Spinning and bagels, but not spinning bagels

My YMCA is so shiny. There’s so much stainless steel that I feel like I’ve been dropped into a silverware drawer. There’s even a shiny, silver grill over the free-weights area that seems to serve no other purpose than to be glittery and to trap Frisbees. Joining the Y is the best decision I’ve made all year. While that only includes 22 days so far, I think it’ll be sitting in the top spot for awhile.

Last night I went to my first spinning class. I spun! For almost an hour. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I knew the music the instructor selected would define whether I liked the class or not. I’ve read stories of other bloggers who abandoned classes filled with too much hard rock or disco music. When the opening palpitations of “Baba O’Reilly” by The Who came on, I knew I was in the right place. The instructor had a playlist of mostly rock music and some 90’s music that gave me flashbacks to MTV. I dug it. I also appreciated the irony of the song that included lyrics like “I feel like I want to die” when I turned up the tension on my bike and stood up to pedal up an imaginary hill. The instructor was just a little bit mean…and I think I liked it. I evidently like a bit of taskmaster in my trainers. “Mean” is probably the wrong word. She was tough, telling us we were responsible for turning up the tension on our bikes when we didn’t feel like it and not to slow down. And she’s right. You only cheat yourself by wimping out. She also warned me that my butt will hurt for the next couple days, so that’s something to look forward to.

Spinning was very low impact, which is good because my left foot has been hurting slightly. I think I might have aggravated my old Achilles tendonitis, though I thought that would be healed after three and a half months. So, even though I’m supposed to do some running this week for my half-marathon training, I’m going to cross-train instead so I don’t hurt myself. I WILL run the mini-marathon. I WILL NOT reinjure my foot by overtraining it this week. Okay, self? Please listen to the smarter half of your nature here. This is hard for me to do because I really want to get out there and run and start working my training program and not fall behind. But if I screw up my foot, I might not be able to run the half-marathon at all, and I might actually cry snotty little tears if that happens.

The best news? I totally have my groove back. January’s been tough. These last couple of weeks have been trying, but for the past week I’m feeling that exercise high again. I feel more driven to workout and avoid all those crap foods that make me feel like crap. I went out of my way to get some fruit as a snack yesterday when it would have been much easier and convenient to grab a free cookie and some chips. January has been hard-going though. Two weeks ago I started to get back in the groove. I went two or three days eating healthy foods, chomping on salads and veggies. I even thought to myself, “This healthy eating stuff is easy. What did I find so hard about this?”

Then the bagels appeared on my desk. Literally, on my desk.

On the last day of the contract job I’d been working, a coworker brought in a 12-pack of Einstein Brothers bagels. Bagels are bread. Long-time readers of this blog will know that bread is my Kryptonite. Not only that, but with the bagels came with a tub of plain whipped cream cheese and tub of whipped maple raisin and walnut cream cheese. I held out for an hour, looking at my computer screen, diligently trying to avoid the tasty blueberry bagels and cinnamon raisin bagels and cheese bagels mere feet away from me. Then I finally decided to try the maple cream cheese and – OMG – it was like the candy filling of a chocolate treat. It was beyond good. It was like doing heroin, really enjoying it, and now having to live the rest of my life knowing something so pleasurable is basically off limits. I told myself I would just eat 1/4 of a bagel. And then I ate another 1/4. And then it seemed wrong to eat only half a bagel, so I finished if off. And had another half of a bagel. And finally someone moved the bagels off of my desk already.

And then I went kra-zee. I was mad with hunger for the rest of the afternoon. White flour screws me up. It makes me want to eat, and eat I did.

But, I got back on track and did pretty well the next couple days. Until Wednesday, when I walked into my new place of employment and there on the kitchen table was….can you guess? Another box of Einstein Bagels. With what kind of cream cheese? WRONG! It was honey almond this time. Not quite as good as maple raisin and walnut, but damn good. And then I went kra-zee again and ate and ate and ate. So, the lesson of this story? I cannot eat bagels. They make me go mad.

The whole thing was bizarre. Previous to this week, I hadn’t even known these bagel boxes and their delectable cream cheese existed, and then twice in one week they appeared. Anyway, my eating is back to “good” levels now. I’m going back to snacking more often, which was more difficult to do at my old job. I’m also trying harder to get a mix of protein, carbs, and fat with each meal. I’ve been eating some heavy carb meals lately, but I’ll sneak some protein in there somehow. Cottage cheese, eggs, meats – protein powder if need be. I’m spinning and hanging out at the YMCA, which thankfully is not next to an Einstein Bagels joint.