dianaschnuth

Still sick. Headachy today. Every time I blow my nose (which isn’t as often as it was), my ears stop up, and it takes an hour for my hearing to approach normal again.

Tired. Undecided as to whether I should work out. I didn’t work out all last week, and I think I miss it. Still, though, I’m inclined to think that my body needs to use its energy to get well right now.

Appetite returning. I tried bringing a last-week-portion of lunch and snackies to work today, and that didn’t work out so well. Now that I’m home, around the food, I’m eating and eating and eating with no sign of stopping. Tomorrow, I bring a normal amount of food to work with me.

Haven’t done my measurements yet, but I did take pictures. If anyone wants to see a picture of me in a black one-piece swimsuit (I believe Sheryl would probably be the only taker on that), just shoot me an e-mail. Incidentally, I compared my earliest Before picture to yesterday’s In Progress picture, and I can definitely see a marked decrease in my abdominal fat. Good news.

No word on a monthly birthday potluck at work. I think I’ve been called out for failing to participate in recent potlucks. I’m the only April birthday in my department, so the woman who organizes them probably thinks I don’t want one.

I’m also concerned about what will or will not befall me at work on Friday, as my 30th birthday is on Saturday. I could either be totally forgotten (except by a few), or I could arrive to find black Over The Hill streamers and balloons festooning my cubicle. I’m going on the assumption that I’ll get a personal card or two, and no one else at work will care.

As far as birthdayness goes, I’m also trying to downplay the possibility of anything OMG-supar-kewl happening on my birthday proper. I mean, I threw Aaron a surprise birthday party, but I know for a fact that isn’t going to happen for me. He told me as much. See, all my friends (that would be most of you reading this) live so far out of town that you probably wouldn’t come to Toledo for an evening of drunken debauchery. So, once again, I’m trying to increase my appreciation of whatever does happen by assuming that very little will, in fact, happen.

Amy visited this past weekend, and we all traded birthday and Christmas presents. (Aaron = November, Amy = January, me = this Saturday.) That was definitely fun. Amy and I spent a few hours on Saturday evening/night in BG, drinking coffee and talking and walking around campus. For once, I felt kind of bad because my job/career situation appears to be more pleasant than hers. Usually we can commiserate about how we don’t know what direction to take, and are we going down the wrong path, and shouldn’t we be someplace better by now. I’m pretty content with working on my geeky database at work for now, though, while Amy’s feeling the pinch of being juggled by departments and not getting enough hours.

I could go on, probably, but I’m feeling like I want to go forage for some sort of tasty snackie. Already had chicken salad. Already had cereal. Already had ham. Feel like a hog… but am hungry nonetheless. Also have a headache that won’t go away, that’s making me nauseated. Or maybe that’s my drainage that’s doing that. Either way, it’s not good.

Food. Big Mouth hungry.

Was preparing for the triumphant return of my podcast to the, er, podwaves. Was looking forward to getting my second PUSH DVD in the mail. Was geeked to weigh in for the three-month mark.

Then I got The Cold. You know, the one that everyone and their brother has been getting? Yeah, I got it.

Started with a sore throat, then some drainage. Now, three days later, it’s a full-blown monstrosity: stuffy head, stopped-up ears, sinus headache, plugged-up runny nose (isn’t that the worst?), dry eyes, sore and scratchy throat, random aches and pains, and general fatigue. I even took a short nap this evening, and I rarely do that anymore.

Podcast? Postponed until next week. PUSH? Again, I’m not working out this week. I tried to work out on Monday, before the symptoms had really set in at all, and ended up stopping the DVD before I got to my reverse ab curls because I was falling asleep from just laying on the floor. My new DVD didn’t arrive until yesterday, anyway, so I would have been doing a third week of Workout #2.

So, how about the weigh-in? Yeah, I’m still going to weigh myself tomorrow morning. I have *no* idea what the scales will say, since I’ve been eating *very* light during the day, then eating something heavier and more filling (and more carboriffic) later in the evening. If I gain a little, I won’t let myself be upset.

I’ll take some in-progress pics on Sunday evening. Amy’s coming over this weekend, so I’ll wait until she’s gone before I parade around the basement in my underwear. 😉

Am I so insecure?

I was deleting my trackback spam today when I came upon a real trackback to my blog. At first I thought it might actually be spam, but it looked legit, so I clicked on it anyway. In the last paragraph of the linked post, I read:

Breakfast Burritos are not something you use to lose weight. And neither are “low-carb snacks from Big Lots”. The whole “eat less and exercise more” thing has worked for me. This lady seems rather nice, but her energy into the planning of weight loss might be better used in doing things to actually losing weight. The fact that she is nice and this post is hating on her weight-loss plan, well, this makes me feel bad.

I immediately got that “I hate conflict” feeling in my chest, which goes hand-in-hand with my “I hate being wrong” and “I hate being hated” feelings. Not that this person hates me; they’re just dogging my diet plan. Which, considering my lack of measurable progress lately, I guess I can understand.

And, I mean, I can’t be too upset. After all, they did say that they feel bad that their post is all hating on my diet plan. That’s cool. I left them what I hope sounded like a nice (if slightly miffed) comment, inviting them to come leave a comment and join the discussion. I’m not averse to hearing other people’s opinions on weight loss.

Even so, this person’s post made me sit back and take a look at what I’m doing. I’m eating five small meals a day. I’m cutting back on fat and eating low-glycemic carbohydrates. I’m walking for a half hour every day, and I’m doing mild strength-training with my PUSH DVD three days a week. I’m sure the PUSH workouts will increase in difficulty as I progress onward, though.

I’m slowly losing inches, and very slowly losing weight. I guess that’s the positive way to look at it; the scale is moving in the right direction. But now I wonder if I should be doing *more*. Forcing my ass out of bed in the morning to do cardio, for instance, is something I’ve known I need to do, but I haven’t yet done.

Is it wrong that a complete stranger can make me feel so ill-at-ease with my fitness lifestyle? I was feeling positive and satisfied with my moderate successes. Now, I don’t know. I thought I’d been trying hard for nearly three months now. Suddenly, I feel insecure and pissed off and indignant and vulnerable and exposed and dumb and fat and wrong.

I’m not sure what to think of my reaction to this.

Update, 4/7/06: Now that I know that the “breakfast burrito” thing is a running gag on Manhattan Offender, I can see how I misunderstood the tone of the post. I can totally dig the burrito thing now. Last night, though, I really didn’t know how to take it. Like I told Rod over e-mail, I’m just going to chalk this one up to one of those strange internet things, and let it go.