I need a Push Up Bra

Or, Oh Say, can you C, Part II.

I'm doing the 100 push up challenge, starting Monday. Except, you know me, and I can't start anything that I don't start Right Now.

So, while I was supposed to do my Initial Test yesterday and start the actual Challenge on Monday, I actually did my initial test three or four days ago.

I can do three good-form, regular push ups, before collapsing onto my carpet and shaking my arms.

Not so grand, really.

On the other hand, giving myself a 30 minute rest, I then tried again, doing my push ups from the knees instead. With knee pushups, I managed 12 knee push ups.

Neither total is particularly impressive, but hey, there's nowhere to go but up, right?

And I can't really decide if I want to start with the knee push ups and the second column, or the full push ups and the first column.

So, today I decided I'd do the first column push ups (for if you've done 0 - 5 push ups on your initial test) as a half-and-half. I did two full push ups, rested for about a minute, did three knee push ups, rested for about a minute, did two full, rested a minute, did two knee push ups, rested for about three minutes (if by "rested", I mean got to my knees and helped the child-thing tear a tag off her new t-shirt and get dressed... ) and then did 1 more full push up and six knee push ups.

My notes, after doing all of this, were threefold.

Point the first: Remember to take my rings off before starting any push ups. Especially since, given that I have some weird thing wrong with my right wrist (as a result of having broken the damn thing several times, I have this... bone spur, for the lack of a more official diagnosis, because you know, I hate doctors, and I don't really want to deal with having something Expensive wrong with my wrist, I haven't had it looked at.) and doing a push up on a bent wrist is excruciatingly painful. Pressing my ring directly into the floor (even through carpeting) is not comfortable.

Point the second: Switching out for kinds of push ups is a real pain in the butt. (also, the knees, back, and toes) So, I need to decide if I'm going to go easy on myself and do the knee push ups, in the second column (which means nearly doubling the amount of push ups...) or if I want to be Bubbles Hard Core and do full push ups, but from the first column. Both options seem to be about equal amounts of effort, when examined fully...

Point the third: They invented sports bras for a reason... and this would be one of them. The bra I have that currently fits is a 38C t-shirt plunge bra... and it's not at all designed to hold the girls in place when gravity is coming at them from such an odd direction.

In other news (that's another blog-trick for doing awkward transitions... maybe next time I'd put some effort into finding a separator bar...) I've been working on my self-esteem for about five days now, so I thought I'd give you a status update on my plans, and my... well, status. (ug, must find more caffiene...)

I've started keeping a cute little notebook. My goal for this notebook are to list things in it, on a daily basis, that I like about myself, or that I've "done good" that day. And then, every day when I start my day, I flip back through my booklet and read a few days worth of positive, self-affirming things. It doesn't matter how small, or how fleeting those things are, if they happen, I write it down.

Part of my issue has been that I can't seem to hold on to good feelings. I'll catch a glimpse of my slimmer self in the mirror and think, for just an instant "wow, I look good..." And then I stop, and look in the mirror more fully, and begin this list of all the other things that are wrong with me. My grey hairs (and, after years of telling my husband that there's nothing WRONG with grey hairs, I have to restrain myself from pulling out my own. Especially with my hair thinning as dangerously as it is, I need all the hairs I can get, grey or otherwise...) or the saggy way my skin looks, or my puffy fish eyes... so, I start out feeling good about myself, and end feeling thoroughly depressed and wonder (for the seven hundred millionth time) how anyone can possibly say I look good.

But I don't want to focus on that. I don't need to make a laundry list of what I don't like... I need to focus more on what I do like.

It's helping. A little bit. I don't expect miracles. I don't expect to love myself overnight, or to wake up and everything is all covered with unicorn spit. But I'd like to take those tiny moments and live in them. To be aware that they exist.

You know, it's evolution, really, the way we focus on the negative. It's how we learn. Our memories of failure, pain, humiliation, are so much more powerful than our ability to recall - accurately - good times. When we were all living in caves with names like Og, Lurg, and Jondalar, and something bad happened to us - like a saber-toothed tiger was living nearby and we stupidly stuck our heads into their caves - and we LIVED through it, we would have very vivid memories of the event. To keep us from doing something that stupid EVER again.

Much like the fight or flight instinct, this doesn't do much good in terms of attending board meetings and figuring out tax credits... It's not socially acceptable to run screaming from the room at a company meeting, nor is it at all good for your social life to beat the tar out of the H&R Block rep... from repressing our instincts in these situations, we get Stress... similiarly, we don't need to learn lessons about keeping an eye out for cave bear spoor, and so, instead, we develop low self-esteem.

Stupid evolutionary traits need to adapt faster.

In the meanwhile... I'll keep on keeping this notebook, and working hard at remembering that I, too, am a worthwhile human being.

Who has an amazingly good hairdo... too bad it was not a planned hairdo. I mean, is that unfair or what? I go to the gym, I speed-walk on an incline of 5, am sweating up a storm and absently chatting with the guy on the elliptical, and decide that I need to get my hair up off my back. While still walking, I upfasten my hair-clip, twist my hair up into a knot, and pin it to my head with the clip.

After my workout, while washing my face, I notice that my hair has never, actually looked better. Ever.