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.

Et tu, Tilapia?

Okay, so Julius Cesar is not my favorite play, just to clear that up! So, in addition to the Weight Watchers, I added some frozen Tilapia paties, because I thought they would add some healthy omega-3’s into my meal. It turns out that the opposite is true, and they are high in Omega-6’s, which I hear aren’t so great. Yippee… I couldn’t take a good picture of it with the lighting available, not sure why the browns and the oranges of my gorgeous frozen and reheated potatoes did not pop for the cameraphone. Not sure if it is the camera or the photographer, but this was the best I could get even with some working in Fireworks.

So there’s that.Of course, in trying to do any research in regards to Omega 6’s versus Omega 3’s, it can cause a bit of nutritional nausea (like that? I just made it up) Nutritional nausea is what happens when you become a bit obsessed with macro versus micro, glyemic load, omega 3:6 rations, carbohyrdate counting, or any of those things that people on a diet tend to consume, pardon the pun. It becomes its own stressful center of gravity, probably causing more cortisol, and oh shit, don’t want to raise those levels, am i right? I know way to much about this stuff for my own good. It becomes a bit of an addiction to find as much information as possible as a subject, but unfortunately this doesn’t make me an expert until I can put it into practice.

Lately I have been concerned with my sitting behaviors. With new news such as this,  it really scares me about how unhealthy my naturally sedentary life is. You know, besides the fact that I fucking smoke, idiot. Hey, quit talking that way to my friend Lauren. Anyway, conversations to myself aside, making healthy choices is imperative if you want any chance of losing weight or just living a better life. Seems like healthier people are happier, right? This stress needs to end, but it seems to be directly related to making better choices and the consquences that occur from the better choices. For example if money is a leading source of stress in your life, maybe not buy silly things such as fast food, yes, read my last entry, and budget for the bills that you will need to pay, or do something like consolidate your loans. Actually, I have considered moving out of Austin and teaching in a high-demand area for loan forgiveness. Even though living in one of those areas may be undesirable, the cost of living would probably be a lot less and my loans would be somewhat forgiven, of course that only costs 3 years of my life, so it is a give and take, I guess.

Well I hope anyone who reads this is making a healthy choice, last nights hot dog and macaroni “delight” was not very good (probably about 1000 calories just for the meal!!) but it sure was tasty and like $2, again, give and take.

Monday Motivation – beware the ides of sodium

It is almost comical how badly I have eaten this weekend. Friday started out with the yummy yummy Chimichanga plate from ZuZu’s, ps: I am like 3 days away from being mayor on Foursquare. No pictures because I am a bad blogger. Saturday, was oh so fantastic Pho from PhotNatic (whoops, no pictures either), with the flavors of the dish, I can’t imagine it not having a lot of salt in it, however, you can’t go wrong with those flavors. This put me into what I refer to as a Phoma. McDonald’s was for dinner, yes gross I know, and due to lack of nicotine, as my social smoking habit is a bit more of an addiction that I would like to admit,  I wanted a sweet treat.  This meant, of course, to gorge on a medium Choco-Mint blizzard from DQ. Yum, and that put me into what I refer to as a Bloma. Yes, I do realize that sounds uncomfortably close to something vulgar described in Urban Dictionary.  Sunday’s weigh-in really illuminated how crappily I ate on Saturday, up to 124.4!! That is a 7 pound delta from my lowest. Yet, somehow I still ate Pizza Rolls and chugged cola during Family Guy last night. Like I said, almost comical how badly I ate. No plan of action on how I am gonna shed this excess water weight, assuming I haven’t actually put on any fat. I did do some cleaning yesterday, but the gym was much less appealing than stuffing my face apparently.

Not going to beat myself up about it, but it still sucks. As already mentioned, weekends are tough. Dealing with stress is tough. Emotional eating is awful, and I feel like I have done a lot of that lately. Maybe it is time to take advantage of those free yoga classes? I didn’t even go to cardio on Saturday, boo! What is a bummer, is that my hourly walks around the office are shortened because I am a pansy and don’t like the cold. Well, maybe I need to beat myself up a little bit. The whole point of writing all this was to serve as a bit of a documentation of my fitness journey, and if I don’t actually have anything to document, it won’t be interesting, and then you have nothing to celebrate, right? It shouldn’t be tough, but I should plan more and the person I can blame for that is me. Perhaps tomorrow needs to be “Tough Love Tuesday”

Squatober, bitches!

Mixed it up a little and decided to poach fish instead of chicken last night, and danced danced danced to some trance music including Antiloop and Mubali (name dropping time: the latter is actually a friend of mine from my psy-trance raving days, good times.  So, I am not sure what is going on with me, but I cannot go to bed before 11 and thus cannot get up before 7 to actually make it into my class, and it really bothers me. Something stupid keeps happening like waking up at 4:30 in the morning, so I will end up going back to sleep but be too exhausted to actually make it awake, and I don’t want to sacrifice something as essential as sleep, so no go on the hot yoga this morning, yet again. Man, I am getting sick of typing that, well there is a simple solution for that.

Small successes though, as mentioned, I did get about 45 minutes of dancing done last night, and I have completed two of the eight rounds of 25 per day for my 6000 squats in 30 day challenge. I have to say it is almost not enough of a challenge, even making full squats with just body weight. I hope it is enough to actually get some physical change in my posterior. Fitspo is great inspiration, but admittedly I was skeptical that the ones that have perfectly round asses with a pithy caption such as “squats” really meant that the chick in question did squats, but rather it was a genetic blessing that gave her such a bountiful booty, so I am going to conduct my own experiment and see if doing 6000 squats in one month will give me the results I need, and it really isn’t just squats either. Hopefully, there will be some insanity, some dancing, some hooping, and some weight lifting incorporated. Those are my goals anyway. I probably won’t hit the 110 mark by November, but maybe by 11/11, sucks that I couldn’t hit 111 by 11/11/11 but I didn’t even have access to an oven at that time!

I am not even concerned that doing so many different things at the same time will confound the results of my experiment. I get too bored with one thing, I may not be consistent with one thing, but as long as I am somewhat consistent with a bunch of different things, it will show similar results if I stay active. Plus, muscle confusion, brah! hah, anyway, have not been doing the Whole 30 as anticipated, for one, the cheaper broth for the poached fish had sugar as one of its ingredients. For two, I kinda like the hot cocoa keurig cups in the office plus I do actually like creamer in my coffee and I gave it up for a month, didn’t see that much harm in my digestive system when I added it back to my diet.  Yeah, sure I gained 7 pounds in September (but most of that was due to the sodium from this past weekends Chinese delivery) okay, I can’t blame that on going off paleo, I can, however blame that on just completely falling off the wagon diet-wise, mmmm  Torchy’s Tacos but even labeling certain foods as verboten is a bit silly, unless you are diagnosed with gluten intolerance. If you do have a legitimate condition such as Celiac, just from reading about this disease, even a bit of gluten will make you have digestive woes. However, my gut is just fine and really I think that the 80/20 might be applicable when it comes to clean eating. I have heard that one before but it always felt like either I wanted to starve myself or binge, maybe I do have a bit of an eating disorder.

Alas, I must get back to my day job, as much as I would like to pontificate about fitness and healthy eating, it is time for me to depart. Stay sweaty, mothertruckers.

I’m losing focus

It is hard to write this because I feel like there are a lot of things that I want to do but some weird imaginary force keeps me back from them. In reality, there is no force, it is just me. I keep repeating to myself that things are going to be better in October, but are they really? There is an end of the month anxiety that I feel, maybe it is partly watching my bank account drain from the plethora of bills I am paying, or maybe it is just a disappointment of not having completed my goals from the month before and slowly watching my life dissolve in front of me. Fuck wrinkles, by the way.

Reorganizing my goals into categories helps but it really isn’t enough. I still have the desire to buy a new pink purse, or some other thing that I don’t really need in my life. It seems like it should be as simple as creating a flowchart with a basic question, “Does this action support or detract from reaching your goals?”..  With the obvious “support” -> do the action or “detract” -> don’t do the action, dummy! It should be that simple, shouldn’t it? I just wish that the desire to do to bad things wasn’t there.

Fucking autosave, I had all this stuff written down and now it is gone. Anyway, poached chicken = awesome and doesn’t cost me $400. Not technically, but yes, I ate sushi Friday, and since this is not yelp, not going to name names of this terrible place, but they had charged us $397.48, and let me tell you, it was good sushi but it wasn’t that good, and it was just a generally bad experience, and normally I would overlook something like this and just focus on the food, but Strike 1) the server made a snide comment about how quickly we ate. Strike 2, they made this terrible error, and then Strike 3, when we went into the place so they could cancel the transaction, they basically told us to GTFO in awkward English, sorry but it is true. I hate it when you cannot communicate dissatisfaction with someone because of that, you would think they would at least know that this was at terrible mistake and correct it, but there were a ton of people and it was a lot of pressure for us to leave. So, yes, those three things will definitely not make me come back there.

Because I have bitching a lot lately, I wanted to take a break and just express in reality, that though my student loan, credit card, and automobile loans might be almost unbearably high, last year at this time, I was living in a 300 square feet extended stay because of my bad credit and ended lease. Now, I am in a 1100 sqft place and have room to explore my passions such as dance, hooping and blasting tunes. I think there was more that I wanted to say, but I can’t remember it.

A case of the lazies

Making excuses, but 30 day challenges are probably best started on the start of the month, ergo I had dairy in my coffee this morning. Whoops. It isn’t like I am gaining weight either, but not making any significant strides to my goals either, except for reading, which I guess is cool. Yesterday was the defensive driving class, which I shall not name because it wasn’t great. I mean, I had very low expectations, and bless his heart he certainly was trying to be funny. For some reason I expected to see like a comedy troupe and sketch humor, but it was really just one guy and a Robin Williams very much impression (on a side note, the Family Guy where everyone turned into him was on, go figure!).  IMHO, he should really stick with the anecdotes and ease up on the impressions, but I certainly give him props on being able to fill 6 hours of time with material. I have done only 3 hours of training, and it is tough!

This is how I feel right now: flashy and eye-catching, but ultimately void of any substance!

Pew pew, I hate when I start a thought and don’t finish it. Diet has been a drag, no tracking. No Fitbit to track the steps either. Haven’t been getting 10k either, maybe a few thousand from shopping and walking around the work building but not nearly enough to be healthy. Yoga has been spotty at best, with like one home practice, despite my goal of getting 150 hours in on year. I wouldn’t even say that is a very lofty goal but that requires about a 3-4 hour commitment per week, if I want to accomplish this by July 15th of next year, maybe less since I already have 30 hours. Anyway, I would like to think my slacktastic weekend is due to my boyfriend not being around, and I feel like I have no accountability towards anyone, but that is such bullshit. Am I not accountable to myself? Maybe this is what depression is like. Who knows? At least there is music.

Music makes me lose control! Who doesn’t like music, right. My bf teases me all the time, because I am this snob about electronic, ie: I don’t listen to really anything outside of electronic, and whatever, that may be somewhat true with the exception of a few bands, but as Charles Duhigg has pointed out, this isn’t my fault. We like what is familiar, and for the past oh, 11 years, EDM has just been my thing. I sneer at jam band music, too, sorry. 😦 The librarian wants to catalog things, so here is the beginning of my list, Azoic, The:

I would write a bunch about this, but the track is about 11 years old, and maybe I am just too self-conscious about what the 12 of you think about my prose, but anything I type just seems cliché and not important. Ugh, oh so negative, I hate it.  Fear is the worst thing for creativity, don’t you agree? There are probably so many things I could talk about but the fear of being judged as too old, or not artistic enough, or shallow really makes me a bit depressed. Maybe, I just need some more liquid courage, and by that I mean caffeine, that always helps, right? Okay, now just babbling on, who would want to read this at all?  Fuck, I am feeling too anxious. I am stressed about things, but hopefully they will get resolved. I used to have such joy in this and now it feels like a chore, life feels a bit like that lately, though. Lauren needs to get her groove back.

separation anxiety and some shit i wrote 2 years ago

More like 1.5, but you get the idea. Ennui with laziness is a bitch, and I legitimately feel like there is something wrong with me health-wise, but I probably said that 2.5 years ago, piss poor mood today and it started all so well, but as the sugar high dissipates and the anxiety and anger begins, I am back here at a computer screen being miserable. Hah! I should grow up, but regression is so much more fun than responsibility. Emphasis is the 2012 sarcasm, oh cynicism, you my only friend. Here we go:

I am not a fat person, but I am also not a fit person either. I wish I could be, but it actually takes a lot of things that I am not willing to give: time, dedication and discipline. Unfortunately, I think I have been able to give the first two things, time and dedication via money spent on books and DVD’s. Mostly, it has been an exercise (pun intended) in obsession while getting the joy of sitting on my ass. I love all the magazines: Shape, Fitness, Self, Oxygen, Fitness Rx, and Women’s Health and read all the blogs: That’s Fit, Fit Bottomed Girls, Vital Juice, FitSugar, and SparkPeople, and worship the exercise messiahs of Jackie Warner and Jillian Michaels*. But, Lauren, it is a lifestyle change, not a diet. Who doesn’t know that doing 30 minutes of cardio for 5-6 days a week with a full body circuit training regimen 2-3 times a week, AND eating clean for virtually all of your meals will work, but that’s the point. It is easy for these celebrity trainers to find the time/motivation to do all this because IT IS THEIR JOB. What really is the motivation for me? At 130 pounds and 5’4″,at 120 I still feel fat and something tells me that even if I got to 110 I would still be a miserable sack of shit, I look bad, but it’s not really that bad (unless I wanted to go-go dance again, but right now I would look like the protagonist in “Female Problems”) Sorry, not sorry, you don’t get that John Waters reference Hell, I am not even a member of a gym anymore.

So, why the obsession? I guess it is something I want. Everyday I am bombarded by images of hot women, not to mention the real ones that flood 6th street and the UT campus on a daily basis. It is an ideal, like having big boobs or being taller, but this is something that I could actually attain. Well, Lauren, it just sounds like you are unhappy with yourself and should just learn to accept your body. That is such a crap way of saying to someone that mediocrity should be celebrated. Fine, sure cellulite and small tits will be in my life forever, short of invasive surgery, that is literally something I cannot change, but should I be okay with having a perma-muffin top and belly? The point is that most people that look like that probably look like that because they are a) super dedicated and have a bigger steak in it or b) young and don’t have to work very hard to stay thin and fit. It is pornography, the idea of having a fit lifestyle that somehow meshes with the realities of work, school, kids, or other relationships.

I know you are saying, just quit making excuses and do it. But, is it really worth the effort? Even just a few years ago, we have seen evidence that working out may not really affect wight loss. yet, according to Bally Fitness, the fitness industry is a $14.1 billion industry. It is just porn. Why do I still persistently sign up for workout plans, buy the books, and wish instead of actually sweat. I am chalking this one up to dopamine. I don’t think it is a coincidence that all these website connect with my Twitter and Facebook to consistently overload my overstimulated brain mush with the same recycled information about eating fruits and vegetables, staying active, and doing strength training. How many different ways do you really need to demonstrate that? It certainly is a lifestyle, but mostly just one you have to buy into like AmWay.

*I actually respect the hell out the two, but the hypocrisy between what they say and what they do is a little saddening. For example, Micheals in her book “Making the Cut” admonishes the use of diet pills and supplements, but you can easily find in any drugstore yummy OTC candy with her and her sneering on the package. In numerous interviews, Jackie Warner declares that crunches are a “waste of time”. Oh really, then why would you include them in multiple DVD’s? It just seems a bit devious, that’s all.

Doin Thangs

Actually, not really. Not enough sleep in the past 3 days, insomnia and this morning I had to get up at like 6am to take my boyfriend to the airport. Yeehaw, but the rest of this month I have vowed to myself to at the very least to get my finances in at least somewhat order. It is pretty bleak, however,  when I actually pay all my bills. Such is life, I am not really in a good place to move, so finding employment elsewhere would be a challenge that I don’t know I can handle right now. The best I can hope for is that  revenue will pick up in our company and that will translate to a higher salary for me, but at worst if it doesn’t and I don’t get a raise, in April, it will mark my 5 years with this company, so that would give me a lot of leverage if I chose to take my talent elsewhere and perhaps to a more managerial position. Anyway, having everything clearly indicated is truly a stress reliever, even it means that I have to hide my debit card from myself and live on an “allowance” of cash for the next 2 weeks.

Just trying to remain positive, even if things are difficult right now.  This weekend will be lonely, but not necessarily in a bad way. Having a long-term relationship sometimes means that you become attached at the hip so to speak with your significant other. Plus the apartment is a mess,  and I kinda like jamming out the tunes and practicing some dance moves while I do my hausfrau duties. Speaking of which, I need to finalize my to-do list for the morning, so that in the afternoon I can relax and enjoy the day. Tomorrow morning, I get my platinum hair done, hey budget or not, I will NOT go around with 3 inch roots! I may or may not go to the park for some psy-trance (depending how nasty the weather is), and tomorrow evening I have a dinner party to go to, so that will be fun. Now, I know what you are thinking, what about the whole 30? Welll.. Sunday I have a six hour, yuck, defensive driving course I need to take and there will be pizza. I know myself well enough that if there is a yummy food around something that I am not wanting to be at such as a 6 hour course, I am going to indulge. That’s just the way it is. So, the best I will be able to do is on the 17th, hell I may not even do another one, great way to set up a success. Pardon me, I am pretty amped up on Zero Cal Monster, so the tangential rambling may be a bit intense today.

Not to mention, the breaks I am forced to take because of work, fucking day job, why can’t I just be a badass bloggerina to support myself (and I talk about not having enough money now). So yeah, check out the two new pages I have added:  31 things while 31 and Lauren’s Library books are added as I read or am reading them, so that should help with Goal #1, if you are paying attention! Well, super busy, wish I could muse further on my complete failings at life, but there is too much shit to do, so until I have more more time, TTFN!

Loving this rain:

Here are some songs about rain:

 

On the road to the second Whole30

Lack of inspiration, not so much that I have nothing to say, just more that I feel like a hypocrite. Oh sure, I will start out with healthy intentions and eat stuff like this, very delightful dish of “breaded” chicken (almond meal and coconut flour) with sauteed broccoli and sweet potatoes:

However, those intentions will quickly dissolve and I will be eating stuff like this:

This was the Philly Cheese Steak served with garlic and parmasean tater tots. The tots themselves were nothing to write home about but the fact that they added garlic and cheese to them really made it a nice touch. I wouldn’t say it was the best cheesesteak I have had in Austin, my personal favorite is Texadelphia, but whatever, cheesteak is like pizza. You really cannot screw up the unholy trinity of fats, carbs and meat.  So obviously, my reintroduction phase hasn’t exactly been gradual, more like ramming whatever tastey goodness I can find down my gullet. Jeeze Louise, I am getting hungry just thinking about the feasting last night. Amazingly, I have stayed under 120 pounds, despite my efforts to sabotage myself, oh please I act like I did not bike on the stationery 15 miles yesterday morning. Bla bla bla, you can’t out-exercise a shit diet, but considering I only have one or two really crappy meals, I’m doing okay.

Just okay. I am trying internally to fixate my intentions into actions. Not comfortable with discussing them, because I think that is a sabotage. Oh and there is this, but in terms of blogging, does that count as saying them. There is also the saying, “Ink it, don’t think it” that I have heard in terms of goal setting and achievement. I do see a lot of people that I am following declare their intentions, but for me it seems a bit like saying them, so I get scared. Ugh, deja vu, like woah. Yes, it feels like I have talked about this before, so maybe I will shut up and try to focus more on what I can add to this thing that will make people actually want to read it. Seriously, my stats have been horrible lately! I know this endeavor is mainly just for me, because writing is fun and it is something I don’t get paid for, but if this were a job, not sure if I would still have it based on the website traffic. Let’s be honest, how many people actually keep a private blog, I would assume very little. The whole point of this is to create and captivate an audience, right? Or is this just my own narcissism and histrionics? Perhaps, my content isn’t that interesting to anyone but me, and that is sorta okay, too, but I would like to think if I am putting effort into something, that other people would want to pay attention.

It is hard to say for sure how to become successful at something without trying to piggyback from celebrity or resort to sex appeal. Oh, it is certainly tempting, but I am not sure my cellulite dimpled ass is something anyone wants to see. Speaking of cellulite. It really sucks, and it terrible looking. I have read more articles than I care to admit about the subject, but tried very little mainly because of the wikipiedia article that states that this phenomenon is something that has never really been “cured”. What say you audience? Have you ever been able to improve your cellulite? What was the most successful treatment?  Isn’t cellulite the worst?

In terms of setting goals, have you been more successful blogging about them or just “shutting up” and letting your progress speak for itself?