all apologies

I'm sorry that I haven't posted this week. I cannot believe that it is Thursday already. I've been home sick from work all week. With the possible exception of the time I had measles (in my ears) when I was 11 months old, I have spent the past 3 days being sicker than I ever been in my entire life. I'm guessing it was gastroenteritis or something just like it. Without going into too much details, I'll say that it was nasty and horrible and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I know that I was fighting something last week, I just had no idea that when it finally hit me it would be so gross.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I felt a little wonky but I worked out, ate some breakfast and headed upstairs to get ready for work. By the time I had reached the top of the stairs, I'd felt like I was hit by a bus. It was really crazy how quickly it came on. I spent the next 3 days living on ginger ale, dry toast and chicken soup. Last night was the first night all week that I slept soundly through the whole night and I feel much better this morning. I do still feel a little weak and tired though so I don't think I'll be exercising today, in fact, I may take the rest of this week off and just try to recharge my batteries.

I wish I had something thrilling or exciting to report this weekend. Bottom line is that I don't. For a week now, I've not felt good. I know it's just some sort of stupid bug because many of my coworkers are complaining about it too. Last weekend, my back was bothering me. Since then, I have experienced a sore throat, watery eyes, runny nose, lots of sneezing, aches in my joints and muscles and an occasionally upset stomach. For the past day or so, I've either been freezing cold or uncomfortably warm. Overall, it's been an unpleasant week.

Today was probably the best day I've had in a week. Other than the hot vs. cold thing, I actually got some stuff done. I've done 7 loads of laundry today and we've been working on some projects around the house that have been needing attention for a while. The weather has been dreadfully cold here over the past several days. Today it was super sunny and I would have loved to have gone for a long walk but I couldn't bring myself to do it after 2 days of not being able to get comfortably warm.

My weekly goal is to exercise 5 days out of 7. Usually, I exercise Monday to Friday. This week, I missed Wednesday and I took the weekend off. Considering how shitty I felt, I'm not too upset about only exercising 4 days last week. I still haven't sat down and figured my food out either. I wish I cared about it but I really don't. I know that I'm off my routine but I have been keeping my water intake up and getting my vitamins in so I'm not worried.

Ordinarily, I do track everything in Fitday so I know exactly what I'm eating, how it all breaks down as far as fat, protein and carb goes. I've been doing it long enough now (just over a year) to know how things are adding up. I know that a couple of days over the past week I've gone over in my calories but I've also felt like crap with this bug. That's an excuse I know. I also know that beating myself up for a few extra calories when I'm sick is just stupid so I won't do it. Life has ups and downs and when I'm feeling good, it's easy for me to stay on my routine, stick to my plan, get in super good workouts and eat healthy stuff. When I'm sick though it's easy to let my guard down a bit and run my calories up more than I normally would.

I guess the long and the short of it is that being sick sucks. I'm hoping to get to bed early tonight and be recharged for another good week this week.

tgif

I ended up taking a 1/2 day vacation yesterday. I took the afternoon off and didn't do much of anything. Well, I shoveled the driveway, again. We had wicked snow squalls yesterday and when I got home at noon, the driveway was full again. Oh well, it's good for me. I like doing the exercise outside, in the sunshine and fresh air. I felt pretty good afterwards, it had helped to clear my head. I'm also taking this afternoon off. I have a few things I'd like to do and I just feel like I need the rest after feeling so crappy all week.

The feeling crappy thing has thrown me off track slightly. I know that I'm not going overboard with the calories but I haven't been tracking what I'm eating. That's one of the things I think I'll do this afternoon, calculate my consumption over the past couple of days. I'm still feeling really tired and a little run down and I'm glad that I'm taking this time off for myself. I really feel like I need it.

better

I'm feeling much better today than I did yesterday, although still not 100%. I'm not sure what kind of bug I've picked up but it's good at hanging on. Tuesday night, I slept like the dead but last night I was up every hour or so. Part of that, I think, was due to the snow. It was snowing when we went to bed last night and I didn't want to sleep too late this morning because I knew that there would be shovelling to do.

When I got up at 4:50 a.m., the driveway looked full. I pulled on my workout gear and an extra fleece and trudged outside. It wasn't as bad as it had been but there was a huge drift along the south side of the driveway that took a while to get through. It took about 40 minutes to get everything cleaned up so I didn't bother with a "proper" workout this morning. I think that the cold air cleared my head a bit because I was blowing my nose for about 10 minutes after I came in, I'm still coughing though and my throat is a little tender. I'm looking forward to this weekend so I can just veg out and rest up.

Anyway, I'm going to head back to work today and see how that goes. If I keep the tea flowing, it shouldn't be too bad!

Home Sick is not the same as Homesick

Ugh!

I'm feeling like poo today and I'm not at work. It's unlikely (although not entirely impossible) that I'll be working out today. I got up at my normal time and just stayed in bed. I watched a movie on cable (Enough with Jennifer Lopez -- I don't like her but I really like Billy Campbell and, in the end, I actually enjoyed it! I mean, the plot was pretty thin but I liked the little girl and when you're sick, it's nice to watch a little bit of brain-dead drama and it was really nice to hear an Aimee Mann song in the middle of it all, hope she got a good chunk of change for that).

Right now, I'm thinking I'm going to crawl back into bed and watch me some Jerry Springer until I fall asleep, sleep's what I'm needing right now!

out of my head (but not in a good way)

I'm feeling really wonky today. There were a couple of times today that I actually felt a little light-headed, not woozy but sort of like I was outside my body looking around. It was odd. I didn't get much sleep last night. I went from being freezing cold to being sweaty and hot, off and on, all night long. I woke up about every 45 minutes and felt totally sore and achey when I finally dragged myself out of bed.

Feeling gross or not, I did a bunch of stretching and got onto my recumbent bike. All the way down the stairs, I kept telling myself that I was too sick to do it, felt too crummy to do it...Then, when I was on the bike I told myself that I'd only do a couple of minutes...Well, maybe a few more...and then, before I knew it, the interval training program I was doing, was done. I must admit that my aches definitely subsided a bit although the sore throat, runny nose/eyes thing was still happening.

Eating was okay today. Because I was feeling kind crummy by the time I finished work (I actually managed to get through the whole day) we decided to grab a quick bite out on the way home. It was my idea and I was glad that we did it. We went to this new Chinese Buffet place and it was really nice. I just felt like lots of stir fried veggies, and some curried chicken. It was really yummy and I feel nicely full right now and I didn't go nuts. The best part of it all was that we could come home and not have do dishes. Neither of us could really face the hassle of cooking and/or cleaning tonight.

I'm still feeling like hammered shit so I'm going to crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head and hope that I feel better in the morning. This out of head feeling is not as fun as it might sound!

Sorta Back To Normal

Wow, today I'm feeling so much better than I have in a few days. When I woke this morning I felt practically normal and was able to do a better workout than I had done yesterday. My back felt much better but I was careful not to twist too much in the wrong direction and hurt myself again. By the end of the day, I was starting to stiffen up and I was really glad to go home by the time 4:30 rolled around.

The better workout made me feel better all day and my eating was totally perfect. I actually have a few calories to spare and kept things particularly low in fat today. On the weekend when we were in the grocery store, I paused for a moment by the Skinny Sticks and later on, by the Skinny Cow Ice Cream Sandwiches. I seriously thought about getting some of both, just to have on hand. I decided against it because even though they are lower in fat than the regular one, I know that I'd eat too many of them. They are both really super processed and I'm trying to avoid processed stuff and I have a feeling that I'd like those Skinny Cow things so much that I would end up eating 1/2 the container. If I'm going to eat that much of something that is lower in calories, I'd rather wait and have a really good, small, ice cream cone, somewhere on the outside. I think that I'd enjoy it way more if I did.

It seems like the Progress Prompt folks are back in business now so here is this week's edition:

Some people are doing New Year's resolutions and others are setting up goals. What is the difference between a resolution and a goal?

My resolution for 2003 and for 2004 has been to follow my fitness goals. I think that really though, they are the same thing.

As January 1st came around this year, what were your thoughts and feelings about your weight loss journey?

As you know, I took a couple of weeks "off" at the end of 2003. By the time January rolled around, I was ready to get back on track. The break I took at the end of the year made me realize that I don't want to take another break like that. I didn't like how crappy I felt after getting away from the healthy eating I'd been doing and the regular exercise. It's no longer a choice, whether or not I eat well or exercise, I have to do it. If I don't, my body let's me know!

Were you successful with your resolutions/goals from last year? Will you be using the same resolutions/goals from last year or will you be doing something different this year? What are they?

I think I was pretty successful last year and I've written about my goals and resolutions several times over the past few weeks right here. I know that I will do at least as well in 2004 as I did in 2003!