Feels like forever...

...since I last posted. Same excuse as always - busy, stressed out at work, not enough time in the day, blah blah blah.

I have, however, been pouring myself into a new online activity that I've yet to mention on here, I just realized.

I started a new blog! It's called "follow my bliss. " Now I have three blogs. Three effin blogs?! Jeez. I know, I know. But I feel justified.

This blog is and always has been focused on my experience losing weight and staying healthy. Sure, I write about other things on here, but the healthy lifestyle is my focus on this blog. Also, this blog is the blog that I'm the most 'myself' when writing. I don't tell many people about it, don't really know who reads it, and try not to censor myself too much on it. It's for me. So I can express myself, celebrate milestones, complain about stuff when I need to, and work things out when I want to. It's also to keep a few very important friends updated on my life, since it's much easier than emailing them all individually.

There's also my tumblr blog,  which I've kept up for the last year for fun. I can post quick, easy stuff that my "real life" friends enjoy a bit more than they would a blog with long rambling entries about how many slices of pizza I had last month. The tumblr blog probably won't get much action for now. I haven't used it much lately anyway.

So that brings us to the new blog! I'm so excited about it. I love it and even though I just started it a week ago, I'm having a blast taking photos and coming up with content for it. It's basically a place to discuss and chronicle my journey to leave my desk job and find my dream job.

I've talked on here a lot in the last two or three months, maybe even a lot in the last year, about wanting to change jobs and, more importantly, change lifestyles by no longer working at any kind of desk job.

Kevin suggested that I interview people about their dream jobs and write a blog about it. And I took it a step further and decided to write a blog about my own search, hopefully encountering other people who've done the same thing along the way. I'm hoping that the very process of writing the blog will encourage me to keep searching, asking questions, observing, and creating opportunities for myself - all while producing a creative history of the whole experience. I'm also hoping that opening up myself to the people I know (or even the people I don't!) will provide me with more options, suggestions, and open doors than would be available to me if I just sat in my living room and talked to my boyfriend about what I want. Not to mention, I'm a firm believer that if you ask the 'universe' for what you want, you're very likely to be open to it when it comes along. So that's the reason I'm doing it. It's a great experience so far. And I just ordered a new camera! So that will make it even more fun. :)  I'd love for you guys to read it.

Beyond that, work is a bear right now. Just busy and tiring and making me want to quit and get a job at a grocery store until something else comes along. I probably won't do that, not yet anyway. But I WANT to. 

Kevin started a new job too, as I mentioned, and it's certainly been a period of transition in our house. We're making and eating breakfast together every morning, which is fun, and we've done yoga together a couple mornings before work, but it's certainly an adjustment to have neither of us home during daylight hours. We're having to spend much more time cleaning/doing laundry, etc. on Sundays than we've done in the past. It's working itself out, but I know we'll be thrilled when we one day live on a beach and read books for a living. ;)

So. Food/exercise/weight. Until Sunday, I hadn't weighed myself since January 6th. I was in a groove of weighing myself every damn day for quite a while. That habit didn't really bother me, necessarily, but the battery on the scale died on January 6th, just as I was getting on it for my daily weigh-in, and it seemed like a little sign. I was battling a slight gain from the holidays and sorta sick of staring at the number each morning, so I thought, You know what? I'm not gonna rush to get a new battery. I'm gonna see if I can go until February 1st without weighing myself. And I did! (It helped that there was not a working battery in the scale. I'm thinking of taking the new battery I just got OUT of the scale and hiding it somewhere until March 1, as to avoid the temptation of the daily weigh-in.)

I'm glad I did this. Because it has really cleared away some mental clutter for me. It's not that I was focusing too much on the number on the scale, so much as I just always knew what it said. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it was also just extra information - meaningless information when noticed daily - that I didn't need swirling around in my brain. I like the feeling of just eating well, working out, making balanced choices, listening to my hunger, and waking up the next day to do it all over again with only my clothes, my food journal, and my conscience as my accountability.

It also helped put into perspective for me what my true goals really are. I want to lose 20 pounds this year, from what I weighed this past January 1st. Totally doable. And the beauty of that goal, is that it means I need only lose less than 2 pounds a month. I'm not in ANY hurry to lose these 20 pounds. I've never been as thin as 20 pounds less will make me, not since before puberty anyway, and if my body wants to go there, it will. If it doesn't, it won't. So we'll see what happens. The only way to know if my body is comfortable with the shift is to take it nice and slow and easy. No rushing, no racing, no obsessing over numbers. Just good habits that have good consequences.

So, drumroll, between January 1st and February 1st, I lost 4 pounds! Not bad, eh? Now, of course, the January 1st number was definitely inflated by some questionable food and alcohol choices in the days leading up to that weigh in. But that caveat noted, I still lost 4 pounds! I'm really proud of this. I probably would have been proud with 2 pounds, frankly. As long as I didn't gain weight, who cares.

I did the math and in the last 32 days, I've averaged a total of 37 points consumed per day. This does not include any calories burned from exercise. I'm formally burning an average of 300 calories daily, or earning 3 activity points daily. (I don't workout daily, but some days I do 60-90 minutes, some days I just do 30 minutes, and some days I do nothing formal for exercise.) I also walk around this damn city, up and down subway stairs, and several blocks to and from work, home, and rehearsals/shows every day. So that's probably an additional 100-200 calories burned that I don't even think about. I don't count the extra stuff like walking around the city, nor do I count the 20 minutes of yoga I do most mornings, since it's really just intensified stretching. (If I do 45-60 minutes of yoga, I'll call it 1 or 2 activity points.) But I do religiously consume the activity points from my formal exercise. So that means I'm consuming, on average, about 34 points a day when factoring in some exercise. Weight watchers tells me that someone of my height should be consuming an average of 27 points a day in order to lose 1-2 pounds a week. If I want to lose an average of .5 pounds a week, if that, then I'm right on track, it seems, to do that.

Granted, I could always reign in the eating - who couldn't. And I really don't know exactly how many calories I'm burning in a day (I have been yearning for one of those little gizmos that tell me that info), nor do I know exactly how many calories 34 points in a day actually is (I'm sure some days my math in terms of points-counting is way off and something that's 200 calories gets called 2 points, when it's really more like 4). But I lost 4 pounds this month, so who cares.

So. I'm going to attempt with all my power not to weigh myself again until March 1st. It's gonna be tough, I'm sure, because inquiring minds want to know. But I have enjoyed the mental freedom from it all this month. I've also enjoyed the lack of self-punishment, however small or large, that comes along with seeing a higher number the morning after a dinner out or an evening of sharing wine with friends. It's not necessary to punish myself, even if only for a moment, about completely reasonable indulgences like those. Weighing myself less has lessened that negative voice too.

That said, I'm going attempt to eat a bit less this month. If I'm not careful, I might gain weight. So I want to be sure I'm keeping an eye on things. And I'm going to do my best to keep my exercise where it's been - 4-5 times cardio each week, 3+ times yoga, and 1-2 times lifting/resistance training. My goal for this upcoming month is to lose 2 pounds. Seems reasonable enough.

I have an unexpected night off tonight. Mondays are usually my improv practice nights, but our coach is sick and a few of the rest of us have been feeling under the weather, so we decided to skip it entirely. I'm glad we did because I had a hectic weekend and I could use the extra night of down time. I was planning to go get in a nice workout, but I'm thinking I might opt out, having worked out 5 out of the last 6 days, and go out to dinner with my sweetie. I might even have a drink! I don't really have the points for a big dinner, so I won't go crazy, but I'm might indulge a little. After all, I have a month to make up for it. ;)