My 2024 Goals (or Things Already Might Need To Change A Bit)

Posted on January 3, 2024 | Comments Off on My 2024 Goals (or Things Already Might Need To Change A Bit)

Happy 2024! I hope everyone had an amazing New Year’s and the year has gotten off to a good start already. I had a pretty chill and low-key New Year’s (except for one thing) and that’s exactly how I like to do things. Before I went out to celebrate with friends, I set aside some time to work on my goals for 2024 and I came up with 4 that I really want to focus on for this year. But I might have to make a few modifications already.

My first goal for 2024 shouldn’t surprise anyone who has seen my goals over the past few years. I want to do at least 200 workouts this year. This is the same number I have had as my goal for a few years, and I don’t expect that I will ever change this since 4 workouts a week at Orangetheory feels right to me. I know I’ve had random weeks when I’ve done 5 workouts in a week, but I can’t imagine doing that regularly. I hope that I will do a few more than 200 this year, but this number allows me to have some missed classes if I get sick or something else prevents me from getting to a workout. But as long as I get to at least 200 workouts in 2024, I’ll be happy.

My second goal for 2024 might need to be changed. The original goal I had for myself was to find a way to save money so I could finally go on a vacation. I still want to see if I can accomplish this goal this year because it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a vacation. I think my trip to Catalina was my last vacation, which was awesome, but I’d love to get away from LA for a fun trip this year if possible. But on New Year’s Eve, my car was hit by a firework and has some pretty decent damage on the door. My car is drivable and the lock and door work, but it will need to be fixed. And I know that any work I do on my car will be pretty expensive. I’m going to work on getting some estimates soon and I’m going to look into whether I want to go through my insurance or not (going through insurance might end up being more expensive if my premiums go up after making a claim). But the amount that I was hoping to have for a vacation may have to go into fixing my car instead and a vacation might have to wait another year. I’ll just have to see how expensive the repair will be.

My next goal is a continuation of one from last year. I want to go as full force as possible with my acting career this year. I am starting the new year in a good place with a lot of things happening for my acting career. I have a new agent, I’m getting new headshots, I’ve re-edited my reel, and I’ve worked on updating my online casting pages. There are other things I haven’t had a chance to do or look into just yet, but I’ve made a lot of progress in the last month that will help to support things moving forward this year. I know that getting auditions and booking jobs aren’t fully in my control, but I’m doing whatever I can to make sure I’m ready for opportunities and I hope that I see some new progress in my career over the next 12 months.

My final goal for 2024 is another one that I feel like I’ve kind of done in the past, but it’s still important. I want to find the time to enjoy life. It’s so easy for me to wake up early, go to my workout, work my day job, make dinner, go to bed, and repeat. Week to week my schedule is pretty consistent, which isn’t a bad thing, but it also makes time go by without me realizing it at times. I want to enjoy my life as much as possible because that is the point of life. I do make plans with friends when I can, but I need to be more active in reaching out to friends and scheduling things. I have some days that are really difficult for me to do things after work, but that’s not every day. So I should take advantage of the evenings when I do have more flexibility and do things that aren’t just sitting at home and doing nothing.

I know these goals aren’t anything crazy or extreme, but I think they are good goals for me to focus on so that I can make the most of 2024. I still will have my monthly challenges that will push me to do more than just these goals throughout the year. But I think these main 4 goals are things that will really benefit my life in the long run. And I hope in a year, I will be reflecting on these goals and proud of what I have been able to do.

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Wrapping Up My 2023 Workouts (or Still Making Sure I Hit My Goal)

Posted on January 1, 2024 | Comments Off on Wrapping Up My 2023 Workouts (or Still Making Sure I Hit My Goal)

My final week of workouts for 2023 wasn’t my normal workout week. On Monday the studios were closed because of the holiday. And Tuesday had reduced hours since it was the day after Christmas. The reduced hours meant none of the class times would work with my work schedule, and since I wasn’t going to take the day off after having a day off, I just had to miss that day. But I still got in my Wednesday and Thursday workout, plus I got a workout in on Sunday for New Year’s Eve!

I knew this past week was going to be a tough week with pain and nausea, but I kind of got lucky and the worst day of the week for me was on Tuesday. Tuesday was pretty brutal for me and I was struggling a lot while I was working, but at least I didn’t have to go through feeling like that and working out. So it was probably for the best. I still wasn’t feeling great on Wednesday or Thursday, but at least those days were better for me.

And Thursday’s workout was a day I wanted to feel as close to normal as possible. First, it was a signature workout day. We had Everest, which is always a big challenge to get through and I wanted to see if I could get close to my past PR. But also, Thursday’s workout was my 200th class of 2023! In past years, I have gotten to my year’s workout goal a little bit faster than I did this time. But as I mentioned in my last post, I had a few things that set me back in and cut into my workout plans. But at least I got to my goal before the end of the year!

Everest went a lot better than I had expected. I was able to pedal a lot faster than normal for the beginning of the climb which added to my distance. As the incline/resistance levels went up, I did slow down quite a bit. That always happens and that is why I work hard at going quickly in the beginning. As the incline/resistance levels went down, I really focused on my pedaling speed and making sure I was going faster as the time was counting down. For the 3 group classes, Everest is 14 minutes long, so it wasn’t any longer than I normally am on the bike. But I knew that any breaks I might take could ruin my chances of getting close to my past PR so I pushed myself to try not to take any. I did have to take one quick break when my nausea really kicked in, but that was not that long. And when the challenge was done, I ended up beating my past PR and getting a new one!

I have no clue how I did that, but I also know I might have pushed myself too much because the rest of that class was not nearly as good for me. My nausea was hitting me really hard. But I guess I should be glad I was able to hold off feeling horrible until after the challenge was done!

And my final workout of this week and for this year was on Sunday! I didn’t go too early in the morning since I wanted to sleep in a little bit to stay up for New Year’s Eve. If I didn’t have to work in the morning, I probably would do a slightly later workout since I think my body does better in later classes (but working out after work doesn’t work for me so I have to do early morning classes). I was feeling rested and ready for my last class of 2023 and I had a surprise when I got there. The coach for that class was someone who worked at the Brentwood studio that I hadn’t seen in years! She wasn’t a coach the last time I saw her, so this was my first chance to take a class with her! I had so much fun in that class and it was awesome to see someone I hadn’t seen since much earlier in my fitness journey.

I’m so proud that I was able to get to my workout goal for the year. I don’t think I’ll ever make it higher than 200 classes in a year since going more than 4 times a week is probably pushing it for me. But knowing that I pushed myself 201 times in 2023 is something I am so happy about accomplishing!

Here’s to getting to my workout goal in 2024 and beyond!

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Goal Recap Time! (or Things Didn’t Go Exactly As Planned)

Posted on December 27, 2023 | 3 comments

It almost feels like I’m doing a recap of my 2023 goals too early, but since I’m not blogging as often as I used to, now is the time to review how my year has gone! And while I haven’t completed everything since there are still a few days to go, I have a pretty good idea of how my goals for this year will turn out.

My first goal I had for this year was to do 200 Orangetheory workouts. This is one of my goals that hasn’t been completed just yet. This will be done tomorrow, so I will get it done before the end of the year. But I really expected to be to my goal by now since I’m usually over 200 before the last week of the year. But this year, I had a few things that caused me to miss some workouts. I was pretty sick toward the beginning of the year and I missed a week of workouts. I had a day that I couldn’t get out of my parking garage and missed that morning’s workout. The hurricane/tropical storm closed the studio for a day so that was another one that I missed. And this week, I’m only getting in 2 workouts because the studio was closed on Monday for the holiday and it had limited hours yesterday so there wasn’t a workout time that I could make it to with my work schedule. But even though I won’t be getting in as many workouts as I thought I would this year, I will still get to my goal of 200 workouts before the end of the year and that’s something I’m still proud of.

My next goal I had for this year was to work on getting more sleep. This one I consider to be a bit of a success but not as much of a success as I was hoping it would be. I still am working on getting to bed earlier so I can get more sleep, but I have been a lot better about not getting sucked into a book and staying up super late reading the entire thing. I do have a time that I want to try to have my lights turned off, but I’m not always doing that on time. I have been doing a lot better with getting myself ready for bed earlier, but I am continuing to work on shifting that a bit earlier. It’s not easy to do this since I am still trying to do things after work and if I go to bed much earlier that reduces my free time a bit more, but I’m trying to remember that I can just make a sacrifice for the 4 days I have to be up early and not be too worried about free time those evenings and focus on scheduling things when I know I can sleep in a little bit more the next morning.

The third goal I had for this year was to continue setting up my condo. This was another goal that I feel like I had some success with but not quite what I had hoped I would do. I did get a new tv and tv stand for my living room, which helped the room feel more complete. I moved everything out of boxes for the most part even though I haven’t found new office furniture that I like. But I am learning to live with what I currently have because it’s not cheap to replace things. I don’t want to just buy something cheap because it works for now, I want to find pieces that will last. And with my office, I feel like I keep learning more about what will be functional and what is just a design idea that I like. But I have been looking at getting new dining room furniture and I think I have found the perfect thing. I am getting fabric samples now and I’m hoping that it will work out exactly like I hope it will so I can have a new dining room sometime this coming year.

And the final goal that I had for this past year was to rebuild my acting life. Well, this one really wasn’t that successful for me but it also was a bit out of my control. I wasn’t expecting a long strike this year that essentially shut down the entire industry. I also wasn’t planning on randomly finding out that my agent isn’t my agent anymore and needing to look for a new agent. But I’m finishing out this year on some really positive notes (which I’ll write more about when I do my monthly challenge recap), so it wasn’t a complete wash. But I had to rebuild a lot of things that I wasn’t expecting to instead of building upon what I thought I already had.

I’ll be sharing my goals for 2024 soon, but since not everything was accomplished this year that I wanted to, I set up some goals that I feel will be building upon the ones that I worked on this year. And even though my goals this year weren’t perfectly completed, I didn’t fail at any of them either. I found ways that I could succeed and accomplish them even if they weren’t exactly what I planned to do. And making steps forward is totally a win for this year!

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Last Full Workout Week Of The Year (or I’m Glad It Was A Good Week)

Posted on December 25, 2023 | Comments Off on Last Full Workout Week Of The Year (or I’m Glad It Was A Good Week)

I was worried that this past week of workouts would be a really bad one for me. I knew my pain and nausea might kick in at some point, but it never really got that bad. It was affecting some of my workouts, but it wasn’t to the point where I felt like I wasn’t able to do the exercises or that I was going really easy. I know that this week will possibly be a bad one, but I’m not as worried about that as I normally am.

Right now, I normally do my workouts Monday-Thursday. That schedule has been working for me and even though I still hate waking up early, I know that’s the best time for me to work out with my current work schedule. If I worked only until 3pm, I might be doing afternoon workouts again, especially since the studio is so close to me now. But unless something drastic changes with my schedule, morning workouts 4 days in a row is the best option for me.

And for the most part, holidays don’t affect my workouts too much. The main thing is that if it’s a holiday and I have a day off of work, I can go in a little bit later. I’m grateful that my Orangetheory studio doesn’t close for holidays, they just usually do reduced hours. But the only holiday that the studio is closed is Christmas. Since Christmas this year is on a Monday, I’ll be missing Monday this week. And the day after Christmas is reduced hours at my studio, so there won’t be a class that I can attend with my schedule. So this week I’m only doing 2 workouts. I don’t love that, but it’s really the only option I have because I can’t do a Friday workout. And next week, I’m doing a slightly odd schedule since I’m working out on Sunday to get my New Year’s Eve workout in.

Since last week was the last full workout week of the year, I’m glad it was a good week for me. The workouts weren’t anything too crazy, but we did have a special workout on Wednesday that involved crew rows. I’m not a huge fan of crew rows because I know I row slowly. But it’s also a good challenge for me to try to get my rowing speed up and not stress too much about the power or wattage behind each row. I did start to feel a bit nauseous on the rower during those rows, so I did have to take a few little breaks during them. I was glad I wasn’t the leader for any of the rows so I didn’t have the extra stress of having others in class rely on me. But I did try to keep up and do my best since having every in sync is fun to see and also a bit motivating to keep going.

And I was glad that during all of my workouts, I felt a lot better while on the floor and lifting weights. I’m still dealing with some soreness from swollen lymph nodes, but they are much less painful than they were before so my workouts aren’t as affected by things. I did notice a little bit of weakness on the side that was swollen, but I was able to just go slowly and not have to use lighter weights. That was nice because I know this week I might have to go lighter with the weights if I’m feeling really horrible.

It will be interesting to see how this week of workouts goes considering I’m taking 2 extra days off of working out and I might be feeling pretty bad. I want to say that I’m going to end the year with my best workouts yet, but I’ll just have to see what happens those days and how I finish this year’s workouts!

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Starting To Wrap Up The Year (or Fitting In Friend Time)

Posted on December 20, 2023 | Comments Off on Starting To Wrap Up The Year (or Fitting In Friend Time)

It’s so crazy that it’s almost the end of the year. I don’t think it will fully sink in until I have a random day off later this week for the holidays. And I’m very grateful I get some time off from work. I will only have 1 extra day that doesn’t have any work because one of my jobs doesn’t have any days off for the holidays because I already get Sunday and Monday off. But I will still have other days that I don’t have to be up as early as normal to work, so that will be nice.

And with the end of the year and the holidays upon us, I think a lot of us do some reflection on how the past year went and how we feel about how we spent our time. I will be doing more of an end-of-the-year post next week when I recap my goals, but I’m still taking time to reflect on this past year. More specifically, I have been reflecting on my friendships and social life.

It’s always tough to find time to hang out with friends. I make an effort, but often one of us will have a crazy schedule and things get delayed. It’s not that we don’t want to hang out, it just doesn’t happen and before we know it, months have slipped by before we try to reschedule. But I do try to stay in touch with friends even if it’s not necessarily happening in person. I think staying connected with my friends through text and social media does help to maintain a friendship, even if it’s not enough to keep it going forever. But when you do have that virtual communication, it helps to make those in-person hangouts feel like you haven’t missed a ton of time together.

I was able to have brunch with a friend recently whom I hadn’t seen since the beginning of the summer. But we had stayed in touch regularly so when we had our brunch, we were able to pick up like we had seen each other just a few days ago. And it was so great to have that face-to-face time with a friend. I know I need to do that more often, but it’s tough when so many of my friends don’t live in LA anymore. And many of my friends who are local live very busy lives. I don’t blame any of my friends who have been too busy with work or family to hang out, but it’s always hard when you realize you haven’t seen someone in person in years because you just don’t have similar lives anymore. But I still do what I can to keep those friendships going because I never know when I will be able to rekindle a friendship that may have slipped away in the past.

That’s why I do things like sending out my holiday cards each year. They aren’t anything fancy, but I like sending something to people who are friends of mine and who I want to keep our friendship going. It’s not that expensive to do them, especially since I send postcards now instead of regular cards so postage is cheaper. And I hope that my friends who receive these smile when they get something fun in the mail from me.

I think I will always try to be more social and focus on my friendships each year. It’s something that has to be worked on or else you will realize you have lost touch with someone you used to talk to all the time. I think I’ve done a decent job this year with meeting up with friends and keeping my friendships going. It hasn’t been perfect, but I have been able to reconnect with people this year that I hadn’t been able to in years. And I’ve already started to make that effort for the new year by planning some more brunch hangouts since brunch seems to be one of the times that I can usually meet up with someone and not worry about how late I’m going to be out.

Hopefully, whatever things happen with my friendships and social life in the new year will be positive! And then in a year, I’ll be having the same feeling about the end of the year and I’ll only have the best memories of what I was able to do with my friends in 2024.

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Finishing Up The Last Workout Challenge of 2023 (or Working Around New Issues Again)

Posted on December 18, 2023 | Comments Off on Finishing Up The Last Workout Challenge of 2023 (or Working Around New Issues Again)

This past week of workouts completed the 12 Days of Fitness challenge. I did my normal workout days for this challenge, so I wasn’t going to complete it until the last day. But that was fine with me because I knew I would get it done and I didn’t want to stress too much about trying to change up my schedule. I have to change up my workout schedule for the end of the year, so doing it then is enough for me. I’m really a fan of keeping my routine, so I finished the challenge and earned the blanket on Tuesday.

I didn’t need a blanket, but I like having something as a reward for completing a challenge. I will always do Hell Week to earn my shirt even though I don’t normally wear them. I have done other challenges where I have earned hats and socks even though I don’t use those. If the prize is something I know I won’t use or enjoy, I don’t always sign up since we have to pay for these challenges. But normally, I will do it just to have the bragging rights. And that’s how I feel about earning this blanket!

The workouts for this challenge weren’t extra hard, they were just the top workouts of the year. So it wasn’t as bad as Hell Week is. But I had some extra challenges this past week because of my reaction to the Covid booster shot. I always have strong reactions to vaccines, and this one was no different. I tried to time things out so it wouldn’t affect my workouts as much, so I got my vaccine on Thursday when I would have the most amount of rest days before my next workout. And it was good that I did that because I was feeling pretty awful on Friday and Saturday. But what I didn’t expect was having extremely swollen lymph nodes for a long time.

I’ve had swollen lymph nodes after different vaccines, but this was the worst I’ve ever experienced. For the first few days, I couldn’t fully put my arm down. I actually kept a pillow under that arm over the weekend because it was starting to hurt my shoulder. I didn’t think too much about how this would affect my workouts, but I learned very quickly that having swollen lymph nodes meant that I couldn’t row properly. I had to keep my arms bent in an awkward position to be able to bring the row handle back. I made it work and I’m glad that each day over the week got a bit better and I was a little less swollen. I also had some other side effects I had to deal with in my workouts, like being very fatigued and feeling weak. But those are things that I am more used to dealing with so they were easier to work around.

With all the random issues I had to work with for this past week’s workouts, I just had to go a bit easier on myself than I would have liked to. I have been trying to push myself extra hard when I’m having a good week and this past week should have been one of those good weeks. Unfortunately, it ended up being a bit of a bad week instead, but at least the issues that I had were things that I was able to work with and they didn’t affect me as intensely as the pain and nausea that I work through every month.

Next week should be a normal workout week for me, even if it might be a bit of a bad week toward the end of the week. But at least I should be going in for my workouts on my normal days. Then for the end of the month and year, things will be a little different since I have to work around the holidays. But I’m expecting that I will hit my workout goal for this year by the end of the year and I will be finding a way to work in my traditional holiday workouts so I can end this year and start next year the way that I have for a while.

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Another Phone Doctor Appointment (or A Bit Nervous For A Change In The New Year)

Posted on December 13, 2023 | Comments Off on Another Phone Doctor Appointment (or A Bit Nervous For A Change In The New Year)

I’m glad that I’ve been able to have a lot of my doctor appointments over the phone or via video chat. It’s so much easier since I can fit that into my workday without too many issues. When I have to go in person, it takes a lot more time since I need to consider how long the drive is, waiting in the waiting room, plus the time of the appointment. Not all appointments can be done this way, but it’s nice when they can be so I can stress a little less about making time for what should be a quick check-in appointment.

My phone appointment this week was with my bariatric medicine doctor. I knew it should be a pretty easy appointment since not a lot has changed since my last check-in. But at the same time, not having a lot of changes could mean that things do need to change. I’ve been on the same dosage of my medication for quite a while now. I’m not losing weight as quickly as I did in the beginning, but that’s also not that unusual. I’ve also lost enough weight that I’m considered a success even though I want to lose more. They say that losing 10% of your weight is a success and I’m just over 12%. I’m still experiencing side effects, but they typically are pretty manageable at this point. Overall, I have been very glad with my results taking this even if they aren’t quite as good as I would like them to be.

And these were all things that were discussed in my phone appointment. And my doctor didn’t seem too worried about what I’ve been experiencing. Of course, she would prefer for me to not have these side effects, but the good still outweighs the bad. And it’s not just about losing weight, the “food noise” I have dealt with my entire life is a lot less now. That is still something I consider a huge win. But my doctor knows that I hope to still see more results and that’s something we can try for. So she’s decided that when I get my next refill, I’ll be increasing my dosage.

The next dosage available is double what I’m currently taking. That’s a big jump, but I’ve also technically doubled my dose each time I’ve increased. And I know that increase means a lot of things can happen. I might see some really great results and lose a lot of weight quickly. I also might have an increase in the side effects I experience. The main side effect I still have is nausea, and I really don’t want that to increase. But I’m willing to take that risk to see if increasing my dosage helps me lose more weight. I also know that I can try things like injecting the medication into my thighs instead of my stomach and sometimes that helps make the transition to the higher dosage a bit more tolerable.

I told my doctor that I’m a bit nervous to do this increase, but I’m willing to see what happens. If I don’t react well to it, I can always drop back down to the dosage I’ve been taking. But I’m trying to think positively about this and maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear. I will still be taking my current dosage until this injection pen is done, so my first day on the new dosage (assuming I don’t run into a medication shortage at the pharmacy) will be on New Year’s Day. That actually will work out well for me because I won’t have to work that day so if I have a bad reaction, I can just rest. I also will probably time out taking the medication until after my New Year’s Day workout even if that means doing it later than I normally would to make sure I don’t have any extra issues.

It’s funny timing that this new dosage will likely be starting on New Year’s Day, but it also seems fitting that I will be starting the new year with a new plan for something I’ve been working on for so long! And hopefully, this will help me start 2024 with some positive things!

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Starting The 12 Days Of Fitness (or I’ve Almost Earned Some More Swag)

Posted on December 11, 2023 | 1 comment

Whenever Orangetheory has some challenge, like Hell Week, I try to participate. I don’t do every challenge, for example, I don’t do the transformation challenges since I don’t want the stress of what the scale says to affect me. But I like doing these challenges to push myself and have a little extra motivation. I’m pretty good about going to my 4 workouts a week, but anything that makes them a little easier to get to is a win.

Orangetheory is doing the 12 Days Of Fitness for the beginning of December. This challenge features 12 of the workouts we had this past year that were determined to be the most popular ones. And if you sign up for the challenge, you have to do 6 of the 12 workouts to earn a fleece blanket. I don’t need a fleece blanket, but I still want to earn it! I can always find a use for it and I want it just like I always want the Hell Week shirts even though I don’t usually wear them.

Fortunately for me, doing 6 of the 12 workouts fits in perfectly with my normal workout schedule. I won’t be earning my blanket until the 12th day, but I was able to get my first 4 workouts done for the challenge this past week.

Of the 4 workouts I had this past week, I had previously done 3 of them. But the only ones that I really remembered were Drop It Like A Squat and Tread Trail.

I remembered Tread Trail because it was very different to not know how long we would be doing different intensities on the treadmill. Normally, I can be mentally prepared knowing a push pace is only going to be a minute or I can take it a little easier if it’s going to be 3 minutes. While I try to do the same thing for my push pace no matter how long it’s going to be, I also know I need to go a bit easier when they are longer so I can be back to a base pace when they are done instead of needing a break. But when you don’t know how long you’ll be doing something, it’s much harder to pace yourself. I know that’s a good challenge to have since I don’t do that normally, but it also meant I was going a bit easier on myself for a lot of the workout because I was prepared for the intervals to be longer. But I tried to push myself harder when I could and I was happy with how I felt when the cardio block was done and I felt like I didn’t go too easy.

And I remembered Drop It Like A Squat because I remember how hard that workout was on my hips. Doing it another time wasn’t any different and I still had some struggles with hip pain during the workout. I know that squats are really good for me and they are also good for my hips, even if they hurt them a bit. I need to build the muscles around my hips in order to support them. One of the reasons I haven’t had more issues with my hips already is because I have built up those muscles around them so the side that has no cartilage is supported and my bones aren’t hitting each other. But that doesn’t make squats any easier on me. I just had to let my body be my guide and take breaks when I was hurting. But I still did so many squats in that workout and I felt that for a few days after!

I will have the last 2 workouts for this challenge this week so I can complete the challenge. I don’t mind that I’m going to be done on the last day possible since it’s just about completing it and not rushing to get it done. And even though this week shouldn’t be a bad week for me, I’m a little worried about how the beginning of the week might go. I’m writing this post on Saturday, and 2 days ago I got another Covid booster. I always have strong reactions to vaccines, and this has been no different. I know that having a reaction like this means my body is building an immune response and it’s a good sign, but it still feels like I’m sick. I’m hoping that I’ll be feeling fine by Monday, but I know that sometimes my reactions last longer than I would like. So it’s not a guarantee that I’ll be back to normal by the start of this week. But I’m used to working out when I’m not feeling my best, so at least it’s something that I know I can push through. And even if I’m still dealing with side effects during the week, it should be not as bad as I feel now, so that should help too. Hopefully, the sleep and rest I plan on getting this weekend will help me be over these side effects and my workouts this week will be just normal ones and I’ll finish out this challenge feeling like myself.

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Default ThumbnailFinishing The 12 Days Of Fitness (or Debating If I Like This Workout Schedule) Default ThumbnailKicking Off The 12 Days Of Fitness (or A Different Type Of Hell Week) Default ThumbnailFinishing The 12 Days Of Fitness (or Some PRs and Some Setbacks) Default ThumbnailFinishing Up 12 Days of Fitness (or This Felt Like A Long Hell Week) Default ThumbnailKicking Off The 12 Days of Fitness (or It’s Like Hell Week Again) Default ThumbnailI’m Really Tired Of Workout Weeks In Pain (or At Least There Were More Good Days Than Bad Days This Time)

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Cleaning Up And Getting Ready (or Still More Prep For 2024)

Posted on December 6, 2023 | Comments Off on Cleaning Up And Getting Ready (or Still More Prep For 2024)

It’s the last month of the year, which is insane to me! This year has flown by, but not just in the normal way that it has been in the last few years. So many of the things that seem to mark different points of the year haven’t happened the same way they have before. Having the strike happen made time feel like it stood still and skipped by at the same time. Even though it feels weird to be in December, I’m also feeling ready for this year to be done. It hasn’t been a horrible year necessarily for me, but I like the feeling of a fresh start with a new year and I feel like I have been setting myself up for what things might come my way in 2024.

In November, I had the challenge to work on cleaning out things that I no longer need. I have been noticing that I’ve had things that I just held onto because they were in my old place and they aren’t really useful anymore. And because I got a lot of new things when I moved, I had a lot of extra stuff that was taking up space that I didn’t need to use up. I didn’t clean out as much as I expected to do this past month, but that’s because I kept finding more things I wanted to go through. I know my desk will continue to be a project because I have so much that I used to use but don’t anymore. But I was able to get a lot of stuff cleared out of my closet and my kitchen drawers. I’ve also started to replace things that I have had for years with higher quality things so I am getting rid of the duplicates.

Even though I didn’t clear out as much as I thought I would by the end of the month, I did make a significant dent in the project and I’ve been creating new systems for reviewing what I still need to go through. And just like so many other challenges I’ve been doing recently, this one isn’t ending just because the month ended. I’ve been starting to work on my dresser, and I’ve gone through about a third of my stuff and found a lot of things that I was able to get rid of or donate.

And my challenge for December is yet another one to set myself up for the new year. But this is one that I’ve been needing to do and finally am getting around to it. I want to get all my stuff ready to really be back in the acting world again in 2024. This is going to be a big process and I know it won’t all be done in December, but I’m working on making a list of what I need to do and trying to get as much of it done this month.

The biggest thing I need to do for my acting career is to find a new agent. I found out that my agent can no longer represent union actors and they also might have gone out of business. I don’t know exactly how long ago this all happened because I discovered this randomly and I wasn’t notified by my agent. No matter how long I’ve been without an agent, I need to find a new one to really be back in the game. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to find representation, so I’m easing into this again by starting with reaching out to people I know. If I could get represented by an agent who already knows me, that would be amazing! If I have to start reaching out to agencies that I don’t know personally, then I’ll do that but that won’t be until the new year.

I also need new headshots. The ones I have are fine and I still look like those photos, but they have been used for a while, and having fresh headshots can help when I’m being submitted for auditions. The timing of doing the new headshots depends a lot on whether I get an agent that I already know. I would prefer to be signed by a new agent and then get new headshots so I can do the photos that they want for me. But if I have to start reaching out to new agents that I don’t know, I should get some new photos to add some more variety to what I have and then I will probably expect that I will have to still get more photos after I sign with someone. So that’s another reason for me to hope that I can find a new agent soon.

I also worked on cutting a new version of a demo reel, although I don’t have a lot of work that I can choose from that is recent. But I made something that I think looks better than what I had before. I did some work on my acting resume, but I might be making some more adjustments on that after I’ve had some more time to think about it. And I’ve been working on my stuff on the online casting sites so everything is updated and ready to go.

Some work has been coming back as the strike has been suspended (by the time you are reading this, hopefully, the new contract has been ratified and the strike is officially done), but things are still slow. It’s normally slow this time of year because of the holidays, and most productions don’t want to start up only to have to shut down again for holiday time off. But I’m hoping that once the new year starts, things will be getting back to a more normal pace and I want to do whatever it takes so that I can be a part of the acting world again. I’ve had too much time feeling disconnected between the pandemic and the strike, and I’m ready to go full force again and see what wins will come my way.

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Default ThumbnailStill Getting Ready For 2024 (or I Feel Like I Keep Finding More To Do) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready For The New Year (or Trying To Set Myself Up For Good Things) Default ThumbnailNew Things To Think About With My Acting Career (or I Need To Plan Things More) Default ThumbnailGiving Myself Some Breathing Room (or Just Getting Ready For Other Things This Summer) Default ThumbnailStarting To Plan Some Next Steps (or Researching Classes and Looking At My Schedule) Default ThumbnailReally Getting Ready To Get Back To My Workouts (or I’m Not Sure I’m Ready To Work That Hard Yet)

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Getting Through My Bad Week (or Doing Some Solo Challenges)

Posted on December 4, 2023 | Comments Off on Getting Through My Bad Week (or Doing Some Solo Challenges)

Going into this week of workouts, I knew it was very likely to be my bad week. I’ve said this before, but it’s both bad and good that I can predict this. I am glad that I know it’s coming up so I can be as prepared as possible. But I hate that I’m dreading the week and how I might end up feeling. It can be just a little bad or a horrible week. I never know how it will be or how it might change daily. All I can do is manage the various symptoms I have each day and take it easy when I have to.

Unfortunately, this time it was one of the horrible weeks for me. I wasn’t feeling too bad on Monday, so I did try pretty hard that day knowing I needed to take advantage of having a not-so-horrible day because that might be my only chance. I was having a lot of pain that morning, so I was still going easier than I normally would. I was just glad that I wasn’t nauseous that morning because that usually affects me more than the pain does.

On Tuesday morning, I was doing really horribly. I hadn’t slept much the night before due to my nausea and I was exhausted besides being nauseous and in pain. And that workout was a signature workout: Capture The Flag. I do love these challenges and seeing how well I could do, but I knew that it wouldn’t be fair to those I would be paired up with how I was feeling. So I asked my coach if I could work on my own instead of in a 3 person team, and he allowed me to do that. He’s known me long enough to know that when I’m having a really bad day, it’s a struggle to just show up to the workout.

The way that it normally works when you are in a 3-person team is that you have one person in each section of the room. The person on the floor is in charge of the switching and they do one round of the floor exercises before moving to the treadmill. The person on the treadmill and rower just go for distance until the person on the floor switches everyone around. And the overall goal is to see how far you can get on the rower. There are different colored flags based on how far you get, so it can be a really fun team challenge.

What I did doing the challenge alone was to do one round on the floor just like I would in a team, and I went on the bike and rower for about 3 1/2 minutes each, which is the average time it takes someone on the floor. I still got to do pretty much the same workout I would have done if I was on a team, but I didn’t have to worry about taking too long on the floor because I needed to let the nausea pass or that I wouldn’t be getting much distance on the rower. I was grateful to not have that pressure on me and I think that allowed me to do a lot better than I would have expected to do considering how I was feeling.

The worst day for me this past week was on Thursday, but it also had a funny moment in it. I was really nauseous that morning and even after taking my medications, I felt like I was going to be sick. I also didn’t have a lot of sleep the night before because I was getting sick pretty often. I just felt like everything was working against me with being able to work out, but at least I showed up so I was going to do something. But I also felt like I was barely moving while on the bike and the rower.

At one point on the rower, I felt like I was going to be sick. There is a different feeling between nausea and about to be sick, and I rarely feel like I’m going to be sick in a class. I think it’s been fewer than 5 times at this point. I am lucky it doesn’t happen more often considering how often it happens when I’m home. But this time, I knew I had to leave the workout for a minute. And when I rushed out of the room, I had a classic klutzy moment and ran right into the door frame with my shoulder. By the time the workout was done, a huge bruise was already starting to form on my upper arm. And now, as I write this a few days later, I have a really impressive splotchy bruise on my arm that I know will take a while to go away. Maybe not everyone would find this funny, but I do. Because of course, I would have a super klutzy moment while rushing out of the workout, and already having pain and nausea wasn’t enough for me to deal with.

Even with this past week being a bad week, I know it went as well as it could have. It wasn’t ideal when you compare it to my good weeks, but I’ve learned not to compare them since the situation is so different between my good and bad weeks. This week is likely going to be a bit of a mixed week, I might have a few tough days to start but it should be getting better each day. And I’m hoping I make it to all my workouts this week, but I also have jury duty so that might affect things. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn’t but that’s just another thing that is out of my control and I’ll just have to work with it as it comes.

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Default ThumbnailWorking Through Physical Challenges (or Not Letting Feeling Bad Ruin My Workouts) Default ThumbnailSurviving My Workout Week (or I Knew It Would Be Bad, But Not This Bad) Default ThumbnailSurviving The Workout Week (or I Forgot This Was Likely To Be A Bad Week) Default ThumbnailThis Is The Workout Week I Expected (or I Knew It Would Be A Bad Week) Default ThumbnailGetting Through Another Bad Week (or Just Trying My Best) Default ThumbnailI’m So Glad I Pushed Hard This Past Week (or Having A Good Day In A Bad Week)

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