Grok It

Whenever I write an entry here I always feel like the first thing I do should be to apologize for not writing in so long. I wonder if that will ever go away. (I bet it would if I wrote daily, but that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.)

(Another aside – I wrote this earlier, saved it in my drafts folder in Gmail and just now realized how long it is. Perhaps that would be “fixed” if I wrote daily too. heh.)

I’ve been busy, not just with Operation: Get Healthy, but, you know, life. Operation: Get Healthy is taking up most of my energy at the moment, and I’m okay with that. It’s about time I put my health and well-being at the top of my priorities.

I mentioned before about going Paleo, and I’m still sticking with that for the most part. We went out to a (crappy) buffet place for Jordan’s birthday on Monday and I caved and had some very non-Paleo things, but oh well. I’ve recovered rather quickly. I suppose part of that was not eating for 20 hours afterward because I was so full, I wasn’t hungry at all. Anyway. I started out with the Paleo stuff by listening to some of the Paleo Solution podcasts from Robb Wolf and checking out his website. Through that (and a forum group on Ravelry of all things), I also found out about Mark Sisson and his book The Primal Blueprint and his website, http://www.marksdailyapple.com. I checked his book out at the library on Monday and must admit that I find my philosophy is much more aligned with his than with Robb’s. Not that they’re drastically different – Mark’s just strikes more chords with me, I guess. (If you have suspicions about how healthy “conventional wisdom” actually is, or you’re up for a change of lifestyle (not just diet and exercise), or have an interest in evolutionary biology and epigenetics, I wholly recommend checking out his website (and the book, of course). The website has lots of free stuff and some e-books if you sign up for the newsletter which are put together very well.)

Mark Sisson named his protagonist, our prototypical Primal ancestor, Grok. I can’t help but think of the verb, to grok, from Robert A. Heinlein, when I see it. it works because this is the time in my life where I can finally grok all of this and meld it together to create my healthy lifestyle going forward. I grok Grok. (And I have to wonder if Mark Sisson did that on purpose.)

I’m trying to incorporate Primal foods as much as possible. Getting enough veggies seems to be difficult for me, so I’ve re-signed up for getting a box of fruits and veggies delivered to our door each week. Our first delivery won’t be until next Friday, but I’m already so excited. I loved getting the produce box back in the day and now that I’m eating a lot more produce, I think it’ll help our grocery dollar go farther. In fact, now that we’ll be getting produce delivered and we already get milk and eggs delivered, we’ll only need to go to the grocery store for a few things here and there. I am totally on board with that. I want to start going to a genuine butcher shop in our area and start saving up to buy like half a (grass-fed) cow or something later this year. We’ll probably need an extra freezer if we do, but I can only imagine how amazing it would be. Woot!

Along with eating plenty of plants and animals (and not eating processed and refined foods, including grains, legumes, sugar, etc), part of the Primal Blueprint deals with exercise. Naturally. Part of why I like the book so much is because it’s very common sense oriented. Some of the descriptions Mark Sisson uses for what sort of exercise we should be getting are Move Frequently at a Slow Pace (3-5 hours of low-level cardio each week) and Lift Heavy Things (emphasizing whole body movements over ones that isolate and target specific muscles). This makes sense to me. Especially since the first two weeks or so in TEAM Weight Loss at the gym, when I was moving more slowly (no more than 75% of my max heart rate), I was seeing more weight loss and then the last two weeks when I’ve been doing above 75% of my max heart rate, I haven’t seen as much. (Though, I do admit that finally being able to actually JOG is amazing. Seriously.) Another aspect to the Primal Blueprint Fitness is to Sprint once a week or so. I haven’t done this yet, but as soon as TEAM Weight Loss is done (at the end of this month), I will be incorporating this a lot more.

I think I needed TEAM Weight Loss to really kick me in the ass and get me feeling accountable and to get me on track, but I don’t think it’s quite what I need going forward. The easy-going, playful aspect of the Primal Blueprint Fitness philosophy is much more my speed. And it doesn’t require the gym, though I’ll probably still keep my membership for awhile at least. Since I started 5.5 weeks ago, I’ve lost about 15 pounds. Nothing to sneeze at for sure, but not the number I was hoping for by this time. I’m still hoping (perhaps crazily) to shed another 15 pounds by the end of this month. It’s a stretch goal, I suppose, but I’d really like to do it and think that it might actually be possible if I add on more of the Primal Blueprint stuff with the more conventional workouts I’m doing with TEAM Weight Loss. We shall see.

Even though I’ve “only” lost 15 pounds, I’ve seen a dramatic difference in my body composition. My face is thinning out, there are toned curves where lumps of fat used to be and what were once my “skinny jeans” are very nearly my “fat jeans”. I can see my ribs (well, if I stretch a little), my fingers are skinnier, my wrist and ankle bones are easily visible (I should check my collar bones, too). I’m seeing muscles I didn’t know I had and instead of being squishy and fluffily fat everywhere, I can see the very specific areas where my body likes to store fat. Even though I’m still not yet under the weight I was a few years ago, I’ve got more definition and feel healthier overall. Boo-yah.

There are opportunities in my not-so-distant future that a few months ago I never would have thought possible. Like, wearing the same bathing suit I wore in Mexico in October 2005 (and have diligently kept even though it hasn’t fit since November 2005). Or climbing a fourteener. Seriously! A fourteener! Me! It’s totally possible and I’m looking forward to it later this year. Woot!

It occurs to me that in the past few years I’ve taken control (or am taking control) of most of the things that ruined my self-esteem in my adolescence and young adulthood: my complexion (still unbelievably clear) and my weight/health. (I believe my nerdiness also had an effect, but I’m not changing that, just surrounding myself with like-minded peeps and it’s working out swimmingly.) Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell younger me how to take control of these things, but I don’t know if I could have sooner. I think I needed to get this far before I could. I had to go through everything I did to finally grok it now, I guess.

I’m kind of scatter-brained in this. I suppose that happens when I don’t write more frequently, but that’s okay. Here’s some random stuff that I don’t feel like trying to work into any sort of narrative:

-There’s a carbonated and caffeinated beverage called Zevia which is pretty good. After weaning myself off of soda, regular soda and regular diet soda (sweetened with aspartame and splenda and whatnot) are pretty disgusting. That hasn’t always stopped me from having one, but now that I’ve discovered zevia, it probably will. Because it’s sweetened with stevia, it doesn’t impact blood glucose or cause a spike in insulin production which is awesome. And even though it does contain caffeine it doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to have a heart attack if I have one the way a Diet Coke after several non-caffeinated days did. Ooh, I bet I could online shop for other stevia beverages and other Primal goodies!

-Last summer when Kyle and I went shoe-shopping before Zombie Apocalypse Preparedness Training 2011 (our camping trip to the Grand Canyon), we good-naturedly made fun of people wearing/buying those toe-shoes. But I think I’ll probably end up with a pair eventually. I’ll start with some non-toe-separating minimalist shoes first and see how that goes – probably in the next month as I do need new shoes anyway. I hadn’t noticed the pattern of my foot pain until I started reading The Primal Blueprint, and it’s totally because of my shoes. If I go the whole weekend without wearing shoes, my feet hurt a lot by the end of the next work day. I always figured it was because I didn’t wear shoes over the weekend, but I’m totally ready to give my feet the benefit of the doubt at this point as I’ve always been more comfortable barefoot anyway.

-Losing weight and changing my shape means I can wear ALL THE CUTE HANDKNITS!!!!! (And it will be less expensive as I will need less yarn – DRATW!) I haven’t knit either my February or March cardigan because I’ve been working on Harry Potter and the Never-Ending Blanket for a co-worker, but it’s probably a good thing since I’d like to make them fit me well. I might even have to knit them slightly smaller than I am now just in preparation for the continuing changes.

-When I started concerning myself with my weight (back in high school), I was probably about 160 pounds. So that’s always been my target weight, because that’s the lowest I can ever remember being. There are some charts and such that say I should be closer to 125 pounds for my height, and that makes me gasp as I would surely be skeletal at that weight! But, now I keep thinking that somewhere in between, perhaps 140ish, is closer to where I should be. It will all depend, especially since I’m putting on muscle, but it’s nice to think that when I’m down to whatever my proper weight is, I will probably weigh less than I can ever remember and be healthier than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

-I turned 30. Operation: Get Healthy is a pretty awesome birthday present to myself. Otherwise, 30 is mostly the same as 29. Perhaps 31 will feel different?

-We may have started down the road to buying a house. Might happen in the next few months, might not happen until next spring. I’m trying not to think about it too much until we really know what’s going on as this is something I could easily get obsessively lost in.

-I discovered the coolest indie dyer ever: Nerd Girl Yarns. As one might be able to guess, she specializes in dyeing yarns and fibers inspired by fandoms and geekery of all sorts. I joined her Who’s Your Doctor club for spring, so I’ll be getting 3 months of fabulous Doctor Who-inspired fiber to spin (and have the option of buying more fiber or yarn if I really love the color). I have decided that all of my fiber and yarn budget going forward will most likely be spent on her stuff. She’s awesome and I love the Ravelry forum for the group – lots of likeminded nerd girls. In fact, since I found the group, many other groups on Ravelry (and in real life, actually) pale in comparison. I felt welcomed immediately and like a valued member. Woot!

That’s all for now. I’m off to get some sunshine as it is unseasonably warm this week.