I've dropped another 2 pounds. All feels good. We're just transitioned into the waxing moon cycle, so it's time to hit the exercise a little harder, and keep the food intake moderate-to-high, but healthful.

Reality Check: I've had a glance at my bar tab of late, and hoo-whee, Houston we have a problem. I'm drinking at levels that are surprising even to me. It's time to slow down not because I think I have a problem, but because it's just an amount that surprises me. I'm off the booze until next weekend. Whenever I first get back into regular exercise, I tend to drop between 4-8 pounds in the first week alone. Basically shedding my immediately excess water weight. But not this time. I'm pretty sure my hooch consumption is the reason. Next check in in 2 weeks. I'll know for sure then if it's the culprit.

I've been weight training this month, and came off of counting points via weight watchers. The result? I'm up 2 pounds this month, but my body feels great. Not only have I increase my exercise, but Duane and I have been eating very heathfully. Every time in the past I've started back into weight training, there's a period where I put on a pound or two or even three, most likely due to water retention in the muscles. I've not been counting points, and I've noticed I'm eating more than I did while counting, but the foods have been healthier.

Summation: the extra pounds could be from weight training, or that I'm eating a little too much. Either way, I can still modify the workouts to incorporate more cardio, and reduce the quantities I eat. Let's see what happens by the New Moon in roughly 2 weeks, and more importantly, what happens at the next Full.

A weekend of dynamics. Ups and downs. Forehead slapping moments. Screaming at the top of my lungs. Quiet, contemplative peace. And immense, soul-warming joy.

Forgive the staccato entry style, I just want to get these points across, and can fill in the blanks if you wish to read on...

—I'm no longer going to count points via weight watchers. I'm a truly happier person now.
—Tidepooling at Pillar Point in the cool air and warm sun, watching the Maverick waves roll in. A nirvana only 15 minutes from home. Breathtaking.
—Kelly = Sybil

—Counting points has worked for me over the last near year. I lost some weight over all, and learned vast amounts about food quality and portioning. My problem has been that if I exercise, or drink, I find it incredibly difficult to stay within the point range dictated by the plan for my body weight. Exercise makes me crave more food, and the points allocated by the program to compensate for my level of exercise usually isn't enough for me. Alcohol makes me not care about counting points. So. I'm not giving up exercising the way I want to exercise, which is somewhat intensely, and I'm not giving up alcohol. A third reason is the psychological one. By counting points, I've learned to dread thinking about, or preparing, food. An honest evaluation of how it's affected me was illustrated numerous times last week when I found myself standing outside of, and staring into, my kitchen. My stomach growling, my Palm Pilot in hand, and a depressing mood hitting me like a lead weight. I was hungry, I suddenly didn't want to eat, and I was mad about it. I realized I no longer wanted to cook, and eating was a calculated chore. There was no joy.

I realize the plan could be adapted to work for me, but the truth of the matter is - I don't want to do it any more. The psychological impasse I've hit is huge for me. If I think about the point-value of the food I'm eating, I lose my appetite, and I get depressed. Which starts an old cycle of being hungry...

I ran an experiment from Thursday through Sunday last. I stopped counting points, but continued using what I've learned of portion sizes, and healthul eating. I made good choices, didn't overeat, drank moderately, exercised twice in four days, slept like a baby, and found joy looking at my kitchen as a place of fun and nourishment rather than a place to dread, or a source of guilt.

My hurdle getting into better physical condition in the past has been not combining regular exercise with healthful, portion-mindful eating. I've done one, and not the other, and the effects were ok, but not long-lived. I know my body well enough that it won't respond unless I do both, and keep doing both.

I'm going to eat well, and exercise often. If I drink, or eat, unhealthfully, I will compensate by eating well afterwards, reducing my alcohol, and increasing my exercise for a short time afterwards. It's all about finding, and maintaining, balance. That's what the Candle Flame said to me.

Saturday I went to the gym with my new iPod Shuffle. An experience much like liberation, freed from the ubiquitous hip hop top 40 crap at any gym. I worked out thoroughly, but not overmuch. I found myself happy to be there - remembering what it can be like to enjoy working out again. THEN! I found a new stationary bike system! Nothing like those new-fangled digital TV-monitored devices, but a simple upright bike system with toe clips, and adjustable difficulty levels (no displays, no buttons!) with a REAL bike seat shaped just like my own, and a front fork system that TILTS when you do. For all of the lack of wind, the outdoors, and forward progress in general, this was the closest I've yet come to enjoying a bike ride indoors. I can deal with it - happily! I was so energized after 30 minutes on that puppy, I actually got up and jogged for about 5. Then I remembered to take it easy. Hoo boy. Workout highs. Forgot about those.

—Pillar point. We had lunch on Sunday at Princeton Seafood Company on Princeton Pier #9 in Half Moon Bay. We stood outside in the sun waiting for their doors to open, watching the locals, feasting on the beautiful day. Soon, Duane rolled in his fish n chips like a happy puppy, and I thoroughly enjoyed garlic prawns over pasta. I was like an amoeba moulding itself around it's prey, absorbing. We then wandered further into the depths of the neighborhoods north of the pier and found ourselves at the parking lot of the Pillar Point Estuary. We parked and climbed a steep grassy hill to find a breathtaking view of Ocean. Surf. Rocks. The ground was littered with just-blooming ice plant and wild strawberry. The wind was cool, the sun was warm. We could see where the world-famous Maverick surfing championships take place, and thought carefully near the homemade altars built for those who'd died pitting themselves against those elements. It felt so good to be outside, in nature, in the sun, near the ocean. I felt like I was alive in that warm/cold environment. Very conscious of how close I was to home, and suddenly very happy with all that I have in life.

—My parrot is Sybil. Kelly has reached unforeseen levels of cockiness. She's taken to simply biting what she pleases and actually, I'm serious here, laughing at me when I yell at her. Examples: chewing on clothing, and me. My right hand is a history of beak encounters over the last 3 weeks. Duane won't go near her now. Probably a safe idea for the short-term. This is not uncommon for her during her late Winter/early Spring PMSing, but the penultimate examples....? She bites you, while she's sitting on your hand, and when you yell and drop her and go for a towel or bandage to stop the bleeding, she sits wherever she's landed and sings, calls, makes all of her happy noises. For those of you who've seen me angry, you can imagine the look on my face, and the heat of my blood while she does this. Bite me? Bleed me? And ENJOY it? Caged for a few hours, her tune changes, but she's still unpredictable. Two days pass, she's meek and cute and very passive. She's quiet and mutters and her eyes are calm, her feathers are fluffed and she's showing every physical cue of being "happy mellow bird". I fall for it - hard. She's now on my shoulder while I'm sitting on the couch. No loud noises, no sudden movements. Nothing out of the ordinary. For an hour. Then my peaceful reverie is cut short with a sudden laceration of the ear. I'm suddenly at my feet, what was on my lap on the floor, the bird is airborn, flying towards her cage, she's laughing and making her loud happy noises, and I'm feeling blood trickle down my earlobe. Vesuvius. It was quiet at first, a low rumbling if you will. I doctored myself, checked my clothes for blood stains - none. It wasn't a deep bite, but it bled well at first. I came out of the bathroom and she sat atop her cage clucking at me and doing her moon dance across her cage. Pyroclastic flow. It was all I could do to NOT throttle her. She found herself in her cage very quickly, her feathers very ruffled, looking like she'd seen the very Devil tearing through my skull to reach his bloody, poisonous talons at her soul from where my eyes had just been. She was been very very docile the last 2 days. She watches me carefully, responds quickly when I request something of her, and quiets down hard and fast when I tell her to. This is not the kind of relationship I want with her, and I was distraught. I posted to a bird group online for help, and the responses that came back were numerous, informative, and immensely helpful. Two were from local breeders of amazons who said "clip her wings". They'd had amazons their whole lives and were guilty themselves of letting their birds' wings grow out. Mix that with Spring hormones and you get Cocky Bitch Bird From Hell. My forhead-slapping moment of the month. No shit, Sherlock. Clip the bird's wings. It reportedly worked like magic for the professionals, and of course, always worked for Kelly and I in the past. Sigh...Wish I could remember these things before I needed bandaging. So, this Friday, Kelly's getting probed, prodded, groomed, and grounded by her new Vet. Enough said. Pass the antibiotics and the cattle prod. Yee haw.

PS: please don't tell me to *not* put the bird on my shoulder? it's been said, and said to me again - and it's not going to change - a Familiar you never bond with is not a proper Familiar

It's 3:30 in the morning. Are you sleeping? Wish I was.

The insomnia is my fault. I drank too much this evening, then ate too much, now the metabolism is firing away, and the gastrointestinal system is cranky. So rather than struggle with my body temperature and fidgeting in bed, keeping Duane awake, here I am.

Going back to my "realizations" posting 4 days ago, I realize I have an issue with staying on plan. That issue is alcohol. I had a glass of wine this evening, then had a cocktail, and the expected result was a good buzz. Then a 2nd cocktail, then a 3rd, and then judgement went, and then a healthy dinner was followed by chocolate, and then a hard crash followed by 2 hours of sleep. Then I lay awake in bed with an unsettled stomach, and a body temperature doing the yoyo, and my head starting in on the "why did you do that" which further kept me awake as the self-degradation started. I decided to get up and write this out rather than maintain that viscous cycle.

I think I need to stop drinking. After one drink, I want another, and then a 3rd, and well - you read what happened above. I drank pretty hard over the holidays, and reducing seems harder at this point than just not drinking at all.

I'm going to try abstinence for a little while. I'm not going to declare for how long because ultimately I'm not sure how long it will take for me to feel normal again. I just have a need to detox. I'm given to extremes, so I know this kind of backlash is a pattern of mine, but I'm very consciously aware of how much I've been drinking since the holidays, and frankly it's a little alarming.

So, in light of my new nutritional and fitness goals, and my intense desire to reach my goal weight by June, I'm going to detox, not drink for a while, get plenty of exercise, eat right, and finally get a normal sleeping pattern back.

Please do excuse the crappy writing - it is, after all, freakin late.

Two days in, doing well. I've started a thing or two on my uberlist, and I've been eating on plan for 2 days. It's funny how after drinking daily for nearly a month (*ahem* to near or complete excess) it takes a day or two for your body to remember how to sleep normally. It remembered hard last night. Ah, bed. How I miss thee.

And the weirdest, creepiest black van on record was spied on 280 this AM with "Snail Jail" on the side. And of course, I looked it up. Did you know you can catch slugs with beer?

I'm very excited about this new year. In part because I've actually planned for it by carefully considering how I'd like to affect change in my own world. I'm confident I can make myself even happier with just a little effort and get some much-needed life-long tasks accomplished, and throw in a few ingredients of goodness to make the trip that much more fun.

I've built an uberlist for 2005. It's below. I'll be keeping track of it during the year, and if you like, you can, too. I'll be keeping it updated and you can watch what I've accomplished, or added, or modified, as time goes on.

body
1. starting weight of 248.6 stays your new maximum weight
2. weigh 220 or less, or fit into any 36" pants, by June 4th
3. weigh yourself every full moon
4. private.
5. when 220, find a General Practitioner and get a physical
6. choose the gym over a video game more often than not
7. choose the gym over alcohol as a stress reliever more often than not
8. make the gym a happy choice, not a "goal" or "habit"
9. start running
10. get used to reaching that runner's high you remember
11. stretch before and after workouts
12. stay religious about grooming
13. stay religious with your oral hygiene
14. private.
15. private.
16. start a spiritual/physical class of some kind
17. private.
18. weather permitting, ride your bike after work
19. more than once a week
20. morning sun salutations
21. drink less coffee during the day, more green tea

spirit
1. meditate every day, even just a few moments
2. make a moment with a candle, daily
3. find a peace with Dad, end the habitual bitterness
4. read, respond, act upon your causes
5. make a date with yourself. once a month.
6. be nicer to yourself
7. build that garden altar and use it
8. recognize the small stuff, sweat it less

home
1. collect cards so you can get better about sending them to family/friends
2. label iPhoto pictures, scan/import hard copies of all pictures
3. organize iPhoto shots into albums
4. entertain at home once a month
5. be diligent cleaning Kelly's cage
6. buy Kelly a new toy more often
7. take Kelly to the vet every 6 months for wing/nail clips
8. plant something new each month
9. don't feel guilty tossing older plants who've had their time
10. have dinner with Mom once a month
11. make dinner with meriko once or twice a month
12. read the Alton Brown book "I'm Just Here for More Food"
13. make one recipe from each section, paying attention to the METHOD, and why it works
14. return what you borrow in a timely manner
15. stay on top of your finances. all the time. no excuses.
16. buy a house with Duane
17. host the family and play train. at least 3 times.
18. teach Duane to shuck oysters
19. get yourself a nice formal jacket
20. put money away for a dinner at the French Laundry
21. clear Mom's space of your left-behind items

growth
1. cook and bake fearlessly more often
2. take a cooking class
3. take someone with you
4. pick a language CD with Duane, learn it in the car
5. practice it with Duane
6. read more often
7. get your remaining spirit books read already
8. accept more invitations. don't be afraid to go alone.
9. private.

out there
1. go to NY with Duane
2. visit the Getty museum
3. take a trip on a train
4. visit your grandmother
5. visit the kids in Sacramento more often, not just on holidays
6. take Duane camping in Yosemite. he keeps talking about it.
7. go to Alaska. anywhere. any season.
8. visit Duane's mom and sister in Idaho
9. visit Dad in New Mexico
10. go to MOMA
11. don't turn down Symphony tickets
12. buy your own
13. picnic with Duane at the Sutro baths
14. visit the wave organ in SF's sutro baths
15. go to Angel Island
16. take your bike
17. travel outside the US

create
1. create 14 healthy, point-oriented meals and put them in Recipe Manager
2. start a portrait
3. start a comic strip
4. buy a favorite drawing pen and sketch
5. about once a week
6. make something from the French Laundry cookbook
7. make a paté
8. make a cake and decorate it, fancy
9. make ravioli from scratch
10. make cream puffs, or eclairs
11. start a reading journal, stay with it
12. post to gastronome more often
13. blog more often
14. make a signature cocktail with my homemade raspberry vodka
15. experiment with heirloom tomato recipes this summer
16. make jam/preserves this summer

minutia for happiness
1. get yourself a cool rain hat
2. find a digital camera you like and start taking pictures religiously
3. go to the Farmer's Market in SF more often
4. give baked goods for gifts
5. learn to make bath bombs
6. teach Duane
7. send thank you notes
8. make time and plan for birthday gifts
9. send little somethings to June and Quinn now and then
10. buy yourself some nice shoes
11. take care of them religiously
12. buy a new piece of clothing every month
13. have an oyster fest
14. cable car to irish coffees at the Buena Vista, where they invented them
15. buy new dishes
16. scan your uberlist
17. repeat

I've been on plan for ~3.5 weeks, my first monthly weigh in is this week.
The first 3 weeks were without exercise due to the foot, and I went to the gym 3 times in the last week (2 times lifting weight, 2 times with cardio). Going to the foot doctor again this morning, so exercise of the cardio kind is out for another week, but will be doing some yoga to keep some muscle strenth active.

Feeling really good about the food thing, not so thrilled about being in pain again.

On plan now for 2 weeks. Feeling good about it! It's been surprisingly easy.

Nutrtional objectives:
--stay the course
--save money, bring food to work

Exercise objectives:
--foot is virtually pain free, it's colder out so it's time for some bundled Fall bike rides
--visit the gym Tues/Thurs this week

Spiritual objectves:
--continue reading A Dweller On Two Planets, Phylos' introduction is next

Nutrional objectives:
--I've been on plan for a full week. Feel really good about it, too.
--Have been preparing healthy recipes, but nothing that new. Eating healthy is exciting enough for me at this point, but the experimentation urge has been dampened by the foot and cold.
--Didn't take work to lunch last week, must do that some this week.

Exercise objectives:
--Foot became less painful, enough to exercise, by mid-week...and then I promptly caught a cold. Hit me hard and fast. Finally feel better as of today, but going back to the podiatrist this AM to see if this process is going to start over again or not. Due to the foot/cold, no exercise that got my heart rate up, but some stretching here and there has help keep my loosened up.

Spiritual objectives:
--I really really need to focus on these. The energy in the house these days is so potent and nourishing. What Duane and I did here really is amazing.
--Listen more often.
--Rediscover the candle flame.
--Start "Ramtha" or "Dwelling On Two Planets"

I'm shrugging off this sense of failure. The Universe is about beginnings, not endings. The loss of 4 months of data is unfortunate and inconvenient, but it's not a show-stopper. I've narrowed down what my strengths and weaknesses are. I feel better prepared. I'm now going to dig in and get serious about putting my health and peace-of-mind first. I expect hiccups, and I expect Life to happen, but I'm done bemoaning what I deem failures that are just a result of being half-assed. Half-assed isn't a failure, it's just a lack of strong committment. I've made progress, I'll take that success, it's time for more. That said, let's push on shall we?

It's August 27th, 2004, and I'm off...

So it's been a week. Not much sleep, a lot of work. The lack of sleep contributed to the lack of exercise for the last week or so. And the nagging sore throat didn't motivate me to push what little activity I did get. I've been eating within points for nearly a month now. Rejoicing about that. I look at the mirror and see some changes, and more importantly, feel them, too. I know it would all be happening faster if I exercised, but I feel I'm making smart decisions by not pushing it when my body is showing progress and getting sick now would only hinder me. Vacationing next week. A kitchen away from home - it'll be like camping.

So we come to the beginning of a new month, after witnessing the rising of a phenomenal Blue Moon, the last we'll see until mid-2007. I have to admit I've felt this moon differently than I've felt moons in the past. I've been struggling to stay on plan for the last week, or more accurately, struggling to keep track of my points. I've had a couple of concerts which involved some fun drinking and late night food to soak up the alcohol. I was true to counting, but it seems the swelling of the 2nd moon this month helped me suck up a few extra points, too.

By Saturday morning, I'd caught up on my lost sleep, but also developed a "fuck it" attitude. I was happy, content, feeling dozy, the neighborhood was fogged in and everything had this cozy aura about it. I stayed at home, didn't work out, did some chores, played with the bird, and pretty much said to myself I wasn't counting points today, but wasn't going to over eat. I knew that Saturday night was a dinner party/gathering sort of thing and it would involve foods hard to count at best, and desserty and pointy at worst. I drank cocktails, ate some lean meats, sampled some cheese, and ate bites of desserts here and there. I'm sure I soared way over points for the week from both the alcohol and the evening, but even before the party Saturday night, I was already 20 points over. How could it get worse? ;) That's not the source of the "fuck it" attitude, honestly. I just felt like letting go, giving myself a short break. I've lost some weight, but not sure how much, I can see and feel the difference. I treated myself. The week was ended way over points, with little exercise. I've also been fighting off a sore throat, and being overtired from the late night concerts, so exercise seemed too much. That week is over.

The new week ahead of me, in a new month, is beginning. I'm back on plan and ready to move. I have just over 2 weeks until my next weigh-in, and I'm gonna make the most of them. Eat right, count points, bake and feed the masses at work, try some new healthy recipes, workout, bike rides, weight training. And oh yeah....heh....I'm going on vacation from the 9th to the 13th leaving me 4 days from the end of vacation to the weigh-in. And food and wine are on the program....sigh. Ok. Vacation strategies. I have to read up on them. I'll be at the beach. Long walks are the primary source of exercise there, and I can easily do a couple of them a day - around an hour each one. At my current weight, a light walk of 60 minutes is 3.5 activity points. Do that twice a day and I pull in 7-8 activity points a day.

I have 2 evenings of shows this week, so I was trying to focus on doing my drinking this week on those nights. It didn't work. I drank 3 glasses of wine last night. Was also trying to keep towards the low-end of my points yesterday and today (in prep for said shows and alcohol/food points). But the wine upped my points to the max for the day. Worked out Saturday (weights at gym), and Sunday (kick-ass, uphill, 45" bike ride). Didn't feel as sore Monday AM as I did after last weekend - so my body is warming up to the exercise. Still a little too achy to workout Monday after work. Will do something tonight.

Heh - not doing so well keeping to my guns, but not blowing it either.

I've really been off and on with journaling food, and getting regular exercise. A lot's been going on, and some of it's been suprisingly stressful, but I have been learning to pay attention to patterns that make me make bad food/drink choices, or keep me from exercising. I hear these are the first, important steps, so I may not be thrilled with my progress, but I'm confident I'm making some. My first monthly weigh in is on the 17th. Gonna try to be really really good over the next week.

been on plan a full week and managed to fall off once - and get back on!
for those in the know, that was my hardest hurdle, getting back up once I fell off the wagon

yay me!

since taking full, conscious responsibility for my own physical state last week - I've taken a hard look at my motivations from the past, and seen where the holes were - fear of failure, fear of commitment, fear of disappointing others

fear of failure: start stop start stop give up start give up stop

it turns out there's no such thing as faiure - there's just a point when you make the decision that something else is more important than what you've set out to do - the hard part is realizing that you've let something trivial and easy hold more weight that what really matters to you down deep - it's not that pleasant a realization

fear of commitment: commit attempt (enter fear of failure) falter once slide into self-defeating sense of impending failure then failure

it's so easy to commit to some things, and not to others - maybe it's because it's easy to look inwards at some things and other things raise hard questions that make you feel out of control - the hardest thing to do is to wrestle with something that hurts to touch

fear of disappointing others: don't want to be seen as one kind of person would much rather be seen as another don't want people to think I can't commit don't want to be perceived as anything but good

oh screw that - this isn't about anyone but me, good or bad