Grumpy

I'm feeling a bit grouchtastic this icy Monday morning. I spent the last week sick as a dog (a sick dog), with fever and runny nose and congestion so bad I felt like I was drowning. I even missed a day of work, which pretty much never happens. Saturday night was my first sleep without NyQuil since the whole debacle began.

So today I had a session scheduled with Jeev. My first time back to the gym since I got sick. I'm still not 100% but I'm no longer feverish and I really need to get back to my normal routine at some point. Anyway, I'm warming up, and about 5 after 6 I went out to my car to check my text messages. Sure enough, Jeev wrote to postpone until tomorrow. Dang it! Oh well. I used the inclined treadmill for a half hour and burned 320 calories while watching Walk the Line. So it wasn't a completely wasted effort. But it still annoyed me.

Bouncy

My thighs were still killing me so I decided maybe some thigh-heavy cardio might help. So I popped into the cardio cinema to use the stationary bike for a while. The final tally was not so impressive:

40 minutes
13.5 miles
125 calories

I kind of take issue with that last one but I honestly wasn't working (or sweating) that hard, so maybe it's true. Well, it's better than nothing, right?

Oh yeah, and the movie today was The Big Bounce, which was pretty lame, but not as bad as Tuesday's selection. Two for the Money is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. I had not idea it was possible to make sports betting any less interesting, but this film managed it somehow.

Almost, but not quite

So I showed up at the gym despite a crappy night's sleep due to pain and congestion. I sucked down the DayQuil and ibuprofen and drove on over. Only to discover, ten minutes after my PT session was supposed to start, that Jeev was home with a fever. Turns out his 5am text to tell me never went through. So I didn't do much: about 5 minutes on the ArcTrainer, 5 minutes of running on the treadmill at 4mph, a couple minutes on the inclined treadmill while waiting for Jeev's text messages. Sure, I could have stayed and worked out, but honestly I feel terrible and the last thing I need is to get sick before my big weekend with the house to myself.

Hunger Pangs

Today at the gym, I did my regular cardio: 20 minutes on the Arctrainer (264 calories) and 30 minutes on the inclined treadmill (310 calories). I attempted a few minutes on the stairclimber but holy crap did that suck. So I'm not even counting it.

I did not hit the drive-thru for breakfast this morning, but I did scarf down my breakfast sammich and banana pretty quickly, and dove into my lunch for my granola bar only about an hour later. I'm still hungry, despite having just eaten lunch (small piece of leftover chicken, orange, and small yogurt), and I'm seriously considering eating the granola bar I found in my desk drawer.

But, dammit, I did not stop at the drive-thru for breakfast. And that is a huge accomplishment.

Slips, Trips, and Falls

Today we were supposed to focus on lower body, but Jeev tells me everything is lower body from your head's point of view. Um, yeah. Anyway, there was a lot of subliminal core work, like side lunges while hefting a 20-lb weight and toe touches on a knee-high step. I fell while doing the latter, and again while doing stair runs, but I'm totally fine. You can't be as klutzy as I without learning how to pick yourself up and keep moving. The stair runs were timed for the first time: 34, 31, and 34 seconds, respectively - that last one was the time when I fell. Not bad. I also did forward and backward lunges over the step, which were the bane of my existence not too long ago, and while they were hard I was way better at them than I ever had been before. The session ended with a couple of plank positions, which I held for 30 seconds each without any trouble at all, really.

So I think I'm improving, at that my endurance is increasing. But for some reason I've been in a foul mood all day and going to the gym doesn't seem to have helped that any. I want my endorphins, dammit!

Rainy walk

Distance: 6.18mi
Time: 2hrs 5min
Calories: 463

Took a long walk around the neighborhood since the weather is so mild. It started raining about halfway through, which kind of sucked, but I made it.

More obnoxious: my bra strap somehow managed to unhook itself about twenty minutes in, so my back was kind of sore by the end of it. My bosoms, they are mighty.

One interesting thing was that I got some of the same pain in my right leg that I used to, but it stopped right above the ankle, right where the muscle was removed. Very strange, but eventually the pain went away and it never interfered with my walking the way it used to. So I guess the surgery can officially be declared a success. :)

Full Disclosure

As of today, the first day of the new year, I weigh 210 pounds. The scale I used may not be in total agreement with reality but it's the one I've been using for years so I figure it's consistent if nothing else. I wear a size 16 in clothes, and that's been the case for at least the last decade, perhaps longer.

I like to take long walks and hikes, though much of those activities have been thwarted due to a serious ankle injury at the end of April 2011. I am still working with a personal trainer to rehabilitate it. I have a membership at Gold's Gym in Chantilly, Virginia. I like it there. I like my trainer, too.

My biggest food issue is breakfast. I absolutely love fast food breakfast. McDonald's sausage burritos and Burger King's croissanwiches are my favorites. I try to replace them with Jimmy Dean's turkey sausage breakfast sammiches. They're tasty but nowhere near as satisfying.

I love going out to eat. I don't even know why, really, since my husband cooks delicious and interesting meals, but there is pretty much never a time when I would rather eat in than out. I could easily do it for every meal of every day.

I think that's it for now. Happy new year.