Belly Up



The mouth piece connected to tubing
and I wore 2 heart rate monitors.

      Have you ever tried working out with an occlusive mask on your face; something that pinches your nostril's air supply, forcing you to inhale and exhale via your mouth and into a tube the entire warm up, workout, and cool down? I have. First, overcoming the feeling of claustrophobia was a feat, then I felt like I was going to hyperventilate, like I was getting too much oxygen. The ironic part is, I wasn't getting enough oxygen. My cardio-point test results said I'm only in the 38% percentile, for my age, in my ability to deliver oxygen efficiently to my muscles during a exercising state. This means that approximately 62% of people my age are better at it than me! (Gag me with a spoon.) Another thing I just recently learned about myself from this test is I work out too hard. Can you believe that there's such a thing?!?! At first, I was taken back, but really it makes sense. And even though the stubborn me still believes there's no such thing, the rational me can see reason in the method. I have been consistently working out to a point at which my heart and body are working so hard I am only burning up emergency sugar stores, which are immediately replaced the next time I eat. The only reason this type of workout would benefit me, is if I was performance training for a type of race. But for my personal goals, it's more beneficial for me to actually tone it down a notch and interval train while keeping my heart rate less than or equal to 176 (my personal anaerobic threshold, the point at which my body is about it go into an anaerobic state), to burn fat instead of glucose (which my body will only restore if I eat too much or not enough) and help stabilize and improve my body's ability to convert oxygen to my body during exercise. I did whine to my trainer friend about it today and we decided it's okay to push myself to the limits once a week, as long as I don't let my heart rate exceed 194, because then I might have a heart attack.

The sweet potato fries were good too! Menus are dangerous.

     So Patrick and I had a night out in Denton for the first time together. We went with a work friend of mine, Latricia, to a tavern called Sweet Water and listened to live Jazz on the patio. I have to say it was one of the best jazz performances I've ever heard. Anytime I listen to great musicians like that, I immediately feel like scum about my music practicing discipline and then I want to go back to school to major in music. I never will, but it's healthy to have dreams. The pianist's face was so expressive, and he would just close his eyes and let his fingers fly 90 miles per hour over the keys, hitting too many right notes to count. Beautiful. I'd catch myself bobbing my head around and side to side, slightly erratic like the beat, and look around to see everyone else doing the exact same thing. I had an amazing shrimp and bacon salad, except for the tiny belly-up fly I found on a piece of my romaine, but I didn't let it hold me back! {I have a naturally developed talent to notice things like that. Maybe it's a curse and ignorance is bliss, but I remember back to my shorty days always being the one that found things in my food/drinks. Is it because I look? Is it because I have amazing culinary vision? I'm usually the one to also point it out in other people's food as well. There's a few long stories about that, but I'll elaborate another time.} I gingerly passed on that specific type of protein, numbed by familiarization, and moved my motives on to the shiner boch homemade ice-cream sitting atop the chocolate brownie Patrick ordered. And as good as that was, I still don't think it could beat the one savory bite I had of Latricia's bread pudding with caramelized whiskey sauce!

I know that blonde chick.