Baby got back, is back

There's so much going on in the blogosphere right now. Favourite writers taking a break*, maybe forever. Other favourite writers cropping up* again. And still other favourite writers writing some of my favourite things* lately.

And then there's me. Not much for writing these days, for the usual variety of reasons.

The exercise, it continues. I'm averaging three days a week at the gym, and four days a week worth of walks. The weather is getting progressively nicer, and my morning schedule has gone all to hell (more on that in a sec), so the morning walks are becoming afternoon or evening walks, and are getting a little longer, which is great. It's still my favourite (that word again!) form of exercise. I mean, I love a good body bar class, and no one could separate me from cardio strip for long, but walking, oh, walking. You get to check out your neighbours' gardens and paint jobs and pets, and get a little cardio at the same time. Big fan, big big fan.

The eating is...so-so. I've been tracking, and then not tracking. The tracking made me realise that I was definitely over-eating when I wasn't tracking. Occasionally I love tracking, the numbers and the stats, watching the exercise minutes stack up, seeing how many grams of protein I'm managing. But ultimately, the tracking is tedious. I know it's what I have to do if I want to succeed at this, but lordy, how I fight against it.

So I am trying, mainly, to listen to my body, and to listen to my mind. A tall order, I assure you. It works about 80 percent of the time. Eighty percent of the time, I have some edible item in my hand, about to mindlessly insert it into my mouth and I stop and say to myself, "hey, dude, you don't really need that food. Nor do you really want it. Put it back, yo." And 80 percent of the time I do just that. The other 20 percent I either don't wake up in time, or I reply to myself, "put it back? Uhhh, no." Still, since we tend not to keep crap around the house, it's more often than not a piece of fruit. Once in a while it's baked corn chips and salsa. Maybe once a week it's something less healthful. Over all, it's ok. Not perfect, but ok.

In other food news: salad. I believe my love of salad is well-documented here. I eat it most every night, alongside whatever else we're having, unless we're having something Asian or Indian. It's just the way I grew up. A big green salad, every night, eaten at the end of the meal. Like a green dessert. But savoury. ANYHOW. We've been buying these largish tubs of organic spring mix, and just haven't been able to get through them before they start to go off. Till Taco had a brilliant idea, one that frankly has revolutionised my supper-making. Why not just HAVE SALAD FOR DINNER. Not with dinner. FOR DINNER.

Genius.

I'm not even kidding. Though I love salad, I have a somewhat complicated relationship with it. I am picky about it. I won't eat day-old salad. I prefer, above all others, a simple green salad--lettuce, tomato-cucumber, avocado, olive oil, vinegar, a few herbs. I usually don't order it in restaurants because theirs isn't as good as mine. And JUST salad for supper? Hmmm. And yet, and yet. The goodness! Especially since I stopped being so precious about my green salad and starting expanding my boundaries.

We've had Nicoise, made with tilapia instead of tuna, because Taco prefers it that way. We've had a killer black bean and corn and greens salad with a spicy lime dressing. We've had an insanely good cabbage salad with seared tofu and a peanutty yogurty gingery dressing. And it's love. Love, I say.

What's the moral? It's either eat more salad, or try something you've previously only scoffed at. Or maybe it's both.

Oh yeah, and my routine going to hell: I'm co-hosting the local morning radio show for a couple weeks. Which means getting up at 4am to be at work by 5:10 or so. Dude, that is EARLY. But it's fun and it means I have the afternoons free. Which rocks. Starting in June, the schedule changes again, and I'll be producing the local afternoon show. Which means being at work from 9am to 6pm and hardly ever getting away for lunch. It won't be the best schedule ever, but the job is fun and the money is good, and the Ass Kicker is running a four-days-a-week bootcamp all summer, and it sounds like I'll be able to fit it in around the job, so that should work.

Because it is 148 days till the wedding, and frankly, that is not very many. And it would be excellent to be feeling at the top of my game for that particular party.

* I keep forgetting, my laptop doesn't let me add links in these posts. So, the blogs I'm thinking of are all accessible through my sidebar and they are, in order: The Fatslayer, Anonymous Fit Woman, hello i am fat and Someday is Now.