Hannah's Law

...is a term that Joel has (lovingly) coined in honour of what happened during my belt grading at taekwondo yesterday. It's largely the same as Murphy's Law, but more reliable and pertains only to my own self-sabotage, whether it's due to overconfidence or underconfidence. I will tell you the sordid tale in a minute here, but first I need to rant a little bit.

A couple of things have happened to piss me off of late. (Physically I am feeling much better, so it's largely due to that that I have the energy to actually get pissed off about something. I am VERY grateful and happy about this development, don't get me wrong.) One is that I had occasion today to wear normal street clothes. While this should not be a source of strife in itself, it doesn't happen very often - 99% of the time I am dressed either to work or to work out, which means that I live in completely elastic clothing. A good thing, yes, and I count myself lucky to be able to wear yoga pants to work, but it has successfully masked a whole other evil. An evil that has snuck up on me as I have spent the last oh, three months or so dragging my ass around, feeling like crap and not working out or eating properly...so I pulled a pair of cargo pants (previously quite comfy pants, it's important to note) out of my dresser, put them on, zipped them up (yup, could still do that), and...couldn't move. Oh dear. I could hear my grandmother saying "can you even FART in those pants??!"
Did some squats and some silly stretching to try to loosen them up, but there's no way I was going bowling in those.

So, ok. I knew I was a little heftier than last year, but that was a wake-up call. Grrr.

My other source of extreme irritation comes from something that hasn't happened yet: the Calgary Ironman 70.3 in 2010. A half-iron-distance triathlon that I am already signed up for. That is going to be one long day of racing and I REALLY need to be lean and fit in order to swim 2k, bike 90k, and run 21.1k at any kind of competitive speed. It's going to take lots of training too, that I have yet to start doing, and I'm starting to feel very afraid. It's great to have goals, but mine is moving steadily farther off into the distance!

The thing is, and this is going to sound ridiculous from someone in my line of work, but I don't know how to get there. Oh sure, I know how to design a training program and workout schedule and eating plan - it's the execution that's eluding me. How does a working mom who is completely exhausted most of the time, who is largely reliant on four food groups (coffee, chocolate, protein powder, and whatever's handy) for energy, overhaul her habits without killing herself (or anyone else)? THAT's my problem.

I've been thinking that the best way to do this is to make it black and white. Learning to eat properly (and do it out of habit, forever) is not like quitting smoking. One has to eat, but what if I set out a bunch of hard and fast rules....?
Enter the Paleo Diet. Something I've been pondering for a while; it's an extremely restrictive CRAZY program (but one of the healthiest diets out there) that will help me drop the extra weight for sure, IF I can stick to it. Either way, it will be fun to write about. I can't start it just yet because the book hasn't arrived and I'm not quite sure how to go about starting...but I'm starting to cut down on starch and increase my protein intake in preparation. So here we go!
Boy, it feels good to be back on the wagon.

Oh yeah, the belt test...I will spare you all the gory details; suffice it to say I have some new bloodstains on my nice white uniform, it took 14 (14!!) tries to break my board, and I think I have the hardest-won yellow stripe our school ever saw. It was a really special exercise in humility, and a massacre to those who witnessed it...but hey, it's done. And as Joel pointed out, isn't that what I signed up for when I started a martial art? Would it be all that special without some bruises and spilt blood?