Saturday was a cold, misting, sometimes rainy, gusty winds day. I went for a nice ride in the morning to get my mare and my own brain reacquainted with the arenas. We had a nice quiet ride.
In the afternoon, I started warming up before my test (white breeches alert) when the german cowboy rode his stallion into the warm up arena. My mare who is experiencing midlife crisis and is hearing her biological clock ticking loudly at her own stables that don't do foals or stallions, decided to play hard to get and hard to stay on. It was a handsome stallion, but explosive canter departs are not my idea of a good warm up before a dressage test.
(certainly, this is what she was trying to do)
Against the recommendation of my trainer, I decided to enter the arena and ride my test anyway. Winds were gusting, and the tent flaps were flapping, and the the tent poles were being raised and pounding the ground behind us. It wasn't the best test, very stiff and tight, but I kept her on the pattern and we stayed in our arena. Our exit from the grounds was again explosive when the tents almost blew over. I dismounted and walked her up the hill to the stalls (look, exercise!!!!)
So even though things were different, difficult, and distracting, I stayed on course. Hmmm. I think I can extrapolate that lesson to something related to my eating and exercise habits...
I was mostly concerned this weekend that I would lose my nice pattern of eating, spending time on SparkPeople for motivation, and logging my food. I did bring my regular breakfast and tons of good veggies and fruit to snack on. I forbid myself to eat cheese and crackers which is our normal show grounds fare. I did drink all the champagne I wanted, but I filled up on celery, carrots, and hummus first.
I was so physically busy with riding, grooming, tacking up, cleaning tack, video taping other rides, that I really didn't think too much about eating and I kept moving.
So I think it is my job that makes me fat. My work is intellectually intense, but doesn't require much movement other than my fingers across the keyboard and electrical impulses between neurons and sparks jumping over synapses in my brain. I could stop being an engineer and business COO, but after seeing my riding scores this weekend, I think I'll keep my day job.
The 2.2 pounds I lost were significant. Well, the 3.2 ounces (the .2 pounds) were the significant part. They put me down a notch in the first digit of my weight!
This Alice is in Onederland, and will be chasing the 65 pound jabberwock the rest of the way home.
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