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I used to have earlier this year.\u00a0 That one post I made a few months ago all excited about job stuff?\u00a0 That’s on hold and I’m onto something else not quite as exciting.<\/p>\nAttitude is everything.\u00a0 I’ve taken some really rough days and put a positive spin on them and come out alright.\u00a0 I’ve gotten through some tough times in my life just with optimistic thinking.\u00a0 So why, when everything is going great, and I feeling so…bleh?<\/p>\n
I’m thankful for having a job at a stable company that has a successful product where I’m making a living wage at a title that is not beneath me.\u00a0 However, I’ve been at that title for 4 years now and it’s time to move up (I’ve never gone so long without a promotion).\u00a0 Plus, I miss the creativity I used to have earlier this year.\u00a0 That one post I made a few months ago all excited about job stuff?\u00a0 That’s on hold and I’m onto something else not quite as exciting.<\/p>\n
I’m thankful for have been able to able to lose 110 lbs, and go from someone who grumbled about having to park 100 feet away from her apartment to a half marathon runner.\u00a0 However, it’s been the greater part of a year since I really took off any more weight.\u00a0 Why the hell can’t I get it together and finish this up?\u00a0 Also, a trend I’m not liking is I feel like I’m becoming less enthusiastic about my workouts.<\/p>\n
I’m just feeling all around burnt out lately.\u00a0 This year has been crazy (crazy cool, but still crazy) – it started in March with the birthdays and then April with half training, and then in July, it was wedding, wedding, wedding until October.\u00a0 I figured things would calm down but now it’s been taking care of all the stuff I’ve put off since the wedding.\u00a0 Plus I decided to take on NaNoWriMo.\u00a0 And next week begins half marathon training.<\/p>\n
I feel like the guy in Office Space who just wants to do nothing.\u00a0 The silly thing is, I know it’s crazy because I go NUTS doing nothing.\u00a0 I think the combination of stressing over my sticky scale numbers, having a period of work where I’m just not quite as into what I’m doing as I could be, not having had a good, lengthy, and relaxing vacation in a while, and feeling obligated to do something at every moment of the day this month is just about making me crack.<\/p>\n
But don’t cry for me. Seriously.\u00a0 I saw you taking that tissue out and just go ahead and put it back.<\/p>\n
The Write Stuff:<\/strong><\/p>\n Even though I’m stressing about it, NaNoWriMo has been a great experience that I will be immensely proud of, even if I don’t get to 50k words (but I’m not giving up!!).\u00a0 Just sitting down to write a story and getting through it has been huge for me.\u00a0 Though it’s been hell some days to find time to write, and yesterday I just couldn’t get inspired, I’m pleased with my consistency of being able to sit down and flow.\u00a0 While this week was too crazy to write most days (hence, why I got so behind), I pulled over 7000 words out this weekend.<\/p>\n Words needed to be on track: 25000<\/p>\n Words written: 20500<\/p>\n Words per day needed this week to catch up: 2400<\/p>\n One thing I’m also realizing – it doesn’t need to be THE BOOK for me to start writing it.\u00a0 You know, the masterpiece.\u00a0 The one that’s going to somehow become a best seller and I’ll be able to retire and go move to Food, Glorious Food:<\/strong><\/p>\n I’d say I lost it here this week, but honestly, I don’t know for sure.\u00a0 I stopped tracking mid-week and just couldn’t bring myself to start it up again.\u00a0 The key days were Wednesday, Friday, and the weekend.<\/p>\n Wednesday – work event, which I sailed through.\u00a0 I ordered a DELICIOUS asian chicken salad and only used half the dressing.\u00a0 Then later, for dinner, I ate a bunch of fried appetizers after some drinking.\u00a0 This is sort of a wash.\u00a0 Sure, I ate crap.\u00a0 But at least I had the sense to split the crap with other people and then realize I was done eating for the night even though it was an appetizer.<\/p>\n Friday, I had a buffalo burger, wheat bun, no butter and split some fries for lunch.\u00a0 I was hoping to love it since it’s a fairly healthy option for Fuddruckers, but I just didn’t.\u00a0 The meat tasted weird.\u00a0 We had grilled chicken, tiny baked potatoes, and my famous veggie pasta salad for dinner.\u00a0 However, there were two margaritas on a beautiful patio and some drinks later, so again, kind of a wash.<\/p>\n Saturday, I knew I needed major fortification, so I had a footlong subway turkey with no cheese and lots of veggies and an apple.\u00a0 That got me through the day until the party, where I cooked a feast (more on the Sunday, minus the pizza that found it’s way into the house during lunch time (Zliten’s fault!\u00a0 He didn’t even give me the chance to veto, he just left and came back with it), I noshed on the leftover veggies, salad, soup, fruit, and for dinner we made tiny filets.<\/p>\n All in all, I think what happened is I slipped back into “balanced lifestyle” mode instead of “weight loss” mode.\u00a0 I didn’t go off the deep end.\u00a0 I balanced out the alcohol and junk with a lot of fruits and veggies.\u00a0 And this was even left to my own devices.\u00a0 I’d venture that I averaged maybe 1700 calories per day this week total, which is not what I’m aiming for, but not up to my maintenance calories either.\u00a0 I’d call it a victory, but I haven’t had the courage to step on a scale yet.\u00a0 Tomorrow morning, I’ll let you know. \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Last week, I bounced between 154.2 and 155.4.\u00a0 Disheartening as I was hoping to continue the downward trend, but encouraging as I was not up and down like normal.\u00a0 I’ll take what I can get.<\/p>\n This week, my goal is to stay under 1500 calories per day (closer to 1300 if I can), minus a planned event Wednesday which I’ll allow up to 2000.<\/p>\n Body Movin’:<\/strong><\/p>\n I talked about this a lot this week with my abrupt end to shredding<\/a>, unplanned day off minus some yoga Wednesday, and my subsequent discovery of DDR circuits<\/a> that I refined on Friday, so I’ll spare you any more details.\u00a0 I took the entire weekend off to give myself a rest and am Monday: 10 mins warmup, 6×400 sprints, 10 minute cooldown<\/p>\n Tuesday: 5 mile run at attempted race pace (45 minutes)<\/p>\n Wednesday: off<\/p>\n Thursday:DDR circuit<\/p>\n Friday: 3.1 mile tempo run (yeah, I’m going to chase my sub 25 5k ONE LAST TIME before half training starts and I need to be a reasonable human and stop running so fast and work on running far)<\/p>\n Weekend: DDR circuit and a bike adventure<\/p>\n Wednesday is off because I have to be into work early anyway to go to said event at 5:30, and I don’t do early early morning workouts so I’ll adjust the rest of my week accordingly.\u00a0 I may reconsider and do a regular strength session tonight at the gym after my sprints instead of so much on the weekend, but we will see.\u00a0 Without schedule conflicts, I would have run M\/W\/F (sprints\/tempo\/long) and did DDR circuits Tu\/Th.<\/p>\n I still owe before and after shred pictures.\u00a0 I’ll get on that.<\/p>\n So bloggy people, how was your weekend?\u00a0 Anything supah cool?\u00a0 Anyone else kinda feeling the blahs and just CANNOT WAIT for some damn time off over the holidays?\u00a0\u00a0 Wanna tell me what an arsehole I am for feeling whiny?\u00a0 Your opportunity awaits…<\/p>\n And yes, it was another Natalie Dee<\/a> day.\u00a0 It just felt right.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nataliedee.com\/012605\/i-spent-40-minutes.jpg\")
Vermont like all writers do or whatever.\u00a0 If I can speedwrite a short book in one month, I can chip away at a novel a year.\u00a0 Slow, sure.\u00a0 But it’s better than not writing and complaining about it.\u00a0 I think it is going to be a goal from now on to write at least one novel per year.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nataliedee.com\/011005\/dreams.jpg\")
tomorrow) and pushed tropical drinks on my guests!\u00a0 There was some healthy (veggie tray, veggie curry, etc), and some not so healthy (fried lumpia, fried chicken katsu, etc), and I ate some of both.\u00a0 Come on, a good cook ALWAYS tastes the creations.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.nataliedee.com\/022405\/and-so-a-new-chapter-begins.jpg\")
back at it this week.\u00a0 This is essentially my week 0 for half training, and I’m getting myself prepared to run more by bumping it up to 3 days this week.\u00a0 I am a week and a half from my 5 mile race, and I just haven’t trained much for it specifically, so I’m just hoping for the best.\u00a0 Here is the plan:<\/p>\n