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To be fair, my schedule has been hell on wheels this month.  It’s not so much a fail on my part to execute, but a fail to realize expecting a big boost in activity in an already crazy month was a bad idea.  What happened?  Well, to start, let’s recap the plan here:

Day 1: 20 mins on Cybil, 20 mins arms/squats, 20 mins running

Day 2: 5k run for time, 20 mins core/bootie, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Day 3: 40 minutes of DDR, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Day 4: 1 mile run for time, 20 mins full body strength, 20 mins on Cybil

Day 5: 4 mile run, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Crazy plan for a crazy girl, right?  It seemed like a good idea at the time for many reasons.  I had just spent two weeks working normal hours and figured I would be rested and refreshed enough to tackle something harder.  My weight loss was slowing, and I wanted to kick it up a notch and thought this might help get the ball rolling faster.  My parents were going to be here and staying with me, so I thought I could use some extra me-time, and it was a perfect excuse, and a perfect excuse for Zliten to get away and workout with me as well.

How did it go?  Well, the first week was fine - tough, but fine.  I completed, minus yoga one or 2 days (just stretched in place of it), everything.  I hit a pretty decent starting 5k time of 32:20, I matched my mile time of 8:55, my 4 miler wasn’t torturous, and I set myself up a pretty good and efficient arms/some legs and core/other legs strength circuits.  Four days of running did sort of aggrivate my foot slightly (only lasted a day, but still a bit disconcerting), and I had on and off hip and right hamstring issues, which both seem to have cleared up.  Behind that I believe was introducing myself to Cybil the arc trainer on maximum incline, and misusing one weight machine for a week before I realized like a dummy that I was putting my calf where my foot was supposed to be.  However, Zliten decided to work out in the mornings, so my extra time at the gym was extra stress for him (being around my parents nagging at him without me to intervene), which was more stress for me later.  Also, some weird stuff happened at work which made everyone around me just become ridiculous Negative Nancies, which started to rub off on me.  In other words, I was doing it, but MAN OH MAN I was a grumpypants to be around.

The second week, everything fell apart.  I felt sorta like that cat in the cage, I knew I was having an off week, but couldn’t do much about it since I was already paws deep into it.  I had industry parties to go to last Monday and Tuesday, and I missed my workout Monday and just did 40 minutes of DDR on Tuesday due to time constraints.  I couldn’t drag myself to the gym on Wednesday, so I did the same workout plus some yoga, due to utter and complete exhaustion.  Thursday and Friday I got back in the swing of things with a 20 minute Cybil, 25 minute partial full body strength, 22 minute run and a 4 mile run and major stretch session respectively.  Saturday, I had to cut it short with 40 minutes of DDR right after I got up so we could head out for the day to the waterpark.

I am proud of myself that I still managed to get in 5 workouts last week even with the super frantic schedule I was keeping, but 3 of them were definitely light days.  The energy was just not there for the intensity I wanted.  Actually, I’m also proud of myself for knowing my limits.  I could have pushed through the exhaustion and figured out a way to sacrifice the time to do the killer workouts, but I think it would have negatively impacted me.  The last thing I need right now is to be sick or hurt, and I could have easily done that to myself last week.

Possibly contributing to the fail-ness is I haven’t lost a pound this month.  I did set a new record low weight by 0.8 lbs, but last time I got on the scale I definitely wasn’t there.  People have told me I look like I’ve lost weight, so I might have firmed up a bit, but there is only so firm a 5′5″ girl can be at 167.  Unless miracles happen, I’m not going to hit my goal of 165 by October 1st.  I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal, but this is the first month I haven’t lost at least 5 lbs in over a year.  I don’t want to lose momentum.  I do really well with keeping something in motion, but I don’t do well with starting or restarting something.

My plan going into the next two weeks is going to be:

• Eat more, but good stuff.  The plan is to eat the same types of things I normally do, but add extra servings of fruit and veggies and maybe even some lean protien/nuts.  I’m hoping to be at 1500-1700 calories on the weekdays, and 2000 calories on the weekends.  Reason being - I think I might have screwed up my metabolism by trying to pump up the exercise without the good fuel being there at first.  If this helps, I’ll have to remember to eat more for a while when I bump my program, and then gradually eat less as I become more accustomed to it.
• Try to push through and finish the month as scheduled, more or less.  The next 4 days are back to normal, and then I have a 3 day music festival to attend which will combine walking and lots of food/drink, which will hopefully cancel each other out.  I’m not going to be insane and try to work out during that time, so I’ll miss one day this week.  Besides that, I’d like to follow it as closely as possible and see if by the end of the month it gets easier.
• Start figuring out what’s up for October.  Things that have piqued my interest are HIIT, longer workouts and cutting down to 4 days per week, 3 super hardcore workouts and 2 really light ones, a month of only cardio, a month of minimal cardio, and alternating weeks of heavy and light activity.  So, erm, yeah, all over the board.  Stay tuned to see what I decide.

I’m excited for the next few days to get back into a normal schedule with normal happenings.  No houseguests, no crazy weekday parties, no going out to eat every meal.  I felt myself slipping in weird food ways the last two weeks (noshing off an appetizer tray at parties after having eaten a huge dinner, eating two gigantic meals in one day and still being super hungry the next, not counting calories on the weekend because it’s just too much to deal with), and I’d like to get that back in check before it becomes a habit.  It’s good to know that I’m dedicated and active enough to get through a tough two weeks without gaining (or at least fluctuating up and down like normal within an acceptable range), but the scale must start showing me a lower number or I will go nuts soon.

That being said, I’m off and running to grab this week by the horns and really try to rock at living healthy for the next 4 days.  Wish me luck!

I owe part 2 of my Pyschology and Games intro, I know.  None of the stress has gone away (though my attitude is holding pretty steady, thxuvarymuch), and I’m just not ready to tackle anything heavy.  So, soon.  For now, I am going to discuss a much more important topic, clothings!  Hey, it’s Friday, I can’t be bothered to be too deep, right?

I am now completely obsessed with this blog.  I am just recently emerging from wearing mostly black, brown, dark blue, and maroon shirts with either jeans, dark colored pants, or varying ranges of muted toned skirts, so the fact that I now have a baby blue and two purple shirts (as well as some crazy colored paisley skirt) I wear regularly is actually a vast improvement.  It’s not like I haven’t been trying lately, but the results are a mixed bag.  Outgrowing clothes (or, more accurately shrinking out of clothes) doesn’t help.  When I find a gem of an item like a beatiful lime green sweater (in the picture, damn I looked really cute for being 40 lbs heavier) or a sweet pair of bright red trousers, they only fit for a few months, and it’s hard to replace stuff like that - the season is over, it’s been through the bargain bin and is gone, or it is 8 years old and been out of style so long it’s almost back in but not quite.  Believe me, I am not complaining about the weight loss in the least, but I see people like that who are dressed so bright and cheery looking and think “damn, I need to be more colorful”.

I love bright red but alas all the red shirts I have are either dressy only, too big, or just a wee bit too small (or I haven’t found the right bottom to go with them and not make my tummy bulge).  My way-too-orange tank top (from the rock wall video) is too big, and the orange retro tee I have is both too sheer and a bit too short.  The yellow tank with a rainbow stripe just fits funny and my yellow threadless rock at work tee is begging to be worn but alas it is dress length and I have yet to get brave enough to try to make it shorter.  Green is always an utter failure on me although I would kill to have a lovely assortment of sage and lime and emerald and forest to wear.  The only two I have that might be considered green are so muted they are almost grey.  Then there is my many blue shirts, two purples, two greys, and sea of brown and black.  I have just inherited a cotton candy pink shirt, which I will wear at least once, but I don’t think I can rock the pink.

I guess I also need to get over the fact that I can wear different colors together, like today - I’m wearing brown pants, a brown patterned shirt with red and green, a brown sweater, and brown shoes.  After peeking at that blog, I might consider wearing my green sweater instead, and realizing that I have a maroon sweater that just almost exactly goes with the lettering on the shirt - duh, why did I go so brown?  Shoes?  Well, I guess I could have gone with the nude colored wedgies, but they aren’t comfortable.  Now, I could almost see rocking this outfit with some loud yellow, red, or green shoes.  Great, I *just* finished getting my summer and winter foot needs in black and brown (as to match everything) in both casual, dressy, and bootish, now I am craving ridiculous colored shoes to wear.  Zliten is going to kill me.  My shoe closet is already so, so full.

At the heart of it, I’m just happy I can enjoy my thrifty and silly version of fashion again.  It really sucks to be stuck in one outfit (skirts and tank tops) because nothing-and-I-mean-nothing-else fit and freak out when having to don anything else because of weather (actually, I can’t really complain about that freakout because it’s what started the less-of-us movement) .  There are many things that I can’t wear still and probably never will (those babydoll dresses make me look ginormous, any fitted blousey non tank without stretchy material makes my muscles cry and shoulders look hulkish, those long shrirts both in the tight and loose varieties, the below the hip jeans, etc etc) but I at least have more options (the simple fact I can wear pants and shorts and knee length skirts without being uncomfortable is good), and keep obtaining more as the weight falls off.

That being said, I need to try for more colorful things.  All I can do is keep shopping my little heart out, though I will probably wait for the weather to be fall-ier and gravitate towards sweaters and long sleeves since I pretty much have to replace my entire winter top collection because I’ve lost 40+ lbs since I’ve touched any of it last February or previous.   I long for bright argyles, vibrant reds, beautiful greens, ocean blues, and crazy patterns/decals.  I guess I just have to make a concerted effort this time to stay away from the same ol’ same ol’.  I tried the “find a tshirt you like and get every color” trick, and it just did not work.  I would always return or trash the light blues, the violets, the yellows, the oranges, and the light greens because they never looked right on me, while the black, red, brown, and blues looked as fabulous as they did at the store.

Instead of just lamenting about my dark closet rainbow, I might as well share something useful, besides my shopping face.  One thing I *have* picked up in the last few months/years/decades are some general clothes shopping guidelines.  This is mostly for chicks, because most of the dudes I know go out to a store or 2, grab a few things in their size, and head home without much of a care (or order everything from Threadless - you know who you are :D).

-Pay attention to what you’re wearing when you go to the store.  Generally speaking, if you want to find clothes you like, you want them to make you look cute/sexy/awesome, and it’s easier to do that if you’re feeling that way already.  Make sure your hair is in a low maintenance do that won’t get ruffled badly by shirts going on and off in dressing rooms.  Wear a cute pair of jeans that fit perfectly and go with anything (so when you try on shirts, you can see how they look with something that you might wear them with).  Your shirt should be something short sleeve or tank toppish (changing in dressing rooms is hard and sweaty work) and a plain color that goes with a lot of things - I prefer black but that’s just me.  Your shoes should be comfy enough to withstand a few hours of standing and browsing, but nice enough that you could try them on with a dress.  I like my all purpose black wedgie sandals with the cushy soles.  I know this sounds completely overthought, like most of my life is, but I’ve found that the mood and plumage going into a shopping trip directly effects the outcome.

-Don’t go after a huge meal, or when exhausted, hungover, or on a totally crampy/bloaty day.  This is just setting you up for a miserable mood.  If you absolutely need to go that day, stick to specific needs, and kinda squint at yourself with one eye and repeat over and over, “this will look better when I’m better” and squint at yourself with one eye in the dressing room.  Hey, if it still sucks later, you can take it back, right?  Unless you can’t - then just don’t get it.

-Go through the sale racks first.  I usually try to limit myself to them, but sometimes I will see something at the front of the store I MUST HAVE.  I try to make sure I try it on last, after I’ve either frustrated myself with all the crappy sales clothes or finding so much for cheap, I don’t want it anymore.

-That being said, if you find pants you love for 30 bucks, and pants you like for 20-25, go for the ones you love.  They will be worn much more than pants you like.  This goes for anything.  Splurge every once in a while and get something full price if it makes your heart sing and you think you will wear the hell out of it.

-Try everything on.  Even if you hate trying stuff on, sizes are so different everywhere that you never know what will fit.  I’ve tried on 2 of the same sizes, same cuts, same everythings of old navy pants and one was too big and the other too small.

-Try to have an idea of what you are looking for, but don’t be completely clothes-minded (har har).  I’ve gone looking for jeans and came back with an awesome pair of leather pants, I’ve gone looking for skirts and found a rad jacket, it’s simply not always in the cards to get exactly what you want (but I’ve found some of my favorite things not looking for them).  For example, on my next shopping quest, I need new black and nude tights, a white tank top or tee shirt, red pants, a grey sweater, and I’m always on the lookout for cute bright clothes like orange, yellow, and green stuff.

-Shopping is a workout.  Do your gym thang before you set out with your plastic and high hopes.  I never succeed at getting a workout later because it tuckers me out.  Then again, I rarely spend less than 3-4 hours out.

Thrift shopping has it’s own set of rules…

-Take someone patient with you.  The best partner I’ve found was Zliten’s mother.  My mom got impatient, Zliten was allergic to all the cat and dog hair on the used items since everyone and their mother has a pet, apparently, but she was a trooper and had fun (and even bought stuff) too.

-Realize that this is your afternoon.  It takes a few hours to properly comb through a good size thrift store (I’m either lucky or cursed to have two warehouse sized ones that I know of within a few miles).  You want to try everything interesting on, and that is usually a heaping cartload.

-Try things you would never usually wear.  Chances are if it’s kinda cool, it’s cheap enough to give a go.  Like my 7 dollar leather pants.  I cannot wait for colder weather for that one reason, I’m going to embarass the hell out of my friends and wear them everywhere.  Granted, I have a handful of things that ended up not working out and are in the pile to give back, but some of the things I purchased are at about 10 cents per wear.

-Look carefully at the condition of the clothes.  Having someone with you helps with a second, impartial set of eyes.  I mean, I’ve been almost ready to buy something I really liked anyway and had to be told firmly no (which is a good thing).  In your piling-the-cart-high-to-try-on-things joy you might miss the rip or stain.  I found the most AWESOME pair of bright orange pants, which fit divinely and made my ass look…spectacular.  However, someone had bled heavily on the inside of them.  Ewww!  As hot as they were, I could not deal with that and let them go.

-Keep an eye out for sales - I know it’s a thrift store, but how much cooler is half price thrift store clothes?  It makes the little inner Jew sing (being half-blood, I can make fun of half of myself, so step off)!  Also, donate old clothes back.  Our Savers gives you a 20% discount that day with a donation.

Man, now all I want to do is go shopping.  I know there is a perfect emerald green tee next to a cute, hippy, boot cut pair of red pants on a sale rack somewhere, just waiting for me to unearth it.  And maybe even some yellow shoes.

I wanted to post something positive. I haven’t tackled the in-depth topics I’ve wanted because my brain is fried at it’s core.  Let me give a bit of background on the last week or so.  It’s like everyone that I have to spend significant time with in my day has been in the pissiest, most foulest, terrible, horrible, no good very bad mood and damned if it didn’t rub off on me even though I fought it hard.  So by mid-week last week I was super grumpy and joining in the mucking about in the mad mad mud of negativity with them.  My dad monopolizing the TV ALL DAY with his sports was sending me into a snarkfest.  My mom, well, saying anything in that *tone* of hers made my blood pressure jump.  I was probably snippy at Zliten for being snippy at the same things I was feeling snippy about, but I didn’t want to deal with the snippiness twice, so I was snippy about him being snippy.  Let’s not even go into the funk-y-town of negativity which is work, but let it be known there was no escape from it.

So my home life is not my own, hasn’t been for 9 days and I’m not sure when it will end.  I’m scheduled to be out and about WAY more in the next few weeks than normal due to ADGC and what seems like half my friends’ parents having procreated in January (thus having September birthdays) and then a wicked cool three day concert of awesomeness.  My dance card, as they say, is full.  Mix in a whole bunch of abnormal eating (chinese buffet food that wouldn’t stay in my belly one minute longer than deemed necessary by my intestines, bar/party snack food, and much, much, more) and the start of a vigorous exercise plan that I rocked last week into exhaustion, and am already failing at this week because I simply don’t have the time between work and events for hour and a half sweat fests, and it adds up to frustration.

And, of course, the scale isn’t budging.  It has said one hundred and goddamn sixty eight or nine for the last month when it wasn’t saying something worse.  Not that I am unhappy at this weight right now, but I do not want to stay here forever.  On top of everything else getting my knickers in knots, it’s frustrating to count calories and do *reasonably* well eating for most of the month, and beat myself into a pulpy, quivering mess at the gym and continue to see the SAME thing, when all reasonable and mathmatical calculations should show the weight declining in some way, shape or form.

So now that you know how my week was going, I needed a good night out on the town with people my own age who don’t think that that funny internet thing I do is a waste of time.

Yay for ADGC afterparties.  Last night was a lot of freaking fun.  I cruised downtown after work and met Zliten  and T at the jackalope for a few pre-open bar drinkies, then headed to the video game art exhibit at the Arthouse hosted by one of the companies that jetsers is trying to get a job with - and met up with a bunch of Zliten’s ex-coworkers that had been axed as well.  The exhibit ended up being novel but kinda lame, and of all things they ran out of ICE, so my second drink was all vodka, and it took all 5 of the people with us to finish it before we left!  Actually, my first one wasnt great either - was a cute idea in theory (it was called a pac man, which had vodka/blue stuff drink, a lemon wedge cut like pac man, and marshmallows for dots), but not in sippage, so to the peanut (drinking) gallery named Zliten it went.  We also couldn’t hear the guy speaking - the sound system was really fuzzy.  Our gaggle wanted to eat so we led them back to the jackalope for burgers and more cheap drinks.  I got a gardenburger (which was super yummy) and a few (read: half) of jetsers fries.

Then around 9 we headed to the Heatwave party at Sky Lounge which was FABULOUS.  Full open bar, I mean, I was drinking Makers Mark all night for free.  Can’t beat that. ::grin::  A good, energetic crowd.  Funny to watch the suits walk around scoffing and calling the industry people monkeys.  I heard some guy who was like a junior suit tell what was obviously his boss “I’ll be your clown”.  There were wheelings and dealings and little private side meetings all over.  There was also quite a few people I haven’t seen in a while from SOE so it was cool to catch up.  The guys hosting the party were actually pretty cool to talk to, they had a decent idea for a business model (incubating game ideas and then handing them off).  I also got handed two purple boas which I rocked all night.  At one point we had Lum the Mad and Scott Hartsman sitting at one table with us (and the drunk girl that apparently adopted him for the night - poor Lum), and I instantly felt the appearance of thousands of MMO geek boners go “sprooooiiiinnnngggg” simulatenously throughout the world without them even knowing why.  Hardy har.  Requisite bad camera phone picture of me rocking the boa included free of charge.

I may not die by Sunday from exhaustion, stress, and being pissy like I had feared this weekend.  I’m totally awake and happy today!  But it might have been also that I spent last night drinking all caffeinated diet coke and I have a residual buzz, we shall see by the end of today.  Tonight is squeezing in a short workout, dinner with the ‘rents at Stubbs downtown, and then the SOE/PlayStation party.  The place looks pretty sweet, and I have a ride home instead of having to drive, so yay for that.

So here is where I take a stand on that whiny, poor me, wah mood I’ve been in lately.  I refuse to weigh until Thursday because it could potentially piss me off, and I don’t need that.  If it’s lower, great, if not, I’ll wait until I have a quiet day to be grumpy about it (or not even be grumpy, that would be even better).  I refuse to be frustrated with myself for the lack of progress lately.  I’m stressed and got a lot of shit going on, and the stress itself is enough to keep weight on when everything else is going right, so I don’t need to stress more about being stressed, right?  So I’m gonna do the best I can without driving myself crazy until things smooth out (hopefully next week), and not be angry with myself for having an off-month.  If I don’t get to 165 by October 1st, it’s not the end of the world.

My parents will soon be at their own dwelling where we will not be in each others faces every moment, and I’ll have my house and a not-so-pissy jetsers back.  Caring about the politics at my job right now and thinking about what’s going on here in any capacity but what’s required to actually DO my job is going to have to wait until the rest of this shit resolves itself.  Things are looking good for jetsers and the co-op, and we aren’t even remotely close to out of money yet (or even out of severance and PTO reimbursal), so that’s barely even on my radar to stress about.

I am going to spend today happy and in a good mood, and there ain’t no one that’s going to stop me except me.  Tomorrow, well, she’s another day and I’ll see if I can keep this good vibe thing going.  My mood is a choice, and why choose to be in anything but a good one, right?

Something I hear on MMORPG message boards fairly often is “OMG, the devs must have hired a psychologist to figure out how to make us play more” or something to that effect.  While I haven’t ever witnessed this first or second hand, having an understanding of how human behavior and interactions with human controlled characters or humanized AI generally works can definitely be beneficial.  In plainer words, just stopping and thinking how you would react to the scenario you have thought out and planned to impose on your player base.  Now ask a few other people, hopefully of varying backgrounds.  Having the ability to pull the proverbial puppet strings of a whole world for a few years really taught me more than I could have ever learned by theories - and thus the exploration of psychology of games.  A quick intro into WHY this interests me is probably warranted - so the first installment is an introduction of sorts.

Oddly enough, when I dug into my about me section, I realized that I had omitted to say that I graduated cum laude with a honors BA in Psychology (with a minor in Theatre) from the University of Nevada, Reno.  When I was in school, I loved it - just the act of learning new things and gaming the system to get the best grades I could with the least amount of effort got me all riled up.  I always thought I would be one of those “career students” that was always taking a class of some sort.  I had been all my life, it was all I knew, and I was terribly uncomfortable with the idea of the real world.

Then, I decided on a psychology major.  My motivation was two-pronged.  First, I wanted to know what made people tick.  Second, it was the least-boring-while-being-somewhat-useful degree I could think of, considering my other ideas were education, art, theatre, and creative writing/english.  After one class in education, I realized I was making more money waiting tables part time than I would when I graduated, and I had no real passion for it.  The rest were simply things I liked doing - but I didn’t figure I could really make much of a living with ‘em.  Psychology held my interest, and at least the idea of real world value.

I also decided to go for the honors degree.  I mean, I had no idea what I really wanted to do, so being on top of the heap for grad school entry was definitely something I wanted to consider.  I mean, the longer you can stay in school the longer you can put off real life, right?  Also, honors kids got first crack at registration, so as long as I kept my status, I had my choice of classes.  Anyone that went to a crowded ass state school knows how important this is.  Since it took me 2 years to really decide that was the way I wanted to go, I spent the majority of my junior and senior years taking psych classes, except when I was taking theatre.

The first year, I found some things I really liked (biological or neural pyschology, and humanistic/existential psychology) and some things I didn’t (child development, abnormal psychology).  Really, when it comes down to it, take a look at this list.  I pretty much loved everything about foundation and principles (learning theories and how things work), but I didn’t want to apply it to real life in a capacity where something was wrong with someone else (applied methods and populations).  Mostly because they start telling you how to push drugs at an early age in your potential psych career.  I got into a lot of trouble asking in class “ok, so you give this medication, but what about dealing with the actual root of the problem”.  So I knew I was never going to make it through grad school to be a shrink, but the research papers and experimentation and theories?  I loved them.

That is, I loved them until the end of my senior year.  Since I spent so little time schmoozing around the department, I was without a mentor for my senior thesis (the major part of the honors degree requirement).  I finally begged one of my professors from a summer school class to bring me on as an assistant to his research assistant to study color vision and aging.  I got to hook people of all ages to electrodes to see how their brains reacted to different color patterns on monitors and read thousands of pages of literature on the subject.  I’m published out there somewhere, which would have been a big deal at 22 if I would have decided to keep on going.

My professor just ended up being a jackass about everything.  I went from being ready to graduate six months early (a year if I would have loaded up summer school) to graduating in August 2001 instead of May.  I actually did not technically graduate until I was moved to San Diego and had my foot in the door at SCEA.  Every week I would submit my paper, and every week he would have changes.  I’d fix those changes and submit again, and there would be more.  This literally happened for MONTHS.  He also wanted to try to keep me there another semester in the fall to run more subjects for his paper to get the grade and credit, and I convinced him to let me out at graduation, just continuing to revise the paper and submit it over email - over and over, until it was finally accepted.

That day in August when I finally got credit complete notification (with an A to boot, woohoo), I knew that the world of academia was maybe not as happy and fun as I had dreamed it would be.  There would always be someone like that professor that would ruin research work for knowledge and advancement, at best being indescisive or at worst power hungry and lusting for more credits and publications, not caring who they stepped on.  I don’t care how big your academic-peenie is when my degree and/or career is on the line.  After school, I pretty much became one with my couch out of frustration and exhaustion and I took a year off and started to look for a real world job.  I was too beat up mentally and emotially to go back just yet.

What happened then, in the fateful summer of 2001?  Part 2 soon!

In light of the lack of updates this week, it’s time for the contiguously challenged post topic of 5 Random Things!

1.  My parental units (hehe) are in town and staying with me, waiting to close on their house.  Friday’s the day, and then their stuff gets here 0-10 days after.  Our friend T mentioned to Zliten that my parents were staying with us for 3+2d6 (for non table-toppers, not that I’m really one but I understand dice rolls, that’s 3 + the total of 2 six sided dice).  I liked the sentiment!

2.  I have a lot of serious, in depth posts rattling around in my head, but I haven’t been able to unearth them completely from my brain.  So, while I’d like to discuss the psychology of games and why I really want to lose the vanity weight, my brain just isn’t ready to let go of them.  So maybe this will be a light week of posting.  And maybe by acknowledging that I am feeling blocked, my muse (not these guys, though I do like their epic, histrionic music style ) might come to light and I’ll write in SPITE of that.  Who knows?

3.  My dad cornered me last night and said that I looked really, really skinny.  In a good way.  From the guy who berated me in public in front of the family a few years ago, it was good… I dunno, not vengeance, not validation… I guess just nice to prove it to everyone I was not a lost cause physically.  I didn’t have to be the fat daughter or the fat girlfriend or the fat boss or the fat friend.  A lot to read into a literally 2 minute conversation, I guess.

4.  I finally read through all the xkcd archives.  Existentialism and math geekery at it’s finest.  I just want more!

5.  I did my first “official” timed 5k on the treadmill yesterday.  Official, meaning I was running for the distance as fast as I could.  I did 3.1 miles in 32:20.  It’s not great, but it’s a start.  My goal is under 30 mins.  Since I never run on the pavement, I think I’d be happy with 35 mins in a for real race.  I’d say I’d train on it so I could get better, but it just HURTS me bad the next day.  Since I already have legacy gymnastic ankle injuries, I sort of consider myself lucky to be able to run and don’t want to press my luck.  Maybe when I have a bit less to lug around?  Until then, I love me the treadmill!

Every month I try to update and tweak around my exercise plan a bit, because we all know that doing the same thing over and over makes your weight loss and fitness level stagnate.  I also get into trouble one way or another if I don’t walk into the gym with a plan.  I’m not quite as adventurous as Charlotte, but I do like trying new things, or old things in new combinations.  In June, I pretty much concentrated on the hundred pushup challenge while maintaining my cardio, and working fake HIIT on the treadmill.  July, I worked on increasing my top running mileage from 3 to 4.  August, I cut my 1 mile time down from 9:30 to 8:55 and worked the abs hard.  On off days, I did DDR, yoga, skating, and/or climbing.

So, what am I going to do this month?  It’s been hard to come up with a plan, because all I want to do is ADD to my program, but I only have a limited time to do everything.  I want to add Cybil the Cybex into my life, and become one with the assisted pullup/dip machine but I also want to add back my yoga and not give up DDR and still run distance and HIIT and improve my mile and…ARGH!!!  It’s too hard, peoples!  I need the ability and the capacity to spend 3-4 hours at the gym per day.  In other words, have someone pay me the same salary I make herding cats and posting on my blog (otherwise known as producing video games) to workout.

Well, it’s not going to happen any time soon, so I have to pick and choose.  And since, it’s the first month at the gym and I’m going to make use of it most days.  After skipping yoga for about a month, I realized that I just CANNOT do that if I want to keep pushing my running further and faster, so that’s gotta be there too.  It’s also promising to get colder soon, which means I will be undertaking a 5k soon, though I’m not even signing up until it gets out of the 90s (and I’m hoping to not have to run in the morning).  So here is the first version of my September workout plan, complete with time estimates…

Day 1: 20 mins on Cybil, 20 mins arms/squats, 20 mins running

Day 2: 5k run for time, 20 mins core/bootie, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Day 3: 40 minutes of DDR, 15-20 mins yoga at home

Day 4: 1 mile run for time, 20 mins full body strength, 20 mins on Cybil

Day 5: 4 mile run, 15-20 mins yoga at home

It looks sane at first glance, but let’s dig a bit deeper to find the problems.

Day 1 is actually seems sane, until you realize that I’m probably not going to stop at 20 minutes doing an arm rotation.  I love me some arm workouts.  And now I have more machines to play with.  I do pullups and tricep dips and lat raises and bicep curls and tricep kickbacks and modified bench presses and shoulder presses and now 40 minutes have gone by.  Since I’m in denial and say that I only have 60 minutes, 5 days a week to work out, I have to pretend that I intend to do 20 minutes and then… oops, I spent 40 mins doing it.  Every time.  So realistically, I’m at 1 hour 20 mins here.

Day 2 is already screwed from the get-go.  While I would LOVE to run a 30 minute 5k, I’m closer to 33 right now, and with warmup and cooldown that’s at least 40 mins.  My core/bootie regiment is a little more sane than my arms, so 25-30 mins is much more accurate - though I haven’t tried any of the machines at the gym so I could be just as screwed.  Then, I have to fit in some yoga SOMEWHERE, so add another 15-20 mins.  So, for day 2, I’m somewhere between 1 hour 20 and 30 minutes.

Day 3, again, looks sane.  But 40 minutes of DDR time is really closer to an hour because it only counts time during the songs, not during loading screens.  Which is GOOD, but definitely takes longer.  Then yoga again, for a grand total of 1 hour 20 minutes.  This is also the day I might blow off if I’m heading out to skate or climb over the weekend, and planning ahead.

Day 4 is a day of denial as well.  If I can’t do an arm workout in 20 mins, I surely can’t do a full body strength training session in 20, even if I cut some exercises.  Add in the rest of the cardio and we’re looking at 1 hour 30, easy.

Day 5 is slightly sane.  Right now, 4 miles and warmup/cool down is about 50 minutes.  With yoga, I’m only looking at 1 hour 10 minutes at the most.  This is also probably the day I would blow off the run to either rock climb or skate if I needed something fun to do and had already done my DDR workout.

Even without the rose colored time traveling glasses to make these workouts actually fit in my schedule, I’m going to give it a try.  I took it a little easier for the last 6 weeks or so because of crazy work hours, and recovering from crazy work hours, so I can definitely use a month of ass kicking.  Plus, my parents will be staying with us for a while starting next week, so I can definitely use some extended *me* time away from the house.

This is my plan, and I’m sticking to it.  I’ll be back with a workout report at the end of next week and let you know how it went!

I like description in threes (she’s a lean, mean, fighting machine who needs a tall, cool, and frothy pint of beer…doesn’t that just flow?), and lists in fives (the last five fruits I’ve eaten have been grapefruits, oranges, grapes, peaches, and strawberries…just gives enough variety to get to know a person and their tastes), so five random things it is!  Just to have some sort of outlet from my randomness, I’ll save them up to be a decent chunk of post instead of just an offhand “Hmmm, I went to the store today and saw the cutest little mini-peaches called donut peaches“.

1.  Tuesday’s run was a new personal (adult) best mile run time of 8:55.  I’m only 1:05 away from my best time ever, 7:50, which was in junior high school.  I’m improving between 5-10 seconds most weeks, so I’m not too far away until I hit a wall.

2.  I just watched The Big Lebowski for the first time.  Yeah, I know, I’m terribly late to the party.  What an awesome movie.  Some days, I just wish I could be the Dude… totally oblivious and in a white-russian-and-illicit-substance fog.  Someone at least needs to bring the wearing of bathrobes as a overcoat into style.

3.  Tuesday also was my first day at the new gym.  There are soooo many machines, it’s unfathomable that they could ever all be full, but I’m used to the office gym which has one treadmill, a bike, a rickety elipse which I won’t touch, and a perpetually broken stairmaster.  I did go around 6:30, so I’ll see if I change my tune today when I head there closer to 5.  The funniest thing is - they have alarms on the weights, so if you drop them, it makes this obnoxious air horn sound (trying to embarrass the lunkheads who grunt and drop weights, the gym is all about not being pretentious).  This guy would totally do it on purpose.  I’m totally frightened that I’ll do it on accident.

4.  Had a great conversation with an ex-coworker of Zliten’s Wednesday night.  I love talking psychology with people that can talk it back - it totally wakes my brain up. It’s also incredibly inspiring to hear about someone who beat the odds just by getting into his own head and solving the problem. Totally reinforces my ideals that people can do amazing things just by giving their mind a chance.  This has totally started the wheels spinning for a post or series of posts, but worthy of note immediately.

5.  Why is frozen fruit just so good?  I had a snack of frozen strawberries and frozen grapes last night while I was waiting for Zliten to decide he was hungry enough to grill us some dinnah.  Amazing.  And they don’t go bad!  I’ve had these grapes for 3 weeks now and they are as delicious as when I first got them.  Seriously, if you’re having issues with sweet cravings or just want something quick that doesn’t go bad and is healthy for you - frozen fruit, baby.

If you haven’t read Part 1 first, go there to read about how I got a really fat ass and had a blast doing it.

So how did I actually transform from a hardcore gamer to… whatever it is I am nowadays?  It started with the purchase of a REALLY GREAT TV, and obtaining a DVR.  From 19 to 57 inches comes pure love. This was also right around the time Network TV started getting good again. It didn’t help that we were also both in newbie game designer jobs, which meant lots of MAKING games, not much time for PLAYING games. And when you’re playing just about the same thing you’re working on 50-100 hours a week, sometimes you need to do something else. ANYTHING ELSE FOR FUCKS SAKE, NO MORE ELVES AND ORCS!!!! When elves and orcs become your reality and livelihood, shows about dead people and games about real life are much more of a fantastical escape. So, we became tube zombies most nights of the week and playing weekends (when TV sucks and most of your friends are online then anyway).

Moving to Texas really put the proverbial nail in my gamer coffin.  First of all, we moved a packed 2 bedroom apartment into what was really a junior one bedroom.  My desk ended up in the corner of the dining room, and Zliten’s ended up in the space between our kitchen counter and the couch, just about in splashing range of the kitchen sink.  At least he could see the TV in the living room instead of just hearing it and staring into the corner like a bad, bad girl.  The reason we had that set up was I had the laptop (referred to henceforth lovingly as lappy), so I could dork from the couch.  However, that doesn’t work so well for gaming for a long period of time (long sessions on the old couch killed my back - my chiropractor said that laptops kept his business thriving and I believe him!), after a few hours of EQ I would have to beg off in pain and we’d do something else.

Then Zliten started working crazy man hours in preparation for a project launch, and I just don’t like to play without him, so I usually got home, made myself dinner, turned on the tube and dorked on the lappy until he got home.  I think the boredom actually got me up and out to the gym eventually, which was a GOOD thing, but weekdays were for TV, and weekends were for going out.  Since our place was so tiny, we couldn’t entertain (I think we had P over once, T+V over 2 times, and mostly just for the pool), and frankly, we were uncomfortable there, so we were never home.

The biggest change was going from almost complete shut ins to social animals.  In San Diego, we would go out MAYBE once a month to a party, a bar, or just to hang out with friends.  We didn’t have a core group of peoples the whole 6 years we were there - you know, the friends you pretty much count on having plans with during the weekend unless you hear differently.  Our core group was our guild.  It’s totally weird to move to another city and go from homebody to social butterfly, it’s usually the opposite, right?  Even though in San Diego we didn’t hang out that much - all the San Diego transplants to Austin sort of formed this tight-knit bond and instead of being friends of friends or acquaintances we’d see at parties, we all started hanging out.  A lot.  Like, Friday drinking at someone’s house, Saturday going downtown, and then Sunday doing errands and then a BBQ.  Where do you fit gaming in there?

Then the amazing happened, we found the perfect house for the perfect price in the perfect neighborhood.  The only problem was - it needed TONS of work just to make it livable.  Right about that time, I got serious about calorie counting and the gym.  It was horrible timing, of course, but I knew if I made it through the first 2 months I could make it through anything.  So after work, we would head to the apartment, eat dinner, workout, head to the house, paint/clean/fix/etc, and then head home exhausted and do it all again the next day.  With weekdays like that, and weekends with our social schedule, there was zero game time.  We consoled ourselves that once we moved in, we’d have time!

Once we were settled, things just didn’t take a turn for the better game-wise.  There was just never a good time.  We always had something to do with the house, whether it was just cleaning up or finally painting the bathroom, or unpacking and organizing - it was hard to justify a whole day of playing.  That was, if our friends weren’t over.  Now that we had an awesome space to entertain, we had people over constantly if we weren’t out and about.  I think we got one good night of playing with our guild before the people we were closest to cancelled their accounts because they didn’t play much either.  Then it was a whirlwind of family around to see the new place, it felt for a few months we were either cleaning in preparation for, spending time with, or cleaning up after family visits.

By early 2008, it was just a habit not to game much.  I hadn’t had my desktop hooked up for months by then, and I hadn’t patched up anything on my lappy in ages.  There was a period that we were hardcore into Rockband, but after a while that went by the wayside as well.  Oh, Rockband.  The game that helped me get 3 boys into skirts…

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the awesome rocking, and also how un-fat I have gotten since February.

Ok, moment over.  Basically since then, my life just doesn’t have room for much gaming.  Sure, I play here and there, but I’m becoming one of those people who I thought were in the minority - gamers that didn’t want to play games that took time.  A game has a lot of value to me if I can either A) play it at work from a browser in 5-10 minute increments to kill time B) doesn’t take coordinating a lot of people to do something together OR C) is easier to play with people IRL than online.  Instead of dinging 65 (yes I know I linked it before, but you know you want to watch it again) lately I’m lucky to ding 25 in PuzzleQuest on the DS before I get bored with it.

So how do I get my fix nowadays?  Well, I’ll be damned if this doesn’t look hardcore, but it really just functioned to let 3 of us play the same MMO in the same room, otherwise we probably just would have hung out and done something else.  But it looks damn good on the TV, doesn’t it?  Other things that keep me from twitching lately are Ikariam, poker on my DS, and the simple fact that I’m just too worn out after a day of work and the gym and dinner to do anything but watch Netflix, or Stargates, or West Wings, or whatever’s been DVR’d.  Sometimes we just sit outside and enjoy our patio and watch the sun set and swat mosquitos.

I think it’s also that gaming, for the San Diego years, was a way to live in relative poverty and not be so down about it.  I mean, we could barely afford food besides ramen some weeks, but we could entertain ourselves on 20 bucks a month for 2 subscriptions to EQ.  Living as a high elf who had the power to mesmerize anything with her beauty and sparkly sprinkles from her fingers felt GOOD to someone who could barely stand the way she looked in the mirror and had no power to do ANYTHING as a peon Quality Assurance or Customer Service grunt.  Buying upgrades in the bazaar helped me feel better that I could not afford to, nor fit in any clothes I wanted to buy.  I also had the unique experience in which it did not hurt my career, becoming familiar with the world and it’s lore helped me fall in love with a world enough that I grativated to working for and under it’s spell for almost 5 years, going from peon to producer.

Now, I don’t have such problems.  Sure, money is pseudo-tight right now due to circumstances beyond our control, but it’s not so bad - I don’t have to eat ramen and drink well vodka, thankyouverymuch.  I’m not having issues making a minimum payment on my maxed out credit cards, or taking direct deposit advance to make the rent check clear.  We are years away from that happening, and if it comes to that, I hear manwhoring pays well.  I may not be the most commanding person in real life unless I’ve had a few drinks, but my name IS fifth from the top on our newly released game credits, and it’s not because of alphabetical order.  I look in the mirror and don’t think - gee, I wish I looked like my avatars, I think - hey, you’re looking good today, woman!

So it’s not so bad, I guess.  Just like I’ve had phases where I was ridiculously into games, right now, I’m just not there.  I still play, I still enjoy, and yeah, I still long for the time, the will, and the reckless abandon to live it, but for now, I’ll enjoy the stolen time I can and have faith that someday, something extremely compelling will pull me back.  For now, I’m off to the gym to play the treadmill game.  It’s pretty grind-tastic, you have to keep running in the same spot over and over until your progress bar fills up.  But, just a bit more to go, and I can unlock these hot little black satin pants with flames on the butt that I’ve been saving since college for such an occasion that I want to show off my “hot ass” as such.

Last week, my workouts started to really suck, and I knew it was time to take a break. The last time I felt like this - I bruised my heel and injured my ankle. The time before, I got a really bad cold (I even stayed home from work, which is completely NOT normal for me). It was coming up on 4 months since I took a significant break from working out (more than 2 days in a row off, or less than 5 days in a week) so I declared this holiday weekend a mini-vacation for my muscles. I spent the long Labor Day weekend resting my poor tired stumps of legs, and beyond some swimming and shopping, my butt stayed firmly planted in a comfy seat.  Like the bad olive, I gave myself permission to “do what I want”!!

Additionally, I gave myself permission to eat what I wanted and not count calories. I ate french fries two days in a row, and red meat more often than normal. Thankfully I did not decide to have french fry salad as pictured over there, which looks disgusting!  There was whiskey, rum, wine, champagne, and beer. However, yesterday, even though I was still in “eat whatever I want” mode, I sought out the salad bar and for dinner we had some homemade shrimp stir fry instead of fatty, greasy food. I estimate that I had around my maintenance calories each day, maybe a little bit more. Yesterday morning, I felt really awful and sluggish, but after a day of veggies, veggies, and more veggies, I’m feeling great.

Mentally, I needed a break from worrying about everything as well. For the most part, I stayed away from just surfing the web, which just eats hours of my day if I let it. I lost myself in a game for hours to the point where it screwed up my sleep schedule. That being said, I slept in until after 11 am one day, and made it until about 10 am two others. I spent two afternoons at the pool and replenished my stores of vitamin D and now have some color instead of my pasty office tan (see, look, a little color in the cheeks there). We had a nice, small BBQ gathering. We went shopping and picked up some shoes (because I sooo needed some shoes, let me tell ya, heh) and other assorted things. It felt like a super long, eventful, but also relaxing weekend. Perfection.

I can tell it did me good, because I intentionally chose healthy food yesterday and today, and I woke up yesterday feeling like it was time for a workout. My calves and hamstrings are still a little tight (so obviously I needed the time off), but my neck is the most tense area right now, which is a sign that I’ve been doing more sitting than I should, and it’s time to move. Tomorrow, it’s right back into the swing of things, and for the first time in a while, I’m more than ready for it. I’m not dreading work like I have been since we started working overtime on and off, I’m not dreading my workouts like I have been the last few weeks, and I’m not resenting going back to my calorie counting tomorrow, I actually welcome it. I also took a break from even stepping on the scale, but today I’m weighing in at 171, which is not bad.

How do you know you might be overtraining?

• You have trouble sleeping or feel exhausted a lot of the time (check!)
• Muscle pain and soreness beyond normal or that lasts longer than normal (big check!)
• Lack of motivation and energy (check!)
• Sudden inability to complete workouts (check - couldn’t do 4 miles without walking last week!)
• Headaches
• Lack of appetite (yeah, not so much for me…)
• Elevated morning or resting pulse (don’t keep track but I bet I had that)
• Weakened immune system (no sickness, thank goodness)

So how do you prevent it?

• Warm up before your workout and cool down properly (I’ve gotten better at this - you can’t just break into a run and you can’t just stop and get off the treadmill)
• Make sure to eat something before and/or after exercise (I usually eat some fruit about 30 mins before and then have dinner soon after)
• Stretch! (I do a short stretching routine after running but I’m bad about it otherwise unless I’m getting my yoga in)
• Schedule recovery periods in your routine (I do 5 days a week, which is generally great, but coming off extended hours at work and stress, I needed a break)
• Get adequate sleep (I get grumpy if I don’t get my 7-8 most nights, so I’m ok here)

There’s a lot of other information out there, so check it out if you’re feeling like I did, and give yourself permission to take a break, even if it evokes some strange and irrational fears that rattle around your brain.  I did not negate the progress I’ve made in the last month, I did not lose muscle tone, and I did not do anything to harm myself or my routine just by getting off the grid for a long weekend.  I gained 1 lb over the weekend, which I am about 99% sure is water retention from salty food yesterday and my body rehydrating itself after my attempts to pickle my liver with alchohol, and will be gone in a day or two.  I haven’t worked out yet, but I don’t think I’m going to suddenly only be able to run a 12 minute mile again or only do 12 pushups.  I did not have to hurl myself headfirst into the grill like the poor chalk elephant pictured here.

So even though it felt self indulgent and lazy to consider it at first, I know it was a needed rest.  I feel relaxed, refreshed, and ready for anything.  I’m going to take it (somewhat) easy this week with my workouts and really push the yoga that I’ve been neglecting.  Next week, though, I’m really ready to kick it up a notch and I’ll be back later in the week to share my September workout plan.