Day 24

What is so difficult about working out lately is the amount of time I have in a day.  Working a 4/10 schedule is awesome when you have 3 days to recuperate, but when you’re go-go-going it’s rough.  By Monday I’m exhausted and working out slips to the bottom of the list, right behind eating and sleeping.  I’m still getting in workouts 4 times a week, but I usually crunch them in at the last minute because of all the other things that are going on.

Last night I went with Wes to try on dresses (for a wedding this weekend, not my wedding) and felt awful about how I looked in about 95% of them.  It wasn’t just that stupid belly fat that I’ve been focusing on; it was the whole picture.  My arms and legs, even my ankles looked fat (to me).  And then I got all Woe is me! because there are just not enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do.  An hour lunch to work out equates to a 30-ish minute workout, which is hardly anything.  And after work I feel like there’s just enough time to make dinner, spend some quality time with Wes and then off to bed.  Sure there are morning workouts, but that means getting up at 3:30 am, which would cut out quality time with Wes at night because then there’s really only room for eating and sleeping.

I’m still doing well with food in that I’m listening to what my body has to say and not finishing even a 1/3 of my meals because I’m just not hungry any more.  I’m adding more fruits and vegetables to my snack list – apples!  carrots! – and staying away from the high-sugar high-calorie snacks (except for that Reese’s I had yesterday).

I’m trying to incorporate a healthy lifestyle into my life, which is proving difficult at this point.  We only have a couple of months left in Orange County and I’m determined to look at what has been working for me and what hasn’t and make some significant changes in our next location: work closer to home so I can ride my bike; work less hours/day and workout before work; make healthier dinners with fresh ingredients and lots of vegetables.

day 17

Exercise has still been sporadic.  I find myself saying, “I’ll take today off and just work out tomorrow instead.”  But when tomorrow comes I find it that much harder to get off the couch or out of bed and pull on that stupid sports bra to actually exercise.  I’m still getting in 4 days a week, but it’s a tug-of-war in my mind on whether or not today can be one of my days off.  I have to mentally go through the rest of the days of the week to see what’s what.

It’s sort of like my sick days (which are wrapped up in my PTO) – is today really worth skipping out on?  What if something better happens later in the week and I can’t do it because I have to go to the gym?

But I’m making progress.  After my weekend in Portland I was probably back to my beginning weight.  Yesterday I was down 1 1/2 pounds.  Nothing great, but a start.  Not only that, but I like the way I look a lot better than when this started.  It’s nowhere near where I want to be, but it’s a start.

The most important part of this discovery is that I don’t want to eat everything on my plate just because it’s delicious.  I’m eating slower and realizing that I’m full a lot sooner than I would be if I just shoved it in my mouth and hoped for the best.  The best part about this is that it’s flowing over to alcohol as well.  Usually I’m the person to suggest that second (or third or fourth) glass (or bottle), but lately I’m finding that I don’t want it.  And yes, this is a huge discovery.  Because even though I’ve always known that I don’t need food and drink in excess, I’ve always wanted it.  And I usually give into those wants by justifying it with a run the next day, which never fully makes up for it, of course, but I say it anyway.

I’ve been counting my calories lately.  Not in a very strict way at all because the point is not to starve myself at all.  The point is to get control over my body and my health.  So I’m tracking them in a very inaccurate manner to use as a guideline of what foods I’m eating.  To see where my strengths and weaknesses are.  It’s nice being able to look at a log of food and realizing that, Oh, hey, that’s where my belly fat is coming from. It’s nice to be able to see a bad habit as it’s happening, or at least pretty soon afterward.

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I just talked to Jessica this morning and we’re both frustrated by the lack of pounds we’re losing.  So far I’m only down 1 1/2 (as of Sunday).  She’s down five but has reached a plateau in just three weeks.  What we both agreed on though, is that we feel better.  Our clothes fit better and our energy is higher and we’re making better choices about food.  And that’s what I’m focusing on.  I know that neither of us (though Jess would like to convince herself otherwise) has enough weight to lose to make for dramatic Biggest Loser-style losses.  We just aren’t going to lose 7 pounds in one week.  But I know that if we keep this going then we’ll get to the point where we don’t cringe when looking at our thighs or stomachs.  And that’s what keeps me going on this.

Mountains and Mole Hills

The apartment furniture is still pushed to one side of our apartment while we wait (and wait.  and then wait some more) for property management to get someone – anyone – from pest control in to look at the termites that may still be chewing their way through the wood that holds up our living quarters.  The are dragging their feet, I suppose, is the most polite way to put it. How I put it, however is: they fucking suck and I can’t believe it’s taking them so goddamn long to have someone look at this – to take a fucking course of action other than sitting in their offices and hoping that we’ll just let it go.

So far I have stayed out of it because I inherited my mother’s anger issues (which made it easy for me to back into a tow hitch).  When I get mad I don’t see things rationally or calmly .  I can’t take the catch-more-bees-with-honey route.  I like stern talkings-to that may or may not end in yelling, depending how the conversation is going.  Wes likes to say that it’s my Latino heritage – the only thing other than a like of spicy foods that could be considered Latin in me.  I think it’s because I grew up with a mother who would routinely berate clerks at clothing stores for not being able to return items, per their return policy.  I try and temper it as much as I can,  and it usually only comes out when I’m very mad at something that deserves my anger (like our property management).

What it all means though is that I usually take a back seat when issues like this arise because, really, no one likes how I act – least of all me.  I try to step back and take a breath when I’m mad at something/someone because I know that in a day’s time I won’t be as upset and it’s not the end of the world.  I have also enlisted Wes to tell me when I’m acting like a huge bitch.  I don’t want to grow up getting mad over tiny things and taking it out on the people closest to me.  I don’t want to be a person who takes offense at little insignificant things, ruining my day and whoever happens to be around me.  I don’t want to be pouting at a party when I should be having fun.  Basically, I want to enjoy my life and stop worrying about all the little things that are going wrong because there’s always something that goes wrong and if I do that I’m going to grow old alone because no one wants to be around that person (seriously, look at my grandma).

Wow, so this started out as a rant on the state of our apartment and went in a completely different direction.  Let’s go with it.

I read an e-mail exchange a couple of weeks ago and I was appalled at how rude and insensitive I was acting.  But mostly I was amazed at how angry I was.  I shouldn’t be, of course.  I should know by now that I do have the capacity to get angry and to write people out of my life for not living up to whatever standards I have arbitrarily put out there.  But I feel like I have come a long way in the past four or five years to not make mountains out of mole hills.  I’ve become a lot more comfortable in who I am and who my friends are.  And I understand that life isn’t always about me and how I feel and what I want (no matter how awesome that would be).

I think Wes has been a big part of what has changed me.  Sharing your life with someone makes it impossible to be the center of attention.  My college friends and I were all so selfish.  We didn’t really care about each other as anything other than a prop in our lives.  Having someone who think you’re just as important as you think they are is something completely different.  It sounds disgusting, but Wes makes me a better person.  Suddenly I see myself through his eyes and my anger and despair over the small stuff is just not attractive.  Watching him do so many selfless things prompts me to be a nicer person for no other reason than it’s the right thing to do.

Yes, I still sometimes yell when I get angry.  And I still get angry about stupid things that aren’t worth my energy.  But I snap out of it a bit more quickly because there’s someone standing next to me telling me that it’s not the end of the world that I punched a hole in his bumper with a tow hitch; that termites in the couch are shitty, but they’re not the end of the world.  I’m quicker to bounce back now that I have someone to show me that everything will be okay.

Struggling

In ten days of trying to eat right and exercise regularly Jessica is down five pounds.  I am . . . the same.  I think part of that can be attributed to the five or six margaritas I had last Saturday night.  Or the 4 beers I had Friday night (but on the plus side, those four beers were consumed over a period of 7 hours.  So at least I wasn’t drunk enough to do anything stupid.  1 point for being able to drink responsibly; lose 2 points for not being able to eat responsibly when out of my zip code!).  Or all the food that surrounded me.  For every good decision I made this past weekend, it seemed there were three bad ones.  Oysters for dinner instead of the cream/mayonnaise-based dips and pastas?  Negated by the fact that I dipped said oysters in a vat of butter and then washed them down with beer.  The apple and yogurt I had for breakfast the next morning (instead of leftover cake)?  Negated by the numerous margaritas and bacon-wrapped beef that was dinner.

By the time I got home on Sunday I was tired and hungry and just wanted to sleep.  But I’d only worked out three days (laughable that I thought I would fit a run in while on such a whirlwind trip) so I had to hit the gym.  It was a weak workout.  And it should hardly count as workout, but it does.  And my body is screaming at me for making such awful decisions at the same time that my stomach is saying, “Mmmm.  Yes, more of that chocolate/bread/pizza/pasta right there.”

It’s a struggle is what I’m trying to say.

A struggle to make the gym a priority.  To make eating healthy a priority.  To make anything a priority, really.  They’re all struggles.  And mostly I’m the type of person who doesn’t like struggles.  I like things to come with just a bit of ease.  So this is not so much a struggle as it is A Struggle.

I’m back to the gym today after a couple of days to rest, ruin a bumper, find a repair shop and feel all around awful about things.  Perhaps exercise will help.  I did read that confidence is  elevated after a workout.  Mostly I just feel like What the hell?  I just worked out?  Why do I still look like this? I want my results to be instantaneous (like I said, I like a bit of ease), and they’re not.  So I just need to keep struggling along like the Little Engine that Could.

I think I can.  I think I can.  I think I can.

At Least I’ve Already Got the Ring

Just when I thought termites were the worst thing ever, Monday afternoon happened.  And, to be fair, what happened after work wasn’t as bad as termites, but it still fucking sucked.  And then this morning happened and my god, this is just a whirlwind three days of shit sucking.

In our apartment complex we have a driveway leading down to the carports.  It can tightly fit two cars, as long as no one is driving in the middle of the lane.  Which, of course, most people do.  So it’s always a stand off on who is going to move first.  Yesterday, I moved first.  But I was angry about it.

(Have I mentioned that I get angry when I’m driving?  I do.  Like really angry.  Like flashes of white and want to scream and just ram the vehicle into something.  I fucking hate to drive.  I miss San Francisco and its public transportation system because no matter how flawed it was it still got me between Point A and Point B and I didn’t have to drive.  I never got a ticket in a bus.  I never got pulled over in a bus.  I never got in an accident in a bus.  I could drink and still ride on the bus.  Hell, I could drink on the bus.  I miss public transportation and I swear that where ever this next transfer takes us I will be using public transportation and riding my bike as much as possible because cars are fucking expensive and so not worth it.)

But back to the story.  I’m angry that this driver can’t back up two feet to let me through and instead is forcing me into this ridiculous maneuver to let her out.  So I back up without thinking too much about it and as I’m switching from reverse to 1st gear I hear the beep from the rear bumper sensors telling me I’m getting close (but not too close) to something behind me.  And then, just like that, I heard a bump.  After surveying the area I think hit and realizing it looks ok – perhaps a scratch – I get out of the middle of the parking lot and park the car.  It’s when I get out of the car do I see what has really happened: one of the tow hitches on the truck I bumped has gone through our bumper.

That thing next to the hole? The back up sensor I was too pissed to pay attention to.

First thought: Wes is going to kill me.  Second thought: Holy shit this is going to be expensive.

Wes didn’t kill me and was surprisingly okay with it.  It’s not the end of the world or it can be fixed or some such variation of It’s okay.  This afternoon I’m leaving work early to get some estimates on replacing the entire bumper and hoping for the best.

I’m also counting down the days where I don’t spend so much time in the fucking car.

Those Wood Eating Bastards

Termites.  Motherfucking termites.  In the ceiling.  In the floor.  In the fucking couch.  Piles of sawdust on the floor and termite poop on my books.  Termite poop!

Listen, I know that this apartment complex we live in is not four-star living.  It’s a place in which we live right now.  And if we were staying in Southern California for much longer we most certainly would not still be here.  But it’s cheap.  So even though the paint is peeling on our door and the steps leading up to said door look like they might any day collapse, it’s fine.

What’s not fine?  Termites.  Termites are not fucking fine.  Termites living in a couch I’ve been sitting on are most certainly not okay.

Luckily Wes found them before they did too much damage (hopefully) to our furniture.  One couch that has been through so much already is the only thing we can tell that has been playing host to those little wood eating bastards.  What does property management do?  Spray some fucking poison and then caulk the holes, as if that’s going to end the onslaught of termites.  Did I mention they were in the ceiling and in the floor?  Yes, I don’t think that some pesticide and a shot of caulk is going to end this.  Who knows how many are lurking in the walls just waiting to take a bite of our Pottery Barn coffee table?

So yes, I’m so pissed.  So pissed that a property management could care so little about its tenants.  I’m sure this isn’t the first time they’ve heard about termites.  Just as I’m sure that peeling off paint and letting it blow away is a pollutant, but whatever, they do it anyway.

I’m looking forward to the day we move.  And then I’m looking forward to the day Wes gets his security deposit back.  And then I’m going to write one hell of a review on Yelp.  Now I understand why there was a guy setting up shop outside the leasing office telling people not to live here.  If he comes back I may be inclined to join him.

While we wait for the pest control company to come out (which Wes had to ask for after the maintenance manager took a quick look and decided, “Yeah.  No, that should take care of it.  We don’t need pest control.”) our living room is upended.  The couch taken apart, legs of it on the floor soaking in pesticide (which we’re quite certain can’t be good for the wood) and we’re searching the entire place for more sawdust and termite poop.  We’re also trying to figure out what to do with our couch?  Are there more termites hiding out in there?  Will we sit on it one day and have it just fall apart?  Will the property management do anything other than send a well-meaning but ultimately useless maintenance guy to appease us?

Step Away From the Popcorn

Yesterday I was feeling really good about this whole Get Healthy (for the love of god!) thing that Jessica and I are doing.  With only three days into I thought I can do this.  I am doing this.  I will rock this stupid thing.

And then, of course, something happened to throw me off my game.  Wes is getting a cold or allergies – not that the difference matters when he’s drinking cold medicine like it’s water (or milk in his case) and I’m rubbing him up with Vick’s before he goes to bed at 8:00.  So Meals go out the window in favor of soup and tea and all those healthy things to get one Not Sick.  Mostly I find eating healthy easy because we cook at home instead of going out and picking up a burrito, and the reason that this happens is because Wes has a little more self control in this arena (it should be noted that while he can get me away from Chipotle, Panda Express and the delicious Mexican “restaurant” down the street, he has no self control when it comes to cookies.  Relationships are all about balance.) and can steer me to the kitchen for something that at least isn’t full of . . . bad stuff.

Last night I had planned for salmon, asparagus and wild rice (and some spinach for me) but that all got pushed aside when Wes requested minestrone soup to hopefully cure what ails him.  All of the sudden I was craving Indian food.  Samosas and naan and chicken tikka masala and whatever that dish is with spinach (boy do I love spinach).  One thing led to another and then I was looking up Indian restaurants in our neighborhood and even though the only one close enough was one that I’d already tried before and deemed just okay, I suddenly had to have it.  Nothing else would satisfy my hunger.  I even told Wes that if he wanted soup I was ordering Indian food.  I’d been good all day and I deserved this.

Luckily traffic was awful and in the 50 minutes between work and picking Wes up I talked to my brother and talked myself out of ordering Indian food.  Oh, sure it would be delicious.  But I would order enough for two-three people to share and I would eat half (or more!) by myself since Wes does not like Indian food at all.  And while it would be so yummy while I was eating it I would just feel bad about it afterward, while I was calculating calories.

Yes, I know the point isn’t to deprive myself of things that I will eventually get back to eating.  The point, however, is having some fucking self-control when it comes to what goes in my mouth [insert joke here], and if I break on day three then the whole thing will just go down hill.  So I took a step back and decided to have to that frozen meal of Indian food from Trader Joe’s.  Actually, better than the restaurant I was going to order from.

The thing about eating (completely) healthy for me is this: I was a skinny kid.  I was a skinny high school student.  I was skinny through college.  And then, I wasn’t.  And not to say that I ever got fat – just a little flabby – but after you stop being that active kid, your whole body changes.  And when you’re not playing sports or riding your bike (because you can’t drive) or walking around campus or walking 10 miles at your job (waitress) then you can’t just drive to Jack in the Box at 10pm and expect that cheeseburger not to go straight to your belly fat.  You just can’t.  Sadly, it’s taken me a while to realize that.  Just because I exercise regularly (um, sometimes) does not mean that I can eat all the shitty food I want.

So here we are to day four and this is going to be the real challenge.  Because we only have one car, and Wes is sick and I have plans with a friend to night, I’m leaving work early and will not be working out at lunch.  And then I’ll be going to dinner and a movie and oh dear lord the possibilities for shitty food are motherfucking endless.  How can I get through this night without gaining another 5 pounds?  Well, first I’m going to pick a restaurant where you can look at their nutritional information and focus on what on there is good.

And after that I’m going to spend all day reminding myself that just because I’m at a movie does not mean I need popcorn.  No, really, I don’t need it.

Stay Focused

The official start of Lose The Weight was set at Monday, but since I knew that I wouldn’t get to a scale during the week, I decided to start on Sunday.  The stats weren’t great, but they weren’t awful either (well, I mean, I don’t think they were awful – I don’t know how they stack up to averages).  I do have some work to do to get to the body I’m comfortable with, but not an insane amount of work.

After weighing in and measuring I was all set to eat right and exercise.  But then brunch happened.  And all those little things that I knew weren’t super healthy added up to about 1,000 calories and I was still hungry an hour later!  The day was shot after that with pizza and a chocolate lava cake that wasn’t even good.  The only upside to such an awesomely bad exercise and food day was how awful I felt afterward.  Lethargic and fat and completely unhealthy.  It made Monday’s meals a bit easier after eating so much junk food.

So Sunday night I started baking breakfast frittatas and packing my lunch and snacks so that I wouldn’t be tempted by the vending machines here at work.  And guess what?  It worked.  Smoothie and a frittata for breakfast, carrots for snacks, yogurt, granola bar, 100 calorie cheez-its, and pita bread with humus.  Small snacks throughout the day were much better than one huge meal with a few snacks.  At dinner I actually measured out my servings and piled the plate with vegetables.  It was so hard not to add three servings of the rice-a-roni to my plate, but in the end I didn’t miss out on anything.  I still had room for a little bit of ice cream with honey and strawberries.

Eating in moderation isn’t as difficult as I’ve always made it out to be.   Sure I’m only on Day 2 (officially), but the food is good and filling and I’m seriously ready to take this challenge on.

So much so that I might disclose the measurements and weight from Sunday.  Which will hopefully start to change soon.

Waist: 33″

Hips: 37″

Thighs: 22″

Chest: 35.5″

Arms: 11″

Weight: 137.5lbs

The goal weight is 120lbs, but there is room to change as the months go by.  Perhaps 120 isn’t a healthy weight for me anymore.  Getting toned and keeping up the healthy lifestyle is the ultimate goal.  A side goal: getting my waist measured without cringing.  There are pictures too, but I’m not prepared to post those just yet.  Perhaps when this is all over and I’m down in weight and up in muscle I’ll be more okay with showing those pictures.

For now I’m just focusing on exercising and eating right.  This weekend I’ll be out of town and that will be a huge challenge.  Weekends away are always where I go wrong – eating badly, drinking too much and not exercising.  I just need to remind myself that even though I’m out of town, calories and fat still count.  And to actually use my running gear instead of letting it sit in my suitcase.

Insomnia

It’s 12:24 and I honestly can’t remember the last time I was up this late.  Usually we are in bed by 9:00, mostly because we are so used to getting up before 5am that it’s difficult to sleep in, which means it’s difficult to justify staying up late when you know that your eyes are going to pop open at 7:30am.

And yet, here I am.  Watching a dvr’d episode of Without a Trace. Yes, I watch awful crime shows because I love that they are neatly wrapped up at the end of the hour.  Suspects always admit to the crime and give you a reason why!  Why can’t it happen like that in real life?  I hate watching true crime dramas because you can never be for sure about who did it – and you never find out why.  Sure we can all assume – with good cause – that Scott Peterson murdered his wife and unborn child, but until he admits to doing it and why then you’ll never know.  And that, I hate hate hate.

So, yeah.  Awake into Sunday morning.  Watching bad crime drama shows that I dvr when I think that Wes will be working long hours or on the weekend.  And boy are they bad.  I would like to watch each one of these shows with someone with the same career to see how wildly different they are.

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When we went to Portland a couple of weeks ago Wes decided that I needed golf clubs.  That it was such a great deal (and it really was) that we had to get them.  I haven’t seriously played golf since we moved out of Utah when I was eleven, so a good 16 years.  But now I find myself with the actual desire to golf.  Something about it seems . . . fun.  The first round that we played was just awful.  I hacked at those golf balls for a good 8 holes.  It wasn’t until the last hole that I started sort of getting the hang of it.  Still way over par, of course, but not as far as I had been (side note: did you know that after 15 strokes you just get an x as your score?).  Perhaps going straight to the course without practicing wasn’t the best idea because I afterwards I  was ready to throw them in the water hazards.  But I persevered.  And this morning Wes and I made it to the driving range where I actually hit some of those balls close to 150 yards.  Not great. But not awful either.  Perhaps lessons will help.

Losing the Love Handles

When we were in Portland a couple of weeks ago my parents and brother surprised us to join in our engagement brunch.  Between the three of them and Wes they had lost about 100 pounds in the past five-ish months.  While I have been stockpiling fat like I’m hibernating for the winter.  And there’s no winter in Southern California!

I’ve been trying to get in shape for the past couple of months after spending years in San Francisco getting my workout as I climbed the hills for the bus – on top of getting to the gym or fitting a run in.  Moving to Orange County cut nearly all of the extra workouts out of my daily routine.  I drive everywhere.  In short, I’ve put on a little extra layer of fat since moving here.  And I’ve been trying to get back to the gym regularly to get tone up.  Something keeps stopping me – some legitimate, some not – and for whatever reason I can’t seem to follow through on the exercise goals I’ve set.

Yesterday I spent the day with my best friend (and future Maid of Honor!), Jessica, and we both mentioned that we had some weight we really wanted to lose.  So we decided that we would work together to make it happen – push ourselves to get it done.  Perhaps what we’ve been lacking is a workout buddy.  So we made it official: a weight loss goal with some incentive built into it.  The first part goes from now until the end of December, where in we decide our weight goal and then work toward it.  After that, though, is when the real contest begins.  Where we work to keep it.  Because, really, isn’t that the hardest part?  I usually get to the point where I feel healthy and fit and then it all goes to hell because I starting convincing myself that I can skip the gym a couple of times and it will all be okay.  Let me tell: it is not all okay; it is much easier to gain the weight than it is to lose it.

This time I’m going to start out with a picture of what I look like now.  And look at it any time Chipotle seems like a good idea.  Or when the tv seems more inviting than the gym.

Behind it all is the wedding, of course.  I don’t want to be scrambling to lose those last five pounds a week before the wedding.  I want to be worrying about other things than love handles.