Sometimes I just wonder about life, yaknow? Like, there are days when it feels like it's not gonna get any easier. Of course, I don't have it so bad, I'm well aware of that. But I'm feeling overwhelmed today. I'm not even sure what I'm feeling overwhelmed with, but I do feel like I haven't been able to catch my breath yet today. I'm sure that will pass.
Kevin has been working a lot for the last couple weeks. Just before August began he landed a big jog that will be pretty lucrative for him. It only lasts the month of August, which is not too long at all. But it has meant that he's working weekends and working late into the evenings. When I first met him this was the kind of lifestyle he was leading - working nonstop. He eventually slowed down a bit and started to focus on things outside of work until he ultimately left his career (!) to take a bunch of time off and just chill out a bit. He then slowly started back to work after taking an entire summer off, nothing fulltime, just freelance and consulting work here and there, while doing voice over stuff and acting stuff for enjoyment, and sometimes pay, on the side. He's a producer, so he can just as easily work freelance/work from home as he can have a 9-5 (or, in this industry 10-10) type job where he's beholden to a company. And the freelance thing he's been doing since he left his company has suited him much better. It has been so nice to watch him transform from someone who's identity is his stressful job into someone who doesn't want to be held down by anything and instead wants to create his own path to financial stability, while concentrating more on his happiness and sense of self outside a strict career. I'm not sure if we would have lasted if he'd stayed in that stressful job - it took so much away from him and made him so unhappy so often.
These few weeks of him working those hours again have been nothing compared to the stress level he used to experience at his job, but it's a firm reminder that that lifestyle is so hard to maintain and just terrible for one's mental and physical health. And it sucks not to have him to myself evenings and weekends. I miss him and I don't feel connected to him at all right now. I hate it.
Also, this woman at work has been going out to "run errands" all day every day for the last week because our boss is on vacation which means it's a good time for her to get stuff done. I'm sure she's mostly doing things for the office, but I'm also sure she takes her sweet time. And I've been left to answer her phones all week long. It's rather annoying and can be occasionally stressful. I'm just generally pissed about my job right now. I want to cry over how much I don't want to be here sometimes.
On a lighter note, my back is feeling much better. Yesterday was the first day, after 4-5 days of pain, that I felt relatively normal again. There's still plenty of soreness in the area where it was hurt, but now it just feels like I lifted something heavy a day ago. So that's definite progress. I took a muscle relaxer last night although I'm not sure it did much. To the tune of $87 for the pills, I'm wondering if I can just return the effing prescription. ($87 because I had to also pay the $50 deductible. I almost cried.) But I suppose I'll just keep the stupid pills in case this happens again. The doc wants me to take them for a few weeks at bedtime but I just hate being filled with medication, so we'll see.
I guess I'm also stressed about money right now. Ugh. I'm just pissed. I'm pissed and stressed and I hate everything. How's that for pouting. ;)
Tonight, after work, I shall make my triumphant return to the gym! Wahoo! I haven't worked out at all since the back happened, so it's been about 8 days without exercise. That's torturous to me, to be honest. I realized last night that when I'm not exercising I have this irrational fear that I'm going to balloon-up over night. Silly, but it's there, under the surface.
So to combat it, I had two slices of pizza for dinner last night! That was fun. I was going to go to the store to pick up something to make for dinner - I haven't been able to get to the grocery store since before my injury so we're runnin LOW - but when I left work it was pouring rain, I was so hungry, and I knew I wasn't going to feel like cooking. After a half-assed walk through of the market near my office (who's prices, compared to TJ's, made me sick) I put the few items I'd lazily tossed into my basket back on the shelf. I'd told Kevin I would pick something up (he was working from home until late) and I decided we were both gonna have two slices of pizza and I wasn't cooking and that would be that. It was, of course, so incredibly yummy and delicious, this pizza. And even though I still felt a little guilty afterwards, it was nice to remind myself as I consumed it that I chose this meal consciously, made us both eat some fruit before we got to have the pizza, and sometimes I get to have two slices of pizza. ROAR. ;) I also had a few bites of ice cream before bed. Tee hee.
This weekend, come hell or high water, I'm going to Trader Joe's. I'm gonna be really low on funds for the next two weeks, having spent a lot lately on I'm-not-even-sure-what, so I need to make a nice big TJ's run that will last us for a while, complete with plenty of stuff so I can eat-in and bring my lunch from home. I've been creating a pretty good list of stuff to have on hand in the last few days and I think I'll try to come up with some dinner ideas and plan ahead about them too. Having the space and option to cook and eat food that we make at home has been my dream for a while now, so it's nice to finally be able to fulfill it. We've been doing pretty well so far, but I'm excited to get even more organized about it.
The house is a mess right now. With Kevin working constantly and me not being able to move around for several days in a row, stuff is just a mess. And I'm pissed. At who? I have no idea. But I just am. Are we sensing a theme here?
Today is not a great day, I guess. I got plenty of sleep last night (got in bed at 10:30!) but I'm feelin a little grumpy. I wonder if it's because of the dreary rainy yuck going on outside. I have no desire to do anything other than cuddle up on the couch and watch tv all day long.
I have an improv show tonight, Jen+Steve, my two-person show with my friend Steve. It's at 930. I'm looking forward to it. And I'm also looking forward to the several hours after work (we usually get out at 7, but we get out at 5 on Fridays in the summer) and before the show wherein I'm going to go to the gym and maybe take myself out to dinner.
I'm looking forward to the gym tonight. I think I will try to do a nice long cardio session, maybe an hour? I need it. If my back begins to hurt I'll stop or take a break. I'm not sure if I'll be able to run, so I might just hike for as long as I can and maybe try to run a few mins here and there just to remind my body how that feels. I'm anxious to get back to running soon, especially since the fall weather is so great for jogs. But I can't push it with the back. It's only been a week without exercise, but I'm scared I've already lost running capacity. We'll see! I think I'll also attempt some pilates tonight. I might even try a yoga class. We'll see what the back can handle. It's sore now even as I type this so I think some advil is going to be required before my workout.
I want to get a lot done this weekend, business and pleasure wise. I want to clean the house, for sure, and get things back into a working order. I want to get to the grocery store and maybe even prep a few meals for the week. I also want to spend some time in the sun, weather permitting, and spend some time exercising, body permitting. And I think I'm going to six flags on Sunday with some friends! I can't really afford it right now, the rental car or the day at the expensive amusement park, and I'm not sure how my back will fare, I will almost certainly have to skip some rides, but I will be sad if I don't go. My best friends are going, Randy and Daniel, and I'd hate to miss it. We've been talking about trying to get to the six flags since we moved to New York 10 years ago!
That's it for now. Hoping to write something more cheerful soon. For now, sigh. It's all a mountain.
Update: The sun came out. :) And I found a nearby gym that has a yoga class at 6:30. I'm leaving work now, going to head over there, waste some time on the treadmill, and then hit the yoga class. Also I went to the farmers market at lunch and got some yummy ruffage. This day might just be shaping up.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
New.
Soooo....
In an unexpected turn of events, I threw my back out.
Now, let me first start by saying that I have actually never had this happen to me before. I only know to even call it what it is because I've watched various family members and friends experience it in the past. And the moment I realized I was injured I knew exactly what it is. Thrown-out back. In the garbage, this back. No good.
Let me just backtrack and fill you in on the last few days.
I lifted on Wednesday of last week and did some new lunge thing that ended up kicking my ass (er..thighs). I blogged about it below. I was hurtin. I wasn't injured, I was just SO sore. This limping and hobbling and nursing of the completely fatigued thigh muscles went on for two days.
Friday night Kevin and I grilled out with Daniel, made the most delicious summer dinner on the grill complete with locally farmed corn on the cob, veggie kebabs, and this incredible honey mustard chicken, the marinade for which I conceived of all by my lonesome. (Bought some local honey at the farmer's market that day and didn't have anything to marinate the chicken in. Saw brown mustard in the fridge, remembered the honey, mixed them up, felt like a gourmet chef. Am not. It's the little things.)
It was a lovely night all-around, despite the fact that I consumed a bit too much white wine and a bit too many sweets after dinner. I went to sleep early on Friday night, really looking forward to the next morning when we were going to be going away for an overnight with friends.
I felt a tightness in my back when I got into bed, but I didn't think much of it - I'd been so sore for the last two days that everything hurt. I was careful not to move around too weird as I was falling asleep and figured I'd wake up in the morning feeling fine.
Not so. I woke up at 4am, intuitively, because I'd been trying to roll over for the last hour in my asleep and hadn't been able to. I was literally unable to move from the position I was in. Something in the lower left quadrant of my back was causing me excruciating pain and was not allowing me to move at all. I finally sat up, which took a good 5 minutes, and tried to stand, knowing I needed to get to the living room floor. That wasn't happening either. So I woke up Kevin. I didn't want to freak him out by acting like it was an emergency so I was very calm about it. "Honey. Wake up. I have a little problem." "Mm? What?" "I can't move. I think I threw out my back." He instantly jumped up and helped me.
The rest of the weekend was rough. I went on the damn overnight anyway, because I REALLY wanted to and because we would have been charged for the hotel anyway, as it was too late to cancel. That might sound crazy, but I was actually fine. It was nice to get out of the city and relax a bit with my friends. We drove everywhere we went in a borrowed car and mostly just chilled out. I wasn't able to lay on my back all day but I stayed pretty still nonetheless. We ended up having a great time with our friends.
When I got home on Sunday, though, I crashed, laying around for basically two days straight, popping advil and rubbing icy hot on my body at every opportunity. I slept a lot, took Monday off work, and stayed flat on my back. I finally woke up on Tuesday morning feeling like I could walk to the subway and make it into work. I did leave early from work that day, though, in the interest of more rest.
So, long story longer, this pain began on Saturday morning and today, Wednesday, I'm finally feeling a bit like myself again. I'm not completely mobile yet and I'm still being very ginger and gentle with all my movements, but I can walk upright and am not in serious agony for most of the day. This is big progress.
I just got back from the doctor, in fact, and she thinks I have some chronic inflammation in this one particular area of my back, which sometimes pinches me from time to time and has for as long as I can remember. This spot, where I sometimes have twinges while stretching or walking, is the same spot that completely freaked out and riddled me practically paralyzed on Saturday. She said that the lunges I did at the gym combined with walking around funny for two days because I was gym-sore probably caused this inflammation to worsen to the point where the back spasmed intensely in order to avoid spinal injury. This sounds like a good diagnosis on paper, but I'm not entirely sure that that's exactly what's going on. But I'm going to take her word for it (she was a great doctor, very communicative and helpful), follow her treatment schedule, and if it doesn't get better, we'll explore physical therapy. Anyway, she said prescribed me a muscle relaxer and wants me to take advil twice a day for 30 days, not for pain, but as an inflammation treatment. And the muscle relaxer at night as needed. So I'm gonna do that, be aware of my posture, slowly start to exercise again, and see what happens.
Needless to say, I haven't worked out since before this happened, which is really no fun at all. I don't necessarily mind the enforced time away from exercise, but I also DO mind it completely and am ready to be done with it asap. The doctor actually said I can return to exercise as long as I'm not hurting. Thank GOD.
I went for a light, gentle walk last night, the first exercise-like thing I've done since this happened. I put on tennis shoes and walked in the nearby park. A route that usually takes me 15 minutes took 45. That's how slow-moving I was. I couldn't physically walk any faster. I tried. But my entire back just felt locked up; it wouldn't let me move. It felt good to be out getting some blood pumping but it was also discouraging to see how much this injury has impacted my ability to move normally - basically overnight! So infuriating. While on the walk, I got really sore and my back got really tired after about 20 minutes. (I couldn't turn back though - Bob Dylan was playing a concert in the park and I had to walk by and check it out! I did. It was so great. This part of Brooklyn was an atmospheric delight last night, with everyone out on blankets or lawn chairs, with their partners or babies or dogs, listening to great music in the beautiful summer evening weather.) I called Kevin to come get me in a cab though (he was at a meeting nearby) because I didn't think I could walk home.
If anything, this has made me realize a couple things. I need to slow down. I mean that in a big and small way.
On the small scale, I need to take more time with my exercise - if I'm going to squeeze in a workout on my lunch break, I need to sacrifice a few minutes of the actual exercise to make sure I'm stretching out plenty before and after and warming up and cooling down as best as I can. I'm not 20 years old anymore, ya know? In general, the mental and physical stress of trying to cram a whole trip to the gym, there and back, undressed and redressed, into 60 minutes, might just be something I'm going to have to put on the back burner for a while. I think I might just be trying to do too much and it's not worth it. I don't do it intentionally but I'm sure I sometimes hurry through lifting workouts or speed-through my stretches and that can be dangerous. Oh, if only I had 3 hours a day to spend on a nice long workout with plenty of luxurious stretching.
And on the large scale, in general, I just need to slow the fuck down. In life. I'm doing too much. I'm busy every single night, always. I am always making plans to squeeze things in and please everyone and please myself and please my boyfriend and do my workouts and be a good employee. It's too much. I'm running on empty half the time and I'm always rushing around with only 30 minutes to travel from point A to B for the next thing. It's always the next thing, the next thing. A lot of it is obligatory. But some of it is just self-imposed.
I know I'm better at taking time for myself than some people are and I never have considered myself one of those people that will give out too much before she gives inward, but it's all relative. And even though I might not have as big a hill to climb in terms of taking care of myself first as some other women do, I still need to recognize my own sliding scale of self focus, and the bottom line is that I'm not giving myself enough right now and I need to turn it inward for a while. I don't think I'm on the verge of anything terrible if I don't do that, but having this back injury time where I was basically removed from normal life and removed from an ability to move through life at my normal pace has forced me to reflect a bit. I realize now that this pace might be too hard to maintain and get away without eventually burning out.
I don't necessarily think that this back injury happened in order to remind me of that, but I can't help but ask myself, what did I do to contribute to this injury and can I try to avoid that behavior in the future? And I think all of that overall points to needing to take more time with myself and my body and being more patient and less stressed out.
It was very hard for me to sit still on the days I laid at home and did nothing. I've never thought of myself as someone who has a hard time sitting still but I think the years living in New York City, operating at a big-city pace, and the challenges I've given myself in the ten years since I left my hometown have grown me into someone who doesn't often take moments to sit still and turn down the noise of it all. Now I'm naturally enclined to often be thinking what next. I don't want that. I don't want to be that person or live that life at ALL. I want to be healthy, active, and content, both physically and spiritually. And that has got to start with simply slowing down.
I also know I need to work on not emotionally internalizing the stuff that's going on outside of me all the time. I'm involved in a few groups and spend a lot of time with other people in professional and social atmospheres and the personality and social challenges can be exhausting. I am someone who craves and requires alone time, perhaps more than some other people do. So rather than try to run with the pack, I'm going to work on being content with my own pace and my own capacity for outside influence.
I have been focusing a lot on the comedy groups I'm in and I'm beginning to resent it. It's no one's fault but my own. And all it means is that I need to carve out some time to focus on my own desires and interests: pilates, yoga, running, healthy cooking, organic foods, general nutrition, meditation, volunteer work, writing, traveling, home-life. These are the things that bring me a general sense of peace and happiness - not for anything, or to any end - not to make a buck or start a career - just for me, to feel like Jen.
There are certain things I can't give up, certain days of the week that will not be my own for now, certain scheduling things that are what they are and aren't going to change anytime soon. But I can decide to reinvest in being wholly myself while I'm tending to those obligations, by emotionally disconnecting from other peoples' emotional drama, especially when it comes at me in a professional environment, in choosing to intellectually experience my professional relationships, rather than emotionally experience them, and in choosing to spend the time that I do have to myself feeding my mind and body healthy and enriching experiences that make me feel human. That's really important to me right now. I have to remember that I owe nothing to any person or thing. I only owe kindness to myself. Everyone else can take a damn number. Hallelujah, Amen? ;)
Sounds like a lot to get out of a back injury, huh? It was. It's not some huge life overall by any means. But it will mean some simple, gentle ways of encouraging myself to focus more on myself, respecting my natural pace, and feeling healthy and comfortable in my own reality. I've been really interested in eating organically lately and preparing natural foods to help keep me nutritionally satisfied. So I think it's only natural that that desire to be whole and healthy translate into other areas besides my diet.
I gained weight at weigh-in yesterday. I think this back injury has caused some weight gain due to lack of exercise AND! overeating Saturday - Monday from being pissed about my condition! Sweet. ;) Oh well, what can you do. Back to it, right?
Trying to make good, healthy, natural food choices this week. And I will start back slowly on the exercise with just some gentle cardio, maybe just walking, and some pilates to reinvigorate core strength. Not gonna lift for a while, until I feel 100%.
I've decided to change the look of this site, clean it up a bit, to reflect what I hope will be a new focus in a gentler more open direction.
That's that. It's a beautiful day today. Back to it.
In an unexpected turn of events, I threw my back out.
Now, let me first start by saying that I have actually never had this happen to me before. I only know to even call it what it is because I've watched various family members and friends experience it in the past. And the moment I realized I was injured I knew exactly what it is. Thrown-out back. In the garbage, this back. No good.
Let me just backtrack and fill you in on the last few days.
I lifted on Wednesday of last week and did some new lunge thing that ended up kicking my ass (er..thighs). I blogged about it below. I was hurtin. I wasn't injured, I was just SO sore. This limping and hobbling and nursing of the completely fatigued thigh muscles went on for two days.
Friday night Kevin and I grilled out with Daniel, made the most delicious summer dinner on the grill complete with locally farmed corn on the cob, veggie kebabs, and this incredible honey mustard chicken, the marinade for which I conceived of all by my lonesome. (Bought some local honey at the farmer's market that day and didn't have anything to marinate the chicken in. Saw brown mustard in the fridge, remembered the honey, mixed them up, felt like a gourmet chef. Am not. It's the little things.)
It was a lovely night all-around, despite the fact that I consumed a bit too much white wine and a bit too many sweets after dinner. I went to sleep early on Friday night, really looking forward to the next morning when we were going to be going away for an overnight with friends.
I felt a tightness in my back when I got into bed, but I didn't think much of it - I'd been so sore for the last two days that everything hurt. I was careful not to move around too weird as I was falling asleep and figured I'd wake up in the morning feeling fine.
Not so. I woke up at 4am, intuitively, because I'd been trying to roll over for the last hour in my asleep and hadn't been able to. I was literally unable to move from the position I was in. Something in the lower left quadrant of my back was causing me excruciating pain and was not allowing me to move at all. I finally sat up, which took a good 5 minutes, and tried to stand, knowing I needed to get to the living room floor. That wasn't happening either. So I woke up Kevin. I didn't want to freak him out by acting like it was an emergency so I was very calm about it. "Honey. Wake up. I have a little problem." "Mm? What?" "I can't move. I think I threw out my back." He instantly jumped up and helped me.
The rest of the weekend was rough. I went on the damn overnight anyway, because I REALLY wanted to and because we would have been charged for the hotel anyway, as it was too late to cancel. That might sound crazy, but I was actually fine. It was nice to get out of the city and relax a bit with my friends. We drove everywhere we went in a borrowed car and mostly just chilled out. I wasn't able to lay on my back all day but I stayed pretty still nonetheless. We ended up having a great time with our friends.
When I got home on Sunday, though, I crashed, laying around for basically two days straight, popping advil and rubbing icy hot on my body at every opportunity. I slept a lot, took Monday off work, and stayed flat on my back. I finally woke up on Tuesday morning feeling like I could walk to the subway and make it into work. I did leave early from work that day, though, in the interest of more rest.
So, long story longer, this pain began on Saturday morning and today, Wednesday, I'm finally feeling a bit like myself again. I'm not completely mobile yet and I'm still being very ginger and gentle with all my movements, but I can walk upright and am not in serious agony for most of the day. This is big progress.
I just got back from the doctor, in fact, and she thinks I have some chronic inflammation in this one particular area of my back, which sometimes pinches me from time to time and has for as long as I can remember. This spot, where I sometimes have twinges while stretching or walking, is the same spot that completely freaked out and riddled me practically paralyzed on Saturday. She said that the lunges I did at the gym combined with walking around funny for two days because I was gym-sore probably caused this inflammation to worsen to the point where the back spasmed intensely in order to avoid spinal injury. This sounds like a good diagnosis on paper, but I'm not entirely sure that that's exactly what's going on. But I'm going to take her word for it (she was a great doctor, very communicative and helpful), follow her treatment schedule, and if it doesn't get better, we'll explore physical therapy. Anyway, she said prescribed me a muscle relaxer and wants me to take advil twice a day for 30 days, not for pain, but as an inflammation treatment. And the muscle relaxer at night as needed. So I'm gonna do that, be aware of my posture, slowly start to exercise again, and see what happens.
Needless to say, I haven't worked out since before this happened, which is really no fun at all. I don't necessarily mind the enforced time away from exercise, but I also DO mind it completely and am ready to be done with it asap. The doctor actually said I can return to exercise as long as I'm not hurting. Thank GOD.
I went for a light, gentle walk last night, the first exercise-like thing I've done since this happened. I put on tennis shoes and walked in the nearby park. A route that usually takes me 15 minutes took 45. That's how slow-moving I was. I couldn't physically walk any faster. I tried. But my entire back just felt locked up; it wouldn't let me move. It felt good to be out getting some blood pumping but it was also discouraging to see how much this injury has impacted my ability to move normally - basically overnight! So infuriating. While on the walk, I got really sore and my back got really tired after about 20 minutes. (I couldn't turn back though - Bob Dylan was playing a concert in the park and I had to walk by and check it out! I did. It was so great. This part of Brooklyn was an atmospheric delight last night, with everyone out on blankets or lawn chairs, with their partners or babies or dogs, listening to great music in the beautiful summer evening weather.) I called Kevin to come get me in a cab though (he was at a meeting nearby) because I didn't think I could walk home.
If anything, this has made me realize a couple things. I need to slow down. I mean that in a big and small way.
On the small scale, I need to take more time with my exercise - if I'm going to squeeze in a workout on my lunch break, I need to sacrifice a few minutes of the actual exercise to make sure I'm stretching out plenty before and after and warming up and cooling down as best as I can. I'm not 20 years old anymore, ya know? In general, the mental and physical stress of trying to cram a whole trip to the gym, there and back, undressed and redressed, into 60 minutes, might just be something I'm going to have to put on the back burner for a while. I think I might just be trying to do too much and it's not worth it. I don't do it intentionally but I'm sure I sometimes hurry through lifting workouts or speed-through my stretches and that can be dangerous. Oh, if only I had 3 hours a day to spend on a nice long workout with plenty of luxurious stretching.
And on the large scale, in general, I just need to slow the fuck down. In life. I'm doing too much. I'm busy every single night, always. I am always making plans to squeeze things in and please everyone and please myself and please my boyfriend and do my workouts and be a good employee. It's too much. I'm running on empty half the time and I'm always rushing around with only 30 minutes to travel from point A to B for the next thing. It's always the next thing, the next thing. A lot of it is obligatory. But some of it is just self-imposed.
I know I'm better at taking time for myself than some people are and I never have considered myself one of those people that will give out too much before she gives inward, but it's all relative. And even though I might not have as big a hill to climb in terms of taking care of myself first as some other women do, I still need to recognize my own sliding scale of self focus, and the bottom line is that I'm not giving myself enough right now and I need to turn it inward for a while. I don't think I'm on the verge of anything terrible if I don't do that, but having this back injury time where I was basically removed from normal life and removed from an ability to move through life at my normal pace has forced me to reflect a bit. I realize now that this pace might be too hard to maintain and get away without eventually burning out.
I don't necessarily think that this back injury happened in order to remind me of that, but I can't help but ask myself, what did I do to contribute to this injury and can I try to avoid that behavior in the future? And I think all of that overall points to needing to take more time with myself and my body and being more patient and less stressed out.
It was very hard for me to sit still on the days I laid at home and did nothing. I've never thought of myself as someone who has a hard time sitting still but I think the years living in New York City, operating at a big-city pace, and the challenges I've given myself in the ten years since I left my hometown have grown me into someone who doesn't often take moments to sit still and turn down the noise of it all. Now I'm naturally enclined to often be thinking what next. I don't want that. I don't want to be that person or live that life at ALL. I want to be healthy, active, and content, both physically and spiritually. And that has got to start with simply slowing down.
I also know I need to work on not emotionally internalizing the stuff that's going on outside of me all the time. I'm involved in a few groups and spend a lot of time with other people in professional and social atmospheres and the personality and social challenges can be exhausting. I am someone who craves and requires alone time, perhaps more than some other people do. So rather than try to run with the pack, I'm going to work on being content with my own pace and my own capacity for outside influence.
I have been focusing a lot on the comedy groups I'm in and I'm beginning to resent it. It's no one's fault but my own. And all it means is that I need to carve out some time to focus on my own desires and interests: pilates, yoga, running, healthy cooking, organic foods, general nutrition, meditation, volunteer work, writing, traveling, home-life. These are the things that bring me a general sense of peace and happiness - not for anything, or to any end - not to make a buck or start a career - just for me, to feel like Jen.
There are certain things I can't give up, certain days of the week that will not be my own for now, certain scheduling things that are what they are and aren't going to change anytime soon. But I can decide to reinvest in being wholly myself while I'm tending to those obligations, by emotionally disconnecting from other peoples' emotional drama, especially when it comes at me in a professional environment, in choosing to intellectually experience my professional relationships, rather than emotionally experience them, and in choosing to spend the time that I do have to myself feeding my mind and body healthy and enriching experiences that make me feel human. That's really important to me right now. I have to remember that I owe nothing to any person or thing. I only owe kindness to myself. Everyone else can take a damn number. Hallelujah, Amen? ;)
Sounds like a lot to get out of a back injury, huh? It was. It's not some huge life overall by any means. But it will mean some simple, gentle ways of encouraging myself to focus more on myself, respecting my natural pace, and feeling healthy and comfortable in my own reality. I've been really interested in eating organically lately and preparing natural foods to help keep me nutritionally satisfied. So I think it's only natural that that desire to be whole and healthy translate into other areas besides my diet.
I gained weight at weigh-in yesterday. I think this back injury has caused some weight gain due to lack of exercise AND! overeating Saturday - Monday from being pissed about my condition! Sweet. ;) Oh well, what can you do. Back to it, right?
Trying to make good, healthy, natural food choices this week. And I will start back slowly on the exercise with just some gentle cardio, maybe just walking, and some pilates to reinvigorate core strength. Not gonna lift for a while, until I feel 100%.
I've decided to change the look of this site, clean it up a bit, to reflect what I hope will be a new focus in a gentler more open direction.
That's that. It's a beautiful day today. Back to it.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Alert! Alert! I had a donut! For breakfast! Whaaat!?
Okay, first of all, last night did not go entirely as planned - I ate more than 30 points yesterday, for sure. More like 43 points. We had asian food after work - I had edamame, sake, brown rice, and some chicken with veggies and garlic sauce. Not great, not awful. (But so delicious.) And then we went to a birthday party and I had a couple beers and some cake! Aack! No huge deal, but it wasn't my plan. Oh shit and I just remembered I had a hearty handful of cheese-its when we got home. We'll pretend I forgot about those.
So, it's not the end of the world, but it certainly makes this amazing week I thought I was having a little harder to navigate going forward.
Then. In a fit of I-don't-even-know-what I had a donut for breakfast! I haven't had a donut, let alone for breakfast, in...it's been years. But. Here's the thing. The guy who makes my morning iced-coffees (there's a donut/coffee cart on every corner in the mornings in NYC) occasionally gives me a free donut or bagel or roll from his cart. That's a rare thing in this town so I almost always grin, say thank you (he prides himself on this generosity, which is so lovely, that I cannot turn down his gesture), and take zero or one bites of whatever he's given me and then find someone to give it away to or toss it. I'm sure he tosses them at the end of his shift anyway. So today was one of those days. And these donuts, they look incredible. And the last time he gave me one, I had two bites of it, died from pleasure, and had to pinch myself to get myself to stop eating it.
But this morning, he gave me a free donut and a free bagel with cream cheese (!) and I took one big bite of the donut as I kept walking to work and I just melted. It was amazing. So I took another bite and another. And then I thought, well I'll just eat half of it. And then I ate the whole thing! In an instant, a flash, if your hand was near my mouth, it would have been bitten. So. That happened. What can you do. It wasn't how I wanted to start my day, but I'm generally a great healthy-breakfast girl. So it's not gonna kill me. I knew as I was eating that this might mean potential derailment for the rest of my day, in that, eating a sugar bomb first thing in the morning is the best way to make sure you're hungry 25 minutes later and craving sugar and carbs all day long. And I did pause for a brief second while I was eating it to decide whether or not I wanted to combat that for the rest of the day. BUT. The desire to just eat a damn donut like a normal person outweighed everything else. So I finished it. I'm determined not to let that get the best of me. I did have a couple bites (almost to get something else besides donut in me) of the bagel with cream cheese, but only a couple and then I tossed it. Then I had a few dried cranberries just for variety.
I'm certainly hungry now. And it's only 11am. I don't usually eat lunch until 2 or 3. But I see a salad, perhaps around 1230 or so, in my future. A big salad with lots of veggies. It's the only way to go.
Donut for breakfast. Who knew. Throw caution to the wind, right? Ha. But I won't let it get the better of me today. Salad for lunch, as I said. And then we're grilling out tonight! We have some chicken we can do up. And I think I'll make another big salad and maybe even cut up some veggies to do kebabs on the grill too. That will be delish. So the rest of this day should be a veggie/protein kind of a day. I know I can do it.
I think a workout at lunchtime is in order. Perhaps some eliptical or a hike on the treadmill. Maybe I'll even skip the gym and go walk around central park on my break. But I must get in something. Last night's festivities and this morning's donut (and my sincere desire to have a stellar week this week) are reason enough.
That's it. Weekend plans are still moving forward. I'm looking forward to them. As a related-to-this-blog note, sometimes weekend plans like this can be tough for me because I get excited and start to mindlessly eat, almost to curb some kind of weird joyful anxiety. I can't quite explain it. It's not that I get anxious in "fun" situations like this. I think it's that I get so caught up in how much I'm enjoying what's happening that I just end up constantly reaching for more to munch on, if it's there I mean, because it soothes me somehow, I think. I'm not sure I'm explaining it correctly but I guess it's akin to a dog wagging it's tail or someone tapping their foot when they're eager. It's just an unconscious thing I do when there is an event with people and food around. I can certainly stop it if I'm aware of it, but sometimes I'll have consumed stuff before I even know what's going on. I'm sure those who've had weight issues in the past can relate. Point being, I'm going to try to conscious and aware this weekend of what I'm eating and when I'm snacking and I'm going to try to focus on enjoying my friends and the beautiful weather and the summertime and the chance to relax, rather than being unsoothed without something to munch on.
Blah blah. ;) Have a great weekend, everyone.
Okay, first of all, last night did not go entirely as planned - I ate more than 30 points yesterday, for sure. More like 43 points. We had asian food after work - I had edamame, sake, brown rice, and some chicken with veggies and garlic sauce. Not great, not awful. (But so delicious.) And then we went to a birthday party and I had a couple beers and some cake! Aack! No huge deal, but it wasn't my plan. Oh shit and I just remembered I had a hearty handful of cheese-its when we got home. We'll pretend I forgot about those.
So, it's not the end of the world, but it certainly makes this amazing week I thought I was having a little harder to navigate going forward.
Then. In a fit of I-don't-even-know-what I had a donut for breakfast! I haven't had a donut, let alone for breakfast, in...it's been years. But. Here's the thing. The guy who makes my morning iced-coffees (there's a donut/coffee cart on every corner in the mornings in NYC) occasionally gives me a free donut or bagel or roll from his cart. That's a rare thing in this town so I almost always grin, say thank you (he prides himself on this generosity, which is so lovely, that I cannot turn down his gesture), and take zero or one bites of whatever he's given me and then find someone to give it away to or toss it. I'm sure he tosses them at the end of his shift anyway. So today was one of those days. And these donuts, they look incredible. And the last time he gave me one, I had two bites of it, died from pleasure, and had to pinch myself to get myself to stop eating it.
But this morning, he gave me a free donut and a free bagel with cream cheese (!) and I took one big bite of the donut as I kept walking to work and I just melted. It was amazing. So I took another bite and another. And then I thought, well I'll just eat half of it. And then I ate the whole thing! In an instant, a flash, if your hand was near my mouth, it would have been bitten. So. That happened. What can you do. It wasn't how I wanted to start my day, but I'm generally a great healthy-breakfast girl. So it's not gonna kill me. I knew as I was eating that this might mean potential derailment for the rest of my day, in that, eating a sugar bomb first thing in the morning is the best way to make sure you're hungry 25 minutes later and craving sugar and carbs all day long. And I did pause for a brief second while I was eating it to decide whether or not I wanted to combat that for the rest of the day. BUT. The desire to just eat a damn donut like a normal person outweighed everything else. So I finished it. I'm determined not to let that get the best of me. I did have a couple bites (almost to get something else besides donut in me) of the bagel with cream cheese, but only a couple and then I tossed it. Then I had a few dried cranberries just for variety.
I'm certainly hungry now. And it's only 11am. I don't usually eat lunch until 2 or 3. But I see a salad, perhaps around 1230 or so, in my future. A big salad with lots of veggies. It's the only way to go.
Donut for breakfast. Who knew. Throw caution to the wind, right? Ha. But I won't let it get the better of me today. Salad for lunch, as I said. And then we're grilling out tonight! We have some chicken we can do up. And I think I'll make another big salad and maybe even cut up some veggies to do kebabs on the grill too. That will be delish. So the rest of this day should be a veggie/protein kind of a day. I know I can do it.
I think a workout at lunchtime is in order. Perhaps some eliptical or a hike on the treadmill. Maybe I'll even skip the gym and go walk around central park on my break. But I must get in something. Last night's festivities and this morning's donut (and my sincere desire to have a stellar week this week) are reason enough.
That's it. Weekend plans are still moving forward. I'm looking forward to them. As a related-to-this-blog note, sometimes weekend plans like this can be tough for me because I get excited and start to mindlessly eat, almost to curb some kind of weird joyful anxiety. I can't quite explain it. It's not that I get anxious in "fun" situations like this. I think it's that I get so caught up in how much I'm enjoying what's happening that I just end up constantly reaching for more to munch on, if it's there I mean, because it soothes me somehow, I think. I'm not sure I'm explaining it correctly but I guess it's akin to a dog wagging it's tail or someone tapping their foot when they're eager. It's just an unconscious thing I do when there is an event with people and food around. I can certainly stop it if I'm aware of it, but sometimes I'll have consumed stuff before I even know what's going on. I'm sure those who've had weight issues in the past can relate. Point being, I'm going to try to conscious and aware this weekend of what I'm eating and when I'm snacking and I'm going to try to focus on enjoying my friends and the beautiful weather and the summertime and the chance to relax, rather than being unsoothed without something to munch on.
Blah blah. ;) Have a great weekend, everyone.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Holy hell am I in pain. Every once in a blue moon I'll do something, usually in the weight lifting realm, that just cripples me for 2 solid days. Not in an acute injury kind of a way, but in a holy mother I fatigued these muscles kind of a way. I am hurtin today. Bigtime.
I lifted and did some abs/lower back work yesterday. Pretty standard. I scaled back on the lifting recently (in the past, I've generally lift 3x a week, if I could get it in, but lately I've only been doing once or twice a week because I'm enjoying the cardio more right now) and it definitely seems like I've lost strength very quickly because after only a little time not focusing on thigh-lifting, for example, I seem be in agony the day after any kind of squat or lunge. Must try to find a happy medium there - where I don't have to lift religiously three days a week, but I do enough on the days I do lift to keep the muscles in working order.
ANYway, I did this new thing yesterday that I've seen trainers asking people to do at my gym. You basically stand at one side of the room and "lunge-walk" to the other side, meaning every step you take is another proper lunge - front leg out, butt goes straight toward the ground and back up again - after another. Until you've done 40 or so lunges just from walking across the gym twice.
Looks easy enough.
Brutal. And that's without any sort of free-weights in my hands. Imagine if I was holding weights! Argh. Right as I was doing it, I was like Ohh man this feels good, like too good, like my legs are gonna be screaming at me tomorrow and I KNOW it. I lift enough that stuff doesn't feel like that a lot. So when it does, I know I'm in for it the next day. But what am I gonna do, stop? Hell no.
You get the idea. Today, I'm limping like a pregnant lady who's walking on ice. Embarassing.
Food, although knock-on-wood as it's only Day 3, is going well so far this week. My plan of attempting to not exceed 30 points a day, but to accept that I'm allowed to consume 30 points in one day, seems to be working! Which is awesome. And I've gotten in enough exercise (just a couple small workouts) to offset things too so that I didn't eat 30 points total on one of the days. So I feel really on track so far this week.
I still have a weekend of some get togethers and food-related events that will be challenging but I feel ahead of the curve right now, which is nice. And the scale is reflecting that.
I won't get to workout today, and I wouldn't want to if I could. (So effing sore it's not even FUNNY. GAH!) Hoping to get something in tomorrow either on my lunch break or in the evening.
Tonight we have a surprise party for a friend's birthday. I don't plan to stay too long, I desperately need to catch up on sleep because I don't think I'll get to this weekend. The party is in the east village and we'll probably grab a quick sushi dinner on our way to the party.
Tomorrow night should be relatively low-key. We live in a brownstone, on the ground floor, that is owned by two women who live upstairs with their twin babies. When they go out of town from time to time we take care of their cats, and in the past, they've taken care of Kevin's cat when he's been out. So they're in Texas right now and we're watching their little guys and we might go up onto their deck tomorrow night to grill out and enjoy the summer evening, since they're out of town and probably won't mind if we use the space. Daniel might join us. No big plans for the evening besides some drinking, some food, and some outside time. Looking forward to that.
Then on Saturday we're most likely taking two of our good friends up to the town Kevin grew up in to pick up his parents car (35 min train ride out of the city, near Westchester) and borrow it, because his parents are ALSO out of town. We will probably drive to a nearby resort called Bear Mountain and spend the day swimming, hiking, picnicing, whatever we choose to do. Then we might also return to his parents house that evening to grill out on THEIR porch with our friends and Kevin's sister, brother-in-law, and their baby. Er, I guess he's 2 now. Not exactly a baby anymore. That should also be a lot of fun.
We'll spend the night in the area and probably have breakfast with Kevin's sister and her husband on Sunday morning and return to Brooklyn in the afternoon. I can't WAIT for all the time to relax, take in some sun, and eat food on the grill. I have seriously needed this kind of summertime relaxation so I'm going to really soak it up while I can this weekend.
I'm hoping next weekend will also be filled with some pool or beach action. I need the SUN!
So, a busy weekend, but a relaxing one. And we'll get out of the city for a day! That's never a bad thing.
I'm going to make a committment right now to getting in some light exercise this weekend, even if it's only a hike or some abs or pilates or a brisk walk, and to making healthy, responsible food choices whenever possible, pushing the fruits and veggies. I have a feeling that I have it in me to continue having a kickass week. And I plan to do just that.
I lifted and did some abs/lower back work yesterday. Pretty standard. I scaled back on the lifting recently (in the past, I've generally lift 3x a week, if I could get it in, but lately I've only been doing once or twice a week because I'm enjoying the cardio more right now) and it definitely seems like I've lost strength very quickly because after only a little time not focusing on thigh-lifting, for example, I seem be in agony the day after any kind of squat or lunge. Must try to find a happy medium there - where I don't have to lift religiously three days a week, but I do enough on the days I do lift to keep the muscles in working order.
ANYway, I did this new thing yesterday that I've seen trainers asking people to do at my gym. You basically stand at one side of the room and "lunge-walk" to the other side, meaning every step you take is another proper lunge - front leg out, butt goes straight toward the ground and back up again - after another. Until you've done 40 or so lunges just from walking across the gym twice.
Looks easy enough.
Brutal. And that's without any sort of free-weights in my hands. Imagine if I was holding weights! Argh. Right as I was doing it, I was like Ohh man this feels good, like too good, like my legs are gonna be screaming at me tomorrow and I KNOW it. I lift enough that stuff doesn't feel like that a lot. So when it does, I know I'm in for it the next day. But what am I gonna do, stop? Hell no.
You get the idea. Today, I'm limping like a pregnant lady who's walking on ice. Embarassing.
Food, although knock-on-wood as it's only Day 3, is going well so far this week. My plan of attempting to not exceed 30 points a day, but to accept that I'm allowed to consume 30 points in one day, seems to be working! Which is awesome. And I've gotten in enough exercise (just a couple small workouts) to offset things too so that I didn't eat 30 points total on one of the days. So I feel really on track so far this week.
I still have a weekend of some get togethers and food-related events that will be challenging but I feel ahead of the curve right now, which is nice. And the scale is reflecting that.
I won't get to workout today, and I wouldn't want to if I could. (So effing sore it's not even FUNNY. GAH!) Hoping to get something in tomorrow either on my lunch break or in the evening.
Tonight we have a surprise party for a friend's birthday. I don't plan to stay too long, I desperately need to catch up on sleep because I don't think I'll get to this weekend. The party is in the east village and we'll probably grab a quick sushi dinner on our way to the party.
Tomorrow night should be relatively low-key. We live in a brownstone, on the ground floor, that is owned by two women who live upstairs with their twin babies. When they go out of town from time to time we take care of their cats, and in the past, they've taken care of Kevin's cat when he's been out. So they're in Texas right now and we're watching their little guys and we might go up onto their deck tomorrow night to grill out and enjoy the summer evening, since they're out of town and probably won't mind if we use the space. Daniel might join us. No big plans for the evening besides some drinking, some food, and some outside time. Looking forward to that.
Then on Saturday we're most likely taking two of our good friends up to the town Kevin grew up in to pick up his parents car (35 min train ride out of the city, near Westchester) and borrow it, because his parents are ALSO out of town. We will probably drive to a nearby resort called Bear Mountain and spend the day swimming, hiking, picnicing, whatever we choose to do. Then we might also return to his parents house that evening to grill out on THEIR porch with our friends and Kevin's sister, brother-in-law, and their baby. Er, I guess he's 2 now. Not exactly a baby anymore. That should also be a lot of fun.
We'll spend the night in the area and probably have breakfast with Kevin's sister and her husband on Sunday morning and return to Brooklyn in the afternoon. I can't WAIT for all the time to relax, take in some sun, and eat food on the grill. I have seriously needed this kind of summertime relaxation so I'm going to really soak it up while I can this weekend.
I'm hoping next weekend will also be filled with some pool or beach action. I need the SUN!
So, a busy weekend, but a relaxing one. And we'll get out of the city for a day! That's never a bad thing.
I'm going to make a committment right now to getting in some light exercise this weekend, even if it's only a hike or some abs or pilates or a brisk walk, and to making healthy, responsible food choices whenever possible, pushing the fruits and veggies. I have a feeling that I have it in me to continue having a kickass week. And I plan to do just that.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Alas. Alack. Life. I'm plugging through it. Thank god for the people I like.
So, in other news, I was up .2 yesterday for weigh-in (meaning a total of 2.2 gained in the last two weeks). And then, naturally, back down to my lowest in recent weeks this morning, like that 2.2 never happened, the day AFTER weigh-in. Of course. Whatever.
I am thrilled to report that I had a good day yesterday in terms of healthy living. It's always a great boost for me to have day one of my "new week" be a success. If I end up overeating on the first day of the new week I always feel like I'm coming from behind the whole rest of the week. It's all mental, baby. But after last week's pretty shiteous performance on the part of Food Consumer: Me, I worked hard to make my first day a good one.
I've been really interested, lately, in eating whole, organic foods. I've been shopping for all kinds of weird things that I've never eaten before, like almond butter and flax seed oil. It's certainly out of a desire to fill my body with whole non-toxic foods, but it's also out of a desire to find ways to satisfy my hunger without overeating. And the best way I can think to do that is to eat whole foods. I've been eating a lot of organic crunchy peanut butter. A lot of avocados and apples and cherries. I found these really delicious organic bar-type-things that are ridiculously high in fiber and pretty tasty too - I believe they're called Gnu Bars. They're expensive as fuck, of course. But the chocolate brownie one does it for me for the chocolate fix. And for 12 grams of fiber, my digestive system is thrilled.
I hope to continue along this trend as time and grocery store trips allow. It's not always easy to make the better choice or the more expensive, organic choice, but I hope to teach my children to eat this way so what better time to start than now. And if some of it rubs off on Kevin, so be it. ;) (I have to slap myself regularly to keep myself from trying to control everything he puts in his mouth. Those are MY issues, not his, and goddammit, when I get on his case about food stuff I sound just like my mother! Aack! Dreadful. He's patient with me though. He knows it comes from a (dysfunctional) place of love. And just smiles and keeps eating his cheez-its.)
Anyway, I must head to the store soon to restock us. We made a vat of organic whole wheat penne last week for a meal and ended up with a lot of left over pasta. I reheated that stuff, adding a little salt and EVOO, at least 3 different times - after a run, as a snack before going to lift. And was so tasty and filling. Definitely have to get some more of that. It's fun to try to relearn nutrition in this way. I just can't with the super-chemical stuff anymore. It gives me headaches.
Yesterday was good because I ate good, whole foods, several servings of fruits and veggies, and didn't go overboard at all on the munching. (Except for some organic chocolate cookies a woman brought out at work. I had a hearty handful of those puppies. But at 120 calories for 10 of them, and organic, who cares.) I also got to the gym at lunch and blasted through a 30 minute run. It's not the hour long workout I dream of having each day, but it's something. And it's just all I have time for right now. Someday, things will be different.
I'm going to eat well again today. It remains to be seen whether or not I'll get a workout in. I might try to go lift and do some pilates at lunch. But I'm really craving a good long exercise session. These 20-30 mins stints on my lunch break just aren't enough. And getting out of work at 7pm, often having somewhere to be 30 mins later, isn't conducive to much in the long workout vein either. I get in my long stuff on the weekends, but I still crave more during the week. That might have to involve getting up early. HA. Puleeze.
It's a friends birthday tonight so I'm going to try to go see her show instead of working out, assuming I can get out of work in time. And tomorrow is another friend's birthday party. When is a girl supposed to exercise? This might be a light week for sweating.
I anticipate having a good week, food wise. My new goal is to eat 30 points a day. Letting flex and APs pick up my slack. I'm supposed to eat 22 points a day. But that hasn't happened in god knows how long. So rather than attempt to eat 22 points and a day, ending up eating 35, and being frustrated with myself, I'll aim for 30 and see if it doesn't change my mentality.
It's all mental, baby.
So, in other news, I was up .2 yesterday for weigh-in (meaning a total of 2.2 gained in the last two weeks). And then, naturally, back down to my lowest in recent weeks this morning, like that 2.2 never happened, the day AFTER weigh-in. Of course. Whatever.
I am thrilled to report that I had a good day yesterday in terms of healthy living. It's always a great boost for me to have day one of my "new week" be a success. If I end up overeating on the first day of the new week I always feel like I'm coming from behind the whole rest of the week. It's all mental, baby. But after last week's pretty shiteous performance on the part of Food Consumer: Me, I worked hard to make my first day a good one.
I've been really interested, lately, in eating whole, organic foods. I've been shopping for all kinds of weird things that I've never eaten before, like almond butter and flax seed oil. It's certainly out of a desire to fill my body with whole non-toxic foods, but it's also out of a desire to find ways to satisfy my hunger without overeating. And the best way I can think to do that is to eat whole foods. I've been eating a lot of organic crunchy peanut butter. A lot of avocados and apples and cherries. I found these really delicious organic bar-type-things that are ridiculously high in fiber and pretty tasty too - I believe they're called Gnu Bars. They're expensive as fuck, of course. But the chocolate brownie one does it for me for the chocolate fix. And for 12 grams of fiber, my digestive system is thrilled.
I hope to continue along this trend as time and grocery store trips allow. It's not always easy to make the better choice or the more expensive, organic choice, but I hope to teach my children to eat this way so what better time to start than now. And if some of it rubs off on Kevin, so be it. ;) (I have to slap myself regularly to keep myself from trying to control everything he puts in his mouth. Those are MY issues, not his, and goddammit, when I get on his case about food stuff I sound just like my mother! Aack! Dreadful. He's patient with me though. He knows it comes from a (dysfunctional) place of love. And just smiles and keeps eating his cheez-its.)
Anyway, I must head to the store soon to restock us. We made a vat of organic whole wheat penne last week for a meal and ended up with a lot of left over pasta. I reheated that stuff, adding a little salt and EVOO, at least 3 different times - after a run, as a snack before going to lift. And was so tasty and filling. Definitely have to get some more of that. It's fun to try to relearn nutrition in this way. I just can't with the super-chemical stuff anymore. It gives me headaches.
Yesterday was good because I ate good, whole foods, several servings of fruits and veggies, and didn't go overboard at all on the munching. (Except for some organic chocolate cookies a woman brought out at work. I had a hearty handful of those puppies. But at 120 calories for 10 of them, and organic, who cares.) I also got to the gym at lunch and blasted through a 30 minute run. It's not the hour long workout I dream of having each day, but it's something. And it's just all I have time for right now. Someday, things will be different.
I'm going to eat well again today. It remains to be seen whether or not I'll get a workout in. I might try to go lift and do some pilates at lunch. But I'm really craving a good long exercise session. These 20-30 mins stints on my lunch break just aren't enough. And getting out of work at 7pm, often having somewhere to be 30 mins later, isn't conducive to much in the long workout vein either. I get in my long stuff on the weekends, but I still crave more during the week. That might have to involve getting up early. HA. Puleeze.
It's a friends birthday tonight so I'm going to try to go see her show instead of working out, assuming I can get out of work in time. And tomorrow is another friend's birthday party. When is a girl supposed to exercise? This might be a light week for sweating.
I anticipate having a good week, food wise. My new goal is to eat 30 points a day. Letting flex and APs pick up my slack. I'm supposed to eat 22 points a day. But that hasn't happened in god knows how long. So rather than attempt to eat 22 points and a day, ending up eating 35, and being frustrated with myself, I'll aim for 30 and see if it doesn't change my mentality.
It's all mental, baby.
Monday, August 04, 2008
It's such a beautiful day here in NYC. The sun is bright, the sky is blue.
And I'm in the office. Hurray.
;)
Good morning, it's Monday. I already have a long list of things to complain about (i.e. obnoxious-as-fuck woman at work already bitching, which will continue until I walk out the door on Friday evening) but I'm going to do my best not to burden you with (more of) these negative details.
I had a really nice weekend. It was not the huge-splash-beginning of my August "vacation" that I'd hoped it would be - I didn't go swimming at the pool or the beach or take any mini-trips anywhere. I didn't lay out or have a picnic or go to an outdoor market. You can probably tell that my perfect world right now includes being outside 24/7, swimming. :) It wasn't that kind of a weekend. I'm hoping for some of those before summer let's out, and I'm sure I'll get to them. But this weekend was a different kind of nice and I think I really needed it.
I basically exercised, cleaned, and slept. It was pretty great. Kev was out of town from Saturday to Sunday - in Baltimore for an improv festival. I was sad to lose him for the weekend but I made do just fine without him and was (needless to say) thrilled to have a little quiet time and solitude. I'm a sucker for that kind of time. I love being alone. And I love when he comes home, too. So hopefully it all evens out.
I woke up on Saturday morning to see him off, we had breakfast together and puttered around a bit watching The Incredibles and playing with the cats until he had to get ready to go. When he left, it was pouring outside and the rain was so calming, I promptly fell asleep on the couch (this was around 2pm) until I moved to the bed at 5pm (!) and finally woke up, just barely, having to forcefully pull myself out of sleep, at 6pm!!! I wasn't totally shocked, I feel like I've been on a sleep deficit for as long as I can remember. But it wasn't how I'd expected to spend my Saturday.
I got up and worked out for a good hour - some pilates and then a 40 minute jog around the park. It had stopped raining. It was a great run, albeit hard, and I felt really good afterwards. I came home and showered, ate, did some house cleaning, and then took myself to a movie. :) Mamma Mia. I didn't really love it. It was beautiful and made me desperate for a mediterrian vacation, but I didn't really care for the movie. Eh, it was okay. Nothing spectacular. I suppose a true Mamma Mia fan (I've never even seen the musical) might feel differently. I went home and stayed up LATE, cleaning out my desk, organizing some files, and generally tidying up.
I had big plans, the following day, to get up and go to the beach/swimming pool and get my tan on. I have been CRAVING some vacation-like experiences lately. Truth be told, I've been craving six weeks at a beach-front resort. But that's not gonna happen anylifetime soon, so a fucking afternoon at a NYC pool will have to do. I used up all my vacation days early this year for HST related stuff. And as much as I'm glad for the semi-flexibility in life to get to do that, I wonder if I'd do it the same if I had it to do over again. I think I might have opted for missing one of those HST road trips in favor of a few summer days to myself right about now. What can you do. (I can work toward a day job that allows my life to be more my own. Yes, yes you can. Although this job is pretty good for now and for what it is and for the freedom it somewhat allows me. That's another blog entry, evidently. Ahem.)
ANYWAY. I had big plans to go to the beach on Sunday. But then I woke up at 12noon! (More sleep?!) Which felt amazing, even though I felt like the whole day was gone. And then I realized that I really needed to do laundry, change the cat boxes, and generally clean up our little house. And that if I put in the laundry, I could clean while it washed, and go for a jog while it dried. Purrfect. Not the dreamy beach day I'd hoped for, but a different kind of peace nonetheless. So I did just that. Laundry, cleaned, and exercised. It was very nice. I did the floors and the cat boxes and the dishes and the countertops and collected all the dusty bunnies and generally decluttered some shit. Kevin's been so great since I moved in about getting laundry done when he has time and other stuff like that - I wanted to hold up my half of the deal. He returned home much earlier than I expected and he helped me finish the laundry, relaxed while I went running, and then we went out to dinner together to this amazing place in Park Slope called Mango. Thai food. Incredibly delicious.
And I ate way too much of it. It was my main meal of the day, having had only breakfast before that. But it was still too much. And I was STUFFED afterwards. We took a nice long 45min-1hr walk home afterwards. I was stuffed the whole walk. The scale was up this morning.
This past week was a rough one for me WW-wise. I started my period on Monday of last week and I'm pretty sure it had me in a deathgrip for 5 days. I exercised, sure, not at my peak, but still a 5 reasonable workouts. But I also ate plenty and struggled with every choice, pouting the whole time that I couldn't have something else. We opted to stay in on Friday night and make pasta, even though we'd talked about going out for something more indulgent. And I'm glad we did. But not without a pout-session from me about how sick I was of staring down yet another meal-time, unsure of what to eat - what I craved vs. what I knew I should have. Kevin was a sweetheart, letting me be a 5 year old about it and then helping me choose something healthy from the pantry. He's a good egg, that guy. Love him. Yum.
Anyway. I can't obsess this week. I just can't. That goddammed sugar experiment, although interesting and somewhat enlightening, ended on Saturday morning (I made it through three days! not bad!) when I had a few bites of chocolate ice cream and some raisinettes as a mid-morning snack. And interestingly, Saturday was probably my "best" food day of the week. Perhaps because I slept most of the day, or because I had a good workout right in the middle of the evening, but regardless.
All in all though, no day last week stands out. They were all pretty craptastic. Food was a struggle and I was pissed off about it the whole time.
Even though my new WW week doesn't start until Tuesday morning (and I fully expect to either maintain last week's 2 pound gain or see another small gain again - greaaat) I'm going to commit this week to just fucking relaxing about the whole process. Take it slow, moment by moment. Breathe, relax, workout when I can, eat responsibly, but not obsessively in either direction, and just try to live without food constantly on the brain. Let's chalk last week up to hormones and move on, shall we? We shall.
I'm hoping this upcoming week will be another good one for exercise. I've been on a good path with that lately. (I think I might have done too much on Saturday actually. I've been limping ever since, having done something ugly to my right buttock/hip area.) And in my constant strive to try some sort of new workout like a yoga class or a nice long hike in the park, maybe I'll try to mix it up a bit this week, if I have time.
That's that. Work is getting busy now, the boss was just over my shoulder when this window was up so now I feel badly about continuing to do personal stuff. I should jump in and get going on Monday morning work stuff.
Have a great week, everyone.
p.s. I'm not working out on my lunch break today. Fuck that. I'm taking the day off, gonna go for a nice summery walk during lunch. And forget that I ever have to work to maintain my weight at all. Thppppppppppppppppppp.
And I'm in the office. Hurray.
;)
Good morning, it's Monday. I already have a long list of things to complain about (i.e. obnoxious-as-fuck woman at work already bitching, which will continue until I walk out the door on Friday evening) but I'm going to do my best not to burden you with (more of) these negative details.
I had a really nice weekend. It was not the huge-splash-beginning of my August "vacation" that I'd hoped it would be - I didn't go swimming at the pool or the beach or take any mini-trips anywhere. I didn't lay out or have a picnic or go to an outdoor market. You can probably tell that my perfect world right now includes being outside 24/7, swimming. :) It wasn't that kind of a weekend. I'm hoping for some of those before summer let's out, and I'm sure I'll get to them. But this weekend was a different kind of nice and I think I really needed it.
I basically exercised, cleaned, and slept. It was pretty great. Kev was out of town from Saturday to Sunday - in Baltimore for an improv festival. I was sad to lose him for the weekend but I made do just fine without him and was (needless to say) thrilled to have a little quiet time and solitude. I'm a sucker for that kind of time. I love being alone. And I love when he comes home, too. So hopefully it all evens out.
I woke up on Saturday morning to see him off, we had breakfast together and puttered around a bit watching The Incredibles and playing with the cats until he had to get ready to go. When he left, it was pouring outside and the rain was so calming, I promptly fell asleep on the couch (this was around 2pm) until I moved to the bed at 5pm (!) and finally woke up, just barely, having to forcefully pull myself out of sleep, at 6pm!!! I wasn't totally shocked, I feel like I've been on a sleep deficit for as long as I can remember. But it wasn't how I'd expected to spend my Saturday.
I got up and worked out for a good hour - some pilates and then a 40 minute jog around the park. It had stopped raining. It was a great run, albeit hard, and I felt really good afterwards. I came home and showered, ate, did some house cleaning, and then took myself to a movie. :) Mamma Mia. I didn't really love it. It was beautiful and made me desperate for a mediterrian vacation, but I didn't really care for the movie. Eh, it was okay. Nothing spectacular. I suppose a true Mamma Mia fan (I've never even seen the musical) might feel differently. I went home and stayed up LATE, cleaning out my desk, organizing some files, and generally tidying up.
I had big plans, the following day, to get up and go to the beach/swimming pool and get my tan on. I have been CRAVING some vacation-like experiences lately. Truth be told, I've been craving six weeks at a beach-front resort. But that's not gonna happen anylifetime soon, so a fucking afternoon at a NYC pool will have to do. I used up all my vacation days early this year for HST related stuff. And as much as I'm glad for the semi-flexibility in life to get to do that, I wonder if I'd do it the same if I had it to do over again. I think I might have opted for missing one of those HST road trips in favor of a few summer days to myself right about now. What can you do. (I can work toward a day job that allows my life to be more my own. Yes, yes you can. Although this job is pretty good for now and for what it is and for the freedom it somewhat allows me. That's another blog entry, evidently. Ahem.)
ANYWAY. I had big plans to go to the beach on Sunday. But then I woke up at 12noon! (More sleep?!) Which felt amazing, even though I felt like the whole day was gone. And then I realized that I really needed to do laundry, change the cat boxes, and generally clean up our little house. And that if I put in the laundry, I could clean while it washed, and go for a jog while it dried. Purrfect. Not the dreamy beach day I'd hoped for, but a different kind of peace nonetheless. So I did just that. Laundry, cleaned, and exercised. It was very nice. I did the floors and the cat boxes and the dishes and the countertops and collected all the dusty bunnies and generally decluttered some shit. Kevin's been so great since I moved in about getting laundry done when he has time and other stuff like that - I wanted to hold up my half of the deal. He returned home much earlier than I expected and he helped me finish the laundry, relaxed while I went running, and then we went out to dinner together to this amazing place in Park Slope called Mango. Thai food. Incredibly delicious.
And I ate way too much of it. It was my main meal of the day, having had only breakfast before that. But it was still too much. And I was STUFFED afterwards. We took a nice long 45min-1hr walk home afterwards. I was stuffed the whole walk. The scale was up this morning.
This past week was a rough one for me WW-wise. I started my period on Monday of last week and I'm pretty sure it had me in a deathgrip for 5 days. I exercised, sure, not at my peak, but still a 5 reasonable workouts. But I also ate plenty and struggled with every choice, pouting the whole time that I couldn't have something else. We opted to stay in on Friday night and make pasta, even though we'd talked about going out for something more indulgent. And I'm glad we did. But not without a pout-session from me about how sick I was of staring down yet another meal-time, unsure of what to eat - what I craved vs. what I knew I should have. Kevin was a sweetheart, letting me be a 5 year old about it and then helping me choose something healthy from the pantry. He's a good egg, that guy. Love him. Yum.
Anyway. I can't obsess this week. I just can't. That goddammed sugar experiment, although interesting and somewhat enlightening, ended on Saturday morning (I made it through three days! not bad!) when I had a few bites of chocolate ice cream and some raisinettes as a mid-morning snack. And interestingly, Saturday was probably my "best" food day of the week. Perhaps because I slept most of the day, or because I had a good workout right in the middle of the evening, but regardless.
All in all though, no day last week stands out. They were all pretty craptastic. Food was a struggle and I was pissed off about it the whole time.
Even though my new WW week doesn't start until Tuesday morning (and I fully expect to either maintain last week's 2 pound gain or see another small gain again - greaaat) I'm going to commit this week to just fucking relaxing about the whole process. Take it slow, moment by moment. Breathe, relax, workout when I can, eat responsibly, but not obsessively in either direction, and just try to live without food constantly on the brain. Let's chalk last week up to hormones and move on, shall we? We shall.
I'm hoping this upcoming week will be another good one for exercise. I've been on a good path with that lately. (I think I might have done too much on Saturday actually. I've been limping ever since, having done something ugly to my right buttock/hip area.) And in my constant strive to try some sort of new workout like a yoga class or a nice long hike in the park, maybe I'll try to mix it up a bit this week, if I have time.
That's that. Work is getting busy now, the boss was just over my shoulder when this window was up so now I feel badly about continuing to do personal stuff. I should jump in and get going on Monday morning work stuff.
Have a great week, everyone.
p.s. I'm not working out on my lunch break today. Fuck that. I'm taking the day off, gonna go for a nice summery walk during lunch. And forget that I ever have to work to maintain my weight at all. Thppppppppppppppppppp.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Another one down...
So. I made it through another day sugar free until evening time. It was hard, as is evidenced by the panicked post below.
I had my apple before I left work last night, then Kevin and I met up with Daniel and we all had dinner before we went to see the movie. Daniel and I shared organic eggs, which came with fries and turkey bacon. And a turkey panini with swiss cheese. I had a piece of the bacon, some eggs, some fries, and my half of the panini. I actually took a lot of the turkey and cheese off the panini and sort of just ate the bread.
When we got to the movies I had a few handfuls of the popcorn that Kev ate most of and I also carefully chose (almost obsessively - like I was browsing library books) some raisinettes and some other chocolates from the drug store and enjoyed half of those during the movie. We also shared diet soda.
I will say, I felt pretty blech when I was done eating the popcorn and candy. I felt like I had a lot of it, but I think I just wanted it so badly that by the time I started eating it, I felt guilty right away, like I was certainly going to OVEReat it, no matter what. I don't think I did though. I might have had one too many pieces of chocolate. And frankly I was the instigator in getting the popcorn to begin with. And I wish I hadn't had those fries at dinner. But I did okay, considering the serious level of munchiness that I was experiencing in the afternoon. I have half a box of raisinettes left that I will save for sometime this weekend.
I've had a tough time, points-wise, so far this WW week. And also, just overall. It's been tough on the healthy living front. I'm on day 4 of my week and I've already used all my flex. Ooof. So I'm trying to be really conscientious today. I made a grocery list of healthy stuff and hope to find some time tonight or tomorrow to hit Trader Joe's.
I had cherries and an sandwich with one slice of cheese and one egg for breakfast this morning. And for lunch I'm having turkey chili and maybe a few corn chips. And more cherries, most likely. (Yum.) Hoping to avoid a ton of bread today. Just experimenting with different food combos.
I'm really just fighting to get through it all this week. This is the first time in a long time that I've felt this way. I just want to say fuck it all and sit down to a pizza and a pan of brownies. I'd probably vomit if that happened, literally, but I'm clearly exhausting myself by trying so hard to eat super-mindfully this week. It has the potential to backfire horribly with some rebellious binge at some point. But I'm counting on my intellect to keep that from happening. Plus, ew.
Kevin's going out of town tomorrow, so I think I should be able to make good choices with lots of fruits and vegetables, since I'll be eating alone most of the day. He asked me out to dinner tonight to an amazing tex-mex place that we love (today is 1 year, 7 mos for us! aww. puke.) but I said I didn't think I could swing it tonight. That I wanted to eat light. He understood. Too bad because I'd LOVE a magarita or six tonight. But I know I'd be so furious with myself tomorrow over it. I'm really trying hard to have a great week.
Exercise has been tough this week too. I suppose this has been my period week - it began on Monday. So I can't get too down on myself about my struggles. I always assume I have mental control over those hormones. I probably do NOT. I got in some lifting both on Tuesday (day one of my "new" week) and on Thursday but haven't done a lick of cardio yet (did some on Monday but that technically counts as last week) and won't be able to get to it today either. I plan to get some in both on Saturday and on Sunday, and hopefully on this upcoming Monday too.
The truth of the matter, based on the numbers, is that I average about 30 points a day. That has been the case for a while now, months even. It was probably a bit higher than that actually, a few months back, and I've eked it down to that. It was higher still back in December before I recommitted on January 1. I'm obviously losing weight, slowly of course. And the simple math is that if I want to lose weight faster, I will have to eat less than that. I'm only allowed 22 points a day, and then of course the extra 35 to spread out throughout the week. So in theory that's a grand total of 27 points a day. So I eat about 3 points more per day than I should be eating. Seems like exercise should make up for that, right? Ahhh, but I don't ALWAYS eat 30 points a day! Sometimes it's 33, sometimes, on bad days, it's 41. And frankly, the whole numbers conversation is enough to make my mind go numb. I'm not in any hurry, I have to keep reminding myself, to do this.
I guess I've been scrutinizing my body a lot lately. That girl at the gym yesterday got to me, I went to exchange a pair of jeans today and the dressing room - well you know. That stuff adds up til you're reading to take a steak knife to your thighs.
Rather than shooting for the stars each week, trying, hoping, pleading with myself to stick to 22 points a day, maybe I should just accept that we are where we are here. And try to perfect/progress that.
I'm rambling.
Turkey chili's here. Delivery. They sent me a !@#)(%^*&@#5608 COOKIE FOR FREE. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. If I'm sticking by my guns, I'm not even supposed to have one little bite of it!!! ROAR x 500!
I guess I'll save it for tonight.
I'm going to strangle someone.
I had my apple before I left work last night, then Kevin and I met up with Daniel and we all had dinner before we went to see the movie. Daniel and I shared organic eggs, which came with fries and turkey bacon. And a turkey panini with swiss cheese. I had a piece of the bacon, some eggs, some fries, and my half of the panini. I actually took a lot of the turkey and cheese off the panini and sort of just ate the bread.
When we got to the movies I had a few handfuls of the popcorn that Kev ate most of and I also carefully chose (almost obsessively - like I was browsing library books) some raisinettes and some other chocolates from the drug store and enjoyed half of those during the movie. We also shared diet soda.
I will say, I felt pretty blech when I was done eating the popcorn and candy. I felt like I had a lot of it, but I think I just wanted it so badly that by the time I started eating it, I felt guilty right away, like I was certainly going to OVEReat it, no matter what. I don't think I did though. I might have had one too many pieces of chocolate. And frankly I was the instigator in getting the popcorn to begin with. And I wish I hadn't had those fries at dinner. But I did okay, considering the serious level of munchiness that I was experiencing in the afternoon. I have half a box of raisinettes left that I will save for sometime this weekend.
I've had a tough time, points-wise, so far this WW week. And also, just overall. It's been tough on the healthy living front. I'm on day 4 of my week and I've already used all my flex. Ooof. So I'm trying to be really conscientious today. I made a grocery list of healthy stuff and hope to find some time tonight or tomorrow to hit Trader Joe's.
I had cherries and an sandwich with one slice of cheese and one egg for breakfast this morning. And for lunch I'm having turkey chili and maybe a few corn chips. And more cherries, most likely. (Yum.) Hoping to avoid a ton of bread today. Just experimenting with different food combos.
I'm really just fighting to get through it all this week. This is the first time in a long time that I've felt this way. I just want to say fuck it all and sit down to a pizza and a pan of brownies. I'd probably vomit if that happened, literally, but I'm clearly exhausting myself by trying so hard to eat super-mindfully this week. It has the potential to backfire horribly with some rebellious binge at some point. But I'm counting on my intellect to keep that from happening. Plus, ew.
Kevin's going out of town tomorrow, so I think I should be able to make good choices with lots of fruits and vegetables, since I'll be eating alone most of the day. He asked me out to dinner tonight to an amazing tex-mex place that we love (today is 1 year, 7 mos for us! aww. puke.) but I said I didn't think I could swing it tonight. That I wanted to eat light. He understood. Too bad because I'd LOVE a magarita or six tonight. But I know I'd be so furious with myself tomorrow over it. I'm really trying hard to have a great week.
Exercise has been tough this week too. I suppose this has been my period week - it began on Monday. So I can't get too down on myself about my struggles. I always assume I have mental control over those hormones. I probably do NOT. I got in some lifting both on Tuesday (day one of my "new" week) and on Thursday but haven't done a lick of cardio yet (did some on Monday but that technically counts as last week) and won't be able to get to it today either. I plan to get some in both on Saturday and on Sunday, and hopefully on this upcoming Monday too.
The truth of the matter, based on the numbers, is that I average about 30 points a day. That has been the case for a while now, months even. It was probably a bit higher than that actually, a few months back, and I've eked it down to that. It was higher still back in December before I recommitted on January 1. I'm obviously losing weight, slowly of course. And the simple math is that if I want to lose weight faster, I will have to eat less than that. I'm only allowed 22 points a day, and then of course the extra 35 to spread out throughout the week. So in theory that's a grand total of 27 points a day. So I eat about 3 points more per day than I should be eating. Seems like exercise should make up for that, right? Ahhh, but I don't ALWAYS eat 30 points a day! Sometimes it's 33, sometimes, on bad days, it's 41. And frankly, the whole numbers conversation is enough to make my mind go numb. I'm not in any hurry, I have to keep reminding myself, to do this.
I guess I've been scrutinizing my body a lot lately. That girl at the gym yesterday got to me, I went to exchange a pair of jeans today and the dressing room - well you know. That stuff adds up til you're reading to take a steak knife to your thighs.
Rather than shooting for the stars each week, trying, hoping, pleading with myself to stick to 22 points a day, maybe I should just accept that we are where we are here. And try to perfect/progress that.
I'm rambling.
Turkey chili's here. Delivery. They sent me a !@#)(%^*&@#5608 COOKIE FOR FREE. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. If I'm sticking by my guns, I'm not even supposed to have one little bite of it!!! ROAR x 500!
I guess I'll save it for tonight.
I'm going to strangle someone.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Two updates in one day?! Who am I? I'm hanging onto the no-sugar-wagon for dear life. That's who I am.
So here's the whole sad saga. No, no sugar has been consumed. But I went to the gym at lunch after my burrito salad. I had big plans for a jog. Well I get there and realize I left my FUCKING sports bra at work. That's basically like forgetting your running shoes. But I decided to brave it and wear my stupid regular bra. Mistake. It didn't hurt too much, but it DID make me feel all gross and weird, like I was exercising in a full regular clothes outfit. You know how you don't want to sweat when you're wearing your regular clothes but when you're in gym clothes you WANT to sweat? This was like a war between those two brain states. I got off the treadmill after a minute thirty to spare myself the mental agony and potential breast tissue damage.
Then I was just pouty. I tried to go do pilates on the mat and didn't wanna. For SOME reason (and seriously this rarely happens to me, but for SOME reason) I started looking at this one really attractive, tall, thin, large-breasted woman and thought about how different our bodies were. I have learned not to do that, because to compare automatically makes you less-than. And it's just a waste of time and energy and nobody but you and your own brain can make you feel any better so why go down the path to begin with. But this lady just got me. Wrong moment, wrong bra, I was done for. So I pouted about that. Then I decided to do some abs and some light lifting, pouting away the whole time. I did about 20 minutes of half-assed shit and had to pack it in to get back to work in time. Earned - oh - maybe 1 activity point. Fine. Whatever.
I left the gym. I wanted a damn snack. I don't even know if I was hungry or just still pouting. I walked into this deli that I pass every day but never enter. Well it was a fucking good-food-lovers dream. Just my luck. Fruits, nuts, various organic sweet treats, different kinds of high-fiber, no-sugar bars, gourmet chocolates I'd never seen before, chocolate covered nuts, toffee and chocolate covered nuts, toffee and chocolate covered nuts with caramel. GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. I literally stood at the stand filled with various gourmet sweets, bars, and candied nuts for about 5 minutes, reviewing different calorie amounts, reading ingredients before I realized HEY. YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO EAT ANY OF THIS TODAY YOU IDIOT. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I thought, oh just buy them and have ONE of something. Or just buy it to have later tonight at the movies! Pffft. Luckily I outsmarted myself. Hell no. We all know that that means I eat the whole box in a shameful fit while reading CNN.com at my desk 30 minutes after shameful purchase. No, no, no. It's one damn day. I don't even WANT this stuff. But I doooo. Oh how I dooo. It's conflicted and it's ugly.
I finally settled, begrudgingly, for some cashews and an apple. Same as yesterday's late afternoon snack. Nuts and fruit. Fuck that. I like those things, don't get me wrong. But nuts are so high calorie! I could have a whole chocolate bar for the same price! But that's not the point, is it? No. It's not. What is the point again? To ruin my own life systematically, one sugar craving to the next?
You can see the drama I've created here. The conversation in my head. It's not pretty. But it's real.
No. Okay. The real point here is to avoid sugary snacks during the day/early evening so as not to overindulge in other foods that I wouldn't otherwise want/crave if I wasn't eating sugary snacks from time to time. That's the FUCK point. Roar.
So I got back to my desk after this deli mess and had some damn nuts. And a few more and a few more. Probably 4-5 points worth. Now I'm pissed. I want the apple now too. And some peanut butter on it. And SOME CHOCOLATE. And I'm not even hungry. I'm just being rebellious.
PHEW.
So I decided to come blog. I'm honestly not even sure why I'm doing this sugar test other than to prove to myself that I can. I suppose that's reason enough. And I'm not REALLY suffering. I love that I haven't eaten any cookies this afternoon. Usually I'd be AFTER them right around now. (Wait, aren't I after them? What's the difference?!)
So I can basically have that damn apple before I leave work for the day. And a cup of coffee if I really think I need it (but I don't) and that's IT until dinner time. Dinner will probably be some sort of pita with protein in it. Maybe a salad on the side. And I don't think I can do anything too interesting at the movies. Might just have to do some small chocolate thing and seltzer water.
Might just jump off this ledge.
And if someone in this office breaks out some kind of late afternoon sweet treat, I'm walking out.
So here's the whole sad saga. No, no sugar has been consumed. But I went to the gym at lunch after my burrito salad. I had big plans for a jog. Well I get there and realize I left my FUCKING sports bra at work. That's basically like forgetting your running shoes. But I decided to brave it and wear my stupid regular bra. Mistake. It didn't hurt too much, but it DID make me feel all gross and weird, like I was exercising in a full regular clothes outfit. You know how you don't want to sweat when you're wearing your regular clothes but when you're in gym clothes you WANT to sweat? This was like a war between those two brain states. I got off the treadmill after a minute thirty to spare myself the mental agony and potential breast tissue damage.
Then I was just pouty. I tried to go do pilates on the mat and didn't wanna. For SOME reason (and seriously this rarely happens to me, but for SOME reason) I started looking at this one really attractive, tall, thin, large-breasted woman and thought about how different our bodies were. I have learned not to do that, because to compare automatically makes you less-than. And it's just a waste of time and energy and nobody but you and your own brain can make you feel any better so why go down the path to begin with. But this lady just got me. Wrong moment, wrong bra, I was done for. So I pouted about that. Then I decided to do some abs and some light lifting, pouting away the whole time. I did about 20 minutes of half-assed shit and had to pack it in to get back to work in time. Earned - oh - maybe 1 activity point. Fine. Whatever.
I left the gym. I wanted a damn snack. I don't even know if I was hungry or just still pouting. I walked into this deli that I pass every day but never enter. Well it was a fucking good-food-lovers dream. Just my luck. Fruits, nuts, various organic sweet treats, different kinds of high-fiber, no-sugar bars, gourmet chocolates I'd never seen before, chocolate covered nuts, toffee and chocolate covered nuts, toffee and chocolate covered nuts with caramel. GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. I literally stood at the stand filled with various gourmet sweets, bars, and candied nuts for about 5 minutes, reviewing different calorie amounts, reading ingredients before I realized HEY. YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO EAT ANY OF THIS TODAY YOU IDIOT. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I thought, oh just buy them and have ONE of something. Or just buy it to have later tonight at the movies! Pffft. Luckily I outsmarted myself. Hell no. We all know that that means I eat the whole box in a shameful fit while reading CNN.com at my desk 30 minutes after shameful purchase. No, no, no. It's one damn day. I don't even WANT this stuff. But I doooo. Oh how I dooo. It's conflicted and it's ugly.
I finally settled, begrudgingly, for some cashews and an apple. Same as yesterday's late afternoon snack. Nuts and fruit. Fuck that. I like those things, don't get me wrong. But nuts are so high calorie! I could have a whole chocolate bar for the same price! But that's not the point, is it? No. It's not. What is the point again? To ruin my own life systematically, one sugar craving to the next?
You can see the drama I've created here. The conversation in my head. It's not pretty. But it's real.
No. Okay. The real point here is to avoid sugary snacks during the day/early evening so as not to overindulge in other foods that I wouldn't otherwise want/crave if I wasn't eating sugary snacks from time to time. That's the FUCK point. Roar.
So I got back to my desk after this deli mess and had some damn nuts. And a few more and a few more. Probably 4-5 points worth. Now I'm pissed. I want the apple now too. And some peanut butter on it. And SOME CHOCOLATE. And I'm not even hungry. I'm just being rebellious.
PHEW.
So I decided to come blog. I'm honestly not even sure why I'm doing this sugar test other than to prove to myself that I can. I suppose that's reason enough. And I'm not REALLY suffering. I love that I haven't eaten any cookies this afternoon. Usually I'd be AFTER them right around now. (Wait, aren't I after them? What's the difference?!)
So I can basically have that damn apple before I leave work for the day. And a cup of coffee if I really think I need it (but I don't) and that's IT until dinner time. Dinner will probably be some sort of pita with protein in it. Maybe a salad on the side. And I don't think I can do anything too interesting at the movies. Might just have to do some small chocolate thing and seltzer water.
Might just jump off this ledge.
And if someone in this office breaks out some kind of late afternoon sweet treat, I'm walking out.
So. Yesterday's goal of no/low sugar during the day was a success. I won't say I wasn't tested at a few points, but I'm proud to say I got through each of the trials without caving and I'm glad I did. I think it made yesterday a relatively low point consumption day, as opposed to a high one.
I had a banana, organic peanut butter, and multi-grain toast for breakfast. Then for lunch I had a hummus/veggie sandwich and a few potato chips. Then there were Milano cookies out at work. Oof. Now, luckily I'm not a huge Milano freak. Other Pepperidge Farms cookies, forget it, but Milano don't really do it for me. So I was able to avoid them. But I still WANTED one, big time. But then I thought about how I would usually just grab one and add it to my points tally for the day, but how I know that just that one cookie is probably the cause of my late afternoon hunger spiking hard and leaving me desperate for some more sweet snacks. So it was nice to have that awareness since I chose not to eat the cookie.
Then I left work to go do an improv show. And I was hungry on the way there and knew I needed some fuel to get through to dinner. I almost got a sweet at Starbucks. I thought, ah, fuck it. And almost got one. And then I thought, what the hell are you doing? Just get through one day! So I walked right out of there. I finally, after way too much deliberation, decided on an apple and some pistachios as a snack. Filling. I did my show and was RAVENOUS an hour later. Sometimes I feel like a bottomless food pit.
I went to Chipotle and got a burrito bol with just a little rice, beans, chicken, salsas, a smidge of sour cream, and a smidge of cheese. I had a tummy ache when I was done eating it probably because I ate it too fast and also because I waited too long to have dinner. But when I got home, I laid down and drank some water and felt a bit better.
I was a little hungry before bed so I had some popcorn, which was good and filling, and a had a tiny little bit, less than half a cup, of chocolate ice cream! And I made sure the ice cream was just milk, sugar, cream, eggs, and cocoa. I didn't want all kinds of weird chemicals. It was tasty and just the right amount.
So I'd say all in all I did pretty well.
I'm gonna try it again today - no sugar throughout the day - a treat at the end of the day if I think I can handle it without it opening the door toward more snacking.
I had another banana, toast and organic PB breakfast today. I just had some chicken, brown rice, black beans, and guac over lettuce for lunch. I had some chips I probably didn't need, but I'll live. I'm gonna go for a run on my lunch break today so hopefully that will work some of my lunch off.
Dinner tonight will be light. Kev and I are going to see Batman for the second time with Daniel tonight so I'm hoping to get something small and healthy for dinner and then have a sweet treat and/or a little bit of popcorn at the movie.
I DID just have a diet coke with lunch, something I rarely do, that I hope won't upset my sugar plan. I know there's no sugar in diet coke but there's a shitload of other weird unnecessary stuff that my body does not need or want. I'll have some fruit this afternoon as a snack if I'm starving after my workout.
It all seems like the right thing to do. But I really just wish I could eat a pie and not have to think twice about it. A cherry pie? With vanilla ice cream? Shut up, Jen.
I had a banana, organic peanut butter, and multi-grain toast for breakfast. Then for lunch I had a hummus/veggie sandwich and a few potato chips. Then there were Milano cookies out at work. Oof. Now, luckily I'm not a huge Milano freak. Other Pepperidge Farms cookies, forget it, but Milano don't really do it for me. So I was able to avoid them. But I still WANTED one, big time. But then I thought about how I would usually just grab one and add it to my points tally for the day, but how I know that just that one cookie is probably the cause of my late afternoon hunger spiking hard and leaving me desperate for some more sweet snacks. So it was nice to have that awareness since I chose not to eat the cookie.
Then I left work to go do an improv show. And I was hungry on the way there and knew I needed some fuel to get through to dinner. I almost got a sweet at Starbucks. I thought, ah, fuck it. And almost got one. And then I thought, what the hell are you doing? Just get through one day! So I walked right out of there. I finally, after way too much deliberation, decided on an apple and some pistachios as a snack. Filling. I did my show and was RAVENOUS an hour later. Sometimes I feel like a bottomless food pit.
I went to Chipotle and got a burrito bol with just a little rice, beans, chicken, salsas, a smidge of sour cream, and a smidge of cheese. I had a tummy ache when I was done eating it probably because I ate it too fast and also because I waited too long to have dinner. But when I got home, I laid down and drank some water and felt a bit better.
I was a little hungry before bed so I had some popcorn, which was good and filling, and a had a tiny little bit, less than half a cup, of chocolate ice cream! And I made sure the ice cream was just milk, sugar, cream, eggs, and cocoa. I didn't want all kinds of weird chemicals. It was tasty and just the right amount.
So I'd say all in all I did pretty well.
I'm gonna try it again today - no sugar throughout the day - a treat at the end of the day if I think I can handle it without it opening the door toward more snacking.
I had another banana, toast and organic PB breakfast today. I just had some chicken, brown rice, black beans, and guac over lettuce for lunch. I had some chips I probably didn't need, but I'll live. I'm gonna go for a run on my lunch break today so hopefully that will work some of my lunch off.
Dinner tonight will be light. Kev and I are going to see Batman for the second time with Daniel tonight so I'm hoping to get something small and healthy for dinner and then have a sweet treat and/or a little bit of popcorn at the movie.
I DID just have a diet coke with lunch, something I rarely do, that I hope won't upset my sugar plan. I know there's no sugar in diet coke but there's a shitload of other weird unnecessary stuff that my body does not need or want. I'll have some fruit this afternoon as a snack if I'm starving after my workout.
It all seems like the right thing to do. But I really just wish I could eat a pie and not have to think twice about it. A cherry pie? With vanilla ice cream? Shut up, Jen.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Ended up eating much more than I'd intended to last night. I was very hungry when I got home from work/HST rehearsal by 10:30pm. I'd eaten pretty well all day, but I somehow only had a few points left for dinner, including APs I earned at the gym. Kevin had prepared tacos for us (yum!). And we cracked open a bottle of wine to share. Our friend Daniel came over for dinner too. I started by mindlessly eating some chips becasue I was ravenous and made myself a huge taco with lots of veggies and avocado and other yummy stuff. And then I had several pieces of salt water taffy, some almonds, and some bing cherries for dessert. It wasn't, by any means, unhealthy food. It was all very nutritious and filling and "whole," (aside from the taffy which is basically hardened corn syrup) but calorie wise, it was too much food. I used 17 of my flex points for the week in one night! And on the first night of a new week, no less! Certainly not the first (or 500th) time that's happened, and won't be the last. But it surprised me when I added up all my points this morning to discover that I'd used so many. Surprised me and irritated me.
So I'm going to begrudgingly try an experiment for a couple days and see if it helps me curb the extra munching - I'm gonna go relatively sugar-less. Sugar in my life: I stay away from cereal entirely unless it has less than 5 grams of sugar per serving (and you'd be surprised, even super healthy kashi cereals sometimes have 14+ grams of sugar) and I never have sugar with breakfast, if I can avoid it. I'm usually pretty good at lunchtime too, but I always want a sweet treat after lunch. And if I have one, I think it tends to derail me. I get munchy in the afternoon/early evening and then I end up with only a few points for dinner, and I have a larger dinner than I intend to and/or I snack after dinner on sweet stuff. So I'm going to see if I can go sugar-free (for the most part) for a couple days. Just to see if it will help curb my hunger. The main thing I learned from the Dr. Oz/"You On A Diet" craze is that if you have sugar early in the day and/or before a meal you're just setting yourself up to eat more, because your body is busy working on the sugar and can't process the rest of your food properly and you won't feel full or satisfied. If you drink wine with dinner, for example, Dr. Oz suggests that you eat some of your meal before you even take a sip of the wine. Because if you drink the wine first, a habit most of us probably share, your body will actually not register fullness from your food in the same way it would have if you had food in your stomach before drinking the sugary wine. Your body is too busy working on the empty sugar calories. And you will be hungrier and have a desire to keep eating or a desire to eat more than you actually need, even after you've finished your meal. If you just wait until there's some food in your system before drinking the sugar, it doesn't have the same negative impact on your body.
So I'm going to try to get through the days without any sugar filled snacks and I'm going to keep the sugar content in my meals very very low. And if I successfully get through a day without sugar snacks, perhaps I can have a small sweet something at the end of the night, after I'm full and satisfied, assuming I think I can handle it without indulging in 5 other snacks after that. We'll see!
Hoping to get a run in at lunchtime today but it might not be in the cards. Tomorrow after work I should have plenty of time for a great workout - I have no plans - so I think I'll go home, stretch out, go for a jog around the park, and come home for some pilates. And I hope to get in another workout on Friday evening. That might also be tough to fit in, but if I don't, I'll be charged with the goal of working out both Saturday and Sunday. Actually - that might not be so bad. This will be my first official weekend entirely to myself without a single performance related obligation of any kind. And that is the best news ever.
So I'm going to begrudgingly try an experiment for a couple days and see if it helps me curb the extra munching - I'm gonna go relatively sugar-less. Sugar in my life: I stay away from cereal entirely unless it has less than 5 grams of sugar per serving (and you'd be surprised, even super healthy kashi cereals sometimes have 14+ grams of sugar) and I never have sugar with breakfast, if I can avoid it. I'm usually pretty good at lunchtime too, but I always want a sweet treat after lunch. And if I have one, I think it tends to derail me. I get munchy in the afternoon/early evening and then I end up with only a few points for dinner, and I have a larger dinner than I intend to and/or I snack after dinner on sweet stuff. So I'm going to see if I can go sugar-free (for the most part) for a couple days. Just to see if it will help curb my hunger. The main thing I learned from the Dr. Oz/"You On A Diet" craze is that if you have sugar early in the day and/or before a meal you're just setting yourself up to eat more, because your body is busy working on the sugar and can't process the rest of your food properly and you won't feel full or satisfied. If you drink wine with dinner, for example, Dr. Oz suggests that you eat some of your meal before you even take a sip of the wine. Because if you drink the wine first, a habit most of us probably share, your body will actually not register fullness from your food in the same way it would have if you had food in your stomach before drinking the sugary wine. Your body is too busy working on the empty sugar calories. And you will be hungrier and have a desire to keep eating or a desire to eat more than you actually need, even after you've finished your meal. If you just wait until there's some food in your system before drinking the sugar, it doesn't have the same negative impact on your body.
So I'm going to try to get through the days without any sugar filled snacks and I'm going to keep the sugar content in my meals very very low. And if I successfully get through a day without sugar snacks, perhaps I can have a small sweet something at the end of the night, after I'm full and satisfied, assuming I think I can handle it without indulging in 5 other snacks after that. We'll see!
Hoping to get a run in at lunchtime today but it might not be in the cards. Tomorrow after work I should have plenty of time for a great workout - I have no plans - so I think I'll go home, stretch out, go for a jog around the park, and come home for some pilates. And I hope to get in another workout on Friday evening. That might also be tough to fit in, but if I don't, I'll be charged with the goal of working out both Saturday and Sunday. Actually - that might not be so bad. This will be my first official weekend entirely to myself without a single performance related obligation of any kind. And that is the best news ever.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Yup. Up 2 pounds. Whatchugondo? I was over it before I saw it. Can't dwell on the numbers these days. Just can't.
In two months it will be six years since I began my weight loss journey. Wild. I want to look back at my weight trackers to see when I finally got down to where I am now. I think it took me a solid 2 years to lose the full 115 that I lost. Which means I've basically maintained right around there for 4 years. Incredible. I'm not cured. But I seem to have found a system that works for me.
Got in a quick lifting session at the gym today during my lunch break. And I did end up going yesterday and doing a short run, just like I thought I would.
Hoping to continue this trend - gonna do another run tomorrow and maybe something ELSE on Thursday. I need to mix it up a bit. Maybe some elliptical, maybe a pilates class, maybe a yoga class, maybe an outdoor hike. That might be real nice. We'll see if I can get Kevin to go with me. He's fallen off the exercise wagon recently, which is a shame because we were having so much fun. But he's gotten really busy lately, so it's understandable. I'm sure he'll return to the fold soon enough. ;)
Looking forward to a great week. Lots of healthy summer foods and exercise of all different varieties.
In two months it will be six years since I began my weight loss journey. Wild. I want to look back at my weight trackers to see when I finally got down to where I am now. I think it took me a solid 2 years to lose the full 115 that I lost. Which means I've basically maintained right around there for 4 years. Incredible. I'm not cured. But I seem to have found a system that works for me.
Got in a quick lifting session at the gym today during my lunch break. And I did end up going yesterday and doing a short run, just like I thought I would.
Hoping to continue this trend - gonna do another run tomorrow and maybe something ELSE on Thursday. I need to mix it up a bit. Maybe some elliptical, maybe a pilates class, maybe a yoga class, maybe an outdoor hike. That might be real nice. We'll see if I can get Kevin to go with me. He's fallen off the exercise wagon recently, which is a shame because we were having so much fun. But he's gotten really busy lately, so it's understandable. I'm sure he'll return to the fold soon enough. ;)
Looking forward to a great week. Lots of healthy summer foods and exercise of all different varieties.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Warning - lady stuff ahead!!
Started my period this afternoon. It's amazing how I was in instant agony, could barely stand up straight, felt so incredibly exhausted and drained and like I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then after popping two advil (which always saves me), I could literally feel them kicking in 20 minutes later and the pain began to dissipate. There's still a dull ache. And I could easily fall asleep standing up. But the fierce pain is gone. Fascinating, the body. Just fascinating.
Oof. I would love to go home right now, crawl into bed, and spend the rest of the day there. Zzzzzzouch.
I had an okay weekend. I did end up eating more crappy food than I'd planned to. Three straight days of not-the-best choices. Friday night we had friends over for homemade pizza and cheap wine. It was YUMMY and the pizzas turned out so delicious and the wine felt so nice. But I certainly ate more than I needed and I was STUFFED at the end.
Then Saturday night, after a healthy breakfast and a healthy lunch and club soda at the bar after my HST show, Kev and I went home to relax together and I ended up over-snacking. I had some chips, some focaccia bread, an apple, some more chips, some almonds, and then a cookie and some soy ice cream! Whuut! I'm sure what has now revealed itself as PMS had a lot to do with it. And also think I was just feeling lazy and irresponsible and like I didn't want to think about it, I just wanted to eat yummy stuff. No big deal, but not the best decision.
And Sunday, of course, was no better. I did get in a quick workout, just some pilates, before we met up with friends at a local bar. So that was a mini-victory. Our day in the park/sports in the park got rained out! Boo. So everyone agreed to go to a Brooklyn bar instead and spend the day drinking and hanging. This particular bar has bocce ball courts inside! So that was really cool. And the environment overall was pretty neat too. I had four beers, some veggie spring roll type thing, and the most delicious chili-cheese dog. Now, that sounds terrible, and it wasn't great in terms of nutrition, but it wasn't some greasy nasty thing. It was actually more of a "foodie" type chili-cheese dog. The bun and the dog were smaller than usual and definitely good quality, and the chili and the cheese were only a dollup on top, not slathered all over. It was so incredibly tasty. THEN we went with friends later on to a nearby burger joint that's supposed to have the best burgers. And Kev and I split a burger and some hot wings! Yowch! Now, I will claim the fact that we shared the food another small victory, and I only had a few wings and a little less than half the burger (and no fries! Yes!) but I still couldn't believe all the junk foods I'd eaten and it wasn't even dark out yet. To the junk foods' credit, they were probably organic junk foods, prepared without trans-fat and with whole, local ingredients. Because it was in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and that's how they do in those parts. And I actually don't feel that shitty today, beyond the menstruation of course. So that's pretty good.
I had a good week of exercise. I got in 5 workouts (3 running, 2 strength) I'm sure the scale will be up tomorrow for weigh-in from PMS and from my weekend of caloric indulgence, but that's fine. I've been making good progress lately and I know I look better. I also feel good. I'm hoping it will be just a few days of healthy eating/working out to get it back to normal.
I'm debating whether or not to go to the gym on my lunch break today. I got some new workout clothes (couldn't BELIEVE how long it had been since I sprang for new bras and gym pants...like...years...) that I'm excited to don and a good cardio session might feel really good for my cramps. But I also just feel like it might be an unecessary task in the middle of my day. Who am I kidding, I'm probably gonna go. Day before weigh-in, bad eating weekend, I'm probably gonna go. But UGH! ;)
In other news, Kevin and I made some excellent progress on the apartment this weekend that seems to have brought us very near completion in terms of getting me all moved in and getting the place back to a normal state. It looks so amazing. We're both so pleased with it. It's finally our home, together. And it's so adorable to see our stuff all mixed up, hanging out. It looks really homey and comfortable and relaxing in there and that's exactly how we both love it to be.
Kevin is so awesome because he spent his whole day on Friday cleaning up while I was at work. We were having friends over on Friday night and we had set that as a sort of goal-date for ourselves to get things mostly in place. And another friend of ours was relieving us on Friday of a matress that had been laying in the middle of the living room, so it was the perfect time to finish getting organized. We did some work on Thursday night but there was still a lot to do - laundry of various linens, finding an organized home for said linens, lots of counter wiping down and dusty bunny retrieval to be done, a bunch of little odds and ends like our various shoes that were scattered all over the place needing a home and stuff that was just generally in disarray needing attention. Well my delightfully evolved boyfriend went above and beyond, getting the place in GREAT shape for our get together on Friday night. I was so pleased and thrilled and it was such a huge relief and I know how much there was to do, so I know how long it must have taken him. He's seriously the best.
We went to Target on Saturday, he didn't really want to go but he was a good sport about it. We some new stuff for the apartment that we had fun picking out - new glasses and dishware - and some small furniture for the bathroom. And we put it together on Sunday morning, which was also a fun little project.
So beyond having to hang up some artwork and find homes for a few more things, the place is basically done. And it feels really lovely. We've really been enjoying it and the adorable cats, who are getting along famously at this point (barring some occasional fighting that is totally normal, apparently, because they're boys and they desire to beat the shit out of each other from time to time), seem to be really happy also. It's great living together. Much better than commuting between two half-lived-in apartments.
In some ways, I feel like my summer vacation has just begun. I have five Saturdays in a row without an HST show and I'm just thrilled for the time off. I plan to go to the beach, to museums, out to dinner, etc. Not having to worry about being somewhere between 7:30-10:30 on a Saturday night is going to change my life. Maybe I'll just get drunk on margaritas at 12noon this Saturday. Because fuck it! I can!
;)
Started my period this afternoon. It's amazing how I was in instant agony, could barely stand up straight, felt so incredibly exhausted and drained and like I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then after popping two advil (which always saves me), I could literally feel them kicking in 20 minutes later and the pain began to dissipate. There's still a dull ache. And I could easily fall asleep standing up. But the fierce pain is gone. Fascinating, the body. Just fascinating.
Oof. I would love to go home right now, crawl into bed, and spend the rest of the day there. Zzzzzzouch.
I had an okay weekend. I did end up eating more crappy food than I'd planned to. Three straight days of not-the-best choices. Friday night we had friends over for homemade pizza and cheap wine. It was YUMMY and the pizzas turned out so delicious and the wine felt so nice. But I certainly ate more than I needed and I was STUFFED at the end.
Then Saturday night, after a healthy breakfast and a healthy lunch and club soda at the bar after my HST show, Kev and I went home to relax together and I ended up over-snacking. I had some chips, some focaccia bread, an apple, some more chips, some almonds, and then a cookie and some soy ice cream! Whuut! I'm sure what has now revealed itself as PMS had a lot to do with it. And also think I was just feeling lazy and irresponsible and like I didn't want to think about it, I just wanted to eat yummy stuff. No big deal, but not the best decision.
And Sunday, of course, was no better. I did get in a quick workout, just some pilates, before we met up with friends at a local bar. So that was a mini-victory. Our day in the park/sports in the park got rained out! Boo. So everyone agreed to go to a Brooklyn bar instead and spend the day drinking and hanging. This particular bar has bocce ball courts inside! So that was really cool. And the environment overall was pretty neat too. I had four beers, some veggie spring roll type thing, and the most delicious chili-cheese dog. Now, that sounds terrible, and it wasn't great in terms of nutrition, but it wasn't some greasy nasty thing. It was actually more of a "foodie" type chili-cheese dog. The bun and the dog were smaller than usual and definitely good quality, and the chili and the cheese were only a dollup on top, not slathered all over. It was so incredibly tasty. THEN we went with friends later on to a nearby burger joint that's supposed to have the best burgers. And Kev and I split a burger and some hot wings! Yowch! Now, I will claim the fact that we shared the food another small victory, and I only had a few wings and a little less than half the burger (and no fries! Yes!) but I still couldn't believe all the junk foods I'd eaten and it wasn't even dark out yet. To the junk foods' credit, they were probably organic junk foods, prepared without trans-fat and with whole, local ingredients. Because it was in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and that's how they do in those parts. And I actually don't feel that shitty today, beyond the menstruation of course. So that's pretty good.
I had a good week of exercise. I got in 5 workouts (3 running, 2 strength) I'm sure the scale will be up tomorrow for weigh-in from PMS and from my weekend of caloric indulgence, but that's fine. I've been making good progress lately and I know I look better. I also feel good. I'm hoping it will be just a few days of healthy eating/working out to get it back to normal.
I'm debating whether or not to go to the gym on my lunch break today. I got some new workout clothes (couldn't BELIEVE how long it had been since I sprang for new bras and gym pants...like...years...) that I'm excited to don and a good cardio session might feel really good for my cramps. But I also just feel like it might be an unecessary task in the middle of my day. Who am I kidding, I'm probably gonna go. Day before weigh-in, bad eating weekend, I'm probably gonna go. But UGH! ;)
In other news, Kevin and I made some excellent progress on the apartment this weekend that seems to have brought us very near completion in terms of getting me all moved in and getting the place back to a normal state. It looks so amazing. We're both so pleased with it. It's finally our home, together. And it's so adorable to see our stuff all mixed up, hanging out. It looks really homey and comfortable and relaxing in there and that's exactly how we both love it to be.
Kevin is so awesome because he spent his whole day on Friday cleaning up while I was at work. We were having friends over on Friday night and we had set that as a sort of goal-date for ourselves to get things mostly in place. And another friend of ours was relieving us on Friday of a matress that had been laying in the middle of the living room, so it was the perfect time to finish getting organized. We did some work on Thursday night but there was still a lot to do - laundry of various linens, finding an organized home for said linens, lots of counter wiping down and dusty bunny retrieval to be done, a bunch of little odds and ends like our various shoes that were scattered all over the place needing a home and stuff that was just generally in disarray needing attention. Well my delightfully evolved boyfriend went above and beyond, getting the place in GREAT shape for our get together on Friday night. I was so pleased and thrilled and it was such a huge relief and I know how much there was to do, so I know how long it must have taken him. He's seriously the best.
We went to Target on Saturday, he didn't really want to go but he was a good sport about it. We some new stuff for the apartment that we had fun picking out - new glasses and dishware - and some small furniture for the bathroom. And we put it together on Sunday morning, which was also a fun little project.
So beyond having to hang up some artwork and find homes for a few more things, the place is basically done. And it feels really lovely. We've really been enjoying it and the adorable cats, who are getting along famously at this point (barring some occasional fighting that is totally normal, apparently, because they're boys and they desire to beat the shit out of each other from time to time), seem to be really happy also. It's great living together. Much better than commuting between two half-lived-in apartments.
In some ways, I feel like my summer vacation has just begun. I have five Saturdays in a row without an HST show and I'm just thrilled for the time off. I plan to go to the beach, to museums, out to dinner, etc. Not having to worry about being somewhere between 7:30-10:30 on a Saturday night is going to change my life. Maybe I'll just get drunk on margaritas at 12noon this Saturday. Because fuck it! I can!
;)
Friday, July 25, 2008
I have a relatively relaxing weekend ahead of me and I'm so thrilled about it. My life has been absolutely insane lately. I work 10-7 every day, and then almost every single day for easily the past 2 months, I've had somewhere to be at 7:30 each night of the week. And I don't get home until past 11 on most of those nights. So I can just go right to sleep, wake up, and do it again. Some of them have been fun things, but a lot of them are obligations that I can't skip. And I'm just totally exhausted. I talking burnt-out exhausted. The fact that I've been able to shove in so much exercise lately is actually just a testament to how much I require exercise to feel sane - because I think I wouldn't be doing it so often right now if I didn't NEED to be doing it in order to get a grip on my life each day. It's a period of time when I can zone out and focus on nothing but the way it feels to be in my own skin. So that's nice. It's one of my only salvations at the moment.
Our apartment is still a bit of a mess since the big move a few weeks ago. We're slowly but surely making progress. A friend of ours is taking one of our (several!) extra matresses today because he just threw out his bed because of he had a bed bug problem, so that worked out perfectly. And we threw out a bunch of shit last night including ANOTHER mattress. And around 11pm we walked a perfectly good TV to the curb, with its remote, and a sign on it that said "Works!" and it was gone 3 minutes later. Someone wanted it. :) That made me glad. We still have a few new things to buy and some organizing to do, but it's coming together. I wish it was DONE. It will be a big relief when it is. Although I guess I don't really mind the process either. It's sometimes fun.
My comedy stuff has been just exhausting me lately. I'm doing too much. And there's no good place to cut corners or take stuff out or scale back. It's all important to me and it's all stuff I need to be doing right now. But that doesn't change the toll it's taking on me right now to be constantly working. I feel like I work two full-time jobs. And I'm usually working on Saturdays and Sundays too. I do a show every Saturday night and usually end up shooting some kind of video every Sunday, whether for HST or for someone else.
So besides working a paying job 10-7 and a non-paying job 7-10, plus weekends, when you add in exercise, my commute, and my unfinished apartment, it's no wonder I'm in desperate need of a week in the woods with no one around.
This Saturday is the last Harvard Sailing Team show of our current run. This was our 5th full-length show and we'll be back with a new one in September. But this means that during the month of August/first two weeks of September, I DON'T HAVE TO DO SHOWS ON SATURDAY NIGHTS!!!! This is one of the best things in the world for me right now. For probably the last - oh - 3 years, I've had shows on Saturday nights. I don't even know what it means to have a Saturday night off. So the rare times that I don't have to work on Saturday nights are music to me. And I am so looking forward to this break. We will still have rehearsals during this time on some weeknights because we have to write our new show, but having my weekends to myself, even if only for a few weeks, is going to be so great. PLUS! There are two weeks or so at the end of August/beginning of September where we don't even have rehearsals!!!! (Half the people in the group will be on vacation then, so we decided not to rehearse during that time.) So this is like a two week vacation from my job for me, not to have think about sketch comedy at all. I'll still be doing improv practices and improv shows (both with my house team and my two-person group), and - oh yeah - going to my day job 45 hours a week (jesus). But taking the sketch comedy out of the equation for a little while is huge. HUGE.
I'm going to sit around and not be funny or think about funny things at all.
...Maybe.
It's supposed to be lovely in New York this weekend - it's beautiful today. 80s, sunny, and breezy. And tomorrow should be the same, just a bit warmer. I have the show tomorrow night, but that's my only true obligation this weekend. Tomorrow hopefully Kev and I will get to do something lovely together. And Sunday! I'm playing sports and having a picnic with some of my friends in the park! That should be totally awesome. And I don't have to be anywhere or do anything all evening. Bliss.
Hoping to get in a great workout today after work/before my two-person improv show (Jen+Steve) tonight. Hopefully a long run and some light lifting. Then going back to Kev and my place to make homemade pizzas and drink wine with our good friends. Looking forward to that. Hope to get in a workout tomorrow too, maybe an outdoor run? Yes, I think so.
Our apartment is still a bit of a mess since the big move a few weeks ago. We're slowly but surely making progress. A friend of ours is taking one of our (several!) extra matresses today because he just threw out his bed because of he had a bed bug problem, so that worked out perfectly. And we threw out a bunch of shit last night including ANOTHER mattress. And around 11pm we walked a perfectly good TV to the curb, with its remote, and a sign on it that said "Works!" and it was gone 3 minutes later. Someone wanted it. :) That made me glad. We still have a few new things to buy and some organizing to do, but it's coming together. I wish it was DONE. It will be a big relief when it is. Although I guess I don't really mind the process either. It's sometimes fun.
My comedy stuff has been just exhausting me lately. I'm doing too much. And there's no good place to cut corners or take stuff out or scale back. It's all important to me and it's all stuff I need to be doing right now. But that doesn't change the toll it's taking on me right now to be constantly working. I feel like I work two full-time jobs. And I'm usually working on Saturdays and Sundays too. I do a show every Saturday night and usually end up shooting some kind of video every Sunday, whether for HST or for someone else.
So besides working a paying job 10-7 and a non-paying job 7-10, plus weekends, when you add in exercise, my commute, and my unfinished apartment, it's no wonder I'm in desperate need of a week in the woods with no one around.
This Saturday is the last Harvard Sailing Team show of our current run. This was our 5th full-length show and we'll be back with a new one in September. But this means that during the month of August/first two weeks of September, I DON'T HAVE TO DO SHOWS ON SATURDAY NIGHTS!!!! This is one of the best things in the world for me right now. For probably the last - oh - 3 years, I've had shows on Saturday nights. I don't even know what it means to have a Saturday night off. So the rare times that I don't have to work on Saturday nights are music to me. And I am so looking forward to this break. We will still have rehearsals during this time on some weeknights because we have to write our new show, but having my weekends to myself, even if only for a few weeks, is going to be so great. PLUS! There are two weeks or so at the end of August/beginning of September where we don't even have rehearsals!!!! (Half the people in the group will be on vacation then, so we decided not to rehearse during that time.) So this is like a two week vacation from my job for me, not to have think about sketch comedy at all. I'll still be doing improv practices and improv shows (both with my house team and my two-person group), and - oh yeah - going to my day job 45 hours a week (jesus). But taking the sketch comedy out of the equation for a little while is huge. HUGE.
I'm going to sit around and not be funny or think about funny things at all.
...Maybe.
It's supposed to be lovely in New York this weekend - it's beautiful today. 80s, sunny, and breezy. And tomorrow should be the same, just a bit warmer. I have the show tomorrow night, but that's my only true obligation this weekend. Tomorrow hopefully Kev and I will get to do something lovely together. And Sunday! I'm playing sports and having a picnic with some of my friends in the park! That should be totally awesome. And I don't have to be anywhere or do anything all evening. Bliss.
Hoping to get in a great workout today after work/before my two-person improv show (Jen+Steve) tonight. Hopefully a long run and some light lifting. Then going back to Kev and my place to make homemade pizzas and drink wine with our good friends. Looking forward to that. Hope to get in a workout tomorrow too, maybe an outdoor run? Yes, I think so.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I fit into a pair of jeans this morning that I used to wear a lot when I was at my thinnest (ten pounds ligher than now...ish...). Woot! I was sure they wouldn't fit, took them out of the drawer, sized them up against my body in the mirror first, said, "No way this is gonna happen," and then pulled them on! No huge deal, but a nice mini victory.
Also - had a really good OP (that means "on point" for those non-WWers) day yesterday overall. I got in a small light-lifting workout, even though the entire time I was walking to the gym I was almost daring myself to turn around and skip it. I don't know why, for some reason I just didn't want the hassle of the whole thing and I only had my hour long lunch break to get there, change clothes, workout, change back, and walk back. But I decided to just shut up and go. Glad I did. Feeling nice and sore today. I ate well yesterday - had an early lunch of a lowfat hamburger on a whole wheat bun that I brought to work from home and then an early dinner of a salad. Then I went to HST practice, and THEN! To see The Dark Knight with a whole bunch of friends. It was great. I had a lot of fun, even though I was hiding in Kevin's sleeve for 3/4 of the movie because if you so much as jump out at me on screen I'm done for. But it was a wild ride, lots of fun, the whole crowd loved it, and the popcorn and chocolate I had (my friend Adam's new girlfriend Maggie brought gourmet chocolates for everyone from a shop she works at - OMG so so good) was just enough to satisfy my snackie movie needs. And then I was done eating it because I was full and felt filled with sugar and salt. And that was that.
I'm feelin good lately. Been getting sleep, being healthy, avoiding too much partying. It feels nice.
Gonna try to get a bit more focused at work and see if I can maintain it. I love to surf the damn web all day long and it's no good for morale, frankly.
That's it. That's the update.
Hoping to get a quick run in at lunch today. If I don't, no big deal, but hoping to make it happen. (Sweet Kev did laundry yesterday so I have clean gym clothes! Yesss!) And I'll go out for din with Kev tonight before our improv show - hopefully we'll end up somewhere healthy.
Also - had a really good OP (that means "on point" for those non-WWers) day yesterday overall. I got in a small light-lifting workout, even though the entire time I was walking to the gym I was almost daring myself to turn around and skip it. I don't know why, for some reason I just didn't want the hassle of the whole thing and I only had my hour long lunch break to get there, change clothes, workout, change back, and walk back. But I decided to just shut up and go. Glad I did. Feeling nice and sore today. I ate well yesterday - had an early lunch of a lowfat hamburger on a whole wheat bun that I brought to work from home and then an early dinner of a salad. Then I went to HST practice, and THEN! To see The Dark Knight with a whole bunch of friends. It was great. I had a lot of fun, even though I was hiding in Kevin's sleeve for 3/4 of the movie because if you so much as jump out at me on screen I'm done for. But it was a wild ride, lots of fun, the whole crowd loved it, and the popcorn and chocolate I had (my friend Adam's new girlfriend Maggie brought gourmet chocolates for everyone from a shop she works at - OMG so so good) was just enough to satisfy my snackie movie needs. And then I was done eating it because I was full and felt filled with sugar and salt. And that was that.
I'm feelin good lately. Been getting sleep, being healthy, avoiding too much partying. It feels nice.
Gonna try to get a bit more focused at work and see if I can maintain it. I love to surf the damn web all day long and it's no good for morale, frankly.
That's it. That's the update.
Hoping to get a quick run in at lunch today. If I don't, no big deal, but hoping to make it happen. (Sweet Kev did laundry yesterday so I have clean gym clothes! Yesss!) And I'll go out for din with Kev tonight before our improv show - hopefully we'll end up somewhere healthy.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Lalalalala.
I lost a sweet sweet 2.2 this past week! I have no idea how it happened. Well that's not entirely true...I made some small changes this week that seem to have made a big difference, but overall I would not have imagined that they would add up for an unexpected drop the likes of which I haven't seen in a while.
When I used to attend weight watchers meetings, my leader would always get upset with us if we'd report a loss for the week to the group but then start to back peddle and say stuff like "It was probably just water weight, though," or "It's probably because I quit lifting weights," or "I wore a different outfit at weigh-in last week." She'd get so upset and tell us not to downplay our victories. And I always loved that because you know what? She was right. We work SO hard to lose fucking two-tenths of a pound and then we say "But it's probably just water weight." Shut up. Who cares. Take the damn loss.
I'm trying to convince myself of that too, can you tell? ;)
I actually haven't been lifting quite as much as I was a couple weeks ago, but I actually don't think that's it. Lifting never caused much of a fluctuation in my weight and I've still been doing pilates and some light lifting occassionally which is not terribly different from before. I have been running more and I think that that might have just caught up with me after a few weeks of putting in the time and not necessarily seeing the results I'd expected to see right away. I also had a couple good gym workouts this past week which I think are a bit more productive than running outside for me right now. The heat slows me down, I think.
I ate relatively the same amount of calories this week - maybe. It's very possible that I was more accurate this week in terms of counting exactly what I ate and adding an extra point for butter or milk on a sandwich or in a coffee when necessary. I really wanted to be exact this week, so perhaps that helped. I did feel like I was more restrained with food this week and was surprised when I discovered I'd eaten the same amount of points as last week. I did eat more fruits and vegs than I've been. So who knows. Who really knows. But I'll fucking take that loss as my very own. I'm very proud of it. I was shocked when I saw it coming earlier in the week (scale-hopped) and it's made me work that much harder for the last few days.
This is certainly not about a number on the scale; I've said that 100 times and I'll say it 100 more. I'm not at a place right now where getting on the scale and seeing a high number makes me want to eat a pint of ice cream - or where seeing a low number makes think I can eat a pint of ice cream. (I never really was a pint-of-ice-cream girl anyway; it would be more like Wendy's extra value meal. Mmmmmmmmmmm.) I only want to look and feel good in my clothes and not have to worry about eating some pizza with friends or going out for mexican or enjoying myself at a summer barbeque because I put in the effort day to day so that I can afford to enjoy that stuff when it crops up. So even though I don't intend to measure my success only with what the scale says, the number on the scale is a nice indicator, for me, of whether or not that progress is being made overtime. And I really don'd mind the wait.
I will be very glad when I get back down to the lowest I ever was, which is about 10 pounds from now. And then, if I'm being honest, I'd like to lose 10 more. Just for the fun of it. See how it feels, etc. We'll see if it happens. It might take another 2 years - holy christ - but what the hell else am I doing with my time.
And we've all thought/said it before, but honestly, nothing is going to change when I finally get to a certain weight. I will still eat like this and workout like this always. Because it's what I do. It's what I've done for the last 6 years. After I lost that 113 pounds in those first two years, I kept doing it. I gained about 20 of those pounds back, still doing the same stuff, although a bit half-assedly. So can't do it half-assedly anymo'. Cuz you gain that shit back.
I don't really mind continuing to do it though. It's a fun game most of the time.
Being on e-tools on WW online for these 7 months has made all the difference in the world. Something about spending the money - might as well use the damn thing.
This week's goals: eat less, workout 4-5 times, only have egg sandwiches on 2 days*.
*Egg sandwiches are my all-time favorite breakfast food. And if I'm not careful...you get the idea.
When I used to attend weight watchers meetings, my leader would always get upset with us if we'd report a loss for the week to the group but then start to back peddle and say stuff like "It was probably just water weight, though," or "It's probably because I quit lifting weights," or "I wore a different outfit at weigh-in last week." She'd get so upset and tell us not to downplay our victories. And I always loved that because you know what? She was right. We work SO hard to lose fucking two-tenths of a pound and then we say "But it's probably just water weight." Shut up. Who cares. Take the damn loss.
I'm trying to convince myself of that too, can you tell? ;)
I actually haven't been lifting quite as much as I was a couple weeks ago, but I actually don't think that's it. Lifting never caused much of a fluctuation in my weight and I've still been doing pilates and some light lifting occassionally which is not terribly different from before. I have been running more and I think that that might have just caught up with me after a few weeks of putting in the time and not necessarily seeing the results I'd expected to see right away. I also had a couple good gym workouts this past week which I think are a bit more productive than running outside for me right now. The heat slows me down, I think.
I ate relatively the same amount of calories this week - maybe. It's very possible that I was more accurate this week in terms of counting exactly what I ate and adding an extra point for butter or milk on a sandwich or in a coffee when necessary. I really wanted to be exact this week, so perhaps that helped. I did feel like I was more restrained with food this week and was surprised when I discovered I'd eaten the same amount of points as last week. I did eat more fruits and vegs than I've been. So who knows. Who really knows. But I'll fucking take that loss as my very own. I'm very proud of it. I was shocked when I saw it coming earlier in the week (scale-hopped) and it's made me work that much harder for the last few days.
This is certainly not about a number on the scale; I've said that 100 times and I'll say it 100 more. I'm not at a place right now where getting on the scale and seeing a high number makes me want to eat a pint of ice cream - or where seeing a low number makes think I can eat a pint of ice cream. (I never really was a pint-of-ice-cream girl anyway; it would be more like Wendy's extra value meal. Mmmmmmmmmmm.) I only want to look and feel good in my clothes and not have to worry about eating some pizza with friends or going out for mexican or enjoying myself at a summer barbeque because I put in the effort day to day so that I can afford to enjoy that stuff when it crops up. So even though I don't intend to measure my success only with what the scale says, the number on the scale is a nice indicator, for me, of whether or not that progress is being made overtime. And I really don'd mind the wait.
I will be very glad when I get back down to the lowest I ever was, which is about 10 pounds from now. And then, if I'm being honest, I'd like to lose 10 more. Just for the fun of it. See how it feels, etc. We'll see if it happens. It might take another 2 years - holy christ - but what the hell else am I doing with my time.
And we've all thought/said it before, but honestly, nothing is going to change when I finally get to a certain weight. I will still eat like this and workout like this always. Because it's what I do. It's what I've done for the last 6 years. After I lost that 113 pounds in those first two years, I kept doing it. I gained about 20 of those pounds back, still doing the same stuff, although a bit half-assedly. So can't do it half-assedly anymo'. Cuz you gain that shit back.
I don't really mind continuing to do it though. It's a fun game most of the time.
Being on e-tools on WW online for these 7 months has made all the difference in the world. Something about spending the money - might as well use the damn thing.
This week's goals: eat less, workout 4-5 times, only have egg sandwiches on 2 days*.
*Egg sandwiches are my all-time favorite breakfast food. And if I'm not careful...you get the idea.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
So. Here we are. Another week. Weigh-in this morning was favorable. Down .8. Which is good considering I'd gained a bit two weeks back. So we're breakin even. That's a lot of this game for me lately, breaking even. If I let myself think too hard about it, it's easy to obsess, but then I remember I don't really care. And I'd rather enjoy the process than anything else, so it is what it is. Nothing more, nothing less.
I got in some good workouts this past week. I've been on a very consistent workout schedule for the last 6 months or so - getting in either 3 or 4 sessions per week. There have been the occasional weeks where I've only gotten 1 or 2 sessions in but those have been rare. 3 is not a number I'm satisfied with. I'd rather it be consistently 4. But I can't really complain. Before my recommittment to this process in January, I'd been extremely lax with exercise. I don't think I have it written down anywhere, but I know I wasn't doing it 3 or 4 times a week consistently. So there's progress, however small. I know that the workouts have also, in the last six months, increased in their intensity and duration, which is great. I'm back to running again, where I was not in the beginning of the year. So that feels really good.
I went to the gym today on my lunch break for a quick workout, just trying to start the week off right. Much to my dismay, even after the regular outdoors running I've been doing lately, I had a really hard time eking out even 15 minutes of straight running on the treadmill. That was disappointing since I generally find outdoor running harder than indoor running and I generally find that if I'm in a good groove with running outside I will end up being able to knock out 30 minutes on the treadmill without batting an eye. But that was not the case today. Who knows why. Shoes? Weird treadmill band (it was doing something really weird and awful that made it hard to run)? Or just general cycle of exercise where today is not my day? Who knows. I got off after 20 minutes and did some arm lifting and called it an afternoon.
I hope to get in a few good sessions of different kinds of exercise this week. Some pilates, some lifting, maybe even some yoga if I can find the time. And of course my outside runs. Running around Prospect Park, just steps away from my new (Kevin's) apartment has been really lovely. Even if it's late in the day, I know I can just go bang out 30-45 minutes. It's been really nice.
I have also realized that I need to start being a bit more restrictive with my eating if I want to drop another couple pounds before the summer is over. I am occassionally restrained and I rarely go totally overboard, but I haven't exactly been pinching the points pennies lately. I eat when I'm hungry, try to make good choices, and I go over if I go over. That's been my policy lately. So I'm going to try to be better about it this week and see what happens - get some more fruit and veggies in, eat less cheese and bread, and not snack so much when I'm not hungry. It's not impossible, so we'll see what I can accomplish this week.
In short, goals are: 4-5 exercise sessions of varied natures, stay within points, more fruit and veggies.
All else is good. Kevin and I had a few good chats about career direction and life direction this past weekend which made me feel better about working in a day job that doesn't fulfill me for the time being. We're really enjoying living together. My intial panic has subsided and now it's just nice to see him a little bit more often and be able to share more things together. We're having fun cooking together, even though we don't ever prepare anything fancy - just simple stuff so far. And the cats seem to be getting along for the most part, which is also fun for us. So it's good.
I gotta run. Bye!
I got in some good workouts this past week. I've been on a very consistent workout schedule for the last 6 months or so - getting in either 3 or 4 sessions per week. There have been the occasional weeks where I've only gotten 1 or 2 sessions in but those have been rare. 3 is not a number I'm satisfied with. I'd rather it be consistently 4. But I can't really complain. Before my recommittment to this process in January, I'd been extremely lax with exercise. I don't think I have it written down anywhere, but I know I wasn't doing it 3 or 4 times a week consistently. So there's progress, however small. I know that the workouts have also, in the last six months, increased in their intensity and duration, which is great. I'm back to running again, where I was not in the beginning of the year. So that feels really good.
I went to the gym today on my lunch break for a quick workout, just trying to start the week off right. Much to my dismay, even after the regular outdoors running I've been doing lately, I had a really hard time eking out even 15 minutes of straight running on the treadmill. That was disappointing since I generally find outdoor running harder than indoor running and I generally find that if I'm in a good groove with running outside I will end up being able to knock out 30 minutes on the treadmill without batting an eye. But that was not the case today. Who knows why. Shoes? Weird treadmill band (it was doing something really weird and awful that made it hard to run)? Or just general cycle of exercise where today is not my day? Who knows. I got off after 20 minutes and did some arm lifting and called it an afternoon.
I hope to get in a few good sessions of different kinds of exercise this week. Some pilates, some lifting, maybe even some yoga if I can find the time. And of course my outside runs. Running around Prospect Park, just steps away from my new (Kevin's) apartment has been really lovely. Even if it's late in the day, I know I can just go bang out 30-45 minutes. It's been really nice.
I have also realized that I need to start being a bit more restrictive with my eating if I want to drop another couple pounds before the summer is over. I am occassionally restrained and I rarely go totally overboard, but I haven't exactly been pinching the points pennies lately. I eat when I'm hungry, try to make good choices, and I go over if I go over. That's been my policy lately. So I'm going to try to be better about it this week and see what happens - get some more fruit and veggies in, eat less cheese and bread, and not snack so much when I'm not hungry. It's not impossible, so we'll see what I can accomplish this week.
In short, goals are: 4-5 exercise sessions of varied natures, stay within points, more fruit and veggies.
All else is good. Kevin and I had a few good chats about career direction and life direction this past weekend which made me feel better about working in a day job that doesn't fulfill me for the time being. We're really enjoying living together. My intial panic has subsided and now it's just nice to see him a little bit more often and be able to share more things together. We're having fun cooking together, even though we don't ever prepare anything fancy - just simple stuff so far. And the cats seem to be getting along for the most part, which is also fun for us. So it's good.
I gotta run. Bye!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
I Rule.
So, I got up this morning and made guacamole all by my little lonesome! This is very exciting to me for a list of reasons:
1. I do not generally make things. It's not that I can't, it's that I just don't. And come to think of it, I don't know if I can. I probably could. But it's never been a pasttime. I made some guac with my mom once for my cousin's bachelorette party a while back and then again for the 4th of July. It was yummy. But today was different because it was impromptu and not for a special event.
2. I do not generally wake up before I have to. Ever. I hate that. Sleep is one of my very very favorite activities ever ever ever. I adore it. I want to carry it with me in a purse and take nibbles of it during the day like good chocolate. Waking up in the morning, I think I've written about this before, is often a painful event for me. I would sleep until 10:30 each day if it were allowed. And that's only since I've gotten older. When I was younger I could sleep until 1pm NO PROBLEM. In college there were occasions where I slept until 5pm. Once 7pm. That was an ugly "day."
3. I'm not, overall, very domestic.
When I woke up this morning, in our lovely "new" bedroom which we have rearranged and sort of redecorated since I moved in, I felt glad to be alive. I'm having fun living with Kevin. I love him, the big geek, and it's so nice and peaceful being a little family together with a cat (soon to be two cats - tonight in fact! - when I move my cat into the apartment finally). I knew we both had to shower so I got up a bit earlier than I normally would have so I could leave him plenty of time. Revolutionary for me not to wait until the last possible second to get out of bed.
Once I was dressed and ready I had some time to kill so I started chopping up the guac stuff! It was fun. And I didn't have much time so I just did it as quickly as I could and ended up finally tasting it seconds before we had to walk out the door. And it's delish! So I scooped some of it into a plastic container and threw some chips in a plastic baggie and here I am. Eating it for lunch. YUM.
I might be unnecessarily pleased with myself over this. But that's okay. A little self-congratulations never hurt anyone.
It looks like the weather is going to cooperate tonight and I might be able to squeeze in a run, assuming the cat meeting is going okay. I ate well last night, with minimal snacking before bed. I hope to have another good go at it today. I did start out a bit calorie-laden, with a bagel with one egg, cheese, and BACON on it! Aaack! I ordered the bagel (scooped out, thank you) with one egg and cheese and they accidentally put bacon on it! I didn't fuss because I love bacon. But I did pick most of it off and only ate a piece and a half or so. But I still felt like a salty dog when I was done. I hoping this guac and chips, and perhaps a banana and some other fruit, will be enough to tide me over until dinner time when I can make a big salad at home. (Oreatmoreguac?)
I might need to do a quick TJ's run tomorrow after work to stock up for the weekend. We're going to spend a lot of time at home this weekend tending to the cat introduction, so we'll need to have meals on hand.
In other health related news, I bought a pair of these, which I'd been eyeing and desiring for a while. I didn't get them so much for the workout benefits, but for the posture/alignment benefits. Flip flops are always making my body and knees sore but I cannot go closed toed in the summer, I just can't. So this is the perfect solution. BUT, luckily enough, what they say seems to be true about the exercise. I really do feel like I'm working my ass etc. more. I can feel it! It's kinda cool. I even feel my heart rate rise a little bit when I start to walk around in them. It's nice because I do so much walking in this city, miles each day, that I'm sure to reap some kind of benefit from the added resistance. So I'm pleased about it.
AND. A friend who I see regularly told me last night that I look like I've "lost so much weight"! What?! I was surprised to hear this because I've only lost about 6-7 pounds in the last few months, but I have been working out a lot and I know my body has slimmed down. So that was really lovely to hear. I haven't heard "you've lost weight!" in literally years. When I was losing my 100 pounds I heard that every other hour, it seemed. So even though I'm only working on 20ish pounds right now, it was pleasant to hear that someone noticed that I'm looking better than I was in January when the Christmas/first year of a new relationship weight was at its peak. Yikes.
Soooo, for all my concerns and fears and worries and I-don't-know-what-I'm-feeling!s I feel like I'm adapting to this move just fine. Our apartment looks gorgeous. And I really LIKE being able to spend different kinds of time with Kevin. Like, I really like that I can have an evening to myself to do my own thing (last night he went to see a show while I went to Queens to see my cat) because we know that we will see each other later that night for sure - and without either one of us having to pack a bag and travel across boroughs. I like that I have more free time now because I live in one place instead of two places. I almost feel a bit more independent than I felt before, if that's possible. Because now I don't feel like my free time half belongs to someone else. Even though I love spending time with him, I also like being able to do my own thing. And now that we share a space it's much easier to justify sitting "alone" in the living room reading a book. Because he's somewhere in the house doing his own thing too. Does that make sense? It's sort of like I'm no longer focused on being someone's girlfriend, but on being someone's partner and there feels like MORE freedom in that. Who knows. It also just feels exactly the same as before. ;)
That's it. Talk to you later.
1. I do not generally make things. It's not that I can't, it's that I just don't. And come to think of it, I don't know if I can. I probably could. But it's never been a pasttime. I made some guac with my mom once for my cousin's bachelorette party a while back and then again for the 4th of July. It was yummy. But today was different because it was impromptu and not for a special event.
2. I do not generally wake up before I have to. Ever. I hate that. Sleep is one of my very very favorite activities ever ever ever. I adore it. I want to carry it with me in a purse and take nibbles of it during the day like good chocolate. Waking up in the morning, I think I've written about this before, is often a painful event for me. I would sleep until 10:30 each day if it were allowed. And that's only since I've gotten older. When I was younger I could sleep until 1pm NO PROBLEM. In college there were occasions where I slept until 5pm. Once 7pm. That was an ugly "day."
3. I'm not, overall, very domestic.
When I woke up this morning, in our lovely "new" bedroom which we have rearranged and sort of redecorated since I moved in, I felt glad to be alive. I'm having fun living with Kevin. I love him, the big geek, and it's so nice and peaceful being a little family together with a cat (soon to be two cats - tonight in fact! - when I move my cat into the apartment finally). I knew we both had to shower so I got up a bit earlier than I normally would have so I could leave him plenty of time. Revolutionary for me not to wait until the last possible second to get out of bed.
Once I was dressed and ready I had some time to kill so I started chopping up the guac stuff! It was fun. And I didn't have much time so I just did it as quickly as I could and ended up finally tasting it seconds before we had to walk out the door. And it's delish! So I scooped some of it into a plastic container and threw some chips in a plastic baggie and here I am. Eating it for lunch. YUM.
I might be unnecessarily pleased with myself over this. But that's okay. A little self-congratulations never hurt anyone.
It looks like the weather is going to cooperate tonight and I might be able to squeeze in a run, assuming the cat meeting is going okay. I ate well last night, with minimal snacking before bed. I hope to have another good go at it today. I did start out a bit calorie-laden, with a bagel with one egg, cheese, and BACON on it! Aaack! I ordered the bagel (scooped out, thank you) with one egg and cheese and they accidentally put bacon on it! I didn't fuss because I love bacon. But I did pick most of it off and only ate a piece and a half or so. But I still felt like a salty dog when I was done. I hoping this guac and chips, and perhaps a banana and some other fruit, will be enough to tide me over until dinner time when I can make a big salad at home. (Oreatmoreguac?)
I might need to do a quick TJ's run tomorrow after work to stock up for the weekend. We're going to spend a lot of time at home this weekend tending to the cat introduction, so we'll need to have meals on hand.
In other health related news, I bought a pair of these, which I'd been eyeing and desiring for a while. I didn't get them so much for the workout benefits, but for the posture/alignment benefits. Flip flops are always making my body and knees sore but I cannot go closed toed in the summer, I just can't. So this is the perfect solution. BUT, luckily enough, what they say seems to be true about the exercise. I really do feel like I'm working my ass etc. more. I can feel it! It's kinda cool. I even feel my heart rate rise a little bit when I start to walk around in them. It's nice because I do so much walking in this city, miles each day, that I'm sure to reap some kind of benefit from the added resistance. So I'm pleased about it.
AND. A friend who I see regularly told me last night that I look like I've "lost so much weight"! What?! I was surprised to hear this because I've only lost about 6-7 pounds in the last few months, but I have been working out a lot and I know my body has slimmed down. So that was really lovely to hear. I haven't heard "you've lost weight!" in literally years. When I was losing my 100 pounds I heard that every other hour, it seemed. So even though I'm only working on 20ish pounds right now, it was pleasant to hear that someone noticed that I'm looking better than I was in January when the Christmas/first year of a new relationship weight was at its peak. Yikes.
Soooo, for all my concerns and fears and worries and I-don't-know-what-I'm-feeling!s I feel like I'm adapting to this move just fine. Our apartment looks gorgeous. And I really LIKE being able to spend different kinds of time with Kevin. Like, I really like that I can have an evening to myself to do my own thing (last night he went to see a show while I went to Queens to see my cat) because we know that we will see each other later that night for sure - and without either one of us having to pack a bag and travel across boroughs. I like that I have more free time now because I live in one place instead of two places. I almost feel a bit more independent than I felt before, if that's possible. Because now I don't feel like my free time half belongs to someone else. Even though I love spending time with him, I also like being able to do my own thing. And now that we share a space it's much easier to justify sitting "alone" in the living room reading a book. Because he's somewhere in the house doing his own thing too. Does that make sense? It's sort of like I'm no longer focused on being someone's girlfriend, but on being someone's partner and there feels like MORE freedom in that. Who knows. It also just feels exactly the same as before. ;)
That's it. Talk to you later.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Let's be honest.
Don't even want to post but I feel like I should since it's been a while. I'm sure once I get going I'll get into it.
First of all, I'm fucking exhausted. I cannot get to sleep before 1am to save my life. And it's just not enough sleep. I want to be in bed asleep by 10:30 every single night. And that's a laughable goal in this damn town, where life doesn't begin to die down until it's no longer p.m. but a.m.
Anyway, all's well on this end. I began a new WW week yesterday - stayed exactly the same as far as weigh-in goes. I didn't eat too terribly last week but I also didn't get but one official workout in. There were plenty of other "active" days, packing my room up, lifting boxes, walking far to get to the water front for fireworks, etc. But I just didn't have the time for anything more official than the one gym workout last Wednesday. The week prior, though, I was an exercise rock star, so it all evens out.
I started my "new" week yesterday on a good foot. I ate well, made good choices, didn't over do it on the snacking in the evening, and got in a nice (hard as hell) run and some stretching and pilates afterward. The run was pretty painful at first, after a week of no exercise. It was humid and I was sore from moving and from cleaning the new apartment for the few days prior. But I eventually got into SOMEwhat of a groove and was able to eke out 35 mins straight running. Not great, not awful. Even down to the last second, though, I could have easily died from how much I did NOT want to be running. Like most runners, I'm sure, I take a secret pleasure in that pain, though. Because it means the next run will be a little bit easier. It also means someday soon I'm due for an Easy Town run that I won't even notice is happening while it's happening. THOSE runs are the fucking BEST. Those are the runs where you get practically get to a place of nirvana.
Then I decided to squeeze in a lunchtime workout today - just light lifting. It was fine. I'm still tired. Zzzzz.
Looking forward to another good week. As I mentioned a few weeks back, I've been, on average, losing about a pound a month since I began my official recommittment on January 1. That means that I should be down to the weight I'd like to finally maintain by - AHH! I can't even think about it! ;) Nevermind. Forget I said that. The point is, I'm losing a pound a month, which seems like a ridiculous nothing but it's better than gaining a pound a month and I don't mind it at all.
The move, which happened this past weekend, was a success. We got it all done in one afternoon with the help of some trusty friends (to whom we're forever indebted) and now we're in the unpacking phase. It can be frustrating but I actually don't mind the little projects that I give myself to accomplish each night. We got the bedroom all done, which is looking gorgeous and so comfy and peaceful and serene. And we just did some majorly important work to the living room last night (or I did while Kevin worked on a video edit he's doing as a favor for our friend - he begged me to wait to work on the room until he could do it with me but I just couldn't be bothered - you know how it goes...i wanted to get it done!) and it's really shaping up in there too.
Kevin's apartment (or, our apartment now) is huge. Much bigger than any place I've ever lived in New York. And interestingly, now that all my stuff is in it and there's more furniture and we're arranging the furniture in a more feng shui (less bachelor pad) kind of a way the place actually looks BIGGER than before, if that's possible. It's nice. Some friends have given us some good suggestions on how to arrange the space and we've tried a few variations ourselves and I think we've landed on something good.
The kitchen, of course, will be the last thing we complete. All the extra boxes, bags, and random crap we've collected over the last week or two of preparing for and executing this move have ended up in the kitchen. So we'll tackle that once we're settled into the other rooms. But we've still been spending plenty of time preparing food at home, which is of course my dream come true. I already notice that I'm spending less money and making healthier food choices than I've been for a while now. It's really great. Plus we've been doing all our shopping at Trader Joe's so I feel good about the stuff we're consuming.
We move my cat in tomorrow night. I'm really looking forward to it. Floyd, my cat, is my favorite little guy. He's a total jerk and a pain in the ass of a cat and most people find him to be a handful, which he is, but I adore him. I've had him since he was 8 weeks old (and picked him out of his batch of brothers when he was 5 weeks old) and I'm crazy about him. We've been through a lot together, this cat and I, so not having him with me at the new place just feels wrong. It doesn't feel like home to me until he's there...knocking shit over and generally causing strife.
We have no idea how Kevin's cat, Chawser, is going to respond to meeting Floyd. Chawser is a particularly finnicky, skittish little guy. He's a REAL sweetheart, so loving and cuddly when he feels comfortable. But he can also be a big scaredy cat, jumping and fleeing at the slightest sound. So they are VERY different cats. And they will have to learn to get along. It could be great, it could be terrible, it could be anything in between. Like life, right? So we'll see. I'll just be glad to get it over with.
We're going to try to spend most of the weekend at the apartment so we can help the cats adjust to their new reality. Although I'd LOVE some great weather so I can take a few jogs through the park. It's been hot, muggy, and occassionally rainy here lately. Every day lately seems to have a "chance of thunderstorms." Fuck that.
Material things aside, living with Kevin is pretty enjoyable so far. We've spent almost every night together for the last year plus anyway so it's not SO different from before. Except now we have to split the cost of hand soap and I can't just buy rugs willy-nilly without making sure he likes them first. (But I buy them anyway and just keep the receipt. You can't stop a girl with a cart and a debit card at Target.) It is really nice to be able to build this space together though. We love spending time together and I love the idea of being able to do our own separate things and just sharing the same apartment.
I won't say I'm not scared. Living with a boyfriend in this official way is very new to me. And it tips its hat toward major life committments. Which can be a bit overwhelming. We're taking it day by day. And luckily we really get along, enjoy each other's company, and are good partners in getting things accomplished. But I would be lying if I didn't mention that the entire adjustment - not just living with Kevin for the first time and all that that does or doesn't imply, but also moving away from my home of the last 4 years (the place I've lived the longest at since I moved to NYC ten years ago), changing neighborhoods, giving up an important piece of my "single" life, leaving Daniel (old roommate), and going from a dingy basement apartment to a big home that is half mine to clean, care for, and enjoy - is just that. An adjustment.
I've always thought couples who live together are boring. There. I said it. So...now that I am one. Well. Gotta find ways to keep it interesting!
That's it for now. Check back next week when I deconstruct our sex life.
I'm kidding of course. He'd kill me.
First of all, I'm fucking exhausted. I cannot get to sleep before 1am to save my life. And it's just not enough sleep. I want to be in bed asleep by 10:30 every single night. And that's a laughable goal in this damn town, where life doesn't begin to die down until it's no longer p.m. but a.m.
Anyway, all's well on this end. I began a new WW week yesterday - stayed exactly the same as far as weigh-in goes. I didn't eat too terribly last week but I also didn't get but one official workout in. There were plenty of other "active" days, packing my room up, lifting boxes, walking far to get to the water front for fireworks, etc. But I just didn't have the time for anything more official than the one gym workout last Wednesday. The week prior, though, I was an exercise rock star, so it all evens out.
I started my "new" week yesterday on a good foot. I ate well, made good choices, didn't over do it on the snacking in the evening, and got in a nice (hard as hell) run and some stretching and pilates afterward. The run was pretty painful at first, after a week of no exercise. It was humid and I was sore from moving and from cleaning the new apartment for the few days prior. But I eventually got into SOMEwhat of a groove and was able to eke out 35 mins straight running. Not great, not awful. Even down to the last second, though, I could have easily died from how much I did NOT want to be running. Like most runners, I'm sure, I take a secret pleasure in that pain, though. Because it means the next run will be a little bit easier. It also means someday soon I'm due for an Easy Town run that I won't even notice is happening while it's happening. THOSE runs are the fucking BEST. Those are the runs where you get practically get to a place of nirvana.
Then I decided to squeeze in a lunchtime workout today - just light lifting. It was fine. I'm still tired. Zzzzz.
Looking forward to another good week. As I mentioned a few weeks back, I've been, on average, losing about a pound a month since I began my official recommittment on January 1. That means that I should be down to the weight I'd like to finally maintain by - AHH! I can't even think about it! ;) Nevermind. Forget I said that. The point is, I'm losing a pound a month, which seems like a ridiculous nothing but it's better than gaining a pound a month and I don't mind it at all.
The move, which happened this past weekend, was a success. We got it all done in one afternoon with the help of some trusty friends (to whom we're forever indebted) and now we're in the unpacking phase. It can be frustrating but I actually don't mind the little projects that I give myself to accomplish each night. We got the bedroom all done, which is looking gorgeous and so comfy and peaceful and serene. And we just did some majorly important work to the living room last night (or I did while Kevin worked on a video edit he's doing as a favor for our friend - he begged me to wait to work on the room until he could do it with me but I just couldn't be bothered - you know how it goes...i wanted to get it done!) and it's really shaping up in there too.
Kevin's apartment (or, our apartment now) is huge. Much bigger than any place I've ever lived in New York. And interestingly, now that all my stuff is in it and there's more furniture and we're arranging the furniture in a more feng shui (less bachelor pad) kind of a way the place actually looks BIGGER than before, if that's possible. It's nice. Some friends have given us some good suggestions on how to arrange the space and we've tried a few variations ourselves and I think we've landed on something good.
The kitchen, of course, will be the last thing we complete. All the extra boxes, bags, and random crap we've collected over the last week or two of preparing for and executing this move have ended up in the kitchen. So we'll tackle that once we're settled into the other rooms. But we've still been spending plenty of time preparing food at home, which is of course my dream come true. I already notice that I'm spending less money and making healthier food choices than I've been for a while now. It's really great. Plus we've been doing all our shopping at Trader Joe's so I feel good about the stuff we're consuming.
We move my cat in tomorrow night. I'm really looking forward to it. Floyd, my cat, is my favorite little guy. He's a total jerk and a pain in the ass of a cat and most people find him to be a handful, which he is, but I adore him. I've had him since he was 8 weeks old (and picked him out of his batch of brothers when he was 5 weeks old) and I'm crazy about him. We've been through a lot together, this cat and I, so not having him with me at the new place just feels wrong. It doesn't feel like home to me until he's there...knocking shit over and generally causing strife.
We have no idea how Kevin's cat, Chawser, is going to respond to meeting Floyd. Chawser is a particularly finnicky, skittish little guy. He's a REAL sweetheart, so loving and cuddly when he feels comfortable. But he can also be a big scaredy cat, jumping and fleeing at the slightest sound. So they are VERY different cats. And they will have to learn to get along. It could be great, it could be terrible, it could be anything in between. Like life, right? So we'll see. I'll just be glad to get it over with.
We're going to try to spend most of the weekend at the apartment so we can help the cats adjust to their new reality. Although I'd LOVE some great weather so I can take a few jogs through the park. It's been hot, muggy, and occassionally rainy here lately. Every day lately seems to have a "chance of thunderstorms." Fuck that.
Material things aside, living with Kevin is pretty enjoyable so far. We've spent almost every night together for the last year plus anyway so it's not SO different from before. Except now we have to split the cost of hand soap and I can't just buy rugs willy-nilly without making sure he likes them first. (But I buy them anyway and just keep the receipt. You can't stop a girl with a cart and a debit card at Target.) It is really nice to be able to build this space together though. We love spending time together and I love the idea of being able to do our own separate things and just sharing the same apartment.
I won't say I'm not scared. Living with a boyfriend in this official way is very new to me. And it tips its hat toward major life committments. Which can be a bit overwhelming. We're taking it day by day. And luckily we really get along, enjoy each other's company, and are good partners in getting things accomplished. But I would be lying if I didn't mention that the entire adjustment - not just living with Kevin for the first time and all that that does or doesn't imply, but also moving away from my home of the last 4 years (the place I've lived the longest at since I moved to NYC ten years ago), changing neighborhoods, giving up an important piece of my "single" life, leaving Daniel (old roommate), and going from a dingy basement apartment to a big home that is half mine to clean, care for, and enjoy - is just that. An adjustment.
I've always thought couples who live together are boring. There. I said it. So...now that I am one. Well. Gotta find ways to keep it interesting!
That's it for now. Check back next week when I deconstruct our sex life.
I'm kidding of course. He'd kill me.
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
I'm working with a headache and a bad attitude this morning.
Sometimes work really gets to me. And it's never the acutal tasks - it's the people. I just started to write a few sentences where I bitched and vented about the specificities of these people, but I deleted them. It's not really worth it, is it? They do things that annoy me, they have personality traits that I don't care for, and we work together. So we're all bound to get a little sick and tired of each other's shit. Simple. (But if the phone rang and I answered it and I didn't say it was for you and I took a message and hung up the phone and never said it was for you, why are you asking me "Was that for me?" NOPE! IT WASN'T! MAYBE IF YOU DIDN'T INVITE YOUR 20 CLOSEST FRIENDS TO CALL HERE THREE TIMES A DAY TO CHIT CHAT YOU WOULDN'T WORRY THAT THAT CALL WAS JUST FOR YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.) (Among other annoying-as-fuck crap.)
Ahem.
There's also a cookie on the counter over there from yesterday afternoon that I'm this close to stress eating. But I won't. Because I know it will just serve to make matters worse five minutes from now when I want eleven more cookies. But oh good god the bliss it would be for the 8 seconds of chewing...let's just imagine that. Mmmmm. (Update: Ate the cookie. It was delicious.)
So. Aren't I a delight this morning? Wish I knew what it was. Or, wish I didn't have so many ideas about what it might be.
I started packing last night. It was certainly weird. I started packing up all my shit. I told Daniel last night that I can't tell if there's either not that much stuff or a whole lot of stuff. You never know until you're deep into it and can't find another box to fit this whole drawer of crap you just unearthed but had forgotten existed. Luckily I'm feeling merciless about chucking stuff. I got rid of a bunch of clothes that I never wear but have bizzarely insisted on hanging onto for years. And some books of the same nature.
I'm definitely right in the thick of this move and all the emotions that go along with it. The cat's all up in arms too.
We went to the vet last night for a check up and he was PISSED about getting into that cat carrier. He was really very nice about it at first - Nope. Not going in there lady. Do your damndest, but it's not happening. It was like a cartoon, always one paw clinging to the edge. He's so strong, this cat. Then, when I'd shoved too hard one too many times he was done being nice about it and clawed my arms. He'd had enough. Then I yelled in his face. Feel really guilty about that. I was covered in black cat hair - I think he was shedding at rapid rates during the whole stressful experience. I finally just summoned up all my courage and shoved that little fucker into the carrier. I knew I was hurting him but I didn't have a choice. Whew. We successfully got to the vet, had our appointment, and got back home. (The vet didn't have any easier of a time getting him back into the carrier but I was just glad it wasn't me doing it again. Poor kitten.)
Not soon after we got home did all the packing and rearranging of life-as-he-knows-it begin. So I think he's still a little confused. And naturally I had this crazy dream where I saw another cat chase him down the street and attack him and I went all postal-kitty-mommy on this other cat. It was wild.
So our lives are changing and it's scary. At least we've got each other. ;)
I've gotten all my books and clothes packed, with the exception of a few small pieces. There was so much dust, my allergies are through the roof today.
When I moved out of my last apartment into this apartment I was very upset to be moving. I loved my old apartment. It was huge and I lived there alone and it was a wonderful experience. I only lived there for about 9 months but they were wonderful months. I decided to leave that place to move in with Daniel, just a few houses down on the same block, to save money. And I know I spent some time crying over it. Moving into this smaller, darker, smellier place with a BOY was the opposite of what I wanted for my life. But it was cheap. And it was only going to be for 4 months. Almost 4 years later, I'm finally moving out.
The day I moved into Dan's, Kevin was just my friend. We'd been friends for a few years and we were becoming better friends all the while. He lived a few blocks away and came over that day to help us move. I found out later that afternoon that he'd just broken up with his long-term girlfriend that morning. She was also my friend. They'd been together for three years, but she had just moved to Texas a few months earlier. They were going to try to make it work long distance but it couldn't and they broke up the morning that he came to help me move in. I got a voicemail from her about it while I was walking a box down the street to the new apartment. She didn't know he was helping us move and I didn't have the heart to tell her. I knew he just needed to get out of the house, but I wasn't sure she'd see it that way. It was an intense day all around.
And he and I subsequently spent the next four years becoming better friends than we'd ever been. I settled into Dan's apartment while Kevin moved from Astoria into Manhattan and then later in to Brooklyn. And now...after all that time...I'm finally moving out of Dan's apartment. To move in with Kevin. Because we're in love.
Wild.
You really never ever know where life is going to take you. I could not have imagined I'd be here if you hit me over the head with it. And if, four years ago, on the day I was moving into Daniel's someone told me that in 4 years I'd be moving back out because Kevin and I were in a serious relationship and moving in together I would have laughed hysterically and told you to go fuck yourself. ;)
You just never know.
Despite my stellar exercise from this past week, the scale is up today. And I just can't give a shit right now. I'm moving. The workouts for the next week will be sporadic and unfocused, I imagine. Every day is packed to the brim right now. So whatever. I'm gonna let it be what it will be and check back in a week when I have the mental space to give it. By that time I'll be fully positioned in my new kitchen, armed with healthy groceries and plenty of opportunity for healthy living.
Sometimes work really gets to me. And it's never the acutal tasks - it's the people. I just started to write a few sentences where I bitched and vented about the specificities of these people, but I deleted them. It's not really worth it, is it? They do things that annoy me, they have personality traits that I don't care for, and we work together. So we're all bound to get a little sick and tired of each other's shit. Simple. (But if the phone rang and I answered it and I didn't say it was for you and I took a message and hung up the phone and never said it was for you, why are you asking me "Was that for me?" NOPE! IT WASN'T! MAYBE IF YOU DIDN'T INVITE YOUR 20 CLOSEST FRIENDS TO CALL HERE THREE TIMES A DAY TO CHIT CHAT YOU WOULDN'T WORRY THAT THAT CALL WAS JUST FOR YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.) (Among other annoying-as-fuck crap.)
Ahem.
There's also a cookie on the counter over there from yesterday afternoon that I'm this close to stress eating. But I won't. Because I know it will just serve to make matters worse five minutes from now when I want eleven more cookies. But oh good god the bliss it would be for the 8 seconds of chewing...let's just imagine that. Mmmmm. (Update: Ate the cookie. It was delicious.)
So. Aren't I a delight this morning? Wish I knew what it was. Or, wish I didn't have so many ideas about what it might be.
I started packing last night. It was certainly weird. I started packing up all my shit. I told Daniel last night that I can't tell if there's either not that much stuff or a whole lot of stuff. You never know until you're deep into it and can't find another box to fit this whole drawer of crap you just unearthed but had forgotten existed. Luckily I'm feeling merciless about chucking stuff. I got rid of a bunch of clothes that I never wear but have bizzarely insisted on hanging onto for years. And some books of the same nature.
I'm definitely right in the thick of this move and all the emotions that go along with it. The cat's all up in arms too.
We went to the vet last night for a check up and he was PISSED about getting into that cat carrier. He was really very nice about it at first - Nope. Not going in there lady. Do your damndest, but it's not happening. It was like a cartoon, always one paw clinging to the edge. He's so strong, this cat. Then, when I'd shoved too hard one too many times he was done being nice about it and clawed my arms. He'd had enough. Then I yelled in his face. Feel really guilty about that. I was covered in black cat hair - I think he was shedding at rapid rates during the whole stressful experience. I finally just summoned up all my courage and shoved that little fucker into the carrier. I knew I was hurting him but I didn't have a choice. Whew. We successfully got to the vet, had our appointment, and got back home. (The vet didn't have any easier of a time getting him back into the carrier but I was just glad it wasn't me doing it again. Poor kitten.)
Not soon after we got home did all the packing and rearranging of life-as-he-knows-it begin. So I think he's still a little confused. And naturally I had this crazy dream where I saw another cat chase him down the street and attack him and I went all postal-kitty-mommy on this other cat. It was wild.
So our lives are changing and it's scary. At least we've got each other. ;)
I've gotten all my books and clothes packed, with the exception of a few small pieces. There was so much dust, my allergies are through the roof today.
When I moved out of my last apartment into this apartment I was very upset to be moving. I loved my old apartment. It was huge and I lived there alone and it was a wonderful experience. I only lived there for about 9 months but they were wonderful months. I decided to leave that place to move in with Daniel, just a few houses down on the same block, to save money. And I know I spent some time crying over it. Moving into this smaller, darker, smellier place with a BOY was the opposite of what I wanted for my life. But it was cheap. And it was only going to be for 4 months. Almost 4 years later, I'm finally moving out.
The day I moved into Dan's, Kevin was just my friend. We'd been friends for a few years and we were becoming better friends all the while. He lived a few blocks away and came over that day to help us move. I found out later that afternoon that he'd just broken up with his long-term girlfriend that morning. She was also my friend. They'd been together for three years, but she had just moved to Texas a few months earlier. They were going to try to make it work long distance but it couldn't and they broke up the morning that he came to help me move in. I got a voicemail from her about it while I was walking a box down the street to the new apartment. She didn't know he was helping us move and I didn't have the heart to tell her. I knew he just needed to get out of the house, but I wasn't sure she'd see it that way. It was an intense day all around.
And he and I subsequently spent the next four years becoming better friends than we'd ever been. I settled into Dan's apartment while Kevin moved from Astoria into Manhattan and then later in to Brooklyn. And now...after all that time...I'm finally moving out of Dan's apartment. To move in with Kevin. Because we're in love.
Wild.
You really never ever know where life is going to take you. I could not have imagined I'd be here if you hit me over the head with it. And if, four years ago, on the day I was moving into Daniel's someone told me that in 4 years I'd be moving back out because Kevin and I were in a serious relationship and moving in together I would have laughed hysterically and told you to go fuck yourself. ;)
You just never know.
Despite my stellar exercise from this past week, the scale is up today. And I just can't give a shit right now. I'm moving. The workouts for the next week will be sporadic and unfocused, I imagine. Every day is packed to the brim right now. So whatever. I'm gonna let it be what it will be and check back in a week when I have the mental space to give it. By that time I'll be fully positioned in my new kitchen, armed with healthy groceries and plenty of opportunity for healthy living.
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