Fitness + craft: worlds collide!

So, with a 300km 3-day ride on the horizon, obviously I need more than one pair of shorts—I’m thinking I need 3, so I have a fresh clean chamois each day!

But shorts/bibs are not only crazy expensive, they also tend to not fit right. They don’t accommodate my hip-to-waist ratio, or my long torso. 

But then Discovery Fabrics was having a sale! And they have a sewing pattern for bike shorts! The only question remaining: where to get a chamois?

I emailed Discovery, and they said that while they don’t sell chamois, I should check their Facebook group, because someone there would have the answer. And they were right! I have a chamois order in at Aerotech, and meanwhile my fabric and pattern arrived from Discovery:

Because obviously if I’m making my own bibs, they’re not going to be basic black

So excited to get to work on these!

Food experiments

So, I have never been a believer in, or really understander of, macros. I eat what I like and make an effort to get all my vitamins and minerals from food, but the whole thing where you tweak the ratio of fat to carbs or whatever is just lost on me.

But I was reading a discussion about it somewhere, and a particular short-term muscle building plan someone was on, and their struggle to get enough protein without going wildly over in the other areas, so I googled “40-40-20 diet” because I couldn’t wrap my head around what that would actually look like:

“A five-foot-seven, 140-pound woman needs just under 2,000 calories per day to maintain her weight. If she follows the 40/40/20 protocol, she should consume 200 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs, and 44 grams of fat per day.”

Whaaat 200g of protein per day? I rarely get as much as half that. I wondered, could it even be possible to eat that way? What would it look like? 

So, kidfree weekend and all, I thought I’d give it a shot: 

Not exactly right... would have helped if I had the idea first thing in the morning, before I ate a scone with butter and jam! was really difficult to force myself to eat this way. Did not want those chicken breasts at all, but felt I should eat something, as I had a massive deficit, and also got my second Shingrix jab yesterday, so didn’t want to skimp on nutrition. But as you can see, I failed on every measured nutrient except B2 (niacin) and my favourite, sodium.

I know this type of eating plan is only supposed to be a short term thing for people who do it, but yikes!

Too busy to blog—F4LBR #1

Wow another 5 months gone… time flies when you’re busy.

This year I have biked more, run more, walked more, and everything-else more. And now, I’ve signed up for my biggest challenge yet—the Friends for Life Bike Rally! I opted for the three-day version, but that’s still ~300km of riding. Toronto to Kingston. Kill me now. 

Actually the real killer is going to be raising the funds—I need to raise almost two thousand dollars, and so far I have $35 (that I donated myself). So please! Donate! It’s a good cause!

Also, in the interests of not dying on my big ol’ cruiser, I got a new (to me) bike—a little red road bike. Red means it goes fast. Here’s me on my first lil ride, trying and failing to take a selfie with the timer on my phone:

Me and Lil Red

A Bike Party friend helped me find it on Facebook marketplace, and is going to help me get it kitted up with toe clips, new grip wrap, etc. Will it get me all the way to Kingston? Camping along the way?! I sure hope so… 

Up and down

Oh boy, haven’t posted in months, whoops.

Cough study was a bust, pretty frustrated with that for numerous reasons, more on that another time.

10k was also a bust, I decided again running because it was cold and rainy, but apparently it was terribly mismanaged again so I’m glad I didn’t waste my time. No washrooms, no traffic control, no water, no medals. Just shockingly bad.

A tooth that was supposed to be a root canal split in half, so I needed a bridge, and last year’s bridge broke, which is not supposed to happen. 

But in good news, I played tennis last week for the first time in forever, and have doubled my average summer mileage this month so far. The weather is gorgeous and it’s lovely to be outside. My garden is mostly planted (just need to sow some lettuce and other greens).

My ferritin is good (did I blog about that yet?), my blood pressure is low, my weeks-long period finally ended, and I’m sleeping better. 

Overall, pretty good! I have to remind myself of that sometimes...

Cough study update

Went for my first in-person appointment today! Was moved up a couple of weeks when I realized I had double-booked with my mammogram, and it turned out the clinic had a cancellation. Whoo!

This morning, I spent three hours getting bloodwork done, various pulmonary function tests, providing medical history, weighed and measured, informed consent, urine sample, blood pressure, oximeter, etc. etc. Now I’m wearing a device to monitor my coughing for 24 hours. Next, I will get a chest x-ray.

I have two or three more visits before I am “officially” part of the study. Then I start my medication (or placebo). Then we shall see what we shall see.

Got new tennis shoes!

So of course it's snowing!

Also made this hoodie to throw on after tennis or a group run on a cold day.

Three more weeks

Till my initial appointment! Wow this trial process is long.

In other news, they have asked me to keep taking the PPI for now. Meanwhile I only today made the connection that my crazy ravenous appetite seems to have begun when I started taking the PPI. Maybe will stop taking it now, whether they like it or not. Having bad heartburn again today.

Or maybe it was PMS... spotting today, which would be 26 days since the last one, which is pretty normal I guess. 

OH MY GOD I was thinking it seemed like a lot less than 26 days since the last one... I was counting from 3 February to 29 February, forgetting the period that started 10 days ago...

Forgive the histrionic formatting but if ever there was a reason to be histrionic this is it