whattopick

Finally some progress! After being completely unable to get below 146, I’m at 145.5. I took some measurements yesterday and I’m 35-28-40 (if i did it right). Hmm. The 40 has to go down, that’s why my jeans aren’t fitting. I’d also like to take a few inches off my waist. Like, two.

I’d like to see the 144s by the end of this week, and get into the 139s by my birthday in a month. I think I can do it.

 I gave my dad back his Insanity Fit Test DVD, which is sad, but I have the Billy Blanks tae bo workout that wears me out. Plus we have cable, so in our On Demand we have the free Fit TV shows. Not to mention that gym I belong to and the bike in my shed. Should definitely not consider buying the Insanity workout, especially since my convertible top is going to cost 1,650 to repair. And, about 4 hours before the convertible started acting up, I bought a Macbook Pro. And there’s the grad school I’m hoping to be paying for next year.

Definitely not buying anything (else) for myself for a long while.

 Speaking of my bike, I went on a killer ride yesterday. It was only five miles (I think I have the wrong kind of bike because I can do 8-10 mile rides with no problem on the bike at my mom’s house) but by the time I got home from this one, my heart felt like it was dry heaving in my chest. Maybe I’ll try that again today. I’m feeling less pressure to be able to run a 5K for the zombie run in October because at least one of the friends I’m doing it with already said he’s going to have to walk some of it. Whew.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Apparently my extended family is all about these Insanity workouts. Once my dad heard about it from my uncle, he started doing it 3 weeks ago and has lost 15 pounds. He loaned me the Fit Test so I could see if I liked it. The Fit Test is a 25-minute video that takes you through some of the moves. You do a minute of hardcore cardio, then you rest for a minute or two and write down how many repetitions you did. You’re supposed to do it before you start the insanity workout, and then do it every two weeks so you can monitor how much you’re improving (by how many more repetitions you can do). My dad told me he did it for a full week before he started the actual workouts, and I thought, “Oh poor dad, he must have been really out of shape. I’ll do much better since I workout regularly.” 

Not so much. I got through 10 minutes of that workout and I thought I was going to die. Then my dad called because he’d had my Sebring, trying to fix the roof (it won’t go back up), and he was giving up. He kindly dropped it off at the dealership for me, and then I picked him up there and took him to his house, and then drove back to mine (in his Mercedes, eeek, such a combination of excitement and fear driving that car!) and started the workout over again.

Man. What a workout. I feel sore today. I’m going to try to do the fit test all week though. I’m hoping he moves onto the second set of discs and loans me the first set so I can get in shape for the Zombie Apocalypse 5K in October. I’m also hoping he’ll pay for the car repair for my birthday because I’m a bit broke =(

I’m pretty excited about the cool weather coming our way =) Although I am starting to worry about fitting into my jeans comfortably =( I went on this American Eagle kick last year (when I weighed around 136). I wore a comfortable size 6. Now I wear an uncomfortable size 6 (because I weigh 146 pounds), but I don’t want to buy more. I’m hoping to be 139 by October. I don’t want to buy new jeans!

Nonetheless, very excited. I want to do some hiking before it gets too cold. I want to go fruit picking and go to corn mazes! And I want to be thin doing it.

 I turned in my grad school application last Thursday. I reallllly hope I get in. I’m also about 1/3 of the way through my revision for the literary agent, and I think it’s going really well, but it’s an uphill battle to get through it. lol, kind of like my weight.

I think Rebounderz (that awesome-sounding trampoline place) has disappointed me for the last time. I went with Patrick and four of our friends on September 2nd to take advantage of the Friday Night Frenzy deal (4 hours of jumping, 2 pieces of pizza and a soda for $35). Well we got there and they were like, ‘Oh no, that’s next Friday.’ So we pulled the website up on our phone, and it very clearly said “The first and third Friday of the month of September.” We showed that to the manager and he just shrugged, “it’s wrong.” And I was like, “Again? Is your website ever right?” Another shrug. Our friend was like, “And there’s nothing you can do? Because some of us drove here from Fairfax to do this.” Another shrug, “You can come back next Friday.”

 So we went bowling instead, then slammed them on their FB wall, then reported them to the Better Business Bureau. Satisfying, but not as fun as being able to go!

I successfully went out on Friday and DID NOT EAT. I have the worst habit of doing that. I only had three beers the whole night, and two of them were light. I even went through the McDonalds drive thru with my friend and DIDN’T ORDER ANYTHING. I was 146 on Saturday morning.

 I would make a smiley face, but the number still depresses me.

I ate pretty healthy all last week, and I worked out the 4 times per week I said I would, and I did lose a pound, so I just have to keep that up until my birthday. I actually need to lose five pounds by the time it gets cold if I want to fit comfortably into my jeans =/ Man this was stupid of me.

The vow to not eat out until my birthday is doing well, too. My dad took me out to celebrate my Praxis II score, but I ate healthy. I got 192 out of 200, so I qualified for a certificate of Excellence =) I hope this makes up for my subpar GPA. They look at the GPA for your last 60 credits, but unfortunately, my first 60 credits is when I took my English classes. The last 60 are stupid things like Bio and Spanish that brought it down.

That hurricane was seriously underwhelming, by the way. I didn’t even lose power.

I did some serious cardio yesterday, and it felt really good. I still am focusing on weights primarily, but maybe I just needed a break from it. I did interval training, so I’d walk at about 4.0 with a 2.0 incline for two minutes, and then I’d run at 6.5-7.2 on the 2.0 include for one minute. I repeated this for about thirty minutes and it was pretty intense. My face was red for like an hour afterward. It was miserable while I was doing it. It’s amazing how much time I can waste watching tv or playing around online, but 30 minutes on a treadmill seems like a year. Now though, I’m excited to go back and do it again tomorrow. I think today will be a weights day. I did lower body yesterday, which works out because Patrick got me a shake weight that I can use today in conjunction with my upper body workout.

I am weirdly excited for this hurricane! I like extreme weather. I have fond memories of being 11-14 and living in the deep south (Florida and Mississippi). I don’t think we ever evacuated from Mississippi, but there were a few we ran from in Florida, like Hurricane Opal. I remember it took us like 12 hours to drive the 180-200 miles from Fort Walton Beach to Mobile Alabama. We were going to our neighbor’s family’s house, and so we caravaned with them and another neighbor. Mom loaded me and the cat and whatever we could fit in the car and off we went. It was a neat adventure for me. I was never allowed to lay down in the backseat without a seatbelt and cuddle the cat while she drove. I got a little scared when she kept looking in the rearview mirror, and told me she was looking out for tornados. I then started checking out the back window, too. At one point I noticed our other neighbor had disappeared from our caravan. I was sure a tornado had gotten them. Why I didn’t say anything to my mom, I’ll never know. I found out later that they weren’t coming all the way to Mobile with us.

I distinctly remember twice my mom saying, ‘Look through the house, it might not be here when we get back.” It was there both times, by some crazy luck. Although the house in Mississippi bit the dust 6 years after we moved away. It was a beautiful, two stories with a balcony that stretched across the front of the second floor. When we saw pictures of it post-Hurricane Katrina, that balcony looked like it was supposed to be the porch. The first floor seemed to be completely gone.

Luckily, living this far up the east coast, I’m not too worried about losing our home =) I hope all of you are in safe territory too! 

This morning I had overnight oats for breakfast. Last night I combined oatmeal with almond milk, yogurt, pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice and put it in the refrigerator. 8 hours later, it is deliciousness. I love oatmeal, but COLD oatmeal that tastes like pumpkin pie is Even Better. Now I have to eat pretty healthy for the rest of the day though. I have salad fixings for my middle two meals, and then I’ll probably have something more delicious right before bed. Like the apple slices and peanut butter (mixed with honey) that I had last night. Yum.

So I got a new scale, and I was very much hoping that it would totally contradict my old scale, but no. They seem to be in perfect agreement. So I have some serious work to do. First of all, I have to figure out how I gained so much weight back. This is not a case of, ‘oh I just stopped paying attention.’ I was paying excruciatingly close attention. It just kept climbing.

I think it might be because of how much we eat out. I’m happy to live on oatmeal and sandwiches, but then Patrick gets home and wants real food, so I end up going to McDonalds/wherever with him and eating more. Even when we go to nice places, the food could be packed with a thousand more calories than I realize. So I’m not eating out again until my birthday, and if I do end up in a situation where I have to go out (because all friends or family are doing so and I would be left out) I’ll get a healthy salad.

I need to work out at least four times a week. I pretty much do that, but sometimes the workouts are a bit lackluster.

My goal is to be back at my normal weight by my birthday, so that gives me about 7 weeks. Should be doable. Ugh, I can’t believe I let this happen again.

So we went to the beach, and it was a mixture of triumph and letdown. Actually, mostly triumph. The main letdown was just that I’ve let my weight get so much higher than it was last year. I was worried because when Patrick’s mom called to ask him what snacks we wanted for the trip, he said “Oreos.” Oreos are my willpower’s kryptonite. But I only had 5 the entire weekend! five! I also snacked on those Who Nu chocolate chip cookies that are supposed to have healthy stuff in them, but didn’t overindulge on anything the entire weekend! I was feeling pretty trim until I weighed myself Sunday evening.

We won’t talk about that.

The point is, I’ve recovered my willpower. I feel strong again, in control. So it’s all (down?)hill from here.  

Bit of a disappointing story with Rebounderz, the trampoline cardio place I was so excited about. I went last Wednesday with two friends to do the cardio class ($12/class or $40/month), and was told that it hadn’t started yet. I was a bit irritated and suggested they put that on their website. We went ahead and just did free jumping with the kids, and that was so fun! I loved it! Then, a few days later, they finally put on their website that the classes would start September 6th. I was excited until I saw the prices had changed. They were now $13/class or $96/month! Who can afford that around here? We live in a cool, fun place, but it’s not the ritzy section of town by any means. If I could afford $96 a month, I’d join the best gym EVER, I wouldn’t spend it all on trampoline place! So I tried to email them about it (because for two months they advertised a different price, and also because in one place on their website, they were still advertising $12/class) but there wasn’t an email contact provided. I tried to message them through facebook, but couldn’t. Finally I posted on the wall about how I was disappointed about the price hike since they’d advertised something else for two months, and also pointed out the discrepancy for the class price on the website.

 I don’t know what I expected, but SOME sort of outreach would have been nice, instead they just took down the post!

Ridiculous. Olympus (my $10/month gym) is so much better.

I’ve started focusing more on doing weights than cardio. Mostly because I hate cardio. I do 10-15 minutes, and then I go do weights. I think I need a class or something. I’ve always done the machines, but they’ve just been kind of an after thought to my workout. I’m not quite sure how to turn them into the main course. Why do all of my metaphors involve food?

 But, on the FUN side of cardio, this place called Rebounderz just opened within walking distance of my house. I am so ridiculously excited. It’s a place filled with trampolines, and they have an aerobics class. This is cardio I can get behind.

It was a good eating weekend, made very good choices. Yesterday was not as good, but today is going fine. Of course the afternoon is my downfall, so we’ll see =) 

It’s been a while since I blogged. Work got a little busier, so did life. But I’ve decided to severely limit my Internet activities, so that gives me more time to blog =) I’ve decided that the Internet just kind of brings me down. You go on FB and of course everyone is presenting these perfect pictures of their lives, and even though you know they have problems, too, you can’t help but wonder, “Why isn’t my life like this glossy photo album of fun?” 

I’ve read, and totally agree, that having too many options actually makes you less happy. I remember when I was a waitress, and sometimes people would complain that our menu was too big. I didn’t understand then, but now I do. Metaphorically speaking, the menu of life is too big. You can’t order everything, and even if you order something delicious, you might still wonder about the options you didn’t pick. I was served a good job, a loving boyfriend, a cute cat, a wonderful family, a few great friends. And yet I keep looking at the menu thinking, “Maybe I should send this back and order the free-as-a-bird-traveling-the-world-blogging life?”  

God, so ungrateful. If I traded what I have for something else, I would want it back. I know that. Why is it so hard to appreciate things in the moment? Why do they have to pass me by before I feel their true weight/importance? All my life we moved around, and I had to start over with building my life. It was so hard, but it made the time I had in my rebuilt life (usually about a year and a half) so sweet, because I knew it was so temporary. Now I’ve finally had the opportunity to stay put, and it’s like this relatively easy life is something I’ve grown so used to I can’t even feel the contentment of it anymore. Or am I truly uncontent? How do you tell? 

Hmm, perhaps my problem is that I’ve never had to worry about my options being limited. The only option I didn’t have was to stick with one life long enough to get bored before we had to move again. It’s like life was giving me awesome dishes, but yanking them away while I was still hungry. 

But in summary, I’ve decided to stop looking back at the menu, which I view largely through the Internet. I can go on FB once a week, no more celebrity sites. I might still look at the job postings, just because. Although maybe I should reconsider that since I’m trying to get my teaching license.  

Most importantly, I need to make the most of what I was given, which is a lot. 

And as far as weight goes…bleh. I’ll let you know next week when I weigh at my mom’s house. I’ve decided my scale is broken…

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last blogged! Things have been holding fairly steady here. Last week was a bust, but every other week since the beginning of March I’ve worked out at least 4 days a week. I have ridden my bike every Sunday, which is nice. I visit my mom on Sundays, and she likes to ride.

I can’t believe it’s almost Memorial Day. I have to get in gear! I have to work out more, eat less, do things! I’ve felt very bogged down the past few weeks. That’s probably why I haven’t posted. Silly things seem like too much effort. My job got more intensive, and since I don’t like the work, it’s been a little rough. And my direct boss, while very  nice and someone I like, is a micromanager. I’ve never had that before. It’s exhausting! On top of that, I’m still waiting for the literary agent to write me back. It’s been like…95 days. I put SO much mental energy into it (I can’t help it, it’s my dream) that I am disappointed every day I don’t hear from him. It’s more than just having to wait, it’s not being able to ACT. I can’t revise further because I don’t have any feedback, I can’t look into other conferences, I can’t submit to the other agent who was interested. I spent the whole weekend a bit bummed by this combination of things.

 So positive things to focus on: getting into the teaching certification program. Step 1: I e-mailed my 3 people for letters of recommendation and got positive feedback. Step 2: I need to register to take the VCLA and the Praxis II. Step 3: I need to write my CV. Step 4: I need to request my transcript so I can fill out my endorsement review.

 These are all things I can ACCOMPLISH! I’ve also been applying to other jobs. It’ll be a good two years before I can actually get a fulltime teaching job, I think. I have applied for teaching positions at private schools and the like that you don’t need an actual certification for. I’m hoping this is kind of the darkness before the dawn =)