The taste of cold turkey

I know from experience that moderation is not really my thing. Sometimes I think my life would be better if I could make it my thing, but on the other hand, moderation isn't what got me to the finish line of an Ironman.

Anyway, "easing" into primal eating is really not happening. I wake up with great intentions, and by noon I have a handful of Pringles in my mouth. (Pride forces me to note that we normally don't keep crap like Pringles around the house, but they are here now, them and a lot of cake.)

So I was thinking maybe I need to go cold turkey on this 30-day challenge. I realized that, conveniently, September hath 30 days, and doesn't have any birthdays or holidays in it. Plus, with school starting tomorrow, we'll probably be in a bit of a routine by then and stop spontaneously going out for ice cream every other day. So maybe I will dedicate September to a little experiment.

Or maybe I will chicken out. Not sure yet. This would not be easy. Anybody want to try it with me?

Shifting interests

My extracurricular reading is slowly shifting from triathlon blogs (most of which no longer interest me much) to mommy blogs and Paleo eating blogs. I guess that's a rough measure of where I might be going with my life now. Notice that I still read very few writing-related blogs, yoga blogs, gardening blogs, or housekeeping blogs. And still zero beer-making, right-wing political, left-wing political, tap-dancing, Russian history, or Elvis impersonator blogs. (I was going to include "clown-school blogs," but I realized that the reason it came to mind was because I have recently read a very fine blog about clown school.)

With Paleo eating, I'm still in the mostly-thinking-about-it stage. I thought about it a lot yesterday, but that didn't stop me from eating waffles with chocolate chips while playing Apples to Apples with the family from 10 to 11 p.m. last night. There's a silent starter's pistol for seriously beginning this kind of thing. It goes off at 8:15 a.m. next Wednesday morning.

Dipping my toe in

This is how I know I'm on to something:

A couple of times in the past few days I've eaten a totally Paleo meal, like a salad, or scrambled eggs with vegetables. Within an hour, I get hungry again, and my body starts suggesting, "Popcorn? Ice cream? Tasty, tasty, tortilla??"

Okay. So now that I've confirmed a severe physiological addiction to carbs, how do I actually get through the day without going all toast-happy? Keep in mind that I want to ease into these waters, not dive in.

Thinking about some dietary changes

Seriously weighed the pros and cons of yoga vs. nap before ultimately dragging myself to yoga. It was the right choice, of course. Afterward I felt more relaxed and more rested. I get the idea that some people think yoga is relaxing because it's slow and easy. But that's not it. It's relaxing because it's slow and hard.

I've been doing a lot of reading about "primal" eating and am convinced that, if nothing else, I at least need to cut back heavily on carbohydrates and dairy. (While I ponder this bold move, I've been happily polishing off all the leftover ice cream from the last birthday party we had at our house.)

I've been thinking to myself I could never go 100% (or 90%) primal, though. I am too picky, and absolutely addicted to Cheerios, milk, and a banana for breakfast. But on the other hand, the whole point is that those foods are addictive, and you need to break the cycle. Plus, I'm a big girl now. I don't have to be so picky if I don't want to.

What it takes to get me to the gym

A month and a half now since the race, and I've done next to nothing. Worse, I'm feeling fat but in no mood to step on a scale and find how how fat. Worse than worse, my butt's been in a chair for almost two weeks straight, including weekends, as I desperately try to keep up with the deluge of work that's deluging in.

Does any of that ever get me to the gym once in a while, just so I can get out of the house and feel a bit better about my life? Of course not.

What got me to the gym was realizing, after finishing a project, that "Project Runway" was going to be on in 10 minutes, and that even without a car I could probably run there in time to watch it on the treadmill. (We don't have cable. We do have a car, but it's elsewhere.)

I was dressed in running clothes, out the door, and to the gym (three-quarters of a mile away) in 12 minutes flat. The show was in commercials, but when it finally came back on, it was two-thirds over, having actually started at 7, not 8.

I just went home. I have work to do. But at least I can say I left the house today. Plus I probably got almost two miles in, parts of it fast and foolishly optimistic.

July totals

Oh, by the way…

Run: 2 miles (but a lot of walks)
Bike: 0 miles
Swim: 0 yards

(I actually stopped keeping track of mileage, but this one was pretty easy to do from memory.)

140.6 to Zero

When people asked me right after the race if I ever wanted to do another Ironman, I would say, "Maybe when I'm 50." You know, because I really did enjoy the process and the outcome, but realistically, it was too much sacrifice to ask of my family at this stage of our lives.

One month after the race, my view has changed.

Now I think I will never, ever, ever, in a million years do one of these again. I look at my Kona magazine ("THIS IS YOUR LAST ISSUE!") and just see a bunch of crazy people wasting their finite time on this planet getting ever-more obsessed with mileage and wattage and VO2 max and aerodynamic bike shorts and the pros and cons of different types of shoe cushioning.

Yes, the New Julie has a lot more free time and a bit more perspective on her priorities in life.

Of course, the New Julie also can't seem to keep up her measly 32-minute-per-week workout regimen. I was expecting a post-Ironman mental backlash against exercise, but it's worse than I imagined.

So the new New Life Plan is this: I'm taking the rest of the summer off, both from any kind of structured exercise plan and from worrying about it. I'm not going to do anything I don't want to do. Lest you fear I'll need to rename my blog "140.6 to Zero," I should mention that I do want to do yoga, and I might even want to swim, run, or bike. I just don't have to. I'll try to pick up with the old New Life Plan after the kids are back in school and a routine seems within my grasp.