Schedule Confusion

I messed up today. I thought I was opening, so I made plans to go climbing with the boy and some friends of ours at five tonight. Turns out I'm closing tonight and therefore have to be at work at 4:30. So no climbing for me, which actually makes me really sad. I started climbing because the boy and his two best friends have been climbing since they were fifteen (so eight years now, WOW!). He finally convinced me that I would not be too fat for the harnesses, and I agreed to take an intro class about two years ago now (December 2007). Turns out they had to put me into an extra large men's harness, but I got over it, learned how to belay, and tie in properly and fell in love with the sport.
As I lost weight over the last year one of the things that astounded me was how quickly my climbing improved. I spent almost a year struggling to go from climbing a 5.7 (stupid easy) to a 5.9. As my weight dropped to around 175 and below I moved from climbing a 5.10a to a 5.10c in about three weeks. As of now I have on-sighted (that is climbed without falling, to the top on my first try) a a few 5.10ds and have a few 5.11as and bs that I am currently working on, as in I can climb them, but not without lots of falls. As the boy said, now that I'm carrying up 25lbs+ less per hand, difficult, technical moves, along with moves that require a whole lot of strength are much, much easier.

I've been thinking a lot, lately, about the things I used to do to myself, the way life used to be. The boy and I used to go out to dinner and order two appetizers, two mains, and dessert. He can do that, he's tall, super thin, and struggles to put weight on. I thought because he could do it, I could too. Not the case. Not the case at all. I couldn't go hiking, I couldn't enjoy the outdoors because I worried I would be faced with a physical challenge I would be incapable of over coming. When I went to Vegas with my friends in August 2008 I untagged almost every photo that went up on facebook and spent the three days we were there semi-miserable due to heat and my inability to walk as fast as everyone else because it exhausted me.

Last week I was asked to go pick up milk from a nearby store about fifteen minutes from mine. We were desperate, had one jug of milk left, and the boy had taken my car. As a result I carried (in giant costco bags one of the people at the other store let me borrow, otherwise it would have been impossible) over 50 pounds of milk back to my store. As I was walking, my muscles aching, I realized that I used to live every single day of my life like this. Every day. It's shocking to me now, and that's the true testament to how far I've come.

My manager calls me 'muscles,' I run half marathons, people consider me fit, toned, in shape. All things I never was before in my life. And I wont lie, I love it.

In other news today has been semi-laid back. I got up and threw together some Greek yogurt, granola, and a banana and ate it while I sat in bed reading. Later in the morning I also had one cookie that the boy's mom baked last night, she's a fantastic baker and I'm a strong believer in occasional indulgences. Particularly when it come's to her baked goods. The key, and I know this is the hard part (trust me I screw this part up frequently), is to only have one.

After cleaning the kitchen and fridge I put together lunch. For lunch I threw together a sandwich made up of multigrain sandwich thins, crofters superfruit spread, humus, spinach, and tempeh. I know it sounds weird, it was actually really, really good. I also had an apple on the side. As I suspected, they were, indeed, good apples.

When I found out I wouldn't be going climbing today I thought I might go to Bikram, but the boy needed the car as he is still going climbing after work, so I downloaded Jillian Michael's 30 day shred and did level one. Ok, so I know a lot of people have problems with Jillian, and the Biggest Loser, but I've been curious about her DVDs and I've heard really good things. In short, level one had my sweating like crazy. I didn't think 20 minutes could give me that good a workout, but it did. I worked, and I worked hard. I still have problems with the Biggest Loser; basically I don't think losing 200 pounds in six months is healthy in any way, shape or form... but her workouts are solid.

I'm off to go throw together dinner to take to work. I think I'm going to have some leftover quinoa, with spinach, almond milk and almonds on top, I've got a bit of an idea I'm playing around with... I'll let you know how it works out.