears. I will try to find my old faithful a new home, though.
I haven't yet joined the gym, partly because I haven't got my staff card yet (which I'd need) and partly because... am I really going to have the stamina to cycle AND gym? Theoretically, of course, I could go to the gym on any of the four days out of seven that I'm not at work. But would I? I'm not exactly overburdened with spare time at the moment. I think I'll give it a week of biking and see how it goes. I'm pretty tired at the moment, but that happened last time I started working after a break, too, so it may pass.
But now, the news I'm sure you've been aching to hear: the guinea pigs have names!
On the left, Pumpkin; Cupcake in the middle; then Brownie. I suppose we really ought to have called Pumpkin "Gingerbread" or something. Excuse the fuzzy picture: it was taken on J's phone!
I did probably iron that top at some point, too.
The guinea pigs are already making their personalities felt. Pumpkin is the cheekiest (and obsessed with burrowing under and into things. Such as the gap between one's body and arm, which isn't always convenient.) Cupcake is the most docile with us - she'd let herself be picked up straightaway without running away, which the others didn't. She's also fallen asleep on someone at least once so far. However, she's quite assertive with the others. Brownie isn't bossy - she does definitely still have the loudest squeak, though!
They all like carrots, cabbage, hay, and running around like mad things.
At the moment, Pumpkin weighs one pound three ounces, Cupcake one pound four, and Brownie one pound four and a half. Which is a lot less than me (186 still on Wednesday, but that was almost certainly hormone-influenced). I will update next Monday with the current number.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Pulses and pigs
What are pulses? They're the seeds of plants from the legume family: so chiefly beans, lentils and peas. The ones in this picture are mung beans (the green ones) with whole grains of wheat and radish seeds, which I've been sprouting on kitchen paper to go in our salads.Mum used to sprout seeds - chiefly lentils, I think - when I was little and I'd forgotten how much I like them - they have a sort of fresh earthy taste (that sounds really enticing... but I can't think of a better description). You can add them raw to salads in small quantities, or stir-fry them.
There's info here on what you can sprout and ways to do it, but I just put damp kitchen-roll on a plate, rinsed the seeds and spread them out, put it inside a clear polythene bag near a window. I removed the bag once the sprouts had got going (about three days) and that seemed to work well. Apparently if you want your mung beans to turn into Chinese-style beansprouts you need to put a ripening banana in with them! I think that's the oddest gardening tip I've ever heard...
Sprouts, however, are small beer. This week's big news: we have guinea pigs!
J finished building the Piggy Palace last week, and we are now the proud owners of three female nine-week-old guinea pigs.
This is an awfully dark photo, but as you can see, we've got one smooth-coated white one with a beige nose, one dark brown crested one and one ginger crested one. I would tell you their names, but we've yet to make the final decision.
They are, however, exceptionally cute and already making their distinctive personalities felt. The white one is extremely docile and cuddly, the ginger one is a bit skittish and bouncy, and the brown one is also bouncy, but quite bold and whistles extremely loudly!
J's quite pleased with them.
I start my new job tomorrow. Wish me luck. I may need it.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Who lives in a fridge like this?
OK, nobody actually lives in our fridge. Or I hope not.
There's a competition going on over at I Ate a Pie, and all the cool people, such as Dietgirl, are entering. So I have leapt on the bandwagon.
We inherited the fridge from the previous owners of our house. As we didn't own any appliances, we thought this was pretty handy, and rather generous. Then when we painted the kitchen, we pulled it out of the very tight space it was in... to reveal a gaping hole in the plasterboard wall. I think we might maybe fix that properly before we come to sell the house.
We have just gone to the shops today - specifically, Lidl - which is why the fridge is so full. It does not actually lean to the right, however full it is. (If you really want, you can click on the pictures for big versions.)
Top shelf: lots and lots of lovely protein. To the left, we have some eggs and four big tubs of Linessa (Lidl own brand) low-fat fromage frais, which the husband eats for breakfast in industrial quantities. It's very nice, but I hardly eat it for some reason (maybe because it's probably quite sugary). Two pots of Hartley's fruit jelly, which is mine - they're only around 70cal each, and satisfy my sweet tooth. Five tubs of Linessa cottage cheese, which I tend to eat on its own for lunch - one tub is about the right quantity. A collection of live yoghurts (plain for me, vanilla for J) which also get eaten at breakfast. And orange juice, which is J's.
(As a semi-professional eco-worrier, I stress quite a bit over the number of empty plastic pots this small household generates. We recycle almost everything, but we haven't found anywhere that will take yoghurt/cottage cheese/fromage frais pots, and so they make up most of what we throw out. Any ideas? I've tried planting seedlings in them, but I don't need THAT many flowerpots.)
Middle shelf: Flora Light margarine, with mushrooms on top in the blue plastic thing. Bread (wholemeal sliced loaf), cherry tomatoes, and cheese (mild cheddar). It's just normal full-fat cheese. I have decided that we don't eat enough of it to make it worth getting the low-fat stuff. Next to those are some leeks, and the end of a loaf of multigrain bread baked at home from a bag of mix. It's got wholegrain wheatflour, rye flour, sunflower seeds and flaxseeds (and I added some more flaxseeds myself) and makes delicious bread without much trouble. Only trouble is, I've been trying to eat less bread... well, the slices are smaller than normal bread... There's also a bowl with the remains of some homemade vegetable soup. I keep leftover broccoli stalks and odds and ends of vegetables in the freezer and make some every so often.
Under that, we have a bag of potatoes, a giant sweet potato (yum!), some broccoli and the box in which J keeps his sandwich ham.
The crispers are stuffed to the gunwales with vegetables, because we eat a lot of those. I've noticed lately that I can't really be bothered eating apples (and so forth) - I'd rather get my daily dose from vegetables than fruit, unless it's fruit I really like. But all the fruits I really like are either expensive and unseasonal (berries, nectarines), or a bother (pineapple, pomegranates). So veg it is. We do buy fruit but J eats almost all of it.
The left-hand drawer usually has salad and the right has things you cook, but this depends what we can cram in. There's definitely Cos lettuce, spring onions (J's latest enthusiasm), celery, various-coloured peppers, cucumber and more cherry tomatoes on the left. And a courgette. On the right, carrots, red onions, a cauliflower, and a cabbage (and there are more onions further back, and half an aubergine).
The door! This is the repository for all sorts of strange things that I never normally look at. So we've got lemon juice, tomato purée, mango chutney (Marks and Spencer's, no less), two kinds of mustard, light mayonnaise, pickled onions, low-sugar apricot jam, sweetcorn relish, rasperry jam, two bottles of wine, mineral water, pineapple juice, and skimmed milk. I don't think I've personally used any of it but the milk and the mayonnaise, and maybe the mustard. And some parmesan cheese you can't see. The fizzy wine's been there quite a while, waiting on a sufficiently special occasion - I think it wins the prize for what's been there longest. We have a fairly regular turnover of stuff, and since there's just two of us, we don't tend to cook in quantities that leave leftovers.
Oh. There's also half a block of butter and some cream cheese for making cream cheese icing. I bought those, because I do the baking around here. I also (let's be honest) eat it. But it's like the cheese: you pick what you're going to be super-healthy about. As you can see, the baking-related items are practically the only "unhealthy" things. I don't bake very often - it's a treat thing - and so far, I have not got experimental enough to try some of the tricks for making healthier cakes, such as substituting apple purée for the butter. Maybe that's something to try in future.
It surprises me how often J and I don't eat the same things. Not so strange, given that I'm vegetarian and he isn't. But apart from the vegetables, almost everything in here belongs to one of us specifically. J never eats my jelly or cottage cheese; I never drink his juice or eat his pickles. Maybe all couples are like this.
Although we do keep some things (tins, dry foods) in a cupboard, I did not edit the fridge in any way. J has some beer, but being English he keeps it at room temperature. In the downstairs loo. Yes, I think that's a bit odd too, but he claims it's the perfect temperature and they're safe from being knocked over...
And that's the end of the tour!
There's a competition going on over at I Ate a Pie, and all the cool people, such as Dietgirl, are entering. So I have leapt on the bandwagon.
We inherited the fridge from the previous owners of our house. As we didn't own any appliances, we thought this was pretty handy, and rather generous. Then when we painted the kitchen, we pulled it out of the very tight space it was in... to reveal a gaping hole in the plasterboard wall. I think we might maybe fix that properly before we come to sell the house.
We have just gone to the shops today - specifically, Lidl - which is why the fridge is so full. It does not actually lean to the right, however full it is. (If you really want, you can click on the pictures for big versions.)
Top shelf: lots and lots of lovely protein. To the left, we have some eggs and four big tubs of Linessa (Lidl own brand) low-fat fromage frais, which the husband eats for breakfast in industrial quantities. It's very nice, but I hardly eat it for some reason (maybe because it's probably quite sugary). Two pots of Hartley's fruit jelly, which is mine - they're only around 70cal each, and satisfy my sweet tooth. Five tubs of Linessa cottage cheese, which I tend to eat on its own for lunch - one tub is about the right quantity. A collection of live yoghurts (plain for me, vanilla for J) which also get eaten at breakfast. And orange juice, which is J's.(As a semi-professional eco-worrier, I stress quite a bit over the number of empty plastic pots this small household generates. We recycle almost everything, but we haven't found anywhere that will take yoghurt/cottage cheese/fromage frais pots, and so they make up most of what we throw out. Any ideas? I've tried planting seedlings in them, but I don't need THAT many flowerpots.)
Middle shelf: Flora Light margarine, with mushrooms on top in the blue plastic thing. Bread (wholemeal sliced loaf), cherry tomatoes, and cheese (mild cheddar). It's just normal full-fat cheese. I have decided that we don't eat enough of it to make it worth getting the low-fat stuff. Next to those are some leeks, and the end of a loaf of multigrain bread baked at home from a bag of mix. It's got wholegrain wheatflour, rye flour, sunflower seeds and flaxseeds (and I added some more flaxseeds myself) and makes delicious bread without much trouble. Only trouble is, I've been trying to eat less bread... well, the slices are smaller than normal bread... There's also a bowl with the remains of some homemade vegetable soup. I keep leftover broccoli stalks and odds and ends of vegetables in the freezer and make some every so often.
Under that, we have a bag of potatoes, a giant sweet potato (yum!), some broccoli and the box in which J keeps his sandwich ham.
The crispers are stuffed to the gunwales with vegetables, because we eat a lot of those. I've noticed lately that I can't really be bothered eating apples (and so forth) - I'd rather get my daily dose from vegetables than fruit, unless it's fruit I really like. But all the fruits I really like are either expensive and unseasonal (berries, nectarines), or a bother (pineapple, pomegranates). So veg it is. We do buy fruit but J eats almost all of it.
The left-hand drawer usually has salad and the right has things you cook, but this depends what we can cram in. There's definitely Cos lettuce, spring onions (J's latest enthusiasm), celery, various-coloured peppers, cucumber and more cherry tomatoes on the left. And a courgette. On the right, carrots, red onions, a cauliflower, and a cabbage (and there are more onions further back, and half an aubergine).
The door! This is the repository for all sorts of strange things that I never normally look at. So we've got lemon juice, tomato purée, mango chutney (Marks and Spencer's, no less), two kinds of mustard, light mayonnaise, pickled onions, low-sugar apricot jam, sweetcorn relish, rasperry jam, two bottles of wine, mineral water, pineapple juice, and skimmed milk. I don't think I've personally used any of it but the milk and the mayonnaise, and maybe the mustard. And some parmesan cheese you can't see. The fizzy wine's been there quite a while, waiting on a sufficiently special occasion - I think it wins the prize for what's been there longest. We have a fairly regular turnover of stuff, and since there's just two of us, we don't tend to cook in quantities that leave leftovers.Oh. There's also half a block of butter and some cream cheese for making cream cheese icing. I bought those, because I do the baking around here. I also (let's be honest) eat it. But it's like the cheese: you pick what you're going to be super-healthy about. As you can see, the baking-related items are practically the only "unhealthy" things. I don't bake very often - it's a treat thing - and so far, I have not got experimental enough to try some of the tricks for making healthier cakes, such as substituting apple purée for the butter. Maybe that's something to try in future.
It surprises me how often J and I don't eat the same things. Not so strange, given that I'm vegetarian and he isn't. But apart from the vegetables, almost everything in here belongs to one of us specifically. J never eats my jelly or cottage cheese; I never drink his juice or eat his pickles. Maybe all couples are like this.
Although we do keep some things (tins, dry foods) in a cupboard, I did not edit the fridge in any way. J has some beer, but being English he keeps it at room temperature. In the downstairs loo. Yes, I think that's a bit odd too, but he claims it's the perfect temperature and they're safe from being knocked over...
And that's the end of the tour!
Friday, November 16, 2007
8 random things
I have been tagged for a meme by Loth! (Why are you called Loth, by the way? Is it short for something?)
Don't think I've actually ever been tagged by anyone before, although I have answered many "I'm not going to tag anyone but if anybody wants to do it..." memes. I have done this one before on LJ, but I shall try to come up with a different eight.
1. I am very good at wiggling my ears. I can also make rhythmic clicking noises with them at will. This is a medical mystery, but definitely has something to do with childhood ear infections.
2. I am simultaneously very low-maintenance and quite vain. I can never be bothered with any beauty routines that go beyond keeping clean and presentable, hardly ever wear makeup, and spend most of my life in jeans and T-shirts. Yet I have a great many clothes and shoes and quite a lot of makeup, and am rather prone to thinking that I have to own certain items in case I ever need them. And I spend far too much time angsting over my ten grey hairs, even though it's highly unlikely that I would dye them.
3. It's possible that I read too much Victorian literature in my youth, actually, because I have this deep-down feeling that my skin "ought" to be good enough not to need any makeup (and my hair ought to look nice in its natural state, too). I only ever apply this thinking to myself, though. I suppose that I want to look good, but I want people to think it's effortless. In fact, I want it to BE effortless (see above).
4. I am very, very squeamish. I rather despise this tendency, but there's not a thing I can do about it. If someone starts talking about something vaguely surgical, I actually feel sick and weak in the legs and need to sit down. The last time this happened was last week, reading an article in the paper about new ways to treat varicose veins. It wasn't even that graphic.
5. I have a ridiculously good long-term memory, and a terrible short-term one. I will forget a phone number between page and phone, but remember everything anyone ever said to me. ("Your bum looks like it's made of wobbly jelly" - 1992.) I remember the good stuff, too, though, and a lot from my early childhood - the time when I was five, for example, and we were on holiday in Ibiza. It was my first foreign holiday, and one night Mum and Dad took L and me out to a café AFTER DARK, and we had strawberries and whipped cream with sparklers stuck in them, and "cold chocolate" (which I suppose was just chocolate milk, but I remember it as being delicious).
6. I used to seriously dislike my name when I was little. It's not that uncommon in Scotland, but there are a lot of variants which are equally common, and often teachers (and so forth) wouldn't remember it quite right. Which was annoying. These days I don't mind it at all... but then people usually get it right.
7. I am only good at cooking if I'm not hungry, or if someone else has to eat it too. If it's just me, convenience and nutrition will win out over deliciousness every time. (Lunch today was plain cottage cheese and a big handful of sprouted pulses.) On the other hand, I enjoy baking, but then I don't do that when I'm hungry, and no meals rest on the outcome.
8. I always have warm hands. J almost always has very cold hands that need warming up. A match made in heaven.
Don't think I've actually ever been tagged by anyone before, although I have answered many "I'm not going to tag anyone but if anybody wants to do it..." memes. I have done this one before on LJ, but I shall try to come up with a different eight.
1. I am very good at wiggling my ears. I can also make rhythmic clicking noises with them at will. This is a medical mystery, but definitely has something to do with childhood ear infections.
2. I am simultaneously very low-maintenance and quite vain. I can never be bothered with any beauty routines that go beyond keeping clean and presentable, hardly ever wear makeup, and spend most of my life in jeans and T-shirts. Yet I have a great many clothes and shoes and quite a lot of makeup, and am rather prone to thinking that I have to own certain items in case I ever need them. And I spend far too much time angsting over my ten grey hairs, even though it's highly unlikely that I would dye them.
3. It's possible that I read too much Victorian literature in my youth, actually, because I have this deep-down feeling that my skin "ought" to be good enough not to need any makeup (and my hair ought to look nice in its natural state, too). I only ever apply this thinking to myself, though. I suppose that I want to look good, but I want people to think it's effortless. In fact, I want it to BE effortless (see above).
4. I am very, very squeamish. I rather despise this tendency, but there's not a thing I can do about it. If someone starts talking about something vaguely surgical, I actually feel sick and weak in the legs and need to sit down. The last time this happened was last week, reading an article in the paper about new ways to treat varicose veins. It wasn't even that graphic.
5. I have a ridiculously good long-term memory, and a terrible short-term one. I will forget a phone number between page and phone, but remember everything anyone ever said to me. ("Your bum looks like it's made of wobbly jelly" - 1992.) I remember the good stuff, too, though, and a lot from my early childhood - the time when I was five, for example, and we were on holiday in Ibiza. It was my first foreign holiday, and one night Mum and Dad took L and me out to a café AFTER DARK, and we had strawberries and whipped cream with sparklers stuck in them, and "cold chocolate" (which I suppose was just chocolate milk, but I remember it as being delicious).
6. I used to seriously dislike my name when I was little. It's not that uncommon in Scotland, but there are a lot of variants which are equally common, and often teachers (and so forth) wouldn't remember it quite right. Which was annoying. These days I don't mind it at all... but then people usually get it right.
7. I am only good at cooking if I'm not hungry, or if someone else has to eat it too. If it's just me, convenience and nutrition will win out over deliciousness every time. (Lunch today was plain cottage cheese and a big handful of sprouted pulses.) On the other hand, I enjoy baking, but then I don't do that when I'm hungry, and no meals rest on the outcome.
8. I always have warm hands. J almost always has very cold hands that need warming up. A match made in heaven.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Waiting for things to start
My new job starts in two weeks exactly (yes, on a Tuesday). I have a feeling rather like being on hold on the telephone: I'm waiting impatiently for something to happen, and yet fear that when it does happen, I will be slightly startled by it because I'll have stopped paying attention and gone off into a dream...
As regards the feet: again, waiting. I can't "go get" the orthotic inserts because (according to my brother, who is a medical student) it will probably be a few months before I have an appointment to get my feet looked at. Everyone is supposed to be "dealt with" within 18 weeks on the NHS, but apparently that might just mean that I get a letter telling me when the appointment is. (As you can tell, I've never had to see a specialist about anything, or not for the past 15 years or so, so this comes as a surprise. It really shouldn't, considering what J's experiences have been.)
I'm not terribly impressed, but since I've been failing to notice there was a problem for the past 28 years... I suppose it's not that big a deal.
Question, though: will the orthotics affect the way my shoes fit? And if so, do I wait to buy new winter boots* until after I get them, or will there be no winter left to wear them in by then?
My brother says his orthotics don't affect the fit of his shoes at all; my sister says hers do.
In other non-feet news: yesterday, the scales said 185 (+1 since last week). Grump. However, this was a week which involved going out for an evening meal twice and to the pub once, so grumping is entirely unmerited. Also, J and my sister said, independently, that I was looking "skinny", and my sister thought I was thinner than at the wedding.
That isn't true, by about five pounds, but it demonstrates nicely how subjective body-image is. Because I was feeling distinctly lumpy all weekend (although one pound's fluctuation isn't likely to affect the degree of lumpiness to any visible extent) and then, after she said that, I felt perfectly fine.
Back in the summer, I decided that I wanted to make my bike my major means of transport. And then, when I'd proved I would get value out of it, buy a new one. But I didn't really go anywhere much in August or the early part of September... so I didn't ride the existing bike much. I'm doing better on this now: I've ridden it into town quite a few times and over to my parents' house a couple of times, which is about six miles each way. It's not a massive distance, but does include a fairly big hill on the way out. Which is good, because you get to coast for the last part on the way back. It doesn't actually seem that far any more.
As for NaNo... the less said, the better. I either have plenty of time, or I really, really don't. I don't think I'll be a winner this year, somehow.
*I like these ones, but they're... quite a financial commitment. So if I get them, they had better fit properly!
As regards the feet: again, waiting. I can't "go get" the orthotic inserts because (according to my brother, who is a medical student) it will probably be a few months before I have an appointment to get my feet looked at. Everyone is supposed to be "dealt with" within 18 weeks on the NHS, but apparently that might just mean that I get a letter telling me when the appointment is. (As you can tell, I've never had to see a specialist about anything, or not for the past 15 years or so, so this comes as a surprise. It really shouldn't, considering what J's experiences have been.)
I'm not terribly impressed, but since I've been failing to notice there was a problem for the past 28 years... I suppose it's not that big a deal.
Question, though: will the orthotics affect the way my shoes fit? And if so, do I wait to buy new winter boots* until after I get them, or will there be no winter left to wear them in by then?
My brother says his orthotics don't affect the fit of his shoes at all; my sister says hers do.
In other non-feet news: yesterday, the scales said 185 (+1 since last week). Grump. However, this was a week which involved going out for an evening meal twice and to the pub once, so grumping is entirely unmerited. Also, J and my sister said, independently, that I was looking "skinny", and my sister thought I was thinner than at the wedding.
That isn't true, by about five pounds, but it demonstrates nicely how subjective body-image is. Because I was feeling distinctly lumpy all weekend (although one pound's fluctuation isn't likely to affect the degree of lumpiness to any visible extent) and then, after she said that, I felt perfectly fine.
Back in the summer, I decided that I wanted to make my bike my major means of transport. And then, when I'd proved I would get value out of it, buy a new one. But I didn't really go anywhere much in August or the early part of September... so I didn't ride the existing bike much. I'm doing better on this now: I've ridden it into town quite a few times and over to my parents' house a couple of times, which is about six miles each way. It's not a massive distance, but does include a fairly big hill on the way out. Which is good, because you get to coast for the last part on the way back. It doesn't actually seem that far any more.
As for NaNo... the less said, the better. I either have plenty of time, or I really, really don't. I don't think I'll be a winner this year, somehow.
*I like these ones, but they're... quite a financial commitment. So if I get them, they had better fit properly!
Friday, November 09, 2007
Mundane ailments
This is just a quickie, as I'm very busy this week... and also doing NaNoWriMo.
I've been having some trouble with my feet lately. The residual pain from the toe-stubbing incident is now gone, but it took about two months to disappear completely, and in the meantime I've been walking rather than running, and finding that my feet really hurt after a longish walk - more than I would expect them to, and it still seems to happen no matter how sensible and supportive my shoes. And they also hurt when I get out of bed in the morning: it feels as though all the bones have decompressed overnight, and it hurts to compress them again!
None of which is great news for exercising, especially as I really want to get back into running now. A few days ago, I idly looked around on Wikipedia and came to the conclusion that I might have flat feet. It probably would have taken me ages to get around to going to the doctor, except that I managed to do something weird to my big toe. I thought it was probably just a muscle strain, but it was so painful it actually kept me awake on Wednesday night, so I thought I might as well get it looked at and ask about my feet in general.
Conclusion: yup, muscular strain, take ibuprofen and wait for it to get better - but I do have flat feet. So the doctor's referring me to get them looked at, and I'll probably get orthotics (surgery is possible, but unlikely). I'm also to get an orthopaedic check-up, since I'm hypermobile, which increases the likelihood of joint problems as a knock-on effect. Both my siblings have had these, but I've been lucky so far.
Actually, the flat-feet thing shouldn't have taken me this long to work out, because my brother's got them too, and my feet have always been slightly ache-prone, especially when I've been walking a lot. I can see that my arches are pretty low, and I've always had trouble with new trainers not being comfortable - it always feels as though the arch-support is too high. I tend to get blisters in the inner arch, too (and I get more blisters than the average person, anyway).
One sign is a tendency for your shoes to wear down more on the outer edge, and mine certainly do that!
I'm hoping that once I have the orthotics, I will no longer be held back in my running by my feet hurting. That's definitely been the case - they'd blister or hurt long before I was physically exhausted - and I'm kind of kicking myself that I just put it down to not being fit enough yet. Which I mostly did.
I was slightly afraid that the doctor was going to say "Well, your feet wouldn't hurt if you weren't overweight, so nyah." But of course he didn't (and, you know, my feet weren't this hurt-prone when I was heavier - it doesn't seem to be directly connected).
Talking of weight: still at 184 as of this Monday.
I've been having some trouble with my feet lately. The residual pain from the toe-stubbing incident is now gone, but it took about two months to disappear completely, and in the meantime I've been walking rather than running, and finding that my feet really hurt after a longish walk - more than I would expect them to, and it still seems to happen no matter how sensible and supportive my shoes. And they also hurt when I get out of bed in the morning: it feels as though all the bones have decompressed overnight, and it hurts to compress them again!
None of which is great news for exercising, especially as I really want to get back into running now. A few days ago, I idly looked around on Wikipedia and came to the conclusion that I might have flat feet. It probably would have taken me ages to get around to going to the doctor, except that I managed to do something weird to my big toe. I thought it was probably just a muscle strain, but it was so painful it actually kept me awake on Wednesday night, so I thought I might as well get it looked at and ask about my feet in general.
Conclusion: yup, muscular strain, take ibuprofen and wait for it to get better - but I do have flat feet. So the doctor's referring me to get them looked at, and I'll probably get orthotics (surgery is possible, but unlikely). I'm also to get an orthopaedic check-up, since I'm hypermobile, which increases the likelihood of joint problems as a knock-on effect. Both my siblings have had these, but I've been lucky so far.
Actually, the flat-feet thing shouldn't have taken me this long to work out, because my brother's got them too, and my feet have always been slightly ache-prone, especially when I've been walking a lot. I can see that my arches are pretty low, and I've always had trouble with new trainers not being comfortable - it always feels as though the arch-support is too high. I tend to get blisters in the inner arch, too (and I get more blisters than the average person, anyway).
One sign is a tendency for your shoes to wear down more on the outer edge, and mine certainly do that!
I'm hoping that once I have the orthotics, I will no longer be held back in my running by my feet hurting. That's definitely been the case - they'd blister or hurt long before I was physically exhausted - and I'm kind of kicking myself that I just put it down to not being fit enough yet. Which I mostly did.
I was slightly afraid that the doctor was going to say "Well, your feet wouldn't hurt if you weren't overweight, so nyah." But of course he didn't (and, you know, my feet weren't this hurt-prone when I was heavier - it doesn't seem to be directly connected).
Talking of weight: still at 184 as of this Monday.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Happy Hallowe'en!
I like making pumpkin lanterns :)
Fortunately, we do not have too many mini Mars bars left. Equally fortunately, we do have a few.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Mud and sawdust
I didn't weigh myself last Monday because I was in the grip of the crimson tide and feeling extremely terrible, and also bloated, so I was pretty sure the scales weren't going to say anything useful. And the in-laws were here on a visit, and we went out to dinner and then they came to dinner twice, and I didn't take much exercise because of feeling terrible, and, you know, not in the mood. And then I made some mini lemon bundt cakes out of How to Be a Domestic Goddess, because we both needed cheering up (see below). Very low-GI, I'm sure. No, they didn't have ground flaxseed in them or any other healthy modifications (if anyone knows where you can get ground flaxseed that costs less than several times its weight in gold, could they let me know?) They were nice, though.
The previous number was 186, which was up a pound from the week before that (sigh), so I wasn't expecting anything very good today. However, the human body is a strange thing, because I am now at 184. I don't understand it either, but I'm not going to complain.
Why we needed cheering: I had a job interview on Tuesday which I felt went pretty disastrously, and that day we also found out that the baby guineapigs we were hoping to adopt had suddenly died. (Not the ones we babysit, in the photos below - they're fine, but they've gone home now.) The owner was all upset telling me about it, poor lady. Not a good day, Tuesday. Although I did go to lunch with my sister, who cheered me up.
However, I was called up today and I've been offered the job! So evidently my prediction skills are completely useless. Either that, or I am very lucky. I think I'm going to take the job. This is the one that comes with a staff discount on gym membership!
We are definitely still going to GET guineapigs, but we're probably going to go to a pet shop and buy some that are already born and passed as healthy, as that seems a less stressful way of doing it. J is currently engaged in making a hutch, so the place is slightly full of power tools and pieces of wood and heaps of sawdust, mixed with bits of dried mud off my boots because I spent the morning planting bulbs so the garden will look pretty in spring. I am not so good at gardening - or anything, really - where you don't see an instant result, but those bulbs have been sitting around for weeks and were on my conscience.
I am all caught up with my work, and in general, everything seems a lot more hopeful.
The previous number was 186, which was up a pound from the week before that (sigh), so I wasn't expecting anything very good today. However, the human body is a strange thing, because I am now at 184. I don't understand it either, but I'm not going to complain.
Why we needed cheering: I had a job interview on Tuesday which I felt went pretty disastrously, and that day we also found out that the baby guineapigs we were hoping to adopt had suddenly died. (Not the ones we babysit, in the photos below - they're fine, but they've gone home now.) The owner was all upset telling me about it, poor lady. Not a good day, Tuesday. Although I did go to lunch with my sister, who cheered me up.
However, I was called up today and I've been offered the job! So evidently my prediction skills are completely useless. Either that, or I am very lucky. I think I'm going to take the job. This is the one that comes with a staff discount on gym membership!
We are definitely still going to GET guineapigs, but we're probably going to go to a pet shop and buy some that are already born and passed as healthy, as that seems a less stressful way of doing it. J is currently engaged in making a hutch, so the place is slightly full of power tools and pieces of wood and heaps of sawdust, mixed with bits of dried mud off my boots because I spent the morning planting bulbs so the garden will look pretty in spring. I am not so good at gardening - or anything, really - where you don't see an instant result, but those bulbs have been sitting around for weeks and were on my conscience.
I am all caught up with my work, and in general, everything seems a lot more hopeful.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Ask and you shall receive
I have very little to report in this entry. My weight is exactly the same as it was last week, which is causing me to grind my teeth slightly. I have been good and entered everything into SparkPeople (but still haven't checked out the other site). I didn't get that job, but I've got an interview for another one closer to home. That was exciting, wasn't it?
However, by popular demand, here are some piggy pictures.
Snuggles.
Doing what they do best - eating.
And a bonus video - taken back in the summer.
However, by popular demand, here are some piggy pictures.
Snuggles.
Doing what they do best - eating.
And a bonus video - taken back in the summer.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Surprise!
I didn't think there was going to be much to report this week. I've kept up the SparkPeople tracking; doing pretty well, except for Wednesday when my father-in-law came to tea. But I had a light day on Thursday to compensate! This may be the first time I've actually achieved this. (Loth, I hadn't heard of www.weightlossresources.co.uk, so thank you! I should have deduced that such a thing might be out there. Not that I've got around to checking it out yet, or anything... And thanks for the comments, everyone else. I like comments.)
Weigh-in will be on Monday, same as last time.
I also went for another job interview yesterday afternoon, which I was very nervous about, especially since I had to give a five-minute presentation as part of it. I don't think I've done any public speaking since my European Youth Parliament days (at least five years ago). But in the event, it went fine - in fact, I think it's one of the best interviews I've ever given. Whether or not I get the job, I know I gave it a really good shot. (They're supposed to let me know today.)
But when I got back from being interviewed, I was exhausted. Completely poleaxed. I fell asleep on the sofa, which I never do, and J had to wake me up to tell me to go to bed at about 10! Not like me.
Today didn't start too well: we were supposed to be going to Glasgow to hear the Decemberists, but one of the band members is ill, so the concert is cancelled. Just as we were feeling disappointed about this, we got a phonecall...
We're looking after Snowy and Snuggles again. As in, they're here now, for a week. Still cute, still furry. Just what we needed to cheer us up!
Before too long, we should have guinea pigs of our own: we are first on the list for two babies that were born exactly two weeks ago, but we still don't know what sex they are. We're happy with either boys or girls, but not one of each...
Now to get on with some work, which has been sadly neglected lately.
Weigh-in will be on Monday, same as last time.
I also went for another job interview yesterday afternoon, which I was very nervous about, especially since I had to give a five-minute presentation as part of it. I don't think I've done any public speaking since my European Youth Parliament days (at least five years ago). But in the event, it went fine - in fact, I think it's one of the best interviews I've ever given. Whether or not I get the job, I know I gave it a really good shot. (They're supposed to let me know today.)
But when I got back from being interviewed, I was exhausted. Completely poleaxed. I fell asleep on the sofa, which I never do, and J had to wake me up to tell me to go to bed at about 10! Not like me.
Today didn't start too well: we were supposed to be going to Glasgow to hear the Decemberists, but one of the band members is ill, so the concert is cancelled. Just as we were feeling disappointed about this, we got a phonecall...
We're looking after Snowy and Snuggles again. As in, they're here now, for a week. Still cute, still furry. Just what we needed to cheer us up!
Before too long, we should have guinea pigs of our own: we are first on the list for two babies that were born exactly two weeks ago, but we still don't know what sex they are. We're happy with either boys or girls, but not one of each...
Now to get on with some work, which has been sadly neglected lately.
Monday, October 08, 2007
Further ups. Further downs.
Well, this has been a very full week, one way and another. Lots of academic work, job applications, and J had a bit of a crisis on Thursday (he'd held it off until I'd handed my work in...) There was talk of his going into hospital, and it was all rather frightening for a while.
I know that going into hospital might not necessarily be a terrible thing, if it actually did some good, but given that J generally only wants me when he's feeling down, the idea of him being somewhere else daunts me. Not that it would be a bad thing if he had more people to support him, but... it's not that there is nobody else offering support; it's just that I'm always his first choice.
However, it doesn't now look as though he will go into hospital (he's not a danger to himself, so if he did go, it would be voluntary). His therapy is being changed a bit, and the doctors are considering whether to try medication again.
I'm kind of hoping they decide not to, because this would be something like the fifteenth different antidepressant J's been on, and none of them has had any visible positive effect. (Negative effects have been present and correct.) However, J seems to think it might be a good idea, and it's his decision.
Things improved a good deal on Friday, and the weekend's been not too bad; we went for a long bike ride, played with the kittens, and saw a good deal of my family. And he seems OK today, if a little panicky. I now have another job application to do and a five-minute presentation to write on the importance of local-authority archives...
On the other hand, it's been a good week for weightloss.
On Monday (possibly because it was also the first of the month) I decided to sign up for a SparkPeople account and do some food tracking. I've tried to do the tracking before while keeping this blog, but although I have written things down, I never get around to looking up the nutritional info. I do tend to lose while I'm doing it, however. This week, my intention was just to document what I was eating, rather than try to change it particularly.
Once, in a time long ago before I had a blog, I used to have a FitDay account and track EVERYTHING. Rigorously. This came directly after a period of more or less no exercise and fairly poor eating habits, otherwise known as the beginning of my first postgraduate degree. At that point I was living on my own, and that made it fairly easy to weigh everything I ate and so forth. The snag was that I didn't have any scales, so couldn't tell either what my start weight was or whether I was losing any, and that also made estimating my recommended level of food intake a bit hit-and-miss. I still have no idea whether I actually lost any weight during this period or not. Photographic evidence suggests I might have lost a bit.
When I moved back home, I stopped tracking everything because I was no longer cooking for myself, so I didn't really know what I was eating and it became too much of a faff. FitDay was/is somewhat cumbersome to use, and entering all the foods took quite a lot of time.
I got the impression that SparkPeople was better; it's actually not that different in that respect, although I'm being less obsessive this time around (I'm prepared to choose an equivalent if the food I want isn't already entered, and I'm not weighing every carrot). I've been at it for a week, and so far have not missed any days, although Sunday - salad buffet lunch at Mum and Dad's - was probably a bit approximate.
Things I like about it: it gives you an upper and lower calorie limit, not just a target to hit; it allows you to save "food groupings" (such as cereal and milk: handy if, like me, you eat the same things repeatedly). This feature also comes in handy for saving recipes you make from scratch.
What I don't like is the same problem that I had with FitDay: it's very US-centric. Often I've had to be a bit creative to find what I was looking for in the food database. For example, "peppers" didn't bring up anything, and nor did "capsicums" (my next guess). But "bell peppers" does. And there's a lot - a LOT - of pre-prepared US items, but not many UK ones, although there are some.
I suspect this is what you get with a database into which users can enter their own items: someone's found it worthwhile to put in Flora Light (a margarine) and Hellman's Light Mayonnaise, but not UK-style baked beans, for instance. (It matters a bit. US tinned beans have a lot more sugar in them.)
What surprises me most, so far, is that for the first couple of days of tracking, I actually fell UNDER the recommended calorie level, and well under the recommended intake of fat, although my protein levels (which I'd expected to be low) are about what they should be. I suppose that being vegetarian, I know I need to make sure to get protein, but maybe don't pay such attention to the proportion of carbs to fat. Although I'd said I was just going to record this week, and not change what I was eating, I seem to have self-corrected a bit: I notice that by the end of the week, I was more in the middle of the recommended levels, and that the proportion of carbs had gone down a bit. (This despite eating ice cream twice.)
But I've lost two pounds this week without apparently trying. I am not making any promises to myself that I'll track for X number of weeks, but if I can just keep doing it one day at a time...
I know that going into hospital might not necessarily be a terrible thing, if it actually did some good, but given that J generally only wants me when he's feeling down, the idea of him being somewhere else daunts me. Not that it would be a bad thing if he had more people to support him, but... it's not that there is nobody else offering support; it's just that I'm always his first choice.
However, it doesn't now look as though he will go into hospital (he's not a danger to himself, so if he did go, it would be voluntary). His therapy is being changed a bit, and the doctors are considering whether to try medication again.
I'm kind of hoping they decide not to, because this would be something like the fifteenth different antidepressant J's been on, and none of them has had any visible positive effect. (Negative effects have been present and correct.) However, J seems to think it might be a good idea, and it's his decision.
Things improved a good deal on Friday, and the weekend's been not too bad; we went for a long bike ride, played with the kittens, and saw a good deal of my family. And he seems OK today, if a little panicky. I now have another job application to do and a five-minute presentation to write on the importance of local-authority archives...
On the other hand, it's been a good week for weightloss.
On Monday (possibly because it was also the first of the month) I decided to sign up for a SparkPeople account and do some food tracking. I've tried to do the tracking before while keeping this blog, but although I have written things down, I never get around to looking up the nutritional info. I do tend to lose while I'm doing it, however. This week, my intention was just to document what I was eating, rather than try to change it particularly.
Once, in a time long ago before I had a blog, I used to have a FitDay account and track EVERYTHING. Rigorously. This came directly after a period of more or less no exercise and fairly poor eating habits, otherwise known as the beginning of my first postgraduate degree. At that point I was living on my own, and that made it fairly easy to weigh everything I ate and so forth. The snag was that I didn't have any scales, so couldn't tell either what my start weight was or whether I was losing any, and that also made estimating my recommended level of food intake a bit hit-and-miss. I still have no idea whether I actually lost any weight during this period or not. Photographic evidence suggests I might have lost a bit.
When I moved back home, I stopped tracking everything because I was no longer cooking for myself, so I didn't really know what I was eating and it became too much of a faff. FitDay was/is somewhat cumbersome to use, and entering all the foods took quite a lot of time.
I got the impression that SparkPeople was better; it's actually not that different in that respect, although I'm being less obsessive this time around (I'm prepared to choose an equivalent if the food I want isn't already entered, and I'm not weighing every carrot). I've been at it for a week, and so far have not missed any days, although Sunday - salad buffet lunch at Mum and Dad's - was probably a bit approximate.
Things I like about it: it gives you an upper and lower calorie limit, not just a target to hit; it allows you to save "food groupings" (such as cereal and milk: handy if, like me, you eat the same things repeatedly). This feature also comes in handy for saving recipes you make from scratch.
What I don't like is the same problem that I had with FitDay: it's very US-centric. Often I've had to be a bit creative to find what I was looking for in the food database. For example, "peppers" didn't bring up anything, and nor did "capsicums" (my next guess). But "bell peppers" does. And there's a lot - a LOT - of pre-prepared US items, but not many UK ones, although there are some.
I suspect this is what you get with a database into which users can enter their own items: someone's found it worthwhile to put in Flora Light (a margarine) and Hellman's Light Mayonnaise, but not UK-style baked beans, for instance. (It matters a bit. US tinned beans have a lot more sugar in them.)
What surprises me most, so far, is that for the first couple of days of tracking, I actually fell UNDER the recommended calorie level, and well under the recommended intake of fat, although my protein levels (which I'd expected to be low) are about what they should be. I suppose that being vegetarian, I know I need to make sure to get protein, but maybe don't pay such attention to the proportion of carbs to fat. Although I'd said I was just going to record this week, and not change what I was eating, I seem to have self-corrected a bit: I notice that by the end of the week, I was more in the middle of the recommended levels, and that the proportion of carbs had gone down a bit. (This despite eating ice cream twice.)
But I've lost two pounds this week without apparently trying. I am not making any promises to myself that I'll track for X number of weeks, but if I can just keep doing it one day at a time...
Monday, October 01, 2007
Downs and ups
A couple of days ago, I was going to write a very moany post about how miserable I was feeling, but I didn't because I was feeling too miserable. I am now feeling better.
I don't know why, really, because the same circumstances still hold:
*I didn't get that job (unless a miracle occurs);
*I've put applications in for others, but I suspect I'm not going to get them, because I don't really have enough experience;
*my foot still hurts (see below);
*J is still off work, for complex reasons involving getting clearance to go back from his doctor and various official people at his work;
*I feel like I've spent too much money on things to cheer myself up recently;
*there are a whole lot of books I'd like to buy, and things I'd like to do to the house, but I feel I've spent too much money recently...
But still, I do feel better, so why poke at it?
Maybe it's because we've lately been doing various DIY jobs around the house; painting walls, putting up shelves. It is amazing the mental boost you can get just from putting up a little hook to hang keys on. J thinks I'm easily pleased in this respect, but what's wrong with being easily pleased? Doesn't that mean you spend more time happy than people that are difficult to please?
On the other hand (or foot), my foot still hurts. Not agonizingly, but it's rather hard to ignore when it's your foot: it aches, it hurts when I run, and I'm restricted to wearing my bigger clumpier shoes. (Fortunately, I have plenty of those.) Looking back, I seem to have bashed it on Monday 3 September, so that's nearly a month... so perhaps I should show it to someone. I don't really know who to take it to, though. I suspect my GP would say I just have to wait for it to feel better. And there's nothing to see any more, except a slightly bruised-looking toenail, and even that's looking a lot better now.
But I kind of need it to get better, because I want to enter the Great Winter Run again, and I can't train for it with a non-working foot.
And then in spring I want to do the Great Edinburgh Run, which is a 10K and the height of my distance-running ambitions. I think it would take me about an hour, and I would definitely get bored running for longer than that. I wouldn't say I'm easily bored, but that's because under normal circumstances I have a book on me at all times, so if my brain is unoccupied, I'm probably reading. But even I can't read and run simultaneously.
I want some new trainers, but I don't think I should buy any until my foot is fixed. Or maybe until I get a job. Or something. Something needs to happen, anyway.
I don't know why, really, because the same circumstances still hold:
*I didn't get that job (unless a miracle occurs);
*I've put applications in for others, but I suspect I'm not going to get them, because I don't really have enough experience;
*my foot still hurts (see below);
*J is still off work, for complex reasons involving getting clearance to go back from his doctor and various official people at his work;
*I feel like I've spent too much money on things to cheer myself up recently;
*there are a whole lot of books I'd like to buy, and things I'd like to do to the house, but I feel I've spent too much money recently...
But still, I do feel better, so why poke at it?
Maybe it's because we've lately been doing various DIY jobs around the house; painting walls, putting up shelves. It is amazing the mental boost you can get just from putting up a little hook to hang keys on. J thinks I'm easily pleased in this respect, but what's wrong with being easily pleased? Doesn't that mean you spend more time happy than people that are difficult to please?
On the other hand (or foot), my foot still hurts. Not agonizingly, but it's rather hard to ignore when it's your foot: it aches, it hurts when I run, and I'm restricted to wearing my bigger clumpier shoes. (Fortunately, I have plenty of those.) Looking back, I seem to have bashed it on Monday 3 September, so that's nearly a month... so perhaps I should show it to someone. I don't really know who to take it to, though. I suspect my GP would say I just have to wait for it to feel better. And there's nothing to see any more, except a slightly bruised-looking toenail, and even that's looking a lot better now.
But I kind of need it to get better, because I want to enter the Great Winter Run again, and I can't train for it with a non-working foot.
And then in spring I want to do the Great Edinburgh Run, which is a 10K and the height of my distance-running ambitions. I think it would take me about an hour, and I would definitely get bored running for longer than that. I wouldn't say I'm easily bored, but that's because under normal circumstances I have a book on me at all times, so if my brain is unoccupied, I'm probably reading. But even I can't read and run simultaneously.
I want some new trainers, but I don't think I should buy any until my foot is fixed. Or maybe until I get a job. Or something. Something needs to happen, anyway.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Paragraphs that start with "I"
I am now feeling a lot better everywhere but my foot. Thanks for the comments (which I've answered within the thread).
I have been out on my bike again, and am beginning to get back into the swing of cycling. After a break, it's so hard, and you feel like you're never going to get up the hills, and afterwards you have sore places; once you've been out a few times it's fine. I would really love to get back to the point where the bike is my main means of transport, which I've never managed to do in Edinburgh before.
I have a job interview on Thursday - wish me luck! And I've come to the decision that if I get this job, which is part-time, I will join the gym again, because I would just about have enough spare time to go (and also to spend time with my husband, who is in a bit of a fragile state and who needs me around).
I would like one of these. But I have far too many T-shirts already.
I have been out on my bike again, and am beginning to get back into the swing of cycling. After a break, it's so hard, and you feel like you're never going to get up the hills, and afterwards you have sore places; once you've been out a few times it's fine. I would really love to get back to the point where the bike is my main means of transport, which I've never managed to do in Edinburgh before.
I have a job interview on Thursday - wish me luck! And I've come to the decision that if I get this job, which is part-time, I will join the gym again, because I would just about have enough spare time to go (and also to spend time with my husband, who is in a bit of a fragile state and who needs me around).
I would like one of these. But I have far too many T-shirts already.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Health. Again. And stuff.
I have no idea whether any guys read this dubious excuse for a blog, but - dear reader, if you're male, you have permission not to read this entry.
The older I get, the more I become aware of... my Cycle.
No, not the kind with two wheels. (I am hoping to acquire a new one of those soon, since my current one is fifteen years old and extremely heavy. But I haven't got around to it yet.)
The one I mean, of course, is the kind that poleaxes you once a month, if you're female. Mine's been doing that to me for about the last seventeen years, although it seems longer. Much longer. This is genetic; there's nothing much to be done about it (except take NSAIDs and keep warm) and I'm used to dealing with it.
Lately, though, the Cycle has taken to making me suffer before the main event as well.
I've noticed for a few years now that I get unreasonably weepy when premenstrual. Now I seem to get tired, digestively uncomfortable, and bloated as well. Oh, and hungry.
Most of the time, now, my eating habits are pretty healthy. We always eat balanced meals, with some protein, and avoid simple carbs; we eat tons of green vegetables. We don't keep snack foods in the house. However, there's a reason for that: I have no self-restraint whatsoever.
If you give me a box of sweets (for example), I will eat them much quicker than I intend to. This is not something I like about myself, but I've tried to change it, and it doesn't work*. I've got to the point where I can avoid buying unhealthy food, and that is progress: when I was at university, I was terribly prone to buy food when I was out and eat it, thinking to myself that it would be OK because I would eat less in the evening. And then I would forget to eat less in the evening. I'm fairly lucky in that I don't seem to put weight on as quickly as some people do, but over the course of time, that was basically why I needed to lose weight in the first place.
I might have no self-restraint when food is in front of me, but I have slowly trained myself to eat less by avoiding food when I'm not hungry. I don't think I could, physically, eat as much as I used to at college. And I don't usually eat any snacks at all these days.
Apart from last week, that is. I ate quite a few bits of toast and bananas and random pieces of cheese when I wasn't really that hungry, and if we had had more exciting instant food I would have eaten that. I don't really know what the trigger is; whether it's the tiredness, or feeling squishy and bloated (feeling fat has been a trigger in the past - yes, it's stupid, but it has) or what.
I'm not pleased with myself.
Oh, I know it's not that big a deal. Today the main event started, and the desire to eat things has gone. Vanished. (Probably because, as usual, I feel rather sick. I would love to think this was just my body's way of preparing for not eating very much for a few days, but I doubt my body is that intelligent.)
I just seriously dislike using my hormones as an excuse. And it's taken me so long to train myself out of bad habits that I really, really don't want to pick them up again, no matter whether there's a reason for it.
I happened to be in the doctor's office today and saw a handy self-help booklet on the very subject of PMS, however. Although a lot of it was fairly well-known stuff, it did reassure me that this stupidity most likely is PMS, rather than just me being pathetic. One tip that it suggests that I'm not doing already is to take vitamin B6 tablets, starting a few days before you expect symptoms to start. Which might take a little working out, but I'll give it a try.
Another thing you're supposed to do is exercise. Which, yes, did make me feel better for a while yesterday. All I can really do for the moment is walk and cycle, because my foot isn't exactly back to normal yet, which is a little frustrating - I think it's coming up for three weeks since I bashed it. It doesn't mind being walked on, but running puts too much pressure on the toes and it hurts. Might be time to consider taking it to a physio, but I keep hoping it'll just get better.
What other news? I've been mostly buried under a pile of job applications lately, or that's what it feels like. But! I have finally got a job interview. It's next Thursday, and I really like the sound of the job, so cross your fingers for me.
Travelling backwards through time, the weekend of my birthday (which was the 9th) I finally met up with Shauna, the illustrious Dietgirl! This coincided with a reunion with Rosemary Grace, whom I had met via Shauna's comments, only later realising that although she lives in California, we had gone to nursery school together when we were four. We met up in a coffee shop and talked of many things, including learning to drive, flats, writing, jobs and pets, but not really touching much on fitness that I recall. It was lovely to meet up with them - Shauna and I have been vaguely planning to meet for, oh, three years or so, but we've never managed to bring it off until now. I hope to see her again before too long, though. She is lovely.
Matt, Rosie's husband, took a picture of the three of us, but as far as I know this has yet to make it online. And Rosie gave me a fantastic early birthday present - a book by Lois McMaster Bujold. I am addicted to these, and it's all her fault, because she got me on to them in the first place...
I saw Rosie again pretty soon - the next day, in fact, because she asked my mum and me to coffee (Shauna had a prior engagement with a mountain). We had a very nice time, and I got to meet her parents and their cat. It is a pity Rosie lives halfway round the world, but next time she comes over Mum and I will return the invitation.
So I'm finally managing to get over my shyness about meeting other bloggers! Well, I meet my mum every week, but I'm not sure that counts...
(*There are exceptions to this. I'm quite good at resisting food that I have cooked myself, which is the only reason I let myself bake things. I do not know why food that others have cooked, or that's bought from a shop, should have so much more of an allure, but it does. So I can make cake or whatever for J and not eat it myself.)
The older I get, the more I become aware of... my Cycle.
No, not the kind with two wheels. (I am hoping to acquire a new one of those soon, since my current one is fifteen years old and extremely heavy. But I haven't got around to it yet.)
The one I mean, of course, is the kind that poleaxes you once a month, if you're female. Mine's been doing that to me for about the last seventeen years, although it seems longer. Much longer. This is genetic; there's nothing much to be done about it (except take NSAIDs and keep warm) and I'm used to dealing with it.
Lately, though, the Cycle has taken to making me suffer before the main event as well.
I've noticed for a few years now that I get unreasonably weepy when premenstrual. Now I seem to get tired, digestively uncomfortable, and bloated as well. Oh, and hungry.
Most of the time, now, my eating habits are pretty healthy. We always eat balanced meals, with some protein, and avoid simple carbs; we eat tons of green vegetables. We don't keep snack foods in the house. However, there's a reason for that: I have no self-restraint whatsoever.
If you give me a box of sweets (for example), I will eat them much quicker than I intend to. This is not something I like about myself, but I've tried to change it, and it doesn't work*. I've got to the point where I can avoid buying unhealthy food, and that is progress: when I was at university, I was terribly prone to buy food when I was out and eat it, thinking to myself that it would be OK because I would eat less in the evening. And then I would forget to eat less in the evening. I'm fairly lucky in that I don't seem to put weight on as quickly as some people do, but over the course of time, that was basically why I needed to lose weight in the first place.
I might have no self-restraint when food is in front of me, but I have slowly trained myself to eat less by avoiding food when I'm not hungry. I don't think I could, physically, eat as much as I used to at college. And I don't usually eat any snacks at all these days.
Apart from last week, that is. I ate quite a few bits of toast and bananas and random pieces of cheese when I wasn't really that hungry, and if we had had more exciting instant food I would have eaten that. I don't really know what the trigger is; whether it's the tiredness, or feeling squishy and bloated (feeling fat has been a trigger in the past - yes, it's stupid, but it has) or what.
I'm not pleased with myself.
Oh, I know it's not that big a deal. Today the main event started, and the desire to eat things has gone. Vanished. (Probably because, as usual, I feel rather sick. I would love to think this was just my body's way of preparing for not eating very much for a few days, but I doubt my body is that intelligent.)
I just seriously dislike using my hormones as an excuse. And it's taken me so long to train myself out of bad habits that I really, really don't want to pick them up again, no matter whether there's a reason for it.
I happened to be in the doctor's office today and saw a handy self-help booklet on the very subject of PMS, however. Although a lot of it was fairly well-known stuff, it did reassure me that this stupidity most likely is PMS, rather than just me being pathetic. One tip that it suggests that I'm not doing already is to take vitamin B6 tablets, starting a few days before you expect symptoms to start. Which might take a little working out, but I'll give it a try.
Another thing you're supposed to do is exercise. Which, yes, did make me feel better for a while yesterday. All I can really do for the moment is walk and cycle, because my foot isn't exactly back to normal yet, which is a little frustrating - I think it's coming up for three weeks since I bashed it. It doesn't mind being walked on, but running puts too much pressure on the toes and it hurts. Might be time to consider taking it to a physio, but I keep hoping it'll just get better.
What other news? I've been mostly buried under a pile of job applications lately, or that's what it feels like. But! I have finally got a job interview. It's next Thursday, and I really like the sound of the job, so cross your fingers for me.
Travelling backwards through time, the weekend of my birthday (which was the 9th) I finally met up with Shauna, the illustrious Dietgirl! This coincided with a reunion with Rosemary Grace, whom I had met via Shauna's comments, only later realising that although she lives in California, we had gone to nursery school together when we were four. We met up in a coffee shop and talked of many things, including learning to drive, flats, writing, jobs and pets, but not really touching much on fitness that I recall. It was lovely to meet up with them - Shauna and I have been vaguely planning to meet for, oh, three years or so, but we've never managed to bring it off until now. I hope to see her again before too long, though. She is lovely.
Matt, Rosie's husband, took a picture of the three of us, but as far as I know this has yet to make it online. And Rosie gave me a fantastic early birthday present - a book by Lois McMaster Bujold. I am addicted to these, and it's all her fault, because she got me on to them in the first place...
I saw Rosie again pretty soon - the next day, in fact, because she asked my mum and me to coffee (Shauna had a prior engagement with a mountain). We had a very nice time, and I got to meet her parents and their cat. It is a pity Rosie lives halfway round the world, but next time she comes over Mum and I will return the invitation.
So I'm finally managing to get over my shyness about meeting other bloggers! Well, I meet my mum every week, but I'm not sure that counts...
(*There are exceptions to this. I'm quite good at resisting food that I have cooked myself, which is the only reason I let myself bake things. I do not know why food that others have cooked, or that's bought from a shop, should have so much more of an allure, but it does. So I can make cake or whatever for J and not eat it myself.)
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
I hurt myself
I had a busy time in London. We got off the train at King's Cross and then caught a bus to South Kensington and went to the Science Museum and then got a tube to Islington and went to our friend Dan's 30th birthday party and then got a taxi to Vauxhall and spent the night with Tom and then got a tube and a train to Hertford to have lunch with Dave, Becca and Freddie and then got the train back and another tube to Balham where we met Jon and Jonny in a pub and then got a train to Mortlake with Jonny to spend the night and then got a train and a bus and a tube to King's Cross and got on the train to come home.
So we basically spent the entire trip whizzing from north to south London and back again. We were a little exhausted by Sunday. But it was lovely to see everybody.
On Monday, running downstairs in my usual fashion, I stubbed my bare left foot very hard against the doorframe of the sitting room. I couldn't actually scream and fall on the floor - however much I might have liked to - as the flooring men were here to put vinyl on the floors of the bathroom and downstairs loo, and I didn't want to startle anyone who might be wielding a sharp blade. So I settled for silently hopping and clutching my foot like someone in a cartoon.
I stub my toes quite frequently, being a clumsy person, but usually the pain wears off fairly quickly. This time, it didn't. By the evening, my fourth toe was extremely purple and bruised-looking, and I began to worry that it might be broken.
However, it was less sore in the morning and I managed to walk and cycle with it (inasmuchas you cycle with your toes. You know what I mean). And the bruising is now less purple and it hurts only a little, so I don't think it is broken. My sister tells me they don't do much for broken toes anyway.
That was a non-story, wasn't it? Maybe if it feels better tomorrow I'll go for a run.
So we basically spent the entire trip whizzing from north to south London and back again. We were a little exhausted by Sunday. But it was lovely to see everybody.
On Monday, running downstairs in my usual fashion, I stubbed my bare left foot very hard against the doorframe of the sitting room. I couldn't actually scream and fall on the floor - however much I might have liked to - as the flooring men were here to put vinyl on the floors of the bathroom and downstairs loo, and I didn't want to startle anyone who might be wielding a sharp blade. So I settled for silently hopping and clutching my foot like someone in a cartoon.
I stub my toes quite frequently, being a clumsy person, but usually the pain wears off fairly quickly. This time, it didn't. By the evening, my fourth toe was extremely purple and bruised-looking, and I began to worry that it might be broken.
However, it was less sore in the morning and I managed to walk and cycle with it (inasmuchas you cycle with your toes. You know what I mean). And the bruising is now less purple and it hurts only a little, so I don't think it is broken. My sister tells me they don't do much for broken toes anyway.
That was a non-story, wasn't it? Maybe if it feels better tomorrow I'll go for a run.
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