Operation Jiggle Reduction

First things first: I present my bling.

Okay, now I’m going to talk about working out.  FINALLY!!

Today I went to my fiance’s gym (with him of course).  I weighed myself and found out I gained a bit (but that ring has to weigh like, 3 pounds right?).  I can’t really say I was surprised with the past few weeks of indulgence/inconsistent workouts over bday and engagement (and this weekend we’re going to see my family so there will probably be more celebration).

I had never really worked out with him before.  We’ve ran together or done sports together which has always been mildly frustrating because his legs are probably a foot longer than mine and he is like a god at most sports.  However lifting together was really nice.  I tend to work out alone so I only do things where I don’t need a spotter/know what I am doing.  When he’s there he can spot for me, so I actually really bench pressed instead of just doing the machine.  I can do the whole bar . . . with no weight, but I’ll get there.  He showed me some new arm and ab exercises as well.  Maybe it will become something we do together even though we go to different gyms.  He goes to the rich/snooty gym and I go to the more affordable one.  Aside from providing you with towels and having more televisions his gym is not much nicer than mine, and there were a lot of *******s there.  Or more specifically one *******.  I’ve never been sure how the whole Smith machine thing works so my fiance was showing me. As he was demonstrating some ******* ran over and said, "I’m not done yet, I have one more set."  My fiance replied, "No worries man, I just wanted to show her how it works, all yours."  ******* then said, "Oh, I could show her how it works," and winked at me.  EEEWWW.  Seriously, how lame.  Back on the subject of working out (notice how easily I get distracted, like now) I destroyed my abs.  It will definitely hurt tomorrow.  Hooray!

Much has happened since my last post.  Actually, only one thing, but it was a big one.  My boyfriend proposed to me!!  I said yes of course once I stopped crying.

I didn’t realize what a huge deal everyone would make out of this.  Of course I’m very excited to be marrying him (the wedding wouldn’t be for 2 years), and the proposal was a surprise, but not completely unexpected.  Family and friends insisted on taking us out to eat, buying us gifts, and just general celebration.

One of the gifts, a George Foreman grill!  It’s one of those gigantic grills with the removable plates and a bun warmer.  I’m going out to get a bunch of ground turkey today to make some yummy turkey burgers.  I’m trying to get my boyfriend fiance (it’s going to take a while to get used to saying that) to eat a little healthier.  He loves his red meat.

After all the excitement and celebration I was psyched to get back to the gym.  I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I was thinking, "How awesome now that I’m wearing my engagement ring at the gym, all those *******s who try and pick me up and distract me will leave me alone!"  No one bothered me at the gym, and the front desk lady at the gym did comment on my sparkly ring, but when I was doing seated rows I was like, "OWWW!!  This pinches like a bitch!"  When holding the weights/bars/handles especially metal ones right under my ring it pinched my hand.  Normally I don’t care about things like blisters.  I don’t make a living using my hands and I’m not a hand model so no worries, but I think this is going to turn into a blood blister.  Yuck.  So I may have to take the ring off and wear it on my necklace or something when working out.  Bummer.

It’s a small price to pay to be a buff bride.  Now I’m going to go grill something.

At least that’s the way I see it.

I’m 23 today.  I’m celebrating it by getting dressed up with my boyfriend and going to the Cheesecake Factory for a huge dinner which will be followed by a huge slice of cheesecake.  Probably a fair amount of wine and/or vodka will be drunk.

I will stay up way too late.  I will wake up hungover tomorrow.  I will then drink lots of water, eat protein pancakes and go to the gym.  Yes, my 23rd birthday present to myself (with today being the exception) is going to be good health.  It’s an on going birthday present and I’ll have to put a lot of work into it, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.  My other birthday present to myself is going to be a completely non - practical pair of shoes.

I know these things are bad for me, but I still enjoy them immensely.

• Vodka
• Wine (both of the red and white variety)
• Cats (I’m allergic)
• Pepperoni pizza
• Tortilla chips (with melted cheese . . . mmmm)
• Eggs benedict
• Pasta with creamy sauce . . . especially mac and cheese
• Ice cream
• Ice cream with lots of toppings
• Whipped cream (one of my fave ice cream toppings)
• Chocolate
• Cheese doodles (yes I know they’re nasty and turn your fingers orange)
• Cookie dough

Most destructive of all: staying up too late partying and indulging in all these things.  Except cats.  I don’t indulge in cats.

Yesterday I went all out on my legs.  Today I can barely walk down the stairs.  I had to take the escalator when going to the train today.  I’m one of those die - hard no escalator/elevator people.  I want to burn those extra 5 calories or whatever by walking down the stairs.  However, they say muscle burns 50 more calories a day than fat (or something like that), so I suppose in the long run the few calories I didn’t burn by going down the stairs will be made up for.

Oh it hurts.  But it hurts so good.

I did it!  I found a gym where I can afford the membership!  The location is pretty good too.  It felt soooo good to be able to go to the gym today, instead of trying to force myself to get off my couch and do a workout dvd or push ups.  I don’t understand the phenomenon of not being able to move several feet off my couch to do a work out, yet being able to get dressed, leave the house, get on the train and go to the gym.  Why is it easier to go somewhere else to work out?  I don’t know.  All I know now is that I have that somewhere else

I did abs and back today and also half an hour on the elliptical at interval setting.  I sweat like crazy.  It was glorious.  I’m going back tomorrow.

My philosophy towards diet and exercise has always been an all or nothing mentality.  This strategy works for a while until I mess up.  Then I’m back at nothing, then I have set backs and end up starting over again.  My weight has been 125-130 for the past few years, but I’ve gained and lost 5 pounds at least 10 times.  It’s always been those same 5 pounds.  I never make progress with this philosophy.
I’ve been realizing recently how stupid this philosophy is.  It leaves no wiggle room.  A few weeks ago I decided, I’m going to get serious about flossing.  I’m going to make sure to floss every night before going to bed.  I did it for about two weeks, and then one night I was too tired, and just went to sleep.  Did I wake up the next morning and think, screw it, I’ve ruined this and I’ll never ever floss again?  No, of course not, I just flossed that night and kept on going.

However with diet/exercise when I mess up I can never seem to get back on track. I said I wanted to work on my running, I have been, and now I have killer shin splints.  Obviously I need to take it easy for a bit (and I think I need some arch support).  In the past I would’ve been like, screw this, I can’t run, but I’m going to try to not let that happen.

I really like the 80/20 thing.  80% of the time do the right thing and 20% of the time it’s ok to slip up.  I need to apply that to fitness and diet.  Friday is the 4th (as I’m sure you’re all aware) and some of my friends will be having a BBQ.  I could go and try not to eat all the bad food, and maybe I’d succeed, but maybe not and feel terrible.  Or I can eat well up until the event, allow myself to indulge a little and get right back on track.  Which one sounds more reasonable?  It’s very obvious and I know it, but I just need to work on implementing it.

Off topic I got beautiful flowers, my friend’s kitten is absolutely adorable.  When I was out with my friend the other day it was sweltering (her apartment has no AC) so we went out to find something to cool down.  She got a huge delicious thick milkshake, and I got an iced coffee instead.  I even turned down the sip she offered me.  I know, I’m so hard core, I just had to brag.

In my last post I outlined my workout goals, but didn’t really have an eating plan.  After my "extensive" research into plans I’ve decided to go with the Body for Life eating plan.  (Note: by extensive research I mean Captain Ahab sent me a link to body for life and I checked it out and it sounded good, seems similar to the whole eating clean thing, just general good nutrition.  My thanks to Captain Ahab for giving me the tip!).

I was going to go running this morning but last night my boyfriend and I had one of those all out fights, where you scream stupid stuff you don’t really mean at each other and cry a lot.  We hadn’t had one of those in ages and I suppose we were overdue for one (and for those of you who were wondering it has nothing to do with the fact that he smacked me in his sleep).  It was a dumb fight over silly stuff but we just got way out of control with it.  At one point he told me I was fat.  I told him his was stuck up.  I also threatened to leave right then and there (approximately 2:30am) and go to my friend’s place.  He said something like, do you even know how to get there, you probably couldn’t find it if you tried.  I responded with something smooth like, oh yeah, that’s what googlemaps is for . . . it’s actually kinda funny when I think about it now.  Anyways, to sum it up, I didn’t sleep very much and when I woke up this morning with my combination of exhaustion, bedhead, left over bruise and puffy eyes from crying and I just wanted to pull the covers over my head and go back to sleep.  Which is what I did.  But the day is young and I’m going to ice my face and either go running or do my pilates dvd.  And so far I’ve stuck to the body for life eating plan!  It seems pretty simple and straight forward.  If you’ve made it to the end, thanks for listening to me vent!  To end on a positive note he’s probably going to bring me home some flowers, and I’m going to see my friend’s new kitten later today

My boyfriend used to be a goalie when he played hockey in high school.  I’ve never seen him play but supposedly he was really good.  He went to some kind of snooty private school where kids got recruited for university hockey teams.  Even though he doesn’t really play anymore he still talks about it and skates sometimes and plays pick up games occassionally.

So last night I was peacefully sleeping and am suddenly awoken by my boyfriend’s hand smashing down on my nose.  I woke up in utter confusion and alarm.  My startling (and apparently almost destroying my nose) woke him up to.  "You just smacked me in the face!" I screamed.  His response, "Sorry, I was dreaming, and I had to stop the puck."   I suppose this is one of the risks of dating a former goalie.

However, a goal is different than a goalie.  Here are my goals and hopefully they won’t result in bruises that make me look like a raccoon.

• I can do two “real” push ups (that means not the girly kind on my knees, I can do more of those), I’d like to be able to get it up to 10+ in the next month.
• I attempted to run around a pond near our apartment today, it’s about 1.5 miles.  At a slow jog I got a little shy of halfway around it and then walked the rest of the way.  I’d like to be able to run around the whole thing by the end of next month and by the end of the summer I’d like to be able to do the whole thing in 15 minutes.
• I need some kind of eating plan.  Still working on that.  I’ve always struggled with the eating part . . .

So those are the goals.  I’m going to research some different eating plans and hopefully by Monday I’ll have a good one!  Now I’m going to go acquire a helmet to wear to bed.

Ok everyone, you may have thought I abandoned this blog.

You were wrong.

I did temporarily.  My life got crazy busy, and I wasn’t really working out or doing anything productive for my body.  Out of laziness, shame, perhaps a little of both, I stopped blogging.  Fear not, I have returned!

While unfortunately I cannot report much progress (or any) since I last blogged, but I want/need to get started again!

Here’s the deal with my life at the moment: (yes it’s a list)

• I’m in my new home and new city with my boyfriend.  Oh yeah, I also got a new hair cut.
• I got a new kick ass teaching job which I’m super psyched about.
• I’m not working this summer!!!!  This will be the first summer since I was 13 that I haven’t worked!
• Last time I blogged I was saying how my boyfriend signed me up to do a 10k.  His super fit friend wanted to do it too, but the spots were all filled.  I ever so kindly offered her mine.  Seriously, I’m too nice.  She’ll probably run the thing in 30 minutes and then run home for the hell of it.  I’ll probably make a sign to cheer them on.
• I don’t currently have a gym membership, but I do have some free weights, a yoga mat, some pilates dvds, sneakers and abundant amounts of sidewalk.

So in conclusion, I apologize for my long absence.  Thank you to those of you who didn’t forget me, I didn’t forget you either, and I promise not to jump ship again!