Adventures in Cycling

I had Lasik three months ago.  This means my vision has been fluctuating a bit.  It is fairly stable at this point, but certain things on certain days make my eyes extra tired and thus, my vision a bit blurrier than I'd like it to be post-expensive-scary surgery.  Among the bad eyesight triggers: focusing on my smartphone's screen too much and for too long; not getting enough sleep; and cold/windy conditions which dry my eyes out.  So on Thursday, I biked to my optometrist's office in my 3-month, post-surgery check up.

It was a rainy, cold, breezy morning--which I'll say more about later.  Anyway, biking in, my eyes got all dried out from the wind and cold, and needless to say, my eyes did not "perform" so well when I did the eye tests.  The eye doctor saw quite a few patches of dryness and recommended I start using the gunky night drops again.  (Blech.  They give me itty bitty styes, which are harmless, really, but frigging annoying. But if the doctor says...)  He also advised I visit with his buddy in the glasses department for some spiffy goggles for biking.

As much as I'd love to drop $60 on some fancy goggles, I can't afford that right now, so I walked three blocks to Big 5 Sports and investigated their offerings. They didn't have any biking goggles, per se, but they did have protective eye wear for racquetball and also for sharp shooting.  I went with the youth/women's sized sharp shooting glasses, for the handy benefit of UV protection.  Check 'em out!

So that's what I'm biking around wearing.  I feel pretty bad ass.

Anyway, as I mentioned, Thursday (April 7) was a cold, wet, breezy morning.  Thursday, like pretty much every day in April up to that point, was also a cold, wet, breezy day.  Remember my post two weeks ago where I discussed typical April weather in Seattle?  I had this cute little chart, remember, that showed an average of ~2 inches of rain for the entire month of April and average high/low temperatures of 58 and 43 degrees F?  I was, like, "oh sure, it rains in April, but not like constantly, it's much better than March."  Okay, yes, it is better than March.  But "much better"?  That's a gross overstatement, given the weather during the first week of April this year.  GROSS.

This is a La Nina year.  Now I'm one of those people who gets El Nino and La Nina confused, and thinks that the two weather phenomena only happen on leap years or something, not whenever the water temperature in the Pacific does X or Y.  Let's face it, if La Nina is the opposite of El Nino, then I'm the La Nina of a meteorologist. My approach to weather forecast is: well, it did this last year.  I'm sure there really are insights I could gain from last year's weather, but assuming that this year's weather will be just like last year's weather is not the insight I should be taking home.  Last April, it was warmish and fairly dry and lovely.  And then right around Mother's Day, it started to dump rain and didn't stop until the 4th of July.  So if that was El Nino and this is La Nina, then it should be a fantastic late spring and early summer, right???  Oh, good gawd, it's time to stop this erroneous speculating!

So instead, let me just inform you that, in the first week of April, Seattle got 2.01 inches of rain.  That's the monthly average!  And let me also tell you that the average low for the first week of April 2011 was 39.6 F and the average high for the first week of April 2011 was 49 F. A little colder than usual, but not revolutionary, especially for early in the month--but that wind chill has been horrible!

This less-than-desirable weather has not made an easy introduction to my month of low gas consumption.  I expressed my fear of riding my bike in the rain in this previous post.  Now that I've been doing it for a week, I'm less afraid of wiping out.  Instead, I'm afraid of freezing my arse off.  And then sweating like a pig for a bit and then freezing more because I'm wet from sweat.  But it is improving.  It's a balmy 55 degrees F right now, and Friday was a gorgeous sunshine explosion.

Jumping on your bike is easier when it looks like this out your front door.

Still, I am doing it, the whole no-driving-my-car thing (except for when I volunteer--what a glorious drive to Shoreline that is!).  And biking up hills is getting easier (muscles adapt faster than you think!), and I'm better tolerating cars and faster cyclists zipping past me with looks of annoyance on their faces. 

I have a lot of different objectives in this year of consuming less.  One objective is to push myself outside my comfort zone.  While I did have some uncomfortable sugar cravings in January, and had to do some extra cooking in February, and decline wine in March, none of those monthly challenges REALLY pushed me to do something I was afraid to do.  This month has already pushed me to face several fears, and there have been days when I've wondered if succeeding in this particular challenge is worth my heightened level of anxiety.  Right now, I think it is. I need to push through anxiety about a whole lot of things in my life, so I can just DO them.  I'm building muscles with this month's challenge so that I can go forth and conquer in other aspects of my life.  Definitely worth it.

Tough.

Just a spoonful of sugar...

This must be from The Onion...

Yesterday I had refractive eye surgery a.k.a. Lasik.  It was a really hard half hour of surgery.  Afterward I could barely keep my eyes open and I was pretty dang whiny while my mother and I stopped to pick up prescriptions for Lorazepam (to knock me out) and Vicodin for pain.  Finally, we got home, I shoved down some string cheese and then the two pills, and then Mom taped plastic covers over my eyes so they were protected while I slept.  

What does all this have to do with sugar?  Well, not much, except that, like codeine, Vicodin makes me feel nauseous and puke-y and sick.  When I feel that way, only one thing sounds good--a fizzy sweet drink, better known as soda pop.

HFCS = the nectar of teenage love.

Even before going off sugar, I wasn't a big soda consumer.  Soda is for when I'm air-, sea-, or car- sick or just sick-sick, and occasionally as a mixer in a drink. 7-Up, Sprite, ginger ale--these are my "sick" drinks. So in my post-surgery, kind of blind, super fussy, and borderline vomit-ous state, I didn't know what to do.

In case you were wondering:

• A 8-ounce serving of 7-Up has 25 grams of sugar = 3.125g/oz.
• A 12-ounce serving of Sprite has 38 grams of sugar = 3.167g/oz.
• A 8-ounce serving of Canadian Dry ginger ale has 25 grams of sugar = 3g/oz.

The top two ingredients for all three of these sodas? Big surprise, they are carbonated water and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). From Coca Cola's handy online ingredient glossary: "A sweetener derived from corn, high fructose corn syrup is a mixture of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose."  Now we know, and knowing IS half the battle.

Well, what about DIET soda then?  Looking at the labels of diet forms of these sodas, it is true, each contains 0 grams of sugar per ounce.  Instead, they all contain aspartame, also known as NutraSweet. As I said in my No Sugar Consumption month rules, fake and unrefined sugars tempt me to eat more of the big bad stuff, so they're on my Not-Going-To-Have-It list too. But it is also worth noting that there are a lot of unanswered questions about the safety of consuming aspartame.

Why, yes, that is Donald Rumsfeld lurking there.  Learn more about his link to aspartame here.

While there's no conclusive evidence that it leads to cancer, lupus, or increases the symptoms of multiple sclerosis as some have alleged, aspartame does present health risks for certain individuals. As nicely summarized by Dr. Andrew Weil on his website:

We do know that people with the genetic disease phenylketonuria (PKU), those with advanced liver disease, and pregnant women with high levels of the amino acid phenylalanine in their blood have a problem with aspartame because they do not effectively metabolize phenylalanine, one of aspartame's components. High levels of phenylalanine in body fluids can cause brain damage. For this reason, the FDA requires that all products containing aspartame must include a warning to phenylketonurics that the sweetener contains phenylalanine.

Hmm, sounds a little sketchy to me.  Besides, I've noticed that diet soda often makes my tummy feel bad, acidic, sort of hungry.  If I were to drink a diet soda when I felt car sick, it is entirely likely that,

A.) I'd still feel crummy, though maybe in a different way, and

B.) I'd want to eat something to quell the sensation, regardless of whether I was hungry or not. (Perhaps this is why some claim that diet soda can make you fat!)

I could go on about aspartame for a good, long while, because it's in all sort of things (I better check my toothpaste, for one) and there is a lot of speculation and disagreement about its benefits/dangers.  However, let's get back on track to my post-surgery Vicodin-provoked nausea and my yen for a carbonated sweet beverage to soothe my belly.

EXACTLY.  (image by Allan Sanders Illustration)

After Mom had taped my eye protectors over my eyes and I was set for the prescribed 4-hour nap, I asked my mother to go get me some sugar-free seltzer water or club soda and to doctor it with a wedge of lime and some of the Ginger People Organic Ginger Juice I just happened to receive in my Christmas stocking this year.  Ginger juice ingredients: Organic ginger, citric acid.  Perfect.

A few hours later, my mother delivered a glass of murky water to my bedside.  I sipped at it tentatively.  Ginger?  Check.  Lime? Check.  Bubbly?  Wait a second.

"Hey, Mom, what did you make this with?" I asked.

"The club soda I found in your fridge.  It did look kind of flat, " she told me.

I laughed.  "It should, because I refilled that bottle to reuse with tap water God knows how long ago."

Despite the lack of fizz, the ginger and lime water did a pretty good job on their own at relieving both my desire to puke and my desire for a sweet drink.  I did, however, purchase club soda and some natural sparkling water today for more bubbly sick drinks.

On a not-really-related note, I had a Vicodin-induced nightmare last night that I was eating chocolate chip cookies, one after another.  After about five cookies, my dream self went into a "OH SHOOT!  I FORGOT ABOUT NO SUGAR MONTH!" panic attack.  When I woke, I was so relieved to find out that my sugar indiscretion was a dream.  I wonder if I will have more dreams about eating sugar as this month continues.

The Lasik update?  My vision is a little blurry and will continue to fluctuate and improve for awhile still, but I tested at 20-30 today and, legally, I'm okay to drive, though both the doctor and I think it's better to hold off a few more days.  The clinic presented me with a coffee mug full of Seattle Chocolates to reward me for my bravery under the laser--ha!  I've stuffed them in a Ziploc bag and shoved them in the back of the freezer for now.  If anyone would like to take them completely off my hands....