adjustedreality.com

So considering the year is half over (or over half over, as I had INTENDED to post this closer to July 1st rather than July 31st), I figure I should do a little bit of project management on myself and see how this year is shaping up.  I believe dietgirl was the ohwise Guru who posted this in a more timely manner.  I’m glad I’m finally getting around to it though…

Here are 2009’s Resolutions…

1.  Body: Will continue to eat in a manner that is mostly healthy as I do now and improve when I can, continue improving my fitness, and work on reaching my goal weight, whatever that ends up being, in 2009.  While I’ll always work on improving my muscles and endurance, I’d like to get to the point where the scale is just a double check a few times a week that I’m not way off track, and food journals are a thing of the past, by the end of 2009.

Yeah, I would like to say I was done.  I think I’m close, but I just can’t seem to find the secret sauce formula that gets my weight going downdowndown again.  However, I am definitely a healthier eater and person in general than I was at the start of the year.  I’ve cut down a heck of a lot on my nicotine consumption (I regularly go days without it and barely notice until I get a random craving or it’s party time).  I’ve cut down my alcohol intake.  I regularly sleep 7-8 hours per day and wake in the mornings without too much complaint.  I went from 6 miles max to running a half marathon.  I’m whittling down my 5k time.  I’m increasing my weights/reps/pushup counts.  The pullup still eludes me but I’m ever so close.

I think the “problem” is I’m getting a healthier attitude about it all.  It frustrates me to no end some days, but I care so much less about the scale than my running times and how dance class is going and if I’ve gotten my fruits and veggies for the day.  I think I look and I know I feel pretty awesome and as long as I keep up what I’m doing, I’ll just keep slowly and steadily looking and feeling awesome-r.

2.  Fitness: I will do at least one new exercise-y thing a month.  This cannot include running, DDR, yoga, traditional weights, or Cybil the arc trainer.  By the end of the year, I would like to transition 1-2 days per week to something like dance classes or volleyball or some other competitive sport OR seriously start training distance running/triathalons.  By my 30th birthday, I need to pick ONE of these to focus on and concentrate on it (and make ancillary resolutions/goals based on what I pick).  I guess what I’m trying to say is to start working out for a reason that is not just to make the scale go down.

Oh yeah, can you say knocked this out of the park?  I would be going nuts without a non-scale goal.  Maybe the problem is I am too focused on the non-scale stuff so the scale feels ignored?  Heh.  Poor scale.  You have so much less power over me than you used to.  I’m pretty sure the entire internet by now knows that I ran a half marathon.  I’m also rockin’ the partner dance classes this month and discovered Zumba = love.  I even got the courage to do some crazy moves on the roller skating floor and throw a one-and-a-half off the diving board.  Between the impending relay/5k in September and half marathon #2 training starting after the wedding, I am super happy with my progress here.

3.  Soul: I will pick something creative and establish a plan by my birthday to complete a concrete goal by the end of the year.  Decide if I’m going to pursue writing (maybe actually giving a novel or book of some sort a go), songwriting/recording, pick up drawing/painting again, acting, or work on selling my necklaces.  Maybe take up web design and flesh out this site into a pretty one like I used to do and really give blogging a go beyond just using this for personal theraputic purposes.  Realize that I need to pick ONE of these and focus on it or I’ll feel as lost as I did in 2008.

Well, here is a neglected part of my life this year.  I have blogged a lot though, so I’ll call that a bit of success.  Between the wedding planning/being active I just haven’t had much time.  I thought summer would cure the incessant need to be outside and playing but it’s just taken the playing indoors.  Dance lessons are pretty creative though, no?  Perhaps?  Errr…yeah.

Also, the purpose of this resolution was to solve the fact that I was creatively frustrated at work.  This year, I got a bit of creativity added back into my tasks, so I didn’t feel so punishingly left-brained all the damn time.  I still would like to find a not-directly-fitness creative thing to do though… I miss my artsy side.

4.  Get married sometime this year!  That’s about all there is to say on this one…

Well, I’m not married yet but the invites are out, dresses purchased, and venue booked.  It’s getting close….

5.  Allow work to be on the back burner one more year. Of course, be open and receptive to any wonderful opportunities that fall into my lap, but work on enriching my personal life and hobbies instead of focusing on promotions, raises, extra responsibility, etc. Realize that having a 40 hour per week stable job right now that I can pretty much just leave at the office when I walk out the door is a blessing that is giving me opportunities to further the work on my body, fitness, and soul.

By the year, I am getting better and better about leaving work at work.  The new move is potentially good for personal growth and perhaps later salary/position growth (but I’m being incredibly optimistic here).  The climate out there is still pretty frigid so I definitely think I’m sticking where I’m at for a while and I don’t think I mind so much.

Other goals I made:

1.  Run a 5k. Check.

2.  Get a check up from a doctor. Eep.  This is seriously on my to-do list.  Like next.  After booking vacations.  And wedding stuff.  And/and/and…  Someone reprimand me about this in the comments please.  It’s been about 4 years.

3.  Make 10 necklace/earring/bracelet sets and sell them on Etsy. Fail.  I’ve made 4 necklaces.  It just seems like so much time and effort for so little money return.  And I just want to wear them instead!  Argh.  They are just sitting in a pile, sad and lonely.  Maybe I’ll get here in the next year or 3.

How does the rest of the year look?

1.  Not go crazy before I get married.  Seriously, I just want to get through all the planning and family drama and craziness and go look cute in my dress and dance at my wedding before I have to show up there in a straightjacket.  It’s not too bad right now but the possibility is there.

2.  Pick the 2010 Jan/Feb half marathon I want to do and start training 3 months before to peak at the right time.

I think that’s about it for the big stuff, I really gotta contemplate the rest.  What are your goals for the rest of the year?  Wanna yell at me for slacking off on doctor check ups?

Friday cuteness by icanhascheezburger.com.

I think I finally got my brain to give up a big secret yesterday.  I’ve been curious as to why I have had ZERO interest in running lately.  Like, I took almost a month off and have really had to use the self-cattle-prod to even get out and do 2 - 5ks per week.  The first few weeks it made sense - I mean, I had just gotten done running huge amounts many times per week for 3 months.  After a while though, the urge to run never came back.  My concience was what finally got me out to do a 5k two weeks ago and it was FUCKING MISERABLE.  I did not enjoy the run one bit.  Felt great after but it was 30 minutes of PURE PAIN.  Luckily, instead of feeling aversion to running because of that icky run, I decided that I needed to run more often so I didn’t feel that way again.

Last week was nice, it was cool enough in the morning to run outside so I was back out on Friday.  I pushed myself a *little* less and just did what was comfortable, and oddly enough I only added 1:30 to my 5k time and it just felt like a nice little jaunt.  I decided on two 5k runs per week, one hard, one easy.  Tuesday and Friday seem to be good days for it.

Yesterday, I had my stuff set up to get up and go in the morning and was going to head home and do weights at lunch, but when I stuck my hand outside it immediately started sweating so I threw everything in my gym bag (I think our low didn’t even get below 80), got dressed, and went to work.  By the end of the day, I was so-not-in-the-mood-to-run.  Like I was trying to talk myself out of it.  I could just go rollerskating!  I could take a walk or practice dancing with my Zliten!  But - I knew the mood I was in.  We’d have dinner, and the couch would eat us.

So instead, I said to myself, “Self, we don’t feel like running.  I know the treadmill is dull.  You have the choice of staring at either Rock of Love or the Austin, Texas sign on the wall.  Creepy dude is going to hop on the treadmill RIGHT NEXT TO ME instead of the 20 other open ones.  We know this.  However, since we are GOING to do this (yes, self, no getting out of this one today), we are going to do it the best we’ve ever done.”  My PR for a 5k is 27:19, I decided I would accept no less than 26:59 today.
All of a sudden - I went from pissy about it to PYSCHED for my run.  I was going to attempt a feat never completed in the history of time by me.  It went from another boring run to a chance to make HISTORY!  I’ll have you know, I got on that treadmill, warmed up like I would for a 5k, stopped it to clear the mileage, set it to 6.5 to start and then booked it.  I started at about a 9:15 mile pace and ended close to 7:30.  At first I was amazed how comfortable I felt at those high speeds, but near the end it took about all my will NOT to back the speed down but keep increasing it from 7.4 to 7.5 then the last tenth I wasn’t sure I was going to make it so I set it up at 8.0.  The little mile marker clicked over from 3.09 to 3.1 and the time read 26:46.  Woohoo!

I cooled down for the full 5 minutes instead of rushing it.  My weights session took at LEAST 15-20 minutes longer than normal because I was just dead from running, but it was totally worth it.  I think I need to at least target a 5k end of September or something so I have running motivation.  Thank goodness training for a 5k is much less time intensive than training for a half marathon!  All I am going to require is 2 runs per week.  I’ll give that a try.  Worst case, I don’t beat my PR and I got a run another race.  This is a win win!

Next week, I’ll see how I feel.  I don’t think running race pace every week is going to be the answer, but it felt good to do it yesterday.  Just framing the run in my mind the way I did changed the gym from an experience I needed to slog through to an epic day! So, dear readers, what can you change your attitude about today?  What can you shift from something you just have to get through - to something you have the opportunity in which to be amazing?

So I have a moment to breathe.  I should probably be working but I think a short update is in order and it’s lunchtime anyhoo.

Being that I have no idea who reads this, I don’t particularly want to air any specific dirty employment-related laundry.  I’m happy to talk about my previous stint of being a total workaholic and how it mentally affected me, because that reflects on me.  My feelings, my emotions, and my process of becoming a person again who is not only identified as my job title and game title all belong to me.  It does not reflect on the management at SOE because I was given a wild amount of freedom to do with what I would.  I could have worked my 40 hours, done my job, and went home, but I didn’t.  I still don’t regret it because it was an amazing experience and a huge experiment in stretching and smashing my comfort zone, but I also don’t regret reclaiming my life.

What I won’t do is run previous coworkers under the bus in my blog.  I would never talk professional smack about someone I crossed paths with at work.  The games industry is too small and incestuous to do that.  I’ve seen too many bridges burnt that caused major trouble in the future.  There is a joke about the “form letter” that gaming people send out over email on their last day/week - it is required that you mention something about “you worked with the most talented and bright individuals” and “you hope to get a chance to work with them again”.  When it came time to write mine about 2 years ago, it was absolutely true.  I still wish I could fold some of the employees that worked for or with me into my team, and I definitely miss and respect some of the managers I worked for there.

This is a story that must leave out some of the juicy bits.  Suffice it to say, I saw an ancillary communication that made me a little angry.  I put it in my pocket though, because it was not directed to me.  Essentially, it was the equivalent of seeing a facebook message from a friend to another saying “OMG you’re my best friend we have the most fun when we hang out, you’re the bestest person I know”.  This leaves you thinking… “what about me, huh”?  But who in their right mind can be truly offended by that, right?  I have pretty thick skin so I just pretty much filed it under the “gee, I wonder what’s up with that” folder in my brain.

Wednesday, I come into work and got indirectly reprimanded for something for which I thought I was doing a fine job.  If I hadn’t seen that little message above, I would have probably grumbled and shaken it off, but it actually sent me into a small tirade at my direct manager ranting.  I don’t do tirades often, I’m pretty relaxed at work.  I calmed down after a few minutes and then said I’ll do what I could to validate what I thought was a ridiculous and insulting request, but only to the point where it didn’t feel ridiculous and demeaning.  Later that day, I found out I was moving teams.

At first I thought it to be a reflection of the management’s perception of the job I was doing, but it ended up being that the request I thought was insulting was simply DUE to the impending change (not the change DUE to the request, like I thought).  It’s not that I needed babysitting (for a task I’ve been doing for years), which is what I thought the directive implied.  So I went home a bit shaken - I was told at 4pm I was moving teams, and that it would start the next morning.  I talked with my new boss all afternoon and got overloaded with facts and felt completely overwhelmed.  Instead of dance lessons and relaxing, there was some whiskey and contemplation with my Zliten.  I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything but talk it out and think about it and lubricate my synapses with a bit of the sauce.

Why?  Well, I fear change.  Like I said before, I think my grass is pretty green.  Even if it’s kinda yellow, who knows how brown it is over the hill?  I prefer the evil I know.  I like change in small, incremented, planned amounts, and initiated by ME.  I don’t like ripping bandaids off.  I can make some decisions that seem wild and crazy to the outside world, but believe you me… I’ve already, in my head, mentally tested the waters and have acclimated myself with the idea of something before I do it if I have any say in it.  I wish sometimes to be one of those people who can make snap judgements and produce decisions at the drop of a hat, but I am just not that girl.  I want to really mean something when I make a statement of intention, so I don’t make them lightly.

Needless to say, the first few days have been EXTREMELY busy getting up to speed and I actually have more to do over here.  Couple that with some minor emergencies, new directives from the execs, and the fact that my boss is out on vacation this week (great timing, huh?)… makes for a wild first week.  I assume things will return to a normal level of crazy soon, but for now between this and all the rest of the silliness that is my life, blogging might be a little bit more scarce.

I do have to say though - all in all, I’m liking it.  I’m now on the new unannounced title so I get a chance to hone my skills shipping a game (I’ve previously pretty much specialized in live maintenance - aka expanding on a previously shipped game and updating it).  I’m liking the team I work with.  It seems a little more relaxed, while still being focused, which I’m happy with as well.  I was specifically put in this position because of my experience with sound, which makes me happy because I’m working with sound more again and that’s been one of my favorite parts of my job this year.  I think I’ll also be able to claim experience running a small sound department - and in Austin, audio production experience/management is totally fab to have on a resume.  I’m sure I’ll find things about it that DON’T make me happy, but for now I’m calling it a win.  I’ll reserve more judgement until later.

Just wanted to make sure everyone knew I was doing ok - I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled ranting about this evil plateau and how I can’t bring myself to run in the morning when it’s over 80 degrees at 8am soon.

So there are some big changes up in here at work and life in general.  Don’t worry I still have a job and everything is great, just different and for me that’s scary.  I generally have the opposite of the grass is greener syndrome - I think the grass under my feet is much more preferable than the grass over the hill, no matter how nice it looks.  So change for me - takes a little while to not be a little freaked out.

I might be a little incommunicado for the rest of the week (though I do owe a nice coherent one-thought post which I will follow through on, I promise!).  If I am ignoring you or your awesome blog, I plan to have a marathon catch up session just as soon as I can.

Sometimes all it takes is a visual reminder smacking you in the face to make you wake up and stop being a grump.  I was approximately the same scale weight here (February yelp party, pre-half marathon training)…

as I am here (just last week, July yelp elite party).

This last few months may not have been great for weight loss, but I look completely different, imo (in a good way, and I’m not just talking about the horrible hair day vs good hair day).  I used these pictures simply because it was the same professional-ish photographer using the same camera.  Zliten looks a lot smaller too and he hasn’t lost much weight either (but has been building muscle for sure).

I’m also thrilled because I weighed in at 152.0 today - lowest in a while.  I also feel like el piggy with how I’m eating, so I’m glad it’s working.  I also, also went for a nice 5k fartlek (hehe I said fartlek) run outside this morning (it was a tinge under 80 and humid when I started out - much nicer than it’s been for a while) and made a promise to myself to do at LEAST 1 - 5k distance or longer run per week.  I can’t go a month without that again.  It’s been nice to recover from my race but it’s been long enough.  If we are what we repeatedly do, I am no longer a runner.  And I don’t like that.  I’m ok being a short distance/inside runner for the summer, but as horrible as pushing through those 3.1 miles was, and how beat I felt after, I feel WONDERFUL now (yay runner’s high) and I need to work on improving my short times for the relay in Sept (and I’m GOING to beat 25 minutes for my 5k SOMEDAY).

I said I wasn’t going to yak about the new diet tweaks but this is my blog, so I can make (and break) the rules.  I’ll be brief though (maybe).  I just want to share how weird it is.  I feel like I’m eating constantly and at the end of the day, what would make my ratios perfect is a shotglass full of oil.  So incredibly odd.  I’ve already gotten rid of diet bread, the next thing to go is diet dressings and diet cheese.  Instead of turkey no cheese I’m eating italians with salami, pepperoni, and proscuito and jalapeno muenster.  I’m mowing down on nuts before and after dinner.  I’m eating 300 calorie builders bars for breakfast without any alteration to my day.  And I’m at the lowest weight I’ve been in at least a month.

Keeping the carbs where they’re at is no problem.  I’d be rebelling if I had to reduce, but eating my normal 1300 calories of carbs in a 1700 calorie diet is fine.  More protien is sorta a challenge, but I’m doing ok with my 1 lb bag of jerky and greek yogurts and protien bars and such.  Fat, people?  Why is it so hard to eat fat?  I trained myself to stay away from fat because it had so many calories and I wanted the calories I had to count.  Now - I just keep telling Zliten, “I need more fat” and going around the kitchen reading labels and squealing, “Ooh, look this has a lot of fat, that’s awesome!” and shoving it in my mouth.  It’s rather bizarre.  Yesterday was the closest I came to perfect at 45/30/25 and 1702 calories.  I’m just going to have to ease into it.

For the first time in 4 years, someone has asked me to do my job.  I’ve held the Associate Producer title for that long, but it’s been in name only.  I’m always been pinch hitter for something else.  Other hats I’ve worn have included Lead Designer, Community Manager, Audio Lead, Writer, and I’ve done my fair share of marketing/PR stuff, I’ve done grunt design work, and I’ve done some minor photoshop image editing work.  What I’ve never been asked to do is make a gigantic all encompasing schedule for the whole team from nothing and do the day to day tracking of it.  That’s what I’ve been doing for a few weeks (and it’s very “hurry up and wait”, so that’s why you’ve seen a lot of posts).  At first I was a little upset because what I was doing before was much more fun, but I am getting such a kick out of the fact that someone actually asked me to do MY JOB that I’m ok now.

I need a mini-vacation sometime before the shit hits the fan at work (September) and I have more major wedding stuff to deal with (also September).  I’m thinking a 4 day weekend in August sometime sounds grand.  A trip to the waterpark *squeeeee*, a night or two at a fancy hotel downtown Austin, or maybe somewhere within a short drive, or just take all that money, stay at home, and do all sorts of fun weekday things that we can’t normally do.  What would you do if you had 4 days, and were semi-strapped for cash (so no long weekends in Paris or cruises), and just wanted to do something different than normal life?

Tomorrow, a coherent, one subject post and absolutely no lolcats.  I promise (until I change my mind).

Thank you to everyone who commented (here or on spark) or sent me a message.  I’m lucky to have such smart people who actually read this stuff!  I got some amazing advice, so I wanted to make sure to share for those of you who don’t actually peruse every comment.  First, a little Monday cuteness:

• Check this out, it seems like a very reasonable way to figure out how many calories to eat.  This had me around 1679 calories per day to lose with an average of 419 per day burnt.  So I went ahead and rounded up to 1700 and am rolling with that.  It feels like too much, but I think it’s because I have been eating too little.  Everything under the sun I’ve seen numberwise says I can eat just about 2000 and not work out and maintain, so I’ll trust it.  Also, I’ve never eaten a constant calorie count per day so that will definitely be a shock to my body!

• Alcohol is a sugar.  Thanks Charlotte - this gave me one of those DUH moments!  Of course it is.  And I haven’t been treating it as such.  As long as I had the calories for it, I didn’t care beyond that.  I need to make sure at the very least that I do not eat sweet treats on the same day I have alcohol, and preferably, to limit it to a few times per week for either.  When I drank a lot I never ate sweets, but now that it’s more occasional, I find myself wanting a somethin’ somethin’ after dinner.  Now that I have more calories, it might not even be an issue, because I bet it’s not just something sweet - it’s that I was hungry and sweets were time appropriate.

• Try the zone ratio of eating (40/30/30 - 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat.  I’ve been on this a few days and it’s HARD!  I generally eat low fat without trying - more like a 55/30/15 ratio.  Closest I’ve gotten is 44/27/29.  What I’m doing for the most part is trying to eat what I normally do, but add calories via protien and fat via snacks.  I have to say - I feel full all the time eating this way.  It’s going to take some work to adjust (and I need to accept that my grocery bill is going to go up a bit, healthy fats are expensive!) but I think I am already on board with this.

• I am also going to try to keep my exercise spread out 6 days a week doing *something* like I have been to go with the constant calorie intake.  There are very few days that I can’t make at least 30 minutes to go do something heart pumping (and those are usually Sundays), and it doesn’t have to be the most vigorous thing every day.  Weights and west coast swing class for an hour is perfectly fine.  I don’t need to kill myself getting a super cardio workout every day, just enough so I can maintain my 419-ish per day.

I’ve had multiple people tell me to give it 2 full weeks (because I *might* see a gain this week) so you won’t hear another peep out of me about this until August 3rd.  Thanks for the advice, moral support, and I’m looking forward to safe and sane weight loss, or if not, at least I’ll never be hungry again, right?

Also, Better’n peanut butter, sliced strawberries, and a tablespoon of honey on sprouted grain bread is just about heaven on earth.  Have a great Monday, and tomorrow I will talk about something different, I promise!

Ok, so I’m having a bad day.  Went to bed grumpy, didn’t get enough sleep, woke up grumpy, didn’t have time for a workout to shake the grump, and people are grumpy and yelling at each other here.  Needless to say, this is not a banner day.  Oh, it WILL get better at 5pm when I leave work and get dolled up and go to the monthly Yelp event but I almost don’t even feel like it right now (however, nothing a little primping and whiskey can’t cure).  What’s at the root of my bad day?  What could have turned it all around this morning?  I hate to admit it, but it’s the scale.  We’re usually pretty good friends.  He’ll tell me the truth, I’ll thank him for telling me the truth and measuring my progress.

Today, I cursed at him.  He pretty much said to me, “Yeah, I know you’ve been busting your butt for a week and a half now.  I don’t care.  Here’s a disgusting weigh in number from February for your efforts.”  Yes, I last weighed in on 2/12 at 154.8.  Le sigh…

I think the problem is that I’m making the effort.  I understand when I’m letting lose a little or half-assing it, but I am really trying.  Last night, my fiance and friend decided to have some cocktails.  I refrained because I was being good.  They went out to the diner and got chicken fried steak and hashbrowns at midnight and then after hit the bar.  I kept my calories at 1320 for the day, and sipped crystal light all evening with crushed ice.  I tried to go to bed early but shit just kept going wrong and I couldn’t fall asleep.  Not a good preface to stepping on the scale and seeing a number from the way back days.

MizFit yesterday did a great post on Overtraining (and Undereating).I am so glad I trained for and ran my half marathon.  It put things into perspective.  There is a time and a place for intentional overtraining (2 hour runs?  30 mile running weeks with 60 mins+ cross training, 2 full body weights sessions and 2 yoga sessions? yeah…).  After the initial “omg I’m done what’s next” freakout, I realized that my body was happy to crank it down a notch or 5.  I won’t stop racing, but I will be much more responsible about my workouts between race training.  I’m still “working out” most days but way less intense, and mostly fun stuff.  It really got me thinking about my eating - am I really undereating?  Is that even possible?

The eating thing is what’s tripping me up and I know it’s my achillies heel.  The only way I’ve succeeded thus far is if I count calories and find the number I can ingest and expend and lose weight. I am hesitant to remove any foods/food groups from my diet.  Eliminating anything from my diet makes me crazy.  When I can have a taste of the ice cream or a bite of the brownie, 9 times out of 10 I’m fine.  When I can’t even have a bite, 9 times out of 10 I get grumpy and rebel until I get what I want.  I generally eat healthy (in my opinion) and am trying to take myself down from “whatever I feel like” to about 1200-1400 on weekdays, slightly more on the weekends (like 1700-1800).

So I am asking, nay, pleading, for your advice.  Analyze me.  Don’t worry that you’re not an expert/doctor/trainer, I run everything through my common sense filter and I won’t do something just because you say to.  But I’d like to put it all out there and see what suggestions you have for me.  Stop reading here if you’re not interested in a bunch of numbers and just leave me a nice encouraging comment, please.  Persist at your own peril.

My workouts last week (estimated calorie count in parentheses)..

Monday - full body weights and practicing dancing for 25 minutes (84+ weights)
Tuesday - 20 mins yoga and 40 mins leisurely bike ride (313)
Wednesday - 30 mins intense cardio, arms, swing dance class for 60 mins (653 + weights)
Thursday - 30 mins intense cardio, abs and legs, salsa dance class for 60 mins  (602 + weights)
Friday - 30 mins intense cardio, 20 mins yoga (643)
Saturday - Zumba for 60 mins, water volleyball for 40 mins (641)
Sunday - relax

Total burnt: 2936 calories, or an average of 419 per day

This is my food from last week…

Monday - zone bar, mongolian grill (3 oz chicken, 1/3 cup white rice, tons of veggies and some sauce), grilled fish tacos at home with black beans on the side, a peach, two hershey kisses, and a dum dum lolly. 1321 calories, 173g carbs, 32g fat, 89g protien.

Tuesday - luna bar, homemade tuna sandwich on sprouted grain bread, otter pop, homemade meatloaf with 93% lean ground beef, homemade mashed califlower/potato mix, and veggies, 2 peaches, a lo cal fruit smoothie for desert, and 1oz tortilla chips as a snack. 1377 calories, 189g carbs, 35g fat, 88g protien.

Wednesday - 0% greek yogurt with 1/3 packet of oatmeal mixed in, leftovers from the meatloaf the night before (same portion), homemade 9 layer burritos (with 93% lean ground beef, refried beans, rice, low fat sour cream, and veggies/salsa), 2 peaches, 1 oz beef jerky, 1 hershey kiss, and 1 oz vodka (one weak drink).  1408 calories, 166g carbs, 38g fat, 108g protien

Thursday - luna bar, taco salad (made with basically the same ingredients as the burritos sans the tortilla), veggies and tilapia filets, piece of sprouted grain bread with light margarine, apple, a cup of broccoli, and 3 oz whiskey (I made the conscious decision to forgo the rice I was going to have with dinner and have a few drinks instead).  1236 calories, 100g carbs, 39g fat, 79g protien.

Friday - zone bar, chicken pho (vietnamese chicken noodle soup with bean sprouts and broccoli), bbq’d chicken, rice, coleslaw, 2 peaches, 8 oz vodka (we hosted a party that night).  1793 calories, 169g carbs, 16g fat, 110g protien

Saturday - zone bar and a peach, salad bar (a huge veggie-ful salad with lowfat ranch, a cup of minestrone, half a cup of butterbean, some grilled veggies, and a small 1/2 cup of soft serve), Saltgrass steakhouse (bread, salad with half the ranch they gave me, veggies, 5 grilled shrimp, 5 fried shrimp).  1724 calories, 180 carbs, 79g fat, 79g protien

Sunday - Apple, homemade pancakes with sugar free syrup and margarine, 2 slices bacon, 1 small potato shredded to hashbrowns (with PAM), homemade chicken caesar wrap (lo carb wheat tortilla, chicken, olives, bacon, lettuce, cheese, low fat caesar), peanut butter puffins and chocolate almond milk, plum, shared a 100 calorie popcorn, and a sugar free popsicle. 1217 calories, 189g carbs, 36g fat, 58g protien.

Average 1439 calories, 166g carbs, 39g fat, 87g protien.  I would probably add about 100 calories per day because I am a notorious nibbler and just due to food tracking error.

So sure there are some obvious nitpicky things.  White rice instead of brown (restaurants don’t always serve it and it’s near impossible to get my fiance to eat it and he does a lot of the cooking).  Give up the alcohol (no way, jose).  Give up the sugar (I really don’t eat much of it though.  One small sweet per day and maybe some soft serve once a week).  All in all, I really don’t think I do too badly there.  Day by day I might have some slipups but overall it evens out (16g fat one day, 79g the next).

The math *should* even out.  1539 eaten - 419 burnt = 1120 net calories per day.  A sedentary person of my height and weight should be eating about 2000 calories per day to maintain their weight, so that’s creating a 880 calorie deficit per day.  Truth be told, I should be seeing a 1.75 lb loss at this rate with my math.  It’s not happening.  I don’t like it.

So I did some more surfing and this seems to be one of the better calorie calculators around.  Instead of estimating what level of activity you think you do (I think half marathon training is active, someone else out there probably thinks that their mile per day walk to starbucks and back is active, who’s right?), you can also input your exercise.  I generally have my butt planted on a chair if I’m not doing something I would count as exercise, so this works for me to be sedentary but put in my sweat sessions.  It also counts weights for calories which is something my beloved sparkpeople doesn’t do.   I’m considering utilizing this next month as a guide to how much I should eat - put in yesterday’s activity and that will tell me how much I should eat today.  For example:

Monday - 2584 calories to maintain.  Subtract 750 (deficit to get 1.5 lbs loss per week) = 1834
Tuesday - 2253 -750 = 1503
Wednesday - 3089 - 750 = 2339
Thursday - 3255 - 750 = 2505
Friday - 2343 - 750 =1593
Saturday - 2611 - 750 = 1861
Sunday - 2014 - 750 = 1264

This is saying I don’t eat enough, and I should increase my calorie average to 1842 per day at this activity level.  To lose 1.5 lbs a week.  1000 calories is the most one should go into debt per day (losing 2 lbs per week), even then I should be at 1592.  This seems crazy to me.  Am I really just not eating enough?  Should I take the leap of faith and add a bunch of lean protein and good carbs and fruits and veggies and good fat to those days when I’m hanging tough around 1300?  What specifically is missing in my diet?

I am calculating myself into a tizzy, and would love some input.  My sanity depends on it.  I am willing to do what I need to do to give it a good college try (for the most part - you can pry my whiskey from my cold dead hands, you’re not going to convince me potatoes are evil, and I will not give up my once weekly rice noodle pho).  I’m looking for a suggestion that involves moderation, not absolution and abstinence.  I wish I had a giveaway to reward you for even reading this far, but I will give away my eternal gratitude for any help here!

So, I think we have established that I am not a wedding person.  My Zliten has been the most wonderful fiance ever and taken on a lot of the work and been involved with just about everything.  Most dudes just want to get down on one knee and the show up at the wedding.  A lot of girls want that too.  Not me.  I have never been in a wedding.  During the period where all my friends were getting married I was working 100 hour weeks.  I did not grow up dreaming about a wedding.  My parents were married at a courthouse.  I just don’t have much experience with wedding-ness.  I have been to weddings but mostly showed up for the free booze to celebrate and didn’t really pay much attention to all the intricacies of it.

That being said, I think we’re mucking our way through it quite well.  First, we picked an island/polenysian/tropical theme so it’s not a black tie affair.  Then, we decided on a Sunday afternoon - it’s cheaper, and also propigates the casual nature.  Then, we booked here:

Here’s what it looks like inside without fancy lighting:

It wouldn’t be much of a tropical wedding in a stuffy chapel, would it?  I don’t have a picture of the inside reception area, but I am assured they have all the decorations necessary to make it a tropical paradise.  So booking it that way took care of everything from the flowers to the food to the cake to the open bar…which is huge for us.  I don’t want to micromanage all that crap.  I want to tell someone that I want orange, teal, and violet as my colors and tell them to make it so.

That still leaves a lot of things for me to think about.  First order of business after booking the event itself was invites and dresses.  We ended up with this:

Sadly, they screwed up the envelopes and sent ones that didn’t match, so I sent those back and they are plain white.  Whatever.  It’s the invites and they don’t have to be PERFECT.  Instead of an RSVP card, we’re doing this:

Ignore the crazy stuff, it’s the front of the POSTCARD we’re sending out to be mailed back to us.  Cheaper postage, cheaper to have made (it was 35 bucks for 100 double sided shipped, and the cheapest I found those damn RSVP cards for was about 100 bucks before shipping!), and fits the theme much better.

Next, the dresses.  Finally settled on these for the bridesmaid dresses:

And, that’s it for now!  Next step is actually getting the invites printed, addressed and off in the mail this weekend, and then at the end of the month when my maid of honor gets back into town, we start playing with hair and makeup and  hair flowers and shoes and veil/no veil and finding me some damn spanxs since I’m going braless (so no “holdmein” action (I found what I want online but want to try it on locally) and perhaps some embellishment for the front of the dress and…

*PASSES OUT*

Why didn’t we elope to hawaii again?  Sigh…

Oh, you want to know about my dress?  Well, I finally purchased it last night.  Want pics?  Well, you will have to wait and see for the big day…. I know the suspense MUST be killing you.  I will say that I went with a traditional (not white but very close) dress and didn’t go island crazy.  And apparently one doesn’t usually wait until 2.5 months before to buy the dress as they whisked me away immediately to the alteration room and had the seamstress do her pinning magic.  The alterations cost almost as much as the dress!  Sheesh.  Wish I knew how to sew *grumblegrumble*.

I will however give up the list of the top 5 dresses I *didn’t* pick.

#5 Impregnated with Joy

It is as if I am saying in this picture, “HOW far along does this dress make me look?”  This one was eliminated from the running instantly.  It was gorgeous on the rack, but those thin little straps and the super high waist did NOT work for me.

#4 - Enchantment Under The Sea

I dunno, the top reminded me of seashells covering my boobs.  My consultant Marie was holding back about 2 yards of fabric here in the back because they only had the dress in a 16 or a 4.  I thought it was pretty but knew it would probably be too fancy.  I also wasn’t hot on the color.  I did love the fit, and for another wedding it would have worked, but it too was eliminated immediately.

#3 Sideboob Dress

I loved this one from the front.  It was cute, it showed some nice cleavage, it was on sale, it was sorta tropically, it was on sale, did I mention it was on sale?  It also fit like a dream.  Or so I thought until I reviewed the pictures.

Woah, hello there sideboob!  Aren’t you just a good little sideboob, yes you are.  Oh yes you are.  Anyhoo, immediate disqualification.  No sideboobs allowed at MY wedding.  All sideboobs will be escorted from the premisis.  I think there were 2 dresses very much alike (both on sale, both rife with sideboobage) so I’ll lump them here together.

#2 Can I Change The Theme Of My Wedding (and get plastic surgery rq?)

If the answer was yes to both, then I might have been rocking something like this.  I loved it so from the back.  I am a sucker for corsets.  It even took 2 people to lace me up.

Is it just me or do I have some kick ass back muscles?  Just me?  Darn.  The problem came when I had to face that fact that it was a) not tropical at all and b) strapless.  I had many people assure me that my hulk shoulders and hefty top half would not disqualify me for a strapless dress, so I went ahead and tried it.  I’m glad I got pictures from the back.  The front however was forgettable.

Ignore the runners tan, as I have been informed I am being dragged into a spray tan session a week or so before.  There is just too much shoulder and these odd skin folds between my arms and boobs.  They’ve gotten much better but they still exist.  Also, I haven’t worn a strapless dress in oh, forever, so I’d be constantly pulling it up.  So after much honest dialogue with myself, this one was disqualified.

#1 - Anchor’s Away!

The stripes kinda look sailor-y, don’t they?  No matter.  I went in yesterday to try on this one and the dress I purchased.  It was between the two.  I actually think this one flatters my figure a BIT more than the one I picked, but I think I can fix that with a little spanx.  And a little salad with lite italian skip the fries perhaps.

So that’s it for Quix’s edition of Wedding Spew.  I’d ask for feedback, but since everything is purchased all I want to hear is how awesome it is and other praise lavished on me.  Anyone do a theme wedding before?  Did YOU allow sideboob at your wedding?  Inquiring minds want to know…

So I wrote this yesterday.  I feel like I want to expand on it.

5.  I finally got a weekend of good (mostly) eating.  Sure, there was a good dose of absinthe on Friday.  There were 5 fried shrimp on Saturday.  However, my calorie counts were very sane peaking out at 1700-something on Saturday, and that was after a long active day.  I started the week this week at 153.8, which is nice, because each week since I’ve been keeping tabs again, it’s been 155+ because of crazy weekends.  I’m starting the report tracking today and I’m excited.  My “pie in the sky” goal is 15 lbs by 10/1 (so about 139), but I’ll be happy as long as I’m heading in the right direction.  Hell, anything that starts with 14- will make me happy dance like a moron.  I think I’ll talk more about this tomorrow, but see above - sleep deprivation and Monday a coherent post does not make.

I did some thinking (and whining) last week, and finally came to some conclusions.

I am ready to do this again.  I wasn’t before, but now I am.  Move forward.

I was trying to push myself to be ready to do this the Monday after my race, but I just this little guy, I wasn’t.  My body was still in “fuel me, biatch” mode and the 1200-1400 calories I’m chomping away at now was making my body SCREAM in agony.  It took a full week of being VERY strict with myself to wean the SUGARSUGARSUGAR thing I had going on, but I’m back to the point where I’m ok with an occasional treat and most of the time just some fruit or a sugar free pop will do.  It took about two weeks for my body to realize it didn’t need 1500 calories minimum a day and carbocalorieloading on the weekend.

The fairly low impact/less insane workout schedule was making my brain scream in agony because I was used to the KILL ME workouts before and I felt…lazy.  Worthless.  Out of shape.  Weird thoughts from someone who had just put her body to the limit and ran 13.1 miles in the hot Texas sun, but there was some toxicity I had to deal with and process.  Like if I wasn’t now immediately gearing up to tackle another race I was a failure.  Like I’m in danger of never being that awesome ever again if I don’t keep going harder/better/faster/stronger without a break.  That took about two weeks to get over, but now I’m better.  I am thoroughly and completely happy with the fact that I don’t have a race to train for right now and can focus for a while on fitness being fun, and doing what I need to do to both give my body a break, and weight loss.

So I’m ready.  My body has now adjusted to less intense exercise and less eating.  My mind has cleared out all the “you suck if your not training at 100%” and the “I want to do this but I just don’t feel like it” thoughts.  The next 2.5 months are dedicated to eating and exercising in a way that removes the rest of the weight I want to lose before the next race.  I am going to attack it the way I did my half training.  It is no less monumental or flimsy of a goal than running a race.  In my Quix-y way of course.  There will be times where something fried or something alcoholic enters my mouth, but I will plan for these occurrences and make sure I’m superduper good the rest of the day.  Like I used to.

I do not have to eat what everyone else is eating for the next 2.5 months.  Food as we know it will not go away.  Deprivation is temporary.

So I am fully and completely comfortable maintaining.  I can’t wait to do it for life.  I eat good stuff most of the time on autopilot.  If I eat when I am hungry and eat what I feel like, I can maintain my weight.  I have also made the commitment to myself to weight semi-daily for the rest of my life (and treat it as a measuring stick, not something to go all drama llama over) and I will have a “panic” number.  As in, if that is my low weight of the week, it’s back to tracking food and being good until the problem is solved.  I worked too hard to lose this weight and change my life, I don’t plan on going back  to cheeseburgers with a chocolate shake chaser for a midday snack.  I know how to maintain my weight now.

I’m not sure how that one ties in, but it made me giggle.  Anyhoo - losing is another story.  Once I stop tracking myself very strictly, it’s hard for me to stay away from the nibble here bite there munch here crunch there and all of a sudden I have no calorie deficit.  Losing weight (to me - I know some of you swear by the south beach/atkins/grapefruit/no white stuff diets but none of that works for me) means keeping yourself at a calorie intake where you are not completely comfortable.  I need to be faced with numbers that tell me, yep, you’re done eating.  I need to see numbers that tell me if I eat that cheeseburger today, I’m jepordizing losing weight this week unless I really watch it.

I generally gravitate to healthy low cal stuff if left to my own devices.  I’m no saint, but at least 80% of the time I make pretty good choices without too much effort.  Enter Zliten, my big-slab-o-meat-lovin’, taco eatin’, burger munchin’ companion.  While he loves a lot of healthy stuff too, he does not understand my plight here.  He was quite upset with me last night when I was questioning his pasta wisdom.  He - a serving is the size of a quarter around (make a circle with your fingers the size of a quarter and insert pasta until full).  Me - is that a real 210 calorie serving or what everyone calls a “serving”, which is actually about 2?  He - I’m so ready for you to be done with this.  Me - me too!  Maintaining, I wouldn’t stress about 100 calories of pasta because I’d eat until full and then be done.  Now, I have to watch it.  If I ate 320 calories instead of 210 I’d need to adjust the rest of my day accordingly.

So, for the next 2.5 months, I don’t have to eat the way everyone else does, and I don’t have to impose on anyone’s good time (maybe Zliten a BIT but he does eat EVERY meal with me so the stuff at home will be healthyhealthy).  I can go to the wing joint and cry in my salad if life brings me there.  I can special order grilled chicken and broccoli if out if there is nothing healthy.  I can have small tastes at potlucks and eat my own veggie tray.  I don’t have to eat the way I did during the race.  I also don’t have to eat this way for the rest of my life.  Saying all that and giving myself permission to be the crazy girl on a diet for a short duration is very freeing because I am so anti-that for any long period of time.  Giving myself permission to going back to maintaining after October 1st feels good as well.  I will have opportunities to indulge later.  I will have opportunities to beat up my body with crazy workouts and push myself to the limit.  This is just another thing I’m doing for a few months to change it up.

So here we go.  The pie-in-the-sky goal for October 1st is 15 lbs.  My first official weigh in will be Friday to kick things off (weigh in = lowest weight within the last 7 days, I fluctuate a lot so taking the weight on that day is usually futile).  I then have 11 weeks, so I need to lose 1.36 lbs per week to attain this.  Seems sane, right?  139, here we come!

Lot of stuff going on, not really enough on any of it to put together a comprehensive post, so here is a random brain splattering.  “What is up in the world of Quix” indeed.  A numbered list, because I like numbers and lists and it’s Monday and I’m doing what I like.  Dig?

1.  I went to a Zumba toning class Saturday.  It was half limited Zumba moves with 3 lb weights, half regular Zumba.  It didn’t seem like much at the time but the next day my quads were killing me!  I guess I should probably work squats and lunges back into my leg exercises now that I’m not running anymore.  However, this is a problem because I HATE squats and lunges.  Maybe I’ll just keep going to Zumba toning so I don’t have to do them without someone prodding me.

2.  After Zumba and on the way to my parents house to take over their pool (hello, 100+ degree weather, how are you?), I went ahead and kicked the bag of charcoal, not only stubbing my toe, but piercing a hole through the bag, so when I went to take another step, I pulled my toe a weird way.  Yeah, I screamed obscenities.  It hurt like a mother bitch.  I was worried my toe was super bruised/sprained/gonna fall off, and then later I sort of forgot to baby it when we played a nice long round of water volleyball in 2 foot water - I was too busy diving for the save - so I was limping by the end of the day.  Luckily it was mostly better yesterday and better today.  I did spend yesterday on my ass instead of Zumba-ing or Salsa-ing just to make sure though.  Why do I keep hurting myself?  And on Saturdays…

3.  Last night I finally started playing an MMO again.  EverQuest has a new server, the 51/50 server.  Basically, it lets you start halfway through the game with a bunch of advantages (for those in the know, level 51, 50 AA points, and super awesome gear).  It was a blast to make a new character and just spend half the day mindlessly playing.

4.  Last night I also could not fall asleep for the life of me.  Maybe it was the fact that I slept in until 10:30, maybe it was that I sat on my ass all day, maybe it was that I played a video game (for some reason, that tends to rile me up for hours lately, I don’t sleep well after gaming).  I tried at first to sleep around 12:30 and was up until after 4am.  I saw a rule a while ago on a runner’s forum that says to not run on less than 5 hours sleep.  I took that as sage advice this morning and skipped my DDR session.  I’ll either make it up after work since I’m feeling better after sleeping in a bit or put in some extra time this weekend.

5.  I finally got a weekend of good (mostly) eating.  Sure, there was a good dose of absinthe on Friday.  There were 5 fried shrimp on Saturday.  However, my calorie counts were very sane peaking out at 1700-something on Saturday, and that was after a long active day.  I started the week this week at 153.8, which is nice, because each week since I’ve been keeping tabs again, it’s been 155+ because of crazy weekends.  I’m starting the report tracking today and I’m excited.  My “pie in the sky” goal is 15 lbs by 10/1 (so about 139), but I’ll be happy as long as I’m heading in the right direction.  Hell, anything that starts with 14- will make me happy dance like a moron.  I think I’ll talk more about this tomorrow, but see above - sleep deprivation and Monday a coherent post does not make.

6a.  This week is crazy sauce until Friday.  Tonight, we salsa since we are going to miss Thursday.  My super secret plan (which I am announcing to all the internet - so it’s super and secret) is to try and stay for the West Coast Swing 2 class and see if we can hack it, but we’ll see if I’m even up for that after an hour of salsa, let alone Zliten agreeing to it.

6b.  Tomorrow was going to be relaxing and trying out a new healthy pad thai recipe, but now we are meeting at 7pm after work at David’s Bridal to make the final choices on the bridesmaid/my dress first.  Expect a post about it this week as well because apparently I have become the kind of person that can’t shut up about my wedding lately.  Good thing it’s less than 3 months away, or I might start annoying myself.

6c.  Wednesday is West Coast Swing 1 at 7pm.  Oh yeah, in all that, I also need to find time to workout.  I’m not sure when that will be, but I might have to make do with some weekend marathon sessions of - something.   There was also this really freaking cool Dos Equis event that I really really wanted to go to, but we already had dance that night and 2 weekday days out in a row (see below) usually makes me a very tired puppy.

6d.  Thursday is the Yelp Elite Event down at the Mowhawk for Austin’s Fashion Week.  Free goody bags, free booze, fashion show, a rock opera, live music, trapeze acts, burlesque dancers…oh my.  I’m looking forward to get dolled up and go take it all in.  What I’m not looking forward to is getting off work early (so I can’t work out in the morning), sitting in traffic to get downtown, and not getting home until late on a weekday.  Sigh…the sacrifices I must make… (sarcasm indeed, I’m actually really jazzed to go)

6e.  This weekend will be catchup for all the workouting I can’t fit in during the week, and have to make some progress on more wedding stuff and other stuff on my huge to-do last week list.  Honestly, EVERYONE knows when it is and what’s going on, why am I sending out invites again?  Sighweddingettiquitesigh…

7.  Since the race I have run 1 - 2.5 mile run and 1 - 2 mile run.  After 3 weeks (and not sure when I am going to get a run in this week) I am not sure I remember how.  I think this is the longest stretch of not running since I hurt myself and bruised my heel and had to take 2 weeks off.  The problem is running on the treadmill bores me now since I spoiled myself running outside, running outside is too hot unless I’m specifically heat training like I was for the half (not sure why anyone would choose to run in 85-90 degree mornings otherwise), and there is just all this dance/bike/swim/DDR/zumba/funactive stuff going on.  I should probably just not question and do what feels good until I get closer to the relay and need to really start working my times.

Ok, that’s enough rambling.  What does your week look like?  What are you looking forward to?  What’s on your to-do list?