[TiogaGirl]

Me, most of the year: Oh I wouldn’t say I have a favourite season, I love them all ?

Me, as of September 1st: BER MONTHS! BER MONTHS!

 

Okay, I am fall’s bitch. Brisk nights with the smell of woodsmoke in the air, crisp sunny days, blazers and boots, energy levels on campus going through the roof, cozy flannels, all the good things at the farmer’s market, teaching my favourite class, back to show choir… yeah summer is sweet but this is even better (shhhh don’t tell summertime)

 

As bewailed in the last challenge, I’m recovering from bilateral knee surgery that happened close to two months ago. Some post-op progress since I updated last is (a) can do planks again (!! Love me a tight core) (b) got cleared to do assisted squats, so hubby helped me set up my rings for that ❤️ (c) got cast in a couple of choreo numbers for show choir, so did some dancing on Wednesday ? (d) I can shower standing up, as of today, so I get to use the regular human shower - not the big one usually reserved for when our dogs have been skunked (I was demoted to that not for being that stinky but because we could fit a shower chair into it). Anyway still a BUNCH of recovery to do, namely improving flexion and extension so I can walk normally without hiking poles, but the physio is actually pretty fun in a weird way. At least it’s fun (though hard) at the clinic, I get a bunch of new home exercises, and I practice them 3x/day as the luster gradually wears off… darn short attention span.

 

I have a bit of a streak going (okay, it’s just a 3 day streak, but today is day 4 and it’s looking good) of tracking food and not eating like a jerk. More specifically, shooting for 35% calories from protein, 25g fibre, and 1900 calories max. Now that Labour Day holiday travel is over & getting back into the swing of routine I should be able to strengthen those habits.

 

Just going to focus on consistency with physio (ideally 3/day, at LEAST 2) and coaching workouts (6/week), and consistency with food stuff, this challenge. Probably lots of updates about choir, work stuff (research and teaching), pet news. And many repetitive to-do lists, somehow that’s what my challenges always devolve into ? what can I say, I can use the accountability!

 

[Everstorm]

[TiogaGirl]

Oh man! Every time I say something about a not-eating-like-an-a’hole streak, that jinxes it!! ? 

 

Anyway. It’s Saturday, dogs are walked, morning physio is done, and hubby and I are headed downtown to meet bro and lil nephew for breakfast. Also did weigh in and neck/waist/hip measurements for coaching, and will take progress photos (VERY MUCH ‘BEFORE’ STATE) later today.

 

Spoiler

I am a little salty about the requirement that ‘waist’ be measured at the belly button, but whatever, I guess as long as it’s consistent it can track progress. But how many women actually have the belly button as the narrowest part of them? Am I just anatomically weird?

 

[Everstorm]

Spoiler

Science differentiates between "natural waist" (the narrowest part of your torso) and waistline or "umbilical abdominal circumference" (the belly button measurement).  Natural waist is typically higher on the body like yours, but belly button measurement is a better indicator of body fat, which is why your coach wants those numbers and not the natural waist numbers.

 

[TiogaGirl]

Oh that makes sense! I just need to get over myself and stop attaching self worth to a number, haha.

[Sovalis]

Hi TG! I am glad to see you! Here to follow!

 

[TiogaGirl]

Woohoo! Hi and happy September and welcome!

[TiogaGirl]

Cool temperatures, bright blue sky, and I am HERE for it. Love this time of the year ❤️

 

The week (so far) in nutrition: Monday not tracked, and today (Sunday) just started, but Tues through Fri you can see me start off strong then gradually go off the rails ? 

Spoiler

It’s okay. I will have the chance today to do some lunch prep for the upcoming week and shoot for at least three strong days, up from two last week.

 

[TiogaGirl]

Been a good day so far! Walked Dante, did morning physio, then went for another walk (about 2 km) just in the ‘hood, listening to a podcast [Stop Talking about Fat Loss] and just vibing with the bright fall weather. Came home and did a couple minutes of plank!! [not sequentially]

 

Then started prepping for tomorrow’s lecture, ran into password issues on the teaching laptop (haven’t used it for about 10 months ?), managed to solve thanks to my awesome colleague checking her email despite it being Sunday morning. LOTS of setup and tech to learn or re-learn - hopefully it all goes smoothly tomorrow. Anyway I prepped the lecture pretty quick once the tech was more or less sorted - last year’s version was good so i didn’t have much to update or overhaul. Figured out how to post the slides on our new online learning system, well, I didn’t figure it out so much as hubby showed me. ❤️ 

 

Now icing my legs, literally just gonna chill until 330, then walk outside again, then take a bath!!! Bills aren’t playing too well today but spirits are high in the house regardless.

[TiogaGirl]

Good morning! Oh, so stressed today. Six lecture hours this week (plus office hours Friday) and the first one’s today! No qualms about the lecture itself, just fretting about whether the classroom tech will work. Co instructor had a terrible time connecting her laptop to the theatre screens last week, suggesting the campus equipment may be wearing out ? plus there’s all sorts of other programs that need to be running to poll the class and to do screen grabs and audio recordings. Blah.

 

If I can get my lecture to display properly I’ll jump for joy! If I can get it to record both audio and video too, I’ll be doing cartwheels!

 

Spoiler

After lecture, I _either_ have a grad student exam or I have a meeting to discuss why the student’s written document isn’t ready for them to go to exam. (Examiners are supposed to tell the grad secretary whether the document is good enough for the exam to take place, and so long as two out of three say it’s a go, it takes place). We should have known by early last week which it would be, but still no word either way yet, so this is a little nail biting. Well- probably much more so for the student than for me.

 

I would just ask the other two examiners how they voted, so I could infer whether exam is a go or not, but we’re not supposed to communicate about that in advance ? I guess our system only works if everyone gets their votes in on time and the grad secretary checks her email!

 

After meetings are done for the afternoon, my options are (a) do a bit of editorial work, I am super behind on all that stuff and at least breaking the seal would make me feel less anxious; (b) go to the gym, I am cleared for a few things there I’d love to do, like cycling, calf lifts, plus their mats and floors are way less dog hairy and pet infested than my options at home; (c) just head home, I’ll probably be wiped out after a full day back. Who can say??

 

Challenge-wise: yesterday was back on track for nutrition! Well maybe a little short on protein grams, but overall calories were quite low too (like 17something) so % protein was on point. Fat and carbs were a little out of balance (I perpetually get more carbs than dictated and less fat) but that all comes out in the wash. Had a bath in the afternoon (that is not part of the challenge, but very lovely) and FaceTimed my mom, and hubby made one of my favourite fall dishes for dinner. ❤️ Slept well except for periodically waking up and stressing about classroom technology!

[Sovalis]

I hope all the tech cooperates today!

[TiogaGirl]

So… my husband and I both had nightmares last night, me about classroom tech failing to connect, him about zombies in our basement. MY NIGHTMARE CAME TRUE. I had to teach w/o slides for 20 minutes until the classroom support guys ran over to fix things! Looks like the port is broken in the classroom, but they solemnly swear they’ll help me set it up tomorrow.

 

I guess if one of our nightmares was going to come true I’m glad it was mine and not the zombies one. But yikes! Lecturing to 800 people is nerve inducing enough even if everything works! 

 

Anyway, it was a good class other than the tech fail, students were super into it. Then had lunch, met with a student, had migration group meeting and a lil informal meetup with most of my grad and u’grad thesis students. By then my knees were pretty sore and swollen, but hubby (and youngest dog) kindly drove to pick me up from the edge of campus. Now I’m home lying on the couch in my underpants just icing my knees with the cryocuff device ? 

 

8400 steps today so maybe that’s why my knees are being sulky and rebellious!

[TiogaGirl]

I really want to go wash my face (layers of sunscreen, skin tint, mascara, all bugging me) but I’m so comfortable and tired ? If anyone’s around can you order me to clean my face?

[Artemis Prime]

49 minutes ago, TiogaGirl said:

I really want to go wash my face (layers of sunscreen, skin tint, mascara, all bugging me) but I’m so comfortable and tired ? If anyone’s around can you order me to clean my face?

[TiogaGirl]

1 hour ago, Artemis Prime said:

Haha done! Thanks!!

[TiogaGirl]

Early mornign today, gotta leave the house by 8 to have a hope of getting to class on time! Darn road closures and altered bus routes… well those wouldn’t matter if I could bike or walk to campus as usual. Just a perfect storm when paired with my knee still under recovery!

 

Back to back lectures today, then prep time for tomorrow/Thursday’s lecture. Depending how quickly that goes I might be able to hit the gym afterwards *fingers crossed*

 

[TiogaGirl]

Lectures went well, tomorrow's lecture prepped, now heading home for a whole bunch of catch up on physio! (it probably doesn't really work like that but will do my best).

[TiogaGirl]

Home! Lots of steps between my office and the bus stop, but I felt pretty good. Played with the dogs a little, did set 1 of physio, did my coaching workout plus an extra couple of planks and assisted squat sets. Now just babying the ol’ knees with ice and elevation. Feels good to be- well not caught up with the day’s physio- but a little less behind!

[Everstorm]

Good job making forward progress ? 

[TiogaGirl]

G’morning! This is what I think of as classic September weather in my part of the world. Blue sky, currently cool enough to lure me into wearing long pants and a blazer; but will surely have me a sweaty mess by the time I’m walking home at 4 pm. ? 

 

busy day coming up: wrangle the bus to campus, lecture (but thankgodfully as noted above the technology in the lecture hall seems to be working now), quick scrum of answering questions (I do have office hours later in the week but it’s usually more convenient for students with a real fast question to ask me just after class), lunch (but what?? We finished off the most packable leftovers; could make a hearty packable salad or could take $$ and try my luck at the food trucks on campus), organize questions for a grad student exam, take part in the exam itself,  looooong walk to the off campus bus stop to get home, quick review of dance steps and music, then choreo and choir rehearsal! Whew!

 

Somewhere in there I’d like to fit in at least one bout of physio, and my coaching workout. I still have body comp goals and knee recovery goals, so should do at least something each day to progress towards them! Well one thing I can do that will move me in the right direction will be to make my lunch, not buy it on campus. I’ll commit to that for now and hopefully also get strength and stretching stuff in too. General activity should be no problem with walking to/from bus and a night of dance practice…

[Everstorm]

6 hours ago, TiogaGirl said:

currently cool enough to lure me into wearing long pants and a blazer; but will surely have me a sweaty mess by the time I’m walking home at 4 pm. ? 

 

Oh yes.  It's that time of year

Spoiler

 

 

[TiogaGirl]

Haha, yes!! And this time of year fools me all the time!

 

BEST time of the day is when I drag my sweaty rumpled hot mess of a self inside the door getting home from work; the dogs and the lovely AC greet me; and I peel off my work clothes and get into shorts and a tank. Now just icing my legs and chugging bubbly water ? I’m secretly jealous of hubby and all my other friends who commute on e-bikes instead of the sweaty city bus!

 

Food good so far today, I made an awesome hearty salad that was way more macro friendly than food truck offerings. And lecture went great. Just need to prep up for choir and dancing! Then tomorrow I have to lecture b2b …but after that (and Friday office hrs, but no tech or prep to worry about for those) I’m done teaching for several weeks!!!

 

I _should_ do a bout of physio before rehearsal. I’ll be glad I did it, afterwards, just need to muster up the motivation now.

 

 

[Salinger]

Hey TG! YOU SOUND GREAT!!!!!

 

I wish i was brave enough to lecture. I couldnt do it. makes me go cold thinking about it!

 

How are your legs feeling today? xx

[TiogaGirl]

Hey Sal!! ? 

 

Lecturing used to be the most terrifying part of the job for me when i was first starting out, but the department kept assigning me giant high enrolment classes so I got over the fear. Mostly. I still get an adrenaline spike just before, but it’s mild enough my body interprets it as “oh I’m really excited to share this cool idea or run this awesome activity today in front of such a big group” not “aaaaaaah yikes!” And when a giant class goes well (& they usually do now that I have many years of experience) it’s such an immediate high. By contrast we never get immediate positive feedback for research, I mean it’s exciting but everything we write up has to go through slooooow peer review then the reviewers (rightly) concentrate on what needs changing or fixing up. But give a great lecture and it’s a total rush. Best part of the job, maybe.

 

Legs are a little stiff today but not too bad. I probably over did it yesterday with walking during commute, sitting for several hours in a meeting, then dancing in rehearsal ? but have physio at the clinic this afternoon and get to do the cryo compression treatment at the end of that!!

 

Really thinking about trying a (gentle) yoga class on the weekend. I could do with some stretching! I would need to modify a lot of the poses as it’s hard on my new knees to be on all fours (like for cat/cow) and nearly impossible to do kneeling poses like hero or… well, a lot of the poses are kneeling. But I could probably work with the instructor to figure out poses that are more accessible to my current state, and how great would it feel to streeeeeeeeetch!?

 

Busy day today: back to back lecture, starting at 930, and apparently the already dire bus commute situation may be even worse today thanks to an accident, so i probably have to leave super early. I will be happy when I get back on my bike! Then meet my grad student to run through practice questions (he’s defending tomorrow!!!) then physio… then gym or straight home and CHILL OUT.

 

[TiogaGirl]

Home again and soooo tired. Over 15,000 steps today ? caught the bus okay this morning but it took a super weird detour and dropped me far from where I teach, so lots of walking to get to the right part of campus; then a solid workout at physio; then walked all the way home, as the road closures were STILL going on this afternoon so buses weren’t really available. I am such a hot sweaty mess right now, but happy to be home drinking cold water and vibing with the dogs. 

 

Done lectures for the next little while! Another pretty busy day tomorrow but that’s it for lecture prep until mid October.

 

Will see if I recover any energy after lying on the couch with dogs, but realistically I wouldn’t be surprised if today’s workout doesn’t get done. At least it was a super active day, and getting home from work fully under my own steam is a pretty sick flex. Haven’t done that since the surgery!