Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Tag: Daily Life

Fantasy…

First, read this.  Totally ripped the idea from there…

I loved this post and wanted to share my own.  I often dream about what I’d do if I won the lottery, but it’s fun to just confine it to things that would make me able to live a healthy lifestyle better (some of them are a stretch…but…).  Let the opulence begin with a day in the life!

I wake up whenever my body tells me to – however, since I don’t have any worries or things to do to keep me up at night, I probably naturally arise around 9am.  I reluctantly leave my bed, because it is made to the exact firmness for me (and Zliten’s side for Zliten) and feels pretty much like sleeping on a cloud.  I plod into my perfectly clean bathroom that the maid just tidied up for me yesterday and get ready to start my day.

I head to the kitchen where a chef is waiting for me.  He asks me what I want to eat for breakfast, and I jokingly say a waffle with ice cream, chocolate syrup, and some homefries.  He says that he would oblige, but it’s not on the nutritionist’s list for me and it’s not a splurge day.  Instead, he whips me up some delicious whole grain homemade toast and a fruit salad, as he knows I’ll be doing a long run that day and need something to fuel it.

I eat my breakfast while catching up on the internet/blogs/etc.  After the food settles, I go into my workout clothes closet which are organized by temperature and sport, and select an outfit for 60-70 degrees, running.  Since I have all the time in the world, I get my driver (please, if I ever get rich I will NEVER drive again) to Town Lake for a change of scenery, and run a nice, easy 10 mile jaunt – as I’m gearing up for a half marathon and that’s what my trainer has prescribed today.  When not training for a race, I might have someone come in and teach a different class each week so I can try everything.  After the car takes me home, I stretch out, and the chef has a smoothie waiting for me.  At first I object because I’m feeling fine and not hungry, but after his insistence, I drink it and feel even better.  He lets me know that lunch will be served in about an hour.

I see that Zliten is now up and swimming in the pool.  It’s too cold for the roof to be retracted, but it’s still nice to see the sun shining and get in the perfectly heated water.   I begrudgingly take a cold bath first for my legs, but then jump into the water and splash around with him for a while.  I look longingly at the hot tub, but figure that wouldn’t be the greatest on my just ice-bathed legs, so tomorrow it is.  On another day I’d make use of the diving board and be thankful for the life guard under our employ, but after a long run, I’m just happy to be in the water.  Before we know it, the chef lets us know that lunch is ready.

We dry off and put on our super cushy robes and eat lunch outside.  Today, mine is a gigantic turkey sandwich made on the same delicious homemade toast I had that morning, a salad, and some assorted veggies and pita slices with hummus.  Zliten is munching on the same thing, but a kobe beef burger instead of turkey.

After lunch, since we have some free time, we walk down to the theatre and decide to take in a movie.  The movie runs a little longer than we thought, so we have to call the car to have them pick us up and bring us a change of clothes and a snack (homemade protein bars and fruit) or we’d be late.  It’s time for a yoga class and then after, an hour massage.  It’s such a relaxing afternoon we both fall asleep during our sessions, and pretty much float back to the car.

On the way home, we decide that we want to hang out with our friends, and invite them over for dinner, after checking our schedules (easy workout tomorrow for Zliten, day off for me, check!).  After having a delicious dinner of shrimp cocktail, light caesar salad, petite filet mignon, and assorted veggies, we decide that we must hit the town.  The car takes us out to a new spot we’ve been wanting to try, and after we’ve had enough, it drops our friends off and takes us home.  Almost instantly, we fall into bed after the eventful day and drift off to sleep.

Instead – it’s get up reluctantly after the alarm has been buzzing for about an hour (snooze, snooze, snooze).  Squeeze in half of a workout.  Get ready really, really quickly and grab a promax bar on the way out the door.  Get to work just in time.  Head home for lunch, cook up something easy, finish up the day, come home and finish up my workout, cook/eat dinner, and have about 2 hours to relax/knock off anything on the to-do list, and then it’s time to get ready for bed.

While I crave a little stress and excitement, I think I could surely live with that sort of lifestyle for at least a little while.  How about you?  Tell me about your wildest fitness fantasies?

Super awesome pretty pictures from wallpaperpimper.com.

The First Week Back to Reality

Since I seem to be ahead on posts and this doesn’t get up on the blog until Friday, I’m just going to jot down my progress and what’s going through my head each day.  Overall it’s been sort of a “detox” week.  You never understand how inactivity and eating junk affects you until it’s no longer the norm.  A week and a half was long enough!  Here is my journey out of it…

Monday:

Did – Got up around 8:45, very bleary eyed.  30 mins DDR as planned in the morning and was too hungry to do yoga so I sank into the couch with dinner and didn’t get up instead.  Bad Quix!  Will make it up sometime this week.  Had a very healthy day of eating (ate a promax 20g protien bar for breakfast, a homemade tuna sandwich for lunch, carrots and snap peas with hummus for a snack, chicken masala, rice,half a tortilla, and peas for dinner, and a honeycrisp apple for desert) coming in right under 1500 calories. Weighed in at 159.0.

Felt – I am feeling very bleh.  I think a week and a half of no consistent exercise and not watching what gets in my cakehole has actually made me tired, almost a little depressed (I’m not my bouncy, energetic self), lethargic, and I have this little bit of nose/throat funk – had it for almost a week now but it hasn’t turned into anything.  I’m sure it’s not helping that it’s *greygloomyrainy* outside.  That always makes me in less than a happy mood if it lasts more than a day or 2.  So I am going to ignore the way I am thinking and feeling and dive back into healthy and hope this will all pass.  Looking forward to setting out for a run tomorrow, but just feel too exhausted right now to see how that will be any good.

Is this what I felt all the time before?  I seriously feel like I am slogging through molasses for the last week since the day after the wedding.  I feel like I am broken.  Someone needs to find the circuit that shorted and replace it please.  I can’t remember a time when my body has felt so… useless.   Not even after the half marathon – after one day off I was up and ready to go again.  At first I told myself that it was good to give myself a break before the wedding.  Then, after I just felt like I needed to sleep for days and it’s just not getting any better even though I AM getting plenty of sleep.  Hopefully just returning back to normal habits will right me, because this sucks.  I think this part is worse than the weight gain.

Yes, this too shall pass.  I just need to get through it and learn from it.

Tuesday:

Did – Got up around 8:45, just about as bleary.  5k run and weights at the gym after work.  Ate another promax bar for breakfast (can’t beat 20 g protien for 200 calories even if they aren’t the tastiest), had snap peas and a plum for a snack, some leftover homemade lentil soup and a gigantic salad for lunch, a junior burger for dinner and then I realized I was WAY under my calorie range so I snacked on some raspberries, a 100 calorie bag of popcorn, some turkey pepperoni, a few rice chips, and a sugar free popsicle.  Came in at just under 1400 calories.  Weighed in at 156.8

Felt – Morning – still bleh.  It’s still grey and dreary, I’m still in this state of nose/throat thing being icky but not bad enough to call myself sick.  I feel tired but not tired enough to feel like I need rest, but tired enough to make workouts feel like WORKouts.  I still suspect this is just my body rebelling after taking more time off working out than I have in years WHILE eating junk.  I’m hoping that slogging through another workout or 2 and later in the week when the sun comes out, I’ll be back to my normal self.

Evening – WOW!  What a difference a little sun and a great workout makes.  My nose and throat feel better, my mood is back to happy, and the workout felt GREAT (even during).  This is totally encouraging!

Wednesday:

Did – Got up around 8:45 slightly less begrudgingly.  30 mins DDR in the morning, yoga session at night.  Ate another promax bar, a turkey sandwich for lunch, fish, brown rice and veggies (wedding present fresh fish from Alaska) for dinner, and a honeycrisp apple, snap peas, pita chips, and hummus for a snack.  I did splurge on half a serving of ice cream and a special k bar for desert but I had the calories for it. I came in just over 1400 calories.  Weighed in at 156.2.

Felt – It was still hard to get up this morning (I was hoping to get up a little earlier), but I think it was more because I was kinda sore from my workout and also was having weird dreams.  DDR was tougher that normal, but definitely a marked improvement over Monday.   My nose is still running, but my throat isn’t sore!  My mood is definitely in a better place.  I don’t feel like I’m about the grab the day by the huevos and storm castles, but I don’t feel like curling up into a little ball and hiding away either.  I’ll take it.

Thursday:

Did – Got up around 8:35, more alert than I have all week.  I could have gotten up earlier but I was having a cool dream, and when I did, I kinda sprung out of bed instead of being bleary eyed.  I did a full weights session (one set max reps with the ball), and after work I made up that yoga session I missed as well as ran a 5k!  I was totally workout woman today!  Ate yet another promax bar (I’ll have to change it up a little next week but they’ve been great this week) for breakfast, a cut up black bean burger, some corn/bean/pepper relish, and tortillas for veggie tacos for lunch (this was SUPERB), snap peas and some jerky for a snack, and grilled chicken, taterflowers (half mashed potato half cauliflower) and veggies for dinner.  I also splurged and had a few vodka drinks.  I came in just under 1500 calories.  I forgot to weigh in the morning, and at night after my run I weighed 156.4.

Felt – I am finally feeling emotionally like myself, and workout wise feeling close to normal – though I still have this freaking nose funk on and off.  While I still don’t feel 100% strong, I’m feeling like I can get there.  I’ll have to build my running up a little more next week because that seems to be doing wonders for me in terms of both mood and physical well being.

Today I’m weighing in at 154.8 (yay, under 155!) and feeling pretty darn good heading into the weekend.  If there is anyone out there who’s not on the workout train or off the wagon eating-wise, just climb back on!  Let me give you a proverbial hand.  Get through a week and you’ll feel SO GOOD.  I know I do.

The goal now is to get through the weekend as close to 1500 as possible, and next week… well, we’ll talk about it then.  What have you been up to this week?  Any awesome plans for the weekend to share?

Pictures from graph jam, because graph jam rocks!

Ch-ch-changes

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.

Why I <3 Blogs

If the band Cracker was in it’s heyday in 2008 instead of the early nineties, the lyrics would probably be something like.. “what the world needs now is another BLOGGER like I need a whole in my head”. Opinions are like assholes – everyone has them, and some reek of… well, you know. Each blog is like our own personal toilet, a portal for all of those… opinions to flow freely and intermingle and synergize and become much more than they could on their own, via the sewage system of the internet, once we hit “publish”. The internet has brought together groups of people that we thought just didn’t exist before, and not in that enlightening way.

Case in point, furries. This guy to the left is probably not a furry, but a little too close for comfort. No link, because I don’t want to be responsible for bringing down your Friday. If you don’t know what I’m talking about and you’re feeling particularly brave, set your google safe search filter off, and prepare the bleach for your eyes (and soul). Now, I’m sure there were furries before the internet, but they dressed up in the comfort of their own home, and had the good sense not to tell anyone about it. Maybe there were underground furry clubs or something where they could do their thing, but the rest of the world went on blissfully ignorant about it.

Enter the internet, connecting everyone in the world with a modem. All it took was a few oddballs to be public about their fetish to realize that they weren’t alone, and now the world is exposed to madness of all sorts. Of course, this is but one example, but I’m sure you can relate. Who hasn’t clicked through a few too many links and ended up seeing something you can never unsee, and a little bit of your innocence died that day? Even without the dramatics, who isn’t sick of “SENG PEOPLE UES ABBOMINASHUNS OF DA INGLISH LANGUAEG WO APALOGY???!!!!!! WTF!!!”.

Even through all this, I have come to love everything about blogs. First of all, I need something to get through my day. Let’s face it – my job is to be ready to deal with anything that comes up at a moment’s notice. However, there is not always something to deal with. Some people read the news during that downtime. I like reading blogs, and if I have a significant chunk of time (or enough small chunks of time), I like writing blog entries.

So, since I like lists, here we go.

Why I like reading blogs:

1. I’m a psychology major, and though I promptly rejected doing anything with my field after graduation, I do still have a huge interest in the human condition and what makes people tick.

2. Along with that, I’m nosy, but polite to a fault about letting people share with me what they wish to divulge. People seem to be braver on blogs than in person. I know I am.

3. It’s allowed me to connect with people that I either have never met in real life or haven’t been close to in person, and that’s kinda fun. There are people that I’ve never met IRL that I’ve known online for 5 years, and we were invited to their wedding. There are a few people I knew previously that were on the opposite side of a shared social circle that I didn’t really get to know until I read their blogs. I used to think that only losers had internet friends, but then I started playing MMOs and chatting on message boards and you’re only a loser if you ONLY have internet friends or take it as serious as this guy. 🙂

4. Those people can talk about anything that their little heart desires, and I can read if I want to, or skip it if it bores me. If they were sitting right in front of me, I would have to feign interest, or be rude. Since I’m not a big fan of being a jerk-face to people that can reach out and slap me, it’s the best of both worlds.

Why I love blogging:

1. I love to write. I have since I was little. I’ve always written stories and poems and kept a journal on and off again. I can’t really think of a time that I didn’t have a notebook within arms reach most of the time.

2. I’m not a terribly private person. I like people to know things about me. Things I don’t feel comfortable sharing, I don’t talk about, but I’m just pretty honest with the world about who I am.

3. I like fame, small chunks of it at least. While at the time I needed to run away and hide for a while, after a few months after leaving SOE and EQOA and no longer being Sapphyra, I terribly missed my fanbois and fangirls and even my haters. I always had this feeling that I wanted to be famous. At the very least, I like putting what I want to say out there and seeing if it bounces or sticks.

4. I figure things out well in text. Sometimes I’ll be pondering a decision, I’ll meander back and forth on it in a blog, and by the time I read the finished version, I’ll have realized I’ve already made it.

5. I think I have an interesting viewpoint and have had some unique experiences in my life. I like telling stories, but I just don’t have the knack for it vocally. I’ll start talking about my experiences working a renaissance faire when I was 10 and then all of a sudden I’ll see something shiny and I’m off track. I just don’t have that comedic timing either, which is a shame, because I really think I could be funny. I could totally rock the stage doing standup. See, I’ve already wandered!

6. I’m sure this doesn’t help with the storytelling, but I have a goldfish brain (really bad memory), and if I don’t write it down, I’ll forget what I’m thinking. I’ve had to reference when things happened by entries in my blog more than a handful of times.

That being said, I’d like to put more thought into my writing, and I feel more accountable for that by blogging on my own site, attached to my own name. I found a lot of my entries to be just rambles about my day, what I ate, what I weighed that day and how happy/sad it made me, how pissed I was that I was working too many hours, what I was doing this weekend, and that’s fine for livejournal, but I want to try and do more here. It may take some practice, so forgive me if I slip into a post of “daily life blah blah” every once in a while, and tell me to bugger off if I make a habit of it. But… that’s why I’m here.

Testing, testing, is this thing on?

Got a lot of work to do, but here I start. Please check my profile, FAQs, and links because that’s what I did today. Yippee!

Tomorrow will be the first real blogging, but today in this edition of “fake bloggery”, I will report that I’m going home, grabbing the Zliten, going to Hobby Lobby to hit the 50% off bead sale, and then…perhaps take over the world? Yes, tomorrow something more interesting and well thought out and concise. Today, I bolt away from work now with the speed of light!

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