Who is that girl on the treadmill? Is that...? No way... YES! It's me!

I forgot to log my weight for the week. I normally weigh-in Tuesday night, but didn't since I had weighed myself on Monday. Apparently, I never entered this into my weight tracker though because it wasn't there... so instead I entered my weight as of today (confirmed both on the scale at the gym I joined... Hi! I joined a gym! More on this later... and on my home scale, which I'm happy to learn is accurate). I'm now at 209. According to the blog, I've lost 3 pounds. According to WW I've lost 6. I entered my start weight as 215 on WW since my weight usually fluctuated between 216-212 any given week, so I settled on 215, even though technically I was 212 that night. Regardless, this is my first week that I'm considering a victory since I've lost weight.

I have not been good on the eating front. I basically still eat whatever the hell I feel like instead of taking into account my points. My bad! I'm working on this though and am proud to say that today was a huge success. Maybe it was that I was eating more filling foods. Maybe it was that I worked out last night. I don't know, but today I ate well (only went 1 point over my daily allowed) and wasn't hungry and I didn't over eat! I consider that a NSV! (non scale victory)

Okay, for the gym. Jennifer told me about a Planet Fitness groupon and after a little research (read: asking Jen a bunch of questions), I decided to buy it. I now have a 2 month black pass to PF. There is one not far from me, so it's convenient! So far I've gone Wednesday night and tonight (Thursday night) and have worked out for about 45 minutes each night. I didn't want to push myself too hard in these first couple gym excursions since... holy hell I'm out of shape I don't want to hurt myself. I hadn't been to the gym since moving back to the bay, so this feels good. Also having Jennifer as a motivator/gym buddy helps a TON! In fact some co-workers were going out after work tonight to grab pizza and beer. Ordinarily I would have gone with, but no, not tonight. I declined because I had a gym date at 9 with Jen. :) Best decision I've made all week.

Like I tweeted earlier, "I hope this becomes a habit."

Day 1- check!

So, after my surge of motivation, I decided to buy the Wii Active. I set up my fitness profile last night and decided to start it today. It allows you to do individual work-outs or select the "30-day challenge" which is basically a 30-day structured workout plan (including rest days). I opted to start the 30-day challenge today because I didn't know what work-outs I would want to do at first. I chose the medium intensity because I wanted a good work out... and boy did I get one.

The exercises themselves were easy, but I miscalculated just how out of shape I am. Omg! I also apparently have weaker knees than I thought. During the first set of squats I thought I was going to seriously hurt my knees, but during the next set later on, I felt fine. I guess they just needed to get back into the swing of things. During the side lunges, I realized that I SUCK AT SIDE LUNGES! I swear the chick on screen kept telling me to "try again," "watch me," and "hold it a little longer" and here I am talking back to my tv going "I'm trying!" and "well, how about you not hold it as long?" I'll admit, I may have half-assed the second set of side lunges that we did... hee hee hee... I'll try harder later.

Sadly I had to sit down and cool down a little in the middle of the exercises. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, drank a little and turned the living room fan on before I got back into the program.

...

okay, I didn't want to admit it, but I really should hold myself accountable. There was 1 exercise left. It was a cool down run/walk.... but I just struggled through the exercise before because I was so hot/tired/just not feeling good... that I walked away from the TV. Yeah, I went and lied down on my bed with the fan on me for 10 minutes, then I went back in the living room and finished the "cool down" after my own personal cool down. I know that's not the proper way to do things, but I also know that if I'm going to work out on my own, I'm not going to push myself harder than I think I should. I seriously felt nauseous for a moment there and lying down helped. After the last run/walk, I felt good.

I feel good now, I feel like my thighs, primarily my left thigh will be a little sore tomorrow, but I feel good. I actually feel more energetic than I did earlier today (whether that's just because of the time of day it or or because of the work-out, I don't know). The program says I burned 169 calories during the work-outs. That doesn't sound like very much, but hey it's something, right?

I feel good about this 30-day workout and so far about the active in general. I'll be keeping up with this, but I think tomorrow I'll change it to a low intensity work out! :)

My cup is half full.

You know, I find that my happiness in life is slowly increasing. It was a shock to move back to the bay area away from all that's been familiar for 8 years. I put a strain on my life momentarily, but as things settle and I become more used to being back, I'm finding that I'm becoming happier and happier. This may have something to do with no longer working for LPL too. (I suspect it actually has a LOT to do with that.) However, with all this, I find that my life is feeling more and more empty. How is it that I can be "happy" and still feel "empty?"

What I mean by empty is that I'm finding that there are things I want to accomplish but either cannot right now or just plain don't. With all this free time I feel like "now is the time" to do these things and yet there are other constraints which keep me from accomplishing them. For example, with the lack of job comes the lack of income. I have enough saved up to comfortably live. I am by no means "just scraping by" and luckily I have no outstanding debt. But with the lack of income I am more reserved in my spending, which in turn means I have a very hard time convincing myself that the roughly $400 bill in air travel to see my friends Lizzy and Matt in Georgia is worth it.

With all this time, I should be volunteering with organizations and helping out and yet I keep myself from doing these things because when I do get a job, I'll probably have to cut back on that and so I don't want to make a commitment right now that I may or may not be able to stick with later. Of course I have thought, "well, some help now is better than no help ever," but I somehow always dismiss that.

For those reasons I feel empty. I feel like I'm not accomplishing things with my time right now. I should put forth a greater effort. I need better time management skills in my personal life. I can time manage just fine with work, I'm good at prioritizing work responsibilities, but when it comes to my personal life the gauge for what is most important is hard to distinguish. I feel like a sim whose social, fitness, philanthropy, and love bars are in the red and I don't know which one to work on first.... and yet somehow my happiness meter is in the green (probably yellow-green). It's a strange feeling.

...

I think the first thing I want to do is what I've always said I wanted to do. I want to work on my fitness. I see my friends and they're all thinner than I am. I don't compare myself to them, as everyone is different, but I'm not blind. I can see that I'm usually the largest one when I hang out with people. It's easier here, in the bay area, surrounded by people I know care about me (friends included) than it was in San Diego surrounded by tanned and toned beach bodies all the time. My goals seem easier to reach here, partially because of my "motivating" father (he means well even if I don't always take it well), and partially because my goals are more realistic. I still have the same ultimate "goal weight" but I think the time-frame in which I wish to accomplish such a task doesn't seem like it needs to be as rushed as it did before.

I said before that I have a subscription to Fitness magazine. I changed my address with them and finally got the next issue here, maybe that is where all this is coming from. Or maybe it's just that time of year where I get the motivation bug. I have the resources, the support, and for the moment I have the motivation. I want it to stick this time, I have a glimmer of hope that it just might.

Motion Traxx

So, now with all this time on my hands I've been trying to get into better eating (translation: not blowing money on fast-food) and exercising (omg! what? moi? exercise!? ... i know). Anyway, I have a subscription to fitness magazine (gift from a friend) and it has helped a lot with the motivation. My first free week I started the Couch to 5K regimine and while I was exhausted afterwards (yeah... I'm REALLY out of "cardio" shape, but quite strong) I felt good for doing it. I got side tracked quickly and then semi hurt my ankle in a freak bar slip (NOT a party foul! I literally slipped in someone else's spilled drink) and since my medical coverage is ending I wanted to stay off it since it felt a little sore. Anyway, now I'm back on it and will probably do more since as I said I have a lot of time on my hands (other than packing).

... wow... can you say side tracked??

I wanted to post this so I don't forget! In Fitness magazine I read a bit about a free website which posts work-out (more specifically: running/jogging) music. They're brand new and update every 2 weeks with a new track. They give you the BPM, beats per minute, of the music and tell you if you keep pace with the music the whole way through roughly how much you will have run and approximately how many calories you would have burned (they give a guideline too, like this is for a 140 pound person or 150 pound person or whatever) and the food equivalent of that. I think it's kind've interesting. The beats are all pretty easy to listen to and run with, so I enjoy that.

http://www.motiontraxx.com/

You can subscribe to it via podcast on iTunes and save to your iPod or you can download the songs to upload to another MP3 player. And again, it's FREE. :)

I got ready to go run the other day and was listening to one of the tracks. I enjoyed it, so I opened iTunes and subscirbed, downloaded the ones they have out right now and synced it to my iPod.... then I got sidetracked and realized I have a $15 iTunes gift card, so I redeemed that and downloaded some more music and synced my iPod ... next thing I know, I'm listening to music and got side-tracked online. Blah! Like I said... the exercise for me is a work in progress.

Religion, Lent, and Weight Loss

I don't go to church, I rarely read the bible, I pray only in dire situations, but I consider myself Catholic and I particpate in Lent. Strange, right? I have been known to have religious conversations with friends and the thought of demons and humanizing the devil freak me out. For instance, a friend of mine told me once about how he frequently has "dreams" of someone that looks just like him except with blonde hair (he as dark brown hair) staring over him menacingly and reaching out to him on occasion. He said he researched about it on the internet and supposedly it is his ... anti-angel? I don't know how to descirbe it, but it is basically the opposite of a guardian angel... instead it is something sent by Satan to tempt you. That freaked me out and for the longest time I refused to sleep over at this guy's house (he was just a friend, never anything more, completely platonic). Even typing that out names me anxious/nervous. Again... strange, right? ... I digress... the point of this post was to discuss my actions for Lent this year.

Lent 2009

I have been trying to lose weight for as long as I can remember (okay that was an exaggeration, but it has been a very long time). Some things work, some things don't. This year for lent I have decided to give up fast food burgers and fries and the all too-easy, too-good Taco Bell. It's just under a week into lent and I've been on track so-far (with the exception of forgetting that I shouldn't have red meat on fridays... oops). The only down-fall is that I feel like this isn't enough. This isn't much of a sacrifice as my resolution has loop-holes. So I was thinking of adding more to it... I think I should force myself to work-out during this time. Working out is my all-time weight-loss pitfall. I absolutely hate working out because I'm so ashamed of my body and my out-of-shapeness that it sadens me. I think back to when I was active and wouldn't get out of breath going up a flight of stairs and I go on a downward spiral thinking about how I got to this stage of my life.

I know what I need to do, but how do I get myself to do it? I hope that Lent is the answer, but I can't say for sure. I have the ideas and I know the reasons behind why I should do these things and what should motivate me to do them, but I lack something that actually makes me get up and do it... hmm..

wow, this post took a 180 degree turn, didn't it? haha It's 6am and I've been up since noon... that's my excuse. :-p

When Pigs Fly

I'm 25 years old. You'd think I'd have figured myself out by now. I never understood how the world expects an 18 year old to know what they want to do with their life. When I was 18, I had no clue. I went to college because it seemed like the next logical step. Okay, that's not entirely true, I've always had ideas, aspirations, goals on what I wanted to do with my life, but they fluttered all around my head never quite in reach. I used to want to be in the Secret Service, a police officer, a singer, an actress, a lighting designer or theatre electrician, an IRS auditor, and even a truck driver. Yeah... I've had quite a wide range of ideas, with none of them fully realized.

I'm hoping that this blog will help me realize some of these goals and/or dreams. I know I cannot become all the above professions, but to be able to work on something that I really enjoy will be a nice change. My giant, overbearing step 1 on my list of things to get done in life is: lose weight. I am unhappy with my current weight, as I find most women are, which I think leads me to be unhappy with other aspects of my life. What I'd really like to do in life is lose weight and start working in some community theatre groups in plays - onstage or behind the scenes. I would love to get into the entertainment industry. I used to want to be an actress, I still do sometimes, but I've only taken a couple of classes and have never been in any plays. I took a practicum class in college where we focused on set lighting. I loved it. It was so much fun to figure out the light plot, hang lights, focus for designers, even set the light board for a play. I once was the light board op for a play too... it was great! I want to get back to that sort've "love what I do" mentality.

My current job falls way off the mark of such a "love what you do" mentality. In fact, I may even venture to say that I hate being at my current job. The problem isn't so much what I actually do, as that is more or less easy, it's more of the envirmonment that I work in. I can handle getting yelled at by people all day to help them save money, but I can't handle my managers not backing me up, pushing their work back on me, not communicating well, and talking about killing animals at work (yes, it is a frequent topic at work. very disturbing). I want to love what I do and it would be a plus to be paid big bucks to do it. :)