As I mentioned a while back, I started seeing a therapist for eating issues. I went to DC with Victor to visit friends back in May, and when I came home, I tried eating more intuitively. I didn’t count points, I tried to pay more attention to whether I was actually hungry, I rode my bike and worked out and didn’t worry about calculating activity points. And I liked it! I felt calmer. I didn’t worry about the scale. I still haven’t weighed myself since May 20.

There were several weeks in a row where I didn’t work any meetings, because attendance wasn’t enough to have two receptionists. But then suddenly they needed me to work again, and I was spending almost every night doing something after I left the office, and I felt like I wasn’t spending enough time at home. And I can’t exactly tell my manager, “Oh sorry, I can’t stay late and finish this up, I need to go to my part-time minimum wage job!” Also, I wasn’t feeling like as good a little Weight Watchers cheerleader as I felt like I ought to be if I’m being a receptionist. I’ve always been surprised, and a little nervous, about how much power there is in sitting behind that desk to the members. I talked about it with my therapist, and she said it isn’t surprising that I might be a little uncomfortable being around folks who are struggling more than I am.

So where does this leave me? Well, I know what I want and what I don’t want. I don’t want to count and calculate and track every morsel of food I eat. I want to eat when I’m hungry, not because I have 5 points left at the end of the day and I “can.” I want to be a “normal eater,” if there is truly such a thing. And I want to reduce the amount of things I have going on outside of work. I want to see my husband from time to time. I want to ride my bike a lot and keep working out on the TRX suspension trainer, and just eat healthy and take care of myself, and let my weight work itself out. I don’t want to weigh in and feel bad about a number.

That’s all, right?

So I’m still trying to figure it all out. I hope you’ll add to the discussion and my thought process. I can’t guarantee I’ll be blogging very much. Well, certainly not till after this end of the quarter, then we go visit Victor’s family… I have a week or two before peak filing season starts…. *weep* So no promises!

PS, here’s a good book I have been enjoying: The Rules of “Normal” Eating: A Commonsense Approach for Dieters, Overeaters, Undereaters, Emotional Eaters, and Everyone in Between! by Karen Koenig.

• First time on Alexander Road, the big scary road near our house. Sunday morning on Memorial Day weekend was the perfect time to go! It’s a two-lane road too, so the traffic can totally go around me.
• My longest ride so far! Yesterday’s ride of 11.5 miles was my longest, but this is a new record! I felt good so I thought I should just keep going!
• My ride was 14 miles long, which is the same distance we go on our first day of our Vermont biking trip! I’ve been riding a bike for three weeks, and I feel almost ready to go to Vermont already!
• Most time spent riding on roads so far with other cars. My comfort level is definitely increasing.
• Speedy ride! Look at that average speed, 13.62 mph! My fastest speed is almost 18 mph! Victor normally goes about 18 to 23 miles an hour! I’m not that far behind!
• And skill-building continues. I actually took my hand off the handlebar for a second, and did not swerve and kill myself! Wow! Next step is to learn how to grab my water bottle so I can rehydrate without having to stop for a break.

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Last weekend, Victor and I went to Washington DC to visit friends. I did not count PointsPlus (something I often do when we go away), but I tried not to treat the weekend as an eating free-for-all either. We did go to a really nice restaurant, but I had a “petite” portion for my main course. I ate more than I really needed to on Sunday, more so after we got home, but I think that might have been down to the gloomy chilly weather upon our return.

Since Monday morning, I have not been counting points. It’s just something I’m trying. I have a sense of what a “good” day for me eating wise looks like, so I tried to stick to that. Victor and I went out to lunch, and for Starbucks dessert afterwards, but he had a humongous brownie and I had one of their little dessert square things. (The salted caramel, it is lovely, people!) So I’m eating and treating, but I think I’m doing it in a realistic and healthy way.

I don’t feel out on a ledge like I have in the past when I’ve not been strictly perfectly 100% on WeightWatchers. I’m checking in a little more, trying to see if I’m really hungry. I put aside the last third of my lunch today because I was getting too full! This is (pardon the phrase) huuuuuge for me.  I don’t like feeling like I have something left, or I’m missing out.

And I’m exercising a fair amount! I’m riding my bike almost every day. I’m thinking about Memorial Day and thinking of it as three whole days where I can ride my bike for hours! And maybe we’ll take a ride to the park, and, and, and! I need to work some TRX training in too so I don’t lose my strength gains, but if I TRX and bike almost every day, I’m really doing great. And all that fresh air and exercise is so good for me mentally.

It’s a little weird being in this mode and not feel stressed or panicked or like I’m doing something “wrong.” I like it though! Maybe, finally, I’m finding my way along to something I can realistically do for the next 50 or 60 years!

Today’s big accomplishment was relinquishing my death grip on the handlebars. I’ve been hanging on to the handlebars so tightly that, no lie, my hands ached for days afterwards. Obviously I knew this wasn’t right. I read up on it, and it’s not uncommon for beginning cyclists to do the death grip. The articles I read pointed out that A) it was a waste of energy my body could use to do other important things like, say, pedal the bike, and B) it gives the illusion that you have more control but it’s actually less safe. You’re more able to deal with changes in road conditions quickly if you are looser.

(Hmmm, is it me or is there some metaphor for life and weight loss in there somewhere?)

So today I focused on no death grip, and just resting my hands atop the handlebars with my fingers curved naturally around the brakes. Which is actually probably much safer than wrapping only my index finger around the bars! I didn’t focus on speed, I just wanted to ride without hanging on for dear life. And I had a great ride! I almost think that relaxing my hands actually made me feel more relaxed. It helped that today was the first all-out sunny gorgeous day in my neighborhood in forever! Riding when it’s warm and sunny out is much more fun than when it’s cloudy or threatening rain.

Also I’m proud of myself for getting out on the bike after having a little procedure at my dermatologist’s office earlier today. He saw a mole growing back in an area where I had something “funny” growing in before, so he wanted to excise it. I have a humongous pressure bandage at the base of my neck, which is getting really uncomfortable, but I can take it off tomorrow. I thought it’d be a good idea to go riding before the anesthetic wore off! I promised myself that I’d go home if I felt at all sick or weird, but the only thing that kept me from going further was sore biker butt. I need to build up my butt callus!

All this extra exercise I’m getting and all the fresh air does wonders for my energy. I came home after my ride and did a bunch of cleaning-up things around the house. I’d be doing more now, but I think I should probably chill out so I don’t mess up my stitches by accident.

So bike riding = awesome. Bike riding = especially awesome on a warm sunny day. Death grip, on the way out! For my next trick, I will learn to take my hand off the handlebars so I can signal!

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Not to boast or anything, but honestly I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life. Also, I haven’t been to my gym in weeks.

Between working out on my TRX suspension trainer, my treadmill at home, my exercise bike at home, the occasional workout DVD, and now riding my bike, I have so many workout options! I can work out whenever I want, however I want, and I can change it up depending on the weather or my schedule.

So do I even really need a gym membership anymore?

I’m a Gold’s Gym member, and I signed up back in 2004 or 2005 before they finished renovating. Then a little later they were doing a promotion that if you renewed your membership, you locked in your rate for life. So I’m only paying $37.44 a month. I will never ever be able to beat that rate anywhere else! Plus it’s only 3 miles from my house. Plus there’s a Gold’s Gym near my inlaws’ home out in the Midwest, so I can use the gym out there. (Of course, the negative of that is I either have to borrow their car or get someone to drive me over and pick me up again. And since the TRX is super portable, and we’re looking into bikes we can keep out there, and I can load up my computer with workout DVD’s or go jogging, again, do I really need the gym there?)

Also they haven’t really updated the facilities at my gym in years. Sure, they have classes, but I’m not really a gym class person. I don’t like to be locked into a schedule, or plan to work out and then have to bail because of commitments at the office. Finally that $37.44 a month translates to almost $450 a year that could be in my pocket!

So given all these givens, what would you do, Gentle Reader? I look forward to your comments and suggestions!

Okay, I know I sound like I’m 8 years old, but seriously I’m so proud of myself: I went on a decent distance bike ride all by myself! No wonderful Hubby to pace me and make sure I didn’t fall off my bike into traffic. I rode down the bike path to the intersection, I rode in the bike lane on an actual road. With cars zooming by me! And it had been raining so there was a lot of water in the bike path! It was scary!

Happily that’s only about a mile, so I got to the nearby office park safely. Once you’re there, it’s an awesome place to ride on the weekends. Very few cars, but it’s near the highway, so I feel like it helps desensitize me to the noise. There’s lots of long straightaways, it’s pretty even, and the roads are in fine shape. I could really bust loose and ride hard!

I wore my heart rate monitor today too. It’s not as good as Cyclemeter for picking up my speed, but I was really thrilled to see I got my heart rate up this time! Now I’m going fast enough that I can tell I’m getting a workout! In 53 minutes, I burned 440 calories!

Every time I ride I’m getting a little teeny bit more comfortable and confident. It’s like when I took guitar lessons as a kid, but this time I actually want to practice! And I want to ride more and more. Hubby and I are even researching buying bikes to keep at his parents’ house when we visit them this summer. We found to our delight there’s all kinds of bike trails, one good long trail only a couple blocks from their house! When I read travel articles, if they mention bike trails, I’m noting it down as a potential travel destination. I salivate over Backroads trip descriptions! And it’s only been 8 days!

Anyway, I love it. I get it. I can’t wait to get better and better. 

I went for a spin around my neighborhood this morning. We live very close to the train station, so 7:30 in the morning near a commuting hub isn’t a great place for a newbie to practice her riding! Although I did do a little better riding with cars on the road. 

Hubby thinks getting comfortable with cars should be lower on my priority list. I’m only averaging around 7 to 8 mph right now. He suggested I work up to a consistent 12 to 14 mph before I try riding in traffic. Luckily we live close to a big office park, so I will try riding the loop around there on the weekends, and maybe stick to the asphalt path across the street. 

I still can’t believe I’m only going about 8 mph, or 11.47 at my fastest! It still feels like I’m going crazy fast. I guess because I’m still kinda wobbly. Another good reason to stay off the roads: I tried raising my hand off the handlebar this morning, as if to signal a turn, and I nearly fell over! So yeah, I should just stick to quiet paths for the moment.

Yeah, well… That just isn’t true anymore.

On Saturday I finally put it all together and I rode my bike!!! Sure, I fell a bunch of times, and I cut my elbow, and battered the hell out of my shins. But I rode my bike!

And I did it again yesterday, and I did it again this morning! My husband is really amazed at the progress I’ve made since last Sunday!

Now it’s not pretty yet, or very fast. But I can feel myself getting better and better. This morning I went a couple miles and didn’t fall at all!

It feels like a whole new world. I can’t wait to tackle it on my new bike. 

So really. Try stuff. Even if you fall down. Especially if you fall down. Because it will happen if you try hard enough!

Oh, and by the way, yesterday was my 1 year anniversary of reaching goal on Weight Watchers.