Islands

Maybe the daily drudgery of life is a lot like open-water swimming; you fight to stay afloat, move as fast as you can to avoid sinking, and head for the Island after every lap.

If it weren’t for the islands it would be hard to keep on going.

Barbie Doll

Right now my co-workers are having a conversation about Barbie Doll fetishes, electric grinders, and 80-year olds getting manicures.

As for me, my ipod is on full tilt. Trying to tune it all out.

Balance

I have a bit of an issue with balance; it's easy for me to get immersed in something to the point of it being an obsession. If I were a dog, I'd be an Irish Setter: high-strung, tempramental, and teeming with nervous energy. Prone to bouts of anxiety and other irrational behaviour, I am the kind of person that gets struck by some new-fangled idea and within 24 hours has convinced herself to re-organize her life, spend a bunch of money, or what-have-you in order to accomplish said idea...

Usually, these stunning revelations occur at night, right before I should be going to bed. Thus, I hardly ever sleep enough to support the next day's activities. There is always some other procrastination technique I can use to avoid surrender to somnolence on any given evening. I have an aversion to sleep because it means that I will wake up and have to start another day of same 'ol, same 'ol work, cook, eat, sleep, and try to workout if my feet feel up to it... I mean, who'd want to waste 6-8 hours of free time in being unconscious?

Anyway, I've averaged 4h per night this week and it is becoming ridiculous.

This morning I got up at quarter to 6, ate breakfast, packed my swimming bag, put my shoes on, and was so dizzy (seeing stars and half-dreaming in that crazy, sleep-deprived state) that I just lay down on my bed for 5 mins to clear my head and BOOM it was quarter to 8... I threw my swimming stuff out of my bag and got changed and ran to my appointment, then stumbled to work with a HUGE coffee and... ... a chocolate croissant!

I know, how could I? Guess what... I relished every morsel.

But I've heard from many people now, that I need to try to relax, have fun, "chill out", and enjoy life a bit more.. because life is generally good you know... and there is a lot to be thankful for. Heck, I live in Canada, in the beautiful nation's capital, and I have a bike, and I have two legs that still work well enough to take me places :) and I have a job, and a bit of health insurance, and access to a good variety of healthy food, and a nice little apartment in a safe area of town, and a lot of great friends.

And the weather is beautiful, and it's Friday! So if I could just get a bit more sleep...

Manger comme un porc

I ate almost 1/2 a jar of peanut butter last night, among other indiscretions.

1/2 a loaf of sourdough bread dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, black pudding, salmon, milk, grapes & cherries in copious amounts.

Wow. Naughty.

Back up to 142 pounds on my 5'11", still net 8 down but considering the muscle loss... yikes.... the goal was to race in a tankini this year, but at this point I can neither race nor show the abs.

Sigh.

On a more positive note, I was a bit hungry after 3 hours of rowing, 1 hour of running, and 2 hours of cycling.

Eating Frisian

Now that my workout schedule is curtailed, I have had extra time to delve into some cooking, European football, rowing, and socializing.

This life is kind of nice, actually; I don't feel like an extremist anymore. I am able to walk pretty well now, swim and bike for up to 60-90 minutes without too much pain, so I can keep some level of fitness. I haven't gained any weight (in fact, those 10 pounds are staying off... just wait'lll you see my 6-pack!), I've met some great people, and I've learned quite a lot about nutrition.

For the last few weeks, I've been eating a mainly Paleo diet (meat, vegetables and fruit, plus some seeds, nuts & natural fats). While it's tasty and keeps the weight off, it's darn expensive, time-consuming, and leaves me low on energy sometimes. I'm quite a firm believer in the "Whatever works for YOU" theory of nutrition, because once you cut out the obvious stuff (junk food, processed food, refined flour and sugar, excessive alcohol, etc) I believe there are many variants of a successful "diet". People can be healthiest and happiest eating vegetarian or omnivore; low-fat or high-fat; high-carb or low-carb depending on their bodies and genetics. Brendan Brazier does well on his mostly raw vegan Thrive diet, for example, while others subscribe to Paleo or Atkins ideology. Michael Pollan seems to advocate a more environmentally-conscious plan for eating (based on plants and whole grains) which is equally laudable.

To each his own.

With my middling success on Paleo, I've decided to take it as a base and modify my diet to focus more on what my ancestors ate... not in prehistoric, ancient or even medieval times, but rather from about the 15th or 16th century AD.

Why? Well, I am in a somewhat strange position here in North America, in that I am born of two Frisians, whose parents were Frisians, and whose parents, in turn, were Frisian and Dutch. I am able to trace my ancestry back in the Netherlands for many generations. Oh, very probably there is some cross-mixing somewhere, as my name has been traced to South Africa and inevitably, the Frisian communities in Germany, as well as the Polish, co-mingled to some extent. But what I am saying is that, for the most part, my particular set of genes may have developed to thrive on food common to that region of the world.

Thus, I am really very curious to see how well I do on a traditional Frisian/ Dutch/ West German diet. Or maybe I really do have too much time on my hands!

So what are these traditional foods? Well I did some research, and I found a good starting point at www.medievalcooking.com; there is a document specifically outlining Frisian cooking during that time period. As I said, that is a bit too far back in time to be practical for me, but I'll try to start there and add /subtract later as I learn more...

Meat:
We are looking primarily at fish, pork, beef, lamb, and goat... pretty much in that order. I know that fish, fishing, and sailing were the prime focus of the paternal side of my family for generations. Poultry was also available (goose, duck, chicken). I had the idea that cows tended to be used for milk and dairy foods (first?).

Dairy:
In a word: lots. Why do you think they call those dairy cows "Frisians" anyhow? In fact, Northern Europeans are one of the few groups of people who can actually digest milk and milk products into adulthood. This is a notable deviation from the Paleo and Atkins prescriptions.

Vegetables:
Root veggies reigned supreme... potatoes, turnips, beets, onions, parsnips, carrots. Pumpkin, cucumber (lots of pickles!) cabbage, spinach, kale and collards were also used.

Fruits:
Apples, pears, melons, and various berries were predominant.

Grains:
Rye or pumpernickel bread was a staple of the diet for centuries.. and I mean the supremely dense, dark stuff (Westphalian pumpernickel). It is pretty much like the German Volkornbrot or Roggenbrot. I was exposed to it growing up but always hated its bitter, dense texture; now I'm going to give it another go... I found Volkornbrot at Loeb and I'm eating it with raw goat cheese now! Other available grains included (but were not limited to) oats, millet, and barley.

Nuts, seeds & legumes:
Hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts, and some varieties of beans

Wish me luck... I'm going to post pictures if I can...

Oh... beer, wine, coffee and tea were all copiously consumed!

Falling Apart

It can always be worse.

Oh, it can ALWAYS be worse.

Bone scan today. Guess what? No bone issues with my right foot... so whatever is causing the pain, numbness and tingling is NOT a stress fracture.

But.. I do have a stress fracture. And it hurts like a motherf...

In my good foot.

Probably from limping around for a month with this horrible boot cast.

So this morning I set out to the hospital with a boot cast on my right foot. I left the hospital with the same boot cast on the other foot. Don't ask me how I am supposed to get around on two ruined feet.

And before I left the hospital, I locked myself in the restroom and actually sobbed with rage.

Bone Health and F-A-T

I've come into an strange conundrum.

By eating super, super clean for 7 weeks in a way that bordered on obsessive (including charting every item and quantity that went into my mouth in a very detailed Excel spreadsheet!) I managed to lose 10-12 pounds of bodyweight; some of which is associated water, some is fat, and some.. unfortunately.. is muscle.

While I am happy to see my abs again, I have a problem. Most of the last 6 weeks I have been out of commission with my foot, so the calorie deficit came almost all through diet (yay for raw vegetables). And while my maintenance level is still quite high for the average girl, I managed to lose other measures of health too.

So now I am sitting here with broken bones and entering into the zone of what is callled (shudder) the "female athlete triad" - oh, how appropriate the acronym: "F-A-T". Definitely not a harbinger of health, and definitely not the way to go if I want to be cycling again before the end of the summer. 10 times more frustrating because I am definitely not "under-fat" or underweight by any standard measure, even by the seriously flawed BMI.

I ate like a monster yesterday in desperation... hoping to "jump-start" things... but today I'm back to super clean whole foods plus mega amounts of Ca, D, Mg, Zn and multivitamins. If the bone scan shows more than 2 fractures I will need to address this with the doc.

In fact, I might need to address this with the doc anyways...

In this, my last outlet of rage, I let out my most agonized and frustrated scream:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH