Monthly Archives: February 2017

An Amazing Photo Shoot (or Dress Like A Woman)

Posted on February 14, 2017 | Comments Off

I know I’ve talked before about trying to not be too political, but I think we are in a time where you can’t just sit back and hope for the best. We need to make sure that our voices are heard by our elected representatives and that we are involved. I’ve been guilty of not doing that much in the past but I’ve realized over the past year how I cannot do that anymore. So I’ve been slowly getting more and more involved in things. I’ve joined Facebook groups and other online communities, I’ve been sending emails/snail mail and calling politicians, and I’ve been more vocal about issues that mean a lot to me.

I know it can be scary to put yourself out there like that, but I was inspired by others do it so I hope that I can inspire others to do the same. Sometimes I don’t know what to do, but I’m lucky that I know people who I can turn to that can give me ideas. And I’m very fortunate that I have friends who come up with amazing ideas that I am able to participate in. And recently, I got to participate in a great photo shoot with Adam Emperor Southard , who did my most recent headshots.

Adam posted on Facebook that he needed some women to participate in the next photo series he wanted to do and it had a political twist to it. That’s all he posted, but I said that I was in and was really excited to hear what it was all about! When he finally shared the idea with all of us who wanted to participate, I was so happy that I took the chance to be a part of it. The idea came from the statement about how President Trump likes women to dress like women when they worked for him. There had been so many posts about what dressing like a woman means since there are so many ways women dress for work. And that’s exactly that this photo series was about.

It was tough for me to think of an outfit that I wanted to wear that represented to me dressing like a woman. I tried on some of my favorite dresses that I don’t get to wear that often, but it didn’t seem right to me to wear something that I only wear on special occasions. I also thought about wearing my working clothes since I feel so empowered while wearing them. But in the end, I wore comfortable clothes that I wear when I’m working (if I’m not wearing workout clothes) including the new hoodie I got that showed to me that my work toward weight loss was paying off.

When I got to Adam’s house for the photo shoot, I was pretty ready to go. I was in the outfit I wanted to wear and had done my hair and makeup at home before going over there. But I wanted to add one more thing to my look which was the new lipstick that I’m in love with. I’ve never been a bit lipstick person, but the first time I tried this color on I felt so beautiful. So I wanted that in my photos.

The first photo was without the pink hat (which Adam had there since I didn’t have one of my own) and it was interesting taking photos that I knew weren’t going to be headshots. I experimented more with my facial expressions and poses and didn’t worry about looking pretty or thin. And the second set of photos was with the hat and I knew it would be a close up. So I thought about all the things I wanted to say to President Trump and let my expression speak for itself.

After I was done with the shoot (it only took a few minutes), Adam let me take peek at some of the photos that he took and I was shocked by how I looked!

I never feel like I can look fierce, but I felt like I really did in these photos! I looked tough and not sweet (like I normally do in photos) and I was so happy with how they looked. I had to wait a few days to see the finished image, but I could not have asked for anything better to be my photo in this series.

I shared this online right away and if you want to see all the photos in this series you can see them on Facebook. And if you are in LA and want to be a part of the series, Adam is still doing more photos so please reach out to him on Facebook!

I know that me doing one photo shoot isn’t going to change the world. But between all the women participating in the series plus all the other work they and I are doing, hopefully we can make some noise and get some people to listen to us.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged clothes, empowerment, photos, politics

Walking And Running (Mixing Up My Workouts)

Posted on February 13, 2017 | Comments Off

I was on such a high from my previous week of workouts that I didn’t know if I could do anything close to it last week. I tried to keep my expectations low going in to this past week because I didn’t want to burn out. But I also was feeling so great from all that I did that I didn’t want to lose the momentum. So I decided to try to alternate going crazy and having recovery days and see what happened.

Monday was technically an endurance, strength, and power day but to me it really felt like an endurance day. We had a crazy plan for the treadmill and I really pushed myself on it. The pattern started with a 3 minute push pace, 2 minute push pace, 1 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out pace. There was base pace in between each but it was still a lot. And the second half of the pattern was a 1 minute push pace, 2 minute push pace, 3 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out with the base pace in between. I managed to run all of the push and all out paces and in 23 minutes I did 1.55 miles which is half of a 5K.

On the floor that day, we had a 400 rep challenge. For some locations, this was a timed challenge, but it wasn’t for us. That was for the better since if it was timed I know my form would have suffered because I would have sped through things. We had 2 rounds of 25 squats, 25 hip bridges, 25 push ups, 25 rows on the straps, 50 hop overs, and 50 mountain climbers. It was very intense and tiring but I made it through. After completing my 400 reps, I had dumbbell swings and tricep work plus a 200 meter row. It was a lot, but I felt so accomplished after finishing the workout.

Wednesday was a strength day and we didn’t switch between blocks. I decided to do only walking on the treadmill that day and I’m glad that I did that. It was a nice change of pace from all the running I had done. We had ascending and descending hills with the inclines at 7, 9, and 11%. I also had 1 minute intervals at 8% with my speed at 3.8 mph which is pretty fast for my walking. And I was able to do my all out paces at 12% which is pretty steep for me.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks which each started with 400 meter rows. I was able to get those done in 1:31 and 1:28 which even surprised my coach! We also had regular and lateral lunges and lateral arm work. And I used the ab roller for knee tucks and push ups. But what went best for me was the ab work that day. We had abs with scissor kicks and crossovers. Normally those are really difficult for me because of my hips. But I was able to do them without modifications and I could really feel my abs working!

Friday was another epic day for me and I surprised myself again. We had a 23 minute challenge and I didn’t focus on distance but endurance. The idea of the challenge was to run for .25 miles and then recover with walking for a minute. And we repeated that as many times as we could. Obviously, the faster you run the more times you could repeat it. But for me, I wanted to prove to myself that I could run .25 miles over and over again. This was a test for me to see what I could really do with intervals because I am planning for my next 5K. So I ran every time I did the .25 miles at 4.5 mph which is becoming a very comfortable pace for me. I did increase my speed a bit for the end to see how far I could go, but I like that I found a good speed for me. And I’m so happy that I was able to keep up my running every time and I didn’t feel too tired during it. This wasn’t my best distance, but like I said that isn’t what I’m focusing on right now. I’m really proud of myself and I feel more confident than ever that I can have an awesome 5K in April.

After that long run, I was tired but I was ready to get to the floor block. It was a long floor block so we didn’t get much of a break in things. We had rowing between 100-200 meters, squats, lunges, burpees, froggers, palms to elbows (but I did plank shoulder taps instead), and pull ups. My form wasn’t great on the floor, but it wasn’t too bad compared to other days when I was tired.

Saturday’s workout was another recovery workout for me. It was a strength day and I made the decision to walk the entire time on the treadmill again. I needed the break and it was nice again to mix things up. The inclines were pretty intense and a lot of times I was at 12 or 15% incline which I don’t do that often. I can’t remember the last time I did 15% incline. Fortunately, since that workout was a 3G day I only had to do 2 rounds on the treadmill.

For the rower segment, the first time we had to see how fast we could do 300 meters and then recover for 20 seconds before doing it again. I think I got 3 or 4 attempts at the row before we switched and I was pretty consistent with the time. The second time on the rower, we had a challenge I hadn’t done before. We were supposed to count how many times we pulled the rower handle and to try to get 300 meters in 30 pulls or less. My first attempt wasn’t that close but I was determined to make it happen. I took super long pulls and leaned really far back to make it as long as possible. It was weird to have my form like that, but it paid off because both of my next attempts made it to 300 meters in under 30 pulls.

And for my 2 floor segments, there was quite a bit of arms work. We had rows in plank and standing up plus shoulder presses. We also had ab work with plank jack push ups and crunches. I like 3G workouts since we change between sections a lot, but it also means that I feel really tired and sometimes the workout feels a bit long. But this time the fun in changing it up was more than the tiredness I felt.

Even though I did 2 days of walking out of my 4 workouts, this is another success week of workouts in my mind!

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged fitness, Orangetheory, running, walking, workout

Half Birthday (or Reflecting On The Past 6 Months)

Posted on February 10, 2017 | Comments Off

After having a bit of a negative day earlier this week (and to be honest, a negative week), I decided to spend yesterday trying to think more positively. Stress isn’t a good thing for me mentally or physically and I needed to get myself out of that funk. And when I woke up yesterday deciding to be in a better mindset, I also realized that it was my half birthday!

I know that most people don’t celebrate half birthdays, but my dad and I do. I’m not sure how the tradition started, but it’s been a thing as long as I can remember. There aren’t any cards or gifts for half birthdays (or if there are they are more of a joke than anything), but it’s more about a time marker to me. Days and months can go by so quickly that this is a nice way to pause and do some reflection. And that’s exactly what I did yesterday to feel better about things.

6 months ago, things were terribly different but they still were different. I had just started running again for the first time in a long time and was making great progress. Running was more of a novelty to me still 6 months ago and I wasn’t as focused on my progress the way I am now. I was focused on speed and getting PRs with distances more than anything. Now, I’ve realized that I need to focus on my endurance more. I won’t be getting a ton of PRs in my workouts, but I will be making huge progress. Being able to run for more than 10 minutes at once is huge and is making me just as happy as my last 5K PR.

6 months ago, I had been making progress with my recovery but I think the changes I’ve made in the past 6 months are much more significant than the ones I made the 6 months prior. I’m still doing a lot of the same stuff, but I’m going more in-depth with them. I’ve been able to recognize some of my triggers and stop and episode from happening before it does. I’m not perfect, but progress has been made. And thinking back at those 6 months gives me so much hope for what the 6 months leading up to my birthday will bring.

In the past 6 months, I haven’t had a ton of auditions and I haven’t booked an acting job but I’ve still had awesome things happen. My short film is getting into festivals and we are talking about making a sequel to the movie. We are getting a lot of positive attention for it and that is all I could ask from a film that was just a really fun project to do with friends. We did take the shoot seriously, but when you are making a short film you aren’t doing it to make money or become a star. It’s a passion project and we are all just so grateful that people are enjoying it. And I’m hoping that we will continue to get into more festivals and we can share this film with as many people as possible.

And I know that some people may think that since 6 months ago I didn’t know about the tumors that things were better off then. But I actually see it differently. Yes, it was nice not to know about the tumors but it is so much better that I do know about them. I’m lucky that I didn’t have any issues with them, but that might not have been for forever. I have read a lot of stories of people being hospitalized because they had a small tumor rupture. And with the large tumor I have, it would be bad if it ruptured. I’m glad that I know about them. I’m able to make the changes in my life that I need to and I will have them removed before there is anything that makes it too risky to have the tumors. I don’t want to say this is a wake up call for my health because I was already working on my health. But this gave me a new sense of urgency and a new mission with my health.

But what I think has been the best thing in the past 6 months for me is that I’m having more fun. Something happened after this past birthday where I wasn’t feeling as self-conscious as I have in the past. I don’t worry too much about what other people think about me or my life. I don’t care that some people think that I’m wasting money on tickets for the Pantages or my pass for Disneyland because those are things that make me happy. They don’t have to make anyone happy but me. And because I’m not worrying about what other people think as much, I can enjoy my life the way I want to. I’m living my life more and loving what I’m doing more. And that’s just awesome.

It’s nice to have a post like this where I’m looking at the good when I had a post yesterday when things weren’t so good. I’m so glad I had my half birthday yesterday to make me take a minute and reflect on positive things so that I could realize that things aren’t as bad as my brain might be trying to tell me that it is. And now I know that I’ve had an awesome past 6 months I can focus on working on making the next 6 just as good if not better!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, birthday, health issues, positivity, running

Trusting It Will Be Ok (or Dealing With Stress In A Healthy Way)

Posted on February 9, 2017 | 1 comment

Even though a lot of recent events should have added a ton of extra stress in my life, I’ve been doing ok. I’m not letting any of my health issues get me down since I know that having a bad attitude won’t change anything for me. Money issues are still toward the front of my mind, but I’m also trying to not stress about those. I have had some things get better for me financially recently, but I think understanding my financial status by budgeting has been really great at keeping the stress down. But in the past week, things just have taken a crazy turn for me.

First, my weight loss is going a bit haywire. I know I should be losing weight, but it’s not showing up on the scale. In fact, the scale has been going up a lot recently. I don’t know what’s happening or why things aren’t going my way, but I’m trying to figure out what I can do to control the situation. This is stressing me out because I’m worried about trying different things when other things have worked for me in the past. But I also know that I need to get this under control and going the right way again sooner rather than later. But I also know that stressing about it is not going to help (and telling myself to relax just stressed me out more).

I’ve been stressing a lot about time management lately too. I don’t know why my days seem to be going so quickly and that I don’t have time to do everything, but that’s how I feel. I have a huge list of things to get done every day and I’m not making a huge dent on them each day. I’ve been tracking my time and there isn’t a ton of wasted time each day. Maybe I’m just taking on too much, but I feel like it shouldn’t be too tough to get all the things done each day that I set out to do. I know that going on Disney adventures doesn’t help, but those were on days where it seemed like my week was going to be super calm. But as the week goes on, things start piling up. I’m just trying to keep up with my to-do lists and hoping that something clicks soon.

And the thing that is causing me the most stress, especially in the last week, is the film festival that I run. The festival is happening this weekend, and everything was perfectly in place until last week. We discovered that our contact at the venue was no longer working with that venue and there was no record of our festival being scheduled to be there. Fortunately, the owner of that venue has another venue that we are going to use. But it is causing a lot of unknowns with the festival. I’ve never run it at any other location than our old one so I’m worried that things won’t be ok. I went to the venue for a site walk through earlier this week and that helped. But until Sunday is done, I think this will be causing me a ton of stress.

I hate that things are causing me so much stress, but it is also a good thing for me. In the past, I haven’t always had the best coping skills. Having a binge episode was a common way for me to deal. And when I found out about the venue for the film festival not having us scheduled, the first thought into my head was what I wanted to go eat for dinner that night. Even though I had planned out my meals for the week, I wanted to go get something that wasn’t a part of my plan for dinner. I wanted to eat something that would distract me from worrying about things. But I didn’t do that. I drove home and while I didn’t eat exactly how I had planned to do so that day, I didn’t do anything too extreme. I had to deal with my feelings the way a healthy person does and it wasn’t easy. But I did it and I got through it.

I hate feeling so stressed out about so many things, but this is just how my life is right now. I’m trying to trust that things will turn out ok, and in most cases I can see how things can get better. But until they do get better, it isn’t easy for me. All I can do is trying to get through these issues and know that when it is done I will have better coping skills to get through things in the future.

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Tough Stuff

Tagged binge eating, eating disorder, recovery, stress, tough, worry

Adding Gadgets To My House (or Tools To Help Me Out)

Posted on February 8, 2017 | Comments Off

While I’m trying to cut back on my spending and bringing more things into my house, sometimes you need to break that rule to make things better. It’s a hard balance to figure out because I’m sure I can justify spending for stuff I really don’t need. So I’m trying to be very picky and making sure that it’s something that I really need and not just something that I want. But there were two gadgets that fit into that rule that I ended up buying this week.

The first thing I got was a lamination machine for my house. Usually when I need to laminate stuff, I go to Staples and pay to get it done. I normally only need one thing or one page so it never seemed worth it to me to have my own lamination machine. But my mom has had one for a while and loved it, so when I was thinking about getting stuff laminated this week I looked into buying one for myself.

I did manage to find one that was heavily discounted on Amazon that would arrive that day at my house (thanks Amazon Prime)! And it was perfect because I have been working on my meal planning and wanted to create a nice reusable meal planning guide.

The machine I got is really easy to use and it came with a bunch of the laminating pages so I don’t need to buy any for a little bit. And I have been able to use the meal planning page I created each day (although I’m still trying to figure out how I can write on this without ruining it). And it’s small enough that it fits into a shelf on my desk so it is out of the way when I am not going to be using it.

The other new gadget I got this week also has to do a bit with my challenge to work on meal planning. I’ve thought for a long time that my kitchen was perfectly set up for me to cook, but I’m aware that I set it up based on what most people need and not what I need. I’m a pretty decent cook and my knife skills are ok, but when I have to cut up a bunch of stuff I’m not so great at it. So I have been looking casually at ideas to make chopping stuff easier and decided I needed to invest in a new cooking gadget. So I went out and got the Vidalia Chop Wizard.

I got it yesterday and used it last night to cook dinner. I made meatloaf muffins and this was perfect for chopping the onions and mushrooms I use it in. It was so much easier than chopping things by hand and everything was uniform so I didn’t bit into a huge piece of onion while eating dinner. I know that this can be used for a ton of stuff and I have a feeling that I will be discovering ways to use it on a regular basis.

And besides the new stuff I bought this week, I’ve been rediscovering stuff in my kitchen to help me with my food goals. I’ve been using my slow cooker (and I found my slow cooker liners so I don’t have to do much cleanup) to make easy meals and I’ve found recipes that don’t require browning food or getting another pan dirty to make the meal (my slow cooker pet peeve). And I’ve been using my food processor regularly the last few weeks and have started to think that maybe I need to buy another food processor bowl and blade so it will be easier to use it multiple times a day.

I know that I can do a lot of the work I’ve been using these gadgets for by hand, but why should I? This is making cooking easier and seems like I could be more likely to keep things up in the long run. The only downside is that I do need to go through my kitchen now and figure out what I really want to keep and what I can give to others because my kitchen is super tiny and lacking storage space. I don’t know where to put everything just yet (there are things all over my house that could live in the kitchen if there was space), but that will be something else I need to work on with organizing my house.

But for now, I’m just so glad that I was ok spending a bit of money to try to make things better for me with figuring other things out in my life.

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Posted in Crafts, Food, Fun Stuff, Shopping

Tagged crafts, food, meal planning, planning, scheduling

Brunch Time (or Keeping Up With Our Group)

Posted on February 7, 2017 | Comments Off

It’s now the 3rd year that my WIF mentoring group has been meeting and I’m so glad that we have been able to continue meeting as a group. Even though the past 2 years have been without our mentors, I still think our group is just as effective as ever. We have bonded so well as a group and the encouragement we get from each other is so important.

We had our first meeting of 2017 this past Sunday (we’ve discovered that brunch meetings seem to work best for us all) and it was nice getting to see almost the entire group together! We did miss 2 people due to scheduling issues, but it’s pretty tough to get everyone to be able to agree on a date with all the crazy schedules we all have. So we try to pick the time that works for most of us and that’s what we go with.

We had a nice brunch at Rush St (where my birthday party was 2 years ago) and even though it was Super Bowl Sunday, we were there early enough that the restaurant was still pretty empty and it was quiet. We all got there within a few minutes of each other and quickly ordered our food so we could get down to the business part of the meeting.

Every time I’m at Rush St for brunch, I have to get something that includes their tater tots. They are so amazing and even though this was a splurge meal for me, it was totally worth it (it was also my main meal for the day).

Once we got our food ordered, we had our traditional meeting with going around the group sharing what we have been up to for the past 2 months and asking for advice with things that we need help with. Everyone wanted me to go first so I updated everyone on my liver situation, the short film, and the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival (which is coming up this Sunday if you want tickets!).

I realized that I didn’t have too much to update everyone on beyond those things since lately my life hasn’t been too focused on my acting career. I didn’t realize how much I had been slacking on things until talking to the group so it was a big wake up call for me to get my butt in gear and start doing more. I know that I am putting things off because of the surgery in 2 months, but there is a lot I can do before surgery and I want to get things in place to be ready for me when I’m fully recovered (which will hopefully take about a month).

When everyone else was sharing, as always I was so inspired by each of them. While we all are at different stages of our careers, I know that we can all learn from each other and that the experience we each have is valuable. I love getting to hear what everyone else has been doing and the progress they’ve been able to make in the last 2 months. Some of the projects that we talk about are things that people have been working on since our very first meeting. It shows how important sticking with it and not giving up really is to having a successful career. As much as we all want to be overnight success stories, so many of those are really 10 years in the making.

Because of all of our busy schedules, we had to keep this brunch pretty quick so we could all get to our various meetings, events, and jobs. It is awards season right now and there are so many things happening around LA. Plus, with the Super Bowl happening that day, the restaurant was starting to fill up and the sound was being turned on the tv so it was getting loud. So we all wrapped up our meeting and headed out to continue our day.

Our next meeting will be in April and it should be before my surgery. I joked that I wanted to hold the next meeting from my hospital room, but I’m glad that we don’t have to do that in case I’m in too much pain. But I think most of the people from the group are going to be visiting me when I am in the hospital. Plus, since so many of them live in my neighborhood, they have offered to help me out if I need it after surgery. I will have my parents here for about a week and a half, but it’s good to know that I have some amazing friends that can be there for me if I need it.

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Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, brunch, friends, mentoring

Building Up Endurance (or Shocking Myself)

Posted on February 6, 2017 | 2 comments

This week of workouts started out pretty normally, but it ended with an accomplishment that shocked me so much that I’m still not totally believing it. But I know that the accomplishment was all because of the hard work that I’ve been doing over the past few months.

My Monday workout was an endurance day where we didn’t switch between blocks. There were 3 blocks on the treadmill and each block started with a 3 minute push pace. I know I can run for 3 minutes, but since I didn’t want to overdo things I did my 1 minute intervals for all of them. I’m not sure why I’m so scared to run for 3 minutes at a time when I have done it before, but I’m sure it has to do with the lack of confidence I have in myself while running. I’ve been running since the end of May last year, but I still don’t feel like a runner. I’m hoping that I can build confidence running soon, but I know I also have to be patient with myself. With the rest of those 3 treadmill blocks, I did 1 minute intervals for the 2 minute push paces and I ran all of the all out paces.

On the floor for that workout, I did some squats with arm rows using 15 pounds (which is pretty heavy for me). I also did some plank work on my toes which is still a newish thing for me. My right knee has been bugging me so being on my toes is a necessity. But it’s not easy to do plank work on your toes after doing them on my knees for so long. I also used 20 pounds weights for my standing tricep work (again, heavy weights for me). And we had 300 meter sprint rows to end the workout. I did those in 1:07 and 1:04 which isn’t too bad for me considering this was at the end of the workout.

Wednesday’s workout was a power day and we didn’t switch between blocks. It was technically a run/row, but it wasn’t a run/row in a traditional sense. We had 5 different blocks that were guided by the coach and we transitioned between the treadmill and the rower for each one (3 run blocks and 2 row blocks). All of the run segments were short and I ran for all the push and all out paces. I was still walking during my base, but now looking back at it I might have been able to run the entire time. And for the rower, we had 100, 150, and 200 meter sprints with jump squats between each sprint.

On the floor, we didn’t really focus on one specific area and did more of an all over workout. We had arms, legs, squats, abs, and the ab roller. I tried to do heavier weights for most of the work but I wasn’t able to lift the heavier ones like I had the day before. And we ended the floor work with a 3 minute row (while the cardio side was in their last treadmill block). Also, on Wednesday’s workout I had a friend in class with me for her first class! It’s been a while since I had a friend with me who had never been to Orangetheory before, and I was trying to help her out with following the pattern of class. It wasn’t the easiest first class to go to, but she did amazing!

Friday’s workout was an endurance day. And this was the workout that shocked the hell out of me! We didn’t switch between blocks because it was a distance challenge day. It was a 10.5 minute challenge which we had done about a month ago. The month before, I pretty much did 1 minute intervals and I think I did amazing with my distance. But instead of focusing on distance like I normally do (and try to beat my previous distance), I decided to see how long I could run for.

Since I started running back in May last year, I’ve been trying to build up my running endurance. But I’ve been struggling with it lately and I’ve been scared that I hit a wall in my progress. I haven’t really run for more than 3.5 minutes before (basically when I run for .25 miles), so this was a perfect chance to test things. Going into the challenge, I thought maybe I could run for 5 minutes and then take a little walking break before running again. But I also am stubborn as can be and I thought that maybe I could run for the entire thing.

Despite this being 3 times longer than the longest time I’ve ever run, I wasn’t going to hold back in this attempt. I knew that I’d have a second 10.5 minute distance challenge after this one, but I focused on the first one when I was the most prepared and least tired. And there were plenty of times during those 10.5 minutes that I thought that maybe I should stop and go back to my intervals. But all of that talk was mental and not physical. I was surprised that my body wasn’t hurting more, but I was also keeping my speed pretty slow at 4.5mph. And in the end, I ran for 10.5 minutes without taking a walking break, jumping the rails, or stopping in any way.

Even typing that I ran for that entire time, I still can’t believe that I did it. I thought that I was so stuck at running for 3 minutes or under, but all that talk was in my head and I really was able to overcome that and prove to myself that I could do it. This wasn’t my furthest distance and it is tough to be ok with that since I am competitive with myself. But focusing on endurance is different from speed and it’s time for me to do endurance.

In the second attempt, I tried to run for the entire 10.5 minutes again but I was pretty tired. I had to take a couple of breaks where I jumped the rails to catch my breath or pop my hip. And because I’m stubborn and competitive for the last 30 seconds of the second attempt I increased the speed a lot just so I could beat my original distance.

After doing those runs, I was pretty tired but also so energized by the fact that I did something that I didn’t believe I could do. I was on cloud nine during the floor and didn’t focus too much and didn’t get as many rounds done as I would have liked. We focused a lot on arms so I was using slightly lighter weights. In the second floor block, we had a 500 meter row (which I did in 2:12 and I’m very happy about that) and ab work. But to me, the highlight of that workout was the running.

Now that I know I have much more endurance than I knew, I’m thinking hard about how I want to do my cardio in the workouts now. I know I probably can’t run for the entire cardio time (which can be up to 30 minutes), but maybe I can start with running for my base pace and then going down to walking when I need to. During the next mile challenge, I don’t want to go for a PR anymore but instead want to see if I can run a mile without walking. I haven’t done that since I was a kid.

I didn’t consider myself a runner when I started this past week of workouts, but I have to say that by the end of the week I think I finally am starting to think of myself as a runner and someone who can just be a runner (instead of a run/walker) one day. I don’t know if I will ever run an entire 5K race, but then again a week ago I didn’t think I could run for .5 miles and I did that on Friday. This past week has given me a lot to think about and reevaluate and I am hopeful that my progress will continue, just not in the way I imagined it would.

2 Comments

Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff

Tagged challenge, endurance, Orangetheory, progress, running, workout

Another Disney Monday (or Fantasyland and Parade Time)

Posted on February 3, 2017 | Comments Off

Even though I was just at Disneyland last week, this week I went back! I usually don’t go to Disneyland 2 weeks in a row, but it was fun to do it. My friend Dani missed going to Disneyland last week and she was jealous that we got to see the parade. So she asked me if I could go to the park this past Monday, and I had some free time so I said yes!

I had a doctor appointment around lunchtime so we didn’t get to head down to Anaheim until almost 3pm. We hit a bit of traffic getting down there, but because we didn’t care too much about riding a ton of rides (I just did a bunch of rides last week and Dani is about to head to Disney World) it didn’t matter too much that we were getting off to a late start. When we got there, it did seem a bit more crowded than it was last week, but nothing too bad.

Again, the main reason we went to Disneyland was to watch the parade. But since I knew what areas were good to be sitting in for it we didn’t feel rushed to get a spot to watch. So in the car ride down, Dani and I discussed any rides that we wanted to go on. I mentioned something about Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride (I think I was talking about how the ride has you end up in hell) and Dani mentioned she had never been on it. So I knew we had to go on it!

I think Dani agreed with me that it’s a pretty interesting ride since you do end up in hell, and I mentioned how so many of the kid rides at Disneyland are pretty scary and weird. Dani realized that she hadn’t really been on any other ride in Fantasyland besides Peter Pan, so we made it our mission that day to go on the rides she hadn’t been on!

Most of the crowd was in line for Peter Pan, so we were able to get on Pinocchio and Snow White pretty quickly. Both are good rides that I don’t go on that often since the lines for them can be really bad. But it’s nice to get to go on them and revisit rides that are classics. And when we were done with those rides, we noticed that there was a band playing while riding on the carousel!

Our next stop was to get some dinner and we went over to the bakery with a nice view of Main Street and the castle. And as we were eating, we had a perfect cotton candy sky!

As soon as we were done eating, we headed over to where we were going to watch the parade from. The bench I got to sit on last week was already taken, as were all the benches in that area. But we found a bit of sidewalk between benches that were free and we made ourselves comfortable while we waited for it to be parade time. Fortunately, it was warmer than it was the week before and even though sitting on the ground isn’t fun we had plenty of room to stretch our legs. And after waiting about an hour, the parade started!

I enjoyed it just as much as I had the week before. And this was the first time Dani had ever seen it! And on the bench next to us was a family with a lot of kids so many of the characters were turning our way to wave at the kids. It was nice to see how excited the kids were to see a character and it gave me a slightly different view than last week.

Once the parade was done, we had to go the opposite way that everyone else was walking so we could get back to Fantasyland (we were totally salmon swimming upstream). We had one more Fantasyland ride that Dani had never been on that we wanted to check out: Alice in Wonderland. While I miss how the ride used to have a slightly more fun outdoor section, I like all the upgrades that were made recently to enhance the ride.

After doing those 4 rides (plus dinner and the parade), we were getting close to feeling ready to head back. We did walk around Fantasyland a bit just admiring how pretty everything is lit up at nighttime.

We noticed at the front of the castle there wasn’t that big of a line for photos by the Photo Pass photographers, so we decided to get some fun photos in front of the castle. Sorry for the watermark on the photos, but these are so much better than anything my phone could take at nighttime!

After our photo shoot, we did some window shopping in the various stores on Main Street. There is so much stuff that I want to get, but since I had to renew my annual pass on this trip (and my recycling ink thing doesn’t work for gift cards anymore) my spending money was extremely limited. But there’s a bunch of stuff that if I had the money I would get and would love to maybe save up to get sometime in the future.

I’m not exactly sure when my next Disneyland adventure will be. There’s a chance I’ll go later this month and there’s a chance I’ll go in March. But I do want to get at least one or two more trips there before I have my surgery since I don’t know how long I’ll be restricted on rides after surgery. I’ll be able to probably ride the slow and calm rides as soon as I can walk around enough, but there may be a while before I can go on the roller coasters again after April (it’s on my list of questions to ask my surgeon when I see him again). But also when I have my surgery is when my pass will be blacked out more often so that might work out well for my recovery too! But no matter what, I now have at least another year of Disney outings ahead for me!

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Posted in Fun Stuff

Tagged Disney, Disneyland, friends, rides, theme park

SAG Awards (or Being Inspired)

Posted on February 2, 2017 | Comments Off

After my podcast hangout, I had to rush back to my house. That night was the SAG Awards and I decided to host a viewing party at my house! I had invited a ton of people to come over and at one point there were 12 people who said they were going to come by. I’m glad that people started to cancel because there was no way that my house could have that many people! In the end, there were 3 of us watching.

All of us got to vote on the SAG Awards, so it was fun to see if who we voted for won. There were a bunch of surprises and we were all pretty chatty while watching. Sometimes, we were commenting so much that we ended up rewinding my DVR so we could catch what we missed. But we were all in a pretty good mood and being chatty was the mood for the night.

Of all the award winner speeches, I think the two that hit me the most were the ones for “Stranger Things” and “Hidden Figures”. I loved that show and that movie and was so happy to see them win. But I didn’t expect the speeches that we got.

If you haven’t seen or read it, the “Stranger Things” speech was a truly inspiring moment in a time where politics are making a lot of people stressed or upset. Here’s just a part of it:

“I would just like to say, in light of all that’s going on in the world today, it’s difficult to celebrate the already celebrated Stranger Things, but this award from you who take your craft seriously and earnestly believe, like me, that great acting can change the world is a call to arms from our fellow craftsmen and women to go deeper. And through our art to battle against fear, self-centeredness and exclusivity of our predominately narcissistic culture and through our craft to cultivate a more empathetic and understanding society by revealing intimate truths that serve as a forceful reminder to folks that when they feel broken and afraid and tired they are not alone. We are united in that we are all human beings and we are all together on this horrible, painful, joyous, exciting and mysterious ride that is being alive.

Now, as we act in the continuing narrative of ‘Stranger Things,’ we 1983 midwesterners will repel bullies. We will shelter freaks and outcasts, those who have no home. We will get past the lies. We will hunt monsters and when we are at a loss amidst the hypocrisy and the casual violence of certain individuals and institutions, we will, as per Chief Jim Hopper, punch some people in the face when they seek to destroy the weak and the disenfranchised and the marginalized. And we will do it all with soul, with heart, and with joy. We thank you for this responsibility. Thank you.”

This was exactly what so many people needed to hear right now. So many things in politics have been upsetting, but there are people willing to fight for what they believe in. It’s nice not to feel alone and that there is a community that shares my viewpoints.

When “Hidden Figures” won, I didn’t consider it an upset (it’s the movie I voted for), but I think the cast was so shocked that they won. With the controversy of #OscarsSoWhite last year, I think the fear would be that show and films with diverse casts wouldn’t be recognized this year. But I’m glad that it wasn’t the case.

I love the genuine emotion that was in the speech for “Hidden Figures”. The speech was about recognizing those who were not recognized for their accomplishments at the time and the power of coming together. Again, that is exactly the message we need right now. There is so much trying to get us to be against each other and we can’t have that. As a country, we need to come together and work on making sure everyone is living their American dream.

The SAG Awards was much more political than it has been in the past, but I think that was appropriate given the circumstances now. I know some people think that celebrities don’t have a right to share political views (I don’t know why since our current president is known for being a reality TV performer), but I think hearing other people being so passionate in what they believe in is so inspiring. It has encouraged me to speak out more to make sure that my voice is heard and that I’m not a silent bystander.

Besides being so inspired by the speeches, I was inspired to see people who I’ve gotten to work with on tv. I’m working hard on my acting career and I know that eventually I will be at a level of success similar to my friends. But for now, I just have to be so excited when I see them on tv or their names in the credits.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, awards, inspiration, sag awards, SAG-AFTRA

Time For Some Planning (or Trying A Challenge Again This Month)

Posted on February 1, 2017 | 1 comment

It’s a new month and time for a new challenge in my Ink+Volt Planner! First, I want to reflect a bit on my January challenge. I set my challenge to be to work on tumor visualization every day. I set an alarm to remember to do this each morning and most of the time I would be able to do this before the alarm went off. Many mornings, I put my tumor visualization in my morning pages for “The Artist’s Way”. And if I didn’t write about it in the morning, I spent some time sitting quietly and thinking about my tumors getting smaller.

I won’t know if this worked until I have my next MRI in March, but I’m going to keep doing this until my surgery and then after surgery I will be doing liver visualization to work on getting my liver to regenerate quickly. I know that in the past, the power of positive thinking has worked really well for me so I’m looking forward to seeing how well it will work for me this time.

I’ll admit that my January challenge wasn’t too challenging for me. It was something I wanted to do, but I didn’t have to work too hard to do it. So since I did something easier last month, I’m doing something that has challenged me multiple times this month. My February challenge is to work on meal planning again.

I’ve attempted meal planning more times than I can count. I’ve tried doing it with bulk cooking, delivery diet meals, meal replacements, and just trying to cook more at home. They have all had moments of success, but none of them have really lasted that long. So this time, I’m attempting another method to see if this time it will be one that sticks. I believe that eventually, a method will be the one that I connect with and I can’t find that out until I try different ones.

I’m doing a pretty basic meal plan set up. I don’t have a specific diet or plan I’m trying to follow. I’m just trying to plan my meals so I don’t have to think too hard about what I’m going to eat that day and to be better and only getting what I need at the grocery store. I found a pretty basic meal plan printable and I started using that this week.

Originally, I typed in what I was planning to eat but because things keep changing I’ve been crossing things out a lot. I’m thinking about printing a blank template, getting it laminated, and using a dry erase pen or post-its to plan so it is easier to switch things around. There is also a grocery list printable that matches this, but I’m used to writing grocery lists on envelopes (if I’m using coupons) or on scratch paper so I don’t feel the need to use a fancy grocery list.

My ultimate goal would be where I could plan things out on Sunday and do my grocery shopping for the week and be done with it. If I don’t have to go to the grocery store to find something for dinner, maybe I won’t be tempted by all the things I shouldn’t be eating. If I plan things out, I can know exactly how many of each thing I need and then I can make better grocery lists. This could potentially save me money too, but that’s not the focus right now.

My main goal with meal planning is to be successful with following the plan for at least 2 meals a day. Breakfast should be pretty easy, but I do struggle with lunch and dinner a bit. But by having a plan, I can look forward to what I will be eating that day and hopefully it will take my mind off of thinking about what I should go to the store and buy after I’m done with work. I’m also hoping that it will help me with eating a better lunch on days that I’m working out. Sometimes, I don’t make the best food choices on workout days and my workouts do suffer because of that.

I’m not expecting a miracle. I know that there will be a lot of challenges with this and that there is potential that I will not be as successful as I like to be with my monthly challenges. But I have to try because I know that I need to make a change in my life to get into recovery and to lose weight. And if nothing else, this will force me to be more aware and a more conscious participant in my food choices and help to limit the lack of mindfulness that I do struggle with.

This won’t be an easy challenge for me to do, but it’s an important one for me. I’m going to do my best to plan and to figure out the best way for me to do the planning, and hopefully in a month I’ll be able to share with you all that this worked really well for me!

1 Comment

Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged binge eating, challenge, eating disorder, food, meal planning, planning, recovery, volt planner

Monthly Archives: February 2017

An Amazing Photo Shoot (or Dress Like A Woman)

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Walking And Running (Mixing Up My Workouts)

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Half Birthday (or Reflecting On The Past 6 Months)

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Trusting It Will Be Ok (or Dealing With Stress In A Healthy Way)

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Adding Gadgets To My House (or Tools To Help Me Out)

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Brunch Time (or Keeping Up With Our Group)

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Building Up Endurance (or Shocking Myself)

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Another Disney Monday (or Fantasyland and Parade Time)

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SAG Awards (or Being Inspired)

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Time For Some Planning (or Trying A Challenge Again This Month)

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