Monthly Archives: July 2016

4 Years (or Reflections On The Past)

Posted on July 15, 2016 | Comments Off on 4 Years (or Reflections On The Past)

Tomorrow marks the 4th anniversary of me starting Finding My Inner Bombshell. (1st Anniversary, 2nd Anniversary, 3rd Anniversary) I know I’ve said this every single milestone that I’ve made it to, but I still can’t believe it! This really did start from a friend telling me I should do this and I just ran with the idea.

But blogging didn’t come as easily as it would seem from how this blog has gone. The first time I started blogging (right after my friend told me I should), I actually started another blog. I don’t remember what I named it, but I remember that I used a fake name. I was going to talk about my eating disorder and I didn’t want anyone to know that it was me. I know that some people blog anonymously, but it just didn’t feel right to me.

I kept that original blog for maybe a week or so and I had a couple of posts on it. But I wasn’t blogging regularly and I didn’t feel connected to it. So I stopped and started to think up a new blog idea for me. Once I came up with the name of my blog and secured the URL for it, I still didn’t start blogging. I thought maybe I should write a ton of posts and then post them without telling anyone so there would be a bunch of posts for people to read when they discovered my blog. But that just didn’t make sense.

So I just started blogging. If you go back and look at my first posts, they aren’t really the same as how I write now. I really didn’t know what I was doing or what the plan would be. While I still don’t know what the plan is all the time, at least I know what I’m doing and I feel much more confident with my writing. Sometimes I have nothing to write and I feel bad that you all have to read a boring post, but my life can’t all be awesomeness and adventures. There are times where I’m sad, bored, lonely, or feeling disconnected. And I do try to be honest about those moments because I know how alone I felt for years with those issues. I don’t want anyone else to feel alone.

Through this blog, I’ve found freedom in my life. I’ve become a happier person because I don’t feel the need to only show the best of my life. I show the good, the bad, and the ugly and it’s very rare when someone judges me for it (I do get negative responses to some of my more personal posts from time to time). It’s given me more confidence about so much in my life, and I know that others have gained things too from reading because they don’t feel as alone anymore. I still can’t believe I have inspired others, but I’m so glad that I’ve been able to do that.

When I started the blog, I really did think my life would be very different 4 years later than it is now. I’m still single, I’m still in debt, I’m still dealing with an eating disorder, and I’m still juggling multiple day jobs. But I am working on all of those things and I have hope that eventually they will all be worked out. Right now, being single is the least of my worries. I want to pay off my debt and be in recovery more than anything. And I really would like to find a better day job situation than I’m in right now. I really need to find a job with more flexibility than one of my jobs has right now.

By having flexibility back in my life, I’ll be able to not only do more things for my acting career but I can make this blog better too! I’ve had to turn down so many amazing events that I know you all would have loved because I had to work at that time. And while almost all of my day jobs are flexible hours (or hours of my choosing), there’s one that isn’t and that one is the one I’m looking to replace. Once I figure out a plan, I think that I’ll be able to take some big leaps and bounds in my life when I’m not tied down to when I can work on things.

4 years ago today, I hadn’t even started to blog and I had no idea if I’d be able to do it or even continue to do it for more than a few days. Now, I’ve got 4 years and  1,045 posts under my belt and I can’t wait to see what improvements I can make in this blog and in my life in the next year! Hopefully things continue to get bigger and better and the next 4 years are more amazing than I could ever imagine!

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Default Thumbnail8 Years In (or Another Blog Anniversary) Default Thumbnail1500 Posts (or This Really Is Just A Part Of My Life) Default Thumbnail15 Years Later (or Reflections On LA) Default Thumbnail3 Years Down (or Where I Started) Default Thumbnail6 Years In (or Being Ok With Where I Am) Default Thumbnail5 Years Old (or My Blog Is A Kindergartner)

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Budgeting and Spending (or Sharing YNAB With A Cashier)

Posted on July 14, 2016 | Comments Off on Budgeting and Spending (or Sharing YNAB With A Cashier)

This week I did a bit of shopping to prepare for my trip next week. I got a couple of things I needed (travel toiletries) and a couple of things I wanted (a new purse and hat). While I did need some of the things I got, I still was very careful with what I was spending. I’m trying to do much better with my budgeting plan and starting over in YNAB so I could start fresh with a better budget idea has really helped me. I’m much more on top of my expenses and income and I’ve been able to make larger payments toward my credit card debt than I have in the past (although I’ve had a small setback in that because I had to put almost $1000 into fixing my car last month).

The current version of YNAB is a very different set-up than what I signed up with. I haven’t wanted to make the change yet (it costs more with the new version and I’m happy with what I have), but I’m still trying to be a very involved user and whenever possible I add my spending in the app as it happens. It’s pretty convenient to have the app on my phone and entering my expenses or income takes so little time. Compared to other budgeting apps I’ve tried to use, this one seems to make the most sense to me and doesn’t intimidate me especially with having income that can vary a lot.

One of my shopping trips to prepare for my trip was to Nordstrom Rack (they’ve always got some amazing things there!) and when it was my turn to pay I handed over my credit card and then asked again what the total was. The cashier told me and I immediately got out my phone to enter what I spent (it was within my budget so it’s all good).

The cashier asked me what I was doing and I mentioned that I was entering my purchase into YNAB so I could make sure I don’t overspend what I’ve budgeted for this month. She mentioned how smart that was and how she should do the same thing. I have a feeling that she probably downloaded the app that night because she seemed really excited about it.

Budgeting may never come easily to me (unless I have an unlimited amount of money and don’t actually have to budget), but I’m working on it. Being open about budgeting has helped because it takes away the shame I’ve felt in the past about the money issues I have. I’ve been told that I’m very irresponsible for having a credit card balance that isn’t paid off in full each month. I felt awful about that and didn’t want to tell anyone else about it. But when I opened up about it, I realized that a lot of people I know have debt of some sort and there’s nothing wrong with it. And a lot of those friends have been using various budgeting apps to help bring down their debt so I want to follow their example.

It actually felt really great for those brief moments I was talking with the Nordstrom Rack cashier about YNAB. I had no feelings of shame sharing that I needed help to track my money and to make sure I’m being responsible. I felt like even if I am not in a perfect financial set-up right now, that doesn’t mean I don’t have advice I can share with others and hopefully help them get into the best financial shape possible. You don’t have to have everything figured out and settled to be able to share with others what may be able to help them.

I know that I’ve got a long way to go with my budgeting and debt payoff, but it’s the small steps that will add up and make a big difference in the end. And hopefully in the not so distant future I will know that my credit card debt will be paid off and then the budgeting will shift from debt payments to savings and I can hopefully do more fun things more often.

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Default ThumbnailFinding New Money Issues (or Looking At Doing A Fresh Budget) Default ThumbnailWorking on Budgeting (or Spending Money To Save Money) Default ThumbnailA Fresh Budget (or Starting Over With YNAB) Default ThumbnailFood And Budgeting (or Combining The Two Things I Often Struggle With) Default ThumbnailGoing Back To An Old Habit (or Finding Control With Budgeting) Default ThumbnailGetting Back On Track (or Happiness and Budgeting)

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With The Good Comes The Bad (or My Vyvanse-Free Weekend)

Posted on July 13, 2016 | Comments Off on With The Good Comes The Bad (or My Vyvanse-Free Weekend)

Overall, my weekend was pretty amazing. I had so much fun shooting “Single Parent Date Night” and even though the night shoot was tough, it was the greatest time ever! It’s been a long time since I’ve had to be up all night (and even longer since I’ve had to do it to act), so planning out my weekend was a bit weird and I really did try my best.

Even though I had to work early Saturday morning, I went back to bed after work to get some extra sleep in. And I made no real plans on Sunday because I wasn’t sure how I would feel or if I’d get any sleep. And I also readjusted the medications I take each day to plan for the all-nighter.

I was able to take most of my medications as usual. But I skipped taking Vyvanse on Saturday because I didn’t want to take it in the morning since I wanted to go back to bed after work and I didn’t take it in the afternoon because I honestly forgot. And since the time I got home on Sunday was the time I usually take my first Vyvanse dose, I skipped that one too. And since I skipped the morning one I skipped the afternoon one too on Sunday.

I know I’m supposed to take a break from Vyvanse from time to time, but this was different. I didn’t take the break because I wanted to, I took it because I needed to for the weird schedule I had over the weekend. I thought I had prepared myself for taking the break, but the planning wasn’t enough. And it actually backfired on me.

Saturday and Sunday ended up being 2 of the worst food days I’ve had in a long time. I honestly can’t remember the last time my food was as bad as these days were. I’m not sure if Saturday was also bad because of stress and Sunday was also bad because of exhaustion, but it doesn’t matter. And it didn’t help that our dinner break for the shoot was at midnight and we ate pizza (I was hungry otherwise I would have skipped it). Fortunately I didn’t feel too sick on Saturday, but Sunday felt like a food hangover all day (and continuing to eat “bad” foods didn’t help that feeling). The one good thing with all the bad food choices was that I really wanted to get delivery food on Sunday for dinner, but I managed to resist that and went to the grocery store for a better choice.

I don’t want to completely blame the lack of Vyvanse on these bad days, but I did feel a difference in my body even mid-day on Saturday. I wasn’t feeling as strong as I’ve felt recently and I just wasn’t able to focus properly (Vyvanse is also an ADHD medication so I guess it’s been helping me focus and not just helping me with the eating disorder). I really hated how I felt and I wanted to be in a positive mindset because of the filming that night. I think the excitement of the filming did help a bit, but it still wasn’t quite right to me.

While I’ve been wanting to believe that the Vyvanse was helping me, I never was 100% sure about it. I knew that there was a bit of difference in my life, but I’ve also been doing a lot of self-improvement work lately so I thought it could also be that. But spending the weekend off of Vyvanse really did prove to me that it is working and that it is the right thing for me to be on right now.

I was back to my normal medication schedule on Monday and eating did get better that day. I think now I’m back to being on track but of course my scale is reflecting my bad choices and that stinks. I’ve been making so much progress lately and it does feel like a giant step back. Eventually I’ll get back to where I was and I just have to be patient with myself.

Even though this was a really bad weekend with my food and recovery, the good really did outweigh the bad and I wouldn’t change anything about my weekend. But I did joke to my co-star (and writer of our film) that the next collaboration we have needs to be something that shoots during the day because the night shoot was so crazy for me.

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Default ThumbnailJust A Bad Day (or Focusing On Good) Default ThumbnailA Year On Vyvanse (or Help Is Expensive) Default ThumbnailOver A Month On Vyvanse (or A Meeting With My Therapist) Default ThumbnailFollowing My Doctor’s Instructions (or Days Off From Vyvanse) Default Thumbnail1 Week On Vyvanse (or Hoping To Answer Some Questions) Default ThumbnailA Quick Vyvanse Update (or I Guess Forgetting Helps Time Pass)

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Posted in Acting, Food, Health, Tough Stuff

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Making A Movie (or Pulling An All-Nighter)

Posted on July 12, 2016 | 8 comments

We finally filmed “Single Parent Date Night”! We filmed the movie this past weekend and honestly it was one of the greatest acting experiences I’ve had so far!

I’m still in shock that we finally did this. It’s been a fun project to be a part of and I’m so happy that my friend Christopher wrote this script for him and I to star in! To think that this started as just a little scene for us to film for our reels and turned into a full short film is crazy! But I’m so glad that we were able to get a great team together for this and I can’t wait to see how it looks when it’s done!

Our filming adventure started at my house at about 7pm. Christopher, my friend Gedaly (who was so nice to volunteer to be background in our film), and I met up at my house where our hair/makeup person, Kate, would be meeting us. Kate was actually the one who did my hair and makeup for the past few headshot shoots I’ve done, so I was so happy she could do the film too! Since I was the only girl in the film, I definitely took the longest to get ready. But Kate got my makeup done and my hair in velcro rollers and then she got started on the guys.

Hair and Makeup

Once the guys were ready, we all headed over to the first location where we were shooting. We really lucked out with locations because those could have cost us a ton of money. But a friend of our director is an investor in a restaurant that hasn’t opened yet. And since they haven’t opened yet, we were able to use the space without paying because they weren’t going to lose any money having us there!

As soon as we walked into the restaurant, I wanted to cry from happiness. Like I said, this started as just a simple scene for Christopher and I and it became much bigger than that. But to walk into the restaurant to see the cameras and lights set up, it really hit me that we were making a movie and this was real!

Cameras

Once we got there, we got ready to start shooting pretty quickly. I had to get my hair finished first and our sound guy had to get our mics and battery packs set up. I had the sound guy and Kate working on me at the same time, and Christopher got what may be one of my favorite pictures from the shoot.

Crazy Prep

Of course, we kept taking lots of silly photos throughout the night. I got a pretty fun one of Christopher with the clapboard for the film.

Christopher

The shots we had to get inside the restaurant were some of the easiest ones for us. We didn’t have any lines and we just had to do a couple of moments that will be used in the beginning of the film.

At Restaurant

Once we were done with that setup, we moved outside to the valet area for the restaurant where we were going to shoot the first big scene between Christopher and I. The crew had to bring all the stuff from inside out to the parking lot, but they were so amazing that it was set up before we knew it!

Parking Lot Cameras

Even though I had worked on my lines the week leading up to the shoot, I was so terrified that I would forget what to say. Before each setup, Christopher and I ran through our lines a couple of times together and I’m happy to say that there were only a few times that we forgot what to say or messed up a line.

Filming In Parking Lot

We were done at the restaurant around midnight (so about 4 hours of shooting there) and then we were off to our next location. This time, we needed a house with a driveway and fortunately Christopher has a house with a great driveway to use! So we had another location that was free and we could be there without bothering anyone (Christopher’s wife and kids were visiting family that night so they weren’t home).

Before we continued on with the shoot, we had our “lunch” break and Kate touched up our makeup and Christopher and I worked on our lines some more. Then we headed out to the driveway for the next setup which was inside of a car.

Car Set Up

This was another big scene so I’m glad that Christopher and I worked on our lines before shooting the scene. We were able to store our script inside the car if we wanted to look at it between takes, but we ended up getting through all of the takes and camera setups so quickly that we didn’t really have too much time to look at it. Once we were done with the car scene, we were over halfway done with shooting the movie, so Christopher and I were pretty happy about that.

In The Car

Next was a scene outside of the car that had a mini-monologue for me to do. This was about 3am and I was starting to be pretty tired. I had tried my best to sleep as much as I could during the day on Saturday, but the late night was starting to catch up to me. I had a few moments where I had to think really hard about what my next line was, but I think that between all of the takes that we did there’s at least one really good line reading from me.

Our last setup was at the door of the house. We were actually filming 2 scenes there back to back, and as we were getting close to being done the sun was coming up quickly. I was shocked how early the sun was up (I guess that’s the risk you take filming in the summer instead of the winter) but we managed to get everything done before it was too bright outside!

And at 6am, we were done with shooting the entire film! I tried to get a good selfie from the end of the night, but I think you can tell how exhausted and crazy I feel from my look.

Wrapped

And of course, we had to get an exhausted picture of the 4 of us who were the ones who did the Kickstarter: Christopher who was the writer and star, Bryan who was the director, Jamie who was the producer, and me.

All Done

We got the entire thing filmed in about 11 hours, which is crazy because even though the script was only 9 pages that still working at a really fast pace. And we had to keep things quick because we were racing the sunrise. After we were done, I was totally ready to get home and to try to sleep. The exhaustion of the all-nighter caught up with me. But even though I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, I still was on such a high that we actually did it! This movie has been such an incredible experience the entire time and a little part of me is sad that we are done filming now!

Our film will be going to our editor this week and then all of the post-production work will be starting. I don’t know how long it will take to be finished, but you know that I will for sure tell you all where you can watch “Single Parent Date Night” and every update each step of the way.

Thank you again to every single one of you who either donated to our Kickstarter or shared our Kickstarter so others could donate. We really could not have made this film without you and I’m so grateful that I had this opportunity to act and live my dream life for a night.

Clapper

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Testing My Running (or Holidays and Friends)

Posted on July 11, 2016 | Comments Off on Testing My Running (or Holidays and Friends)

This past week of workouts was pretty good for me. It was a 3 workout week because of my schedule, but that’s ok because I’ve figured out what weeks this month will work for 4 workout weeks. I was able to work on a lot of running stuff this week, so that worked out really great for me!

Since Monday was a holiday (4th of July), it was a 3G class which means that instead of having 2 groups in the workout we had 3. Those classes are pretty rare for me to take so it was pretty cool to get to do one that day. And not only was the class a 3G, we were switching between blocks and all the blocks were about 4 minutes long. So every 4 minutes we were switching around the room and it was pretty crazy!

On the treadmill, I tried my best to run all the push and all-out paces. I wasn’t able to do all of them because they started to get long, but I was able to do a good majority of them. When I was on the rower, we had rows that were between 100-300 meters and then we had arm work to do after we finished the row. And on the floor, we had to do ultimate burpees every round before the rest of the floor work. It was a lot of work, but since the blocks were short and we moved so often it didn’t feel too bad. And I was able to get my workout done in the morning before there was too much holiday traffic!

4th of July

Wednesday was a run/row day, and my friend Amanda was in class! She’s starting to come every other week for the Wednesday workout, so that makes me pretty happy! While the class isn’t a team or partner thing, I still prefer when I have a friend there with me to make things a bit more fun.

The run/row day was an endurance day and I was doing my best on the treadmill to maintain a 1 minute run/1 minute walk pace on the treadmill the entire time. I did run the last run thing in whole since it was a .1 mile run and I know I can do that. The row was either 200 or 400 meters so it wasn’t too horrible and the 200 meters were a sprint so I could get them done really quickly. When we moved over to the floor, we had a lot of arm work (pullovers, bicep/hammer curls, and shoulder presses) and I was feeling pretty exhausted at the end and my arms were ready to be done. But at the very end of class we had a 4 minute core blast and then my abs were so tired that I missed the arm work.

Friday was a workout that had 3 friends in it so it was a really great vibe in the room! And that great vibe was needed because the workout was a bit weird for the day. We had 1 cardio block and 1 row block (each was 23 minutes long) and both blocks had strength work. On cardio, we had a .25 mile or .15 mile run and then we went to the floor to do pull-ups on the TRX straps, pop jacks, and crunches. The .25 mile run was the first one to be done and I decided since I’ve been able to run it before I would do it again. It was a lot tougher this time to run the .25 miles than it was last time but I was able to get it done without a walking break. But after doing that once, I realized it wasn’t the smartest plan for me so I did the rest of my treadmill time with the 1 minute run/1 minute walk plan.

When we switched to the row, we first had to row between 1000-600 meters. Then after doing that we had squats and some weight work like shoulder presses and arm rows (which felt really evil to me after we had to do so much rowing before that). Those rows were so long and all of my friends agreed that the Friday workout felt significantly longer than any other workout that we’ve ever done before! I was feeling a bit more tired than I like to after a workout after the one on Friday, but I got through it and I had the giant sweat mark on my shirt to prove it!

Friends

The next few weeks of workouts will be a bit of a scheduling ordeal for me to work though. This week should be ok (I think I’ve got it figured out), but I’ve got a trip coming up that will be making my workout schedule a bit tough to figure out. I’m working on a couple of plans and I think I’ll be able to do 3 workouts a week minimum each week even with my traveling coming up.

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What Is Happening? (or Why I Support Black Lives Matter)

Posted on July 8, 2016 | 3 comments

At the time I’m writing this post, there have been 2 black men killed by police (Alton Sterling and Philando Castile) in the past 2 days and 4 cops who were shot at a peaceful protest about those killings. Honestly, I don’t know what to write about this but I can’t stay quiet.

All of the killings recently have hit me so hard. I saw the videos of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile online and was just shocked by what I saw. I don’t watch violent things usually and these videos were some of the most horrific things I’ve ever seen. I am impressed at Lavish Reynolds (the girlfriend of Philando Castile) who was able to stay calm and film what was happening so that the world could see what happened in that car. Some of my friends posted about how the police violence isn’t new, it’s just the fact that everyone has cameras now that allows us all to see what’s happening. That may very well be the truth and we can’t turn a blind eye to it.

I’m not trying to say that all cops are bad. I know cops who are very good people and I understand that they do put their lives on the line every day and that can be scary. But for a cop to feel it necessary to shoot a man point-blank in the chest multiple times while they are on top of him because they believe he has a gun in his back pocket (which he can’t get to because you are holding him down) is ridiculous. Police are supposed to enforce the rules but they aren’t supposed to also be the judge, jury, and executioner for the people they stop.

I know that many members of various police forces are speaking out about this violence and saying that it is not necessary. They are showing so many examples of where white men who are either pointing a gun at the police or shooting at them are able to be stopped without dying. Sometimes those men are shot, but never multiple rounds at point-blank.

I’m embarrassed to admit that many years ago I questioned if the men who were killed by police did do something wrong. That changed with Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, but especially with Tamir Rice. I saw that surveillance footage of Tamir Rice and was disgusted. I can’t believe that the cops shot a child within seconds of arriving to a 911 call where someone thought he might have a fake gun and after they shot him they didn’t think to do any lifesaving measures. Seeing that made me realize that these shootings aren’t because the victims did something that made them so high risk that the police had to shoot them to protect others, these shootings were because the police were scared or acting irrational.

I remember seeing this amazing tweet last year which really made everything clear to me.

Black Lives Matter

I’ve been so mad for years hearing people question my friends who were sexually assaulted or raped saying that maybe they shouldn’t have worn whatever they were wearing and then they wouldn’t have been raped. For the record, my friends who have been attacked have been wearing things like a pajama set (a man came and raped her in the room she was sleeping in), jeans and a t-shirt, a dress at a black tie event, and maxi skirt with a tank top. The men who raped them would have done it no matter what. So victim-blaming them doesn’t do them any good.

It’s the same with all of these incidents. I have friends who are raising young black men and they have had to tell their sons for years that to prevent being shot by police they need to obey no matter what. But then when Philando Castile was doing just that in getting his ID from his wallet as the officer told him to do, he was shot and killed. What are mothers and fathers supposed to tell their kids now to not be shot during a routine traffic stop?

When I was starting to write this post, it was just going to be about the shootings and how I just don’t know what to say about things. And as I started writing, the news from Dallas came out where snipers were killing cops at a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest. I don’t believe that the snipers are a part of the protest but decided to take advantage of a situation and perhaps try to get the blame landed on the group.

But Black Lives Matter is not about only caring about the safety and lives of black Americans. It is saying that black lives matter just as much as white lives and that needs to be recognized. It’s like the example I saw on Facebook today:

Bob Deserves Food

Nobody is saying black lives matter more than others, they just want them to be recognized the same way as others. Nobody is asking for privilege, they are asking for the privilege to go away and for equality to exist. This needs to happen. There have been too many shootings, too many attacks, and too many parents scared for the lives of their children.

This is not just a bad police issue, this is a humanity issue. And I want to see the change happen within my lifetime so I know that my friends and family who are scared every day can finally feel safe in their lives.

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Ten Years Ago (or Another Big Milestone)

Posted on July 7, 2016 | 1 comment

Ten years ago was my hip surgery. I’ve had very few surgeries in my life (eye surgery as a baby, wisdom teeth out 16 years ago, and tonsils out about 7 years ago), but there is no question that the biggest and most impactful one was my hip surgery.

Ten years ago I was wheeled into the operating room after signing paperwork that was pretty scary. I had to sign something that said I understood that undergoing surgery could make my condition worse, not fix it at all, or kill me. I had to sign medical power of attorney paperwork in case I was in a vegetative state and couldn’t make decisions on my own. I had to sign my right hip a few times so that the surgeons would operate on the correct hip. This was all pretty overwhelming for me since I still felt like these were things my parents should do for me (I was 22 when I had my surgery so I was an adult).

For my surgery, my parents came to town to take care of me (one of the few times my dad took off work for something other than a vacation) and my mom did her best to keep me calm when my IV was put in my hand. Both my parents came back to give me a hug and a kiss before I was wheeled back and I gave them my valuables to hold. The surgery took several hours, but it felt like it only took a second for me. And I remember every moment until the time they put the drugs in my IV to knock me out and then again from the moment I woke up (I think I might have woken up faster than they expected because they were still removing my foot from the surgery boot when I started asking them how it went).

I remember how scary it was from the time I was injured until my surgery because of all of the unknowns. I was misdiagnosed for a while and when I finally met with my hip surgeon I had to have an MRI to confirm my injury. I remembered him telling me that if the pain in my hip went away during the MRI (the saline they used to open up my hip had some numbing medicine in it), that I would need to have surgery because that’s where my injury was. When the pain went away almost immediately, I burst into tears. It was great to finally have an answer after being in blinding pain for so many months, but the idea of surgery terrified me. But it really was one of the best things to have happened to me.

Recovery from surgery wasn’t easy. I hated being on the crutches and I had to be on painkillers around the clock for almost 2 weeks to not wake up in the middle of the night in pain that was almost as bad as the pre-surgery pain. But I did get to the gym about 24 hours after surgery to ride an exercise bike (I’m so glad my dad was there to help me on and off the bike) and I was almost fully recovered within a few months of the surgery.

10 years later, I would say I’m about 95% recovered. I will probably never fully recover because some of my flexibility and range of motion are gone from how things were corrected. And I don’t know if I will ever be pain-free again like I was before the injury. But I’m in better shape now than I was then (even if I weigh more now) and I’m running which is something I didn’t believe could ever be possible for me!

I’m aware of the reality of my physical limitations and the fact that I will still be needing more surgeries in the future. But this 10 year anniversary of my surgery is a huge marker for me. My surgeon was pretty sure I’d need my second surgery within 3 years and I know that while he was hopeful that I wouldn’t need a hip replacement before I was 40 he thought I might need one within 10 years. I know that I’ve exceeded all expectations that were given to me and I have no clue why I’ve been that lucky. Even at my last surgeon appointment where I met with a new surgeon, my hips look better now then they did last year (which is basically impossible since I am always putting pressure on my bones).

Yes, there are days that I am mad that I was born with this birth defect and even mad that my right hip started to hurt when I was 21 and didn’t wait until I was older. But I also have no idea how my life would have gone if I hadn’t had this problem when I did. My biggest weight loss, while not maintainable, happened because of this surgery. I knew I needed to be at a lower weight for the surgery and I did it. And it did put me in a different mindset than I ever was. And I worked on strengthening my body to support my hip before and after surgery and that is what got me working out more often. And I even started running because I decided I was done with being super careful about high-impact activities (although I will still stay away from ones that have a high fall risk like skiing or ice skating). My life would not be what it is if I didn’t have to have this surgery 10 years ago.

It’s crazy to think that this was 10 years ago. I told a friend recently that it felt like it was last month and a million years ago at the same time. I don’t really remember a time before my hip issues but I’ve also forgotten about how bad the pain was before the surgery. Hopefully I won’t need anything else to be done for the next 10 years, but I’m also in a place now where I know I’ve done more in the past 10 years than any surgeon thought I could and whatever happens now happens.

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Default ThumbnailSurgery Anniversary (or I Guess It’s Good I Almost Forgot) Default ThumbnailMy Hip Surgery Anniversary (or Lucky 13) Default Thumbnail7 Years (or Time Really Does Fly By) Default Thumbnail10 Years Later (or A Good Memory and A Bad Memory) Default Thumbnail19 Years In LA (or The LA Anniversary Between Two Big Milestone Anniversaries) Default Thumbnail3 Years Of Being A Medical Miracle (or Just Enjoying Being Healthy)

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4th Of July Weekend (or An Early Holiday)

Posted on July 6, 2016 | Comments Off on 4th Of July Weekend (or An Early Holiday)

With the 4th of July falling on a Monday this year, things were a bit different from normal for me. Since I have Mondays off in a normal work week, I didn’t get any extra time off for the holiday (that’s going to happen again at Christmas and New Years too). And since most of my friends had Monday off for the holiday, the big party ended up being on Sunday night so everyone could take their day off to recover.

So I headed over to Chris and Marie‘s house on Sunday night for their annual BBQ party. I made Drunk Fruit again since it was such a big hit last time and I bought extra fruit so we could have some regular cut up fruit too (this was before I realized that 4 of us would be bringing watermelon to the party).

Drunk Fruit

As with all of the parties that Chris and Marie throw, this was a fun but low-key party. It was actually one of the biggest parties I can remember them having, so it was a lot of people in the backyard eating a lot of good food and just being silly. And even though it wasn’t the 4th, there were a couple of people around the neighborhood shooting off (illegal) fireworks so we didn’t miss those. I didn’t go up on the roof this year to watch the fireworks, but I could see them pretty decently from the ground in the backyard.

And since we started a tradition a few years ago with a couple of us running through the sprinklers, we had to do that again this year. Technically, only the first time we took the photo (2 years ago) we were running through the sprinklers. Now we pretend that the sprinklers are on but the photos are now a tradition that we have to keep up. And the photo looked pretty amazing this year!

Sprinklers Photo

I just love how the first year we were just running through the sprinklers, last year we were almost making fun of ourselves, and this year we were making fun of making fun of ourselves.

3 Years

I can’t imagine how crazy the next year’s photo will be! And because everyone had to watch us take the photo, a few others wanted to join in on the fun so we got a slightly larger group to be in another pretend sprinkler photo.

Big Group

I stayed at the party until about 10:30pm and then headed back home. I’m sure everyone else was staying up late and continuing the party, but since I knew I had stuff to do the next morning I didn’t want to be out too late.

On the 4th, I actually had a pretty low-key day. I went to my workout and then I spent a bit of time with my friend Dea. She’s been getting a lot of donations to replace what she lost in the fire and I went over to help sort things and get them organized. It was amazing to see how many things people have given to her and I know that as soon as she finds a new home to rent she will be set up really quickly.

After helping out, I drove home and thought about going out to see the fireworks somewhere. I texted a bunch of friends, but people either already had plans or weren’t going to go out. After a while, I decided that I didn’t feel like going out and spending money to see fireworks somewhere. So I ended up spending the night home watching silly movies on Netflix and listening to some crazy neighbors set off fireworks down the block (they sounded so close that I could feel my house shake sometimes).

Overall, I think this was a pretty awesome 4th of July weekend. I got to hang out with my friends and be at a BBQ and I got to be lazy and relax around my house. I don’t know what more I could have wanted out of my weekend because this really was the perfect combination of everything I wanted to do.

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Default ThumbnailNot My Typically 4th Of July (or Taking Advantage Of A Day Off) Default ThumbnailA Friend-Filled Fourth (or Just Enjoying Being Around Awesome People) Default ThumbnailLow Key Labor Day (or Just A Regular Weekend) Default ThumbnailA Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much) Default Thumbnail4th Of July (or Hot Dogs, Fireworks, And Rooftops) Default ThumbnailFabulous 4th Of July (or Fireworks!)

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Recapping My June (or Still Thinking Up New Monthly Challenges)

Posted on July 5, 2016 | 1 comment

With June over now, I wanted to not only reflect back on my monthly challenge for June but what I’ve been able to do for the first half of the year. When I saw my therapist recently, he was really proud of the work that I had been doing and especially with my monthly challenges. I never expected that I would be able to keep every challenge up beyond the challenge month when I started.

But I’ve been keeping accurate food tracking since January, doing daily gratitude lists since February, not ordering delivery food since March, weighing myself every day that I’m home since April, looking to self-submit for acting jobs since May, and now meditating every day since June.

I’ll admit, the meditation thing was tough since I hadn’t really ever been able to do it for more than a few days in a row before. But because I’m an all or nothing person, it made sense to jump in right away without thinking about it too much.

I’ve been using an app called Breathe for meditation and I’ve been liking it a lot. You do check ins before meditating and it will recommend different meditations for you. Most of the free ones are under 10 minutes long, which is perfect for me. The ones I was doing the most were between 2-5 minutes.

It wasn’t easy to start and I’ve had to adjust things to make it better for myself. Because of all the hip issues, I get fidgety when sitting still. So I can’t sit while meditating most of the time. Instead, I lay down on my bed and try to find a comfortable way to lay down before I start the app. Also, I had set reminders for myself to meditate with the idea that I would try to do some in the morning and some at night. The morning meditations never worked for me this past month. I’ve been doing them right before bed each night and I’m actually really liking that. Maybe one day I’ll try to add in morning ones, but for now I’m happy with adding something new to my bedtime ritual because it helps to signal to my body that it’s time to fall asleep.

After so many months in a row of awesome monthly challenges, it’s getting harder and harder to pick a new one. I actually started thinking about my July challenge halfway through June because I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to figure out. I had planned out a couple of ideas and tried to pick something that I knew I’d be able to be successful with (for example, saying I’ll have a binge free month is not really achievable at this point and I don’t want to set myself up for failure). In the end, I think I thought of something great for this month.

For July, I’m challenging myself to read 10 pages of an eating disorder recovery book every day. I’ve actually had monthly goals in the past to read an eating disorder recovery book, and I’ve never been successful at finishing one. I get distracted or want to read a fun book so I’d take a break and never came back to the book I started. For me, I’m usually able to start a book and finish it without breaks, but I just can’t seem to do that with eating disorder recovery books.

So if I set up a plan to only have to read 10 pages a day, I’ll still get to do my fun reading but I should be able to finish an entire book this month. I used to do this with personal development books when I used to be in an MLM type of job, but when I stopped working with that company that habit was dropped. But I think this is a perfect time to bring that back to my life and I think it’s going to be a really positive thing for me.

I’m happy with this challenge I’ve set up for July, but knowing how hard it is to come up with new challenges each month I think I need to start thinking about my August challenge now!

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Default ThumbnailRecapping A Few Challenges From Last Month (or Getting Ready Stop Going Easy On Myself) Default ThumbnailAdjusting Monthly Challenges (or Books And Happiness) Default ThumbnailThinking Of Changing Up My Monthly Challenge (or I Guess This Would Be A First) Default ThumbnailGetting More Productive (or More Monthly Challenges) Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges) Default ThumbnailAlmost Through A Year Of Monthly Challenges (or Picking A Good Challenge For November)

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New Limits (or Having Friends To Push Me)

Posted on July 4, 2016 | Comments Off on New Limits (or Having Friends To Push Me)

This past week was a 4 workout week. It wasn’t easy and I really thought about canceling my 4th workout of the week, but I’m so glad I went through with it. This ended up being one of those weeks where I thought it would be normal and then something amazing happened. And after amazing things happen, my confidence in my workout ability goes up so much!

Monday was a pretty fun day. It was a power day and we did switch between blocks. But all of the blocks were about 3 or 4 minutes long, so we were never anywhere for too long. This worked out pretty well for me for my running because I had a lot of all-outs that I could run for. All of the all-outs were between 30 seconds and a minute, and while it’s still not as easy as walking for me it is getting easier to run. In fact, the 30 second runs are starting to feel the same as power walking up an incline for me. It’s totally a sign that my cardiovascular strength and endurance is getting better!

The floor work was pretty great that day too. Again, with all the blocks being really short, I never had time to get too tired. We had a couple of row blocks so I did a 4 minute row and a 3 minute row (those felt so long!). It was a pretty arm focused floor that day so there were also a bunch of shoulder presses, dips, and push ups. But it all felt pretty great to me and I was happy with my workout and how much easier the day felt for me than some other recents workouts have felt.

Wednesday was probably the highlight of my workout week. First, it was a run/row day (which I love). It was an endurance style run/row so I had long distances on the treadmill to work on my run/walk plan. I pretty much kept it the same the entire time with running for a minute and then walking for a minute. I was keeping my run at about 4.8 miles an hour and my walk at about 3.6 miles an hour and that is starting to feel more comfortable for me. Since I’m still walking I am using the walk distances on the run/row (which is half the distance that the runners do). I know that I should probably start splitting the difference between the run distance and walk distance eventually, but I’m not quite there yet.

The second to last run segment of the run/row was .5 miles, so I did .25 miles. I realized how much faster my time is when I’m doing the run/walk method and while I was on the rower started to think about how long and far I’ve run so far. My record time before Wednesday was just under 2 minutes. The final run segment of the run/row was .25 miles (.13 for walkers) and I had figured out that if I bumped up my run speed a bit, I could run .25 miles in just over 3 minutes. It would be the longest and farthest run so far, but I was almost done with the run/row so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

My friend Dani was in that class with me and I told her I was going to try to run .25 miles. She’s been a power walker with me, but she used to run so she said she would run on her treadmill next to me while I tried. The first minute went pretty easily and I’m so glad that Dani was paying attention to the distance on my treadmill because when she told me I was halfway there I knew I was going to be able to do it. For the last .05 miles I was really struggling. I wanted to quit and say that I had tried (and it would have still been the longest and farthest run so far), but with Dani cheering me on I knew I had to keep going. And when I got to .25 miles, I had run the entire thing and I was beyond excited!

1:4 Mile Run

It was just over 3 minutes of running and even though I proved I can do this it’s not going to be something I do regularly quite yet. I’d like to get to where I start doing the shorter push paces (between 1-2 minutes) as a run so I can work getting more used to running versus running longer distances right now. But to know that I can do this was just so incredible and I know I couldn’t have done it without Dani pushing me and cheering me on.

That day, my floor work did suffer a bit. I was so tired after that run and I had to spend more time catching my breath and taking breaks than I would have liked to. Fortunately, we had a lot of arm work and work on the ab roller so that was helping me calm down a bit after the run.

Friday was an endurance, strength, power day where we didn’t switch between blocks. During the endurance and power blocks I was running during the all-out segments and walked during the base and push paces. I wanted to try to run a bit more than that, but my body was still a bit tired from Wednesday (I’m aware I might have overdone things a bit). For the strength block, since I’m not really ready to run up hills yet I just did my power walking. I was able to get my inclines up higher than usual so that was a nice accomplishment for me. And on the floor I got a ton more leg work in with squats, lunges, and deadlifts.

Saturday was another endurance day and I’m glad that I was on the bike for it. We didn’t switch between the blocks and we had some really long push paces. Between the 2 cardio blocks, there were 2 pushes for 3 minutes, 2 pushes for 2 minutes, and 2 pushes for 90 seconds. Even with being on the bike (which is much easier for me than the treadmill), I was really tired during those long pushes. I’m not sure if I wasn’t working as hard as I should have or if my heart rate monitor was being glitchy, but I couldn’t get my heart rate up during the cardio. I tried not to let that bug me, but it was annoying when I felt like I was working so hard and my heart rate was at a speed like when I’m stretching during a cool down.

Despite the heart rate issues during the cardio, I was pretty happy with my floor work. There were 2 blocks on the floor and each started with a long row. The first was 1,000 meters and the second was 500 meters. My 1,000 meter row wasn’t so great (I had a rower that didn’t have the right setting for my smaller feet) but my 500 meter row was a similar time to my Peak Performance Week time. Considering that my 500 meter row on Saturday was almost at the end of my workout, I’m really happy that I could almost match my row at the beginning of a workout. During the first block, I didn’t get a ton of time to work on the strength work because my row took so long. But since my second row was so fast, I had plenty of time to work. There was more ab roller work (knee tucks and rollouts) and I really was feeling my abs working hard to keep my form right. I actually like when I can feel my muscles working because then I know that I’m working the right thing and I can feel all the work I’ve done before in my strength.

It was a pretty long and awesome week of workouts. I’ve been working on planing out my month of workouts since I’ve got a lot of things that will either keep me busy or not able to work out for some other reason. I think I’ve got a plan to hit my target number of workouts for the month, and this past week was a great start!

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Default ThumbnailWorking With Friends (or Having Someone To Push Me) Default ThumbnailTime To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills) Default ThumbnailTesting My Running (or Holidays and Friends) Default ThumbnailFiguring Things Out (or Finding A Balance With Running) Default ThumbnailTaking Things A Bit Easier (or No More Injuries) Default ThumbnailWorking On Pushing Things (or Hoping I Am Stronger)

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