it's been a while

uh, a while since I've posted.

things have happened. well, my cleanse thing happened. and I guess it's still happening, because I'm slowly reintroducing foods I couldn't have, and so far, so good. Soy, yes. Tomatoes, so far so good. Still to come: corn. oats. dairy? wheat? Not so sure on those last two, because I already KNOW that wheat and I don't get along. These few weeks without it only confirm that. As for dairy, I love dairy. LOVE it. But I have a very strong (spidey) sense that it, like THE MAN, also keeps me down. So I'm gonna stay away a while longer.

Today, we did this BBQ for the campus community. Basically, 5,000 people (or so) showed up. There were Natural Angus Beef burgers, Garden Burgers, Salad w/Ranch dressing, pretzels, Tim's Cascade Potato Chips, Chocolate chip cookies. Oh, and don't forget the buns, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes for those burgers. Oh, and Passover Matzoh bread, which is one of my favorite things ever.

It was a lot of food, and kind of a bind for me. The Vegan Gardenburgers have wheat in them. In the past, I would have simply grabbed a beef burger patty, and made do, but I didn't, because I'm taking a break from eating meat. I might have considered the chips junk food, but I needed me some calories, so I ate some. And then I got creative and had some salad, sans ranch, with mustard and relish. And then I came to my senses and went to a nearby cafe and ordered steamed rice, to go. And yes, I ate that way too fast, but I needed some fuel. See, I'd been moving (stuff, including me) for 6 straight hours. My gas tank was empty. And there were clearly a few more hours to go.

I guess I'm thinking about how the cleanse and having a dietary agenda helped me steer through a rough day. A month ago I'd likely have fueled myself on cookies and a burger and anything that happened my way. There'd have been a lot of coffee and black tea. Today felt different, and the most amazing thing happened when I got home. I took off my clothes and they really didn't reek. I guess that's the reward that keeps me on this path I'm exploring.

I am so frickin' elated to not be a stinker.

amazing what a little bike can do

(this is a picture of S.'s bestest pal, Dan, who is a Biology PhD at UW in Seattle...he and his student assistant came through Denver Friday on his way to Aiken, S.C. Dan is in the process of driving 2000 seedlings across the country as part of his dissertation research. It's a huge undertaking--here you can see Dan spot watering before they hit the road again Saturday morning. That's me looking very sleepy in the foreground. And that's the back of my head at the end of this post...)

Yesterday I took a two hour bike ride with my neighbor, Tim, and his son, Alex. We wound our way downtown, which was (as we suspected) pretty empty, stopped by the Millennial Bridge, then made our way to the river, where we parked our bikes and let Alex watch the kayakers run a rapid chute in the South Platte. People were out yesterday, enjoying the clear blue skies and warm sun--Alex stripped off his shoes and socks and walked on the sandy beach; other kiddos had engineered canals in the sand and the water seeped in, darkening, snaking its way from one end to the other. It was a marvelous day. I felt great. I almost didn't go on the ride but S. encouraged me..."you'll feel better" she said...and of course, she couldn't have been more right. I called Stine right after my ride and I'm sure I sounded all the world like some hopped up lunatic--I was riding endorphins and she was heavy on my mind. It was she, after all, who helped me research my bike. It was she who I called several times from the REI during my test rides. And it is she who continually sticks by me, even if she doesn't see it that way (I do), through many falls and many getting back ups, through my bitching about how "everyone else" (nice globalizing) seems to have the stamina and discipline to win this weight loss battle while I sit by on the sidelines, horking a fatty...ugh...anyway, the fact is that I felt so amazing on that ride, and my bike is FANFUCKINGTASTIC, it rides like a dream, manuevers well over rough city terrain (like brownfields strewn with rock and gravel and pocked asphalt) and the best part is that this morning my ass doesn't feel like it was whacked a thousand times with a mallet. I'm sore, but it's a good sore.

You know when you have those experiences that seem to take you over whatever hump it is that sits between you and what you want to accomplish? Yesterday was one of those. I feel empowered, lifted, grateful that my body responds (still) to physical exertion without giving up. THERE IS HOPE. And that, my friends, is all I needed to catapult me into a better frame of mind.

Buzz rides again!!

Chapter 1(g)

I went to the gym today. I think this is the fourth time I've gone since the end of May, 2007. I did 25 minutes on the elliptical then some work on the exercise ball. I stretched for a looooong time, because my knee has been acting up and I do not want to sustain an injury before I even get back to regular exercise. I weighed myself after I worked out. I am not going to say what the number was because it's too disturbing to write here. I looked at my naked body in a full length mirror after weighing myself. I said, over and over, you're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful.

I am determined to believe this, no matter what the scale says. I have to override years of negative self-talk in order to make this mantra stick. Admittedly, it was hard to be in the gym today, hard to admit that I was starting over again. But I also think that there's a very real possibility that this time will be different. At least 15 lbs. of this weight piled on in the past year, when I was unable to be active and puffing medical marijuana on a regular basis just to control my nausea and dizziness. The sweet green and weight loss do not mix...don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Chemistry shemistry. It's one of the miracles of THC, this bottomless pits that open up in the gut a short time after ingestion, and it's great for people who need to gain/keep weight ON, but not so much for those who want to take weight OFF. Oh DAMN.

So there are all these hurdles that I have to overcome; some are old old old, cracked in places, a little wobbly and in need of paint. Others are new, red-striped, and they look shiny and welcoming from far away. They seem to say "It's not a problem to leap over this! Really!" I know better. Losing weight is a BITCH, people. But I've got a plan. I'm beautiful, and I can do this. I'm beautiful and I can do this. I'm beautiful, and I'm running hard, into the wind, into the sun.