Weigh-in Wednesday # 9

What happens when you get your period, and then there's Saint Patrick's Day, and they coincide in the same week, and your weight loss for the previous weigh-in Wednesday was -0.6 pounds?  

The McGillicuddys @ Lucky Bar, Victoria, BC

And then the weather is disagreeable on Wednesday, and you really want to go to the Crystal Fools Run/Walking Clinic but the elements are too formidable...and your best friend is coming from Montreal and you really want to be good, but you also want your loft to be immaculate and even though she's known you for 13 years...you still want to impress?

Well, you concede to working out for 2 hours instead of the 3 on which you intended.

This is my life now...apparently 2 hours split between morning and evening is not enough.  The ninja insists that I work out twice a day, which I have done, but this week I've been working out for longer in the morning, and then again in the evening...if I can.  So when I skipped the walking clinic on hump day.  I knew I'd be in for some "missing a workout guilt."

Not that cleaning the house isn't cardio...because it is...but it's hard to justify sweating to the sounds of AC/DC and Black Flag (I don't know why I clean the house to such music, but I do) whilst doing the laundry and dusting the coffee table.  If I'm not at the Crystal Pool & Fitness Centre sweating, I feel penitent.  I'm not religious, but dear gods!

Starting weight:  292.1
1st weigh-in:  286.8
2nd weigh-in:  280.1
3rd weigh-in:  276.4
4th weigh-in:  274.1
5th weigh-in:  270.6
6th weigh-in:  266.2
7th weigh-in:  262
8th weigh-in:  261.4

9th weigh-in:  257.7

Weigh-in Wednesday number 9...FRAK!  Is it 9 already?  STRESS...does this mean I only have my ninja for 3 more weeks?  Must figure out way to keep up with the training after this Times Colonist Health Challenge is over.  And also, YES!  I lost 3.7 pounds...wish it were more, but what can you do.  I would pray to St. Patrick, but I'm not a Catholic, nor do I think he would save me, in fact, I think he prevented me from losing more.  Damn you, delicious Guinness, but thank you for giving the world the most amazing stout in the universe.

So, as I weighed-in and lost weight, Victoria decided to rain, sleet, and hail on Wednesday, and I helped Stéffi clean the house and anticipated Del (The Oracle Delfine's) arrival.

The oracle Delfine speaks...

She is wise beyond her years, she is well-read and highly educated, she is a beautiful soul, a blonde bombshell, she's bilingual, blithesome...and she's one of my very best friends.  

I met Del, like the computer not the phone company, many moons ago at a rather large downtown bookstore in Montréal.  We were both working the cash desk at the time, and I was having some sort of trouble explaining something in French to a customer, she jumped in.  "Wow, your French is immaculate," I told her.  She then revealed, "That's because I am French."  To this day, there are only a couple of words that she says in which I can hear an accent.

Suzie & Del...right before our midnight feed on Halloween near Frenchman St..

Del is not only an amazing friend who will traipse all the way to New Orleans to join her buddies for a holiday, but she is also an inspiration for those of us who are a bit bigger boned.

A few years ago, after her July vacation she decided to embrace healthier eating habits.  Del, as I knew her, was never a skinny mini but she was never fat.  She had a bubble butt and a great set of tatas - a very nice hourglass figure if you ask me.  At 5'1" she was pleasantly plump, she ate fries and had drinks when we met up, she wasn't a compulsive over-eater like me.  But, something made her reassess her food pattern in 2009.  In January of 2010 she started walking home from work, just walking home.  The journey is 5 kilometres - it is a pretty good hike.  When she started, it took her an hour or so, and now it takes her about 35 minutes.  In 2012, Delfine incorporated 3 to 4 yoga classes per week into her routine.  This astonishing woman has transformed her body.  When we visited in 2011, the fruits of her labour were already showing.  She looked fantastic...she appeared to be an entirely different person, in fact.  The blonde hair helped, Del had always been a brunette.  But, her bod was amazeballs.  The girl brought 5 pairs of tall boots with her to Tofino, for frak's sake! 

When we met up in New Orleans a year later, she looked toned, fit, and fabulous.  And, upon learning about my new quest for fitness and my tribulations with weigh-ins...she gave me this advice (okay it was borrowed from her yoga instructor):

"People put too much importance on what they look like, when it should be all about how they feel.  In a garden, the tulip isn't jealous of how the rose looks, and the rose doesn't want to look more like a daffodil."

Namaste yogini Delfine, namaste.  This is so true.  When you exercise and eat right, you feel amazing...and the results, well...they come with...but we have got to stop comparing ourselves to others.  Take what you have and maximize.  I like to think that I have always thought this way, but it's always good to be reminded.

Anyway, I firmly believe that I am a Bird of Paradise.  One big-ass flower with attitude.  Fairly expensive, sometimes unavailable, unparalleled in its uniqueness, rather spiky, but also delicate when in full bloom, and if incorporated in the right bouquet...utterly charismatic.  

Delfine, thank you for being a posy in my vase.  I love you.