Tag Archives: stress

Weirdest Celebration Yet

31 May

So first the good news, heck, not good, try awesome, excellent, amazing, wonderous…or any other kick ass word you can think of lol. I (finally) got a job! wOOt! 😀 *happy dance*

You might be wondering why the hell I’m so happy to get a job when I’m an actress and this is a “day job” not a paid acting gig so let me explain. I am poor. lol. Easy enough. All actors have “day jobs” because acting is a freakish hard industry to break in to and you’ll starve to death before getting paid acting gigs if you’re not careful. Besides that, you are constantly taking classes, getting new headshots, new demo reels, getting copies of your headshots printed to take to auditions, having to maintain your look (hair, eyebrows, clothes, gym sessions), take classes to have new (or maintain) special skills (what, you think I was born with sword fighting skills? I had to take classes for that.) and then some. It’s crazy how much money you put in to acting when you have no idea if you’ll make it or not and that money could be going towards oh say, saving for a down payment on your own home, exotic vacations, laser eye surgery…the list is endless lol.  But if you truly love acting, and if you feel deep down that is what you are meant to be doing and you can’t envision your life as a non-actor, then you suck it up and get a day job…and then channel as much of that money as you can back in to your acting lol.

So I’ve been hunting for ages for a new day job. I got laid off about a year ago and was collecting EI from the government, that got me enough to survive and that’s about it. This job hunt has been going on a while and I did get a couple offers but for jobs that when I was offered the job, as soon as I got off the phone with the person, I either (1) had a panic attack at the idea of taking the job or (2) cried at the idea of taking the job…neither of which are good indicators of how happy I would be in that job. The jobs were office jobs, monday to friday 9-5 type of deals and they scared the crap outta me. Sure, they pay well, but is a decent pay cheque worth my soul? And before you go rolling your eyes and say I’m being overly dramatic let me point out that (1) I’m an actor, of course I’m dramatic and (2) jobs like that crush a person, you don’t notice at first but eventually you get so sucked in to the company, the steady pay cheque, the rut, that you can’t break out and before you know it you’ve wasted years there that you can never get back. I just couldn’t bring myself to say yes, those job offers made me feel backed in to a corner and that I had to run away as fast as I could or else give up my acting dream forever. I mean, come on, if I wanted to have a boring office job I could have stayed in AB and saved myself the cost of moving here, going to acting school, and making a life for myself in BC.

Luck was on my side though and I found a job I really wanted and turns out they really wanted me too, win-win! 😀 It’s not like it’s a crazy awesome sounding job, it’s a receptionist at a retirement community, but it’s perfect for me at this stage of the game. They pay awesome, I get full extended health benefits (I can finally go to a dentist again! lol), ten paid vacation days (not a lot but decent), my birthday is a paid day off once I’ve been there a year, they are super close to where I work (15 minute commute), there is profit sharing and the BEST part is they are willing to work around my acting and my dragon boating! Oh, and the people are super nice, the job sounds interesting enough I won’t be bored senseless but not so stressful I’ll wanna pull out my hair and when I was offered it I did a happy dance while still on the phone being offered the job – much better reaction then panic attacks or crying wouldn’t you say? 🙂

After I got off the phone and called my parents and facebooked and tweeted about getting the job I immediately thought about how to celebrate this happy day. You’re never gonna guess what I did! Did I…treat myself to a yummy desert? Did I…go out to dinner? Did I…indulge in some form of alcoholic drink? Did I…go hang out with friends? Nope, none of the above. I…went to the gym and had a kick ass workout then I came home, had my protein shake, my half a chicken breast and mixed veggie dinner and then chilled for the rest of the night. So, basically, I treated myself by being healthy…weird huh?

See, lately I’ve been stressing about stuff and have learned the true impact of emotional eating, eek. I’ve been veering super far off course from my eating plan lately and eating stuff I shouldn’t be for no reason other then I can, lame! So, when I got this awesome news instead of going and getting a cinnamon bun or some chocolate or whatever I decided to treat myself by being good to myself. I’m kinda hoping this will re-enforce to my brain and body that healthy eating is good and leaves me feeling good and unhealthy eating is bad and leaves me feeling bad…I’d give you feedback on if it’s working but the day after I woke up sick and am still sick today and when I’m sick it totally messes up my appetite so I’m not too sure yet…

My first day of training isn’t until June 12th so I have a bit more chillaxin time before entering the land of being a productive member of society lol. My shifts are great, Friday and Saturday I work 3p-9p, Sunday and Monday I work 7a-3p. Some people might be all ‘dude, you’re weekend is shot’ but I don’t care, I’d rather have the majority of Monday to Friday 9a-5p available so I can go to auditions – see? The priorities of the actor, lol. 🙂 and my dragon boat practices are Monday evenings so I’ll never have to miss.

Sure, this isn’t a forever kind of job, but that’s not what I was looking for, I was looking for a see-me-through-the-next-couple-years-while-I-make-a-name-for-myself-acting kind of job and for that this is perfect. 🙂

I’m glad I celebrated by going back to my eating plan and exercise plan that day, makes me feel good about the entire day, not just the getting-the-job part. Buuuuut the getting-the-job part was by far the best part of that day! lol 😀

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I’ve Been Down

8 Sep

So I’ve been a bit down in the dumps this week, which is part of the reason why I haven’t been posting – nobody wants to read unhappy posts right?

There is a saying about how you are never given more than you can handle…personally I think that’s one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Of course we at some points in our life have more things than we can handle, but since we don’t have an option about handling everything that’s on our plates we just have to suck it up and keep going. The only other option would be to, well, either die or go crazy…neither of which are good options. The first one kinda sucks cause then everything is over (even the good stuff) and the second will leave you branded for life in a very negative way…it does not pay in today’s society to be branded crazy in any way cause that’ll follow you for life.

So what do we do when we have too much to deal with but still have to keep going? Well, I think a lot of the time some things will slide a bit and maybe you’ll drop the ball on some of the smaller things, but eventually you are able to catch up and get a handle on what is still on your list.

My list of things I am dealing with was just too much and this week sucked cause of it. I’m dealing with the new medication that isn’t working well so I’ve been sick everyday, I still don’t have a new roomie so now I’m trying to find somewhere I can move to that I can actually afford but that isn’t happening cause I’m stupidly poor, I had to borrow money from my parents which I hate having to do (you’d think by now I’d be able to take care of myself but nooOOooo not me, sigh), I’m having side effects from the new medication so on top of being sick I’m dealing with a host of new and not so lovely symptoms, the agent I met with last week decided not to sign me so I still don’t have an agent and at this point I don’t even have one whose thinking about signing me, I’m supposed to be memorizing lines for an audition I have on saturday but I’m having trouble reading due to one of the side effects from my meds (I’m way nauseous and reading makes me feel even worse), and basically, I am stressed.

Nice list huh? I know there are people out there with worse lists than me, and I know I am being a whiny git but come on already! Like it wasn’t bad enough when I was stressing about not having an agent, not having any money, not having a roomie and not being able to find a place I can afford on my own now I get to add all these stupid medical problems on top of it? I was doing ok with my list of crap ass things I had to deal with until the medical stuff got piled on top, that was the final straw that took me from stressing-but-dealing-with-it-and-keeping-a-good-mood to stressing-and-can’t-deal-and-wanting-to-give-up girl. I don’t like being the give-up-girl but some days I just have nothing to give to the world. sigh.

I don’t know how people with chronic medical problems deal with life, as soon as my meds get screwed with and I’m as sick as I would be everyday if I didn’t have my meds even the smallest thing in life becomes too much to deal with. I can’t eat cause everything (literally everything) makes me sick, I can’t sleep cause lying down makes me sick, I’m exhausted, hungry, nauseous, light-headed, dizzy and short-tempered all cause my drug plan is making me try these other pills. I still have like 3 weeks of this ahead of me, 3 weeks! Boxing almost killed me yesterday and today, I thought I was gonna hafta run out of the room yesterday and throw up cause all the motion made my stomach even worse, arg! I refused to leave though, I don’t want to make concessions to my stomach more than I already have. But because of that I totally ended up under-eating yesterday cause when I got home I was so not able to eat. Today was a bit better, we weren’t going up and down so much in class this evening so when I got home I was able to eat but I’m still 5 points away from hitting my daily points and I honestly don’t know if I can eat anything else, my stomach just can’t handle the food.

Maybe this is why I was so much slimmer when I was younger, not cause I was always working or out with friends but because I didn’t eat enough cause my stomach wouldn’t let me…hmm…not the best diet plan in the world but I guess there are worse ways to go lol 😉

So despite all the bitching I have done in this post I am actually a bit better today, I’m getting more used to the sick feeling so I’m getting better at handling it. I’m hoping I’ll actually be able to sleep tonight cause of exercising yesterday and today – I’m hoping I wore myself out enough I won’t wake up cause I am feeling sick lol. I’m going to stop whining about not having an agent and go apply to the next wave of the ones I short listed (I applied to the ones that take electronic submissions first cause it wouldn’t cost me money to email them all my stuff, now I am applying to the agencies that take paper submissions only – the post office will soon be my best friend lol) and I am going to continue to hunt for a roomie and/or a new place to live that I can afford on my own.

It’s not the best list, cause except for the agent hunting, it’s fairly non-specific, but right now it’s the best I can do cause I gotta sign off and go memorize some lines!  🙂

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Well, I Was On A Roll…

28 Jul

Last week I kicked my own ass making sure I exercised lots and ate super great – it was a physically demanding week but I knew the exercise was a good thing. If you read my last post (or maybe it was the post before that…hmm…)I gained 3 pounds on the scale causing me to freak out.

I decided over the weekend that I’d push myself again this week and see if the scale became a better friend lol. Monday started off fine, I Dragon Boated like normal and ate nice n healthy. 🙂 Tuesday I filmed my demo reel (yah!) and had such a great time with it – I’ll write more about it farther down – but, towards the end of filming my throat started to really hurt and I realized I had a headache, well, whatev, I figured it’d go away and getting the scenes filmed was more important then my headache or sore throat. Yeah…well…by the time I got home my headache was feeling like it was going to be a migraine and my throat hurt so badly I could barely talk, erg. Not good.

I ended up going to bed at like 8pm (freakishly early for me!) with a fever, headache, sore throat, body aches and more. It was highly unpleasant, duh right? lol. I woke up around 10:30am wed and luckily my fever had broken and my body didn’t ache as much, an Advil helped with the headache but the sore throat remained. Sucky. I decided I was still too ill to go exercise, I was supposed to go to boxerfit that evening, but like the day before with my standard hike, I just wasn’t physically up to it and I hate when people go out and spread their sick germs so I try very hard to make sure I don’t do that. I tend to have high hopes about how quickly I will get better from things so I was all “oh for sure I’ll be fine for boxerfit on thursday” – sometimes I am so, well, dense. 😛

Today, Thursday, what a day! Oh man. Stress levels like you wouldn’t believe! Today is the day the email was set to go out to the top 44 agents in the city (hence my filming the demo reel), I had been warned that most agents, if they like the look of you, will contact you within 48hrs of seeing your demo reel and headshots because they want to snag you before someone else does so I was told to stay near my phone. Well, never have my cell and I been more connected lol. I wouldn’t even go to the next room without it just-in-case! 😛 Not like I was expecting a phone call the minute after the email went out but after a couple hours I started to get worried, by the end of business hours I was freaking out! Freaking!!! Did nobody like me? Did I suck? Did I have to start thinking of an alternate career path? How am I supposed to go back to AB next week and face people and explain no agents wanted me? Could I really just die of embarrassment? I checked my online portfolio and saw on the tracker that nobody had viewed my portfolio yet which was almost worse then lots of people seeing it and nobody contacting me…why weren’t people looking at it?

So, me being me, I emailed the tech guy who is in charge of editing the film and sending the emails and asked if he could please-oh-please check to make sure the email went out…his response was to apologize, he went to confirm the email went out and it didn’t, it was on some auto generated send thing and it didn’t auto generate send…stupid technology. Course, since I didn’t email him till end of business day there was no point in him sending it out today anymore and since this weekend is a long weekend there is no point in him sending it tomorrow cause most of the agents will most likely be enjoying an extra long long weekend and will have also taken the friday off sooooooooo it’s not getting sent out till next week.

Here I was stressing all day about the lack of phone calls, the only thing keeping me sane was my deep involvement in the fifth Harry Potter book (which, fyi, I just finished and am now starting on the sixth) and the stress was totally uncalled for cause no phone calls were ever gonna come. sigh. Good thing I don’t wrinkle or get white hair easily! 😛

Back to the exercising though, here it is thursday night and I have only exercised once, and that was way back on monday when I dragon boated. Crap. There goes my plan of kicking my own ass exercise wise again. hmm. I had so been hoping to get on track with that because once I get to AB I know any chances for exercising will rapidly disappear – happens everytime!

Hopefully I will feel well enough to exercise tomorrow and saturday, and well, since I know the email won’t be going out till next wednesday guess I won’t be feeling any stress about that till then…now if only I could get my appetite back all would be good…

 

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Towed or Stolen??

26 May

sonofamotherfuckingbitch! if that wasn’t warning enough this post will most likely be chock full of “colourful language” and is for the most part a rant.

It was an alright day at work – lunch was awesome, and not as many points as I expected so yah there! lol. The jerk was who is responsible for me being laid off was in the office still so I was stuck listening to him yammer his way through the day – he’s so annoying. How do such jerk wad dumbass people get the top jobs? *rolls eyes* I cleaned out my desk which was slightly depressing – I like to work in a fun environment so I have little knickknacks on my desk so I have things there I like to look at and little toys to play with. Well, I had to pack them all up today and now my desk is big and empty (except for the comp and phone), blah! Even though I had fun at lunch and liked getting to hang with my work friends it’s weird and uncomfie being there and kind of exhausting so by the end of the day all I could think was “I wanna go home”  the thought was in a whiny little kids voice in my head lol.

I got off the train, walked to where my suv is parked and…empty…as in my suv was not there…just gone, missing, Disappeared!! Stolen or towed? How the hell am I supposed to know? I didn’t even know who to call! I just stood there, with my head tilted to the right, blank look on my face, staring at where my suv was supposed to be…quietly plotting some unknown person’s demise…

I eventually called information and they put me through to the city impound number which had a messaging system kick in informing me they were closed – I had missed them by 4 minutes. Freakin awesome timing! I glowered my way through the bus ride home and stalked from the bus stop to my door front all the while wondering who I could kill or at least maim and having no release for all the pent up anger/concern/stress I was feeling. I mean really? Like the past 2 weeks haven’t been crap-fantastic enough? Now I get a missing vehicle?

The universe is kicking my ass. Grr.

I started googling and eventually found my suv in an impound lot that is open 24/7 so I waited till my laundry was at a good spot to leave it, called a cab and got my ass over to the impound lot Luckily it isn’t too far from me.

Buddy at the counter gives me my ticket which is the carbon copy so hard to read, I believe it says I broke bylaw 2849 No parking except in accordance to sign. It lies. I was so not breaking any stupid bylaws by where I was parking – I have been parking there on an almost daily basis for over 2 fucken years!!! 2 Years! Bastards. It’s pretty much the same group of people parking there daily and they took every vehicle, I saw most of them at the impound lot so I guess I was the first person to pick up their vehicle.

I had to pay $94.25 to get my suv back, almost $100 to reclaim something that shouldn’t have been taken! They couldn’t help me with the parking ticket because they are just the towing company so I have to go online and fill out a complaint form if I want to dispute the ticket, which of course I do but get this! If I pay before 14 days from the ticket being issued the fine is $100, if I pay after 35 days I have to pay $150 – I’m not sure what I pay between the 14th day and the 35th??? However, if I dispute the ticket and fail I then have to pay a $25 admin fee…so I could potentially be paying $175 – for something I didn’t do! Since the department that issued the ticket is the department deciding if I am right or not I highly doubt they will side in my favour, corrupt bastards, but damn straight I am gonna fight! Grr!

So shall we tally this? I had to pay:

$25 cab fare to get to the impound lot, $94.25 to get my suv out of the impound lot and will possibly have to pay up to $175 for the fine. F*&@#$)@*!&#@)$)&$^?^%!&!  I’m trying to be nice and not swear…

To top it off, they damaged my suv, scratched the paint on the passenger back corner all to shit! Guess I’m back to swearing…

Before I left the impound lot I walked around my suv just in case, I am so glad I did! The scratches are pretty bad. Grr. I went back in and asked what I do when they damaged my vehicle, I then got the joy of filling out a damages claim form that I got a copy of, and their copy will be given to the Damages Manager and I will hear back in 3-5 business days. Apparently the manager will look at some video and from that will see if the scratch is new or not (huh???) – oddly enough I don’t trust them (weird right? lol) so I went and took pictures of the damage, you can see the paint curled at the end of the scratch marks becasuse the scratches are so fresh. Bastards.

You are probably wondering how in the hell any of this relates to my healthy eating plan – it relates because it screwed it all to shit. sigh.

I ate well during the day, sure my points for lunch were slightly estimated but I feel confident they are right so I got to dinner time with 8 points left – plenty for the soup I was planning on eating but…yup, the big but! I was so pissed off when I got home (and depressed) while my soup was warming and I was googling to find my suv I ate 2 spoonfuls of nutella, *rolls eyes* oh yeah, and a cookie…I then ate my dinner, so soup with 2 crumpets that had honey on it –  that would of been ok, I could have survived that, actually, now that I do the math even with the nutella that would have been my 8 points, so, well, shit, why the fuck couldn’t I have just stayed there??? No wait! the cookie! I forgot to tally in the cookie, so 10 points meaning I would have used 2 flex points, so still not the end of the world right? Like I left it there! pfft.

After getting my suv back I was steaming over the cost and the damages and got turned around when driving home, I somehow ended up at Tim Horton’s where I got a small (made with milk not cream) iced cap flavoured with chocolate mint (I am not sure if the flavour shot adds points or not, I have never gotten one before) aaaaaand a toasted coconut donut. *hangs head in shame* Yes, that’s right, 2 donuts 2 days in a row…way to just round off a perfect day huh? Not only am I poorer and pissed off I am also getting fatter as I type due to what I ate today. Just grrrrreat.

As you can tell I am in a pissed off not thinking clearly mood and everything is horrible and end of the world unforgivable never gonna get better grr-ness. A small vaguely rational part of me knows things will (hopefully!) get better and that things could be a lot worse and that even if I go up on weigh in day this week I will do better next week and fix it but that doesn’t help me now, not when I am feeling down and moody and pissed and I have nothing to take any of these emotions out on. Man, I can’t wait for dragon boating tomorrow, I’m gonna be putting so much effort in to my rowing my muscles are gonna sing…well, probably cry if we’re being honest lol.

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We Are All Expendable

15 May

Never forget that you are expendable – easily replaced in many ways, hell, sometimes not even replaced just made obsolete. A sucky truth but a truth nontheless.

Normally I am much more upbeat on this blog (I think…) but the end of last week was highly stressed and this is the first I am getting to type since then so I’m channelling all that stress and negativity. sigh.

First part of my stress was my oldest nephew had surgery, he is 10 and not nearly old enough to have to be dealing with surgery in my opinion…course his first experience with surgery was when he was 7 months old so I guess he’s an old pro by now. He made it through just perfect so no worries there but for all of wednesday, well most of wednesday, I was freaking out in my head about what stage he was at, if he was ok, why hadn’t somebody called me with an update…all that kind of stuff. lol. I finally got the news he was out and in recovery and would be staying in overnight but mostly for observation not cause there were complications so yah!

Thursday, ah yes Thursday, still a tad stressed about the nephew, I was waiting to hear that he’d been discharged and how he handled the night – turns out he didn’t sleep well during the night, he had an upset tummy and sore throat, and for some reason the doc didn’t do rounds early enough or something so he didn’t get discharged, weird, but who knows what goes through doctor’s minds? *rolls eyes* I figured him staying overnight could only be good for his progress so hearing he wasn’t getting out for another night actually put me a bit at ease, lol, random huh?

But! That was not the end of the stress. I got a conference call from my boss in Toronto, due to budget cuts (stupid freakin economy and bad real estate market! arg!) my contract is not being renewed and guess who is out of a job as of May 27th?!?! Yup! Me! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Lemme tell ya, that call (which came through in the morning) did not set me up for a good rest of the day, I barely did any work the rest of the day cause ya know what, why the fuck should I? You’re gonna cut me cause you can’t manage to budget your department properly? Fine, I can’t stop that, but I can slow my work speed down sooooo much during my last two weeks that I get my own slight revenge. Let’s see how well your boss likes your productivity reports when I STOP working at peak efficiancy! RAWR!

phew, that rant felt good. teehee.

I only told my close friends at work about the deadline since I didn’t want to have to deal with the whole office knowing I was leaving in two weeks and me having to put a good face on for that length of time. I spent the rest of my work day writing up lists about why being laid off is a good thing, why I am ok with this, and how I will not panic because I am smart, capable, easily employable and will find a new job in no time at all…despite the economy and unemployment rates…

I really thought I was doing ok and handling the situation well, I went to a movie with KL that evening like planned and was all positive about it when telling her what happened…well…then things changed…

I gave her a ride home after the movie and after I dropped her off I stopped at a 7-11 and got 2 tocquitos, yum!, and a small slush – it actually wasn’t a splurge-eat-my-way-to-feeling-better-snack it was a I-didn’t-eat-dinner-and-was-so-hungry-I-was-about-to-be-sick-snack. lol. I believe tho that was the beginning of my downfall…I woke up friday when my alarm went off, didn’t feel like getting up and decided why should I get up? They obviously don’t care about me so why should I care about them? I called in sick.

Friday was spent sleeping, then eating a surprisingly healthy lunch, then dragon boating, then eating an uber unhealthy dinner…let’s see, I ate 3 ferrero rocher, 2 turkey wraps, a yogurt, 1/2 a box of Kraft Dinner, dessert breadsticks from Panago…oh, and a root beer. Yeah, calorie binge or what? or as KL would say “I ate my feelings”. huh, I just realized that read like all that was my dinner, that was what I ate all day. Can you imagine if I ate that all for dinner? I’d of burst! lol.

I made saturday a brilliant friggin day by stepping on the stupid scale, I gained over a pound – sorry, I don’t have my weight tracker beside me and for some reason (gee, I so wonder why? *rolls eyes*) I didn’t memorize the amount I gained. sigh. I know it was under 2lbs but over 1lb. Normally I’d wonder why my binge caused such a large weight gain when the rest of the week I was good points wise but stress will kill your weight loss – the more stress you feel the more your body not only doesn’t let you burn calories it holds onto them and actually makes you gain weight – pretty evil huh?

So now I am stressed about being unemployed as of the 27th of this month and I am stressed about gaining weight…vicious. sigh.

I managed to eat only my points saturday but went over today, the first 2 points I went over today were by accident, the second 2 points I went over by were because I neeeeeded chocolate and am still in enough of a funk I couldn’t bring myself to say no to, well, to myself. lol. I am hoping by tomorrow I will be farther out of my funk and better able to make smart choices about what I am eating…least I am starting to care about the choices I make so I figure that’s a start…

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Soooooooo Close!

31 Oct

We all know there are a variety of things out there that can hamper our weight loss journeys. Whether it is stress, temptations, weak will power, holidays…whatever, there are a lot of things that can get in our way. Some things we can control, like not over eating during the holidays, some things we can’t control as much, like having to deal with a sudden and stressful situation. That is what I had happen last week, I found out tuesday night that lay offs were happening at work and since then I had major stress. Stress I would get laid off, stress because one of my good friends got laid off, basically I had stress. lol.

I am not good at dealing with stress. Sure, with certain types of stressful situations I am fine but uber stressful? Nope, not my thing. In general, I have a very stress free existence. I don’t mean that I don’t have things in my life that cause stress, I just mean I don’t allow those things to stress me out. I just dismiss things, what’s that expressions…as a duck sheds water…that is how I am with stress. shrug. It rolls off my back – it’s a good way of being, I think, but it also means that when something out of my control pops up that is uber stressful my body freaks. sigh.

The freaking of this past week caused my body to have stomach pain, headaches, bad sleep and a host of other physical symptoms. Through all this I was most worried that the stress would cause me to not lose weight – as of last weekends weigh in day I was 0.8 pounds away from reaching 15 pounds lost and I really wanted to reach that 15 pounds! I wanted to reach it cause, hello? 15 pounds is awesome! and also cause it meant I had reached my first goal and would be allowed to purchase a full length mirror and go through my closet trying on all my clothes to see what fit and what was too large and basically having a fun clothes day. I have been slowly finding clothes in my closet that I can fit in to that 15 pounds ago I was too fat for, I am way excited to find even more of them but decided to make an event of it – hence the waiting till I reached 15 pounds lost. 🙂

Well, I was sorta right and sorta wrong about the stress causing me weigh in day problems. See, weigh in day is every Saturday at 2pm, this became the day and time cause (1) I wanted it on a weekend and (2) the first couple weeks I slept in way late and that was the time I was finally up and about so I have kept it that way ever since. The problem with having weigh in time so late in the day is that if I have anything to do on the saturday that causes me to get up earlier it screws up my weigh in. Anyone who weighs in weekly knows that stepping on that scale around the same time each week is vital.

So friday night I was out with a friend and we ended up eating dinner later then normal, that might have been ok except I also had to get up earlier then normal on the saturday cause I have a nannying job and no way would I get there in time if I wasn’t already up, dressed and fed by 2pm. When I stepped on that scale saturday I was nervous and felt I had every right to be, especially when the number popped up and I had gained 0.2 pounds, yup, you read that right, I gained. sigh. I wasn’t upset about it, which is kinda surprising, but I knew there was a good chance the scale would be mean that morning because of (1) all the stress, (2) later dinner friday and (3) early weigh in time saturday…it was a recipe for a bad number. lol.

I decided to not let it get to me, after all, what could I do about it? Sure, I was now a full freakin pound away from 15 pounds lost instead of 0.8 but sigh, you just gotta let these things go. However, I did decide to re-weigh myself on the sunday, just to see if the number changed…mostly cause I was curious if I had gained the 0.2 pounds because of the dinner, the early weigh in or the stress. I figured if it was the stress the number would still be about the same but if it was a combo of the other two factors maybe the number would be different. Well, woohoo! The number was different! *happy dance* I had lost 1 pound so now I am only 0.2 pounds away from that 15 pounds lost! I almost cheated and went and bought the mirror, I thought that I am soooo close and for sure I will lose that 0.2 this week so why not get it this weekend and have it all ready for use next weekend when going through the clothes in my closet? Right? Well, I decided not to. Cause I haven’t reached the 15 pounds so if I bought the mirror I would be cheating myself out of the celebration of buying it cause I had reached a goal. Does that make sense? Also, if I bought the mirror before I reached the 15 pounds then what happens with my next goal? K, sure, I haven’t actually set a second goal yet, lol, but say I set a goal so that when I lose 30 pounds I get to buy, I dunno, really rockin boots, well, if I pre-buy this goal then for the next goal it will be even easier to say “meh, I am only 5 pounds away from reaching the 30 pound mark, for sure I will reach it so I’ll go buy the boots now” – then not only am I cheating myself out of my prize again! I am cheating at an even earlier time…which you may say I won’t do but I probably would. By buying early now I am practically giving my future self permission to cheat. *rolls eyes* that may sound stupid but it’s how I work. Ya gotta set precedent ya know? …all those law classes at work I guess. lol.

So here I am, 0.2 pounds away from my 15 pounds lost mark and feeling uber happy about that. Even with all that stress last week I stuck to my points and did what I was supposed to and I guess it worked. Sure, I didn’t lose a lot but considering everything that was going on last week, I am happy I lost anything at all. Oh, and combine all that stress with me not exercising…not even once! Oy! Bad move me. lol. I am hopefully starting up a new exercise class tomorrow so I’ll let you know how that goes.

Today I ate:

3 pieces french toast = 7 points

3 tbls maple syrup = 2 points

3 tsp brown sugar = 1 point

2 pieces turkey bacon = 2 points

2 cups kettle corn = 1 1/4 point

1 Mr Noodle chicken flavour = 8 points

1 Quaker Crunch’ers = 2 points

That puts me at 23 1/4 points eaten for the day. Crap. I forgot to write down the turkey bacon in my tracking book and only now remembered it, so that messed up my points for today. I hate forgetting to put things down in my tracker cause that means when I am looking at getting a snack or something I think I have more points to play with then I do, grr.

I think I normally forget to write things down on the weekend cause I am more lax about things, ya know? I am not being controlled by the schedule at work or anything which makes it easier to just slack. Ah well, 1 1/4 points over isn’t gonna kill me, and ya know what? That french toast was sooooo worth it! Mmm! It’s the first time I have ever made french toast, I had to figure out what to do by memory and I am pleasantly surprised I figured it out. So yummy! 😀

Hopefully tomorrow the new work out class works out cause that’ll mean I have one guaranteed physical activity a week for I think it’s 6 weeks, then I can combine with that my 11 visit drop in pass for the local community centre, I can use the pass for the exercise room so I will try to pick one day a week I will for sure go and voila! back to two exercise days a week. 😀 Wish me luck!

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Cluck Cluck?

28 Oct

I had myself a “first” today…I cooked raw chicken. *shudder* I don’t handle raw meat or fish – it’s just not my thing. When I cook dead animal it is always frozen, this means I open the package it is in carefully so that I can then flip the meat or fish out in to the cooking dish without ever touching it…it cooks and voila! becomes something I don’t mind touching if needed. 😀 lol. I don’t care how weird it is, I don’t touch raw meat!

For dinner tonight I wanted to make home made pizza and I kept thinking I’d put some grilled chicken on it but in order to do that I needed to buy chicken and all the frozen chicken comes in such large portions its ridiculous – I don’t have that much room in my freezer. Sooooooo raw non frozen chicken it was!

I had to call my mom, whom I am sure despairs at my lack of cooking skills – you wouldn’t believe how many times I call her from the grocery store with questions! lol. Anyways, I called mom and got advice on how to buy raw skinless boneless chicken breasts. The smallest package had three chicken breasts in it which was distressing cause that meant I wouldn’t be able to just open the package and tip the chicken out on to my George Foreman grill…I’d have to do something with the other two pieces. sigh.

I got the chicken home and very carefully opened the package, I didn’t want to risk any chicken juice touching me, ick, and then I stabbed a piece with a fork and dropped it on to the grill, perfecto! No touching required! The other two pieces I put in to seperate freezer ziploc bags – I used the stab with fork and don’t touch method there too – one piece went in to the freezer and one piece went in to the fridge, I think it can be in the fridge for like 3 days or so…maybe that’s 2 days, hmm, I detect another call to mom in my near future lol – anyways, I figure I’ll grill the second piece up within a day or so once I figure out what I want to do with it. I think it can be marinated…maybe I will try to figure out how to do that…

The chicken I grilled went great on the pizza, I paired it with some of the Alfredo Roasted Tomato sauce I have been eating on my penne noodles this past week…what can I say, I love the sauce but it’s only sold in large jars and I don’t like freezing it cause I forget about it and then end up throwing it out cause it got freezer burn, shrug, hence my overeating of the sauce during this past week. lol. There was also cheese (measured out of course), sliced baby tomatoes and mushrooms…this was all put on top of home made yeast free pizza dough. I can already hear the “huh? yeast free, what’s with that?” questions, roomie number 1 had a yeast allergy and all pizza bought from pizza shops have yeast, mean huh? So, I found a yeast free pizza dough recipe online and gave it a try, it’s good. Easy to make, yummy, a bit high in points but your toppings are usually low in points so it can even out. 🙂

Today I ate:

29 grams Special K Vanilla Almond = 2 points

1/2 cup 1% milk = 1 point

1 small banana = 1 point

1 bowl weight watchers soup = 0 points

1 english muffin = 3 points

2 triangles light laughing cow cheese = 1 point

1 Activia yogurt = 2 points

raw veggies = 0 points

Homemade Pizza

    – 1/4 cup Alfredo Roasted Tomato Sauce = 2 points

    – 1 light babybell = 1 point

    – 30 grams Kraft double cheddar cheese = 2 point

    – 50 grams grilled chicken = 1 point

    – tomatoes and mushrooms = 0 points

    – dough = 16 points

Now, don’t freak out with those pizza points, those are calculated for the entire pizza, I only ate half which means for half the pizza I used 11 points – that’s 3 points for toppings and 8 points for the crust. I am sure there must be a lower points pizza dough but I don’t know how considering how simplistic this recipe is, it only has like 5 ingredients. Ah well, some things are just gonna cost a lot of points I guess. The half of a pizza I ate tonight for 8 points is way more filling then 2 slices of panago pizza (which would be 8 points) so that’s good I guess…same amount of points but more filling when homemade. 🙂

My total points eaten today is 21. I know I am s’posed to eat 22 points and I actually thought the pizza wouldn’t be enough and I’d end up going over with some snack later in the evening but the amount I ate was actually a bit too much and left me with a heavy stomach, ugh. I made some tea and sat with a hot water bottle on my gut for the rest of the evening in the hopes of making my innards feel better. It hasn’t worked. sigh. Normally I am a firm believer in the healing powers of tea, I don’t mean some weird herbal wonky tea, I mean nice normal Orange Pekoe tea from Tetley. I drink tea all the time anyways but I always have a cup when I don’t feel well, or am tired, or cold or need help digesting or whatever…tea cures everything! Tonight though it didn’t work, even combined with the trusty hot water bottle. sadness.

I think the pain is left over from the stress that started tuesday – that is when the pain started, it peaked wednesday morning and since then calmed a bit but for sure hasn’t gone away, sigh. My body doesn’t like stress which is why I make sure to not allow stress to exist in my world, obviously there are stressful moments and situations (I don’t think you can ever completely get away from stress, shrug) but I refuse it entry in to my life as much as possible. Lay offs at work though, well, that is definitely something out of my control and highly stressful and ever since this whole thing happened my guts have been in pain. ugh. I s’pose making something heavy like a pizza was not the wisest decision on my part but hey, whatcha gonna do? It’s already been made and half eaten. lol. I am hoping this pain goes away soon and I think I will have to be more careful with what I eat until it is all better. Man, I hate how weak my body is when it comes to stuff like this. blarg.

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Well, I’m Still Employed…

27 Oct

That’s gotta count for something, right? I mean, it’s not like this is my dream job…or even a job in the field I want to be in but it pays the bills and that is important. Sure I sometimes feel like being in the financial business industry is eating away at my soul and sucking me farther and farther away from doing work in any kind of field I could find personal happiness in…but hey, shrug, who am I to quibble about where my steady pay cheque comes from? *rolls eyes*

Work was weird today, everyone who wasn’t laid off was on edge and nervous, the people who were laid off did their best to appear ok but they were all a little forced in their cheerfulness. In a way I just want the week to be over already so all this tension is outta my life but at the same time I don’t want the week to end cause that’ll mean AC is no longer there and I’ll miss her. 😦 

My guts got all twisted up during my text convo last night when I learned about the people being laid off and didn’t ease till after a meeting I had with my manager where he assured me my job is safe. Man, my tummy hurt this morning, it was crazy. And oh man my sleep, or lack there of last night sucked, tossing and turning and when I did sleep I had weird dreams that involved work and…well, I can’t really remember what else, just that the dreams were weird and unsettling and I kept waking up from them. ugh. I don’t usually get stressed by things, I mean sure I feel some stress at times but harsh enough stress to cause pain and bad sleep? That is just unheard of!…least, in my world…maybe it’s normal and I just never knew?

All I want to do this week is lose 0.8 lbs, that shouldn’t be so hard to do but so far I have done no exercise and had a night and a day thrown off by excessive stress. This better not mess up my reaching 15 lbs lost by the weekend! Although, really, who am I threatening with that? Karma? The fates? The universe? Like any of those will be scared of what I say! ha!

On a different note I got a package in the mail today from NH, 😀 she sent me halloween goodies, which, ok yeah very nice, but uh…candy? gummies? hot chocolate mix? Crap. There was also a black glass with a silver skull and crossbones on it (I have a thing about skulls) but it broke, sigh. I actually had to call her to ask her what it was it was that broken. lol. She sends me junk food each year and it’s pretty awesome cause I don’t buy halloween candy for myself but, shrug, I can’t eat it this year. Well, I am probably gonna try the hot chocolate mix…hello! it turns red! Talk about awesome! I still have 2 points left over for the day, I am hoping that will be enough to cover a cup of hot chocolate, if it’s not I will go over in to flex points cause (1) I have been good this week and not gone over and (2) I really wanna try the mix! lol.

Today I ate:

29 grams Special K Vanilla Almond = 2 points

1/2 cup 1% milk = 1 point

1 small banana = 1 point

1 Activia Yogurt = 2 points

1 bowl weight watchers soup = 0 points

1 english muffin = 3 points

2 triangles laughing cow cheese = 1 point

mixed raw vegies = 0 points

1 cup strawberries = 1 point

85 grams eating right whole wheat penne = 5 points

1/4 cup Alfredo Roasted Tomato sauce = 2 points

mixed cooked veggies = 0 points

2 Lifestyles shortbread cookies = 2 points

So like I said above, that is 20 points, two left for some hot chocolate! Although, I am kinda hungry, sigh, so do I really want to use my last two points of the day on a drink when I could have something more solid? Oh the choices a person on weight watchers must make. lol.

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My Cookies Went Soft

10 Jul

I am having trouble figuring out what to eat; it’s not the points, I have a fairly strong grasp on the point system now, how to calculate them, how to distribute them through out the day- all that stuff. My problem is figuring out what I think is worth the points.

Tonight for example, it is evening so time for a snack. I want kettle corn but my weigh in day is tomorrow so I don’t want to eat anything too salty but do you think I can find something else I want just as badly? Of course not! So I started looking around the kitchen, I have 3 whole points to eat…that could be anything! A yogurt and some grapes, a piece of toast with margarine on it even 3 cookies and a cup of tea. Even with all these choices and more I couldn’t decide what to eat; I kept thinking “what if I eat the yogurt and am still hungry afterwards? It’s not like yogurt is all that filling.” I thought variations of this for all the foods I looked at – I think it wasn’t really a matter of being hungry and wanting to make sure I wasn’t hungry after my points were over, it was  knowing that after I ate that snack I would not be allowed to eat anything else for the rest of the night and I was wanting a taste of everything.  Does that make sense? It was the knowledge that I am restricted; as soon as I know I can’t have something I want it but if I have the option of having something more times then not I won’t go for it…I can be so contrary.

Course, you wouldn’t be able to prove that by looking at me – I have obviously eaten a lot of food in my past so I haven’t said no as often as I would like to think. 😛

I eventually settled on the cookies, they are uber yummy and not all that unhealthy Peek Freans Lifestyle Selections Cranberry Citrus Oak Crunch…the important word here is “crunch”.

Peek Freans Cranberry Citrus Oat Crunch...mine didn't crunch!

 I have had these cookies before; I always get them on short flights so when I saw them on sale I though “oh yeah! on sale and I already know they taste good, can’t go wrong there!” You can eat 3 cookies for 3 points so they aren’t even all that bad for you. 🙂 I bought them before I started Weight Watchers; I’d opened them and eaten I don’t know how many then tucked them away for next time.  Now it’s not like I forgot about them (exactly), more like I got bored with them and just kept them tucked away. shrug. This happens a lot with me.

But anyways! I decided to use my last 3 points on these cookies and pair them with a cup of tea – after a whole lotta time deciding and going back and forth on what I want I get my cookies, make my tea, sit down and get settled all ready to enjoy my evening routine. I am all ready to eat those last three points and what happens…my cookie was soft. They say crunch in the title, they are normally a crunchy cookie, everytime I have eaten them on a plane they crunch, heck they are so crunchy they make crumbs when you bite in! This package used to crunch…until I left them opened and they went soft…why oh why do cookies do that? It’s so mean. I made it through 2 of the cookies and had to stop, they just aren’t good when they are soft. sigh. Normally, I totally suggest these cookies…but make sure once you open them to eat them quickly or put them in some kind of air tight container! 

I am finding this is a problem of mine lately (not the lack of crunch in the cookies, but what to use my points on), everytime I look at something to eat I wonder if I really want to use my points on that. A whole list of questions goes throught my heads, a little something like this: how long will I stay full? is there any nutritional value? will there be leftovers? will I be able to justify the points the leftovers will cost me? do I really need it? how much time is left in the day? if I eat this am I ok that I can’t eat *insert food here* later? do I really want this to be the last thing I eat today? will it satisfy me?

If I am not careful I will become a hoarder of points. I am already at some weird stage where I want to eat as few points during the day as possible so I can for sure have enough to eat a filling dinner and have a snack in the evening. Forget the fact that I have been doing fine with my point allocation and haven’t run in to problems being able to have a filling dinner; everyday I have a little panic at lunch time – do I really want to eat my lunch? What if magically the numbers change after I eat the food and then I have to have a super small dinner to compensate for eating too much during the day? Even though the points for my lunches are usually calculated  the night before and I know I am not using some ridiculous amount during the day I still have a bit of a freak out. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how to stop it I just have to learn how to manage it. I seem to be managing it alright so far; I haven’t actually started hoarding my points during the day and eating them all in the evening but the desire (and concern about it) are there.

Quick note about my lunch, I had a Mediterranean Supreme salad from Fresh Express Salad.

My Mediterranean Salad

It was my first time trying that one and it was ok; not bad but a bit bland – and that’s with me adding stuff to it! This company is pretty great, they have all different types of salads, my favourite kind is Salsa Ensalada Supreme – the website is www.freshexpress.com I haven’t really checked out the website (except to get that snazzy pic to the right lol) but at a quick glance it looks like it contains a lot of interesting info. This salad was spinach leaves, feta, croutons, dressing…um, I think that is it. I added to it; mixed veggies, baby potatoes that had been boiled and cut up and a hard boiled egg. I find if you add low point items to already existing foods (like the veggies) it makes the dish more satisfying taste wise and I stay fuller longer…the egg was 2 points but that was an indulgence on my part (I love hard boiled eggs!) and a way to sneak in some protein.  I split all the toppings it came with into two equal portions and only ate half the salad for lunch; it was perhaps one of my most boring lunches and I really wanted L’s noodle dish, man that smelled goooood!, but at least I know mine was healthier. lol.

So here is what I ate:

3/4 cup Honey Nut Cheerios =2 points

1/2 cup 1% milk = 1 point

1 banana =2 points

Mediterranean Salad

     – dressing, feta, croutons = 4 points

     – mixed veggies = 0  points

     – 5 baby potatoes = 1 point

     – 1 hard boiled egg = 2 points

1 cup grapes = 1 points

1 grilled cheese sandwich

     – 2 pieces bread = 2 points

     – 1 tbsp Light Miracle Whip = 1 point

     – 2 Kraft cheese slices = 2 points

125 ml Campbell’s tomato soup = 2 points

2 Peek Freans Lifestyle Selections cookies = 2 points

That puts me at a total of 22 points; I would have been at 23 if my cookies hadn’t gone soft or if  I had been able to bring myself to eat all three, as it is I ate two and now have 1 point left over…I will probably have one of my weight watchers chocolates since they are only 1 point and small enough I won’t feel icky eating something so late at night. lol.

Tomorrow is weigh in day…stress! I so wanted to try on the pants today so that if they fit I could wear them to work but the worry they wouldn’t fit any better and that I’d know a day earlier then necesarry I didn’t lose enough weight  for them prevented me from trying them on this morning. lol. But tomorrow I will find out! I think I will go drink a glass of water and pretend I don’t feel quite so big…

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