the wheels on the horse go round and round

Sometimes it's hard to know what comes first.  It's that chicken vs. egg thing (which is just silly, really, because the answer is, of course, it depends).  But for me the question is did the poor eating cause me to have diminished energy, which made me feel like I didn't have enough energy to run or exercise in any way? Or does the lack of exercise reduce my energy, mess with my brain chemicals enough to make me feel crappy, which makes me want to eat?

At the end of the day it only really matters inasmuch as if I know what faltered first, maybe I can figure out how to get the wheels back on this horse.  And by wheels I mean exercise.  And by horse I mean my fat ass.  Look, I know that I've not really gained any weight, which is a good thing.  But I feel pretty squishy in the midsection, and I feel like I could see a backslide (slide, not side) from where I'm at right now.  I keep trying to recommit! and get back on track! and Do! Everything! Right!

Or maybe just one thing.  The problem is that I've just not been able to get any of those decisions off the ground.  And it's a vicious cycle (back to chicken vs. egg).  I don't exercise. I feel bad. I eat because I feel bad about myself and hopeless about my commitment. I feel bad. I don't have the energy to exercise because I feel bad and I've eaten poorly.  You can see how this isn't exactly productive.

I could easily blame all this on the trip to Africa.  If only I hadn't stopped exercising for three weeks, this never would have happened.  But I know that I was toast before I left.  I got so burned out on running while training for the half-marathon that I just wanted to finish. So badly.  I really got in the mindset that eventually I would be "done."  And so somewhere in my mind I think the moment I crossed the finish line my motivation stood up, shut the lights off, and locked the door.  And even before that, for months (maybe since March), my eating habits had been pretty much what I wanted, whenever I wanted it.  I was burning it all off with loads of exercise, so my consumption was justified, wasn't it?  And it did work.  I lost about 15-20 pounds from March until August.

But now that I find myself here, at a place that is emotionally and mentally similar to where I was a year ago, and I'm wondering what the hell kind of progress have I made in a year?  What has been the point of all this?  I truly believe in that last 15 pounds I have to lose.  They're real, I can point to them on my person, and I'm not having body dysmorphia about them.  But I also know that there is something really scary about losing all the weight, and being "done."  If I'm done, then what?  How do I deal with it?  How do I maintain "done"?  So maybe some of my self-sabotage stems from that.  Then again it may stem from just being worn out by weight loss.  Maybe I just need a maintenance break.

Which is all fine and good, but none of that means that I get to just stop running or working out.  And if I don't get to stop doing that, then I might as well just keep at it.  That's the bulk of the work anyway, isn't it?

I'm not sure what I'm going to do, which is very hard on me.  I need a goal, a purpose, something that I'm working toward.  I don't have that right now, and a physical goal is apparently very important to my successful weight loss.  So I can't sign up for the Nike Women's Marathon yet (they start the lottery in February, I think).  I need something closer to now to work toward.  It can be anything, I'm open to suggestion.  Just as long as it isn't the 30 Day Shred.  That crap starts to hurt my knees at about Day 13.

Help me!  I'd appreciate a plan, a suggestion, some advice.  I'm all at sea over this.  And the sea is filled with m&m sharks.  And they're circling.  Anyone?  Please?

no. 201

Hey how 'bout that?  Last night's poor me post was my 200th!  How appropriate that I would miss the opportunity to reflect on my last 200 blog entries because I was navel gazing at my own pity party.  But enough of that.

I went with a co-worker tonight to see Anthony Bourdain speak and do a Q&A at the Buell Theater. He was hilarious and had some nice comparisons to make between Sandra Lee and the Undead, but I'll leave you with the tidbit that's swimming around in my brain. Toward the end of the Q&A (and why do those things always have to have a creepy awkward stalkerish tone to them?) someone asked him for advice for their fifteen year-old.  He laughed and started to move on to the next question then turned around and said something like, "You want some advice?  If you say you're going to be somewhere at 8, show up at 5 minutes to 8.  You can either be the kind of person who says he's going to do something and does it, or you can be everyone else."

So I'm lying in bed, it's a half hour past my bedtime already, and I remember I haven't blogged yet today.  Eh, fuck it, I think.  It ain't going to happen.  But then comes that little gravely voice of Anthony Bourdain cursing like a sailor in my head and asking me what kind of person I am.  I said I was going to do NaBloPoMo, and I'm doing it.  So that's my bit of wisdom for today.  I'm trying to parlay that into some sort of sage dieting/weight loss wisdom, without actually having to go into detail or flesh any of that out this evening.  How am I doing?

Stick your bookmark right here. We'll come back to this tomorrow.

the Charlie Brown Effect

You know how some weeks you can just sail through, executing perfect pirouettes and smiling like a beauty queen?  Weeks where everything works the way you'd like it to, and each small success you achieve gets wrapped in a pretty ribbon and thrown on the Yay Me! pile?

Yeah, this isn't one of those.  I'm struggling this week, just to get through every day with some shred of sanity.  I have a Charlie Brown raincloud over my head and I just can't seem to shake it.  And yeah, I am aware it is only Tuesday night.

All I can say is I'm working on it.  And now that I've eaten the rest of the chocolate cake left over from this weekend, maybe working on it will get a bit easier.  It just wouldn't stop tempting me.  Now maybe we'll all get some sleep around here.  That chocolate cake was like the telltale heart, I'm telling you!

I will leave you with a lovely image of the baklava I made tonight, which is one thing that I can wrap a pretty ribbon around and check off my list.  I'll take what I can get.  This is not for me (see above re: chocolate cake--I've learned my lesson on that), but the fulfillment of an order for a co-worker.  I can't let you smell it or taste it, but it looks pretty good, right?

file this under: Oh Really?

So I'm into making my own granola bars lately.  That's kind of another story but since it has bearing on this I'll just say that they taste better if they're freshly made and I get to put in what I want, and leave out all the crap and especially all the raisins (again, crap) that are often in commercial granola bars.

So I'm looking for ingredients for my granola last night, and I have some dried blueberries, but not enough, but I think I have some down in our Millennium Rapture Food Stores (otherwise known as offsite storage) in our basement.  I end up having two different containers of them, and some feel softer, and therefore I assume newer, so I rip into the bag.  But they look, well, beat up.  Which doesn't make much sense for dried fruit, particularly when none of the other dried blueberries look bad.

I show them to Mr. Bump, who reviews the package and its contents and comes up with this

The blueberries must look nasty because they are "bursting with natural flavor" and must have just overflowed..."just like Mother Nature intended!"  Um, ok?

Then he turns the package over, just to see exactly what Mother Nature did, in fact, intend.  Mostly by checking the ingredients:

Apparently Mother Nature intends for the blueberries to include HFCS, Corn Syrup, and Sucrose.  Because Mother Nature intends for your dried fruit to be dried fruit plus some other added sweeteners, including some that are processed (and repeat after me kids) "Just Like Mother Nature Intended!"

Goodnight, and good luck with your dried fruit!  I'll hit you with that granola recipe later.

it's a new day, a new week, a new closet

The subject of this photo, both in the garbage bag and the pile, represents a much-needed purge of the coat closet.  I'm going to donate all of this to Coats for Colorado, and I've been meaning to get to this project for a while, but I finally got to it this afternoon.  In my defense, I will say that not a single one of these coats fit me now, and almost all of them did a year ago.  And most of them were fairly inexpensive models from the likes of Target.  But I have purchased a Very Expensive, Very Nice coat, which is winging its way from England. With my North Face coat system that made the cut from the above culling, I think my coat needs are satisfied.  It feels good to know I can buy a Very Nice coat and that it will fit me a year from now and beyond.  Y'all know I'm hoping planning on losing some more weight, but I plan for that junk to come out of my trunk, not through my shoulders.  I trust that the Very Nice coat will fit me, come hell or high water.

I also bagged up a bag full of clothes that no longer fit, and I probably have another bag or two to go.  It's hard to let go of things, for some reason.  Partly because it feels like a waste, that I haven't worn them enough (or in some cases at all).  Partly because it's a sort of security blanket.  I don't plan on ever having to wear that stuff again.  In fact, I plan on never having to wear it again.  But I still struggle with getting rid of things.  I've probably purged a good 12-15 big black garbage bags full of clothes.  Now I know that that's way too many clothes, and I should just have a small wardrobe of really nice pieces, and all that crap.  But I loathe laundry.  So having to wash my 8-10 items of clothing every week ain't gonna happen.  Plus, I have a varied closet personality.  Sometimes I'm neutrals, sometimes I'm hot pink.

I've been working on a system where I put the clean clothes in the front of the closet, and as things seem to stagnate at the back, I just purge them out every month or two.  But there are sometimes when it would be nice to have a line judge sitting in the corner of my bedroom.  When I pull out that favorite cardigan that just happens to be too big for me now, s/he could yell "Fault!"  An impartial observer of my closet would be a good thing.  Let me know if you know anyone looking for that kind of work.  Someone I wouldn't be creeped out by if they just sat in the corner of my bedroom every morning and armchair quarterbacked my daily morning ritual of pulling things out, trying them on, and tossing them on the reject pile on my bed.  Also if s/he could go ahead and hang all those rejects back up after I head to work, that would be great too.  The pay might be lousy, but the baked good benefits are outstanding.  Also, we have a surfeit of warm cuddly dog which would be available for use.

ANYway, I'm proud of myself for finally amassing Coat Mountain.  Now I just need to figure out some way to get all the coats to a Dependable Cleaners.  Hrm.  Mr. Bump suggested if I start with the smallest one first and work outward, maybe I could wear them in to work, and then peel them off at the cleaners across the street.  His genius knows now bounds.

I'll let you know when Very Expensive Very Nice coat arrives.  Until then I'm really glad the snow has stopped and it's supposed to be warm and clear this week.  Onward!  No looking back!  Goodbye Coat Mountain!

freaky friday

**Because I'm going to be in the snowy Rocky Mountains this weekend, cuddled up with a good book and a couple of dogs with my parents and mother-in-law, I'm posting this from the past (woooo).  But I'm still going to call it for Freaky Friday and cross my fingers that nothing noteworthy happens between now and when this posts tomorrow. I mean today.  Whatever. This post will be riddled with verb tense problems.  Just go with it.

Friday the 13th everyone!  I hope yours was a good one.  It's one of my favorites really.  Thirteen is my lucky number.  I met Mr. Bump on March 13, 1999.  We got married on October 13, 2001.  Even after being together for 10.5 years, we're still actually ridiculous enough to celebrate our monthiversary on the months we remember what day it is.  (Yeah, I know, we're disgusting.  Just throw up in your mouth a little bit and move on.)

Nothing really weird happened yesterday except a smallish work computer weirdness which I have attributed to the day just because.  But as a day I enjoy it.  Since we headed up to the Bumpalot together last night, I am sure my father took the opportunity some time today to share his story about my 6th grade science fair project about superstition (lame-ish, I know, but it was on a list of topics and much more interesting than the previous year's Mt. St. Helen's debacle or the year before that's sponge lung project) and the way in which he used the opportunity to mess with my head.  I can't really convey the hilarity he attributes to the story (mostly because I don't find it so much funny at this point) so I'll skip it here.  Let's just say it involved a black cat, a ladder, and a sharp u-turn.  See, even the cryptic details are boring. 

Anyway, Thursday was my father's birthday, so he and my mother came up with us this weekend to celebrate with a little trip to Bumpalot.  I'll have to set aside some books for him because he's a pretty voracious reader when there is no way to watch sports.  He'll read anything.  Last time we were up there he picked up a book of Wodehouse stories.  If you know my father you know he's just about as far from a British comedy of manners kind of guy as exists in the spectrum. He's turning 75 this year, I believe, which is crazy.  I can't believe it's even remotely possibly he's that old.  In part, because he doesn't act his age.  He still works construction, often out of doors, in both the broiling of summer and the freezing wet windy winter.  He's as butch as butch gets, my dad.

I just went in search of a prior post about him, but I haven't tagged most of them so I couldn't find it.  Look through the archives.  It's probably somewhere in 2006.  I also went in search of a picture of my dad, but apparently those are all trapped away on my laptop, which I am not near.  Oh, wait, here he is hiding behind my mother last Easter!  Joy!  Here is my family.  My dad is the Santa in the back.

Happy birthday, Dad!  Incidentally, doesn't my mama look so cute in her pink suit?  She's so smoochable.

Anyway, yesterday is almost over so I need to skedaddle.  Hope you are having a lovely weekend!

in other news

So I'm tired.  I've tried to write this post twice only to publish it without any content but a title.  I'm not exactly sure why I'm so tired but I biked last night and then worked out at the gym at work today.  Maybe it's that, maybe it's Friday, maybe it's attempting some calorie restriction.  But I'm glad the work week is over.  I honestly don't know why I'm complaining.  I have had a full work week since the middle September, before we left on our trip. 

I've filled a couple of bakery orders this week too, which went really well, actually.  Weeks like this I think website, I think domain name, I think quitting my job and opening a bakeshop on the corner.  But then I have weeks and weeks where I have no time to try and drum up business, let alone bake.  I'm feeling my way along slowly, coming up with a concept.  What I would love to do is something I haven't seen, but only probably mostly because I haven't done much research.  The idea is "homemade to order," where you tell me what you want or need and I make it.  Whether it's a birthday cake or a batch of cookies for the bake sale or something for a work potluck.  I'm even ok with you taking the credit for it, if you want.  Basically, the idea is that no one has time or energy to bake from scratch anymore, but everyone loves a homemade chocolate chip cookie now and then.  I'm even thinking about a freezer dough kind of thing, where the cookies can be individually pulled out of the freezer and thrown in the oven (or the waffle iron) for a sweet dessert treat that's hot and melty and dee-licious.  Who wouldn't want that? 

My hang-ups are this 40 hour a week government job and the fact that I have absolutely no business acumen to speak of.  But this current pace works for me, orders is dribs and drabs, getting my bearings and my footing just on costs, without worrying about mark-up and delivery and yadda and yadda.  One of my orders this week was baklava, which is something I would never have made on my own in a million years.  But it came out good (fabu, according to the client), which really makes me happy.  I love the challenge of making what you want.  Now I know that this can be less than cost-effective when I have to try each recipe out before I make it for someone, but I think eventually I'll get a repertoire and the whole thing won't be so hard or crazy each time I get an order.  Right now not even my whole feet are wet, just my toes.  And I'm not ready to wade any further into the water at the moment. 

That said, if you live in the Front Range area and would like a batch of baked goods fresh from my oven for the cost of the materials, email me, leave a comment, send up a flare.  If I'm willing to take on baklava, I think I'm willing to give whatever you're craving a try.

ok, i'm just going to say it

Riding the bicycle sucks. It hurts my knees, I don't get much of a cardio workout from it, and my butt really hurts when I'm done. I will concede that much like running, when done out in nature it is much more enjoyable. But then I run the risk of interacting with cars, which terrifies me. Let me give you some examples why:

Once, when I lived in Davis I was trying to go around behind a car on my beach cruiser and the car backed up into my leg. Once Mr. Bump and I were on a ride and I tried to shift while pushing down on a pedal and the rear wheel and all its bits came out the back end in the middle of the street. And then, of course, there is the fact that my husband got hit by a car while riding his bike home from work and broke his face so much they had to screw it back together with plates and screws.

So yeah, I'd like to keep the bike on the stand, if you don't mind. Which brings me back to my point at the beginning--the bike sucks. But I keep hearing all this jabber about trying different forms of exercising, switching it up, burning fat at lower heart rate, etc.

Mr. Bump is always very sweet about making sure I have everything I might need for cycling. In fact, this year on Bike to Work Day I actually joined him and biked to work. He was kind enough to take a more isolated yet slower route which required us to walk our bikes up and over a bridge above the railyard. He doesn't sail out in front of me when we're riding, and he even will run interference with cars by edging further out into the road while he follows behind me.

I've always run alone. It's my thing. Maybe it's a little John Wayne (or probably more aptly Clint Eastwood) of me, but I like it that way. I get inside my head, I listen to my music, and I spend some time thinking about myself, my goals, what I want and how I'm going to get it. I don't have to run at someone else's pace, or stop when they feel like stopping. But when Mr. Bump expressed an interest in going for a run with me, I knew I had to step up to the plate.

So yesterday I had the day off (yay Veterans!) and Mr. Bump took the day off. And among the errands we jotted down as possible ways to pass the day was "go for a run together." I wasn't sure it would happen, but hey, I put it on the list, didn't I? As the day progressed, the weather was perfect--crystal clear and in the 70s, and I really wanted to get a run in for myself, so I transitioned into actually going for a run rather than maybe.

So we went for a run. Mr. Bump wore one of his cycling shirts and a pair of nylon shorts, and some sneakers. They were New Balance shoes, but more than likely not of the running persuasion (I'm not sure, actually, what their purpose is). We set off for my normal short 3 mile run from our house to Berkeley lake, around the lake and back home. I was itching for a bit longer run so he said he would just walk while I ran a second lap around the lake, which was fine with me. I decided we should do intervals, so we started out walking 2 minutes, running 1 minute, the progressed until we flip-flopped those two.

Here's how it went (it's getting late and I'm cutting to the chase (ha!)): Mr. Bump is 6 foot 2 inches tall, and about 110% of that is leg. So he has this incredible impala-like gait. I run more like a warthog (the similarities stop there, please). So he tried running shorter strides, and I tried running faster, and so we had some pace issues. But Mr. Bump has all the lung capacity you could ever wish for, and the cardiovascular system to go with it. So he was comfortable with the walk/run intervals--so much so that he wanted to take that second lap around the lake with me. The truth is that it was hard to run with him. I felt like I couldn't keep up. I was the one who had been running for 10 months now, I was the one who had just finished a half-marathon a month ago, and here he was outpacing me on his first run. (I had my vengance later than night and the next day, when Mr. Bump had to pound the advil.) This was frustrating. This was hard because I enjoyed being with him but I just wanted to breathe in and out and do my own thing. Also because I wanted to be the show-off and I couldn't pull that off if he kept running out in front of me. I never settled down and just focused on me, my breathing, my alignment, etc. I was always thinking about if Mr. Bump was ok, if we were going too fast or not fast enough, etc. I imagine his sentiments on a bike ride with me are similar.

But, it was lovely to have someone to talk to. It was lovely to try and match my husband's stride. It was lovely to return the favor for all the care he's given me on all the bike rides we've taken together. And it was lovely to beat him in the sprint on the last few yards home, even if, as I suspect, he let me win.

wow

Apparently either I have a single person who reads my blog, or I've stumped you all with my impossibly difficult quiz contest. I'm really hoping it's the second one, but I have this sinking feeling...

Fortunately for you, Chris, you got the answer right!

Yes, she was pooping. I'm sure all of you who were thinking that you should post that comment, but then doubted yourself are kicking yourself now. Well, Chris, let me tell you what you've won!

Your very own piece of poop from that very lion!

Actually, it would have been that but customs are so picky about the transport of feces. Instead, I have a genuine giraffe hair bracelet for you!

Don't worry, it's a very manly bracelet.

Thanks for playing "Guess That Ending," Chris! You'll be getting your bracelet in the mail very soon. Whew. All this excitement has got me spent! I'm off to bed. Or, possibly, go lick my wounds over the fact that only (my Best! Friend! Ever!) Chris posted a comment here. Possibly both.

a leetle lion movie and a leetle giveaway

Draw up a cozy chair, pop yourself some popcorn, and do a little armchair traveling with me, back to Mashatu. Join us on our game drive after we've caught up with the lions on one of our last game drives there. I'll set the scene: I'm sitting in the front passenger seat (which is on the left side since all the vehicles are right hand drive). At the beginning of the video that's the hood of the vehicle where the rifle was mounted. I'm not zoomed in on the camera. I am that close. And she is that big. Actually, probably bigger than she looks in this video. And yeah, there was no door on either the driver's or passenger's side in the front. You can kind of see that she's got cubs, but I think that she was weaning those babies--we saw one of them trying to nurse on our last game drive and she just kept getting up and moving away.

I have a special prize if you can guess what mamma lion is doing at the end of this video. Post a comment with your guess. Seriously, I have little something I bought in Africa that I can give away, but I only have one, so if I get a single right answer, that person gets it. If I get more than one right answer, I'll have a random number generator pick one. You have until 10:00 PM Mountain Time tomorrow to post your guess. Really, you'll all guess it, I'm sure.

P.S. Mr. Bump, you are ineligible on account of having been there at the time. Also, if no one guesses I'll be posting my own anonymous right answer and enjoying my own prize. Also dying of humiliation, but that's for another time. So guess! Post a comment! I'm sure you're right.

one step forward...

Obviously there are a couple of ways I can go here, given the fact that I've missed ANOTHER day of NaBloPoMo. I could just say screw it and give up on posting every day. I could not say anything about it, throw up another post or two today, and just pretend like it didn't happen.

This all feels very familiar, somehow. Me, making a commitment. Me, failing to actually meet that commitment. Re-committing. Failing to meet that re-commitment. Failing. Failing. Failing.

Sounds a little bit like trying to lose weight/get fit/get healthy/fill in the blank, doesn't it? Every day starts out well, full of promise and promises. I eat my breakfast (excellent start). I eat my lunch (still ok). The afternoon is where things can go wrong. A snack at work. A snack once I get home. Then maybe I'll go for a run, but just as likely I'll say I'm too tired. Then I'll have dinner, and eat more of it than I should. Then I'll STILL be hungry (really?) and maybe popcorn, or m&ms, or a cupcake. Because at that point the day is already shot to hell, so why not? At the end of the day I go to bed not only with Mr. Bump and Ruby the Wonder Poodle, but also with my failure.

Sleep is restorative, and (almost) every day I pull myself out of bed, get on the scale, and start over. Try to make sure I get a work out in the next day, eat a little better. It's up, and down, and over and over again. There have been weeks, and months even, where all the the days lined up with Right Eating and Right Exercise. What I don't understand is what is the difference? How did I want it more? How did I create--and maintain--that momentum?

I have no idea. But I know it comes and goes for me. I've just got to figure out a way to get my head back in it. Or find a way to just leave it alone, be ok with being 15 pounds overweight. (That's a whole other blog post, by the way. What do you when you're done with weight loss?)

Until I actually lose the weight or become ok with not losing any more weight, I'll be here, getting up every morning. Recommitting to being healthy and losing weight. And blogging about it. I don't know what else to do. What do you when you get stuck?

part 2 - in flight

I'm going to start at the beginning here, and I don't know how long this is going to take to tell, so if you start to nod off just keep checking back until I get to the part that interests you.


We left on a Wednesday morning, the 23rd. Our first leg took us to Minneapolis, but let me back up a bit. The "we" on this trip mostly consists of myself, Mr. Bump, and our friends J&J. They were the instigators of this trip, and we were so grateful for their inviting us on it, and shepherding us through the complicated task of booking everything. It was, to say the least, an ordeal.

There was a good deal of nervousness about a close connection in between our flight to Minneapolis and the flight from there on to Amsterdam. The day before the trip we managed to switch (without fees) to an earlier flight (thanks to our friend J. who was extraordinary in managing all the flights. Really. She rocked it for over a year on all these details). Anyway our intended flight had been late 4 times in the last couple of weeks, which would have meant we would have missed our connection, with no great way to get on from there. So we managed to get on an earlier flight, which meant we had to be at the airport at 7:00-7:30. J&J picked us up at 6:30 so we could park their car and catch the shuttle and get to the airport, etc.


My contribution to the flight was some snacks--I made these and these, which ended up getting us all the way to Johannesburg. The food served on the flights drove me a diet of granola bars and chocolate through much of the next couple of days. I highly recommend bringing enough food to get you through on a couple of long international flights. We had a couple of edible bits of different meals, but not enough that combined would make a single meal.

So we get to Minneapolis, we have lunch at California Pizza Kitchen (this would be the last full meal I would have until we got to Mashatu on Friday around 1:30, basically I lived off all the non-hot portions of the meals and some granola bars for two days). The plane we would have taken later is late, and if we'd been on time taking off to Amsterdam, we would have missed our flight. But we were late taking off--there was a gate change and some other behind the scenes shuffling we weren't privy to. As we board the plane we part ways from J&J, who will travel the remainder of the trip in the luxurious lap of business class.



Aside from being too wired to sleep and relatively miserable with the normal plane discomfort, flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam is uneventful. I watched 3 movies, listened to music, and shift shift shifted in my seat. Mr. Bump slept most of the way on both long flights. He's found some way to almost immediately fall asleep on airplanes that is really annoying because I can't ever sleep much on airplanes. This particular leg of the journey lasts 8 hours and 20 minutes, give or take.

The next flight is pretty much a reeeaaally loooong work day in length (10 hours, 55 minutes) and in theory it would have been a good idea to stay awake through it, but since I've gotten no sleep so far, sleep of any kind seemed like a good idea. I took a Benadryl and managed to get a bit of sleep on this flight. Did I mention it was really long? Mr. Bump and I have different winners for worst plane trip, and I think this one was his pick. He was in the middle seat (the plane was three, three, three across) and I got the window, and I suppose that's part of it. (In case you're wondering, I chose the leg from Johannesburg to Paris, which is another post.) But either way, the seats were tight and uncomfortable, the food was awful (except for the little cup of ice cream--that was good), and it just kept going and going. There was too much cloud cover to see the Sahara, sadly, but our flight took us essentially the route you would take if you drew a straight line down from Amsterdam to Johannesburg. It was pretty much all cloudy, so we didn't see much of anything from the window.

Finally land in Jo-burg, get through customs (new stamp for the passport! yay!) and get accosted by friendly taxi drivers who want to help us get to our hotel. They warn us that the shuttle we're supposed to take doesn't come that often this late (it's about 9:30-10:00pm), but that they can take us to our hotel ("safely!") for 400 Rand. We say no. They say "ok, 300 Rand." We say no and walk on. Some gentleman in blue coveralls walk us over toward the place where we meet the shuttle, and halfway there we realize they aren't just being nice, they expect a tip when they get us to the shuttle pick-up point. Somehow we scrounge up some dollars but then they explain that because they have to exchange them we should give them more because it costs so much to exchange and so they won't get very much for it. We smile and say no, and our hotel shuttle comes and we go. There is a scuffle amongst the blue coveralled and the driver for who is going to lift our bags into the little trailer behind the van, which the driver eventually wins, I think. I don't know if it was because the international flights arrive around then, but there seemed to be a swarm of people not really begging but looking for some way in which they can earn your tip. When we flew domestically the next day, it wasn't nearly the same. We tipped as generously as we could with the rand we had. We got a guideline from the company through which we booked our travel within South Africa, and they said somewhere between 1-5 rand for porters and drivers. I think we tipped mostly 5 or 10 rand in these situations. Honestly I was so tired I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure Mr. Bump will correct me in the comments if I'm wrong.

Our hotel is attached to a casino called Emperor's Palace, but we saw very little of any of it that night. We arrived late and our rooms aren't quite ideal. J&J's room had 2 single beds instead of a king, and ours had a smell in the bathroom (as well as some hairs that weren't ours). But really it didn't matter. We had to get up at 5:30 in order to make a 7:30 flight, so it was of utmost importance to get horizontal as soon as we could. And the bed was really soft and clean and not an airplane seat. And it was horizontal. Did I mention it had been two days since I'd had my head and feet at the same angle to the floor?


So I shower (I think I heard the angels singing), and go to bed. At what feels like approximately one minute later our phone rings for our wake up call. They were kind enough to give us a bag with breakfast to go for each of us, so we had some water, some juice, and a couple of granola bars. There is an apple that wasn't very good and some kind of mayonnaise based sandwich in there as well, but if you know me even a little bit you know that's possibly the last thing I would put in my mouth. So juice box and granola bar it is. Which were both good and fine. On to the airport again (we will become fairly well versed in the Jo-burg airport before this trip is done).



Our flight is through South African Airlink, which interestingly enough, is different from South African Airlines, and after a few false starts we manage to find the correct desk. We have to check our bags for this leg since there really isn't space for it in the cabin, and there is some confusion about our boarding passes, but eventually everything is taken care of on that end. We go through security, who don't seem bothered about water, or 3-1-1 toiletries, or taking your shoes, jacket, watch, etc. off. As as side note, this is what is so interesting about international travel. Every place seems to have some different theory about what's "dangerous." On our way out of Paris they made Mr. Bump take his lenses and camera out of their bag and run them all through separately. In Amsterdam we got off a flight, stayed in the same terminal, but had to go through security again before boarding (and dump our water). This also happened in Atlanta after we went through passport control--we had to go back through security, and if you had bought wine or something in duty free it had to go in your checked luggage. It's so odd and the more I travel the more arbitrary these rules seem to be.



Anyway, where was I? Ah yes. When it is time to board our plane we get on a bus, which takes us out to the tarmac where our plane sits. We attempt to take a picture of the plane but are told we can't do that. (We get one as we get off in Polokwane, since they don't seem to have the same kind of security concerns.) So the plane seats 27, two on one side and one on the other. The flight is bumpy but we have a lovely flight attendant who actually has a teeny little cart and does a beverage AND breakfast service. All the while managing to smile and not spill much of drinks she's pouring as we bounce around. In case you were wondering, the choice for breakfast was a chickenfish sandwich. I can only assume that it was tuna, but as none of was up for it at 7:30 in the morning I only have what my nose told me to go by. I think I'll call it chickenfish from now on.

Our 27 seater takes us to Polokwane International Airport, which has a newly built domestic terminal. However, we have to go through the international terminal, which consists of a small one room building which you walk through while your pilot fills out the paperwork for your flight.
Our pilot is a sweet, apple cheeked young gentleman named Benedict. Our plane is a little single prop Cessna with 6 seats. We will be flying this to Limpopo field, just across the border in Botswana. By the time we pile into the plane it has begun to rain lightly.







But all goes well, and we find ourselves at Limpopo International Airport, really just a dirt strip with a hut on one side. We have to wait for someone to come from the border crossing in order to stamps our passports. As we wait a Land Rover pulls up. This will be our vehicle for the next several days, and driving it is Justice, who will be our tracker. He drives us for about 45 minutes from somewhere that feels like the middle of nowhere to what can only be just over the horizon from the middle of nowhere. But even on this drive (which he is careful to point out is not a game drive, so we won't be stopping for every animal we see and we won't be going off road to follow anything) we see giraffes. We see all kinds of birds. I think we saw some zebras, too. After a long, drizzly (yes, it's still raining) ride, we make it to tent camp. And that's where I'll leave you for the moment. Actually, check out the video from my last blog post, and that'll get you settled in at Mashatu.

back to botswana

Here's a little video of our accommodations in Botswana. The more I reflect on our trip, the more fondly I remember our time at Mashatu. Whether it was the people, who were really lovely, or the fact that it was our first experience on safari, or just the game we saw, it was such a special experience.

nablopomo, take 2

Ok, so I've wiped the slate and today is a new day, new month, new post. I'll admit that recent maudlin post smacked a bit of Poor Poor Pitiful Me Syndrome (or PPPMS), but I'm feeling much better now. I'm going back to the beginning, starting today. I've got a new battery in my pedometer, a food log filled out for today, and I've reset my goals. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, it might seem like a good idea to maintain for the next couple of months, but I'm not going to delay reaching goals based on what the calendar says. Thanksgiving is one day. Christmas is one day. It's easier not to spiral out of control for the whole season if you just do what you've got to do and damn the season. Damn the weather! Damn the darkness! Damn the torpedoes! Er, strike that last one.

I tend to go off in all directions when it comes to goals: this number on the scale, this BMI, this level of exercise, this frequency of exercise, this calorie consumption, elimination of this sweet treat, this processed food, this restaurant. But I'm going to erase most of that from my mental chalkboard (oh, you don't have a tabla rossa? I highly recommend. I picture taking a sleeve and smearing it across the chalkboard--true, it's messy, but it's vehement!). What I'm leaving on the list is a healthy BMI. This actually requires I meet a few of those other things (that healthy BMI doesn't just magically happen because I want it to), but it's best just to keep my head down and push forward on all of those.

Basically it boils down, as we all know, to two things: eat fewer calories, and burn more calories. One pound equals 3500 calories, so in order to lose a pound a week, you need to either cut out 500 calories a day, or burn 500 calories a day, or some combination thereof. Simple, right? Well, sort of. I'm going to let you in on the basics I have learned through the classes I took at Colorado Weigh, which is a fabulous program that I can't recommend enough. Every one of the 100 pounds I lost was a direct result of what I learned there. Unfortunately, they rarely offer classes to the public anymore, and if you're not in Denver these aren't available anyway.

First you need to figure out what your resting metabolic rate, or basal metabolic rate is. This is not exact (the best way to do that is water displacement, but that's kind of thing isn't available to most people, and this is close enough). Go figure it out, I'll wait.

Got it? I'm at 1515 calories per day (jeepers, that seems low!). Ok, so this is the amount of calories you burn if you were to slug it all day in bed, not moving. Basically what your body needs to perform it's vital functions. This number is important, because if you don't eat this, your body thinks "Hey, where's my energy! Uh-oh. I'd better slow things down--I've got to make what I get last!" Obviously this is counterproductive to weight loss. So if I were to just reduce my calories by 500 calories a day, I'd be at 1015 calories a day. This is waaaay too low. My body puts on the brakes (yours will too) if I go below 1200 calories. No one should consume fewer than 1200 calories. Got it?

I'm going to stick with consuming around 1500 calories. This means any energy that I burn, either through incidental exercise or during an actual workout, will be above and beyond what I'm consuming.

So here's where that pedometer (you know, the one you got in a happy meal--I mean healthy meal--one time) comes in. It factors all of the calories you burn through incidental exercise. How much you move during your day just walking around. This counts in that 500 calories I have to burn--woohoo! This is the part that experts talk about when they say park your car further away from the store, take the stairs instead of the elevator, etc. And yeah, it works in that way, but I'm afraid there's more to it than that. You need to calculate your steps per calorie, which is a chart that factors your height and weight and gives you a number of steps per calorie. Mine is 20 steps per calorie. This means I have to take 20 steps before I burn a single calorie. To put this in perspective, 100 pounds ago my steps per calorie were 12. The less you weigh, the more energy you have to expend to burn the same amount of calories. Bummer, I know.

Today I walked about 7,000 steps. For me, this calculates to 350 calories burned through just walking around. Then I went for a short run after I got home (yay me!), where I burned another 450 calories.

So, here is where the math comes in. My total energy expenditure for today is my RMR (1515), plus energy burned (800 calories) = 2315. In the snapshot of just today, in order to maintain my current weight I would have to consume 2300 calories. Less than this, I lose weight, more than this I gain it. So if I subtract 500 (the amount of calories I need to reduce my intake by in order to lose weight) from 2315, it gives me 1815. In theory, if I were to consume 1800 calories a day and burn 500 calories through physical activity or incidental exercise, I would lose a pound a week.

But it isn't always that simple, is it? First of all every time you lose weight (even five pounds or so) you need to re-do these calculations, because as you lose weight your steps per calorie changes. Secondly, fat is more difficult to burn than carbohydrates. There are 9 calories in a single gram of fat. In either a gram of carbohydrates or a gram of protien, there are only 4 calories per gram. So for my body to burn a single gram of fat (assuming my glycogen stores are depleted), I need to walk 20 x 9, or 180 steps. A single gram. That's like nothing. You can make the scale register a gram if you blow on it kind of hard. But even getting to the burning of that gram isn't easy. In training for my half-marathon I learned a lot about glycogen, which is your muscles' energy source. You have to deplete this energy store before your body will begin dipping into its fat stores. The fastest way to deplete it is through high intensity exercise. Also, the faster you go, the more you burn in less time. Can you see now how I might have gotten into running?

At some point after I did these calculations in class, I realized that I was going to have to walk about 22,000 steps a day (based on calculations) in order to reach my goal. This, needless to say, was daunting. There just aren't enough hours in the day to get that much walking in, particularly if you work an office job. But there was this great option--I could kick up the intensity, which would burn more calories faster. Lightbulb!

Essentially, all these calculations are a nice way to track your progress, and to adjust your goals as you move along. For me they were the mode by which I realized I had control over what I weighed. They were the tools that got me up off the couch and onto a treadmill at the YMCA. I always think of what Maya Angelou has said: "I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better." Even with weight loss, it applies. Now that I know exactly how to do the math, I know that weight loss (or gain) doesn't just happen by magic.

It might seem daunting to some to have to live within the confines of a particular goal, either in consuming fewer calories or burning more of them (or more often than not some of each). But knowing that the answer is in your grasp, and the ability to change how you feel and how you look is in your control--to me that cracks the world wide open with possibilities.

(Gah--I feel like I just vomited out the hideously deformed baby of a 12 step program leader and a motivational speaker that sells his own tapes on 2 am informercials. I didn't mean for this to turn out quite so earnest. I'm tired. I'll try for more sass tomorrow, ok?)

crap

I'm off to a great start, aren't I? Totally spaced on posting yesterday. In my defense I was completely gutted after our pumpkin carving party on Saturday. Plus the time change. I'll post twice today to make up for it.

...and i'm spent

I did it. Yay me!

shut my mouth

For those of you keeping track, I'm teething again. Fuck. I don't know what it is about this time of year (could it be the pie?), but I don't know what to do. Except pound the Advil and use my prescription mouthwash, and contemplate the vicodin but probably not take it. I suppose I could just get my wisdom teeth taken out, but at this point I'm more afraid of getting oral surgery than a little pain.

So maybe it's my fault for getting cocky with yesterday's post but tonight I'm tired, cranky (oh yeah, I lost my chicken at work today, only two days after the Fabulous evaluation) and I really wanted to watch the end of Tim Gunn's Guide to Style but the sink was leaking and I had to help Mr. Bump clean it up. There's no point in just watching the beginning of a makeover show without the payoff. Does anyone know if Lori wore a short dress that showed off her scar?

Sigh. I have no reason to bitch, however. I didn't get my jaw cut apart this week like our dear friend C. We're thinking about you and wincing for you so you don't have to do more than take the vicodin and drink the chocolate ensure milkshake!

i thought it would be harder

Two more days of NaBloPoMo. Well, I'm in the home stretch. I'm actually surprised at how easy it has been to blog every day, both the find the time and, at least for the most part, have something to say. I truly thought I would struggle with it more.

That isn't to say that I haven't struggled with what to say. But just knowing I had to put something up here got me over the struggle to figure out what to say. And that's a good lesson. Working under pressure has its merits, for sure. Each night, if I haven't figured something out beforehand, I curl up on the bed, turn on the tv, and crack my knuckles over the laptop.

At some point Mr. Bump will call up the stairs "Are you blogging or clicking?" and I'll call back down, "Yes!"

And then at some point I'll try to figure out a good way to end my post, often relying on epanalepsis. But at this point, I'll settle for just coasting through the last too days.

oooh! Does that count? Did I do it again?

P.S. By the way, I'm late to the party but I just saw Knocked Up. F*ing high-larious.

food fight movie night

What are your favorite food-related movies? I saw these two lists and it got me thinking.

1. Mostly Martha would be on mine. Probably at the top.
2. Ratatoutille would be on it too.
3. Eat Drink Man Woman is a beautiful film, which contemplates the restorative power of food.
4. Big Night. Trivia - Marc Anthony plays their bus boy.
5. I liked Babette's Feast as well.
6. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulin. The great scene where she slips her hand in a barrel of beans? The "crack" of the sugar on the creme brulee!
7. Big, actually. Junk food. Caviar. Baby corn!
8. Supersize Me--particularly the DVD with the piece about the fries. Shiver.
9. Like Water for Chocolate. Sexy food.
10. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The original, please. But the remake was good too.

We'll stop at that, and because I can't think of any others. If you think of some I forgot, mention them in the comments! It may be because I haven't seen them!

the fabulous fabulosity of fabulous me

Who gets an evaluation at work that contains the word fabulous in it? And not in a "she always looks so fabulous" kind of way. In a "she is fabulous at her job" kind of way.

That would be me. Mmm-hmm.