Tag Archives: fat

A Lovely Mountain Day

6 Feb

I spent a chunk of my afternoon up on a mountain today and thoroughly enjoyed myself. 🙂 This may not seem odd but anyone who knows me knows I don’t like being outside during the winter, it’s cold, and there is snow and ice, and it’s cold! Yes, I know, I am a failure as a Canadian *rolls eyes* 😛

I decided to go snowshoeing today, yay! It was zero degrees Celsius, which is, um…gimme a sec, I gotta google…it’s 32F…so nice n warm and perfect for spending outside. 😀

We haven’t had a lot of snow this winter (yes, I’m in that part of Canada lol) so I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for the trails to get snowy enough to make it worth my while and decided today was a good day to try em out.

There was snow, and a decent amount of it, but none of it fresh and none of it even remotely powdery, which, if you snowshoe you know is the most fun type of snow to trek through. Todays snow was all packed down, partially icy because the snow keeps melting during the day then freezing overnight – vicious loop that.

For part of the trail my snowshoes looked liked this…

2014-02-06 14.59.31yup, that’s right, they were being carried not worn cause the snow was just that packed down that there was no point putting them on my feet, sigh. I felt like an idiot carrying them and was really wishing I’d left them in my suv but obviously I wasn’t going to go all the way back to my suv to put them in the trunk so in my hands they stayed.

Until…

2014-02-06 15.23.23

 

I finally got to put them on! Yay! 😀

And hey, don’t judge the pants! They are super warm, fit well and my friend sold them to me for a measly $60, I heart those pants!…even if in this pic they do make my legs look huuuuuge lol

snow...

snow…

Me...

Me…the most unattractive cold person ever, sigh.

more snow...

more snow…

omg, me without makeup, on the internet, ack!

omg, me without makeup, on the internet, ack!

Do you see the damage to my toque? The loose threads that make it look old and worn? Well, lemme tell ya the story of that damage. This toque is brand new, this is only the third time I have gotten to wear it and I take good care of my stuff. So how did it get to look like this? The cat. *glares at the fur ball* I came home from work and discovered my toque at the base of his scratching post, it normally hangs on a hook on the wall by my front door. So he got it off the hook, brought it through the kitchen, in to the living room, killed it, then dumped the carcass somewhere I was sure to find it. The sadist. I’m trying to figure out how to fix or hide the damage but don’t know how…so right now, if you are keeping score, it is Cat-1, Human-0.

I didn’t get to go all the way to the top of the mountain due to timing issues. I got up there a bit later then planned which would’ve been alright except I was going on a trail I haven’t gone on before and accidentally went on the wrong trail to start with, oops! In my defence, there are two trail entrances, fairly close to each other, the first trail entrance turned out to be the wrong trail but the other trail entrance is hidden from site when at the first trail entrance so I thought there was only one trail…does that make sense? lol

Anyways! I went on the first, incorrect trail, and fairly quickly thought I was gonna die. It was super icy, lots of rocks, not a lot of snow, steep decline the entire way and of course the rocks were covered in ice so every part that had some serious decline trekking to do left me feeling I was facing certain doom. I don’t do awesome on ice, thanks to my stupid knee, and I didn’t even have my hands free thanks to having to carry my snowshoes. The trail was seeming like one super bad idea. I didn’t get all that far in to it when I decided screw it and I turned back. I felt like a bit of a failure but figured better safe than sorry. Since I thought that was the path I was supposed to be using I was deciding how I was going to get my exercise for the day since snowshoeing obviously wasn’t going to work out but when I got back to the start of the trail I noticed some people seemingly pop out of nowhere on my left side who had snowshoes. Being the nosy person I am I went to investigate and found the real trail, yay! and phew! lol

The second, and correct trail was way better because (1) it had snow (2) it was meant for snowshoeing (3) it was uphill and (4) way less icy patches.

Oh, and can I say people who take part in outdoor winter sports, super friendly! Every person I passed on the trail (by passed I mean they were going the opposite direction as I not I was faster than them and scooting around them) said hi, or asked how I was doing, a couple people stopped and we chatted a bit. Messed up my timing (I was tracking my distance and speed) and also shortened the length of time I was active but I don’t mind. People look out for each other, and that’s nice. This one lady checked to see if I was going up the mountain alone, I said yes so she gave me a recap of what I was in for (she was on her way down), reassured me about how many other people she had seen, where there were some rough patches, stuff like that. Nice lady. 🙂 I notice the same thing when I am hiking in the summer, people say hi as you pass on the trail, sometimes stop and chat, things like that. Maybe it’s all that sunshine people are getting, makes them friendlier lol

 

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Freaking. Out.

4 Feb

I am freaking out about three different things right now, all completely different, all on different serious-ness levels, and all messing with me, arg!

The first is on a stupid level: I seem to be a bottomless pit today, constant hunger (except for one period of time earlier this evening that I will tell you about farther in to this post), I don’t want to be eating like a crazy person today, but it seems to be a choice between eat more than I think I should be eating or feel starved. Oh and I don’t mean a little nibble “starved” but as I type this my tummy is rumbling and I am at a level of hunger that is super uncomfortable. I am at this level of hunger even though I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner aaaaand a snack three hours or so after dinner. Maybe I should have eaten more protein today, that fills a person up longer, or…what? I don’t know…something…I feel I should have done something throughout the day to prevent this constant hunger buuuut there is only so much food I am willing to eat so I guess I just have to suck it up and deal with feeling hungry. sigh.

By Mr Crocker via Deviant Art

By Mr Crocker via deviantArt

The second things I’m freaking out about is on a fun level: I signed up for the BMO Run, the options were 8km, half marathon or full marathon…I chose the 8km which I know to most will seem like a ridiculously short distance and not even worthy of a person’s time but the most I’ve ever “run” was a 5km and I didn’t run the whole thing, both times I did the 5km I did it with a friend and each time we ended up walking a good chunk of it. I’m excited because I’ve been wanting to run some sort of marathon type thing for a while now but I know I wouldn’t be able to run a half marathon let alone a full marathon cause I am sooooo not a runner lol 8km seems perfect, long enough it will be something to work towards and require me to do some training so I don’t suck on the day but not so long it kills me or I feel like a failure or terrified about not being able to complete it. Despite picking the shortest distance I am still freaking out a bit because like I said, I am not a runner, I don’t know for sure that I can actually do this, what if I suck so badly I can’t finish? That would be mortifying! Plus, I signed up for it alone, which will suck cause I’ll have no one to share the fun of the day with but I really want to try my best for this and if I suck I don’t want to be able to say it was cause the person I was with wanted to walk (or some other type of excuse), how well I do will rest solely on my shoulders…but it won’t be as much fun without a friend to share it with.

8km run bmo

The third thing I am freaking out about is kinda serious but I’m hoping I’ve blown it out of proportion: The doctor’s office called about my x-ray and CT scan results. I forgot my phone at home today, (felt like I was missing a vital piece of my body all day! lol), when I got home I checked my messages and I had one from the doctor’s office saying the doc wanted me to come in today as soon as I could to discuss the CT scan, I was to call them and they would fit me in. Um, what? Don’t they only want you to go in when it is something bad?? So, freak out part one! I called, as soon as I said my name the receptionist knew why I was calling (I’m hoping they were having a quiet day, not that she knows something bad is up and it is so horrifying it burned my name in to her memory…), I told her I forgot my phone and didn’t get her message till then and sorry but there was no way I could get there before the office closed (it was 4:40pm and they close at 5pm). She put me on hold, comes back and says the doc can stay till 6pm if I can get in before then to which I responded I am in the middle of cooking a stir fry so can’t really leave it, could I please go tomorrow? Freak out part two! She’s willing to stay late to see me?? OMG! She puts me on hold again, then comes back and asks if I am feverish (what?? weird!), I said no, so she said ok then tomorrow would be fine. A tad random don’t ya think? So now I have an appointment tomorrow at 4…crap, at 4 something, I can’t believe I forgot the time of the appointment! I’ll have to call them tomorrow to confirm, only me! lol 😛 Anyways! I now have an appointment with the doc tomorrow to talk about my hip and the results of the CT scan and I am freaking out because in my world you only have to go in to discuss test results when it is bad news. 😦 I don’t wanna go. *pout* If I ignore it won’t it go away? And before you say “no it won’t” I already know that cause I am the one sitting here with hip pain which I keep trying to ignore and it keeps not going away, stupid pain. Oh, and to make it worse, the pain is now in both hips not just the right hip, what the hell is going on in there? Stupid hips. sigh.

Stupid hip bones! Grr! by Elcadia on deviantArt

Stupid hip bones! Grr! by Elcadia on deviantArt

I don’t have any idea what might be wrong, which means my brain has been flying off in 20 different directions coming up with all kinds of ridiculous things it could be, none of them are positive of course lol I was so freaked out that after I got off the phone and finished cooking my dinner I stared at it for a while cause I wasn’t hungry, the news actually messed with my appetite, nothing messes with my appetite! Least not to suppress it so ya know I’m worried when I don’t want to eat…I eventually did eat but only because I didn’t want to waste the food, not out of hunger…which is ironic considering I’ve been a bottomless pit all day…

So there we have it, I am in full freaking out mode, mostly about the doctor visit and her level of insistence at seeing me as soon as can be arranged. I keep thinking it’ll end up being nothing serious and this freaking out will be for nothing and I’ll be pissed if I get a wrinkle or white hair from this but then a little part of my brain starts with the “what if it isn’t a little thing” and I’m right back to freaking out.

I think I’ll try to concentrate on the BMO Run, least that is a fun freak out topic…

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Stir Fry Sunday: Turkey Bacon Makes Everything Better

3 Feb

Once again I didn’t make my Sunday stir fry on Sunday, but hey, I’m only one day late…again…oops! 😛

Sunday normally has me working the morning shift, 7am – 3pm but I swapped yesterday and worked 1pm – 9pm so that the girl who normally works the evening shift could be home in time for the superbowl. I prefer evenings so the swap worked well for me. 🙂 I had vaguely intended to make the stir fry for lunch on Sunday, or at least make it then take it to work to have for dinner while on my shift but this is me and that didn’t happen – too much pre-planning! lol

So instead I made my weekly stir fry Monday after work. 🙂

It is only week 3 and I was at a bit of a loss for what I wanted to put in it…a tad concerning since I am hoping to make a different stir fry every week but oh well, I’m sure I’ll keep managing to come up with variations for a little while longer *crosses fingers*

I opted for an all veg stir fry, protein schmotein right? 😉 I had the veggies in the pan and the water coming to a boil for the vermicelli noodles when I had inspiration, turkey bacon! Yup that’s right, I cooked two slices of turkey bacon, then cut it in to bite sized pieces and put that on top of the stir fry once it was in the bowl and ya know what? It was really good!

Turkey Bacon and Veg stir fry on vermicelli noodles

Turkey Bacon and Veg stir fry on vermicelli noodles

The noodles turned out better this time, yay! I let them stay in the boiling water longer and that seemed to help. Also, when I added them to the pan I pushed all the veggies to the side and didn’t try to mix the two, seemed to work. I used the sweet and sour sauce again, it is one of my faves, also, I’m not going to buy a new sauce every week or I’ll end up with a fridge full of condiments which is kinda crazy…well, crazy if it is all the same type of condiment lol  I tried not to use too much sauce and ended up not using enough, sigh. I put some in with the veggies when I was cooking them and then poured some on the noodles when I put them in the pan but I didn’t taste it all that much. I’ll have to use more next time…or use a protein that actually absorbs the sauce flavour *rolls eyes*

All in all I am happy with the results, it was a little plain tasting but that is easily fixable by using the right amount of sauce lol I was pleasantly surprised by how well the bacon topped the vegg and noodles, I guess that saying about bacon making everything better might be right, as long as it is turkey bacon! 😛

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Jillian Michaels Ripped In 30

1 Feb

The other week I bought the Ripped In 30 exercise dvd by Jillian Michaels. Not gonna lie, I bought it not knowing if I would actually try it, stupid I know lol. *rolls eyes*

Jillian Michaels Ripped In 30

Jillian Michaels Ripped In 30

I’m torn on my feelings for Jillian Michaels lol She is one of those people that I, in equal parts, want to meet and fear to the point if I saw her on the street I might run away lol 😛 When I watch her pushing someone on The Biggest Loser to the breaking point I always think (1) I have never had a workout that intense before and (2) I don’t think I’d survive a training session with her…I’m pretty sure I’d die…just sayin…

So this dvd, I know it is only a dvd but I thought, if it is anything like the Insanity workout dvds I won’t make it, just not gonna happen! My hope for this dvd was an intense workout that doesn’t have as much jumping as the Insanity workouts (so I could stop hitting the ceiling lol) and that pushed me but was also do-able.

The ’30’ in the title refers not just to the 30 day program but also to the length of time that is each workout, 30 minutes (or a bit less) for each workout and there are 4 different workouts so with each week your workout gets harder. Apparently with just 30 minutes a day 6 days a week I will get the body I want in 30 days…somehow I doubt this…cynical? Maybe. Realistic? I’d say so. 😉

This evening when I got home from work I decided to try it, sheer food guilt led me to my decision to work out, I ate pasta for dinner then had two shortbread cookies, sigh, and I wonder why I am fat?? *rolls eyes*

I cleared floor space, put on my work out gear and prepared to be yelled at a lot and feel like I wouldn’t be able to make it. I also was looking forward to that feeling of satisfaction I get after I have completed a good solid workout.

Welllll, it’s not that the workout wasn’t good, it just…well, wasn’t great? It was better than doing nothing, and some of the moves were good, but I didn’t feel like I was doing any kind of intense workout, I didn’t feel pushed, I didn’t feel exhausted by the end…shouldn’t I be feeling those things?

Part of it was because I only have one set of dumbbells, ten pounders, which admittedly aren’t huge but for some of the moves I was supposed to have smaller weights, like three or five pounds. I made the executive decision to use no weights for some of the moves because my ten pounders were too heavy, makes me sound like a wimp huh? I swear I’m not!…well, not completely lol Next time I will have some canned soup or beans or something near by and use those in lieu of small weights, random I s’pose but it’s what I have lol

She has two women working out with her, one to show a modified simpler form for the moves and one to show a more bad-ass form. I tended to land somewhere between the two, never needing the super simple form but not always doing the bad-ass version either. I am a bit of a dummy and didn’t realize the workout was only 30 minutes (I thought the 30 referred only to the length of time the entire program takes, the 30 days) so I kept thinking “don’t do the bad-ass moves, save energy to get you through the entire workout”. I think next time I will do the bad-ass moves since the workouts are only 30 minutes lol.

The bonus to the workouts being so short is I should have an easy enough time fitting them in to my daily routine! 🙂 I’m not anticipating getting ripped in 30 days, but a little slimmer wouldn’t hurt lol.

Her plan of attack is a good one, she goes in sets, 3 minutes of strength exercises, 2 minutes of cardio, 1 minute of abs. You do each set 2 times and then you never do those moves again during that particular workout. I like that she doesn’t have you doing the same things over and over and over cause that gets soooooo boring, especially if you use the dvd often – which I will be in this challenge!

There is also a meal plan that I can get online, I haven’t checked that out yet but will tomorrow. I’m not sure if I will follow it (since I haven’t read it yet) but knowing me I’ll take some of the recipes or meal ideas and ignore the rest lol. 😛 I find meal plans that come with exercise dvds usually have a lot of foods in them I don’t generally buy and it is too costly to stock up on what they say I need. shrug. I want to get in better shape but I’m on a budget and I have to take that in to consideration when planning meals. 😛

So yeah, I don’t have a finalized review of the Ripped In 30 since this evening was my first workout with it but I’m going to try to do as she says (workout 6 days a week using her dvd, and each week advance to the next workout so it gets harder) and maybe by the end I’ll be more impressed then I am right now. We shall see!

Oh, fyi, if you are looking to buy it Wal-Mart was selling it (and other of her workout dvds for $10) 🙂

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Mish-Mash

30 Jan

I (quite unintentionally!) have not written in a couple days and it is driving me nuts! lol Not like some huge life altering thing happened in the last couple days just that I feel weird for having not written…go fig! 😛

So here’s a random mish-mash of thoughts that went through my head lately…

My mail for the day, wtf??

My mail for the day, wtf??

The above shows everything I got in the mail on Monday. W.T.F?!?! All ads for fast food, two are for pizza places, one for Quizno’s (and before you try to say Quizno’s sells subs and is healthy go look at the nutritional information, you might as well be eating at McDonald’s!). Why-oh-why don’t I ever see flyers with coupons in my mailbox for places that sell legit healthy food? Hmm? The ad industry is obviously trying to keep us all fat, *rolls eyes* lol I would go out of my way to use a coupon at a Pita Pit but I’ve never seen a flyer/coupon for them ever...

Which leads me to…Why are all the drive-thru food places only places that sell bad-for-me-food? When I was having all that hip pain I ended up going through a fast food drive thru because I (1) had limited food at home, what I had required being able to stand long enough to prep and cook it and I couldn’t do that (2) had been in the hospital for over five plus hours, was on my home and was really hungry and (3) wasn’t able to bare the pain of getting out of my suv, hobbling around a grocery store and then maneuvering back in to my suv to drive home. The only option for food that I had was various fast food joints that had drive-thru. Subway drive-thru? Nope. (and yes I know they count as fast food but at least you have healthy options there) Pita Pit drive-thru? Nope. Hell, a Booster Juice drive-thru? Definitely nope. Is it because if you are eating somewhere healthy you are supposed to be energetic enough to get out of your car to get your food? That seems discriminatory against people with mobility issues…just sayin…:P

Early Valentine's Day Gift

Early Valentine’s Day Gift

A friend of mine gave me the above slow cooker as an early Valentine’s gift and I am super stoked to use it! I got it Sunday and have yet to take it out of the box cause well, to be honest I haven’t been cooking much on these days off and it seems slow cookers take a bit of fore-thought. Not like pulling out a frying pan, tossing some stuff in it and boom! food! Nooooo, the slow cooker needs me to know in advance what I want to put in it and then use it. I don’t know that I am capable of that! lol 😉 I really wanted to use it before I go to work Friday afternoon cause I’ll be seeing the friend that gave it to me and I wanted a story of the epic meal I made in it but uh, I don’t think that’s really gonna happen…shoot…I should really go google slow cooker recipes, there might still be time?

My agent sent out some sides (that means copy of a script), I am to work on a couple scenes for a specific character, really nail it, then go film it at the office (he has studio space), it is to send to casting agents so they can see what I can do using a more recent script. I’m really psyched about it cause (1) it gives me something to work on not just that I came up with but that has a purpose and (2) shows my agent is planning/plotting/thinking which I loooooove!

My little sister and I met with the trainer again yesterday, makes for two Wednesdays in a row. 🙂 We had physical assessment tests done, he is going to email us our results but I haven’t gotten an email yet. I don’t know that I want to know the results lol I mean, I know how many push-ups I was able to do, and how long I lasted in the cardio-endurance test, I know I scored perfect on balance (which if you know me is funny cause I am always off balance lol) and I know how I did on some of the other things but I don’t think I want to know my body fat %, or my weight, or just how low I scored on my core strength (suuuuper low I am sure!). I just want all that to stay unknown to me and then when I get retested in a couple months or so I want to be told I improved…but specific numbers? That knowledge will just be depressing I think…We had homework for the past week, the food journal, I handed it in but don’t know what he has made of it yet, eek! This week my homework is to keep track of what physical fitness stuff I do and tell him next Wednesday, I feel he’ll be disappointed if I say I did nothing so I’m gonna hafta make sure I get off my ass and do something…

Speaking of getting off ones ass, I had wanted to go running today and had the perfect route! I had to go to work this afternoon for a meeting and thought I’d park at a grocery store then run to work, attend the meeting, and run back to my suv, perfect right?! 🙂 It would have been about 8km total (that’s 5 miles I believe) but it was crap ass weather, pouring rain, and while I was ok with attending the meeting being sweaty I wasn’t ok with attending it looking like a drowned rat. 😦 So that didn’t happen. I am just not a do-stuff-in-the-rain kind of person…unless it is dragon boating but hey, that’s a water sport, I’m gonna get wet anyways lol

I managed to steam a spaghetti squash tonight for the first time ever! Soooo happy it worked! I had to call my mom for some help and she very nicely ensured I didn’t screw it up lol I paired the squash with some feta cheese and a red pepper antipasto, it was ok. I also had a cheese and broccoli stuffed chicken breast which was super yum. 🙂 I took a picture but it doesn’t look good at all so I’ll leave you to your imagination on this one lol. 😛

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Peering Over My Shoulder

24 Jan

Today is day two of my Food Journal and I am surprised at how much my food choices were affected by the knowledge someone was going to be reading (and judging!) my eating habits. Who’d of thunk it? lol

I wanted to eat pizza but didn’t because I didn’t want the trainer to read that I ate pizza, just like I didn’t eat a whole whack load of other things today because of the judgement that will be passed on my food choices.

It’s like Big Brother or George Orwell but in a smaller way. 😛

Normally I try to not let other peoples judgements of me affect my behaviour. I mean yeah ok, I know it does but I try to not let it affect me too too much. This time though, I am choosing to alter my behaviour because I know what I want to do is “bad” and having someone figuratively looking over my shoulder keeps me from indulging in the self -destructive behaviours that will do nothing good for me. It’s like having a little coach on my shoulder helping me to resist the foods I shouldn’t be eating. It’s so much easier to decide to not eat something when I know he will be reading my food journal on Wednesday.

Lately I’ve been eating foods I shouldn’t be, I’ve been eating foods in larger quantities than I should be and to top off those oh-so-lovely decisions I haven’t been exercising nearly as often as I should be. This has resulted in me feeling icky, slower than normal, fatter…even though I know my food choices are making me feel this way I can’t seem to stop my behaviour, or at least I wasn’t able to until today. Today though, when I thought about eating pizza, even though I wanted it, I kept thinking “nope cause he’ll read it”. Even though I know I shouldn’t be eating it, and normally that knowledge would be enough to stop me, lately knowing that isn’t enough, buuuut knowing someone else is going to know what I was eating was enough.

I don’t know why I am needing an outsider to help me have self-control over my food but I do and luckily for right now I have one, yay! 😀

Don’t think I managed to eat perfectly today, I didn’t, but I did manage to minimize the screw ups which is nice, lol. 🙂

I didn’t make it to the gym but I did go for a nice walk to the grocery store which I am going to pretend counts as exercise lol I used my Runtastic App to track the walk there, paused it while I was shopping then restarted it on the walk home. I’m cranky with myself because I forgot to restart it right away so the info is a bit wrong because it didn’t track the entire walk home. What I have from it says I walked 3.16km and it took me 1:07:17. It is a pathetic distance and if I was going running or hiking I’d put my nose in the air at such a short distance but hey, I can’t control where the store is lol and I’d like to point out that the walk home had me carrying two fairly heavy grocery bags. Not like I didn’t know I was going to be buying food but I didn’t take in to account how heavy some of the items would be, especially when they are stuffed in to two bags lol

The walk home got me thinking about weight I have already lost. I don’t know the exact weight of the two bags but I know they weighed enough my arms were hurting from carrying them, the straps were digging in to my hands and my breathing became a bit laboured. Not hugely laboured, if I’d been walking with someone I’d have still been able to talk but I was breathing heavier and faster than normal. I made sure to walk the same pace I normally walk, even with the addition of the bags, hoping to turn the walk in to a bit more of a work out.

When I started breathing heavier I started thinking about the extra weight I was carrying, how at one point, not all that long ago that extra weight wouldn’t have been weight in a bag but weight that was on my body. I realized that if I was doing that walk a couple years ago I might have been breathing heavily not because I was holding something but just because my body was that much larger, and more out of shape then it is now, and if walking that distance/elevation would have made me out of breath just from walking how much worse would it have been if I was carrying my groceries back home? It’s an unsettling thought…

It’s easy to forget how far I have come, how much I have changed (for the better), how 3-4 years ago I would have been so happy at the thought of being how I am now. Because now, all I think about is how much farther I have to go and how I never seem to be able to get there. I think about how much I still want to change and how I seem to be at a level that asks more of me than I am able to give. I know I won’t get results without putting in the work, I know I won’t reach my dreams without making an effort, I know I have to do more than I am doing now to get where I want to be but in the day-to-day act of living I seem to forget the larger far-reaching goal and I focus on the in-the-moment gratification.

how far

A small sacrifice now will make for a happier future me. I used to know that deep in my bones, I didn’t even have to remind myself when offered something tempting because it was one of the mantras I lived, but lately, sigh, lately I don’t think that automatically, I don’t even remind myself when having to make a choice, I just say “screw it” to having impulse control and eat whatever – or at least that is how it feels to me.

It’s important to remember how far I have come while not letting go of the lessons I have learned along the way and using that knowledge to keep me on the path to a healthier, fitter, happier me. I guess sometimes I just need a kick in the butt to remember! 😛

 

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A New Beginning?

23 Jan

I volunteer as a Big Sister, my little sister is 16 and we get along really well. The Big Sisters Organization sent us some gift certificates for a local gym that specializes in you working with a personal trainer. The gift certificates entitle us to an assessment, having a program made for us (individually I mean) and two training sessions. It’s a pretty sweet deal actually. 🙂

Today the lil sis an I went for our first consultation and oh wow were there a lot of questions lol The entire time was spent answering all types of questions about well, anything and everything concerning injuries, past and present physical activity levels, eating habits and more.

We were given homework, we each have to keep a food journal for a week and take it to the trainer when we see him next Wednesday so he can see what our eating habits are like and give us advice on them. He said there are two ways to go about the food journals, (1) eat what we think he wants us to eat and write that down, the trick there is that we have to be able to maintain those eating habits for longer than the week or (2) write down the truth. 😛

I have opted for writing down the truth and I’m almost looking forward to seeing the reaction he will have when he reads my eating habits lol Except for when I tracked my food for weight watchers and wrote that down on this blog waaaaay back in the beginning of this blog nobody has seen what I eat on a day to day basis. Which admittedly isn’t all that odd cause really, how often does somebody see or read about every morsel of food you put in to your mouth? 😉 I know my eating habits are all over the place and I’m actually looking forward to having an expert help me figure out what I should be doing food wise. Mildly nervous but still looking forward to it lol

Next week we will undergo physical fitness assessments, so we’ll have to do a bunch of different activities that will measure cardio, strength, flexibility and, hmm…I’m sure there is one more…nope, totally blanking on what that is, shrug, oh well. lol We will also have our body fat % figured out and we’ll each be given an exercise plan and taught how to do the various exercises in that plan. Then I guess we go back once per week for the next two weeks to actually work out with the trainer and after that I dunno what happens, I guess that is when we decide if we want to keep working with him and paying for his services our go our own way and hope we learned a lot.

I know my lil sis won’t be able to stay with him because even though I don’t know what he charges I know it’ll be a lot and she most likely won’t be able to afford it. Frankly, I can’t afford to work with a trainer on a regular basis either, which kinda sucks cause I really wish I could. I think knowing I was accountable to them, knowing I had to show up or lose the money I was paying for that session, knowing that someone was actually tracking my improvements or lack there of would help me to stay motivated on my lazy days, heck, on every day not just the lazy ones. If I like how the rest of our sessions with him go I might see about meeting with him once a month to keep me on track, depending on how much that would cost. But that decision is a while away so no need to really think about it yet! 🙂

I’m trying to look at this personal trainer experience as a new beginning in my weight loss/strength training world, I’m hoping what I will learn from him and knowing I will be seeing him again in a week and wanting to be slightly better than the last visit will help get me on track. I think once I am back in a routine, back on track so to speak, I will be able to maintain it, I usually can. I do so much better at exercising regularly during dragon boat season, I just need to get that drive back and have that drive push me in to the gym, or on to a hiking trail, or running around the neighbourhood lol Anything! *rolls eyes*

I keep trying to remember this

I keep trying to remember this

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A Little Down Lately

18 Jan

Do you ever have days where for absolutely no reason you can point to you are a bit down? I’ve been having days like that lately and when I have the energy to care it pisses me off, mostly I don’t have the energy to care though lol

This evening I am a bit down but I know why. I got booked in a non-union no-pay commercial that is filming tomorrow. The plan was I would rush after work to the set and film, yay! Even though I wouldn’t be getting paid it would be good exposure and I looooove being on set. Plus, it is my first official booking with my new agent and it seemed like a great sign for how the rest of the year would go, so soon in the year getting a booking? What a wicked start!

Well, sigh, I got an email that the time of the shoot has been changed to tomorrow at 11:30am, I can’t make it because I will be at my day job and it wasn’t enough notice for me to swap shifts. Ugh. Luckily, because it is a no-pay gig I won’t get in trouble for not being able to go anymore but there goes my exposure, double sigh.

Since I got the email with the change of time I’ve been down. On my drive back to my apartment after work this evening I was actively thinking about getting a milk shake, as if drinking a ridiculously high in calorie drink would somehow make me feel better. Taste good suuuuuure but do anything good for me long term? Nope. Short term though…well, that’s a different matter since some days a person just wants to eat/drink their feelings lol

Instead of buying a milkshake I made a drink at home that I love but rarely have because it isn’t all that great for me (though there are a lot worse drinks out there lol) but also because I like saving it as a treat.

these two added to warm milk = deliciousness

these two added to warm milk = deliciousness

You take milk, warm it on the stove, while it is heating up add a couple tablespoons of the almond powder that is in the pink tin, stir for a bit, pour in to a mug and sprinkle some nutmeg on top.

It’ll look like this…

Warm Almond Milk topped with Nutmeg

Warm Almond Milk topped with Nutmeg

If you are like me you have a mug you use for special comfort drinks (hot chocolate, warm almond milk with nutmeg…um, those are my only comfort drinks lol) which is why my drink is in that snazzy Star Trek mug that I got in Vegas. 🙂

I haven’t been working out a lot lately, read between the lines and that translates to “I haven’t been working out at all lately” 😦 Bad me! *shakes finger at self* Mostly because of the hip and a small part because of my being lazy lol I went for a walk last Wednesday and am embarrassed to admit that was my only form of activity for all of last week. Laaaaaaame!

So now I’m trying to decide which way the correlation goes, do I feel down and as a result haven’t been exercising or have I not been exercising and that has me feeling down…either way the result is I am not exercising. *rolls eyes* I had a day or two last week where if I had wanted to push the hip I probably could have done something active but didn’t go because (get this!) I felt fat! Yeah, you read that right…I had a day where I didn’t go to the gym because I felt too fat to go to the gym, I felt that everyone would be staring and judging me as I failed on the treadmill, as I tried to lift weights, as I looked ridiculous stretching…you get the idea…

I am well aware of the faults in this logic…I can’t get in shape if I am not exercising but I was feeling too down and fat to want to go exercise. This is not a situation I am used to and I’m not really sure how to get out of it…*confused face*

I’ve decided I’m fed up with myself. Hell, I am irritating myself. So tonight before I go to bed I am going to pack a bag with my work out stuff in it and hang it on the door knob to my front door, that way I can’t possibly forget it tomorrow when I leave for work. Then after work no matter what I am exercising! I may go to the gym, I may go for an outdoor run, I dunno, but I am damn sure I am gonna do something cause no way I’ll start feeling better about how I look if I just keep doing nothing.

get out of your own way

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Delayed Gratification

16 Jan

Online shopping teaches us a valuable lesson. It teaches us that sure when you press “purchase” you may get that excited feeling in your tummy because you just bought something awesome but that doesn’t mean you’ll get to enjoy that item right away, not like when you go shopping in a store.

Oh delayed gratification, how you taunt me!

Recently I bought boots, boots that I have been wanting for months and months. I patiently stalked the boots online, waiting until they were at a sale price I could afford and when they were reduced in price I pounced! I quickly put a pair of those boots in my online shopping cart, hit the checkout button and presto! I became the proud owner of a pair of kick ass boots. Wellll, an owner in name only since they didn’t just magically jump out of my computer screen onto my lap. Nope. They are in transit somewhere, sloooooowly making their way to me. Ok fine, not that slowly, I’m just impatient so the 3-5 business days it will take to get those boots feels like forever. I know I know, first world problems *rolls eyes*

2014-01-15 00.04.52

The other day, I bought a jacket, yup, I was online shopping again. I can vaguely justify this purchase because I have been trying since November to find a jacket and snow pants for snowshoeing and have been having miserable luck with it. I have basically stopped looking in the stores because the jackets they put on sale only seem to be in extra-small size and even then they cost $300 and up. How is that a sale price?? And how is it that everyone is ok with the cost of winter sports gear?? It’s ridiculous! So yeah, every week or so I check online for jackets and snow pants. I haven’t been too rushed because we’ve had a depressing lack of snow on the mountains this year so even if I had all my gear I wouldn’t be able to go snowshoeing yet. The lateness of the snow kinda worked in my favour that way. Well, guess who got snow? Yup, us! WooHoo! Rain in the city, snow in the mountains, finally! Only problem is now I wanna get my ass up to the mountain but can’t cause I don’t have the right clothes to go through the trails on my snowshoes without freezing, or coming out drenched lol.

I found a jacket, my size, on sale, and if I signed up for the email list from the company I’d get an additional discount on my purchase aaaand they were having a “spend x amount of money get free shipping” promotion. The sale price and the free shipping were both ending the next day so I felt mildly pressured to buy! buy! buy! Even though I hated the idea of buying a jacket online I hadn’t tried on it seemed this was going to be the only way I could get one so out came the credit card and boom! I increased my debt load. 😛

I was all excited the next day, thinking how I bought a new jacket blah blah blah but the excitement faded when I realized there was no real point in telling anyone about it since I couldn’t actually describe it except for what I read in the description and saw in the pictures. I can’t talk about how good it fits (hopefully it does!) or how I love the colour (it might not look the same in person) or how warm/waterproof/epic it is cause I haven’t actually had a face-to-jacket experience yet. It’s kinda driving me nuts lol

You know where else you have to cope with delayed gratification? Weight loss. Getting in shape. Changing to a healthy lifestyle. Building muscle. Whatever your plan is, whatever your final goal is, whatever you want to call it…they all teach us about delayed gratification cause duuuude, none of that stuff happens overnight, sadly. 😛

patience

You may change to healthy eating habits and follow them religiously, you may start a work out plan and never deviate from it, you may do or change any or all aspects of your life to achieve whatever changes to your body you want to achieve but the changes won’t happen overnight, they won’t even happen within a month, you just have to trust in what you are doing and wait. Wait for the changes to be visible in the mirror, visible to other people, visible to your critical judgement of your body.

That waiting can be hard. That waiting can invite doubt, skepticism, impatience, it can invite all kinds of things that are hard to battle. You may start to think you are doing something wrong, that you are failing because you don’t see changes yet, you may be tempted to go back to your old way of eating, your old way of not exercising, you may think what does it matter when all those changes you made to your lifestyle aren’t creating change to your body.

This is where patience comes in. The same patience I have to attempt to have so I don’t go nuts about the boots and jacket that are en route to me through the postal system is the same patience I have to try to hold on to when looking at my body and being upset I don’t see changes to it despite having made changes to my eating and/or exercising.

I have to attempt to be realistic about the process. I can’t expect the boots or jacket to show up on my doorstop the next day just like I can’t expect my body to be instantly slimmer and toned because I made changes to my diet and exercise regime last month. The changes that have begun are internal, I’m sure my innards are getting healthier even if my outer body isn’t showing much difference.

Something else I have to remember is to stop being so hard on myself when I don’t see those changes right away. I am impatient. I want to wake up tomorrow and look exactly how I want to look even though I know that is impossible, I’m sick of working at it, fighting for it, I want the results to be here already. When I look in the mirror and see the results aren’t here yet I start to call myself names, put myself down, think poorly of myself. I judge myself more harshly then anyone else ever could, I know all the right buttons to push, all the best mean comments to make, all the areas I am most sensitive about to criticize. I am my worst critic. I am my meanest judge. I am my biggest doubter.

And I have to stop that.

I have to trust that I will get there, that one day I will look in a mirror and like what I see, or at least not hate it. Just like I know the boots and jacket will eventually arrive I have to have faith that the changes I am working for will eventually be visible. Otherwise I’ll spend my whole adult life hating my body and that is just a waste of my time. 😛

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Driven To Eat

13 Jan

I am not a huge alcohol drinker. I’m not that person who has a glass of wine every evening, or who when out for dinner automatically orders a highball and I’m definitely not that person who when stressed/irritated makes the comment “I need a drink!”

I completely understand the urge to reach for something to take the edge off though. What do I reach for?

Chocolate! 😀

Yes, that’s right, when I am done dealing with a super stressful/annoying situation I think (though rarely say) “I need chocolate!” and heaven help me if there is any nearby *rolls eyes*

I used to reach for fast food, so I suppose reaching for chocolate is a bit of an improvement?…ok fine, I know it’s not but let me have my illusion k? 😉

Today I had to deal with this one resident who tests my patience like nobody else on the planet. She tests everybody’s patience so don’t go judging me and thinking I’m the only one who has an issue here lol She’s a nice lady, just…shrug, high maintenance? Something that should take less than 5 minutes to sort easily takes 30 minutes cause of how she does things. If it is quiet then it’s fine but today I had line ups at the desk, every phone line ringing and she was being super high maintenance, as in suuuuuuper high maintenance! As in omg I want to hit my head against a wall to get out of this situation because that would be less painful!

After I was done helping her I actually sat at my desk, head in my hands, exhausted from the ordeal. I also actively had the thought “I need chocolate. Desperately need chocolate.” Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending how you want to look at it) we had some lovely Purdy’s chocolates at work and oh boy did I snack! Three! I ate three amazingly delish chocolates, they are two layers of chocolate with a layer of mint in between, it was my first time having them and I can easily say they are ranking up there as a new fave. Mmm!

Mmm! Chocolate and mint, one of the best combos ev-ah!

Mmm! Chocolate and mint, one of the best combos ev-ah!

I know it isn’t good to have food as a release valve when stressed, just like it isn’t good to use food as a reward or a way to celebrate something or provide comfort for something going badly…and yet! lol

I don’t use food for any of those reasons as much as I used to, or at least I don’t think I do, but I can definitely remember a number of times when I used food for those reasons. I remember after a photo shoot a couple years ago, it ended around 9pm and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast so I was starving, as a way to celebrate an awesome shoot I bought pizza and dessert breadsticks on the way home from Panago. I justified the meal because (1) I hadn’t eaten in a freakish long time and (2) celebrating a great shoot. Ridiculous right? I’ve had other similar situations and it’s, sigh, it’s just a dumb way to use food. I try to get my thinking to change to “food is fuel” but it’s hard. So many people socialize around food, or celebrate around food, or mourn around food, food is used in so many situations that I guess it’s a natural progression to food becoming a source of comfort, a stress reliever, a way to celebrate.

Just because it is a natural progression doesn’t mean it isn’t stupid though. 😛

Speaking of stupid…I was supposed to go to the gym today after work. It was to be my first time back since being sick and then the hip injury. I had my whole workout plan figured out, was actually pretty psyched to be going back and what happened? I ended up napping when I got home, then taking forever to properly wake up, then taking forever to figure out what to make for dinner and making it and eating it, then I got wrapped up in watching the new episode of Law & Order SVU and then it became now and it is too late to go. Crap. I know it’s my fault I didn’t go, I should have gone right after work, or forced myself to get up from that nap, or something but I didn’t and now I have yet one more day under my belt of not hitting up the gym…and what makes it worse is that one more day under my belt involves three Purdy’s chocolates! *groan*

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