Eating Disorderly Conduct

I had one slice of apple pie a la mode after dinner and now I’m thinking about putting on my heart rate monitor and jumping on the bed until I burn a slice of pie’s worth of calories.

Jesus, these are some serious issues.

Eating has always been a sensitive subject. I love to eat, and while I have a generally healthy diet, I also have a sweet tooth and the periodic inability to stop putting food in my mouth. Add in all of the training (which increases my appetite enormously) and the pressure to be competitive on the bike (the more I have to carry uphill, the slower I go), and I struggle constantly with my eating. Am I eating enough? Am I eating too much? Am I feeding my muscles or overstuffing my gut? Am I actually hungry or am I just craving? AM I OUT OF MY MIND?

The answer is most certainly yes.

Within an hour of getting an iPhone a few weeks ago, I had found the Fitness Tracker app that allowed me to track every calorie consumed and burned. Fitness Tracker and I went from zero to sixty instantly; within a day, I was logging every nibble, avoiding restaurant food because the nutritional data was harder to find, and working out extra hard just so I would be allowed to eat more calories for that day. On the days where I ate more than the application said was permitted, I was miserable.

Bobby finally asked, “Why are you so mean to yourself?” and it made me want to both laugh and cry because it was so true. I am really mean to my body; every time I eat too much or eat something I shouldn’t, I berate myself until the next workout. It feels like shit and I can’t stop.

Lest you think I’m starving or Karen Carpentering myself into an early grave, I will say that my core diet is both healthy and sufficient to meet my body’s needs. I’m not withering away or skipping meals – I just devote far too much head space and guilt to this topic. I had a wonderful dinner tonight with a dear friend, but because I had an extra piece of bread and a big dessert, I feel like I need to go ride or run or carry around a sack of bricks. Hey! This guilt is a dead weight! Maybe it will burn some calories.

It is very difficult to change my thinking process when it comes to eating. Fitness Tracker and I finally broke up a week ago when Bobby put his foot down (for the third time), and I was willing to concede because the application said there wasn’t enough left in my calorie budget to afford the tacos I wanted. Sadly, dropping that insanity doesn’t seem to have fixed the underlying problem.

My new job may be willing to help in this area. In the words of my new colleague, “I try to get to the gym, but during the week I’m too busy with work and by the weekend I’m just too exhausted. However, I think the stress of this place keeps me thin.”

No Comments

August 24th 2010 | Posted in Biking, Bobby, Employment, Life

Til Death Do Us Part

I got married this past Tuesday.

We’re looking to give the Duggar family a run for their money. Nineteen kids? Pshaw. I plan to birth them in flocks, litters, herds.

Just kidding. We’re on our honeymoon and while Bobby gets ready, I’m watching television. We watch all of our shows on the Internet, so television is a weird thing to enjoy on special occasions. Right now I’m watching these freaks on TLC who have nineteen children. Dude. Nineteen children. You’re not a human at that point; you’re a factory trying to populate a small country.

But back to the marriage thing. I’m excited, to say the least. I still can’t get used to the idea that I married the guy I fell for over ten years ago. I keep thinking about random moments from a decade ago – when I got my first car and took Bobby for a ride in it, when I worked on the tattoo on Bobby’s arm – and then thinking that I married that same guy. So weird. So exciting.

I know this one will stick. It has to, anyway. My dad gave me away during the ceremony and I had to assure him that this time there were no refunds. And also, I’m changing my name and that’s kind of a pain in the butt. I don’t want to have to change it back. And finally, I can’t imagine my life without my wonderful husband.

I’m a lucky, lucky girl.

6 Comments

May 27th 2010 | Posted in Bobby

Lies! All Lies!

Five reasons I am currently VERY tired:

1. We fell asleep lying upside down on the bed with the lights on shortly after midnight. Sometime between 1-2am, Bobby turned off the lights. At 3:11am, Bobby woke me up to tell me to turn around so we could actually use the pillows and covers.

2. Kobe started pacing and grunting around 5am and did not take my attempts to ignore him seriously. He switched to growling softly and endlessly until I relented, got up, and took him and Scout outside. Commence gastrointestinal distress episode THREE MILLION. DOG! Why can you not digest your kibble!

3. Sometime around 6:30am, a piece of shit car parked in the spot directly outside our window and started blasting the best of Hispanic radio. This went on until Bobby peered out window and saw the driver leave the car, silencing the music.

4. This was short-lived. The music began again, followed by the enthusiastic DJ shouting god knows what with far too much enthusiasm. Apparently the driver was back and was reclining in his seat. I lost my mind; it was 6:58am on a Saturday. I put on sweats, stormed outside, and banged on his passenger window. He got out and stared at me. I explained that it was 7am on a Saturday, he was parked outside of people’s bedroom windows, and his music was too loud. He stared at me and got right back in his car without a word.

ANGER. ANGER. FURY.

I yanked open the door and snapped, “You could try being less rude,” and then slammed the door and walked away. A moment of silence and then MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC.

KILL. KILL. KILL.

I opened the door again – he had the decency to look startled, although not nearly afraid enough for my taste – and I snarled, “The alternative is that I call the police.”

Clearly the language barrier was not an issue; the music did not come back on. Instead, he drove away and I mentally congratulated myself for handling this situation better than the last one, in which I may or may not have called the neighborhood tow truck driver a “fucking douchebag” and possibly spit into the open door of his truck.

5. Sleep was no longer an option. We got up for the day so that I could write a post about how the local Chinese restaurant told us a dirty, dirty lie:

IMG00900-20100410-0823

1 Comment

April 10th 2010 | Posted in Bobby, Life, The Pups

Adventures in Domesticity

I offered to bring a vegetable dish to my parents’ house for Easter dinner, but because my weekend has been really busy with riding and work obligations, I asked Bobby to handle making the dish. He fussed, telling me he didn’t know how to cook and didn’t have any interest in learning. I pointed out that even a monkey can follow the directions in a simple recipe, that it wasn’t solely my job to prepare the food, and that he needed to redeem himself after the Let’s Bring Cheesy Mac From A Box To A Wedding incident.

This morning, I gave him some suggestions for easy dishes he could prepare, but evidently he has changed his tune overnight because he shot down my suggestions, saying:

“I want to make something that people will try and be like, ‘Bobby, you made this?’ I want them to put me up on their shoulders and laud me for making the most amazing thing ever.”

He then went on to insist on making something complicated, using what he calls the “trial by fire” method. I hope that doesn’t mean he plans to burn the kitchen to the ground.

Also, I would like to point out that this is the same guy who looked at me kneading Irish soda bread on the countertop a few weeks ago, sighed heavily, and remarked, “Sometimes you undertake projects that stress me out.”

2 Comments

April 4th 2010 | Posted in Bobby

Updates that probably warrant their own posts.

1. I am getting married in several months.

2. Evidently, I have anxiety regarding racing that has phobia-like qualities.

3. Despite several recent bouts of nice weather, I cannot bring myself to stop using the trainer for all rides.

4. The mice are still alive. They run on their wheel for approximately 75% of each day. The wheel squeaks loudly 100% of the time that it is in use. I am down to 0.01% of my original desire to own mice.

5. I am leaving my current job this Friday and starting a new one on Monday.

6. For the first time in my life as a dog owner, I wished fiercely that I would come home to a pile of poop on the floor today. No luck.

7. These are my new favorite shoes: http://boutique.vanillabicycles.com/product/the-pit-boot

5 Comments

March 23rd 2010 | Posted in Biking, Bobby, Employment, Life, The Mice, The Pups

Slip of the Tongue

As Bobby carefully maneuvers his car through the snow, he says: “The roads are starting to get slippy. Slippy. SLIIIIIIIPPPY! That is such a weird word. I can’t believe the word is ‘slippy’.”

“It’s not. It’s slippery.”

Comments Off

February 6th 2010 | Posted in Bobby

Bobby wanted to write this title, but all of his suggestions were terrible.

Discussing meats over a lunch at Whole Foods: “I’m very particular about my meat. Gristly, fatty, weird stuff just freaks me out. I think it was the way I grew up – my mom always bought the nice, lean, high-quality stuff and it spoiled me. A few years ago, I bought a big package of store-brand chicken breasts and they were gross. I had to throw them out.”

“Really?” Bobby replied. “Chicken is pretty lean.”

I grimaced. “Nope. These were bad. For me, it’s Perdue or die.”

2 Comments

January 21st 2010 | Posted in Bobby, Family, Life

You say pest, I say pets.

Because my life isn’t complicated enough, what with the full-time job, the cycling ‘career’, the living alone, the two dogs, and the pseudo-ex-fiance-current-boyfriend-person, I now have a mouse. Actually, as of sometime this afternoon, I will have two mice, and then if nature has its way and the conditions are right, I may have many, many mice. I’ve only included photos of the one I have currently in my possession, but I’m told they’re indistinguishable anyway so it shouldn’t matter.

This is Moose.

Mouse 2

Moose is a deer mouse that was caught in Bobby’s house. Moose will be joined shortly by Three, who was also caught in Bobby’s house. This makes me sad because it means living with me was less preferable to living with rodents. At least they are very cute rodents. Even when I blow-dry my hair, I am not this cute:

Mouse 1

Before you fuss that I am keeping a wild animal in captivity, let me explain. 1) These things are so effing adorable that as soon as I saw a picture of one, they were as good as mine. 2) Mice, when caught in a home, need to be released at least a mile or more away from the home in order to prevent their immediate return. However, if you release a mouse at this time of year with no immediate food or shelter available, it will die. Moose’s fate was either to be released outside the house, at which point he would return and begin the cycle again, or to be released into the frigid wilderness to die. I suggested (begged, really) that he be permitted to join me in my home, and the next thing I know, I’m at Target buying bedding and yogurt drops.

Moose took a shine to Bobby and the two bonded yesterday over Special K flakes and back scratches. I’m a little bitter, considering that Moose has spent his time with me thus far buried in a ball of cotton or quaking in fear. My mother saw him today when she dropped some things off at my house and commented, “He is very cute….except for the tail.” She’s right; I could take or leave that stringy little thing, but I think Moose would prefer that I leave it.

Three was captured at some point late last night, and will join Moose today. Updates will follow.

3 Comments

January 7th 2010 | Posted in Bobby, The Mice

What An Excellent Year For An Exorcism!

For the past three years, I have begun each new year with a review of how I did with my previous year’s resolutions and a discussion of my new resolutions. That sounds boring, so I’m not going to do it. Instead, I’m going to do a quick recap of the past year in list format, which saves me the time and trouble of developing thoughts and connecting them meaningfully in paragraphs. Also, it’s probably less tedious for you to read.

Things That Sucked in 2009

1. Grandma died.
2. My fiance left me and moved out.
3. I drowned uncomfortably at a job that tried to eat my favorite coworkers after it had chewed me up and spit me out.
4. Scout went blind in one eye, which now glows radioactively whenever it catches the light.
5. I killed every plant I owned this year (four of them).
6. The military does not want me.
7. I started a new anti-depressant. This could fall under the “Sucked” category, since the reasons for deciding to start medication again were not happy reasons, or it could be considered a “Good” thing, since it’s like a positive step or something. My therapist would probably be peeved to see that I’ve settled on putting it here.
8. I exercised bad judgment. That description will have to suffice.
9. Racing cyclocross became too mentally taxing, so I bailed in early October.
10. Bobby’s contribution to this list: “You left a huge, irreparable stain on the carpet in the spare room.”

Things That Were Good in 2009

1. I paid a lot of money for a free, middle-aged, overweight dog. He turned out to be many different flavors of awesome.
2. The (5) Days of Summer were a lot of memorable fun.
3. My fiance came back (but remains self-demoted to boyfriend status).
4. I was gainfully employed for the majority of the year, while many people were not (or so I read while surfing the Internet all day long at work).
5. My carelessness led to accidentally cashing out my retirement plan early, resulting in a large check appearing in my mailbox. Whoops. And also, score!
6. I folded 1,000 origami paper cranes. I also learned that one can fold just shy of 30 cranes per hour while riding a stationary bike.
7. I only visited the emergency room once.
8. I hosted the first annual Log Posse Weengiving Dinner in November and acquired my first pair of homemade, bejeweled underwear. There’s a story and a post behind all of that, but Hello, Laziness.
9. It was a good racing season. I was the Kenda Cup East Champion for my category, I had a lot of podium finishes, and I completed the Shenandoah Mountain 100 in 11 hours, 11 minutes. And I did all that while only crying before 50% of my events.
10. I discovered that slathering Bag Balm on my saddle region really improves the quality of my life. Or at least the quality of my bag.
11. Nobody else close to me died, I had great times with my friends and family, I didn’t get hit by a bus, it snowed a lot in December, my carbon footprint probably shrank, whatever, so on and so forth.

If I did not include something that you feel was good about my year, I mean no offense. It was undoubtably a wonderful contribution to the parts of 2009 that did not suck, and I just can’t recall it right at this moment. Mom, I am certain you are going to add your own list of positive things to my comments. You go on with your bad self.

In the breaking of the year-end post tradition, I’m also not going to bother doing any New Year’s resolutions. Sure I have goals and shit, but I’m not going to come up with anything specific that will become a to-do list item that stresses me out. This year, I’m just going to do whatever the hell I want and to hell with the rest.

Happy New Year!

Comments Off

January 4th 2010 | Posted in Biking, Bobby, Employment, Family, Friends, Life, Sadness, The Log Posse, The Pups

Bobby, starting 2010 with pure gold.

Addressing Scout, who had just finished his first bowl of kibble in days: “Word, little animal. Word.”

On being trapped in a car with a certain somebody following lunch: “Ew, you are a smelly burper. A belly smurper.”

Describing why I should stop chewing on my water bottle: “That’s why pacifiers aren’t good for adults. I mean men. Humans. Wait. Babies.”

While making left turn through an intersection without using a turn signal: “I’m turning left and NOBODY KNOWS BUT ME.”

3 Comments

January 3rd 2010 | Posted in Bobby
« Older Posts