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December 24, 2007
Turn the Clock to Zero
It's the middle of the night and I can't sleep because a) I usually can't sleep b) I have a cold, my first in years, and I can't stop coughing if I'm lying down. MR was holding me tight and cuddling, and Philomena the cat was snuggling on my pillow, but I finally decided (about the time the cat got up and walked to the end of the bed) that I may as well only keep one of us up rather than three. So I am up, and I figure that as I am up, I should come downstairs and create ART.
I'll be sure to paint something before I go back to bed, because these days I think the blog is more whine than art, but whatever, you people keep showing up. And thanks to my wonderful commenters, all of you. I don't always answer you directly because I realized a long time ago that I go crazy if I try to answer all your questions as soon as you ask them, but I do read and love your comments, and I answer the specific questions eventually.
So it's near New Year's and I think we're all thinking, as Robin wrote the other day, about the possibility for change. Robin and I both feel like we've figured out how to lose weight and keep it off, but then we end up going in slightly different directions... she's worried that she may have gone too far, I'm worried that I haven't gone far enough. But we'd both agree that we've accomplished long term, lasting change through CR. Like Robin, it just doesn't occur to me that I'll gain back the weight I lost. The highest I've ever gotten in three years was 115, and that was just a few days during the end of the twin campaigns. These days I hover at around 110, and I consider it way too much, but come now, it's not a crisis. I am definitely at the low end of "healthy weight." That's where we get into the difference between obesity avoidance and CR. The two have a lot in common in terms of techniques, but the degree and the final outcome are radically different.
This icky cold has really helped focus my head on why it is that I do CR: so I don't feel like crap all the time. My two months of alternate-week CR have caught up with me, and my immune system collapsed. You could say it's because I'm run down exhausted, but the fact is I've been much more run down exhausted for most of the three years I've been doing CR (nearly four years now!) and I haven't gotten sick except for once, for a day. I haven't been to the gym more than once a week, I've been eating way too much upon occasion, and I've been breathing in a ton of secondhand smoke. And I do love my secondhand smoke. But I am finally convinced that I have to go off it: after breathing in a ton of it a few nights ago, I woke up at 3 am with a terrible searing pain in my lungs, and I couldn't take a deep breath. The pain lasted until midway through the next day, and the muscle aches in my back continued until MR rubbed them out. He very graciously refrained from saying a big, "I told you so," but I recognized that the combination of inflammation from the illness plus secondhand smoke was probably a bad idea. I'm sure Danny and I can negotiate some deal in which I still get to hear his stories but he doesn't smoke directly on me. Maybe in exchange for my pass key to the front parking lot. He's a great negotiator, always offering to buy something he wants in exchange for something he doesn't actually have, but sounding credible. I'm sure we'll figure it out.
My CR has been great since I've been home, making up a bit for holiday eating indulgences of the past weeks. Yesterday I finished off at 1200 calories, which is well below my average, and the scale is reading a solid 111, down from 113 when I got home from my parents' house in NC last Sunday night. I'm eating my super nutritious foods in high concentrations, extra brewers yeast, extra yogurt and cottage cheese, mass doses of protein... basically, I am following my own advice to get myself back on track. I did treat myself to a Jack and Coke Zero last night, but with a tiny half ounce serving of Jack instead of the ounce and a half to two ounces I'd get if I were out. The occasional meal out followed by a few days of low calories to balance it out will always be a part of my CR, I suspect, and I like it that way. I didn't much mind going to bed a bit hungry tonight, and if the idea of going to bed a little hungry freaks you out, I suggest you examine your priorities in life. Is a tiny bit of physical hunger that big a deal? Ordering one's entire life around avoiding any sort of hunger is very limiting, yet it has become our cultural norm. More on that later.
I'm really looking forward to family Christmas at home: our home. I always wanted to have the Christmas festivities at my own house, and it's wonderful that MR's parents have travelled so far to be with us. My mom will be coming in from Reading to stay with us too, and we have some great meals planned. Being sick for the last few days has dampened my holiday spirit a bit, but I'm near the end of the cold and I'm sure I'll be better by morning when I need to run to the mall the second it opens to grab one last minute Christmas gift.
So it's almost New Year's, and we're all wondering: what, if anything, are we planning to change in 2008?
I've been convinced for quite awhile that 2008 would be my favorite year to date. I am really, really looking forward to it. My magic spell is working: the seemingly impassable barriers to CR have lifted, and though the last gasps of 2007 involve a rather unpleasant cold, that's just the dead stuff getting out to let the live stuff take over. As one of my favorite signs at my gym used to say, "Pain is just fear leaving the body."
One of my favorite Sting songs is the one quoted in the headline, "Brand New Day."
Turn the clock to zero honey
I'll sell the stock, we'll spend all the money
We're starting up a brand new day.
So many new starts have taken place this year: both of the twins going from being unorganized hospitals where nurses were beaten down and had no real voice to becoming vibrant union hospitals, the publication of Aubrey and MR's book, shining some light in the popular media on the real chances for real life-extension, the arrival of Lisa from London and her magickal transformation into an organizer, the incredible evolution of Susie as an organizing goddess in the midst of one of the hardest campaigns I've ever worked on, and then at the very end of the year (just when you think it's safe to answer your cell phone) the blond haired blue eyed manifestation of trouble made flesh that is Danny California. All of them have undergone massive transformations, but they don't realize (or maybe they do) that they've changed me.
I've hit the reset button on my life so many times that I am completely convinced that it is possible to turn the clock to zero and start all over again. In the last few months as I've confronted fears I'd forgotten about for a long time, I've noticed that the reset needed yet another hit.
Restart!
Cue the annoying Star Trek music that my computer plays when it's booting up.
Long before CR became a media circus and an issue in my relationship, it was the single most positive, life-affirming force in my day to day existence. It mopped up the damage from my stressful work and it gave me the strength to keep going out there and keep doing what most people burn out at doing after a couple of years. It gave me a body I love, in sharp contrast to the body-hatred that like 90% of women feel for most of their lives. It gave me a mental sharpness that I can't describe... but that I will need.
I am also thinking I will take up running, as the more time I spend thinking about the revolution, the more convinced I become that I need to learn to run really fast.
New Year's Resolutions:
1. Do CR, my way, for my own reasons.
2. Learn to run very, very fast.
Posted by april at December 24, 2007 12:45 AM
Comments
Congrats on producing some BRILLIANT ART this year April :-)
I'm planning to hit my Star Trek Restart button shortly, too!
Hope you and MR have a great Christmas and 2008 :-)
Posted by: Lindsay at December 24, 2007 3:21 AM
Hi April!
It's been a while since I've made it to the comment pane. But I am still reading and loving every word (with nary a whine to be found). I'm sorry your cold is taking it's toll, but it looks like you are finding the silver lining anyway and resolving to keep up the battle. I like the learning to run fast bit..an excellent resolution. I think you should also resolve to get a policy put in place in your offices, car and any other place you and your co-worker find yourselves. You're def. feeling the effects of the second-hand smoke and it is not safe for anyone.
I wish you the best for the holidays!
;-D
Posted by: Deborah at December 24, 2007 7:27 AM
Last year I promised myself I would learn how to aerial dance. In 2008 I will promise myself to get fit and strong enough again to learn how to aerial dance. I hear you with the running fast (and even running slowly - I'd still like to do a half marathon in 2008), but being able to be graceful and strong while staying basically in the same place is something I'd like to aim for. It's just a shame I am such a gymnastic klutz. And you're not whining. Although second hand smoke really sucks, and it is as addictive as smoking with the same physical effects so... I'm sure DC won't mind coming to a compromise.
Posted by: Sara at December 24, 2007 8:36 AM
Hope you get better soon. Everyone seems to be sick with a cold here, April. I've got a little insomnia thing going on at the moment... so just hoping that I don't get it. I don't think I've seen my father sick with a cold in 20 years + I've been here but he has this cold too. I was usually the first to come down with these colds, but now it still hasn't got to me (YET!) but infected practically everyone else around me.
Just try be more cautious in the future, working to exhaustion can take its toll on the body. Insomnia really isn't fun either (something ciprofloxacin did to me!)
Get well soon and try have a nice Christmas
And stop breathing in that smoke! :)
Posted by: matt - uk at December 24, 2007 1:19 PM
I'm sorry you're sick, April. We're sick over here too. And yes, insomnia has hit too. Yuck.
But your optimism is very contagious... something I'm very happy to catch! I too feel that 2008 will be my most favourite year ever. I can't wait!
Nen
Posted by: Nenette at December 27, 2007 7:07 AM