Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Off the Wagon

Well, I fell back off the workout-wagon. I’ve still been going to the gym, but closer to every other day, or every two or three days, rather than every single day. And of course, the rebellious soul that I am, gave up on dieting in favor of eating everything within sight. It’s kind of shocking how little it takes to poof me back up again. Like, quite depressing. I am afraid to weigh or measure and see what kind of damage I’ve done in a mere four weeks.

 

BUT. Never fear, supplements are near! I finally gave in to the stereotypes of my department and placed an order with BodyBuilding. I ordered a few pounds of low-carb protein shake mix, a cardio-geared pre-workout, a Cortisol blocker [the hormone that causes you to feel stress, which can make losing weight harder, regardless of your best efforts] and ooh, is that buy one get one free Hydroxycut Elite? Why yes, yes it is. I think I snuck one more supplement in there too, but I can’t quite remember what it is at the moment. I want to say it’s a CLA/7-Keto blend, which, honestly I can’t remember what that’s supposed to do, but whatever. If I can’t bring myself to be a hippy-dippy gym rat diet freak, I guess I’ll rely on a cornucopia of uh, “supplements.” If nothing else, dropping all that cash will guilt me into working out. And hey, you gotta find whatever motivation works for you. Unfortunately, there’s not much out there that does work for me.  One of my problems is the “cardio only“ bug. I hate weights. I have a yoga mat with me, I just never take it down to work out. And getting down on the floor at this point is less than ideal [unless you want to end up with bloody hamburger meat for hands]. So, I tend to avoid doing any sort of strength training, which I know is bad. Shame on me. Just wish I had a better idea of how to fix it. I do tons of research and list-making and whatnot, and then, of course, what happens? Oh you know, the yuuuuzzz…. I just never follow through.

 

I think I slept more hours than I was awake today. And I think the trend will continue for at least one more day. I’m almost concerned, except for the fact that being asleep is so much easier than being around anyone out here. Of course, all this sleeping certainly has it’s downfalls, best laid plans of mice and men go unheeded. With a rotating schedule like we have, I can’t get into a regular flow of life, which I most certainly blame for my inability to work out consistently.

 

In semi-related news—real actual news this time—hubs sent me an article paraphrasing a study from “the Cell Press journal Neuron,” where research scientist John Salamone claims that although dopamine is not necessarily related to pleasure, it is strongly linked to depression. Think, the low-grade, give-no-shits kind of depression that probably lies closer to apathy on the grey-scale. [pun somewhat intended] Not to bore you all to death with fun sciency stuff, or get too personal, but I wanted to share this very interesting chunk:

 

"Often, depressed people say they don't want to go out with their friends," says Salamone. But it's not that they don't experience pleasure, he says—if their friends were around, many depressed people could have fun.

        "Low levels of dopamine make people and other animals less likely to work for things, so it has more to do with motivation and cost/benefit analyses than pleasure itself," he explains.

 

Me to a T. Always taking the easy way out and wondering why I’m not happy.

Anyways. Enough of that business.

 

Finished 1 and 2/3rds cat beds for Hubs’ mom. Refining the technique every time. Soon I’ll be pro at kitty beds. I’ll post pics from Dubai. I also ordered a killer tee from Threadless, and a butt-load of yarn from Joanne’s, including the pretty pretty stuff I’ll be using to make an ocean waves scarf for my mermaid friend. Hubs also ordered me some skin-care stuff [don’t worry, I picked it out first], so hopefully when I get home I’ll still get carded for buying beer—you know, instead of looking my age, a whole not-quite-30. It may seem materialistic, but you know, mail is like the only thing we have to look forward to right now.

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