Tag Archives: stress

Week 4 Half Marathon Update

Posted on by Renée
3

It was am incredibly stressful week last week. In my head I knew it would probably be like that, knowing that it was my last week before holiday (yay!) but I also knew I needed to go to the doctor care of some female stuff (don’t worry, everything is fine and I won’t go into detail) and that maybe I wouldn’t be feeling great but I really hoped going into the week I would still be able to do my runs and my cross training.

Well, sometimes we have to just accept what our bodies will or will not do and not get too wrapped up into thinking you’ve failed. Monday I was absolutely exhausted already and my body and brain were not having anything to do with a fartlek training session. I did try but I probably only ran maximum 20 minutes on the treadmill. It just wasn’t happening. I struggled to push myself past thinking what a failure I was but eventually I just let it go. Thankfully my husband was with me to remind me that even great athletes have bad days, but it doesn’t mean suddenly they are no longer athletes.

On Tuesday I had my doctor appointment and let’s just say I felt pretty bad physically. There was no way I was going to make my Les Mills GRIT class that evening.

Wednesday morning I decided I was going to try again. So I packed my bag for the gym in the morning , ready for another treadmill run. I also decided I was going to skip the fartlek training all together and move on to the next training run which was 65 min at D1 and 10 min at D2. This actually went quite well once I got started (seriously I really never thought I would enjoy the treadmill as much as I am lately!!).

Thursday the plan was to run at lunch with a colleague and the weather was not in our favour but we brought our stuff anyway. About 15 minutes before we were supposed to head out it started sleeting. We were supposed to do 6km (PP and I have a similar average pace) and to be perfectly honest I’m still amazed we did anything at all! The sleet combined with the wind was like little razors against our faces! In the end we did 5K which was a total win in my book!

Friday was a rest day thankfully- I was absolutely wrecked from finishing stuff up at work and not sleeping well. I did get to sleep in a bit Saturday, thankfully, but I had a 12.5K on the schedule and wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Knowing that I wouldn’t get a chance to run again for a few days I finally got my head together and went out and did it. Once again, a great run once I got started. 75 minutes at D1 and 10 minutes at D2. It’s worth noting that as I was not on a treadmill it was still a challenge to do a faster continuous 10 min but I managed to stop only once and pick up again after only a few seconds. Progress!!

Week 4 was probably the hardest week so far and here I am now, blogging from my dad’s living room in Albuquerque already in Week 5. Dad’s arranged a week pass for me at his gym and I’ve gone this morning just to unstick the body and legs after 18 hours traveling. Feeling pretty good, just hanging out at home. I love it!

Losing Steam

Posted on by Renée
12

I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet lately.

I was really working hard on my goals for October and to be honest I feel like I did pretty good, not 100% consistent, but I really worked hard to get my running and my gym time in. I didn’t log my food on MFP every day and I managed to only stick my head in the candy jar once at work this month. So honestly, I give myself credit for that, for sure.

But I’m losing steam. I am bogged down by stuff that is in my head and I’ll tell you what it is – It’s about being good enough.

I realise I’m not super open and I know I can listen very well and be supportive but I have this thing about opening up either at the wrong time or not at all.

And I’ve done this basically forever.

I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world who feels this way – basically, trying to manage my life in a balanced way means that I am always lacking in one area or another.

Like, for example, if I want to go to the gym or run (commitments to myself), it means less times with friends. There is guilt associated with that. Sometimes it’s just colleagues (but let’s not let that mean that I don’t truly them and definitely miss spending time away from work with them) but other times it’s true friends. I feel like I’m not a good enough friend. How can I be when I don’t spend enough time with them?

So then I try to spend more time with friends, and I don’t go to the gym, or I skip a run. I know, I know, it’s not the end of the freaking world, but then I feel like I failed myself again. Sure. Make sure everyone else around you is happy Pinky and don’t bother with yourself.

I make priorities and others fall by the wayside.
I don’t answer my emails from my family for weeks.
I’m lagging behind on paying bills.
I’m lagging behind on cleaning my house.
I rarely cook for my husband.
When my kids are around I’m stuffing in activities with friends or doing errands or running. So I’m a crappy stepmom as well.
I’m too tired to have any kind of alone time with my husband (yeah you know what I mean), sleep then becomes a priority, ie, crappy wife.

I am trying to push forward in so many areas in my life and work is one of them. Yet I’m dealing with delays and ambiguity and uncertainty and day after day it’s chipping away at my self-esteem.

I feel like I’M JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH. In any area.

I am reaching for chocolates.
I’m not logging my food.
I just skipped a run for pete’s sake. Why? because I’m tired.
I’m losing steam. I feel like I can’t do this anymore. None of it. I can’t do it anymore.

I have the crappiest choice available – SUCK IT UP and carry on trying to find what works or go back to the way things were. You know, when I was smoking and drinking every night and weighed 101KG. Because yeah, I felt like I was good enough back then, for sure. *rolls eyes*

I’m frustrated. I want to have a normal life. Normal relationships. Normal spare time. Nothing in my life right now is normal.

What do you do when you really start to lose it? I feel like a broken record lately, but this is just totally messing with my head right now. I know I don’t have to be perfect, but how do I ever get closer to that balance I so desperately need?

What an Odd Week

Posted on by Renée
5

This week was so strange. Good and bad it was just really all over the place. Most of the stress and “bad” came from work – I can’t say too much about it but I’ve gone through probably the hardest thing I’ve had to go through so far in my career, besides when I was made redundant and sent home only to not find work for 6 months. I have been a people manager for a little over 3 years and I’ve definitely learned a lot from the experience, so I guess what happened this week was just another thing to tick off my list.

Since I started off the month with goals, the bad was compensated with good – on Monday I went to the gym (this wasn’t even the most stressful day) and it helped me tremendously to have a release – the pain in my neck and shoulders from the tension was beyond anything I’d felt before and for a short period, it was gone.

Tuesday was the “worst” day. I was all over the place mentally. I just didn’t focus well at all (and I found out later that this had a big effect on my work) because I knew I had to handle something major. By the time I got home, luckily the hubs had made dinner and I was able to put together my Wednesday blog post (see? I’m trying!).

Wednesday was aftermath day at work. It felt so slow and I was quite discombobulated again. I was tired and stressed and knew I had to just make it through the day. Once it was over with I left the office with my gym bag again, this time with my running gear inside. I changed at the station and hopped on a train home. Hubs sent me a message “I don’t think you’ll want to run, it’s raining.” I sent one back “please bring me my pink Nike jacket and my black cap, rain won’t hurt me.” And so he did. When I arrived it was in fact raining but I really needed that run. I ran more than I’d planned (5K), 7.5KM in total and the rain felt so invigorating! Call me crazy but rain running is just so refreshing and as long as there is no lightening and I’m properly dressed then bring on the precipitation!

On Thursday I worked from home. I needed to do complete my team’s performance evals and with everything going on in the office I had to have some time on my own to do this. First thing I found out in the morning was that something I *didn’t* complete on Tuesday morning caused a HUGE problem and delay with our financial year-end close. I know it’s ok to make mistakes, but I remember bursting into tears thinking “How could I be so stupid!???” I am glad that 1) my boss wasn’t cross with me for it and 2) it was solvable and didn’t have an impact on the actual close itself. But still. I hate that I let stress get the better of me and that it caused a huge issue. I worked quite hard on the reviews, but didn’t eat properly and then ended up eating stuff I wouldn’t normally have and consuming way too many non value added calories.

Friday was another day of fun. All those reviews I wrote? Now it was time to deliver. I admit that this is not my favourite part of the job, although some go very well and it’s good to have a dialogue, the ones that don’t go well are too close to confrontation and defensiveness. The thing is, I know it helps me grow, each time I get through it, it’s just, well, hard. I had my gym bag and I went again to the gym after work. It felt very good once again to get rid of some stress.

On Saturday I finally got some seriously needed sleep and eventually I went into town, alone, to attempt to go shopping. One thing I really would like is to stop looking like such a raggamuffin all the time. I just don’t like shopping, I do it terribly alone and I end up being really frustrated about the whole thing. I don’t understand sizing or styles at all. I don’t think that we as curvy girls should be stuck with the trends of the non-curvy girls. I ranted a bit about it:

I felt a bit better when the responses came in, especially that others know how this feels and that it has an emotional impact. I did end up with a few things and I may give it another shot next weekend. We’ll see. I want to say though, I don’t normally have a lot of hate for my body anymore, I HAVE come a long way from that, but seriously, I wish I could just have a better experience and I don’t think that any store out there will be catering to my body type, at least not a shop I can afford (and, I am sorry, but I don’t want to shop at the Fat City type shops. I spent years and years in those clothes and I feel like I deserve to have more choice right now – for those of you in North America, you have so much more choice; we have like 3 shops and that’s it!)

Today again I was able to sleep in, yay! I love it when I get to sleep on the weekends, it really makes up for the 6 hours per night I get during the week! I decided at 12 I was going for a run, and in true “It’s Me vs. Me” fashion it took me forever to finally get everything together to go and do it (2 hours):

Because we all know that a 30 minute run actually takes about 3 hours once you talk yourself into, change, check twitter, retalk yourself into it, strap on your electronics, check twitter, fill your water bottle, warmup, run, cooldown, check twitter, pass out, stretch, check twitter, shower and change.

(go see Thea if you haven’t yet, she is über-cool)

At 2pm I left with about 10KM in mind. It was a glorious day with the exception of two girls in a bus at the bus stop staring at me while I was getting sattelite on my Garmin and then basically sticking their tongue out at me when the bus finally departed, I felt good. (But really, WTAF was their problem??? No idea!) I wanted to run along the dyke and the farmland near my apartment and then go up to Velp (a couple KM away) near my old gym, then loop back around to my house (which is about 3.5KM from the gym). Somehow or another I took the wrong bike path which didn’t lead me to Velp at all… and I noticed I was already almost at 7KM so it was going to be at least 14KM total at that point (since, well, I’d have to turn around and go back). But the sun was shining and my legs felt great and breathing was good. The views were spectacular and I couldn’t help but just smile. I walked 1 kilometer at 7KM to take a few pics and drink some of my Fitmixer (which is amazing stuff you guys, and let me tell you I’m not getting anything for saying that and once mine is finished, it’s finished… I only have the sample given to me at Fitbloggin and I won’t be able to get any more here as they don’t ship internationally) before I headed back again. So basically my run was this:

1 KM walking / warm-up
6 KM running
1 KM walking
6 KM running
1 KM walking / cool down


I could have gone on with my energy level the way it was but my feet were actually starting to hurt (I think I need different socks) so it was good that I arrived home when I did.

It was my turn to cook dinner, so while I was doing that I did three lunches up in the oven (post on Weds) and started making the enchiladas I promised the hubs. Somewhere around 45 minutes into cooking, my stomach really started bothering me. I posted on twitter and was reminded about chocolate milk. Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of milk products ever in the house, but I did have Turkish Yoghurt so decided to try that. It did help a wee bit and then with dinner it eventually calmed down.

At the risk of making this post even longer, I’ll just say that food was all over the place this week. I’m not sure why it seems harder to keep it under control compared to a couple months ago, but I just need to keep working at it. It is my goal to log every day and close out my food journal daily at MFP, even if I’m over in numbers, just to that I’m accountable and I did accomplish that this week but look at this:

Mind you the 1st is wrong, I’ve no idea why that happened -

Monday was total 1573 with 364 cals burned from exercise

Basically my goal for each day should be 1440 calories. This can go up if I work out so, fair enough, some days are higher. But some days are just really high, regardless. I want to fix that. I eat when I’m hungry so I tend to eat exercise cals (at least some) but this week has just been, well, a bit outrageous. Time to fix that.

So yeah, stress, food, exercise, a lot happened but a lot still needs to be done. Let’s see what the new week brings!

How was your week? Do you like to run in the rain? Do you eat your exercise calories or activity points?

Wednesday Food Fail?

Posted on by Renée
12

Ok not a total fail but as you all know I’ve been jet setting all over the place so I haven’t made a new recipe for nearly two weeks. I’m slowly getting back in my own time zone rhythm and I’ll resume the amazing and wondrous food fest postings next week.

But I want to talk a little bit about a real food fail. It’s making me crazy and I don’t know why I don’t stop it. Notice I don’t say I “can’t” because I CAN I’m just NOT.

It’s been busy and stressful at work as it normally is this time of year and I’m giving in over and over again to the candy jar. My nemesis. My kryptonite. I am consciously walking over to the jar and basically shoving my head in it, consuming as many chocolates that I can get down my gullet. WTAF? I hate this so much – I know it doesn’t help me, not in the slightest so WHY DO I CONTINUE THIS BEHAVIOR?

Why does it take so long to unlearn lifelong consoling habits? Do I need to figure out why I ever did this in the first place? To be honest with you I don’t want to delve into the past – do I need to do that now to fix the present?

You know, I used to smoke cigarettes (have to clarify that since people associate the Netherlands with weed, which I don’t smoke either) and even did for a few years here and a few years there, meaning I did quit and restart but always years after quitting. Each time I quit I just QUIT. Stopped. The last time I quit was 4 years ago nearly and I have no intention of starting again because I just don’t think it would be conducive to my lifestyle now (we all know it’s not healthy and I’m not judging you if you smoke, I’m just saying for me it would be a dumb move to start again).

So why can’t I quit shoving chocolate in my face when I’m stressed? If I had to pay a fine of €1 for every time I put candy in my gob In a stressful situation I’d be really broke. I don’t want to do it anymore! I have discipline in so many areas, why do I insist on sabotaging myself?

I realize only I can answer these questions for myself and come up with solutions, but I would love any feedback as to how others deal with this kind of thing.

In any case, today, I am not going to do it. I need a good food day. I need to feel in control. I need to look at the bigger picture and remember that I only do things that add value to my life. This stress-habit doesn’t so at least today it won’t be happening.

The Quick Update Update

Posted on by Renée
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Sorry to have to be so quick, but it’s either cleverly think of things to blog about for this week or just update and go into the kitchen and sort out my food for tomorrow. We all know how I like to plan and be prepared so the quick update wins.

Monday I went to the gym for my first appointment which happened to be my fit test. We know what happened with that :)

Tuesday I worked too late, had too much stress, went home and wanted to go for a quick 5K around the park. Unfortunately some a$$hole decided to run next to me in the park and mock me skipping (I was skipping as part of the exercises the physio gave me). It was dark, I didn’t have my phone/gps with me and quite frankly he freaked me out ruining my run. Nice. So, 3.5K it was.

Wednesday more stress at work, but after work I went out to the airport to meet an old but very dear friend of mine. We hadn’t seen each other in YEARS. I contemplated not going because I was exhausted and very stressed out but I just didn’t want to cancel on her after we finally made a date. I broke my no alcohol during the week rule and split a bottle with her (we chose the airport because it’s 10 min from my work and 15 from her house) and had dinner. Turns out she goes to my new gym so we are going to go to a class together on Wednesdays (starting NEXT week). I can stay at her house and get to work very easily in the morning. Of course I will miss Hubs though.

Thursday late again and stressed again. Work has been such a nightmare lately. Home late, meant to cook, had pizza instead. FAIL.

Friday I felt like absolute crap on a cracker. I went to work, did what I needed to do, came home and made sure I was in bed by 10pm. I slept until 11am Saturday and did absolutely NOTHING all day.

And here we are at Sunday. I slept again for 12 hours, feel better, did a little walk/run to the gym, worked out, came home and had a delicious dinner. I actually tracked all my calories for today and have 1 calorie left over.

Things coming up this week:
Clearly not a lot of sleep!!
Monday – gym
Tuesday – meeting old friend who lived here, moved back to Texas and is here this week visiting
Wednesday – meeting friend in Leiden
Thursday – work from home, gym
Friday – pass out as soon as I’m back from work

So you can kind of see why I need to sign off now and prep my food for tomorrow at least?!

How was your week? Was it how you planned?

The Last Foodie Friday of 2011

Posted on by Renée
7

We made it guys! WHOO!!

This week has not be stellar for me once again but we are not surprised by now. After all this is NOT A WEIGHT LOSS BLOG so no real reason to expect that I’m a green, mean, clean eating machine all the time, right? With the holidays coming to a close, finally the biscuits, cookies, chocolates, cakes, special breads, etc., will stop being put in my face until next year and I can at least go on with my life in the way I actually MEAN to go on.

Remember last year I did the 30 Day I’m Not Going to Eat Any Crap At Work Challenge? Well it’s time to have that challenge again. This is utterly ridiculous and not who I am.

It’s funny because we have stuff at home right now, chocolates that my husband bought, but the thing is, I don’t like them, so I don’t eat them. I don’t like half the shit I’m shoving in my face at work, but I’m still eating it. I’m not hungry, I’m eating it. I’m looking for stuff to shove down my neck. I know that it’s stress related.

But it’s amazing (here comes the broken record) that even though I know it doesn’t help I do it anyway. Really annoying. I can quit smoking, but I can’t stop shoving crappy things in my face?

Anywho. I had some really good stuff this week too though. I must be such a food/health dork because I just LOVE a great salad. I am definitely going to refocus and get my good food on next week and beyond :)

Thanks to Tracy, I had these Cheddar Snack-a-Jacks with lowfat Philadelphia and 4 slices total of chorizo for breakfast. In hind-sight, I agree that these are more a snack item and not breakfast as I was just too hungry too soon. Lesson learned.

Another breakfast: Green Eggs. I used spinach (frozen, thawed out from night before), spring onions and courgette (zucchini) with two eggs and two egg whites, about 10g of parmigiana and (sorry if this sounds weird) used the pan that had a wee bit of oil (< 1TBSP), garlic (whole clove), chilies and cumin fried in it the night before. This was delish and definitely more filling than the snack-a-jacks.

Curry (Dahl) – OH MY GOD this is insanely delicious and healthy, really! Lentils, tomatoes, chicken, spices… with basmati rice and the “topping” as mentioned above ^^^^

The topping, in the pan:

Wait that’s not food! (Nena, Kitty #2 hanging out)

Another breakfast: this was good, but only semi-filling. I had a couple weeks there where I was doing all right but lately (maybe again lack of good sleep) I’m hungry by the time I get to work. Again need to revamp and figure this out. Ah I’m in a constant state of reinvention, no?

2 Hard boiled eggs, leftover rice and two small ripe tomatoes:

This week I also had, but did not photograph, leftover chili con carne with rice (yum), leftover Dahl (no chicken, no topping) and I had some leftover rice, steamed broccoli, chicken, courgette and red onion that I whipped up together for lunch yesterday.

With all the not so healthy choices (and chocolate/biscuit face shoving) there were some healthy ones in there too.

What did you eat this week? What was amazing and healthy? What could you improve upon? Did you also almost eat up a cute kitty cat?

A Bust

Posted on by Renée
1

This week has been one.

I went running on Monday and on Wednesday night I went to bed early… those two things were probably the most positive I did for myself. When the holidays are over I’m truly going to enjoy my nice little controlled planned life again! Or rather I should say my ROUTINE. Is it so OCD to want a routine?

Anyway, before the madness of cookies, wine and pasta dinner begin, I’m going to get dressed and go for a run. It’s well overdue.

Week In Review:: 4 Dec – 11 Dec

Posted on by Renée
2

This post should be titled:
The Week that Wasn’t

or alternatively:
Don’t be like me and eat crap all week

But alas, I’m going with the standard Week in Review Post…

You know when people talk about motivation, I find myself thinking about the post that I wrote some time ago and I truly believe that motivation is nothing something you can just “get” from somewhere. Not having motivation (in my opinion) is actually just an excuse why you (general “you”) don’t do the things you know that you need to do to be healthy, fit and feel good about yourself in general.

For example, it wasn’t lack of motivation that I ate like crap this week. It was other things. And they were all related to emotions:

I’m tired.
I have some quite some stress at work.
I had my Aunt Flo visiting me this week and felt like complete and utter shit on a stick (massive back pain and cramps)
I found out that my grandmother has pretty bad dementia and my dad actually thought she may have had a stroke (this particular fact had me crying a LOT last week – am so afraid I won’t see her again, plus she is my only link with where I come from, she’s my history, my GRANDMOTHER, someone I spent so much time with; I was her first grandchild and the thought of her dying now just really upsets me greatly) – she’s now moved into a nursing home. On Wednesday I even almost booked a flight home.

So with these as my excuses/facts I do realise 100% that sticking my head in the candy jar at work is NOT a solution. The stress and the pain in my back could be relieved with a run or an hour at the gym, but clearly I wasn’t willing to do that this week. I’ve no one else to blame here. I made the choice and I have to live with it. I’ll be honest, I’m fairly sick of myself and reacting with food in these ways that I do feel a very serious change coming on. I cannot continue my life like this – this emotional eating does absolutely nothing for me but enhance my crappy feeling.

So another week has gone by and I did not go to the gym. That’s 2 weeks since October. I did however fill out the form to join the other gym that my company pays a chunk of the membership fee each month. I just need the option to go to the gym in the weekend after 12. So I’ll be sending my letter (again) to my current gym to stop my membership.

Something fun happened this Saturday – although eating was still not stellar, the kids, hubs and I all went to the Openluchtmuseum (Open Air Museum) here in Arnhem. It was SO MUCH FUN. And I can tell you we were walking around pretty much all day. We even did a bit of tubing down a “snowy” hill and went ice skating. It was the kind of day that just made you forget all of the stress and worry, just for a few hours. I was so grateful for this day, even though I’m pretty broken from landing on my tush a few times on the ice skates. For your viewing pleasure, a few photos:

It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day!

S-Daughter and Hubs (waving) on ice:

My Family *swoons*

Coming down the hill

How can anyone not enjoy this scenery?

I got a run in today that I called the Road to Redemption; feeling much better mentally and physically!!

So, plan for the week: Get some food prepped (still haven’t done it and it’s nearly 7:30pm), go to the gym, enjoy the party next Friday night (company party), try to get through Christmas shopping, see my girlfriend M and get a run in. Should be possible.

How was your week?

Week In Review:: 20 Nov – 27 Nov

Posted on by Renée
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So, yeah. No idea what happened. Actually, yes I do know. Work happened. A LOT at work happened. It was a very stressful week.

I didn’t even get any photos for my Friday Foodie Post. That’s how bad it was.

I did prepare food again last Sunday for my lunches and that really came in handy. I can’t recommend planning enough! BUT, I also did the emotional/stress-eating again which pisses me off, but doesn’t seem to stop me doing it *rolls eyes into back of head*.

Plans were to run on Tuesday evening and go to the gym on Thursday evening. Neither of those things happened. I worked late Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (I was really late Weds), Thursday I worked from home (thank God because I was exhausted), Friday I felt somewhat “normal” again. I actually rode my bike to the station Friday because I was going out with colleagues after work and thought it best to have transportation home rather than having to wait for a bus or take a taxi so late. (Remember, I’m two hours from home generally when I’m in Amsterdam; the plan was to leave at 10pm which would put me home at midnight – turned out there was a massive problem with the trains and I ended up leaving around 8:30pm, still only getting home around 11pm).

Good Old Frida

So at least I got some exercise in on Friday – though I’m sure that didn’t counteract the starters, burger, fries and cocktails I had at the Hard Rock Cafe :D … maybe the sprinting to the train helped that a bit as well (I spent a LOT of time sprinting for trams, trains and buses last week…)

Saturday morning I woke up late – 11am! WOW I needed that sleep!!! My first thought was “well, I guess I’m not going to the gym”, but then I immediately turned it around; “Why not?” I asked myself. “The gym is open until 1pm. Get yourself a sandwich, a coffee and get dressed and get yourself to the gym!” So I did :) And I rode my bike there as well.

So here we are Sunday, I’ve made wentelteefjes (french toast/ eggy bread) (mostly) for the kids and I’m still deciding what to do the rest of the day. Probably some cleaning, maybe a run and definitely some planning for the week. I have to be serious about next week as I have a friend coming to visit from Sweden which means my whole weekend is dedicated to my guest (ie I have to go to the gym during the week!!!).

Not much of a weekly review, but honestly, I hardly had any time for myself that would be noteworthy to mention. Here’s to the new week!

That Kind of Week

Posted on by Renée
1

You know, when you think you are going to do things in a certain way and you’ve got it all planned out? Yeah, that didn’t happen.

Lots of overtime this week, a bit of the candy jar again (it’s stress and I know better!), too little sleep…

No running. No gym. Looks like I’m gonna have to hit that hard this weekend.