I Love My Trikke

Can A Bike Do This?

I have been writing about my Love Affair With My Trikke for a year now, and I must say I still love my Trikke. Even more than last year! It is just One Fun Ride! I even quit smoking to trikke better.

Recently I have been taking more chances on the Trikke. I have been Trusting My Trikke more and more. All you have to do is Color Me Blown Away! And the weight, well it comes off in hits and misses, like in Another Seven Down. All I know is I am in much better shape than I have ever been in. Even if I am not always going down the scale, I am always and forever Ms. Trikke USA!

All my Trikke posts are written under the label, JTs full of her Trikke. I also have another label -- JTs full of her health, which is about my weight loss with the Trikke. Check out me and Birdie!

Also looking forward to my new T8 coming in September. Will post pics soon. Must name new Trikke...

One Fun Ride

I haven't written about my love affair with my Trikke lately. It's not because we're on the rocks. It's not because I have decided to use it as a clothes rack. It's because I have been in training for the last six weeks.

I have been riding seriously every other day for those weeks because I want to build my Trikke-muscles for the Labor Day Trikke Ride in Long Beach, exactly one week from today. I've been in training to ride farther and am now able to cover 10 miles. This is quite a goal buster for me.

I've had my Trikke for a year now and I still remember when it was hard to go around the block. I thought 10 miles was farther than my body could dream of. And yet here I am.

My body has changed so much. I am leaner. I am harder. I have upper body strength. I have definition. Not bad for a 54 year old obese woman with fibromyalgia!

I still have a long way to go. So far the journey has been packed with fun and hard work. After all Trikkes don't move themselves.

After next week I can go back to trikking any day I want for as long as I want. I won't stop traveling 10 miles. When I think of it, I will never be out of training as long as I'm breathing and loving my Trikke.

The Shoulders I've Tread Upon

I can't help but think of the women before me. They led the way for me to live as I've pleased, to make the choices I've been confronted with. Yet, How many centuries have women been born into a straight-jacket of servitude? How long before we had choices?

Just think, one hundred years ago, a woman could not live alone. She would not be single and she would not be without children whose noses needed to be wiped or who's diapers needed to be changed.

Even 50 years ago a woman needed a man to get through. These women were born to serve. After watching my mother work all day and come home to work all night, I saw that being a woman was a rotten deal.

Without words, I learned what was in store for me. And yet, I was lucky enough to be born in an era where I had choices. Should I marry? Should I have a career? After all it's just too much work to have it all.

I never wanted to pick up after a man like my mother did. The price was too high for me. And I can't help being grateful for all those unnamed women who were stuck in a life of subservience and who dreamed a better dream. I get to reap the benefits of those dreams.

I thank all the women whose shoulders I've tread upon. And I thank them for the life I live today. Without them I wouldn't have the choice to be with a man or to stand alone.

No Plateau

My friend Sara and I are both trying to lose weight. A lot of weight. And we both have noticed something about our bodies. It seems we lose weight in layers.

When I started my body was very soft, what you would think pudgy feels like, pliable, like a pillow sort of. I started exercising and losing weight. The pounds dripped off and my body got hard. It felt great.

Then a strange thing happened. I stopped losing weight. My body got all soft again. I thought I had gained all my weight back. I was surprised after a weigh-in that I had not gained one pound.

What happened? I lost all that soft fat, only to have the firm layer underneath go soft. Is the body getting ready to lose the next layer by making it soft and more easy to access for weight loss? Is this process what a plateau is?

If this is a plateau, I don't mind it. It is not a stagnate state the body goes into, but a preparation for the next phase of weight loss. As long as my body is actively working to lose weight and not just on vacation, I can handle that with diplomacy.

Paws-ative Proof

In-cognito

I have these spells occasionally, well maybe frequently, where I want to sleep all day. And so I do. I get up and in two hours I am so tired. I say to myself that I will just sit down for a while and then I wake up six hours later.

The dishes pile up in the sink. I don't want to cook, well I can't with no clean forks or spoons. I eat protein bars and yogurt to sustain myself. And my mood takes a dive into the deep end. I guess this is what depression and/or fibromyalgia look like.

My Trikke sits, collecting dust. I throw clothes over the handlebars. Those handlebars are perfect for a clothes rack. They are more perfect for carving up the sidewalk, but that is far from my reach during my down time.

These moods can last for three days. After that time I generally pull myself away from the Velcro couch and the TV. I need Zone Perfect bars. I need cat food. I need to save my soul from rotting on the inside.

It is hard, every time I get up and make my way back into my life. It takes walking blocks to unstiffen the muscles that have been shriveling up for the last few days.

In the sun, I'm like a flower unfolding. With my petals open to the sun, I stretch, I grow. It is then that I am recreated. Again.

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.