Raining bad times.

The thundering weather in Austin sets up a good metaphor for the bullshit that has been happening to me lately. So, as much as I wanted to, the mini-vacay was just not in the cards because of some unforeseen medical bills, so that sucked. On top of that, my phone decided to be an ass and stop working, my hope is that it is just the battery and that I can get it replaced soon. So the consequences of that have been that I have had to put my GymPact on hold, because there has been no way of checking in via RunKeeper or through the GPS. Sucks, I really liked having that accountability. In general, I have been pretty depressed, too. I have to have hope that this is the end of bad things and better things will start happening, but then again it has been a long stretch of bad. 

Weight has been pretty stable at 126-127, but then again I have been eating mostly beans, veggies, and rice (I was able to basically feed two people for like 5 days on $15, crazy huh?) I know like weight loss, life has a way of working out, if you make the right choices, but being stressed out all the times certainly doesn’t create the right environment to make those. I made it 15 days smoke free, and this past Saturday I relented “socially” to indulge in those awful things. The cognitive dissonance doesn’t work on me, I know they are terrible, fatal, and it is not likely that science will help me grow a new lung. Yet, give me a mint julep (my way of celebrating the Kentucky Derby) and a bloody Mary and those concerns just melt away. Pathetic. Stop doing stupid shit, Lauren. Self-destruction isn’t cute anymore. Ugh, can someone cheer me up, please.

 

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.

Motivation Monday: The GoGo Life.

Disclaimer, I am about 8 years old than most of these girls on this video, and while I probably will never be able to chase my dreams of being a “professional” gogo, I am okay with hitting up a few more festivals before I hit 35 and maybe put that part of my life in my history, but who knows? There are women in their 70’s who do bodybuilding competitions, why the hell couldn’t I do freaking dancing in my 30’s right? This video, in particular, was inspiring:

Love MsEasy, and her frankness and honesty, and I wish she could coach me!  Now, as I have mentioned already, even if I were in Denver, I probably have missed the boat on becoming a professional performer (maybe not with hooping, but I would need to improve drastically), but even so, it would just be so amazing to get to do an event like Electric Daisy Carnival, but I do not have much in the way of videos from performances and I would need to get an audition video out. The only problem is that, as my body is right now, I feel uncomfortable dancing around scantily clad, as one would expect from a dancer, and thus the clean eating and preparation for that. If I could just lose 20 pounds, that would go along way to making myself feel more confident with performing. I don’t want to give up on a dream, so I want to be even more focused and determined to get to where I need to be with this weight. That is why I need to SWEAT EVERY DAY (see what I did there) and just make sure all my eating habits are super balanced, gosh it is difficult but it really isn’t if you have a goal that is bigger than yourself.

Another great way to get toned is through hoopdancing, another one of my passions. Just doing some youtube surfing, I found these great tips on how to improve, and thought I would share:

I hope having the phsysique that is desired for gogo dancing will be enough to keep me  motivated. It might be a judgemental, there is just no room for flabbiness within that art. Dancing really is brutal, and I really need to evaluate my ability to be visually appealing for this particular type of performance. Any go go tips would be greatly appreciated, too. Stay sweaty!

A case of the blah’s

It has been too long since I have posted, and furthermore, there has been nothing great to report on either. The eating habits have been not great, the working out has been better with the combination of dancing, walking, and a sprinkle of yoga. Not so much to talk about except, it is with a heavy heart that I am reporting that I will not be doing the Electric Run despite having paid for it already. It’s not that I don’t want to, but I don’t want to be walking through it. It ain’t called the “Electric Walk”. So yeah, kinda depressed about. This is the second time I have signed up for something and pussed out on it. It might be a fear of failure, but I have also lapsed on training, and I am sick right now, so I couldn’t make up the days, booo!

I really wish there were better news to report, but I am basically posting to not get kicked out of AFBA Had this great idea to do a “Meatless March” I am back on the flesh, but here are some Veggie friendly places that I scoped, you can just forget about me ever doing vegan. Love my cheese, love my eggs, sorry cows and chickens, I like your babies and their food:

http://instagram.com/p/WaQ-VMhZZN/

http://instagram.com/p/Wpq3u3hZYU/

For the remainder of this month, I am going to pretend to be happy. Even if I feel like crap inside, I am going to slap on a shit-eating grin and fake like studying for the CAPM isn’t the most boring fucking thing ever.

Gym-Pact is up to 5 days now. I failed last week because I was sick from the southby revelry (no, it WASN’T a hangover) but today is always a new day, right? This is the mustardy water from the writing I wish I could squeeze on my sandwich.

More leftovers

Somewhere between having Lucy’s surgery, trying to save money (yay a whole $67 in 7 weeks) and being too sane for the “Insanity” program I lost my way with posting regularly on this blog and I feel like shit about it. Still doing the GymPact, and only been penalized twice for missing workouts. Just so exhausted lately, probably need to get rid of those late nights, at my age even being a “Weekend Warrior” has consequences not only on my bank account, but just in my general well being.  Here is some of my artistry captured about 2 weeks ago:

You can find healthy options at Outback Steakhouse, apparently. Still trying to count calories, while enjoying my life, so I had the chicken on the barbie, and have to say it wasn’t bad calorie-wise, think about 450?

That isn’t my beer, but I do need to cool it on the beer drinking. Fuck smoking, I am not really what I would call addicted (okay every day isn’t addicted?) but I want to quit permanently,  it is like peanut butter and jelly with drinking and cigarettes. You can have a PBJ sandwich, but you certainly want the jelly (cigs).

I have been going through a lot of pain lately, and some of it is my fault, but I really want things to improve in my life, more hopeful positive posts to come, I promise, but I just wanted to let everyone know I am alive.

Cardio eyes bigger than cardio mouth

If I seem more sporadic and distracted (than usual) this week, it is because I have been super stressed about Miss Lucy. She has been a wonderful blessing, but unfortunately she has had some health difficulties. She went in to get a lump removed yesterday and has been recovering since then. Thankfully, with familial support, I haven’t had to bear all of the financial burden, even though I would be more than happy to, if necessary. Poor Lucy, I just want to get back doing our run/walks. Last night she was very ornary in sleeping in the bed, she would lean against me and take the whole side of the bed which was cute, but I woke up several times trying to not be too physical with her and the stitches, but also reclaiming my part of the bed. Today I am exhausted, which is fine because Sunday I hit it pretty hard. I did the Plyometric Circuit Cardio workout from Insanity, walked Lucy for about 2 miles and then went to Gentle Yoga (would have collapsed had I did anything else)

I wanted to restart the Insanity plan on Monday, but it felt like all of my major muscle groups were ripped to pieces. That is a good thing, right? Well yeah, but not so much for motivation. My plan which I wasn’t going to share, was to start in February. However, I still have the 5k to train, so I needed to factor that in. Well, let me digress and explain the tile. In the 80’s and early 90’s, my mom would take me to the grocery store to the salad bar and it basically was all you can eat, but based on the weight of the food. I would always get way more than I could eat because it all looked so tasty, especially the croutons! She would reply, “looks like your eyes were bigger than your mouth”. Well, when I look at the below pictured plan, I feel the way about my ability to work out even on rest days. Yes, let me repeat that, rest days, so really this is the major flaw. I will be honest with myself enough to realize that I won’t want to and shouldn’t work out every single day. Maybe some people can, but it does not seem sustainable. I am not sure when I will do the running days, but definitely need to reschedule them, my guess was MWF but if I make an insanity workout but not c25k, or if I make a c25k and not an insanity workout, I won’t sweat it, besides I actually have an additional month besides this one to get prepared for it. It taught me a good lesson, though, don’t let your eyes (ego) be better than your mouth (ability/desire)

Workout WINsday – night moves!

With the one beer I drank last night (the horror!), I ended up with a 30 calorie surplus than I should have had, however, there was a lot of activity as you can see in the chart below:

Some of that was C25K, and if I haven’t mentioned I am training for The Electric Run at the end of March and some of that was plain ole fashioned dancing, burpees and jumping jacks. This morning was incredibly difficult to get out of bed even! Have also made some money from Gym Pact:

Slowly but steadily seeing results, and ended up only spending about $45 on groceries (for two people!!) last night. Well, mostly because it was not my money I was spending, and unfortunately,  I did buy a lot of processed stuff like instant mashed potatoes, pasta, macaroni and cheese, and “helper” foods. However I was sure to make sure that at least half of the items were vegetables and fruits, so that was a win.   So since we are on the subject of stats, check out this mess:

BOOM!

Yep, I set a record 382 views yesterday, now it is nowhere near my goal of 1,000 visitors but it is a HUGE spike in traffic. Thanks to a nod from Go Kaleo so happy with that.  I thought I had a bit more to say, but I suppose I don’t so here is a picture of Early Cuyler:

More random images that I find on my compy…. I have been told that I look like Rachael McAdams (that picture was supposed to be about wanting to always lose 3lbs), not sure if I see the resemblance, but I will take the complement nonetheless!

Well, this post is going nowhere fast, so I bid Adieu!

The more you know!

Yesterday, the blogger Go Kaleo posted this image:

It really got me thinking, as I see a lot of misinformation about this condition, but the sad part is. It isn’t even recognized as a real condition, adrenal insufficiency is an actual thing and you can be prescribed hormones to treat this. However, the “fatigue” diagnosis often is followed by useless supplementation and a “well duh” prescription of healthy eating and exercise. Don’t, I repeat, DO NOT GOOGLE THIS, research this on Wikipedia or WebMD instead, well maybe not WebMD, if you are a hypochondriac like myself.  As well all know:

There are, however, tons of hucksters wanting to take advantage of people’s desire to have a healthy mind and body, and I figure this is worth sharing as well (NSFW for the language and boobies at the end!!),

An interesting thing I found this weekend upon some random facebook milling about was an image describing cancer risks. One of the parts of the image suggested that eating overly charred meat increases one’s risk of cancer. Well, I have heard this claim before, and as it turns out, it isn’t bullshit! Over the years, I have dabbled in fitness and health, and come to realize what I should have years ago, the more sources that an article has, the more veracious it is likely to be.

But what about, Big Pharma and the toxic drugs. Listen, I am all about conspiracies like the next person, but at some point even the counter argument can just be as dogmatic as the accepted truth. Take home message, don’t be duped into buying a supplement. You don’t need to go on a juice detox because you already two great organs for that, your kidneys and your liver, and if you are having problems with those, then a juice fast might actually do more harm than good. This is something that I have to remind myself, even. Humans always want a magic pill it seems, but the real magic happens when you actually put in the time and effort. I have drank a bit of the paleo kool-aid, but guess what, it was a diet that contained mostly whole foods such as fruit and vegetables, and I also incorporated 10k steps a day, of course I lost weight. Now, I am still trying to eat vegetables, but I also allow myself pasta, still walk 10k (if not more) steps a day, and guess what, I am still losing weight, because I am still tracking calories! Amazing how the law of thermodynamics have not magically changed because I decided to not give a shit about carbs!

Here are some good sites that I like to use when thinking critically about health and wellness:

http://www.skepdic.com/

http://www.quackwatch.com/

http://www.skeptic.com/

Here is also a great video from Micheal Shermer about skepticism:

Monday Motivation – makeup!

Day 19 or 20 (unsure of when I started) of my commitment to cosmetics. Today getting out of bed at even 8am was really tough. Drinking matcha tea has been a component to my beauty ritual, plus I hear that stuff is good for wrinkles. Win win! Here is your loveliness with her makeup done up:

trying my best to be a morning person.

Having that boost of confidence of doing your hair and looking nicer than usual has really helped me be motivated for other things such as daily walking and/or going to the gym, even has inspired me to keep a cleaner house! It is amazing how keeping one small habit going for the magical 21 days can cascade into other behaviors that are positive and healthy. It makes sense though, why other less than desirable habits (smoking, drinking, eating fast food) can create a trap of yuckiness. Not to get into a kooky “The Secret” rambling, but it does seem that good behaviors and intentions attract good feelings, and most likely good outcomes. Well, maybe like retail, in life “you get what you pay for”. Sounds hoakey, but I think it is true.

Speaking of bad behaviors, my activity levels for Saturday were about 13k steps and yesterday was 14k! However I was feeling a bit stressed out regarding some news I got last week, and also just generally hungry (probably running a severe deficit from all those steps) so there is the binging extravaganza: one ginormous honey bun (600 calories, OMG), oreo cakesters, penguino, and oreo brownsers. Wonder, if the clerk at the gas station thought I was stoned, hah! At least I am back down to 127, which is still a one pound loss from when I originally started MFP in 2010, just wish I was back down to 119 like I was this past summer, hopefully I will be “bikini ready” again this year, but who really cares about bikinis besides college girls on spring break? Correction, no matter if you are 16 or 61, you still care about bikins. If I make it to be 61, I hope I still look good in a bikini. Not sure how that rambling came about, but yay bikinis.

Hopefully I will have some good news tomorrow, just been a crazy week, and I would like there to be a good resolution, don’t want to divulge too much, just because I don’t want to cause any alarm in anyone who may read this who knows me IRL (if that even exists). I can’t do anything but hope for the best, right?

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.