Come ON People

I was riding my bike down fifth avenue today on my way to the zoo and came upon the most annoying bike riders I have ever encountered.  Fifth avenue doesn’t have a dedicated bike lane, but it does have a bus lane with very very few buses.  Perfect for riding a bike in.  Delightful, actually.  Then I got to the Met and saw these toolboxes riding on the sidewalk and riding in a group so they took up the whole thing.  Annoying normally but even worse at a place like the Met that is crawling with people and tourists.  They took the same course as I did all the way to the zoo and the entire time stayed on the sidewalk. 

I only got a clear shot of one of their faces, the mother I suspect, so I will aim all of the shaming upon her.

Seriously people, this is why they make bike lanes. 

Fletcher Diet Experiment Day Four

Today did not go very well.  I woke up, had a banana for lunch (100 calories), and decided to go for a bike ride to the Central Park Zoo.  It wasn’t a far ride at all, about 2 1/2 miles, but it almost killed me.  I think that the combination of only eating 500 calories yesterday, only having a banana for lunch, and the crazy hill that is 5th avenue was too much for my body to take.  So even though I wasn’t hungry yesterday or even after my lunch today, my body still needed more fuel before doing physical activity.  I will just have to do a better job of monitoring my calories before exerting myself.

After getting to the zoo I walked around for blocks to try and find coke.  I needed some fast energy and coke seemed like a good solution, even though the zoo only had pepsi.  Please, I’m not wasting 200 calories on pepsi. 

I got back from the zoo, riding 6 miles total on my bike, with the absolute worst headache in the world.  I took some tylenol and took a nap.  Mitch came home with supper, I was going to have chicken and rice but the deli was out of it so I just told him to get me a cheeseburger.  This is where the diet fell apart.  I felt to horrible to think about eating and ate more than I needed without even enjoying it.  Later on tonight I was hungry and all I could think about was food.  It became obsessive, and I started to get anxious at the thought of not having a turkey sandwich.  I decided that the anxiety wasn’t worth it, and had the turkey part of the sandwich, the bread was gross, and a coke.  Overall today it was about 1300 calories which isn’t bad normally, but a lot more than the past three days.

Fletcher Diet Experiment Day Three

Today the diet is continuing to go very well in some ways and slightly concerning in others.  Today my total calorie count was 500.  That’s definitely not something I’m going to keep up full time, possibly not even for the rest of the week.  The point of the diet was to not change any eating behaviors and just chew everything a ton.  This has apparently caused me to lose much of my appetite. 

Lunch today was just yogurt.  Low fat yogurt – 80 calories.  Not great but better than yesterday.  Supper was turkey and baby corn.  I ate about 1/8th of the total meal, Mitchell had the rest.  Supper came to about 150 calories.  I know, it’s crazy.  I had one soda, which is actually a big deal because I drink soda like crazy.  Topped everything off with a banana because I felt I should consume more calories, even if I wasn’t particularly hungry at the time. 

Fletcher Diet Experiment Day Two

Day Two of my dieting experiment went pretty well.  I think as a result of these two days I have become a lot less hungry during the day.  I’m more hopeful that something positive might actually come out of this experiment.

Today’s lunch consisted of leftover mushroom fried rice, but I pretty much just picked out the mushrooms and had those.  So a whopping 38 calories for lunch.  The strange thing is I fell satiated after eating it and wasn’t particularly hungry until supper time.

Dinner was sausage and pepper pizza.  I had two and a half slices for 447 calories, a much better number for a meal.  What was more exciting was that I stopped eating when I no longer felt hungry instead of stuffing myself until I get a stomach ache.  The incessant chewing definitely helps with that, I get tired of eating very quickly, but I also think I’m starting to gain more control over my eating.  Everyone knows that the last bites that you take when you’re already full don’t taste very good and just make you feel like crap.  However not taking those bites can be very difficult.  Hopefully this is a behavior that I’ll be able to continue when I start chewing normally again.

The picture is from Farm Follies, an awesome show in Storyland in NH. 

I Dyed My Hair!!!

Every few months I get bored of my hair and feel an urgent need to change it.  Usually I can resist.  This time, however, I gave in and decided it would be fun to dye my hair.  Mitch and I went to the drugstore last night and decided on black as a color.  I dyed it today in a surprisingly complicated process with many warnings of things that could make the dye explode.  But I was successful!!!  And I now have dark black hair!

Ashamed

I wanted to start putting up almost daily pictures of myself mainly as a record and also as an encouragement to myself to put together cute outfits.  Lately I’ve basically been wearing whatever fit and was comfortable because I was too ashamed of my body to go out and get new clothes that actually fit.  I was doing the whole diet and exercise thing partly to gain some sort of control over my body and to no longer be disgusted by it.  I thought I was making progress, finding things I liked about the body I have now but today I had a set back.

I took pictures last night and today uploaded them to my computer.  However, instead of editing the picture and uploading to the blog I deleted them all.  Because I looked fat.  It’s pathetic really.  I look how I look, I should embrace it not be too embarrassed to even bother editing pictures of myself.

So I have made a new pact with myself.  I will take a picture as often as possible and upload every one to this blog, no matter how fat I think I look in it.

Diet Experiment Day One Part Two

I managed to get all the way to supper without snacking.  I actually wasn’t even hungry, though that might have been from the slight nausea caused by the incessant chewing of lunch.  Either way, I only consumed about 300 calories before supper.  Which is kind of ridiculous, and definitely not something that I’d be able to do or even should attempt to do everyday.

 

For supper we went out to eat and I got macaroni and cheese.  No idea how many calories were in it but I’m assuming a lot.  It was delicious and I did do the chewing thing for the entire meal.  In the end I ate about half, maybe less.  Plus a couple of french fries that I stole from Mitch.  I’m estimating that I ate about 500 calories for dinner.  Overall for the day I consumed less than 1000 calories. 

There may be something to this diet, at least in the short term.  I ate significantly less than normal and wasn’t dying of hunger like I usually am when I try and cut back.  Finally, why is it impossible to take pretty pictures of food?  I swear the mac and cheese looked delectable in person.

Diet Experiment – The Fletcher Diet Part One

My main problem with trying to lose weight is that I am incredibly impatient.  So when nothing happens right away I become incredibly despondent and usually give up.  During this past month I’ve been better than normal about not eating so much and exercising and yet nothing is happening.  I thought instead of getting frustrated I would try and do something fun to take my mind off of it.  So I’m going to start experimenting with some ridiculous old diets.  Starting with the weirdest one I could find, The Fletcher Diet.

Mainly this diet consists of chewing your food until it basically liquefies.  The theory behind it is that when you eat too quickly the digestion that should take place in your mouth doesn’t happen and for some reason this causes you to gain weight.  Or at least not digest your food properly leading to health problems.  If it does work my guess is because it takes so long to eat that you end up eating less.  We’ll see if it works.  Starting today and I’m planning on going on for a week. 

Meal One:

Leftovers from dinner at Gasho, a Japanese steak house; hibachi fried rice, steak, and some mixed vegetables.  about 750 calories total. (It’s not really purple, it’s very hard to take nice photos of food so I decided to just make it ridiculous and fun.

Ok so first of all, the diet recommends chewing about 32 times for each bite.  It ends up so that you “involuntarily” swallow the food and the counting of the bites isn’t actually important. 

I’m about a quarter of the way through lunch and I feel kind of nauseous.  Maybe that’s why you end up losing weight.  Also, my jaw hurts.

After finishing lunch I’ve ended up eating about a quarter of it, so around 250 calories.  I know from experience that normally I would eat the entire meal, plus the soup and appetizers we normally get at the restaurant.  Possibly there is something to this diet, but just as likely I’ll be starving in an hour and eat more.  I won’t really know until the end of the day. 

An Adventure Through the Rain

Yesterday I was sick all day in bed, so today Mitch and I decided it was a good idea to venture out of the apartment.  Even if it meant trekking through the rain.  When we left it was just drizzling so we took our awesome pink umbrella and got on the bus, intending to go thrifting.  Took the bus to 86th st. and got out to walk from there.  As we got we realized the drizzle had turned into a downpour.  Turning this into a real adventure we made our way out into the rain.  Of course we were not prepared for the rain, I had on flip flops and Mitch had on his toe shoes so our feet were soaking wet.

Too bad that when we got to our destination it was a huge disappointment.  We went to the goodwill on 2nd avenue and 88th st.  I was expecting a normal thrift store experience.  Instead, everything was about 10 times as expensive as they should have been.  They had rain boots, which I was thinking of getting for the walk home for $15!!!  I might pay that for new rain boots but certainly not used boots.  Crazy right?  There are fantastic thrift stores in Cambridge so I desperately want to find a great one here.  There must be too, this is NYC.  That’s my new project, find a great thrift store.

Crazy Lost Bike Ride

Yesterday I got slightly lost during my bike ride and ended up at Battery Park.  To be fair I was planning on following the bike path to the southern end of Manhattan but got off track when I found out there was a ton of road work and lots and lots of detours.  It was crazy.
It started off fun, got to 42nd st. and took a picture from the Hudson River bike path:

Then I hit the detours.  I was riding through the financial district.  Me on my beautiful and whimsical blue bike and lots and lots of people in suits.  All of a sudden I see this:

Yeah, the statue of Liberty.  I was at Battery Park.  No idea how I got there.  I knew that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back but I did see a bike rental place up ahead so I figured, OK just keep going forward.  Eventually the path must exist again and I’ll just follow it uptown. 

South Street Seaport!  The river’s right here, the bike path must be as well.  And it was!  So I start going forward.  This part of the bike path is horrendous.  The part that runs along the Hudson is beautiful, smooth, with plenty of room to pass other people.  This part is narrow, it’s very unclear which way to go, ugly, smelly, and bumpy.  Then when I reach the Brooklyn Bridge it starts going off onto the street and eventually leads me out onto 1st ave. which was terrifying. 

I decided to just head towards Central Park and take Central Park West home.  Central Park West is lovely to ride on so that part of the ride was great.  I got home, mapped out my route online and realized I had gone 20 miles.  That is just crazy!  I started riding my bike to try and lose weight but now I am amazed at what my body is able to do. 

New Bike Path Excitingness

I went for a bike ride on Friday and decided to head uptown on the bike path instead of downtown like I usually do.  It was such a good idea.  The bike path between about 110th st. and 125th. st. is beautiful.  There are no barriers between the path and the river, so there’s gorgeous scenery and smells.  It was such an amazing ride.

My Route: (about 11 miles)

Here are some pictures from the ride:

My Beautiful Bike:

On the bike rack in the park by 125th st.  I didn’t actually realize that the path extends past this point, but I’m excited to try one day when it’s nice out.

A Seagull:

The rocks separating the path from the river:

Pretty right?  It’s funny that the majority of my pictures of riding around Manhattan are so scenic.  

Also, when coming home I encountered this ridiculously long and steep hill.  But I actually made it up the entire way, which impressed me at least:

Renaissance Costume

I love making costumes for Renaissance fairs, nerd conventions, parties, really any occasion.  This time I wanted to make a bodice that laced up the back and a puffy skirt.  I went to Mood to look for fabric, but couldn’t find any stiff fabric that wasn’t crazy expensive.  Then I decided to just go downstairs and check in the upholstery section.  And voila, I found this fabric on sale.  Sure it’s probably for a sofa and not at all Renaissance appropriate but it’s so much fun!!!  The bodice was a pain to make, and the back didn’t come out like I wanted because I didn’t use enough boning.  But it worked for the day.  I’ll be able to fix it up before wearing it again.

The skirt was just cheap fabric that I bought a ton of since it was so cheap.  I pulled it together at the last minute so it’s not the best but it worked.  It was also super comfy which is important when walking around for six hours in the sweltering heat.  Also, got the umbrella half to keep the sun off of my freshly painted face and half cuz it was just so pretty.

16.65 Miles!!!

Today I rode the furthest I’ve ever rode in my life.  16 1/2 miles.  I rode along the west side highway bike path and then to Credit Suisse to visit Mitchell.  The last mile or so was ridiculous though.  I thought I was going to die.  It was a beautiful ride for the most part though.

My beautiful new bike with the basket I just put on it.

Scenic pictures from the ride.

My Route:

So Proud of Myself

Slight warning, this post is a little bit TMI so if you’re squeamish you might want to skip ahead…

 

So last night I was all pumped up to go for an epic bike ride today on my brand new bike.  Unfortunately my period thought that last night would be a wonderful time to stop by.  Normally getting one’s period doesn’t hamper activity, but I haven’t gotten mine in over 4 MONTHS.  It has been tortuous.  This is how I’ve looked for the past month:

This was me all day:

Period cramps suck.  But when you haven’t had your period in 4 months they come with a vengeance and are unbearable.  So I decided to put my bike ride on hold for the day and just rest until they go away.

Then Mitch came home, we had supper and I took a few more Tylenol.  I was feeling surprisingly ok and needed a new book to read so we decided to take a leisurely bike ride to the bookstore.  We couldn’t find the first one so we crossed Central Park to go to the one we knew of.  When we got back I tracked our route and it turns out that we rode for 6 miles!!!  That’s my second longest trip in one go yet! And on a day when all I wanted to do was lie in bed and complain.  Hopefully tomorrow I feel a bit better and can go out during the day for awhile!

Here’s our route for today:

We did ride on the car road through Central Park which was slightly scary.  Otherwise everything was fine. 

Renaissance Fair Part Two

Every year at the Renaissance fair there are people dressed up as completely random things that are in no way related to the period of the renaissance, or even to a surrounding time period.  This year was especially fun.

There were these two guys (and random girl) who were dressed up as Sith lords.  They claimed they were vikings from Norway.   You be the judge:

Sith:

Viking:

Renaissance People:

Also, every year there are multiple events featuring “Queen Elizabeth” and “Robin Hood” even though Queen Elizabeth is from the 1500s and the Robin Hood story is based in the 1100s.  But whatever, that’s not the annoying part (or at least, not the only annoying part).  What is, is that these events are ridiculously boring.  Every year we try and let the people we’re with know that they shouldn’t waste their time and every year they insist upon it.

Mitch and I knew better, so after some of our “friends” got mad at me for trying to have fun we went and rode the camel!!

Renaissance Fair!!! Part One

This is my forth time going to the Renaissance fair in upstate-ish NY and this was the best time yet.  I stayed up almost all night Saturday finishing my costume.  Totally worth it, I loved it and I wasn’t hot.  So now some pictures from the day.

My friend Joey and I were at the bow and arrow stand (it must be said that we were pretty drunk at this point) and decided that we needed a picture of us pretending to shoot each other.  Unfortunately we were shut down by the drippy stand guy.  His costume was even super drippy.

 

What I wish happened to that drippy stand guy…

Then of course we had to try out the ax throwing.

At one point there was a random parade through the streets of the fair.  There were lots of people trying to show off, you could tell, and then one girl walked by and it was so obvious she did not want to be there.  So instead of giving the people who wanted attention my attention I took a pictures of her.

No wonder she looked upset.  I mean people had wings and parrots and stilts.  She was stuck banging on a piece of metal with a hammer.  That has to suck.

More to come soon…

Renaissance Food

Yesterday we went to the Renaissance fair, which was awesome.  I’ll post pictures and talk more about it soon.  For now I want to talk about the most important part of the fair, the food!!!  I think I did pretty well not going crazy with the food.  Although what I did have was pretty crazy in of itself.

Of course for lunch I had to have a turkey leg and mead.  This picture is a pretty fair representation of it.  Although I didn’t actually have mead with lunch because that stand was OUT!!!  We ended up running all over the fair looking for mead.  Which I don’t actually like that much, it’s far too sweet.  But really, it’s not a renaissance fair without mead.

The rest of the day went ok.  All I had was lots and lots of beer.  Which ended up being about 3 beers.  Again, it’s not actually a renaissance fair if you’re not completely drunk, especially when throwing axes, arrows, and camels are involved.

For supper I wanted to go to a restaurant we passed by on the way there called Hog Heaven.  I was so excited.  In my mind it looked like this:

Turns out I was exactly right.  And it was delicious. 

The only splurgy type thing I ate was funnel cake, but after walking around for 6 hours in the heat I think I deserved it.

My New Bike!!!

Mitch and I went on an adventure today to find a new bike for me.  I’ve been using his but it’s waaay to big.  So we went to the bike shop on Monster Hill, but they only had mountain bikes.  Then we decided to go to another bike store that I saw on google maps.  I KNEW it was on Central Park West and 80 something street so we decided to walk.

We got to 80th street and hadn’t seen it.  Then Mitch suggested that we go one block west and try to find a starbucks to use the internet.  We turned down the street and there it was!!!!  We magically found it. 

However, once we got help  we ran into another problem.  The store was just evil.  The sales guy kept trying to get me to like ugly boy bikes and said that they didn’t really make girl bikes anymore since girls no longer rode in dresses or skirts.  He said this to me as I stood there WEARING a dress.  So yeah, I kind of want to ride in skirts and dresses. 

I couldn’t take the evil and Mitch was nice enough to tell the guy what I wanted without me actually being there.  He ended up finding an awesome girly bike that I can ride with a skirt.  I’m so excited, we’re going to pick it up on Sunday.  I just hope that evil vampire/devil/bike salesman doesn’t get a commission.

Frustration

I was planning on weighing myself and posting it on here a few days ago.  However, when I took my weight, even though I was eating better than I ever have been I had gained a ton of weight.  So much that it made me depressed and unmotivated.  I spent the rest of the day doing nothing and feeling miserable.

Then I realized that I shouldn’t let a number get to me like that.  And until I’m more confident in myself and my eating and exercising gets more routine I’m forgoing the scale.  I’m giving myself a month of not weighing myself.  I do plan to be meticulous about writing down everything I eat to make sure I’m not accidentally eating a ton of sneaky calories. 

Bike Ride Number 2

I adventured out for another bike ride, this time deciding to completely avoid Central Park and take the streets to the Hudson River bike path.  Unfortunately this still meant that I had to face the Monster Hill that I couldn’t make it up last time.  However this time I made it!!!  With energy to spare!!!!

I then meandered along the Hudson River bike path which was super pretty.  I also found a lunch stand that served frozen drinks.  So I rewarded myself with a yummy mango daiquiri.  I ended up riding for 6 miles which is awesome for me, and ended up in the garment district where I proceeded to shop for two hours.  I needed lots of fabric for my renaissance costume.  After this I was too tired to ride my bike back the 70+ blocks but luckily I have the most amazing husband in the world and he met me and rode my bike home from work.

Delicious Cucumber Salad

I just made this insanely delicious cucumber salad. Usually I hate cucumbers and this salad actually makes them taste good.
It consists of:
1 cucumber peeled and sliced
1 roasted red pepper sliced
1/2 can of artichoke hearts
1 can of baby corn sliced (the baby corn, not the can)
2 tablespoons of sweet relish (most important part)
Then you just mix them all together and enjoy! It's even better if you let it sit in the fridge for awhile before eating.
The best part is it's only 114 calories per serving! You can eat it all day!

Bicycling in NYC for the first time

It was so incredibly difficult. I'm crazy out of shape right now, due in part to my chronic illness and recent surgery but also because I hate hate hate working out in any capacity. So yesterday I decided I was going to get my husband's bike in working order and go for a leisurely bike ride today. Woke up, had the bike ready to go, and started out for what I thought would be an enjoyable activity.
I was wrong.
First I had an epic struggle trying to get the bike out of the front door, with several people staring me down as I did it. Finally got it out and onto the street I headed into Central Park in the entrance across from my apartment. It was great for the first minute or so. Then there was a hill.
Ok, great, I thought. I'll just push myself for a little while and get up the hill. I'll feel super accomplished and can enjoy the rest of my ride. But the hill NEVER ENDED! It wasn't even steep, it just went on forever. I saw a smaller path off to the side with a bike symbol on it that seemed to go slightly downhill and sped towards it.
The enjoyment of going downhill on that path erased the anger caused by the previous hill so I decided to take the bike path to the Hudson River path since there were signs for it right in front of me. Unfortunately I ran into another stupid hill.

The hill as some people see it.

The hill as normal people see it.
Couldn't do it. Just turned around. Road north on Central Park West onto Central Park North and got off in front of my apartment.
I literally could barely walk because I was shaking so much and felt nauseous. So I stripped off all of my clothes and laid down on my bed in front of the air conditioner. So so so nice.
Every time I decide to try exercising it becomes a huge production and I become overly dramatic. I am proud that I actually went out there and tried, even if I didn't go far at all.

Also, my computer is broken so posting will be sporadic.

Outsmarted by the Cat

I just got a new kitten about a month ago. And like most kittens she loves getting into the middle of everything especially when everything involves food.

(And she doesn't even like kale chips, not even a tiny bit)
We've attempted many times to curb this behavior...
First I tried holding her above my head while I ate, not knowing that she kept her special razor claws secret until necessary.

Next I tried putting her into the bedroom. But the bedroom doesn't quite close all the way and she managed to leap into it and push it open. Every single time.

I even resorted to eating my food standing up away from all furniture.

Then we came up with the great idea to just put her in the bathroom, because if she decides to go to the bathroom its fine because she's ALREADY IN THE BATHROOM! Unfortunately this is no longer the punishment it once was.

So now we have to put up with her meowing like a lunatic every time we use the shower.