What a week (and its only Wednesday)

I started eating Paleo Sunday night.  I went to a tri seminar a few months back, and they had a dietician talk about metabolic periodization, where you restrict grains during the build phase of your training schedule.  I've been feeling like crap for months now and have had a little voice telling me to think about Paleo.  After doing some reading the past few weeks, I'm giving it a shot.

My first full day eating Paleo - my coworkers dropped off a bag of chocolates.  Ugh.  Bad week to start a diet which restricts sugar.  Fortunately, my boss was asking around for chocolate, so I gave her the whole bag.

So far its not awful.  I think my stamina is a bit reduced (which is common).  Yesterday was sprint day for swimming, and I was more gassed than normal.  And I was sweating more than usual during my lunch time weight workout.  Supposedly after the 2nd week, your energy goes through the roof and you access your fat stores.  We shall see.  If anything, it will be an interesting month.

Last night, I got conned into going to this sort of self help seminar by a coworker.  She's a friendly acquaintance and did this seminar and it changed her life.  I really didn't want to go but she wouldn't let it drop.  I went, and its basically a cult.  Or cult-like pyramid scheme.  Do some googling of  L a n d m a r k F o r u m.  I'm glad my radar went off in the first 30 seconds I was in the building (everyone was SO HAPPY) and it kind of went downhill from there.  They even had a portion of the evening dedicated to registering for the 3 day course ($500).  I didn't want to give them any trackable information, so I didn't even get a name tag at the event entrance.  I saw that you had to fill out a contact card when you got your name tag, so I just kept walking.  Even though several worker people said "I see you don't have a nametag, have you been offered one?"  The whole thing was weird.  People were having epiphanies (but they call them Breakthroughs!) but while people were talking about their problems (Breakdowns!), the moderator was guiding their words to match the program's bizzaro language.  Sometimes it was subtle (and the people mirrored his wording with barely any promting), sometimes he flat out made them repeat his statement.  And while the words were english, they were assembled oddly.  They said specific sentence structure led to empowerment and words were powerful.  And magically, by using the modified language, they reached their Breakthrough! I thought it was creepy.  And when said person reached their Breakthrough! the whole room sighed in amazement and applauded.  Even my coworker was saying "you just witnessed 2 breakthroughs tonight, wasn't it amazing!" (the issues were not life changing, and in one case, the class led some guy to apologize to his ABUSIVE FATHER.  The son apolgized to his father because the son had allowed their relationship to lapse.  Call me crazy, but I'm thinking if you don't want a relationship with a guy who beat the shit out of you and your family, that's probably a good thing!)  In fact, you couldn't simply talk to someone.  You were "sharing" and "having a conversation".  Everyone was talking and using identical phrasing.  Sooo weird! I'm sure it helps some people, but I really do not need an organization telling me how to think, right down to how I express my thoughts.  Ick.  Seriously, I get the heebie jeebies when I think about last night.  I'm so glad I didn't get sucked in!  I'm sure my checking account thanks me as well!

And now I have a coworker who was/is friendly to me, but she is in what I believe is to be a pseudo-cult.  Awkward!  I really am destined to not have any friends at work.

I just want to get through tomrorrow and then I'm off for a 4 day weekend.  Will and I are going to learn how to snowboard on Friday.  The snow is shitty, but you really don't need good snow when you learn.  Hopefully I won't die.

24-Hour Freakness

I'm in Houston for work and Ironman Lonestar 70.3.  I had ~2300 yards on my schedule, but since it was Thursday, that meant no Masters team to drop in on.  So, off to utilize my barely used 24 Hour Fitness membership. 

During my hour swim, I witnessed:

• A guy that would alteranate btwn doing jumping jacks and this weird sort-of breastroke/treading water thing
• A woman who was doing backstroke WITH A KICKBOARD under her back (trust me, she did NOT need flotation devices)
• A dude in a way too small speedo who lacked the skills to back up the speedo.  Unfortunately, he was in the lane that was on my breathing side. 
• This was accented by another guy (who looked like he was wearing boxer/briefs) who was in the pool for maybe 5 min, during which he sunk to the bottom of the 5' end (holding his breath) then swam across all the lanes to hang onto the wall and do a bunch of kicking.
• Finally, after my workout, when I was in the locker room, there was a lady getting ready to swim (with a noodle) who pulled her suit on over her underwear.   

I could not make any of this up.  It was freaky.  At least I wasn't bored?  (and THANK GOODNESS I had a lane all to myself).