Thankful Thursday – eating your words

Waterloo Icehouse breakfast – so good!

So, I knew that I would regret posting that spoiled brat kind of rant, but honestly it was kind of a distraction for things that were really bothering, but did not want to publicly rant about. I can say that they are resolved. There are some other matters that need to be taken care of, but I don’t feel so crazy stressed about things, and just have a general sense that everything will work out for me.

Ah, endorphins, in my personal exercise experience, I have come to the conclusion that even if I do cardio/gym stuff at night, that I should get some activity even if it is rather light walking, in before I go to work. The well-being of exercise really carries over into my daily activities and I feel very at peace. One thing that I notice that I am doing less and less of, however, is obsessively tracking my food, but at the same time, I am not really eating much of a breakfast (coffee) or lunch (cashews, almonds  and/or pistachios from the office), and really not eating a huge dinner (too broke to get fast food, hah!) This probably isn’t the best meal plan, as I am freaking starving right now. Not really attempting to starve myself, but  I usually will just forget to pack a meal and just  not that hungry in the morning. So, I need to work on that. Thankfully I had breakfast this morning, bacon instead of fruit, as pictured.
Anywho, the struggle not to become a cardio queen continues, my gym is going to be offering ballet classes, so that might be a cool thing to try and will sneak in some strength training because it feels so hard to to do it on my own gumption.  Oh, so very hungry, only about 90 minutes until I get to rock out with stir-fry yumminess.

A little bit empty-brained, so will sign off for now.

Foodie Friday – good and bad

Blue Baker has been sort of a new ritual for me. This past weekend, I did not super-over indulgence and opted for the smoked salmon salad. Normally, I am not a fan of tomatoes (except in salsa or pizza), but the sun-dried tomatoes were a rather nice touch. Capers are generally nasty, imo, but the rest of the salad was superb. Also, I can never pass up a good broccoli/cheddar. It tastes exactly like the one the have at Quizno’s and quite possibly acquired from the same supplier, but my palette is not refined enough to mind it, cheese is GOOD!

However on the opposite end of the spectrum, I splurged with a big ole Texican from Texidelphia, and yes that is ranch, and yes, I did dip my waffle fries into. I regret nothing! Well, actually it was quite calorically expensive, but it tasted fucking fantastic. One of my favorite places in Austin to eat. All of my favorite places to eat are very fattening, yet incredibly delicious. I think you could say that about any place, though.

Well, at least the Gym Pact earned me $1.16 last week. It is a good commitment, but I think I need to up the stakes to 5x a week. I usually just end up going Thursday-Sunday, which is good but the rest of the week needs some good sweaty attention, too! At least the numbers on the scale are dropping. The consistent measuring of food has been paying off, sure I have been eating pasta, but really 3 ounces is only like 30 calories and it is enough of an amount of food so that you are not dying of hunger. Also, the dog walking/running has supplied even more cardio, Lucy has become my personal trainer, hah! Well, my mind is a bit hazy from the Jack in the Box brain fog of lunch, zzzzzz, anyway, stay sweaty, my friends.

Random stuff

Thigh abductor muscles are very sore right now, and the pasta marathon continues, mmm vodka sauce. So far, so good on my makeup resolution. Every damn day I have been waking up before 7 at least to get on my face, but look at this I found a way to automate my choice of color for each day, behold the Thai solar calendar, yep, the four colors  a day was a bit overwhelming, especially since a lot of them were night-time colors.  So once, I get my eyebrows shaped (maybe Saturday?) will start doing selfies of my progress. Right now my pink eyeshadow is punctuated with Amy Whinehouse type batwing eyeliner.

A little bit of frustration today brought by HR failing to have our direct deposit checks for today. Boooooo! So instead of being able to mostly visit with my Lucy, I will be at the bank for lunch today. Lame. It isn’t so bad, though, as the weather has been craptabulous. Really, there wasn’t much walking yesterday. Too. Fucking. Cold! As much as I hate the triple digit temperatures from the end of May to the second week of September, I hate the 30’s even worse. I am a southern belle, y’all.

Cable is getting installed tomorrow, at least I am not paying for it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the promise of a Honey Boo Boo marathon will be a challenge to my fitness endeavors.  This weekend I will have it all to myself, because the bf is going golfing in Florida this weekend. Lucky ducky, I am really jealous that he will get to enjoy tropical weather while I am freezing, but I will have cable and a sweet doggy, and truly what is there in life, right?  At any rate, I have 74 days until The Electric Run and besides just treadmill work, I have actually done some jogging on the pavement (with hills!!). Lucy is probably the best personal trainer I could have gotten. So very grateful to be able to spend time with such a loveable pup.

Anywho, here are some stats, y’all! The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 5,000 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 8 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thankful Thursday

I spend a lot of time complaining and really, it just seems so stupid and just wrong. Everyone has a tough life to a certain extent even if you are showering in money, I am sure that there are problems that arise with that! Not going to beat myself up for complaining so much because that would be counter-productive. So, instead I am going to take a few moments to not focus so much on fitness, mainly because I did not really do anything last night, wamp wamp.

Well, I suppose I can do it with pictures from last night. Let’s start with those damn $1.50 margaritas. Even though this isn’t the most healthy thing to be indulging, my wallet is definitely thankful, plus the serving size for these are pretty small so my waistline is as well, teehee. What a great sunset we had last night, with the weather cooling off and whatnot, I just had to get out of the apartment. But, yes, here is some food, as unhealthy as it is, I ate “fancy” ramen noodles that were super spicy. The brand was Shin Raymun, and was about 560 calories for the whole thing, and probably had way more sodium than I need but boy they were yummy. The vegetable like things were pretty tasty as well!

It looks a little bit like brains especially with the spicy sauce. Happy early Halloweeeen!

For din din, my love cooked me a hamburger and it would have been low carb had I not immediately devoured (not shown) two slices of bread immediately after I ate the lettuce-wrap yumminess. He made the caramelized onions to go with it. Very sweet and sweet that he cooked me dinner. Oh jeeze, I think I am going to puke, haha. No, but seriously, I am very thankful to have such a thoughtful person in my life. We have had our ups and downs, but ultimately I think I am going to be wtih this person for a very long time, don’t want to jinx anything but really we ultimately are just the right amount of crazy for each other, haha I am kidding, but not really!

The visual appeal was kinda ruined when I added the dijon mustard, but still so very good!

The boyfriend also directed me to take pictures. He had the good idea to get the palm tree with the moon in the background, and I wielded the phone to snap the shot. Not the most professional, but in terms of composition, I think it is pretty good, and I am thankful that I can practice being creative so that I have more of a fulfilling life! Learning more that in terms of creativity, I am more of an execution and technical person, which kinda surprises me because I test as an ENTP,  but the Myers-Brigg happens to be on Quackwatch, believe it or not.

This looks like it could have been taken on the beach with the palm tree and sunset, but it was in the parking lot of Taco Cabana in Austin, TX!

Here is another atypical Texas sunset, reminds me of the beach, also.

We had some fun toward the end of the night. Here are some shots from the coolest bathroom in Austin at The Hole in the Wall on Guadalupe St. Fitting, haha.

I don’t know what a cakedump is, but it sounds painful!

Hey look, it is one of my favorite Pete Yorn songs.

I just really want to take the time to thank myself for being awesome. As cocky as it sounds, I may slack off at work from time to time, but after the documentation meeting, I realize that I am a powerhouse of productivity,  a one woman team for both documentation and support is pretty impressive, even if the volume is a lot less than say, a call center, it still makes me happy that I can pull all of that off, and while I don’t get paid as much as I think I should, I still get appreciation from my boss and respect from everyone in the company, and for that I am very thankful.

Get your ass moving

I feel like I have had no excuse for my sedentary life, but it seems so pervasive. I even blog about trying to be fit and then, and sometimes I really want to be inspiring to others. Other times  I come up with stupid mini-obsessions like self-tanning and reversing aging, even made a Pinterest board about it!  Maybe it is just something to distract me from the fact that I hate my life. No objectively, my life I realize isn’t that bad, but thanks to social media I can compare it to other peoples and feel ultimately very crappy about the things that I miss. The studies are conflicting about how social media affects depression, the oft cited quote from Mark Twain, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” I digress.

Anyway,  let’s be objective. Unless you put forth the effort to change anything, no pinning inspirational quotes or reading self-help books will help you. Well, there is one thing that I can control even if my emotional, financial, and my social life are completely dead to me. I can control my activity during the day. I am sure a lot of you have seen the infographic for how bad sitting is, well there is a less alarmist, more proactive diagram from the American Institute for Cancer Research, and it really kind of affected me.

Source: http://preventcancer.aicr.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=21401&news_iv_ctrl=2302

For years, I was like the Ann or Mike character, but lately I do take hourly breaks and walk around the building, and with the help of my FitBit (RIP), I was walking around my apartment or on the treadmill. I walk around, but lack the vigorous or moderately vigorous weight bearing activity that this diagram shows the people doing. So, what the hell are the next steps?? Get your ass moving.

I found this video to be pretty helpful. I feel like I have all the tools necessary to be organized, but again it is up to me to really put the resources available to use. I don’t know if anyone else suffers from this, but I tend to hoard the information, and seek out the productivity tools, seek out the memberships to a “fancy gym” but then never use it. I suspect with the industry booming as it is, and endless publications regarding creativity, fitness, and productivity, that people like me are looking for a silver bullet, when in actuality it is as simple as just getting moving. Keeping the ball rolling, outside of actually being a fitness model where the idea of getting down to a certain body fat is desirable, just showing up is really the big challenge for most people. I understand now why many people who can afford it, hire a personal trainer. People really need someone to light a fire, as my Dad would say, under their asses.  Not really sure what the solution is for those of us who can’t really afford a personal trainer. This is the issue I trying to resolve with the yoga situation. Personally, I know myself, and if there is an option not to do something, hello Hulu, then chances are I am not going to do the “should” thing unless I change my environment or I am part of the hive mind of a classroom. I cafitness, cancer, depression, social media, austin,n’t blame myself, as it seems like it is that way for most people, and I am not exceptional. Sounds harsh, but how many people would admit that? The truth hurts, y’all.

Before this entry devolves into a vortex of self-pity and self-loathing, I do feel like maybe joining a real gym, not some crappy apartment clubhouse is the answer.  Got myself a VIP pass, lulz, to Premiere Lady Fitness, and they have yoga classes at different times of the day, so we will see if my hypothesis is correct about consistency and having a class to help you with that.  Hopefully yes, consistency + social support + variety = success is the theory, hopefully, I can light the fire under my ass just enough to stick with it!

Vanity killed the hot yoga star

Yes, it is true. I am thinking of taking off my focus bracelets from sunstone for a more cooler version of the practice Today was a really good practice for Fire 90 at Sunstone, but my god I hadn’t been to a fire class in a while and boy was it unbearably hot. So, yeah it got me to thinking, is this actually great for my skin, which is finally starting to clear up once I am obsessive about washing it after the sweaty practice.  So here is the rub, I found this study that suggests that 6 weeks of 43 degrees Celsius (about 104 degrees Fahrenheit)  for only 30 minutes and 3 times a week. My classes are probably about 98, sometimes less, but also they are 60 to 90 minutes long, and some weeks I was going 4-5 times! So, yeah, I don’t want to be wrinkly as I take hot enough showers, and any more exposure might really cause some oxidative damage, oh look at you trying to sound smart.

I guess I can justify fitness and the exposure of heat in that capacity because it isn’t just sitting still and I feel like you are supposed to be active in your daily life, which brings me to my next point. I need a new yoga place. Yeah, I certainly don’t want to quit practice, because it does make me feel good, and I feel like if I were to do it with a DVD at home, I would some how find a way to phone it in or half-ass it, as they say. The group dynamic just works for me. Le sigh, Pure Austin
or as I like to call it “fancy gym” has the best selection of classes for the price as most of the studios here are like 99-120 per month, holy mackerel!!  Even at $64 for the fancy gym, it is a  bit more money then I want to pay, so 24 hour fitness might be the second best at $29-36 a month depending how many gyms you want to have access to, or if you want to pay a stupid enrollment fee, which I don’t. There is also donation based downtown, but this cities two main arteries of traffic are perpetually clogged, and who wants to deal with that, no thank you to stress that I do not need. Haven’t found anything in my location that is cheap except for the damn hell asanas, just kidding.

I may try the Gaiam stuff online, but really the motivation not the actual classes are the problem. The only way I think I would do it is if I was at the apartment’s gym or clubhouse and using my iPad, just so that I am away from the distractions of my apartment. Well, enough pointless rambling and bitching. .

Spoiled Rotten

Look Austin, TX is repping some fitspo!

It’s true. I am a bit spoiled,  but hey look it is the capital and look that chick ain’t me doing that. I slept for probably 16 hours yesterday. Awesome job. I had written a bunch of stuff regarding living in a cooler zip code, but it was as if Firefox new better than me to not save the draft and when I had the brilliant idea of trying to put a paypal donate widget. By the way, WordPress is lame like that and won’t let you add forms or other HTML that isn’t just straight up text or images. WordPress dot org might be a bit better, but I am broke again after paying my bills (at least I pay them) which leads me to my new page, it kinda freaks me out that I am using my personal email, but whatevs, you have my email now, stalkers welcome. Every time I log into my accounts for the Student loans I feel like watching this video – 1:05 cracks me up — student loans are a biiitch! :

This morning at 6, the Insanity from Beachbody infomercial came on and it reminded me that I had actually obtained them. I would like to do them, but my dvd player is limited to the office and there is not much space, plus I feel kinda bad jumping around in the morning because I have downstairs neighbors and it probably sounds like a heard of buffalo stampeding. It is certainly an effective workout, if your goal is to be drenched in sweat afterwards, but I am wondering if it is HIIT in the sense that you don’t really take a lot of breaks while doing it. You basically have a  series of calisthenics/plyometrics that go from medium, fast to fastest.. found a breakdown here and it shows you how many rests you get… and it ain’t many, and HIIT according to the wikipedia article is intended to have about a 2:1 ratio of work to recovery. Just doing the workout for a few days, I have to also wonder how hard these are on your knees. High impact cardio is great for you aerobically, I am sure, but I have to wonder if your body is meant to take more than about 10 minutes of heavy impact for day. It is a very confusing task to try to discern what is good and what is bad in terms of exercise. I walk each hour at work, and that really hasn’t steered me wrong. Anyway, I may try to do some working out this evening.

Need to take some sexy food pictures, too! How about some metal for this Monday \m/:

Just for good measure, probably one of my favorite albums of all time, the mid to late 1990’s was pretty awesome for underground music even if the mainstream was shit:

Sleeping with the Television on

Apparently it is terrible for you, and yesterday I really felt the exhaustion after breakfast. I had just thought it was from eating a humongous breakfast. Nopalitos are quickly becoming my favorite Mexican dish, and I quickly polished those delightful items with potatoes, beans and tortillas. So yesterday was a bit of an adventure, as mentioned, my fatigue was more than normal, so in walking back to the office, my phone fell out of my purse and I had no idea, because I like to walk around with an 8-10 pound purse. No joke, the seat-belt signal flashes on when my purse is sitting on the passenger side! So playing frogger to the other side of the street in sprinting and repeating this process may just be a bit of exercise I need to maintain this weight, considering I am carrying my “kettle purse” along the while. The food choices have been rather poor as well. I wish I was exaggerating when I say that I have had ice cream for most of this week, but I am not! And finally, the Whataburger was reopen so I could indulge in my favorite sandwich, the blessed and holy Chop House Cheddar  and before you think of me a total pig, I skipped on the fries and soda.

My finger got stubbed too, as I was getting up from the bed, my bf predictably tried to slap my bottom. Because it is so predictable, I put my hand out to block him, well, I guess my index finger was sticking out and took the brunt of the impact intended for my booty and perhaps jammed it. It still hurts and looks like a sausage this morning and I hope it heals properly because my pinky had gotten jammed last year and now is permanently crooked. I am not mad at him because it is something stupid that he always does and it was just an accident, but I got mad when he said that I shouldn’t have put my finger there. Hopefully the swelling will go down today and it won’t hurt to type!!

So sleepy, this is a valuable lesson for me to use the sleep timer instead of just having the television on all night. Good thing I have an extra 5-hour energy to chug for noon. Today’s musical alphabet is a bittersweet one considering I could go see this DJ for free in Dallas, key words, Dallas. Yes, the three hours it would take me to drive up there plus the hotel accommodations, plus whatever drinks because I assume this isn’t an open-bar affair. My dwindling budget will not allow for this, but hey at least I won’t be starving all day because I am hungry and have negative money in the bank  in the beginning of October like I did this month. I know that is terribly sad, but it is what happened, partly my fault, not gonna lie.  So, I am determined to make next month different, and also to support my goals of saving money, I am opting out of driving to this party. There is even a free party tomorrow that I am iffy on, now that I have said that I am not going, watch me go, lol.

I am not sweating every day, like the title says I should, need some fitspo stat!  It doesn’t help. It never does, if anything it probably raises my cortisol level just making me fatter, so to relieve my stress level without emptying my pocketbook here is John Digweed instead. The grooveshark widget for playlist is a fail, btw:

Oh, September

This month, is just not starting out on the right foot. Spending a bit too much money on cab fares, restaurants, and bars has got me in a bit of a financial crunch, but at least most of my bills are paid for this month, so that is good. The holiday kinda threw me off, and I realize that is a piss poor excuse to let my intentions go to hell, but it is what happened. In August I had worked so hard in getting my diet/exercise plan on track and I really made some strides, but it seems like I have not really laid the tracks for this month to set up my success, and as the old adage goes, “failing to plan is planning to fail” I had planned on doing what I so cleverly coined “Squatember” which is doing the 6000 in 30 days squat plan, that I have heard about from my fb fitness friends. I would certainly be lucky if I could get to 3000 this month, easily 1000 if I did 40 a day starting today. Perhaps, “Squatober” instead and have a banging booty for Halloween slutty costumes? Maybe, just maybe. Last night’s grocery shopping  unintentionally Whole30 approved even though I am drinking dairy with my coffee now, it seems as if I don’t really want to buy bread products, and I am having fun making my own, even if that is discouraged, I am not really tempted to buy stuff like this:

However, my boyfriend bought us “Redneck Sushi” from Zen and it was so tasty! Seriously if you are in the Austin area and you want to go to a cheap place that has a fusion twist on Japanese and Tex-Mex, it is freaking awesome. It sounds like that wouldn’t work,  but it seriously does:

I don’t know how to take very good pictures on my phone, the lighting was much warmer, but I am not sure what the best ISO settings are to get a softer tone and, how to better angle the camera for a well composed shot. If I had any extra money, that is what I would spend it on is photography lessons (oh and a new camera, as I had sold my DSLR back when I didn’t know I wanted to be a food/fitness blogger)

By the way it is National Yoga Month, and in Austin, it was Free Day of Yoga on Labor day, which of course, I missed because I was stuffing my face full of nachos at the movie theater, and shortly after that I slept for 16 hours until I had to come to work yesterday. Living the dream. There may be some yoga events that I can attend, but since I already have my membership to Sunstone, I think it might be redundant unless I can take some classes on Tuesday and Thursday!  Not to sound like an old person, but it is too damn hot in this town for it being so close to fall. Even though it is a temptation to eat, drink, and be fatty, I cannot wait for the winter. Especially, for walking it will be much better than this:

Saturday, it should rain, but these triple digit temperatures are for the birds, kinda makes me wonder why I pay for hot yoga at all, when I could just do the asanas outside with the same sweaty effect.