Value meal

Monday:

Tim was home today and we got lots of packing done. We've nearly finished the books (we have a LOT of books) and the board games (we also have a lot of board games!). I think we are up to box 79.

I did the grocery shopping and then picked up a rotisserie chicken and some chips for our lunch. The server drew my attention to the fact that if I chose a value meal I could get the exact same things plus a drink for less money. Now if she'd said it cost a bit more (but still a great saving!) I wouldn't have even considered it, but $1.50 less? They are paying me $1.50 to carry a drink out the door. So I did. The only choices were fizzy drinks, which I don't like and have maybe 3 or 4 times a year under particular circumstances. I asked for a Mountain Dew, which I haven't had for many years, and thought I'd have a few sips before I tossed it out.

And it was delicious. I was really surprised at myself. I actually had several mouthfuls before I made myself throw it away. It tasted very good. And I already have a little mouth ulcer, which I only get after big doses of sugar, so it is scary how much there was in those few mouthfuls. I just don't understand why I liked it though! Generally I've lost my tolerance for ultra-sweet things.

So I was fooled by the value-meal trap, where you think you are saving money but at what cost? Did I lose $1.50 worth of health today? Not worth it! Next time I'll just get exactly what we need. And stick to water with a squeeze of lemon.

Climbing a mountain.

Thursday night:

After writing that last post about how I need to get serious, I said to myself: there is no reason why I can't do some more exercise right now.
Myself: But I've done some, and I've got more lined up at 4pm. Don't wanna do more.
Me: I'm just sitting around wasting this special time I've created. It's really important. Get out there and exercise some more.
Myself: Awwww....

So I changed into my gym shorts, slapped on some sunscreen, and went out to tackle Mount Painter. As Canberra is up in the mountains (little mountains, Australia doesn't have any other kind), we have a few peaks nearby that aren't really that much higher than the surrounding houses. Mt Painter took me about 50 minutes from here, there and back. After a short downslope near home it was a gentle uphill the rest of the way through a couple of suburbs until I got the walking trail. I say walking trail, it was more a sheer cliff. But I scrambled up and through the gate at the top into the "reserve" land.

Can I just say that lots of stuff isn't fat-person friendly? I am about 20 kg (45 pounds) overweight, so I am obese but not, like, morbidly obese. I've seen lots of people bigger than me and I'm not sure how they cope. I can't fit into a kid's swing in the park, I have to wear my iPhone strap on my forearm because it barely fits on my upper arm (surely even a muscular man would find it too small), and this little gate into the bushland was a tight squeeze.

Anyway, I was up there on top of the world, behind the houses and above all the streets and noise. And I chickened out and came back down. I really don't like being alone in an isolated place, it scares me. So I didn't get to the peak a few hundred metres through bushland.

As soon as I got back it was time to pick up the kids from school and take them to gymnastics. This term they both have 90 min lessons on Thursday, with a 1 hour overlap. So I sat with Jasmine for the first half hour then went for a walk then sat with Aiden for the last half hour. During my walk I went the couple of blocks to the small lake. Unfortunately they were doing landscaping on the foreshore, meaning I had to detour around construction sites, but once past that I got to the bit of lake that they had finished landscaping and it was really nice. I don't walk around this lake much because only a small section of it is next to civilization, but this was a nice safe bit. The rest of the lake is heavily populated with families on weekends but a bit lonely during the week. As I said before, I don't like wandering around in an isolated area, no matter how safe our city generally is. I've only heard of one person being mugged by the lake, but I just wouldn't feel comfortable, I'd spend the whole time trying to look behind me.

Back near the gymnasium I picked up a prediabetes book I'd requested from the library. I'd lost my library card and the lady was quite concerned about me having to pay $3.20 to get a new one -- in fact last week the librarian had encouraged me to go home and check again before getting a new one. I guess $3.20 can be a big deal to some people who use libraries.

When I went to take the kids home, I found we were parked in. This happens all the time in the gym carpark, but most people are only there for a few minutes dropping off or picking up. We sat in the car and waited, but no one came out. We were all tired and hungry and trying not to get cranky. After about 10 mins we went back into the building. There were only about six parents still there, and none of them seemed to own the black car squeezed up behind mine. So I asked at reception and it turned out it was a coach's car. Which meant I would have to interrupt a lesson -- this late in the afternoon it was all older, more advanced students. One guy who was leaving insisted I had room to wriggle the car out, the receptionist asked "are you sure?" (no! not at all!) and he said yes yes, I'll guide her out. So we went out to the carpark. I couldn't see how it could be done so I gave him my keys and asked him to do it. It would have been interesting legally if he'd hit another car, who would be responsible? But he didn't. He went forward and back and turn and again only three or four times and got it out. Very nice of him.

It was very late by this stage and we got take-away on the way home. I tried to make decent choices; a roast chicken instead of deep-fried pieces and I only had a small portion and measured out some chips. No second helping. Quite restrained.

I walked more than two and a half hours today and I'm tired. I think I did pretty well. Of course there is a little voice (always the little voice!) that says walking is nothing you should have worked harder, made better food choices, been a better human being in every way. But no. No. Today I did well.

picture of Mt Painter from peakclimbs.com

Gluteus maximus

Wednesday:

Yesterday I took the kids to see Ice Age 4: Continental Drift. It was really enjoyable and well worth seeing. Enough interest there even for adults. I recognised some of the voice acting, but was stunned at the end to find that the main bad guy, Captain Gut, was voiced by the man who plays Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones. He is my favourite character in GoT but I didn't even feel a twinge of recognition.

We went to the food court for lunch and I had Oporto chicken and chips for the first time in a couple of years. They used to marinate the chicken in Lemon & Herb (or whatever) sauce but now they just give you a plain quarter of roast chicken and a sachet of sauce to squeeze onto it. Not the same thing, people! I think they've done it because they expanded their range from two to six flavours (they actually mainly do burgers) and it would be prohibitive to have six kinds of chicken marinating. That's my guess, anyway. But not happy.

The kids had happy meals from McDonalds. Special school holiday treat.

I spent the afternoon doing a bit of editing work while the kids amused themselves, clearly they didn't get enough exercise because they were very hyperactive at bedtime.

As the evening progressed I was coughing more and more, with a horrible tickle deep in my throat. And this morning I woke with lungs fulls of phlegm. I was really worried that I was coming down with yet another strain of this horrible flu that is going around, but by mid-morning I was feeling fine. I spent the morning working while the kids played PowerUp Heros on the XBox, jumped on the trampoline, and tossed a ball around outside. In the afternoon we went to the gym and they had their Club Gecko class.

I had a much better session today. I started with 20 mins on the cross-trainer, which I haven't used for ages, and did fine. I was a bit annoyed that they had moved all the equipment so that nothing was overlooking the pool anymore, I used to enjoy looking down on the swimmers. The cross-trainers were all pointed at the TVs, none of which were on the channel I wanted to watch. I couldn't hear my iPhone over the music they were playing, so I just listened to that and watched the subtitles on Catalyst about how bad the current flu season is and how many people died of flu in 1918 (between 30 and 100 million people).

I next moved on to the rowing machine which I used for 10 mins, I've had problems rowing in the past due to my shoulder injury and was fully prepared to stop after 5 mins or less if I needed to, but I was fine. On to the stationary bike. I used to use a recumbant bike all the time (where it's like sitting in a chair with pedals in front of you, not sitting on a saddle) and I thought Monday's struggle was just due to general tiredness, but I could barely get the pedals moving. It was weird. After 5 mins I moved to a normal stationary bike which was better as far as the pedalling was concerned. Since having children I have zero core strength which makes riding a bike really hard work, my postural muscles around my ribs started aching straight away but I kept going for another 15 mins. Finally 15 mins on the treadmill before it was time to collect the children.

While I was actually at the gym I felt like I was doing well, pacing myself so that I could keep going for the whole hour and not overstrain my rarely used muscles but still get a decent workout in. But once I was home the little voice started up again. Didn't work hard enough, should have pushed myself more, pacing myself was just an excuse to slack off, how come I only got in 70 mins of exercise when I had 90 mins, why did I go so slow on the treadmill at the end ... I hate that little voice that makes me feel like nothing I do is ever good enough.

But a couple of hours later my glutes started to get sore. So that made me feel like I had done some work after all.