Monthly Archives: January 2014

Measuring My Success (or I Really Shouldn’t Have Stepped On The Scale)

Posted on January 17, 2014 | Comments Off on Measuring My Success (or I Really Shouldn’t Have Stepped On The Scale)

Even though I know historically I always gain weight when I’m sick, I decided to torture myself and step on the scale on Wednesday (on the 3rd day I was sick and when I was finally starting to feel a bit better). I had recorded every single calorie I consumed while sick (even ever 15 calories I drank when I had Emergen-C) and was pretty much under 1,000 calories each day (about 600 less than my usual goal). Want to know what happened?

Compared to my weight on Sunday, the last time I weighed myself, I gained 7 pounds.

I knew this would probably happen. I shouldn’t have weighed myself because now I’m just upset about it. Those 7 pounds weren’t easy to lose. And hopefully they will come off quickly now that I’m starting to feel better. They could just be water weight. But I don’t know why I have to be pretty much the only person in the world who gains weight while they are sick.

Even though this was expected, it still put me in a funk. It didn’t help that I was still dealing with a fever (which finally broke on Wednesday around lunchtime) and was taking a second day off of work (which means less money earned). I wasn’t able to go out and do something to cheer myself up.

So I decided to do another measurement of my body. I haven’t done one of these in a while so I wasn’t sure what the results would be.

While I had gained a half inch on my waist and on my hips, everywhere else I had lost! I had lost 1.5 inches off my arms, 2 inches off my bust, 1 inch off my belly (where my belly button is), and 1.5 inches off my leg! That’s a lot!

It’s also proof that the work I’m putting in is working. It’s working slowly, but that’s ok. It’s going in the right direction.

Even though I’m not happy at all about the scale, I am happy that I stepped on it. It forced me to go back to doing body measurements to look at my progress. I need to be more committed to doing those on a regular basis. Maybe once a month? The scale seems to be such a liar to me sometimes. I need something else that feels truthful.

Hopefully these 7 pounds come off as quickly as they showed up. Even though my inches are down, I want the scale to be down too.

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Happy Birthday Dad! (or Just Like Mom, I Promise Not To Reveal Your Age)

Posted on January 16, 2014 | 1 comment

Today is my dad’s birthday! So, Dad, if you are reading this on the 16th, Happy Birthday!

My dad has been an awesome support this past year for me, my brother, and my mom. He’s the one spending every day making sure that my mom is ok (and she’s still kicking butt on chemo and only has 2 treatments left). My dad is also the one who has to deal with my phone calls when I’m worried about my mom. So many of the things that my mom tells me about I don’t understand (I’m the only one in the family who hasn’t worked in the medical field). So instead of consulting Google, I consult my dad a lot. And he’s pretty willing to put up with me through all of this.

Every time my dad comes to visit me, he helps me do projects around the house (isn’t that what dads are for?). The last time my dad was here, he brought me something that he made for my house.

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The bark planter is something that my dad is known for making. I have one outside my house, but this one he made especially for inside. He also made the wine bottle and bark candle holders. While my dad was here, he helped me pick out some silk flowers to put inside the planter. It’s still on my dining room table and everyone compliments me on it when they see it.

My dad has also pushed me this past year. He, along with my Aunt Cindy, got me to go into an ocean for the first time in over a decade. I have such a horrible fear of oceans (or more specifically, a fear of being attacked by creature that live in the ocean). But with my dad’s encouragement, not only did I make it into the ocean, I lasted over an hour out there. The only reason I went back to the beach when I did was because my dad got tired (and it’s a good thing we got out then because even wearing SPF 50 did not protect my back from getting a horrible sunburn).

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He’s also pushed me with my 5Ks. Even when I’m stressed out about doing them, he reminds me that it’s not important how fast or slow I am, as long as I complete the race.

And I have to say that my dad is one of the best challengers I have in Words With Friends (my username is thejenlevin if anyone wants to challenge me). He pretty much beats me in every game. And when I win, he’ll say I’m cheating. If I take too long to play my turn, sometimes he’ll send me a message in the game saying “suck it up and play”. And when I place my tiles on a space that he wanted, he’ll joke that he had reserved that space a few turns ago and ask me politely to move my tiles.

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So those are some awesome things about my dad that I wanted you all to know. Of course, there’s a ton more awesome things about him, but I’ll have to save those for future birthday blog posts about my dad.

Happy Birthday Dad! I hope that you have a great day today (maybe including a bike ride). And in case you read this before I call you to wish you a happy birthday, I’ll give you one hint about your birthday present: it has to do with the Disneyland trip that you, Mom, and I are doing in the spring.

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A Weekend Catchup Post (or Maybe The Craziness Made Me Get Sick)

Posted on January 15, 2014 | Comments Off on A Weekend Catchup Post (or Maybe The Craziness Made Me Get Sick)

After 2 days of posts about me being sick, I’m sure you are all wanting to read something different. So this is about my crazy Saturday (which now looking back at it might have made my immune system a bit low and made me catch this cold).

Saturday is normally a short shift day for me. I work from 10-2 and have the rest of the day free. This past Saturday I had to open up because my boss was too sick to be there. Plus, I had previously volunteered to work at the show on Saturday night because I knew I would be asking for the upcoming Saturday off. So I knew that I had to be back at work at 6pm for the show shift.

I’ve done split shifts in the past. They aren’t my favorite thing, but they are a necessary evil at my job. Normally, I’d go home between the shifts to get some work done at home and get dressed (regular shifts are very casual but show shifts are dressy business). But since this past Saturday was SoulCycle’s anniversary, I decided to spend my time between the shifts in Santa Monica.

The first shift I worked was a little crazy. There were some projects that we had to work on and the phone kept ringing off the hook, preventing us from finishing the projects in a timely manner. Everything got done, but it was a little stressful. I had some free time between the shift and my spin class, so I hung out in my car and read a book.

Spin was awesome! It was Patrick’s class, which I always enjoy. It really helped get the stress from my shift out of my body and get me ready to go back to work again. I also almost broke a personal record for the most calories burned in spin class (I was 14 calories short of my all time best).

Then I quickly showered and got ready at SoulCycle to go back to work. I ate a quick dinner as soon as I got back in my office and then headed into the theater to work.

My show shift went pretty smoothly. I’ve done plenty of show shifts so I’m familiar with what needs to get done. And while the show was going on I get to read my book (which is awesome because technically during that time I’m getting paid to read!).

I was finally done with work and got everything cleaned up. By the time I left, it had been 12 hours since I arrived at work.

I’m wondering if all the craziness and stress from the day contributed to me getting sick. I was doing well with all of my co-workers being sick around me and then right after my shift is when I started to feel a bit off.

If this crazy day made me sick, that’s ok. It was worth it. I got a lot of work done and did an awesome spin class! I consider that a win even if getting sick is not.

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Posted in Fitness, Health, Work

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Yup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me)

Posted on January 14, 2014 | Comments Off on Yup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me)

All that hope that I wouldn’t get sick didn’t work. I managed to work my short shift at work, but I felt pretty miserable the whole time. And pretty much everyone was out sick except for one co-worker and my boss (although my boss was technically still sick, he just had to be at work yesterday).

I tried to keep drinking water during my shift to help flush this cold out of me. I also focused on doing that at home in the afternoon. But sadly, I seem to be getting a bit worse.

My boss said that I could take today off if I wasn’t feeling great (I have to be better by Wednesday because I’m working at a show). I haven’t quite decided if I’m taking a personal day or not, but I’m leaning toward staying home. I know that I don’t really stand a chance at getting much better by being at work all day. But if I stay home, I can rest and let my body fight this bug.

I just hate taking days off if I can help it because my job doesn’t have paid sick or personal days. So if I don’t work I don’t make money. But sometimes getting better is much more important than making money. And after seeing my co-workers try to work sick and stay sick for a long time, I want to make sure that doesn’t happen to me.

I know that there are a lot of debates out there if you should eat when you feel sick. My co-worker expressed concern yesterday when I mentioned that I hadn’t eaten yet that day. He felt that it was important to feel my body so it would have energy to fight the bug.

But this is another thing that my eating disorder affects. I didn’t feel hungry yesterday. And I don’t want to force myself to eat when I’m not hungry. That’s something that I’ve been fighting for forever. I did eventually have some soup and rice toward dinnertime, but I pretty much ate nothing all day. And I’m ok with that. I wasn’t feeling light-headed or faint like I get sometimes when I am very hungry and have skipped a meal. So I figured my body had enough fuel to last for that time.

Hopefully, whether I end up going to work or not today, this is the beginning of the end of this cold. I hate feeling sick and I know that I can’t afford this right now.

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A Quick Post (or I Really Hope I’m Not Getting Sick)

Posted on January 13, 2014 | 2 comments

This is going to be a short post. There has been a super nasty bug going around my day job. One co-worker was out for 2 days with it, another co-worker has been out for 3 days (and counting) with it, and my boss came to work sick on Friday and missed work on Saturday because he was so sick.

I have a pretty consistent tell that I’m about to get sick. I have this thirst that I can’t quench. No matter how much I drink, I’m still horribly thirsty.

On Saturday, I worked a long split shift (I’ll post about that day soon) and felt fine. I felt a little thirsty when I got home on Saturday night, but I also barely had anything to drink the entire day. So I figured it was normal.

I babysat on Sunday for my friend. I still was feeling a bit thirsty, but I figured I was horribly dehydrated from Saturday still. I had no idea that I would be sick or I never would have babysat.

I watched the Golden Globes last night and I started to feel worse. I’m now taking cold medicine as a preventative thing because right now I can’t afford to be sick. There’s a big show at my work for the next few weeks and we all have to help out. My plan for today is to go to work because there is only a half shift scheduled. If I feel horrible, I’ll re-evaluate the next few days. Hopefully either this is nothing or the cold medicine makes it go away quickly.

I should have probably done more preventative measures after 2 people at work got sick, but since I normally am one of the first ones to come down with something at work, I thought maybe this one would pass over me.

I also hate being sick because I always seem to gain weight while sick. Even if I’m not eating, my weight creeps up. So for the next week or so, I think I need to avoid the scale.

That’s all for my rambling for now. Please think healthy thoughts for me so I can feel better soon!

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff, Work

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My SoulCycle Anniversary (or 1 Year Of Spinning)

Posted on January 10, 2014 | 2 comments

This week, SoulCycle Santa Monica is celebrating their 1 year anniversary. There will be some fun stuff in the studio on Saturday (if any of you want to try SoulCycle with me I’ll be going to the 4pm class).

I realized that if the studio is at their 1 year anniversary, I must be getting close to the 1 year mark of my first spin class. My friend Kate and I were trying to figure out when our first class was the other day. I finally scrolled back in my calendar on my phone and it said that my first class was on 1/9/13.

That didn’t seem right to either of us. We couldn’t think of how we could double-check this for sure until I realized that I could look at what day I wrote my first spin class blog post. And since that post came out on 1/10/13, I realized that January 9th was my SoulCycle anniversary!

And how did I celebrate my anniversary of spin?

By going to spin class of course!

I took Charlee’s class because I knew it would be an awesome anniversary class (and the time fit in perfectly with my work schedule). Right before the first song of class, the instructor normally asks if anyone is taking a SoulCycle class for the first time. After Charlee asked that she announced to everyone that this class marked my 1 year anniversary of SoulCycle! And she had everyone give me a round of applause!

That was so incredible (and totally unexpected). While I figure my friends would acknowledge the fact that I’ve stuck with this workout for so long, I didn’t think anyone at SoulCycle would think it’s a big deal. I’m sure people have done way bigger things than that.

After class, I thanked Charlee and told her how much I appreciated her caring about my accomplishment. Her shout out to me in the beginning of class really made my day.

Reflecting back on my 1 year of spin classes has been interesting. I’ve lost some weight in the past year (about 25 pounds), but it’s not as much as I would have thought with the new workout. But so much more about me has changed. I’m so much happier and more confident. I know that I can push my body so much harder than I ever expected. And I’ve stopped feeling like a victim due to my weight.

While I still have so many struggles with everything relating to my weight and eating disorder, I like knowing that whether I’ve lost weight, gained weight, or stayed the same; I can still kick some ass in spin class.

And of course, I have to share a day one and year one picture with you!

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Because of how the picture was taken, it’s hard to tell if I look like I’ve lost any weight between the two pictures. But the picture I’m more proud of from yesterday is the one I took right before I left SoulCycle to go to work (after I had showered and gotten ready there).

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The picture looks a little weird because I’m standing in front of a neon wall, but I think that I look more confident and happy with myself in this picture than in any other that I have taken recently.

One year of SoulCycle done. And I hope that I have a ton of years of SoulCycle ahead of me!

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Weight Loss

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Finding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time)

Posted on January 9, 2014 | 3 comments

I’m struggling a bit with food again. As someone with an eating disorder, I guess I should be prepared to deal with this for the rest of my life. I just hope one day it gets easier.

I’m really working hard at staying under my calorie goals every day, but there keeps being something that prevents me from doing that. And part of it is because so much of my social life revolves around food.

Now, I don’t want to make my friends who have gone out to meals with me feel bad. That’s not what this is about. I just don’t understand how they can eat the same things as me (or more) and not have issues with it. I’m feeling insane guilt and sometimes feeling like I screwed up my whole day.

It’s hard to find the balance with healthy and fun foods, but I know it’s possible. I see people do it all the time.

And maybe I do have some sort of health issue causing problems again. I’ve met with an endocrinologist many times and some of my test results have come back suspicious. But whenever they re-test me, everything is fine again. Maybe I have to go through that process again (although it does involve blood work and I’d rather avoid dealing with needles if I can help it).

I know that a big part of what keeps me on track certain days is working out. If I work out in the morning, I have more calories to play with during the day (although I normally don’t eat my exercise calories). And if I work out at night, I feel like I have to be good all day so I feel ok to exercise after those meals. I can’t work out every evening right now because of my work schedule, but I’m looking into doing that when I’m (f)unemployed again.

I also have to think back to the time I was on the RFO Diet. For those months, I literally could not eat when I went out for meals with my friends. Sometimes I would bring my supplements with me and have them there, but more often than not I just sat there and enjoyed the company. I might start doing that again so I don’t eat foods that I regret later.

And trying restaurants I’ve never been to before is another way to prevent my guilt eating. At restaurants that I’ve been to when I’ve not worried about my weight, there are some very bad choices that I used to love to eat. And if I go back there, I’m tempted to have those things again because my memories of them are that they were delicious. There’s one sandwich at Jerry’s Deli that I used to always get. I still think about it from time to time, but I don’t go to Jerry’s anymore because I don’t want to have to deal with how many calories it is.

Sorry for the little rant today. I’m getting frustrated with my weight loss (it’s stalled right now) and I don’t know what else I can change. But I promise tomorrow will be a very exciting and positive blog post. I can’t tell you why yet, but make sure you read here tomorrow to see what happened!

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Getting In My Disneyland Fix (or One Last Bit Of Christmas Time In The New Year)

Posted on January 8, 2014 | 2 comments

This past Sunday, I made a trip down to Disneyland with my friend Lupe and her son Diego. Lupe and I have been trying to get together for a Disneyland trip for a long time, and finally our days off matched (and our annual passes weren’t blacked out)!

We got to the parks just before 10am. It wasn’t too crowded, which surprised me since it was a Sunday and the last day of the Christmas decorations at Disneyland. Some of the seasonal rides (like Haunted Mansion Holiday) had huge lines, but most of the other rides had pretty reasonable wait times. I use a pass at Disneyland that allows me to wait off to the side while waiting for my ride (standing for a long period of time without moving really aggravates my hip). But our wait times for most rides were about 30 minutes (after waiting our time, we are led onto the ride, but it’s not instant access).

A lot of our day was just looking around at how gorgeous the day was. We couldn’t have asked for better weather.

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But of course, we went on a bunch of rides. We did Haunted Mansion Holiday and got stuck on it for a minute at the graveyard scene. But that did allow me to take this pretty cool picture (and for those of you who hate people who take pictures in the dark rides, this was done without a flash).

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We also rode the train around the park, only to get stuck at the train station in Tomorrowland (there was some issue with the trains and they couldn’t keep running).

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I wanted to ride the submarines, but they are closed down for a long refurbishment. They haven’t drained the lagoon yet, but the waterfall stopped running and you could see a little bit inside the show building (I dream of getting stuck on that ride inside the show building so I could look around and see behind the scenes!).

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We rode the monorail around as well. Lupe and Diego had no idea that you could ride in the nosecone with the driver, so we did that. They used to give you a co-pilot’s license as a little souvenir, but now they give you a boarding pass (I actually think the boarding pass is better).

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We also went on Star Tours, Space Mountain, and Pirates of The Caribbean before heading over to California Adventure to ride my one of my favorite rides, Radiator Springs Racers. Our car won the race in case you cared.

This was the first time I had been in Cars Land during Christmas time. They have so many cute Christmas trees decorated in Cars themes in that area. I had to get a picture with one.

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At this point, I was starting to be in a lot of pain and I forgot to bring my painkillers with me. So we decided to head back home.

It was a great trip with a great friend. I’m glad I made it to the parks before all the decorations were gone. And of course, I love getting to go on the rides.

My pass expires pretty soon. I know I’ll be renewing it, it’s just an issue of when. My original plan was to wait until the spring when my parents are here (we are going to spend a day in the parks). But with my (f)unemployment probably starting in about a month, I might want my pass to be good then so I can go on those free days. I haven’t had the chance to recycle enough ink to pay for a new pass, so I’ll have to see how to budget it. I know that Disneyland does monthly payment plans, but I don’t know if I want another monthly bill.

Either way, I know I’ll be back in the parks soon. I’m hoping to fit in one more quick visit before my pass expires!

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Welcome Tucker! (or Filling The Dog Shaped Hole In My Family)

Posted on January 7, 2014 | 2 comments

When Dante died, it was awful. We had Dante for almost 13 years. He was a family member, not a pet. But his death was somewhat expected and when he passed away we had Chaucer to look forward to.

When Chaucer died, we were all in shock. It was horrible to lose a puppy, but his death also brought back the loss of Dante. It’s tough to miss a puppy that we only had for a few days. In some way, it felt like he never existed.

After losing 2 dogs in 6 days, my parents had to take a short break from dogs. They weren’t sure what they wanted to do next. After thinking about it for a few days, they realized that our family was missing a dog and they wanted to find our newest family member.

One of Chaucer’s brothers (originally named Rockwell) was still looking for a forever home. So my parents decided to meet him and after meeting him, he was ours.

We changed his name to Tucker (my mom picked it out) and his been a part of the family for about a week now. I have yet to meet him, but my parents do email me pictures of him pretty regularly.

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From what my parents have told me, he is a very sweet and curious puppy. He’s super active but also getting very good at obedience (he already knows several commands). He’s met a bunch of people in the week that my parents have had him and everyone has fallen in love with him. And he’ll be starting puppy school this week so he will get some more socialization skills as well as learning more commands.

We didn’t announce Tucker’s adoption to people right away. We were terrified that something would happen to him like what happened to Chaucer. But Tucker went to the vet on Friday and got a clean bill of health.

I’m hoping to take a trip next month (when I’m supposed to be (f)unemployed again) so I can meet Tucker. If I don’t, there’s a chance that I might not get to meet him until Thanksgiving, and to me that’s unacceptable!

I’m aware that some people might think that we are forgetting about Dante and Chaucer because we got Tucker so soon. But that’s not the case at all. We still miss both dogs every day. Whenever I talk to my mom about how Tucker is doing, we are always comparing him to both dogs (Tucker has some big shoes to fill). Without a dog in my parents’ home, things didn’t seem right. It was too empty and quiet. And since one of my mom’s jobs has been running the pet therapy program at the hospital where my dad used to work (and where she is getting all her treatments), having a dog is practically her job.

I’m just glad that my parents were able to find another dog that needed a loving home. And Tucker seems to be fitting in perfectly with our family so far!

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Posted in Family, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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Cheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition)

Posted on January 6, 2014 | Comments Off on Cheesecake With My Birthday Twin (or Continuing A New Tradition)

In 2012 around Christmas time, my birthday twin Joanna and I went out for cheesecake. We decided then that we would make Christmas time cheesecake one of our new traditions (like us getting our free birthday meal).

Somehow, we both totally forgot that we said that this would be a new tradition until after Christmas. I texted Joanna to see how we could fix this, and she suggested that we get cheesecake right after New Year’s (it could still be considered holiday cheesecake then).

I was super lucky to have the day after New Year’s Day off so that ended up being our cheesecake day.

We went back to The Grove where we had cheesecake last time. But this time it was in the daytime so there were no holiday lights. And there were people taking down all the Christmas decorations so I didn’t take any pictures (you don’t want to see a tree coming down, do you?).

We got lunch and cheesecake this time. Since I’ve been working on being good with my calories, I looked at the low-calorie options that Cheesecake Factory had. Most of their regular dishes have about 1,000 calories in them and I couldn’t do that plus my cheesecake.

I’m normally not a fan of the low-calorie menus, but I have to say that this one was actually pretty good! Joanna and I both ended up ordering off of it. Joanna had a salad and I had a sausage and cheese flatbread (which was 460 calories if you were interested).

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Then it was time for the main event (at least what we both considered the main event). While I would have loved to have gotten the red velvet cheesecake again, my calorie budget did not allow for that. So I checked on MyFitnessPal to see which cheesecakes that I like fit into my calorie budget (it helped that I didn’t have time to eat breakfast that day so I had some extra calories to play with). I ended up getting one of my all-time favorite cheesecakes, the tiramisu cheesecake.

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Joanna got the plain cheesecake with strawberry topping on top.

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It was a great meal! And of course, any time I get to hang out with my friend Joanna is awesome (we don’t see each other as often as we used to). We had a fun chat discussing our day jobs, acting, and just having a catchup talk.

I’m so glad that I have this new tradition continuing. Hopefully this year we will remember to do it around Christmas time so we can see all the awesome decorations again.

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