Wednesday Weigh-In 4/21/2010 and Gonna Kill Some Zombies--BRB

Wednesday I was down a little over a pound and a half, to 142.6 lbs.

Just a quick check-in, and them I'm outtie. This is my birthday weekend and today is the semi-annual ZOMBIE WALK, the funnest way to get in one's fitness. This time around, a small group of us are storming the walk as a zombie destroyer team. Ahhh...so much better than the NBA playoffs.

Hope everyone stays alive this weekend!

Wednesday Weigh-In 4/14/2010: The Late Late Late Edition

Wednesday, weighed in at 144.4 lbs. Down, what, half a pound or something? Does weight loss even matter any more now that I'm focusing more on strength training? No. But, I should probably still keep a record of my weight, what with accountability and all. Still, it's hard to resist the extreme reactions with a loss or gain. It shouldn't matter anymore. I'm slowly coming around to my emotional separation from the scale and adopting this new way of thinking.

I'm so late posting this because a) Tax Day. Last minute fire drills with the accountant had me sweating late Wednesday, but I'm happy to report that at least my '09 taxes are paid AND I took care of all of my estimated '10 taxes. For the self-employed, that is a "big deal."But even more importantly, b) it was Bobzilla's 40th Birthday!!

There was much planning and side schemes with a few friends to ensure that Bob's entrance into middle age was memorable. Here was the flyer I made a few months ago that sums up this weekend's plans (yeah, that's Bob as a kid, enjoying his passion--music. Probably Captain and Tenille. Maybe the Statler Bros.):

His band was Gimme Dat Shoe (local Clevelanders who grew up watching Superhost on TV will totally get that). They were awesome, as well as the other bands.

The highlight was Bob's birthday spanking. I went pretty easy on him compared to the other spankers.:

Here is the fertility painting featuring Godzilla, Frankenstein and Tura Satana that Lacey so lovingly painted for Bob:

Aside from the old man jokes and the gag gifts of Depends and Bengay, I am overjoyed to see him reach this rite of passage. When I was young, I always wondered what it would be like to "grow old" with him, not knowing what that really meant. I'm still not 100% sure where aging will find us, but I'm happy to put our 20's and 30's behind us and experience a new stage of life. Plus, he has managed to strike the perfect balance between maintaining maturity and stumbling around in adolescent oblivion. I love and respect and adore and worry about this man:

Wednesday Weigh-In: 4/7/2010 and I've Got Some Nice Garbanzos!

145.2. More of the same, more or less. There was no Easter cheatin' by way of chocolate eggs or bunnies or copious amounts of ham. I did share half a rotisserie chicken with Bobzilla, and our dessert was a GF strawberry shortcake--I supplied the fresh organic berries and homemade whipped cream, Mama Zilla supplied the GF cake. There is no shame in that.

My womanly cycle finally returned earlier this week in all its bizarrely gory glory, and Bob is getting excited about upcoming baby-making exercises. File that under TMI.

During one of our mega-shopping trips to Whole Foods, I bagged about 5 pounds of dried organic chickpeas with the idea we were going to make a lot of hummus and Indian food. BTW, once you go cooked-from-scratch chickpeas, you never go back to canned. Anyway, three months later and there is still about 3 pounds of chickpeas hanging around. Today I improvised and came up with a vegan chickpea salad that I could have for lunch. And it was no less than awesome. Even Bobzilla liked it, going for second dips after the first taste.

It is kinda, sorta like traditional chickpea salad, but I added some tahini to give it a creamy-but-vegan texture and generous amounts of cayenne pepper because its compulsory in our household.

Here's the recipe for...um, what shall I call it? Spicy Mediterranean Chickpea Salad? Sounds bland. Garbanzo Glee? Nope.

Anyway, here it is:

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup dried chick peas, soaked overnight

1 green bell pepper, finely diced

1 small or ½ large white or red onion, finely diced

2 medium roma tomatoes, diced

small handful flat leaf or curly parsley

2 small or 1 large clove garlic, crushed

1 tsp kosher salt

juice 1 lemon

2 TB Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 TB tahini

1/8 tsp ground cumin

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (I'd use more)

Ground black pepper, about 6-7 twists on the grinder

Drain chickpeas and thoroughly rinse. Put chickpeas in medium saucepan and add fresh cold water to pan, topping the beans by about 2 inches. Add a generous amount salt and boil. Reduce to simmer, cover and cook for at least 1 hour or until beans are tender and divine. More more water may need to be added during the cooking process, depending on how thirsty the beans are, so keep an eye on them.

While beans are cooking, chop up all vegetables, garlic and parsley and throw it all into large mixing bowl. In small mixing bowl, whisk together lemon juice, tahini, oil, salt, pepper and other spices.

Once beans are cooked, drain and rinse with cold water until warmish. Add beans to vegetable bowl. Pour dressing over top and toss until well-mixed. Adjust salt, pepper and spices to suit personal taste. Toss/stir each time before serving to properly distribute dressing.

Optional:

Add finely chopped jalapeno, cukes, kamut or cooked brown rice, feta cheese and/or olives.

Wednesday Weigh-In: 3/31/10 and Up Up and Down Down

I've been so caught up getting crap out of the way to enjoy this 3 day weekend,that I pushed off doing my Wednesday report. Realizing it's now Thursday night, I had to force myself away from playing God of War III to be "responsible." *rolls eyes*

I had been doing the Shred for so long that some parts of it are ingrained in my head, like a bad earworm. Yesterday, I weighed in at 150.00, which is about a half pound gain from the prior week. Immediately, I thought of that part on Level III of The Shred where you're doing the walking planks on the second go 'round while Jillian chants "...and UP UP and DOWN DOWN and UP UP and DOWN DOWN..." Yup, that's me. So what of this gain? It could be water weight. It could be muscle gain from increased strength training, it could be last weekend's Amish getaway where we spent the entire time in a hot tub eating cheese and drinking grossly sweet Amish wine , or a combination of everything. What it ain't is something I should concern myself with. But that's not to say that I don't anyway. Stupid scale head games.

Oh, about that strength training, I found some great new (or rather, new to me) videos on Spark People that have been added to my morning workouts:

1. Crunchless abs! I friggin love this workout, and so does my back.



2. Fun with resistance bands. Now, I don't follow this whole video. However, Coach Nicole does an informative demo of how to do rows and chest flies with bands, which I have worked into my regular strength training regimen.



Tomorrow, we're off for a picnic and romp in the park with the doggy. Then a drive-in movie later on. Yup, it's drive-in season! We're going to milk this good weather as much as we can, since it'll probably snow again next week.

Wednesday Weigh-In: 3/24/10 and I'm An Adult Now

Scale was at a non-Earth-shattering 144.4 lbs. Given I've been going back and forth between 147 and 142 during this last month's baby nugget drama, it doesn't seem all too significant.

So, moving on....

We've finally reached another adulthood milestone: getting life insurance. Yeah, we should have done this sooner, but prolonged adolescence pooh-poohs such mundane expenditures.

During our medical interviews, we were asked detailed questions about drug use, alcohol consumption, smoking, history of physical and mental illnesses and family health issues. Not a single question was asked about what we ate or the extent of our physical activity. Oddly, I was grilled about my weight loss, and not in a good way. My change in diet and exercise was not viewed positively, but as a cause for concern for their actuaries. Apparently, they must think I have a non-diagnosed pre-existing condition. Maybe cancer or a parasite.

Lesson in reality learned: A healthy change doesn't always earn you a gold star.

So Now What?

Looks like I'm over the mini-pregnancy hump.

I finished the last of the antibiotics and the 800 mg-of-motrin-every-6-hours regimen that was wreaking havoc on my stomach and bowels. My gut cramped when it was empty, and cramped up again when I did eat something. The pre-natal vitamins with the "magical" iron side effects are out of my system.

Prolonged bathroom episodes and other unmentionable symptoms of a uterus turning itself inside out and violently puking are, for the most part, gone. Par-tay!

Any resemblance between me and Ozzy are purely coincidental.

So what now?

Well, there's no point in spilling my emotional guts any longer here, is there? Nope. So, no more sobby blogging about what was and what coulda been and what was lost.* The best therapy?

EXERCISE.

A return to the old workout routine this week has proven to be quite therapeutic, albeit a little painful. On early Monday morning, I popped in Jillian's Fat Blast/Boost Metabolism DVD. This was the first time I did this 40-min. workout since January. And, whoa. My legs, abs and shoulders were screaming the next morning. Fuck the pain. The following day? Back to Level I of the 30 Day Shred! Apparently, riding the recumbent bike and doing moderate resistance band training while pregnant really didn't maintain certain muscles, which atrophied during that brief Jillian hiatus. Who knew?

While temporarily painful, this return to high-endurance workouts was the single best, kindest thing I've done for myself lately. To sweat again, grunt, curse, breathe and just feel alive really made a difference in my mindset. This is a comfort that I could never find from junk food, sweets, alcohol or afternoon TV. With three + years of constant physical fitness and healthy eatin' in my routine, the good habits have become so ingrained that my brain is wired now to take pleasure from them. This gives me hope as I go into middle-age. I'm in a place where being physically active is its own drug. It's what my body craves and needs, and I can ably provide. I am past the point of no return.

And that's that.

Back to the Wednesday Weigh-Ins and all that crap next week.

In the meantime, I've been noshing on some excellent cauliflower salad and lentil salad from our local health food market, Nature's Bin. Definitely my go-to snacks for this weekend! Sadly, they did not have their infamous broccoli slaw. *sniff*



*Ok. A few things before I let this whole pregnancy miscarriage thing go.

Thank you, thank you for the thoughtful comments. The last post was a hard one to write. I felt that I needed to address what had happened before I could move on to normal blogging. I struggled with whether I should disable comments because of the frank and, well, personal nature of what I was thinking and going through. I'm glad I didn't.

I'm not looking to start an abortion debate, but I have to get this off of my chest:

Being faced with an unplanned pregnancy was a new experience that I often thought about, but was never fully prepared for. Before, I was a staunch Pro-Choice supporter. And I still am, even more so.

This was a tough, extreme experience that many readers have gone through already. It is one thing to advocate terminating a pregnancy. It is quite another to have to deal with it first-hand. It is the most difficult crossroad I ever had to deal with. I respect what every woman and couple have gone through. This is not a casual decision. I can't imagine what it's like for a pregnant woman who, for instance, isn't in a solid relationship with a committed partner or who is pregnant as a result of abuse or incest. Therefore, I really cannot judge the decision of another woman in that position. It is a serious matter left for her alone to decide. She is dealing with complex issues, so being told what she decides may be morally "wrong" is cruel and pointless. She is going through enough already. Let her be.

It is not a matter of being pro-life or not. Frankly, what I had in me was not a "life" per se. It was a potential for life. What I learned from my doctor is that many pregnancies--as much as 50%--end in miscarriage. And in my case, that potential for life fizzled. It was not viable. Having to carry the bad pregnancy and wait for the miscarriage to "just happen " was more emotionally, physically and financially dreadful than just terminating it early, to wit:

1. Early term abortion. Less than $500. Minimal medical intervention and physical trauma. Greater psychological closure. Done and done.

2. Carrying a non-viable pregnancy for another 6 weeks. Five ultrasounds, doctor's visits (where doctor keeps encouraging us to hold on and keep going, despite bad ultrasound results and non-existent hormone blood work that I was still charged for) and lab costs are over $3,800.00. The emergency hospital treatment for the miscarriage alone is totaling $3,200.00 so far, and that was just for one evening. Medication and vitamins, about $150.00. Preliminary monetary total, about $7,150.00 for medical costs. Emotionally, an extreme rollercoaster where we accept, reject and accept again the pregnancy, and then are informed it ain't happening--something we had suspected from the beginning.

Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Blogging About Losing Weight

So what got me in a tizzy last month?

No, I didn't burn my law degree in a client-induced rage. My office partner didn't drive me to the brink. Yet. Married life is not in turmoil.

Rather, I managed to become pregnant.

We found out the last week of January, when that damn EPT stick wouldn't erase the "+" despite my repeated attempts to shake it like an Etch A Sketch. I have never been pregnant before; we never planned on having kids. In our 23 years together, we successfully dodged the baby bullet while enjoying the child-free life. We are almost 40. So, my initial reaction was to remove the parasite post haste.

There are little--if any--logical reasons to have a child in this post-industrial age. I don't need kids to help with family production. If I assigned a client's case to a 7 year-old, I'm fairly certain I'd lose my law license. Being the logical person that I am, it didn't make real sense to have a kid. The negatives certainly far outweighed the benefits.

But my perspective gradually changed over the next few weeks since this dropped (literally) in my lap. I wasn't prepared for the emotional trojan horse. Nor was Bob. Despite every logical reason against having a baby, we just couldn't bring ourselves to end it. Being faced with a pregnancy is stressful and emotional no matter which decision you make. Ending the pregnancy is stressful, but carries with it a powerful feeling of grim sadness. Keeping the baby is also pretty stressful, but the primary feeling with this option is one of hope. And hope won.

So, we accepted, and then embraced, the reality of becoming new parents just as Bob is turning 40 and I am turning 39. My head exploded at the thought that we would be almost 60 when the kid reached adulthood. We made baby plans. I took the prenatal vitamins and increased my intake of fruits, veggies and tons of yogurt and cheese. The idea of lactating kept me up at night.

I thought about what direction to go in terms of blogging. Do I start a new baby blog? Do I chronicle how I try to stay healthy while pregnant? I couldn't decide.

In the meantime, there were doctor visits. And ultra sounds. And more doctor visits. And more ultra sounds. And that's when the roller coaster really took us for a ride.

At 7 weeks pregnant, the ultrasound showed fetal development at 5 weeks. At 9 weeks, the ultrasound showed growth at only 6 weeks. There was a baby nugget (fetal pole, etc.), but no heartbeat.

This past weekend, I miscarried. It was emotionally wrenching, physically painful and just plain sickening.

Looking back, intuitively, I knew that this pregnancy wasn't going to be viable. I did not "feel" pregnant. No morning sickness. No hormone-induced mood changes. No changes in appetite. In the last week leading up to the miscarriage, I inexplicably lost almost 5 pounds since my last doctor's weigh-in 10 days before. Does that mean it was "meant to be?" No. Just bad chemistry. A series of random acts and events that happened to go down a pretty shitty path.

We're doing much better today, and will be even better tomorrow and the day after. That's the beauty of time and recovery...they work well together. It's sad to lose that potential of life, our shot at throwing our joint good looks, intelligence and cockiness into the collective gene pool. We'll try again--something I never thought we'd do. We may be successful, but if not, there are other ways to channel this new "potential" that has opened our eyes over the last couple of months. Maybe adopt or foster. More likely volunteer. Most likely hoard animals.

Eventually, I will get back to blogging again about health and fitness and all that. I'm thinking next week or the week after. And pray that I don't taint this blog with future details of our baby making. Or knitting puppy booties.