health – thingspeoplelookup.com

Word nerd alert: Journey is a band, not a quest/mission/odyssey

Today…today was just a bad day at the office. A crappier Monday than usual. So on my calendar this week is one subject that will be the equal of my salty mood.

The overuse of the word “journey.”

I love the English language.

No, I love it. That’s why I seriously don’t love it when a word is appropriated to the point of meaninglessness.

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Though certainly not the only instance, but one of the more recent examples, is use of the word “disrupt” to describe anything that might merely unsettle an industry. In the essential sense of the word, this in and of itself is not necessarily wrong.

But the word to entered into our collective conscious thanks to Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen, who used the word as as a matter of wholesale industry change: what product or service will come along, like cheap steel rebar, to disrupt an industry to the point of changing it completely?

Now Zion Williamson is a disruptive basketball talent. Billie Eillish is a disruptive musical talent. Tesla is a disruptive car. I don’t know, I don’t see Tesla turning the auto industry on its head. It’s merely another category.

We work. We’re not on a quest for fire

Hard work is hard and the change that comes from it is incremental. But it’s not necessarily a journey. Journey implies a terminus. You hit your goal and you’re done.

I don’t think so. Not for any of you.

So cooking journeys and learning journeys and fitness journeys…well, there is no terminus to the fitness “journey” I’m on, I can tell you that.

The great work you do never stops. You cook better, you learn more, you get stronger and healthier – mentally and physically – the harder you try. You just get better and better at what you do and I love you for it.

So my friends, you’re not on a journey. That’s a band. A great band. You just keep being your best you.

You’re welcome.

To dwell or not to dwell

Today is July 3 which, in the U.S., has nearly the same holiday feel as July 4. And yet, with all the gains I feel like I’ve made in just, what, eight days? It doesn’t feel like a holiday to me. It feels like I felt nine days ago.

There’s every reason for me to feel fine:

My migraines have improved
My mood has improved
My workouts have been better
My employer, recently merged, is still pretty terrible, but a little less terrible

But today, I feel:

Unbearably ugly
Out of shape
Uninteresting
Exhausted

The challenge today, or always

One wonders whether spending time spitting this out is a good idea. I’ve read that suppression, the ability to say screw it, is really what serves a person’s mental health. Obviously I’m not so good at that.

There is a particular condition on which I’ve ruminated my whole, 5-foot life, and that’s not being a six-foot supermodel. Having a regular figure. Starving myself to a ludicrous figure. Eating my way back to a spherical figure. Returning to a regular figure.

I don’t know if this is way of seeing is particular to women worldwide, or handed down to some of us no matter where we are. Or both.

More recently, on a day in which my head felt like Pangaea splitting apart, I couldn’t stop myself; I ate about 2000 kcals worth of cookies. Fatty, sugary, chunky and huge, they were, and I’d already eaten the day’s food – about 1400 high-fat, low-carb kcals.

Problem or solution

And the next day, I felt amazing. Two-and-a-half pounds heavier, thanks glycogen! but great. As in, my head felt great. My heart felt great.

I spent some time with a number of different calorie calculators. How are the results derived? I gave some thought to just how intense my workouts are really. Are 80 handstands considered intense? Which is to say, are 1400 kcals a day enough?

Probably not. But I feel no worth except at my boniest, my tiniest, my most unsustainable.

I don’t know why I care

I’ve long since given up on dating, but there is still in the back of my mind a reminder that I’m still in fact nobody without a mate, riches, unfathomable thinness.

I could let the mate go. The riches, eh, could still happen. The appropriate thinness?

1700 kcals is what I decided to try. Could I achieve a worthy thinness If I’m not cannibalizing my own body for energy? Can I wait more than another two days to find out?

What about my migraines? The extra kcals could be one of the keys to recovery. For years I’ve labored under the idea that X calories were allowed at Y age.

I honestly do not know if I can let myself eat more, heal my head, and risk weight gain. I already can’t stop staring at these extra two pounds. How pathetic – how first world? – is that?

How pathetic am I?

It’s finally summer and no one’s happy

It’s finally summer in the upper Midwest of the United States. At least it is this week.

o-DULUTH-MINNESOTA-900 — *Duluth, Minn. This is nice. And not where I live.*

It’s been curiously rainy and cool until this week. I couldn’t tell you why; I heard it’s got something to do with the extremely cold winter in the Plains states next door and the jet stream out of Canada. Well, thanks, Canada. For America’s Hat, you’re not doing a very good job keeping us warm.

(Canada, I’m kidding! Except for your interloping NBA team, you are stupendous!)

I wanted to address a few results of the area’s extended chilly rainy spring:

Foul moods sticking around
The hilarious belief that now that it’s around 80 degrees, it’s “hot.”
My suddenly and completely out-of-control yard

Nobody’s close to happy

pg2_g_cubsfan_300 — *This summer might be cheerless for most, but laughing at the Cubs is always available.*

Everyone suffers from some degree of seasonal affective disorder up here, I think. Or that’s the claim. I had a boyfriend a while back who claimed to suffer from it, but I never noticed a difference between the summer jerk and winter jerk.

This year, no one’s had to make a particular claim. The cheerlessness was palpable in everyone, and is still, even though the weather seems to have turned a corner.

One wonders if the longer one spends in the gray rainy dark, the harder it is to snap out of the cabin fever and into a more human state of mind.

We can get into the metaphysical discussion, our essential being, and does an extended negative circumstance, like crap weather, put us into an existential crisis and all that. Does it change what we are? For how long? Forever? Or can it not change our essence? Are we crab-asses, essentially, or people who are just crabby a lot? Is there a difference? I’m open to ideas.

It’s not hot.

I grew up on the coasts of North and South Carolina here in the states. And I’m here to tell you that 80 degrees is not hot.

It’s also not “muggy.” For the past couple mornings the news has reported an onslaught of muggy weather. Right now that means 58% humidity. That’s adorable! But it’s not muggy. It’s nice.

I’ll take arguments in the comments below, but I’m not wrong. In fact, I’m right! If that doesn’t make you want to comment, I don’t know what will.

My yard is the Genesis Planet.

If you’re Gen X like yours truly, then you probably remember Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, which included the creation of a brand new planet full of giant ferns and hostas and other extra-large, but definitely earth-bound plants. It was called the Genesis Planet.

This is now my yard.

I know some of you really get into this stuff. I don’t. See above, North and South Carolina coasts. As a kid I had to work in the yard around three times a week for most of the year. The smell of cut grass still makes me nauseous but I’ve otherwise repressed those memories. I’m lost out there in the yard, what with trimmers and clippers and mowers.

So save me! I’m taking applications. Let me know in the comments below if you’d like to get my yard under control! I’ve got five bucks with your name on it.

Thanks!

As always, thank you to my readers, current and new. I look forward to talking with you!

Update: posting as pain relief

Until today, it was the most popular post in my (five-day) blogging career. “Posting as pain relief” resonated with a lot of you, and still grows in readership bit by bit. This was unexpected. It was truthful in a way that I can’t say to anyone live.

But I have some good news.

Yesterday afternoon found me on errands, including stops at shops where I could kit out my new workout space. The shop with the plush rug. The used sports equipment shop for 20-lb. dumbbells. The Salvation Army for some kind of slick plates that would make better gliders than the ones I’ve got.

While in the Salvation Army, I passed by the furniture, giving it a dreamy look. It was in good shape, all of it. Mine is…not so great. Cats with claws will do what they do and there’s not much you can do until they’re gone.

My mind went dark. Shouldn’t I, at an age I’m not telling you but which is old enough I should likely be looking elsewhere at furniture, not look longingly at used stuff?

I felt the familiar feelings of failure. Of pointlessness and worthlessness and the real question of whether my future was worth attempting. Instantly, from the brain stem or the amygdala or wherever that starts, my blood was pumped with it.

But a funny thing happened at Sam’s Club. Just down the road a piece from the Salvation Army, I found a fair parking spot on a busy Saturday. It was sunny and hot, at least for the upper Midwest. I didn’t move for a moment. Full of bad feeling, of sighs, a slow heartbeat, I simply told myself to stop.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this would be the first time in my life that organically, truly out of the blue, I dismissed my failures – “failures” – and acknowledged instead my accomplishments, all of which came thanks to an early resilience and the distinct impression that six-year-old me could be Alexis Carrington one day.

joan-collins-alexis-carrington-Cd7cff848ad9f26ccde1cd0e3050f3148 — *Without a doubt.*

All of this, thanks to blogging. It’s a correlation, and maybe a weak one, I don’t know. But I’ve had a lot of therapy and I’ve never had revelations anywhere, but especially not at Sam’s Club before. And if this is happening at Sam’s Club, it’s probably best not to think too hard about correlation vs. causation.

Thank you, all

There’s a hole in the heart that’s truly hard to fill, if it ever does. I think writing is one way to start. Your feedback doesn’t hurt! I’ll take it anytime. And will keep you posted as my health changes with a regular writing practice. It’s an interesting experiment, this, and look forward to sharing it with you.

Working it out when working out

Today I finished creating a new exercise space, one where I can spend hours and hours focusing on a different kind of pain: The physical. The burn. The torture you make for yourself on purpose and put in our planners. Why do we do it? Let’s talk in the comments below.

Well, wait: let’s not talk about that just yet. The psychological, even metaphysical, back-and-forth about why some people go balls out and some people flow and ohhhhmmm is a discussion for another day. And it’s the weekend.

When it comes to fitness, sometimes it’s fun just to talk about what we’re up to. Many of those who’ve stopped by are fitness-focused, so I hope you’ll join in. But I think it’s important to hear about whatever movement moves any of you!

My space, your space

Everyone needs a good exercise space. In the comments below, I want to hear about yours. Do tell!

Me, I’d been exercising in my bedroom. I’m an exercise-at-home type, very private, and I have a couple of cats who might get under foot. But even someone as short as me wants to make a leg extension without hitting a bed corner, chair, wall…

Now my new space runs about 6′ x 10′, and is covered with a dark blue ultra plush rug into which my hands can hook snugly for easier V-position work and handstands. My hands are strong but I’ll take the assist. The rug’s also flush with a solid banister that I can either hook onto lengthwise for decline work or use as a barre.

When I need a higher barre, a white fold-up IKEA barstool tucks neatly behind a maple storage cube that sits on high nickel legs. That sounds quite fancy. It’s not. It’s falling apart and needs to be replaced. Badly. But it too is rather tucked away, so…another payday.

I keep all my mats, weights, loops, bands, this nifty kettlebell converter and gliders – Corelle plates, finally handy! – in a homey, sweater-covered storage tub. So until the area starts to smell, which will be soon, trust, it won’t even be entirely obvious what happens over there. It’s like a grown-up lives here or something.

My movement, your movement

Are you a gym rat? Have a favorite trainer? In the comments below, talk about your favorite workouts!

I’d mentioned in a previous post that I can go on and on. And on. Today:

Tonique Tokyo Onsen Express (35 min)
Tonique Sculpt Dynamics Arms (37 min)
Tracy Anderson post-pregnancy floor core work (~20 min)
Tracy Anderson method mat unweighted and weighted arms (~15 min)
countless jackknifes (~80? depends if the music’s good!)

And this is a light day, meant to help work out some serious DOMS from yesterday’s stupid heavy leg day. Man, I just wasn’t thinking. I mean, I’m an old lady who doesn’t eat carbs and somehow I thought this wouldn’t hurt:

Tonique Born to Move (~58 minutes)
Tonique The Box mat/wall workout (37 min)
Linda Wooldridge standing barre thighs (26 min)
Tracy Anderson post-pregnancy floor core work (~20 min)
Tracy Anderson method mat unweighted and weighted arms (~15 min)

IDIOT.

I think tomorrow will have to include some very light dance aerobics just keep myself from turning to stone, maybe 45-60 minutes. You reap what you sow.

Now, I’m not giving you these itineraries to show off. (Well, maybe a little!) I’m doing so to invite conversation about what you do and exchange ideas. Let’s talk!

Final notes

First, stay tuned for a key follow-up post. I have good news. I think!