Exhausting My Options

For the past three weeks I've been consciously working out and limiting what I'm eating. I've been logging in My Food Diary 9 out of the past 21 days and some of the days I didn't log, I partially logged and knew how much I could eat for dinner.

After two weeks I actually gained weight, which infuriated me. I said that I was going to add double work outs and a resurgence of my mile run, which was this past week. I had lost that odd gained weight and then lost .4 lbs last week. I played tennis six days last week and ran my mile three times. On days that I ran my mile I also did 20-30 minutes on the elliptical.

I didn't see any significant loss with regards to my weight, which pissed me off even more than the weight gain. I worked my butt off this week!

I did finally see and feel a increase in my level of tennis play by Friday night's match, especially at the net (won 6-3, 6-4). And I could see a decrease in my mile time over the past four runs:

Nov 9 - 14:00
Nov 13 - 13:37
Nov 15 - 13:16
Nov 17 - 12:45

My last mile felt really, really good. I finally wasn't struggling against my lungs and my body and nearly felt like I could actually "run" this 5k on Thursday. Or at least the first mile...

I've also been switching up which Lifetime I go to. When I very first joined a gym in Minnesota, I joined the Northwest Athletic Club in Moore Lake. Eventually, Lifetime bought up all of the Northwest clubs, including the Lifetime where I work now, 98th St., or "Bloomington South" in Lifetime Land. The Fridley Lifetime is now the reincarnated Moore Lake Northwest.

What I like about the Fridley club is that they have a large workout room that is encircled by three track lanes. This enables me to run on a track instead of a treadmill (yuck!). I can run on my own without the aid of a machine moving my legs for me. I can speed up or slow down as I like. The track's longest lane takes nine laps to equal a mile; the smallest, 10 laps. I stick to the 9-lap lane for the sake of less laps.

So, what now for this week? Ru and I had talked about reducing carbs. Josh has been doing this and has dropped 13 lbs. I'm not sure where they came from, as he's already a skinny kid. This morning I had two eggs with some cheddar cheese instead of my usual cereal, waffles, or egg sandwich. I'm not sure it's going to keep me full though. I'm already hungry!

This is my last ditch effort. I know Thanksgiving is going to throw a wrench into things this week, but I'm going to try to be good. I'm participating (note: I didn't say running) in a 5k that morning. Tennis is down to 2x this week though, which is my big calorie-burner.

I don't know. I just do not know what else I can do. It's really been a fight to get out of this particular set of 10 and down into the next set of 10. I've never, ever had this much of an issue when I've put forth this much effort. Changing my diet is the last thing I can do. And then...? If this doesn't work? I will keep playing tennis and working out, but I'm not going to kill myself. It's simply not worth if if there is no reward at the end of the week.

Saying Dirty Words

This is going to be a pain to type.

I have only been injured while teaching PE two times in almost 9 years. Once while I was student teaching - I broke my ring finger on my left hand (premonition??) and today. Today I was gently guiding a student with autism away from a padded wall in the gym because he was standing right in front of my makeshift screen for a yoga video. He turned his back toward the matted wall and bent my fingernail in on itself. It just so happened that, at the moment, my nails are pretty long.

I said pretty much every dirty word I knew - they just kept coming out of my mouth. At the same time, tears sprung up in my eyes and started cascading down my cheeks. The para closest to me asked what was wrong and I pretty much gave her the middle finger...my nail was still attached, but there was blood, and it was on my middle finger. She told me I looked pale and had me sit down right away.

Once I had pulled myself together, more or less, the three female paras made me go down to the nurse. Now, I've had long nails for years and I've never broken one this far down. My finger was throbbing and when I entered the nurse's office, I started crying again. It is very much unlike me to cry over something like this. Yes, it hurt, but I think there was more to it.

One, I hate getting injured. It's a pain in the butt to shower with an injured hand. It's sensitive because that part of your skin is supposed to be covered by nail. And two, I hate being here. And now I'm injured. Everything compounded on top of each other and I broke down.

The nurse had me run my finger under cold water and then she bandaged me up and gave me some illegal Advil (but you didn't hear that from me). I then went to the office to fill out my injury report. Thanks, OSHA, for that cute little folder with "so you've been injured on the job" information. The secretary had me go to the library to fill it out and I'm glad I did. By the time I was done, I felt sick to my stomach and sweaty. I only had two more kids to see so I told their paras (because, honestly, elementary teachers haven't a clue as to my schedule) that I was going home and showed them my bandaged finger and told them my tale of woe.

What are the odds that I would hurt myself in the same district, nine years apart? On the same hand, nearly the same finger? I think this is another sign that I should heed. Just this morning I started bookmarking district websites on my computer at work (before I was injured). I typically don't start job searching until March, but this year it feels as if I've never stopped job searching... Let's just hope this year goes by quickly and with no other injuries.

And I will leave you with a picture of how I'm feeling right about now: