j'ai un rhume.

In my high school French class we learned how to say things like "I have headache" and "I twisted my ankle." I thought it was silly we learned it at all.

...Until I spent a summer in France, when I really did have a headache and I really did twist my ankle. J'ai mal à tête et je me suis foulée la cheville. It was a pretty horrible day in what was supposed to be an awesome summer vacation. Since then, I haven't had many opportunities to flash my vocabulary for things like heartburn and broken bones. Mais aujourd'hui, j'ai un rhume. I have a cold.


Last night after work I went to the gym, I managed three miles in 32 minutes. I pushed myself really hard and it was entirely worth it. I was already experiencing the beginning of cold symptoms so I took a brand new box of Kleenex with me and balanced it on a small ledge under the stats monitor on my elliptical machine. I never thought I would be so hardcore to be tending a runny nose while working out without breaking my stride. HARDCORE.

We still haven't gone grocery shopping so food for work was slim pickings yet again. Yesterday I had a bowl of Life with skim, banana, pbj on a kaiser roll, and I pecked at dried cranberries. I had 20 ounces of masala chai, and 2x 20 ounces of green tea with natural sugar to help with the sore throat. For dinner, boyfriend and I went out for half priced pizza, I had four small squares of buffalo chicken pizza and a tall glass of water, no ice. As I was eating I contemplated stopping at three pieces of pizza but I went for the fourth and I'm actually glad I did. This whole weight loss thing (or, more accurately, successfully losing weight) is uncharted territory so I'm not entirely sure where the line is between indulging/healthy eating/caloric restriction/deliberate starvation. In hindsight, I can see that my grocery situation has caused me to eat less during the day and my body is trying to compensate by becoming hungrier at night. I really like the idea of having a small, light dinner, but if my body is saying FEED ME I had best listen. The trick is knowing the difference between want and need.

After dinner I intended to do an hour of Pilates, but boyfriend is still insisting on keeping the heater in our apartment OFF so for now I'm living in 60 degree hell. I crawled under the blankets thinking I would warm up a bit and then do Pilates, but instead I realized I had a pounding headache (emphasis on POUNDING). I took 1000mg of Tylenol and drank a ton of water and hoped that it wouldn't last more than half an hour. Instead of feeling better, the headache disappeared and new symptoms appeared: despite being under two heavy blankets, I was deathly cold. Between the runny nose, the headache, the chills, the terribly sore throat, dry mouth, sneezing, the emergence of the head to toe body ache sent me over the edge. I gave up on functioning and passed out at 8:30pm.

At midnight I woke up feeling worse than before; I stood staring at the innards of the medicine cabinet trying to decide between NyQuil and DayQuil. Since I had to work at 6am, DayQuil won on the side of caution. It must have worked because I didn't wake once to blow my nose, or reapply lip balm or VapoRub, or even take a drink of water, despite having all these items within arm's reach on my night stand (a hilarious menagerie amongst my bears). It worked so well, I slept through my alarm and woke up at 6:07... a full 40 minutes late. I still felt like death but at this point it was too late to call work to find a replacement, so I sucked it up and braved the cold.

The grocery situation is dire. But today, it worked in my favor. I brought plain oats for breakfast... I made 1 cup of dry oats with 1 cup of water and stirred in some natural sugar. I got full with 3/4 of the bowl, so for next time I know to only make 3/4 cup of oats. I stirred in a banana and took 500mg of Diamox (I skipped the 750mg dose last night because the blood in my mucus was starting to worry me). I've had 16oz orange juice, 8 ounces of green tea (plenty more to come, today is going to be a looooong day), I took two more DayQuil gel caps, I have Chloraspetic spray on standby, I'm well equipped to suffer this cold publicly at work.

For lunch, I brought a package of chicken flavored ramen. I am so seriously looking forward to this because ramen is not something I eat often (correction: ever) unless I'm sick, and it ALWAYS makes me feel better. Boyfriend introduced me to the art of mixing Sriracha into a steaming hot bowl of ramen to clear the sinuses and soothe the throat... just thinking about it makes me wish it was lunch time. The best part of this meal is the broth, the noodles are secondary and I don't usually finish them out of preference.

Goals for today:
- I WILL stay hydrated
- I WILL go to the gym
- I WILL go grocery shopping
- I WILL conquer this cold
- I WILL do Pilates tonight
- I WILL buy a Christmas tree this afternoon.

I love the challenge of feeding myself well when there's little food left in the fridge; I love the challenge of managing a cold without letting it get me down; I love the feeling of accomplishment I get from achieving my daily goals and I love having little incentives like Christmas decorations to keep me from getting lost in the seriousness of it all.

TODAY IS GOING TO ROCK.