Time for honesty and a bit of a rant

FraidyKat sucks at this.

That's pretty much what I have been thinking about most things recently and I guess that's behind my lack of posts over the last couple of weeks.

It's weird how something so simple can set you off and turn into a downward spiral.
So where did it all start? I guess it was upset at getting the evil deity's curse of shin splints compounded by my stupid scales deciding over night (literally over night) that I had gained 3kg.
Intellectually I know that I did not magically gain that much weight over night, I was eating the right things and exercising so there was nothing to do it. At first I figured it was the batteries running out, so I changed them but the number did not go down. Then I concluded they must have been jumped on by the elder chaos daemon (bless her boundless, reckless, energy) and thrown out of calibration. It was no big deal, I would just pick up where I left off and count the drops not the overall weight.
That was a great theory but not a good reality.

Theory - the weight does not matter, only the consistant drop in fat.
Reality - the numbers are a score card, they tell you how you are doing and a when those numbers shift unexpectedly it's a real morale killer.

To anyone out there struggling to lose weight - FraidyKat knows your pain.

Of course, the start was enough. The old FraidyKat would have promptly gone off on a comfort food binge and then lost the plot with the sudden and genuine weight gain from being silly, but like a baby who's had their comforter stolen away I don't have the option of a comfort binge and it makes me cranky.

• Maybe an evening sat with a family bucket of chocolate after a greasy takeaway would be a little temporary sedative against the world, but Gallbladder disease means that old self medicated cure is not an option (not without a hospital stay immediately after it).

• A few glasses of legalised impure poison (wine by it's socially accepted name) might be a good substitute, but FraidyKat has a young family to protect from the Zombie hoard and maurauding Goblin tribes so now is not the time to be off her game.

• A run would be theraputic, it's hard to feel much of anything when exhausted and the endorphins are a welcome rush, but slow healing shin splints make that also impractical.

So where am I left?
Sitting at home guarding against the fantasy invaders, trying to re-evaluate and re-order my silly life while the reality cheque bounces like a space hopper into a parallel universe of perfect nutrition and adonis like bodily perfection.



According to my fickle scales I have anywhere between 2 and 5kg to lose by 16th August, that's three weeks. 1kg a week is possible if I am super good (without a bootcamp or personal trainers it's as realistic as I can get right now), so that's the aim. Or perhaps with the lack of accuracy of the scales I should instead point at a pair too tight trousers and aim to get into them without the aid of a corset or surgery...

For now, FraidyKat has resorted to the spreadsheet to create an eating plan for the coming weeks and serve as a reminder of what is needed. It maybea slight touch of the Rimmer method of revising for exams - 3months to create a spreadsheet leaving 1 night to cram in all the revision (Red Dwarf, Series 1). This spreadsheet has also been extended to dear partner (in search of the elusive six-pack, and who am I to complain?) and the little chaos darlings in a looser form, after all they eat a massive amount for their size (Chaos the elder seems to have a natural bond blackholes in that respect) and it has to be factored in to the weekly food shop.


Confidence kicks, trampled self-esteem and constant injury will not defeat me this time. I have a very important reason to drop the weight and gain the fitness, and it's not just ToughMudder, it's more important than that :-

The Zombies are far easier to detect in this current weather, but not for any pleasant reasons. Swarms of flys and a truely terrible smell give an easy way to know when they are around. I suppose we should be thankful that decaying fingers have trouble handling aerosols, deoderant and raid would really give us trouble.


FraidyKat Runs - to trample the Scales

#!!&**##!!!! Shin Splints

FraidyKat thought she had banished the bain of runners many long and painful moons ago but it appears they are as infectous as nano-gremlins and zombie bites. Just when you think you're safe the dreaded shin splints strike.

First it's a vague aching down the shin bone, then a persistant niggle, then pounding jarring pain on the run (with the occasional blissful stretch of numbness if you're lucky), then you are reduced to a pained hobble for several weeks until it heals. If you don't modify your training after that you'll just go through the cycle all over again. - I know, I made that mistake.
Most of the time, again if you're lucky, you'll just have strained the muscles around your skin bone or perhaps inflamed the protective sheath around the bone. If you're really unlucky you'll have damaged the bone to the point of fracture, tiny stress fractures that Doctor's struggle to diagnose until it's so far gone you're virtually unable to walk without agony.
I get the former, muscle and inflammation, painful but not ruinous with the judicious application of ice, ibruprofen and rest (tubigrip helps too if you don't mind the sexy skin ridges when you take it off!).
The latter, well, catch it early and give it healing time, it's all you can do. FraidyKat went to Uni with someone who didn't get it in time and was forced to take a medical discharge from the Army when he was told it would take several years to properly heal because it was left for so long. It was a hard thing for him come to terms with. Don't ever let it get that far.

In the spirit of catching it early I have taken the very reluctant decision to take another break from running. As it is only at the vague ache stage I have only had a short break, a 2miler on Tuesday and no more running until tomorrow. I'll see how it goes and if it's bad I'll cut the run short and have a longer break. What a #*&^*£"&!!!! Sorry for the top row speech but it's so frustrating to keep getting set backs.
If it is worse than I hope then I'll be hitting the weights so I at least get some training done. No excuse to vegetate just because I can't do high impact work and especiailly when my strength still needs improvement.
Update to come, ice blocks at the ready...


Also on the top row speech hit list at the moment are my previously trusty bathroom scales.
Somehow at the beginning of the week I suddenly put on 3kg, over night. Not believing this I asked dear partner to jump on said scales. It turns out he had also gained 3kg. Sigh, I guess that means one of the chaos daemons has jumped on them too often and knocked the calibration out. I could live with it if the weight had just jumped and remained there, it would be a hard thing to swallow but I could at least keep track of the loss, but that was not to be. I can now step on and off and seconds later step back on to find my weight has changed by up to 4kg. Oh well, more pennies to spend for a new one.
Okay, so a lot of people would say don't bother, find somewhere with scales a weigh in less often, or just go by body weight, but I need to see progress or I get demoralised really quickly (my flaw, one of many).
And I spent a few pennies, £14 actually, on a cheap set of bog standard scales, no body composition stuff (normally rubbishly inaccurate anyway according to all of the reviews), just weight. A quick jump on and, half way through the day, I have lost 1kg in the last week - that's about right and good enough for me.


Attack of the mutant zombie moles!
It would make for such a good B movie film title, but sadly it's not a film. Dear partner spent a long time in the garden today excavating the hills and it's his considered expert (?!!) opinion that they are no ordinary moles and extreme measures will be required to get rid of them. Time to get back in the lab and create some extra skinny armoured ninja ferrets. That should do the trick, just have to make sure they are immune to the virus so we don't then have zombie ferrets to deal with. Now that would be awkward.


FraidyKat Runs - with a limp