Oh, hello.

Oh, hello, it's been awhile - for a lot of things.

Life has been a little nuts...about three months of super strict eating that left me pretty mentally fatigued by the end of things. August 1-31 was a personal Whole30 and had me gritting my teeth through a lot of fun occasions, then early September kicked off the Body Change Composition Challenge at my gym, in which I gave up caffeine and kept the rest of my eating pretty clean (but jeez that was tough) and then Angel decided to do a Whole30 for the month of October, so it was the end of October before I really went off the rails. 

So, I've been pretty relaxed so far this month and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm still working thinking about food based on how it makes me feel physically, rather than emotionally (that is, disentangling myself from the idea that I've done something BAD or WRONG or that I'm inherently WEAK for eating something that's BAD or WRONG - see what I mean?) I have a feeling that it's going to take me awhile to really separate myself from years of disordered eating. I'm comfortable admitting that (and I'm fairly certain that I'm not alone here). I don't want to hold myself up to be a paradigm of "perfect" eating - what is that, anyway? I'm on a journey, just like everyone else. 

Things that I have been missing recently:
1) Training regularly. I've been kind of floating aimlessly here (yes, I'm aware that's ironic given my place of work, but working at a gym doesn't make me less given to laziness!) 
2) Cooking my own food / planning / packing meals
3) Salads. Say, what? 

Today was lovely. I slept really well - my house was freezing last night and we put an extra comforter on the bed. Woke up at 8:15 and made a cup of coffee. 

Did the Endurance workout at CFCC at 10am: 30 minute time trial on the erg, damper at 4. 

I rowed 6174m. 

Kept my stroke rate real low, between 19-23s/m for the majority of the time, just because I didn't want to die. As it was, the whole thing was a huge test of mental fortitude more than anything. I was SO BORED. I tried to treat it as meditation, but kept getting distracted by how bored I was. Tried to think about my to-do list, that didn't work. Tried to push the monitor out of my line of sight so I wouldn't focus on how slowly the clock was going down, but then I couldn't keep my stroke rate steady. Sigh. Next time, I want to do this with a movie playing. Or music and a fan, at least. Definitely want to aim for 7k - the best woman on the C2 forums (she's 21) pulled 7608 in 30 minutes. OY. 

Walked home from the gym, because it was nice out (3.5miles). Stopped for a coconut water and 8 ounces of roast beef, which I ate at the park. Then came home and was still starving, so I microwaved a huge sweet potato and ate it with 2 tbsp salted butter. Plopped on the couch for the majority of the afternoon, then ate some pizza and ice cream for dinner (first gluten-y pizza in a REALLY long time. I'm sleeping with one eye open tonight, maybe literally. It was really, really good though.)