Trusting My Trikke

When I ride my Trikke around town, I am just another person fighting for sidewalk space. I have learned how to carve while taking the least amount of cement because of this. Yet lately I have been experimenting with opening up my angles. And while doing this I have found a new way to ride my Trikke. I've also found a new sweet spot.

To sum it up, I am "spending more time on the sides of my tires." In doing so I am leaning more. I am finally trusting the lean. I'm able to move a little faster. And I enjoy the ride more.

This is such an intellectual vehicle. Not only do I get rocked into a zen state, I think clearer. I now take paper with me when I trikke because the ideas just keep rolling through my brain. And I am an idea person.

So, getting back to the lean. I got this idea from watching how much time trikkers spend in the lean. I have finally gotten to the point where I don't think I'm going to fall off my Trikke every time I get on it. I know there is enough muscle memory in place that I can trust a little bit.

Even though I am getting very comfortable on three wheels (again), I won't be bombing down hills or going off sidewalks. I can still have a blast just trikking straight ahead. Well, sort of straight.

I'm In the Zone

I have not written about my weight loss journey lately. I think it has incorporated itself into my everyday life so thoroughly that I don't think, worry or ruminate about it much anymore. I am eating better, getting exercise and doing all the right things. I am not obsessing about the numbers right now. And, the numbers are staying firm.

I may be at a plateau. I have been at 250-ish for more than a month. I must admit I have been going crazy over the Zone Perfect bars, eating as many as five a day. Well, I do need my protein, after all. And at 15 grams a bar, I am getting it. Unfortunately I'm also getting 210 calories per bar.

Ok, the protein issue -- that's just an excuse to eat more of them. They are better than snickers bars!

I wish I were a celebrity so that every time I mention Zone Perfect bars the company would send me a case. My favorite is chocolate mint. If it were Valentine's Day, I would still want a box of chocolates -- double chocolate Zone Perfect bars, (not those funky heart shaped boxes filled with chocolate flavored crap). Just slap a bow on the box. Don't send flowers, they die. Send strawberry yogurt Zone Perfect bars to get to my heart.

So my thought for today is don't get all your protein from a Zone Perfect bar, it may keep you from your goals. But one or two will make the world a better place to be. Thank you, Zone Perfect.

P.S. FYI -- I mentioned Zone Perfect bars seven times in this post.

Disturbing, funny and just wrong

I read an article in The Week magazine about researchers finding out how to turn female mice into lesbian mice. They discovered by deleting one gene the female mice would avoid males and try to mount the females. The gene is called fucose mutarotase or FucM for short. Seriously, FucM.

I find it disturbing that we change the DNA of these mice at the embrionic stage. These mice probably do have a better life than street mice, but this just seems wrong. The scientists don't even know the significance of their findings yet, just that it may help them find the "gay" gene one day.

And the perfect attitude for a lesbian mouse to have could very well be, well, FucM.

The Perfect Cocktail

I have been having all these aches and pains with a variety of different descriptors, such as sharp and stabbing to dull and achey. I can't tell which is the most bothersome as they are both very uncomfortable. I was questioning a site to see if I have arthritis and found one full of women talking about how much pain they are in and how many different sensations it causes.

Some of the women listed their medications, the latest cocktails, and prognoses for those issues. I may as well have been looking at my previous perscriptions, because I have run across many of those meds in the last 20 years. Lexapro, neurontin, synthroid, vicodin, steriods, lithuim, fentanyl, cortisols, diclophenac, prednisone. And the diagnoses include: hypertension, obesity, depression, GERD, hysterectomy, hernia, gall stones and the list goes on.

I wanted to post a question asking about their childhood. Was there a lot of stress, fear, anger or denial? Was there violence? Worse?

In recovery therapy it is thought that 90% of obese people have been sexually abused.

Why do so few take the majority of the meds? Why are most of them women? I take seven separate medications daily, not counting the few that wait in the wings (example -- water pills and other pain meds). What is really going on here?

My first thought is that we complain about so many seemingly vague symptoms and doctors, who just want us to feel better, give us what they think will work. Yet how does a doctor know if it's fibro or arthritis? Is that why we use so many common ingredients in our cocktails? They throw the same meds at us for different diagnoses, kinda like throwing spaghetti on the wall to see if sticks. And what about the different ingredients we go through to get the correct cocktail? And the years that takes? It was 9 years for me alone.

My fibro symptoms seem very similar to those with arthritis. I bet the majority of us have other similarities as well. I mean body type, mind set and history. And with all this in mind I must say I'm not really complaining. My perfect cocktail keeps me off the couch and on my Trikke. That's the most important issue to me right now.

"So Happy I Could Die"

This is a song title by Lady GaGa that struck a chord with me. Her version is about her "addiction monster." My first thoughts were far from that.

I remember a day in Jr. High when I had a hall pass for some reason or other and I ran into my "omg, if-he-talks-to-me-I'll-just-die" crush -- Craig Lunsford. He was cruising the halls without a pass as usual.

I don't know why but he stopped me and we had a conversation. He was nice and I forgot my quietness and chubbyness. I remember thinking that if I died right at that moment, I would be complete."So happy I could die."

This is a concept that has puberty all over it. Those years when everything was at a high pitch and immediate response was not soon enough. And yet being "so happy..." has a timelessness to it. All those insecurities and fears are dimmed.

I recently added the song to my play list. Yesterday it came on and I thought of Craig Lunsford. I remembered that feeling of utter fulfillment, a feeling of completeness that a teenage girl gets from a teenage boy. Back then it carried me away.

It's been a few decades since a teenage boy started my heart racing. My trikke carries me away these days. "So happy I could die" now has to do with the wind in my hair, the warm sun on my skin, the completeness that fuels my trikke and me to go forward.

Ms. Trikke USA

When I trikke I take the attitude of a beauty queen on a float. It's not because I'm feeling really beautiful that day or anything like that. When people look at me while I'm on my Trikke, they are looking at me through the eyes of their inner child.

Most people light up when they see me, asking "is it fun?" My smile, also furnished by my inner child, conveys yes. For that brief exchange it is two adults forgetting who they are for a few minutes letting the playground days come back. It really is magical, and it really is fun.

I'm a big girl now, with a big girl helmet and a track that is not limited to the school blacktop. It is great fun tooling around my coastal city. I know where not to go and where to spend most of my time. Being an adult has its high points and low points. Being a trikker is all golden.

Need I Say More?

Can a bike do that?

Breaking Through

Yesterday I went on a trikke ride, the first in a week. I went as far as my last trikke-trip. I still wanted to go farther, but I thought I had better not push it, so I stopped. Today I feel fine and ready to go again. My neck is pushed up against that glass ceiling.

Will it be today I break through my self imposed limitations? I keep bumping up against that imaginary limit and thinking that is all I'm good for. I have a new perspective today. I need to keep bumping up against that ceiling and I will eventually find a crack. After all, I am not trapped under water hoping to break through a wall of ice. It's just another goal.

I think trikking is a barometer into what is going on with my everyday life. Some days I can't get on the trikke, and then there are days like today when I can't wait to get out there and on that. I am aiming for the pier. It's about six miles round trip. Watch out for falling glass...

Sidelined

My knee started whining again last week. I don't know what I did, I was just innocently trikking. When I stepped off the Trikke I stepped into pain. It went from my knee, up to my hip and back down to my knee. I had to walk home on it, 6 blocks. It was hard to breathe my leg hurt so badly.

What happened? I have no clue. I didn't fall off my Trikke, didn't step on or off incorrectly. I have no idea what I did. But it sidelined me for a week, just when I was getting stronger and was pushing through to the next level.

I have been suspicious about this next level and how I fit into it. I seem to revisit the top of my highest level and am never able to break through to the next. Something happens and I find myself starting over, again and again.

I've recognized this pattern in other aspects of my life. I feel good, no, I feel great, and then I catch a cold. I'm down for a week and have to restart my fitness gains over again. It happened in my professional life way, way, back when I had one. I never broke my own glass ceiling. And especially in previous dieting attempts, I get down to a certain number or average and then I trip myself up, gain all the weight back, get frustrated, eat like a bear before hibernation and then hibernate. I hide until I get my fight back, and then the whole cycle starts again.

Stop! Stop I say! I want to do things differently this time. I know I can do things differently this time. I will do things differently this time. Admitting the problem is the first step, right? And so I plan on trikking later today. It has been only 7 days off the Trikke so I should be able to step back into the level I was at during my last ride. Right... ?