It's time to be honest here. I'm not looking for sympathy, or consoling. I'm just being honest & telling it like it is. Everybody has bad days. Either bad days for a reason, (you break you foot, get rear-ended, and then mugged on top of all of it - that's a legitimate bad day!) or sometimes not for a reason... you just feel like it. There was an internet/newsmedia discussion about a month back about how FB is "making people less happy" by making everyone think everyone else is perfect & happy. I also found this posting on Psychology Today that I think is more to the point, or at least more to the reality...
Facebook has turned into one of my ways to communicate with my friends, since there's too freaking many of you! (No complaints here...)
I, for one, accidentally fall into the trap of "ideal life posting" most of the time just because I don't like a lot of molly-coddling. If you post on FB "having a really shitty day", people respond & try to comfort & etc. It's an emotional trap either way... if I'm actually having a shitty day, I don't really want to be touched, or comforted... (I only want that from either my husband or my mom) I just want to be allowed to grumble & get over it. That's it. However, if people post "comforting" things, I frequently get irritated (don't poke the bear) or if nobody responds, I fall into the trap of "nobody cares!" It's a real catch 22. (actually, if people posted "yeah, that sucks." I think that would work.)
As a result, I frequently opt for not posting. So if you don't see any updates for a while, It's usually A) I'm ridicu-freakin' busy or B) I'm having a not-happy day (doesn't necessarily mean unhappy).
So back to being honest: today... I'm having a day. One of those days when you know your head's not in the right place. One of those days when you know that what you're thinking is probably not the case (or at least hoping that you're wrong). I spontaneously feel 20 lbs. heavier & fluffy overnight. I feel like a failure. I can't get any projects started or finished & have no direction. Or, if I do have direction, I feel like I keep spinning my wheels & can't move forward (I like action). I feel like I'm letting everyone down all the time and am a horrible person more than I like to be. I can't keep my house clean, I can't find time to make my own food half the time. I feel like I'm being unnecessarily a party pooper because I don't like doing things that I don't like doing. I'm sorry if I avoid it because I know I won't like doing it. I have 30 years of experience now and know what I do and do not like dammit! And there's no point wasting time on things I don't like anymore. I feel like I should be more agreeable. I feel like I should be more happy because other people feel like I never am (although I feel like I'm actually happy 85% of any given day and that seems pretty darn good to me). I feel like I'm a failure because I need to plan things & can't "just go with it". I feel like a grinch. I feel like a hippocrite. I'm pissed that I have too much stuff & I hate having this much stuff , yet I can't get rid of any of it & I keep trying and failing. AND my banana that I just bought for my breakfast is half rotten inside.
And... I'll get over it.
Can't wait until I get to go play on the playground in the 70 degree sunniness this afternoon.
Showing posts with label mental. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental. Show all posts
Friday, March 18, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Why I'm not really eating grains anymore, sorry for the inconvenience
I apologize in advance to anyone who's used to ordering pizza or feeding me spaghetti when I come around. : )
So on and off over the past year, I've been experimenting with going grain free. This year I'm planning to ramp up my effort even more. I don't know if people are wondering why, but here I'll put it out there anyway in case you're interested.
The whole thing started with trying to lose weight in '08 to '09... I started using The Daily Plate and calorie counting. It worked for me for quite a while. It had a handy graph that showed weight v. calorie intake. I first noticed that if I ate veggies, I could get a lot more food for my calorie expenditure than if I ate breads, so I made a substitution. Then I noticed that after the initial weight loss, I'd go through plateaus and the periods where I'd drop weight again. I also could track that the plateaus would be when I was eating grains and the drop periods with veg instead of grains (both were the same number of calories consumed & expended). I love data!
OK, fast forward to July/August of 2009 and I go to the MovNat seminar, they feed me "paleo" all week, I come home, get pizza & a beer & have fish & chips the next day for lunch. Subsequently, I broke out in a rash around my torso and forearms. I went to the doctor & the doctor wrote it off as being woods related eventhough it was a breakout pattern that is related to Celiac stuff. At some point I requested the full test for both markers of Celiac & came back negative.
Starting with that MovNat experience, I experimented over the next year with on again/off again paleo/primal, and have done a lot of reading and personal research into human body metabolism and health and nutrition and all that jazz. If you know me well, I've probably irritated the shit out of you this year with all of this.
There's been a lot of press this past year about Gluten Free diets & products and there's been some info about it and a bunch of articles about it being a fad and people are just jumping on the bandwagon. "All these people are claiming to be 'gluten intolerant' and they're not celiacs so they're just making a fuss to be special & it's stupid" etc...
Here are two things:
1) Article on Celiac Diagnosis - summary: you're only celiac and get a celiac diagnosis once the villi in your intestine gets destroyed. THEN you get the immuno response markers in your blood stream that they test for. The destroying happens over time. Some people will get to this point, some people won't but that doesn't mean there's not damage going on because you can find the same markers in the stool of people who have a problem with it and who don't show up on the blood tests. End result: lots of people can have issues and body responses without knowing this is the cause.
2) Article on digesstion of grains, comparing Europeans and Africans - summary: european children couldn't break down proteins in grains well while african children could because the african children have bacteria in their guts (coincidentally also found in the stomachs of termites) which breaks down the grain constituents for them.
After a while of experimenting on my own, here are a few of my own personal findings which are leading me to give up the grains for real (I don't mean to be a pain for meal planning, but it's a quality of life issue at this point):
When I go grain free:
Anyway, I've at this point been so many time through the cycle of grains/no grains that I can see definite patterns at this point and reasonably make these conclusions. During allergy season, if I go on a weekend grain bender (this may be just eating like a normal person), my nose immediately starts running & clears up in a day or two when I go back to no grains. Same with the eczema. I currently have a little red crusty patch on my right calf and I've been partaking in the holiday splendor. I went semi-clean again yesterday (today back to full clean) and it's a little better than it was. I expect it to be gone by tomorrow or the next day.
Anyway, to sum up: once again, I'm not choosing this lifestyle to be difficult on other people; while the physical ailments are motiv, it's more the psychological effects that motivate me. I don't like feeling like a raving lunatic - especially now that I can no longer blame it on being female or having PMS. Now that I know I can control it by what I eat (or don't), I feel like anything else is being unfair to myself and my friends and family.
Also, not to get preachy, but seriously... if you are reading this & have any sort of chronic pains, moodiness, really bad PMS, skin problems, allergies, or anything that classifies as an "inflammatory condition", try 30 days no grains. Just try it. If nothing changes, then so be it. If something does change, then it may be helpful!
p.s. some may be tempted to argue "how can so many people have issues with grains? we've been eating them for thousands of years & some cultures still live almost exclusively on them!" Well, true. people have been eating them for a long time, but we've also stopped eating dirt and termites. that could, ultimately, be what's making the difference. I don't know. All i know is that since I can't take a termite supplement, I'll just stick to not eating grains as much as possible.
So on and off over the past year, I've been experimenting with going grain free. This year I'm planning to ramp up my effort even more. I don't know if people are wondering why, but here I'll put it out there anyway in case you're interested.
The whole thing started with trying to lose weight in '08 to '09... I started using The Daily Plate and calorie counting. It worked for me for quite a while. It had a handy graph that showed weight v. calorie intake. I first noticed that if I ate veggies, I could get a lot more food for my calorie expenditure than if I ate breads, so I made a substitution. Then I noticed that after the initial weight loss, I'd go through plateaus and the periods where I'd drop weight again. I also could track that the plateaus would be when I was eating grains and the drop periods with veg instead of grains (both were the same number of calories consumed & expended). I love data!
OK, fast forward to July/August of 2009 and I go to the MovNat seminar, they feed me "paleo" all week, I come home, get pizza & a beer & have fish & chips the next day for lunch. Subsequently, I broke out in a rash around my torso and forearms. I went to the doctor & the doctor wrote it off as being woods related eventhough it was a breakout pattern that is related to Celiac stuff. At some point I requested the full test for both markers of Celiac & came back negative.
Starting with that MovNat experience, I experimented over the next year with on again/off again paleo/primal, and have done a lot of reading and personal research into human body metabolism and health and nutrition and all that jazz. If you know me well, I've probably irritated the shit out of you this year with all of this.
There's been a lot of press this past year about Gluten Free diets & products and there's been some info about it and a bunch of articles about it being a fad and people are just jumping on the bandwagon. "All these people are claiming to be 'gluten intolerant' and they're not celiacs so they're just making a fuss to be special & it's stupid" etc...
Here are two things:
1) Article on Celiac Diagnosis - summary: you're only celiac and get a celiac diagnosis once the villi in your intestine gets destroyed. THEN you get the immuno response markers in your blood stream that they test for. The destroying happens over time. Some people will get to this point, some people won't but that doesn't mean there's not damage going on because you can find the same markers in the stool of people who have a problem with it and who don't show up on the blood tests. End result: lots of people can have issues and body responses without knowing this is the cause.
2) Article on digesstion of grains, comparing Europeans and Africans - summary: european children couldn't break down proteins in grains well while african children could because the african children have bacteria in their guts (coincidentally also found in the stomachs of termites) which breaks down the grain constituents for them.
After a while of experimenting on my own, here are a few of my own personal findings which are leading me to give up the grains for real (I don't mean to be a pain for meal planning, but it's a quality of life issue at this point):
When I go grain free:
- my winter eczema (which has been getting progressively worse every year) is non-existent
- my seasonal allergies are almost non-existent (used to be non-stop from March to November)
- a lot of my low-grade aches & pains go away**
- I don't get PMS bitchiness or cramps
- my intestines normalize & I don't fart as much and become more "regular"
- my mood swings disappear
- when I don't get fed on time, I just get hungry, instead of turning into a raging psychotic bitch
- I feel like I have more energy & my ability to move is improved.
- I also *seem * to get sick a lot less
Anyway, I've at this point been so many time through the cycle of grains/no grains that I can see definite patterns at this point and reasonably make these conclusions. During allergy season, if I go on a weekend grain bender (this may be just eating like a normal person), my nose immediately starts running & clears up in a day or two when I go back to no grains. Same with the eczema. I currently have a little red crusty patch on my right calf and I've been partaking in the holiday splendor. I went semi-clean again yesterday (today back to full clean) and it's a little better than it was. I expect it to be gone by tomorrow or the next day.
Anyway, to sum up: once again, I'm not choosing this lifestyle to be difficult on other people; while the physical ailments are motiv, it's more the psychological effects that motivate me. I don't like feeling like a raving lunatic - especially now that I can no longer blame it on being female or having PMS. Now that I know I can control it by what I eat (or don't), I feel like anything else is being unfair to myself and my friends and family.
Also, not to get preachy, but seriously... if you are reading this & have any sort of chronic pains, moodiness, really bad PMS, skin problems, allergies, or anything that classifies as an "inflammatory condition", try 30 days no grains. Just try it. If nothing changes, then so be it. If something does change, then it may be helpful!
p.s. some may be tempted to argue "how can so many people have issues with grains? we've been eating them for thousands of years & some cultures still live almost exclusively on them!" Well, true. people have been eating them for a long time, but we've also stopped eating dirt and termites. that could, ultimately, be what's making the difference. I don't know. All i know is that since I can't take a termite supplement, I'll just stick to not eating grains as much as possible.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Will I?
There are lots of other things for me to talk about sometime soon, but just wanted to make a quick note of this article and correlations...
Click it. Read it. Will I?
Hehe. Anyway, it was quite cool for me to read because it puts into words something that I suspected for a long time... I think I succeeded at running because I approached it this way. I started out "can I be one of those people who likes running?" We all know the answer at this point. Now, after reading that blog post, I'm also seeing a connection with most of the other things that I've learned to do and succeeded at. Can I learn the Piano? Can I sew? Can I Crochet? (the last one, I can affirm that I can and I can do it well, but I choose not to because it makes me very angry. go figure.) Just as a teaser: the next one I have lined up is "Will I be able to make a business out of my creative skills?" We'll see how it goes. : )
Click it. Read it. Will I?
Hehe. Anyway, it was quite cool for me to read because it puts into words something that I suspected for a long time... I think I succeeded at running because I approached it this way. I started out "can I be one of those people who likes running?" We all know the answer at this point. Now, after reading that blog post, I'm also seeing a connection with most of the other things that I've learned to do and succeeded at. Can I learn the Piano? Can I sew? Can I Crochet? (the last one, I can affirm that I can and I can do it well, but I choose not to because it makes me very angry. go figure.) Just as a teaser: the next one I have lined up is "Will I be able to make a business out of my creative skills?" We'll see how it goes. : )
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
MovNat Seminar Recap
So, I've been getting a lot of questions (and rightly so) about what is this "Mov- NAT" thingie that I went to. If you'd like the official stuff about it, feel free to go visit the MovNat website. Make sure to watch the Erwan Le Corre video on YouTube also. It's cool.
So, if you want the really short, bare-bones answer, here's what I learned: barefoot movement & conditioning, running, jumping, landing, crawling, rolling, balancing, accuracy, agility, breathing, hanging, climbing, swimming, holding of breath, throwing sticks, throwing rocks, lifting, carrying, using gravity to one's advantage and overall efficiency of movement, some morsels of diet - paleo in specific, sparring, punching, self defense and that I'm a scary, scary woman if threatened. Really if I break most of those down into the subcategories of movement that I haven't named specifically, it's mind-boggling that the seminar was only over 5 days, more like 4 days when two of those were half-days... Really, I'm not quite sure how it all happened because it felt like we only did 2 or 3 things a day (this, said through rose colored glasses, since I can remember spending some days where I was just wishing for it to end).
For more of a detailed description of the experience, read on... and on... and on... (I don't see how it can end up short & concise).
Background
I have to admit that I don't fully follow all the "zoo human" philosophy on the website, or maybe I do, but phrased in a different manner. What I do know is that I feel people in general are dealing with a nature defficiency (myself especially - I go nuts if I don't get enough exposure to rocks & trees & water & stuff), and I feel like our modern western lifestyle is not conducive to health, wellness & mobility over our ever-increasing lifetimes. By talking biomechanics with my chiropractor & others and by reading & researching, I've been becoming fascinated with how our body works and have begun developing a theory, that I'd love to work with some day, that our life-long mobility and ability is determined by the movements we use in our everyday lives. The western world is suffering from some chronic pain issues and mobility issues that are not seen in some other cultures at later stages in life. Keep in mind that I'm not discounting the lack of elasticity in tendons and ligaments that come with age as well as breakdown of cartilage, wear of joints, etc.... BUT a number of mobility problems appear to be preventable either due to avoiding misalignments caused by imbalances caused by lack of use of muscles or by avoiding injury by using proper techniques and keeping critical joints strong and flexible. This is merely a quickie aside...
How it came about
Anyway, so let's start at the beginning of how I impulsively signed up for this thing. Please see the statement above about the mobility mind-set that I'm in at the moment. So for the past two years I've been mildly intrigued by Methode Naturelle and Parkour. Additionally, I've been trying to broaden my exercise regimen to strengthen and expand my abilities (both because I'm all dooms-day-ish and believe that I could get stuck in some catastrophic situation sometime, and because I'd like to still be able to get up off the floor when I'm 80 - "help, I've fallen and I can't get up" should not enter my vocabulary unless to make a joke or in an instance where both legs are broken). In June or July, I try to find something to use my HTO gift-card on and come out of the store with a FREE copy of Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine and read this article about the Natural Fitness with an "annoyingly fit" man. It's a great article. So I googled MovNat. I watched the YouTube Video. Then I watched it again. And again. And AGAIN. It turned into one of those obsessive things I do such that I was researching or going to the MovNat page everytime I needed an ADHD break at work (i.e. every 10 minutes). Lastly I saw that they were going to be offering seminars in West Virginia in August & September. Then I got more & more distracted. At some point, the irrational part of my brain went AWOL & said "if you don't sign up for this & try it, you'll always be wondering & regret it." This led to an "are there still any available spaces left?" email, with the expectation of the answer "no". I got the answer: "there's one spot left and we've pencilled your name in if you want it." EGADS! What have I gotten myself into. It's one of those weird things that seemed to be 'fate.' We discussed it at home, I paid, it was all set, I was very excited. Then the "you're crazy" part of my brain kicked in & I started fretting about the cost & what a Paleo Diet was (raw meat?) and vacation time and holding the rest of the class back and killing myself and.... If there's one thing I'm an expert at, it's fretting - especially about the various possible ways for me to meet my demise. Well, anyway, that's how I got signed up for it and there was no turning back after hitting the "pay" button. * sigh *
And so it begins...
Tuesday, August 18, sees me departing a little after 7 AM on my drive to West Virginia. After a 5.5 hour car ride in which I stock up on doritos & a rootbeer (I will be eating Paleo for the next five days! augh!), I arrive at the campsite and find a collection of tents and one or two other people there. Tents -> Ozark Trail, first thought -> "egads, I wish I brought my own tent, this sucker's gonna leak". I spend some time talking to my first co-conspirator, James, a "kid" who's in college and is studying Physics - suddenly I don't feel like I'll be totally out of my element. After a bit of chatting, we decide to go see if Jeff, the assistant, needs any help with lunch. This is when I meet co-conspirator #2, Chris, the first of two Canadians and who drove down from Montreal the night before. I'm betting that was longer than 5.5 hours. Part way through chopping red peppers, we were joined by the other Canadian, Greg, an ex-air force instructor, Jason, and the man himself, Erwan Le Corre. In response to me saying "Oh, you're THE man!", he replied: "What were you expecting, a Zeus?" My reaction was not because he was very average looking, but because I had not been able to ascertain via the website, really what he looked like. A little bit later, we were joined by the last participant, a woman named Liz. It was a cozy little group. I had been expecting something different. The listing had said there would be 12 participants and we ended up with only 6. I had been expecting most everyone else to be fitness professionals and we numbered as a physics student, a patent examiner, a freelance journalist, a mediator, a finance guy, and a program manger. Hmm.... we each had a different level of fitness and abilities too, as was determined over the next couple of days. The first meal was a phenomenal salad of greens, peppers, nuts, oils & vinegar and I think some meat & fruit. Our first lesson was conditioning for barefoot movement - i.e. finding the sharpest gravel on the campsite road and purposely standing on it... "It's like a Chinese massage," says Erwan. Hmmm... Then we went to a local park with playgrounds & pavilions to see that MovNat can be practiced anywhere. I'd say we spend about 4 hours learning some basics, like balancing, jumping off picnic tables, walking on all fours, barefoot running and some warm-up moves. Part of it, I suspect, was for evaluating each of our ability levels. I successfully demonstrated that my Klutz Factor is abysmally high as I was 'balancing' across the wooden backstop to a horseshoe pit and managed to simultaneously fall off of AND onto the 'balance beam', leaving a gash in my leg that will be my souvenir! : )
So, if you want the really short, bare-bones answer, here's what I learned: barefoot movement & conditioning, running, jumping, landing, crawling, rolling, balancing, accuracy, agility, breathing, hanging, climbing, swimming, holding of breath, throwing sticks, throwing rocks, lifting, carrying, using gravity to one's advantage and overall efficiency of movement, some morsels of diet - paleo in specific, sparring, punching, self defense and that I'm a scary, scary woman if threatened. Really if I break most of those down into the subcategories of movement that I haven't named specifically, it's mind-boggling that the seminar was only over 5 days, more like 4 days when two of those were half-days... Really, I'm not quite sure how it all happened because it felt like we only did 2 or 3 things a day (this, said through rose colored glasses, since I can remember spending some days where I was just wishing for it to end).
For more of a detailed description of the experience, read on... and on... and on... (I don't see how it can end up short & concise).
Background
I have to admit that I don't fully follow all the "zoo human" philosophy on the website, or maybe I do, but phrased in a different manner. What I do know is that I feel people in general are dealing with a nature defficiency (myself especially - I go nuts if I don't get enough exposure to rocks & trees & water & stuff), and I feel like our modern western lifestyle is not conducive to health, wellness & mobility over our ever-increasing lifetimes. By talking biomechanics with my chiropractor & others and by reading & researching, I've been becoming fascinated with how our body works and have begun developing a theory, that I'd love to work with some day, that our life-long mobility and ability is determined by the movements we use in our everyday lives. The western world is suffering from some chronic pain issues and mobility issues that are not seen in some other cultures at later stages in life. Keep in mind that I'm not discounting the lack of elasticity in tendons and ligaments that come with age as well as breakdown of cartilage, wear of joints, etc.... BUT a number of mobility problems appear to be preventable either due to avoiding misalignments caused by imbalances caused by lack of use of muscles or by avoiding injury by using proper techniques and keeping critical joints strong and flexible. This is merely a quickie aside...
How it came about
Anyway, so let's start at the beginning of how I impulsively signed up for this thing. Please see the statement above about the mobility mind-set that I'm in at the moment. So for the past two years I've been mildly intrigued by Methode Naturelle and Parkour. Additionally, I've been trying to broaden my exercise regimen to strengthen and expand my abilities (both because I'm all dooms-day-ish and believe that I could get stuck in some catastrophic situation sometime, and because I'd like to still be able to get up off the floor when I'm 80 - "help, I've fallen and I can't get up" should not enter my vocabulary unless to make a joke or in an instance where both legs are broken). In June or July, I try to find something to use my HTO gift-card on and come out of the store with a FREE copy of Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine and read this article about the Natural Fitness with an "annoyingly fit" man. It's a great article. So I googled MovNat. I watched the YouTube Video. Then I watched it again. And again. And AGAIN. It turned into one of those obsessive things I do such that I was researching or going to the MovNat page everytime I needed an ADHD break at work (i.e. every 10 minutes). Lastly I saw that they were going to be offering seminars in West Virginia in August & September. Then I got more & more distracted. At some point, the irrational part of my brain went AWOL & said "if you don't sign up for this & try it, you'll always be wondering & regret it." This led to an "are there still any available spaces left?" email, with the expectation of the answer "no". I got the answer: "there's one spot left and we've pencilled your name in if you want it." EGADS! What have I gotten myself into. It's one of those weird things that seemed to be 'fate.' We discussed it at home, I paid, it was all set, I was very excited. Then the "you're crazy" part of my brain kicked in & I started fretting about the cost & what a Paleo Diet was (raw meat?) and vacation time and holding the rest of the class back and killing myself and.... If there's one thing I'm an expert at, it's fretting - especially about the various possible ways for me to meet my demise. Well, anyway, that's how I got signed up for it and there was no turning back after hitting the "pay" button. * sigh *
And so it begins...
Tuesday, August 18, sees me departing a little after 7 AM on my drive to West Virginia. After a 5.5 hour car ride in which I stock up on doritos & a rootbeer (I will be eating Paleo for the next five days! augh!), I arrive at the campsite and find a collection of tents and one or two other people there. Tents -> Ozark Trail, first thought -> "egads, I wish I brought my own tent, this sucker's gonna leak". I spend some time talking to my first co-conspirator, James, a "kid" who's in college and is studying Physics - suddenly I don't feel like I'll be totally out of my element. After a bit of chatting, we decide to go see if Jeff, the assistant, needs any help with lunch. This is when I meet co-conspirator #2, Chris, the first of two Canadians and who drove down from Montreal the night before. I'm betting that was longer than 5.5 hours. Part way through chopping red peppers, we were joined by the other Canadian, Greg, an ex-air force instructor, Jason, and the man himself, Erwan Le Corre. In response to me saying "Oh, you're THE man!", he replied: "What were you expecting, a Zeus?" My reaction was not because he was very average looking, but because I had not been able to ascertain via the website, really what he looked like. A little bit later, we were joined by the last participant, a woman named Liz. It was a cozy little group. I had been expecting something different. The listing had said there would be 12 participants and we ended up with only 6. I had been expecting most everyone else to be fitness professionals and we numbered as a physics student, a patent examiner, a freelance journalist, a mediator, a finance guy, and a program manger. Hmm.... we each had a different level of fitness and abilities too, as was determined over the next couple of days. The first meal was a phenomenal salad of greens, peppers, nuts, oils & vinegar and I think some meat & fruit. Our first lesson was conditioning for barefoot movement - i.e. finding the sharpest gravel on the campsite road and purposely standing on it... "It's like a Chinese massage," says Erwan. Hmmm... Then we went to a local park with playgrounds & pavilions to see that MovNat can be practiced anywhere. I'd say we spend about 4 hours learning some basics, like balancing, jumping off picnic tables, walking on all fours, barefoot running and some warm-up moves. Part of it, I suspect, was for evaluating each of our ability levels. I successfully demonstrated that my Klutz Factor is abysmally high as I was 'balancing' across the wooden backstop to a horseshoe pit and managed to simultaneously fall off of AND onto the 'balance beam', leaving a gash in my leg that will be my souvenir! : )
Day two involved a warm-up on a steep grassy slope of the campground, just below a couple of RV pads. We spent a significant amount of time learning about stretching and warming up by using practical movements that exercise full range of motion instead of just one piece at a time. Emphasis was put on the difference between motion in context (actually going over or under something), and without context (just going through a motion) and how each action without context can be given context in your mind to give it more meaning. We did a good bit of rolling around in the grass and crawling and then some stretches that were motions one would use if one were trying to hide in grass from predators or prey. The people staying in the RVs seemed to be highly amused by all this. I like to think that when we were practicing looking around furtively and hiding that the RV campers got nervous about an impending attack, because they left shortly thereafter. They also left us a large watermelon as a peace offering. After warming up, we went off into the forest and carried some long logs to our workout site. It was at this time that I re-discovered my 'true nature' of being completely distracted by the things around me... "look! a red mushroom! Look at that flower! Look! That part of the tree looks like a face! We just squashed a blue fungus of some sort..." Either way, I followed along balancing on logs, doing standing long-jumps, jumping off of logs, learning how to properly dead-lift stones above our heads and throw them. About mid-day, the assistant, Jeff, showed up with lunch - a bag of walnuts, a bag of almonds, some bananas and grapes, and a 9x13 Tupperware of chopped zucchini, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes. That was it. I was skeptical, but I followed the suggestion of "just eat what you want, your body will tell you what it needs." I've never tasted almonds so good. The rest of the day, was some more practice of skills and combining skills into a "combo circuit" that was repeated over and over for 15 minutes. Things I learned from combo: I need to have a goal or purpose and then I can enjoy repetitive things. My goal was throwing a rock, chasing it, picking it up, throwing it, and chasing it again. I wonder why I'm so "play" based... the 15 minutes felt like 5.
Day three was spent on the Gauley River and it was, by far, the most fantastic day of the seminar. It was the only truly sunny day we had all week for one thing. Thankfully I started the morning by explaining to Erwan that if I look like I'm not paying any attention whatsoever, I really am and don't mind me - I used to drive my teachers nuts with that. Secondly, though a river setting, there was a variety of terrains, from beach to dirty, to boulders to large flatrocks to rocky flat terrain. I was in heaven. It's a landscape that I've kind of grown up with and love dearly. The first lesson of the day was to walk barefoot across rocky terrain without really looking where you're going. Quite hard, really. I'm apparently way too stiff & have to relax my shoulders. We stopped for a swim, swam onto some rocks in the middle of the river, practiced breathing and holding of breath. Then we played cooperative 'games' of toss the rock & toss the stick and toss the stick while running around obstacles and toss the stick while balancing on a log. Next we stopped for lunch on a large flatrock complex and then practiced jumping up ledges and down ledges and across gaping chasms. We found a funky tree to balance on and that was fun, then we found a rather good Bouldering problem and scaled it. I scaled it 4 or 5 times just because. It was my first real, outdoor climbing!!! Yay! We finished with another swim and practice pushing a log across the river while swimming. I dripped dry while doing another climb. It was a great day.
Day three was spent on the Gauley River and it was, by far, the most fantastic day of the seminar. It was the only truly sunny day we had all week for one thing. Thankfully I started the morning by explaining to Erwan that if I look like I'm not paying any attention whatsoever, I really am and don't mind me - I used to drive my teachers nuts with that. Secondly, though a river setting, there was a variety of terrains, from beach to dirty, to boulders to large flatrocks to rocky flat terrain. I was in heaven. It's a landscape that I've kind of grown up with and love dearly. The first lesson of the day was to walk barefoot across rocky terrain without really looking where you're going. Quite hard, really. I'm apparently way too stiff & have to relax my shoulders. We stopped for a swim, swam onto some rocks in the middle of the river, practiced breathing and holding of breath. Then we played cooperative 'games' of toss the rock & toss the stick and toss the stick while running around obstacles and toss the stick while balancing on a log. Next we stopped for lunch on a large flatrock complex and then practiced jumping up ledges and down ledges and across gaping chasms. We found a funky tree to balance on and that was fun, then we found a rather good Bouldering problem and scaled it. I scaled it 4 or 5 times just because. It was my first real, outdoor climbing!!! Yay! We finished with another swim and practice pushing a log across the river while swimming. I dripped dry while doing another climb. It was a great day.
Day three is also the only day I have pictures of essentially.
Day four is when I finally fell apart. I was not having the issues that some other people had - some of the guys were light sleepers and/or not used to being in the woods and hadn't been sleeping much at all. I come from a breed that A) grew up camping and B) have a family history of being able to sleep through train derailments. Sleep was NOT an issue for me. Except that night it rained a goodly bit and 1/3 of my air mattress and bedding got wet. Additionally, they started the day off by saying "OK, now today is going to be pretty intense!" That is the LAST thing I ever want to hear. We went back to the playground/park and warmed up with some out of context stretching and brief bursts of high intensity motion. Then we started learning self-defense and sparring techniques. This is where I discovered that I could cause damage if threatened. We were to practice protecting our heads. With the technique we learned, one could not only parry blows, but also fight back a bit with one's elbows. So we paired up and Chris was put in a position of 'attacking' while I was to defend myself. well, after a a few minutes i had to call a time out because my mind was getting into it and all of a sudden he was not my friend anymore, but a real attacker and I was about to leap & try to rip his head off... I kinda knew I had this in me, I felt it coming on, so I called a time-out. This combined with the 'rage' I exhibited when I was instructed to "hate the target" while Greg was holding it, resulted in me being labelled both 'scary' and 'dangerous' by the guys later. The latter half of the day, as promised, was filled with a smattering of intensity workouts.... series of intense bursts of conditioning, some fast combos and etc. In the midst of all this, it poured buckets on us on and off and when it wasn't raining on us, we were rolling around in soaked, muddy grass. The best part was when we were walking back from the restrooms to the playground. We passed a ginormous puddle on the sidewalk that was 2-3 inches deep. We stopped, we stomped, we kicked water on each other as if none of us were over the age of 15. It was great!!! Then there was another combo set up... theoretically it was nothing to be worried about... balance on a railroad tie for about 30-40 feet, go up a ladder, slide down a slide, run across the playground, duck under a bar, do 5 jump-pull-ups, jump off the steps 3 times and repeat. For some reason, before we started, I started feeling ill. I recognized the feeling from the one and only swim meet that I ever participated in. I hated the pressure & competition. I don't know why I felt that way on the combo, but whatever. The last thing we did was a longer combo... run to a tree, run to the bathrooms, do a small combo from earlier, run to the swings, run back to the bathroom, run to the playground, do the big combo, and then run back to the tree. The end. I started, I did half of it, between the swings & the bathroom I started having trouble breathing... It got worse! A freakin' anxiety/asthma attack! I got soooooo mad! It made it worse. I had to stop, I calmed down by the time I got to the top of the slide. By the bottom of the slide, I was OK, but I ended up being the last one to finish the route. I was sooo mad and pissed. There was no reason for it except a mental breakdown or will. ugh.
Day Five was the final day and it was a half-day only. We lost one of the participants in the morning at breakfast because she had a plane to catch. This is the last picture of us all before we parted:
We took a whitewater style raft across Summersville Lake to an island or peninsula which had a good collection of rocks. On the way, we worked on swimming and swimming under things while holding breath. We worked on accuracy of rock tossing. We also worked on various high-intensity series of lifting & pushups & etc. It was hard, but I knew it wasn't going to last long. The last thing before paddling back was a series of balancing along a wet log, jumping into the water, swimming under it, running back to the other end & repeat. One thing I liked very much about Erwan's instruction was that he got a good sense of each person and knew when to push you... literally. My first circuit, I got onto the log & froze.... Erwan pushed me off into the water. The next time around I went across the wet log with no problem. I don't know if I needed the push as a challenge or to show me that no harm would come by falling off... or maybe both, but I needed to be pushed off. Lastly, we rowed back while Jason & Jeff swam across the lake and finished up with lunch & said goodbye.
The Aftermath...
There were a couple of surprising results after all was said & done. For one thing, by being "Paleo" for a week has given me a particular aversion to "food products" (i.e. processed foods) - this I can only see as being a good thing. I've been doing some research on Coconut oil because, at least at first glance, it appears to potentially be a miracle food. I've also paid more attention to the things I buy.... the fewer ingredients the better.... whole raw nuts, sun dried raisins, no sugar or sulfates or salt added. I'm seeking more fruits & vegetables (again) and less grain products. The grains - breads, & etc - I'm noticing making me feel even more sluggish and uncomfortable than ever before. Actually, right after getting back and going back to a "normal" diet, I got a weird rash on my lower back and both my elbows. A lot of other weird things were going on too, like my leg swelling due to the wound getting infected, but the rash is making me think perchance I should look into Celiacs.... I'm not really sure I'd want to know though. Can you really enjoy a piece of cake with the knowledge that it could kill you?
In addition to diet changes, I was shocked to find that I DIDN'T come away from the experience sore & immobile. Just goes to show you that your body can adapt rather quickly. Also, I found I was able to do a goodly bit more than I had expected. I got kudos points for at least trying stuff even if I couldn't do it. I was known as having a "fighting spirit" by the end and that made me feel good. I also learned a lot about myself - how I work mentally. Competition, big surprise, is my downfall. I am best motivated when I want to do it for myself. I found that I had to fight an urge the first day to "prove myself" to the guys. They never said anything other than encouraging things. There were no disparaging remarks, no talking down, nothing but brotherly encouragement, yet I still felt like I had to prove-down the stereotype of "weak woman" and I found that this was mostly in my head, not theirs. I ended up coming up with a new personal motto, "I can't right now, but I can certainly try"... Huh? Meaning that I know my limits, but that won't stop me from trying until I can, whether it takes me hours, days or months, because I know that I can do most anything if I work on it. I also learned that when threatened or pushed, something else kicks in. I'm by no means going to throw caution to the wind and subject myself to danger, but I got reassurance that if I ever had to protect myself, I could either do a good job of it, or take someone else down with me.
Well, I guess that's all for right now... I think I'm on the verge of having bleeding stumps for fingers from typing so much. I'll write more later if I think of more.
Odd aside for the day: Spellcheck on here doesn't like 'egads'.... Tee-Hee!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Thanks, Mom
I'm becoming strongly convinced that my mum & dad raised me too well. At least, I figure most of my critical skills that I cherish have come from them. I think about myself a lot... I like to call it introspection. I figure out what's bothering me, why it's bothering me, where it comes from, and then figure out a way to either fix it or work around it. I've learned over the years that this is a skill that is not common. The other thing I've gotten from my upbringing (I presume) is, to borrow Obama's phrase "Yes I can!" This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's let me be able to do most anything that I set my mind to, because I don't really believe "I can't"... Any instance of "I can't" that crops up in my life, I recognize as "I don't want to take the steps necessary to do it". Right now I can't do the uneven parallel bars, but I have no doubt that if I worked on it, took classes, and trained, that I could. "I can't understand economics and finance" is really: "the stuff irritates me and I just don't want to bother with learning about it." Really, I can't honestly think of something that I believe I couldn't do (with the exception of that just stated - is that a paradox?). As such, since I believe everything I can do is a learned skill, I have two big issues: A) stupid people irritate me to no end and B) I lack empathy when people have certain shortcomings.
Regarding A), I'm not talking about stupid as in low IQ. People who aren't smart don't bother me at all. It's people who say "I can't...." and therefore remain stupid that irritate me. I ran into that a LOT when I was teaching and I still run into it when dealing with dancing. There's not a lot of "Learning" that can't be achieved by just working on it.
Regarding B), I have a hard time when people are consistently late or insensitive or always "having issues" or etc, because, at least to me, time management, dealing with other people, and coping skills are all LEARNED skills. I have a really hard time feeling for people in certain situations because they really do have the power to "fix" their situation and just choose not to because they say they "can't".
So, thanks Mom & Dad... I'm really glad that "I can"... I don't know how you got it into me, but I'm glad you did. Now I just have to figure out how "I can" have more empathy... or maybe I should just say "f- it" and let everyone else drown in their own "I can't"-ness. hmmm....
Regarding A), I'm not talking about stupid as in low IQ. People who aren't smart don't bother me at all. It's people who say "I can't...." and therefore remain stupid that irritate me. I ran into that a LOT when I was teaching and I still run into it when dealing with dancing. There's not a lot of "Learning" that can't be achieved by just working on it.
Regarding B), I have a hard time when people are consistently late or insensitive or always "having issues" or etc, because, at least to me, time management, dealing with other people, and coping skills are all LEARNED skills. I have a really hard time feeling for people in certain situations because they really do have the power to "fix" their situation and just choose not to because they say they "can't".
So, thanks Mom & Dad... I'm really glad that "I can"... I don't know how you got it into me, but I'm glad you did. Now I just have to figure out how "I can" have more empathy... or maybe I should just say "f- it" and let everyone else drown in their own "I can't"-ness. hmmm....
Friday, December 5, 2008
T-giving in 2 sentences and Skinny Pants hell
It was nice to go home over Thanksgiving and see family and I got some excellent thrift-storage in which resulted in two vintage winter coats for a grand total of $16. It was also very stressful due to various family situations on both sides and ridiculously irritating driving conditions on both the way up and the trip back. (I lied... 3 sentences)
So yesterday was a weird day... Don't know how well anyone reading this knows me (some very well, I'm sure), but I'm occasionally prone to psychotic irrational anxiety attacks - my brain turns into my enemy and I can't shake a thought or a feeling even if I know logically it doesn't make sense. Grrr... hate those... and yesterday was one of those days. Since we got back from T-giving, J has been a goodly bit down because he was stressed about the past week and family matters and stressed because he doesn't know the outcomes AND stuff was going down at work because it's just one of those times. So he was unseasonably quiet & "down" for a couple of days. Randomly, because I'm brilliant like that, I get this idea in my head yesterday morning that he's been quiet & withdrawn because he's mad at me. This pops into my head at, like, 7:30 AM... then it grows and persists and grows and persists and spirals out of control into a panic. (I'm suspecting that these happen when I'm under other stress and just can't get a productive outlet...) Perfectly timed, J was working his A$$ off yesterday in a different lab where he has no contact with the outside world and took no breaks until about 5:30 PM.... so of course I took the lack of communication as evidence that he was mad at me. The whole while I KNOW that it's not the case. I know it and I can't convince myself out of those attacks. Grrrr.... hate my brain. Fortunately, when I did get to talk to him last night, I was confirmed that he was not mad at me and all was well.
On a happier note, I am currently in skinny pants hell. The pants that I bought about 2-3 months ago are getting embarrassingly big on me again (grrr...), so I'm in the market for new pants. The easiest solution (accomplished tonight) was to go to Kohl's and get smaller sizes of the ones that I got before (they were on sale!). While there, I figured I'd try to find some others since two pair is just not quite enough diversity - and then I decided I hate pants. See, here's the problem: almost anything designed for people my age is very plain and stuffy and BORING; anything not boring is usually to be found in the Juniors dept; Once you find not-boring, you need to weed out the stuff that looks like something a 12 year old should wear (pink sequined butterfly applique) from stuff that's acceptable for a nearly-30 (maybe braided leather accents on the butt-pockets); then you try the pants on and it's probably cut so low that your goods will hang out or pop out if you attempt to move; next if all goes well and the pants fit, then the pocket placement is probably half-way down the thigh (pockets should be placed on the butt to accentuate, otherwise you look deformed); lastly, once the pants fit and pocket placement is right, you've probably stumbled across a pair of pants that are "skinny" aka designed for people with toothpicks for calves or peg-legs. No normal human should wear "skinny" pants, especially not men. That's my rant for the day. : )
So yesterday was a weird day... Don't know how well anyone reading this knows me (some very well, I'm sure), but I'm occasionally prone to psychotic irrational anxiety attacks - my brain turns into my enemy and I can't shake a thought or a feeling even if I know logically it doesn't make sense. Grrr... hate those... and yesterday was one of those days. Since we got back from T-giving, J has been a goodly bit down because he was stressed about the past week and family matters and stressed because he doesn't know the outcomes AND stuff was going down at work because it's just one of those times. So he was unseasonably quiet & "down" for a couple of days. Randomly, because I'm brilliant like that, I get this idea in my head yesterday morning that he's been quiet & withdrawn because he's mad at me. This pops into my head at, like, 7:30 AM... then it grows and persists and grows and persists and spirals out of control into a panic. (I'm suspecting that these happen when I'm under other stress and just can't get a productive outlet...) Perfectly timed, J was working his A$$ off yesterday in a different lab where he has no contact with the outside world and took no breaks until about 5:30 PM.... so of course I took the lack of communication as evidence that he was mad at me. The whole while I KNOW that it's not the case. I know it and I can't convince myself out of those attacks. Grrrr.... hate my brain. Fortunately, when I did get to talk to him last night, I was confirmed that he was not mad at me and all was well.
On a happier note, I am currently in skinny pants hell. The pants that I bought about 2-3 months ago are getting embarrassingly big on me again (grrr...), so I'm in the market for new pants. The easiest solution (accomplished tonight) was to go to Kohl's and get smaller sizes of the ones that I got before (they were on sale!). While there, I figured I'd try to find some others since two pair is just not quite enough diversity - and then I decided I hate pants. See, here's the problem: almost anything designed for people my age is very plain and stuffy and BORING; anything not boring is usually to be found in the Juniors dept; Once you find not-boring, you need to weed out the stuff that looks like something a 12 year old should wear (pink sequined butterfly applique) from stuff that's acceptable for a nearly-30 (maybe braided leather accents on the butt-pockets); then you try the pants on and it's probably cut so low that your goods will hang out or pop out if you attempt to move; next if all goes well and the pants fit, then the pocket placement is probably half-way down the thigh (pockets should be placed on the butt to accentuate, otherwise you look deformed); lastly, once the pants fit and pocket placement is right, you've probably stumbled across a pair of pants that are "skinny" aka designed for people with toothpicks for calves or peg-legs. No normal human should wear "skinny" pants, especially not men. That's my rant for the day. : )
Monday, September 22, 2008
Oh, SNAP! Issues... I have issues.....
First and foremost, truly & honestly, congrats to G & J on their impending bundle of joy. Really, I hope all the best and that everything goes smoothly & according to plan until he/she gets here because it'll just be chaos for a while after that. ; )
But DANG!!!! This means I have to grow up & man up (woman up?) and finally recognize that I/we are finally of procreating age. I've been successfully able to avoid this thought until this point because first it was my sister (an older person) and then it was some of Jonah's friends (not quite the same as my friends) and then it was our Binghamton friends (but we don't live there anymore so that doesn't count) and then it was a coworker (doesn't count because I didn't hang out outside of work) and then it was more of Jonah's friends (see before).... It's been easy to keep everything at arm's length. Now I have to figure out how to work this angle into my social sphere without A) turning into a bitch and B) getting grumpy because I have to acknowledge my age. *grump * *grump *
I'll do my best. I really will. Give me time. I need to figure out the dynamics. It won't be the same, but maybe it can be close. I won't promise that I'll like your kid all the time. I get annoyed with my niece & nephew sometimes & I'm supposed to have unconditional love for them... I am not pre-programmed with any sort of mothering instinct (other than that of a female tiger - they eat their young sometimes) and I don't share people well, but I'll try my best. I have no real inherent dibs on my friends' undivided attention like I have for my parents, and I'll have to recognize that. Ah well.
Still, regardless of what's going through my head (and I always have issues of some sort anyway), I really am happy for all you procreating people. Just don't expect me to sit there & listen to dialation stories or any of all that. : ) And for the record, I don't do ANY babyshowers. I'm either scared of them or allergic - pick whichever reason makes you feel better. I just can't handle this... : )
But DANG!!!! This means I have to grow up & man up (woman up?) and finally recognize that I/we are finally of procreating age. I've been successfully able to avoid this thought until this point because first it was my sister (an older person) and then it was some of Jonah's friends (not quite the same as my friends) and then it was our Binghamton friends (but we don't live there anymore so that doesn't count) and then it was a coworker (doesn't count because I didn't hang out outside of work) and then it was more of Jonah's friends (see before).... It's been easy to keep everything at arm's length. Now I have to figure out how to work this angle into my social sphere without A) turning into a bitch and B) getting grumpy because I have to acknowledge my age. *grump * *grump *
I'll do my best. I really will. Give me time. I need to figure out the dynamics. It won't be the same, but maybe it can be close. I won't promise that I'll like your kid all the time. I get annoyed with my niece & nephew sometimes & I'm supposed to have unconditional love for them... I am not pre-programmed with any sort of mothering instinct (other than that of a female tiger - they eat their young sometimes) and I don't share people well, but I'll try my best. I have no real inherent dibs on my friends' undivided attention like I have for my parents, and I'll have to recognize that. Ah well.
Still, regardless of what's going through my head (and I always have issues of some sort anyway), I really am happy for all you procreating people. Just don't expect me to sit there & listen to dialation stories or any of all that. : ) And for the record, I don't do ANY babyshowers. I'm either scared of them or allergic - pick whichever reason makes you feel better. I just can't handle this... : )
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)