Monthly Archives: December 2014

Reflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

Posted on December 31, 2014 | 1 comment

I can’t believe that 2014 is ending! It really seems like it was just a month or two ago that I was posting my goals for this year.

I just want to take some time and reflect on my year and the goals that I had set out for myself.

I really felt like 2014 was a rebuilding year for me and my family. While 2013 did have some great moments, there were also a lot of sad and stressful ones. I think of 2013 as the year that Ross and Krystle got married, that my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and my family lost two dogs. While we did technically adopt Tucker right before New Year’s Eve last year, I think of 2014 as the year he joined our family.

In 2014, so many positives happened for my family. Adopting Tucker was a big one, but the biggest was my mom being declared cancer-free. Knowing that she is ok (even though we all knew that she would be in the beginning) really has taken so much stress out of my life. I know that there are still some stressful times ahead with making sure that she stays cancer-free (and now I have annual mammograms to worry about too), but knowing that it’s all good right now just makes me so happy.

This was also a rebuilding year for me as far as my health goes. I have finally connected with a workout in a way that I had hoped for. And very recently I’ve been getting my food in a better place too. This isn’t to say that I don’t have days where I seriously struggle, but I’m taking more and more steps in the right direction.

So let’s take a look back at my goals from last year and see how I did with them.

My first goal was to continue to do 5Ks. I did 3 this year. And while that is much less than the year prior, I’m ok with that. I don’t love doing 5Ks as much as I want to, but the few races that I did do are ones that I look forward to a lot. I also got a new PR which I am very excited about!

My next goal was to make spin a regular habit. This did not happen. I stopped going to SoulCycle a while ago because I have replaced it with Orangetheory. I’m planning on going back next year every so often to spin, but I really wanted to focus on Orangetheory during the second half of this year. But since I did make exercise a regular habit, I’m declaring this goal as a partial success.

Next on my list was to track my food/exercise better. I’m still using MyFitnessPal to track my food every day. I’m much happier tracking it when I’m making smart choices. And as far as tracking my exercise, I think I’m doing pretty great at that too. It makes it easy to track my exercise in MyFitnessPal when Orangetheory tells me exactly how many calories I’m burning in each workout.

The next goal I had set was to get into an improv class. I failed to do this goal. I had every intention of getting started at UCB this year. I even purchased the book that all students are required to read. But I think the lack of stability with my job got to me. When I thought I knew when a class would fit into my schedule I would lose my job and everything changed. I’m feeling pretty stable with my current day job, but I’m still looking for something else to help me make enough each month. Once that stability is set, I think I can look into class again.

Next was pay down my debt and not add more. While I did pay down some of the debt, it was impossible to not add more this year. With some expenses having to be put on a credit card, there was no way to not add to it. But when I did have those expenses, I tried to pay off exactly what I spent by the time the bill came around.

Then I had the goal of going on another vacation. While I did go to visit my parents, those don’t seem to feel like vacations to me. They seem like getting to have family time. That’s probably because I’m either visiting them at the house I grew up in or I’m at their place in Tahoe. But I did get to go on a fabulous trip to New York with my sister-in-law this past spring. That trip was amazing and we are planning to try to go to New York again in the coming year.

My final goal for 2014 was to continue blogging. While some days are tough to come up with a topic to write about, I have maintained posting a new post Monday-Friday every week of this year. That’s a lot of posts!

All in all, even though I didn’t complete all of my goals, I think that I did a great job in trying to do them all. I’ll post my goals for 2015 tomorrow.

I hope that you all have an amazing New Year’s Eve tonight! If you chose to drink, please don’t drive. Take a taxi/Uber/Lyft to get home. Or you can call AAA for a Tipsy Tow.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Family, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff, Travel, Weight Loss, Work

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Amazing Customer Service (or I Love Sharing Positive Stories On Here!)

Posted on December 30, 2014 | Comments Off on Amazing Customer Service (or I Love Sharing Positive Stories On Here!)

I’ve shared some pretty horrible customer service stories on here in the past. I don’t like doing that and I don’t want to turn my blog into a place where I call out companies that treat customers poorly. But when bad customer service truly affects my life (like those times mentioned on the blog did), then I feel like I have to share it.

But I’d much rather celebrate some amazing customer service stories on here and help you all find stores/companies that you should support. Recently, I had 2 great customer service experiences and I wanted to let you all know about them.

First of all was an experience that I had at the Nike Store in Beverly Hills. I went there because I knew that I won the Nike ID Challenge at Orangetheory and I wanted to find out what size Nikes I needed to get (I don’t typically wear Nikes).

I was nervous going into the store for 2 reasons. One was that I’m not completely comfortable going into sporting goods or fitness stores. I still feel judged and I’ve had some experiences with employees not helping me as quickly as they would help other guests. The second reason was I knew that I wasn’t going to be buying anything while I was in the store. I wanted to be upfront with the salesperson so they understood that they wouldn’t make a commission off of me, and that could affect how they treated me.

But as soon as I walked into the store, all my fears disappeared. There was a wall of shoes that could be Nike ID customer shoes in front of me.

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A saleswoman (whose name I sadly have forgotten) came over to help me right away. I explained that I had won some Nike IDs and needed to find out my size before I collected my prize, and she was really excited to help me. She knew that I wasn’t purchasing anything that day, but she went above and beyond to make sure I found the perfect fit with the shoe that I’m going to be getting.

She even was asking me all about Orangetheory because she thought it was awesome that a fitness studio gave away Nikes. She took my information so she could join me for a workout at some point.

As someone who works in customer service and used to work for commission, I understand the frustration that this saleswoman probably felt but she never let it show. I hope that with me being so laid back and in no rush to try on shoes (so she could help other customers) that I made it a little easier on her.

We haven’t designed our custom Nike ID shoes yet at Orangetheory, but at least now I know exactly what size I need (and how to stretch them out to fit me a bit better).

My second amazing customer service experience that I’ve had recently was with the Hanukkah gift that my mom, my brother, my sister-in-law, and I got for my dad. I found this amazing chair and footstool made out of old skis by doing a search online and as a group we decided to order it for my dad.

I called Green Mountain Ski Furniture to get a bit of clarification on some of the pricing options, but I never heard back. I followed up with an email explaining that I had previously called and left a message and got an email back very quickly from the owner. He apologized for not getting back to me and answered all of my questions to help me complete the order.

He sent me another email as soon as I ordered confirming everything. And when he shipped out the chair, I got 2 emails from the owner. One was the tracking information and the other was a personal email saying how happy he was with how the chair turned out and how he was making sure that the chair would get to my dad before Christmas (even though that didn’t matter it was nice that he made that effort).

The chair got to my parents the day before Christmas and my dad put it together right away. And it looks amazing!

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This chair is going to live up in Tahoe and my parents will bring it up there on one of their next few trips to the mountains.

While almost all customer service experiences that I have are good, I feel like these 2 recently have gone above and beyond. So if you live in LA and need anything from Nike, you should definitely go to the store in Beverly Hills. And if you want anything made out of old skis or snowboards, you have to go with Green Mountain Ski Furniture for your gift!

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Fun Stuff, Shopping

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Pre-Burning Jewish Christmas Calories (or Holiday Workouts)

Posted on December 29, 2014 | 1 comment

This past week of workout were intense! That’s good because I had a nice splurge on Christmas, but it was not easy getting through the week!

Monday and Wednesday both were Christmas themed workouts (since those were in the days leading up to Christmas). They reminded me a lot of Hell Week during Halloween and were pretty much as tough as those workouts were.

Monday’s theme was the 12 Days Of Christmas. We had a list of 12 cardio tasks and a list of 12 strength tasks. This was the cardio list.

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It went 100 meter row, 2 minute push, 3 squat curls, and so on. You worked your way down the list and if you were able to complete it, you worked your way back up.

The first few things on the list weren’t too bad. It was a nice way to ease into the workout. At 7 (or the 700 meter row) I was starting to get exhausted. I slowed my rowing down to try to keep my form nice and it seemed like that row took forever! I did make it to the 1200 meter row, but I only completed about 300 meters of it before it was time to switch to the strength portion.

This was also a list of 12 tasks, but you went through the tasks like the 12 Days of Christmas song. I don’t remember all 12 tasks but the first few were 1 full burpee, 2 squat jumps, 3 push-ups, and 4 pop jacks. But instead of working down the list like we did for cardio you started with 1 burpee; then 2 squat jumps and 1 burpee; then 3 push-ups, 2 squat jumps, and 1 burpee.

Holy moly was that tough! I think I made it to 10 on that list before time was called. The last task of the day was the Monday Challenge. I saw a sneak peek at the challenge on Instagram and new ahead of time that is was going to be a 100 meter row. I didn’t have a previous record saved in my phone for a 100 meter row, but I did have a 1 minute record of 313 meters. So I set it in my head that I wanted to do better than 20 seconds. And I managed to do it in 19.5 seconds, so I was pretty darn happy with myself!

Wednesday’s workout was Christmas Eve so I tried to dress festively.

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Sadly, that little Santa hat that I’m wearing broke right before I took the picture. It was attached to a headband that snapped in half when I tried to wear it. Oh well.

The theme on Wednesday was Naughty or Nice. There were 2 stockings in the room, one for cardio and one for strength. When you did the cardio section, you pulled a card from the stocking and it told you what to do. After completing that task 3 times, you pulled a new card. There were Nice cards that were short exercises and there were Naughty cards (like having to do a 5K on the treadmill or rowing machine). I was lucky and only pulled Nice cards during cardio. It was essentially run/row workouts. The first card was .13 mile run (really a walk for me) and then 400 meters on the rowing machine. My second card was a 1 minute all-out pace on the treadmill followed by a 1 minute row. I just got through those 2 cards when time was called.

For the strength section, we all had the same exercises to do. But the cards would tell us how many reps we had to do of each workout. I pulled 2 Nice cards and 1 Naughty card. In the end, I did about 80 reps of each workout.

On Friday, I was a bit tired and feeling the effects of my Chinese food, but I was ready to burn off all that junk in my system. The cardio portion was all treadmill and the strength portion was a mixture of body weight, strap work, rowing, and abs. I was doing ok until the abs portion. I’m really losing flexibility in my hips (this is actually really worrying me and will be something I discuss when I interview potential new hip surgeons), and the lack of flexibility makes sit-ups and crunches really tough to do. I can’t really have my feet flat on the floor and bring my upper body to my legs. The pain in my hips is too intense. So most of the time, I either do crunches where I don’t bring my upper body up as much or have my legs straight out in front of me.

Doing full body sit-ups with your legs straight ahead of you is not easy to do, and my Friday coach Whitney saw that I was struggling and in a lot of pain. So she came over and held my legs down so I could successfully complete my sit-ups.

It’s the little touches like that where you can really see that the coaches at Orangetheory care about you and want to see you succeed that makes me so happy that I found my workout home.

I only did 3 workouts this week. My body probably could not have taken a 4th workout this time. But with the New Year almost here I’ve got some goals set in my head that will make the 4th workout more of a regular thing.

But it’s not time for me to share my 2015 goals quite yet. That’s coming up in a few days.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

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Lazy Christmas (or Cleaning And Chinese Food)

Posted on December 26, 2014 | 2 comments

I hope that you all got to celebrate Christmas exactly how you wanted to yesterday!

I spent the day at home by myself, which was fine with me. Spending time with my family on Christmas isn’t something that usually happens and last year was the first time that I was there on Christmas in possibly 10 years.

My day started off by sleeping in. This is something that I rarely get to do, so it was very nice to sleep in past 7am (I was still up by 8, but that’s an extra hour of sleep).

My entire day was unplanned, so I just relaxed. I started by hanging out reading on my couch. After a minute, I realized that one of the tv stations has the fake fireplace airing during Christmas morning, so I put that on and pretended to be reading by the fire.

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After reading a couple of chapters, I decided to work on doing a big clean up of my house. It wasn’t necessarily dirty, but to do a good cleaning job takes time, and I usually don’t have the uninterrupted time to do it.

After cleaning, I went through my kitchen to do some rearranging. While doing that, I realized that I had way too many water bottles. I get them a lot in swag bags and I have just been storing them. I counted 27 water bottles when I really only use 2 of them. So I bagged the extra ones up and will be making a stop to donate them (along with some other items) next week.

After cleaning, I decided to work on some decorating ideas. My parents gave me a teak tray back in August. They have had it for a long time but don’t use it. And I figured I could do something cool with it. When my parents were here for their layover visit, they bought me a cube ottoman and the tray has been living on that ever since.

But it had been empty since I had no idea what to do. But yesterday, I was inspired. I put some candles on there along with a driftwood candle holder my dad made and the pine branch bouquet I made at the event at the mall. I want to replace the pine branches with some flowers (the branches are dying and dropping needles everywhere), but I think that it looks pretty good so far!

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After all of that housework, I spent the rest of my day watching movies and tv shows on Netflix. I didn’t really feel like driving anywhere and was just happy spending a day being super lazy.

And of course, for dinner I ordered some Chinese food from my favorite place. It’s a big calorie splurge for me, but I think that on special occasions it is worth it!

All in all, it was the absolutely perfect Christmas for me!

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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I Really Am Doing Everything Right (or It’s Frustrating Not Losing Weight)

Posted on December 25, 2014 | Comments Off on I Really Am Doing Everything Right (or It’s Frustrating Not Losing Weight)

First of all, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that you are all having an amazing day doing exactly what you want to do today! My recap of Christmas will come soon.

I’ve been on a very good path lately. My exercise routine is getting to be in a very good place. I’m going to Orangetheory 3 times a week every day and I’m even adding a 4th day every so often. I’m thinking that for 2015 I will do 1 week of 3 workouts and then 1 week of 4 workouts just to push myself.

I’m getting so much stronger and I know that I’m getting much healthier. While I haven’t necessarily tested my cardiovascular abilities, I know that I don’t feel as tired as I did my first few weeks of workouts after the cardio section. And I can row much farther than before without having to take a break.

There are some things that aren’t on the right track. My hips are hurting more and more each day. They aren’t nearly as bad as I know that they can get, but I do sometimes miss my pain-free days as now they are much less frequent than they used to be. I’m also starting to lose a bit of flexibility that I had worked very hard to get back after my hip surgery. I’m not sure what exactly is causing this, but I think it’s a combination of the pain and maybe my muscles being stronger and bigger. I’m going to be interviewing new orthopedic surgeons soon and this is a concern that I’m going to bring up with them.

And finally, I’m starting to get my food in control. I’m getting very comfortable with cooking and in fact am planning on spending some time today reorganizing my kitchen to help make things more efficient when I am doing my bulk cooking.

I still have some food setbacks, but they aren’t as often or as crazy as they used to be. Having my food ready for me the moment I’m hungry really does help stop me from needing to run to the store to buy something in desperation.

So why am I frustrated?

I’m really not losing weight at the pace I feel like I should be. I know the saying that muscle weighs more than fat and I could just be gaining muscle, I should be seeing the scale go down in more significant increments that they are doing right now.

I know that sometimes it takes some time for the weight loss to show up on the scale so I’m trying to be patient. But having that instant gratification of knowing that I’m doing the right things really does help with motivation. And I have some clothes in 1 size smaller that I’d really like to start wearing.

I really don’t think I can do more than I’m doing right now. I guess I can work on adding more workout days, but I do need those recovery days for my hips to stop hurting. And I don’t want to decrease or increase my daily calories. The number of calories that I’m eating right now is something that my old therapist/nutritionist set up for me and I know that it’s a good number for me.

So for now, I just have to keep doing what I’m doing and hope that my scale pays attention one day.

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Posted in Fitness, Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Getting “Wicked” (or Santa, A Sunset, And A Perfect Show)

Posted on December 24, 2014 | Comments Off on Getting “Wicked” (or Santa, A Sunset, And A Perfect Show)

This past Sunday was the next show in my season at The Pantages. I was finally seeing “Wicked”!

“Wicked” had been in LA several times before, and sometimes for very long runs. I always wanted to go and see it, but there was always an issue. Tickets were pretty expensive so I wanted to enter the ticket lottery. But there never seemed to be a good day to do it. And when my sister-in-law and I went to NYC, I already knew that “Wicked” was part of my Pantages season so we didn’t see it there.

The group of us going to the show decided to go early to meet up for dinner first. On my drive, there was a ton of traffic. I couldn’t figure out why until I pulled up next to this vehicle.

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Santa and one of his elves were riding on the back of a truck blasting Christmas music! It was pretty crazy to see but made my drive entertaining.

I got to dinner a bit early so I hung out outside the restaurant waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. While waiting, we had another epic LA sunset.

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When we finally went inside to eat, I ran into someone who grew up down the street from me! I hadn’t seen her since I moved to LA and while we each knew the other lived in LA, we hadn’t seen each other. It was so crazy to see her and great to catch up!

After our quick dinner, my group walked over to The Pantages for our show. I’m loving having season tickets since our seats are in the same place for every show.

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We are pretty close to the stage and even though we are off to the side we don’t miss too much of what is on stage.

I know the story of “Wicked” and I’ve heard most if not all of the songs in the show. But even knowing as much as I did I was super impressed by it! The actors were all so amazing and the show was really really good! I’m even considering trying to go see the show another time while they are still in LA (they are here for a couple of months) if someone wants to go with me..

After the show when I got home, I went through my Kindle and found my e-book of Wicked. I bought it a while ago but never felt motivated to read it. But now that’s I’ve seen the show, I want to read the book that the show is based on.

I’m so happy that I’ve seen “Wicked” now. And it’s probably better that it took me this long to see it. If I had seen it before, I probably would have gone to see it at least once every time it was in town. That’s a lot of money on tickets or a lot of lottery attempts.

Since “Wicked” has a longer LA run, my next show at The Pantages isn’t until April. That’s a while to wait for another musical but I’m super excited for the next few shows in the season!

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

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Home Cooking (or Getting Used To Making What I Eat)

Posted on December 23, 2014 | 1 comment

Since my first attempt at bulk cooking, things have been going pretty great so far.

I’m getting into a groove with my food, and for once it’s almost all food that I make myself. I know that boredom is going to happen eventually, but for now, my focus is to just get used to cooking on a regular basis.

My focus on cooking has been my dinners as that is my weak point in my day. 3 days a week, I’m getting home from my workout at dinnertime. And I don’t want to think about making something then. So it’s been really easy in the past to run to Subway on the way home for a veggie sub or to make a microwave dinner.

My dinners are pretty simple. My first week of bulk cooking, I put each food in a container and each night I would take out what I needed. But after that first week, I learned that doing things that way make my Fridays full of doing dishes. So now, I make dinner boxes (each container is a full dinner).

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I always have chicken breast for dinner. I’m going to start exploring other good protein options, but this one works for me right now. I get skinless boneless chicken at Trader Joes and season it with some Trader Joes seasoning or another salt-free seasoning. Then they go into the oven until they are done. Then I put the amount of chicken I want for each night (right now it’s 4 oz cooked chicken) in the container.

I also have always had sweet potatoes in my dinner boxes. The first week of bulk cooking, I made them whole, but they got a little slime toward the end of the week. The next week, I tried cutting them into rounds, and those were ok. But this week when I went to Trader Joes to get my food, I saw pre-cubed sweet potatoes and made those instead. I think cutting them up myself is a better plan for me, but it’s good to try something else.

The last thing that I have had each week is roasted/caramelized red onions. I love onions, especially red onions. I’ve quartered them and roasted them once but this week I cut them into rings to roast them. No matter what, they are so delicious and I know that I will keep having onions in my dinner boxes.

Then there is always a vegetable. The first week I had broccoli and green beans. Those were awesome. Last week I had asparagus, and they didn’t turn out so great. I ended up going out and buying more asparagus so I could make some each night for dinner. This week, I tried to roast carrots. But something went seriously wrong. They never felt cooked (they felt really hard), but they turned white in the oven. I have no idea what I did, but they went straight into the trash. Fortunately, I had some frozen veggies that I hadn’t used so I microwaved those and put a cup of the veggies in each dinner box.

I’m still working on more lunch ideas, but I’ve been having hard-boiled eggs and turkey meatballs a lot. And on days I don’t have a workout, I sometimes have a sandwich. But I’m looking for more easy options that I can eat while I work (I don’t get a lunch break at my day job).

This week, I know that Thursday will be a “bad” food day since I will be ordering Chinese food. But hopefully since I’m doing really well the other days, I will still be able to make some progress. After all, isn’t this how I’m supposed to live? Mostly eating the right foods but allowing myself to have a splurge every once in a while?

If you have any bulk cooking things that you love, I’d love to hear them in the comments! I know that boredom will happen soon and I’d like to have some ideas to be ready for that!

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Posted in Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Weight Loss

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Final Days Of The Nike Challenge (or How To Work Out When You Can’t Breathe Through Your Nose)

Posted on December 22, 2014 | 1 comment

The Nike ID Challenge at Orangetheory ended this past week. But I ended up having a new challenge during the week because I got sick.

Monday was workout #15 for me for the Nike ID Challenge, so after that workout, I knew that I was going to be winning the shoes. I went to a morning workout that day because of the Tweetup that evening, and it felt very different to me than an evening workout. I’m so used to going at 4:15 that when I work out early, it is a little confusing to me. I’m used to going home after a workout and starting to decompress from my day. This time instead, I went home and got ready for my day.

On Wednesday, I was definitely sick. I felt a little better than the day before, but I was still taking lots of medicine to help me feel better. I tried my very best at the workout, but since I was feeling off, I didn’t do nearly as much as I normally can do. But as my dad always says, it’s all about being consistent in working out, not always having the best workout ever. So by going while I was sick, I was making sure I stayed consistent.

Another fun thing that happened on Wednesday was I got some workout gloves. My workout friend, Sarah, has been using them for a while and loves them. And since I’ve been getting some blisters on my hands from the weights, rowing, and TRX work; I figured I should get some gloves too. They were a little weird to use at first, but I quickly got used to them. And they do make a big difference in how strongly I can grip during my workouts. I’m hoping when I’m feeling better that with this better grip I can use some heavier weights.

Friday was my last workout of the week. Since the Nike ID Challenge was officially over then, I had to go in a bit early to have all of my challenge tasks to be verified. I came prepared with my checklist that I made.

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Everything was fine, so I know for sure now that I am one of the winners and I’ll be getting my free shoes! I can’t wait until we get to design them so I can see what they look like.

Friday’s workout was very similar to Wednesday’s. It turns out the worst day of my cold was Thursday, so by Friday I was finally starting to feel a bit better. But even though I was getting better, I still was coughing a lot and having trouble breathing through my nose. So I tried to take it easy. It’s not simple to do that when I’m really trying to push myself, but I tried. It was a run/row day and I tried to take a little break between the run segments and the row segments (instead of racing from one to the other). After the workout, I was exhausted, but I was so glad that I went.

Now that the Nike ID Challenge is over, I have another challenge to look forward to. There will be a national weight loss challenge and there will be 1 winner out of all the Orangetheory locations participating (the last weight loss challenge was just for the location I go to). I’m totally going to enter the new challenge, but it’s going to be really tough when I can’t see my competitors in my workouts with me. But I know a lot of people at my Orangetheory are hoping that I’ll be able to place in the top 3 and I don’t want to let them down.

But until that challenge starts (I think it begins in a month), I’m just going to focus on getting over this cold and doing everything I can to end 2014 in the best shape I’ve been in for a long time.

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Default ThumbnailA New Challenge (or Who Wants To Come Workout With Me?) Default ThumbnailFirst Week of Workouts After The Challenge (or Weird Workout Times) Default ThumbnailChecking Things Off The List (or 4 Workouts In 1 Week) Default ThumbnailGetting Through My Workouts (or Sweating When I Can’t Breathe Through My Nose) Default ThumbnailGoing To The Limit (or How To Work Out With A Broken Shoe) Default ThumbnailGetting Through It Because Of My Workout Friends (or 3 Days In A Row)

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Posted in Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Shopping, Weight Loss

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Ending My Scale Hiatus (or That Will Be A One-Time Experiment)

Posted on December 19, 2014 | Comments Off on Ending My Scale Hiatus (or That Will Be A One-Time Experiment)

When I set the goal to not step on my scale during the Nike ID Challenge at Orangetheory, I knew it was going to be tough. I had no idea it would be as bad as it was.

At first, it wasn’t that horrible. Because weighing myself first thing in the morning is a habit, it did seem weird the first few mornings not getting on the scale. It felt like I was forgetting to do something while getting ready for my day.

It helped that part of this challenge happened over Thanksgiving. I’m used to not weighing myself when I’m out-of-town (although I have traveled with my scale in the past). While I was in San Diego, I didn’t miss weighing myself.

But as soon as I got home from Thanksgiving, it got really bad. I wanted to weigh myself to see how “good” I was over Thanksgiving. I use the scale as a reality check when in my head I feel like I gained 10 pounds from one meal. I don’t know when or if I’ll ever stop having that fear. But the scale is a good way to look at the numbers in black and white and take the emotion out of it.

But I wasn’t able to get that fear out of my head. I thought about ending my no-scale challenge, but I really wanted to prove to myself that I was able to do it.

After Thanksgiving, not weighing myself in the mornings was causing me to have some mini panic attacks. They weren’t as bad as they can get, but I was feeling anxious and uneasy for a while in the mornings.

Then, this past weekend when my challenge was almost over, I had a massive panic attack. I have no idea if the no-scale challenge caused it, but it’s possible. It was one of the panic attacks where I sweat like crazy, my vision is blurry and blacks out a little, and I ended up passing out (fortunately, I know that sometimes I pass out so I was waiting out the panic attack on my bed so I didn’t get hurt). I passed out for a few minutes and when I came to, I was feeling a bit better. I was able to breathe normally again and I continued on with my day.

Finally, yesterday my challenge ended. I did lose a little weight over the past month, but it wasn’t more than I usually lose in a month. Not stepping on the scale didn’t help me lose weight nor did it make me happy. So this is the end of that challenge, and I have no plan on ever doing it again.

I’m not sure if I will weigh myself every day like I used to. But if I do, I’m totally ok with that. If stepping on the scale every day helps me stay calm and not have to deal with panic attacks, it’s worth it. And while many people might disagree with my decision because you really should only weigh yourself once a week, I’m finding out what works for me. And I’m finally ok with the fact that sometimes things that don’t work for anyone else really do work for me and don’t harm me in any way.

But I am proud of myself that I was able to stick with this challenge and prove to myself that while it wasn’t fun, it can be done.

 

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Default ThumbnailAttempting To Go Scale-Free (or A Personal Challenge) Default ThumbnailReplacing My Scale (or Somehow It Wasn’t A Big Deal To Me This Time) Default ThumbnailMy Love/Hate Relationship with the Scale (or Can I Drop Kick a Scale without Hurting Myself?) Default ThumbnailGetting Weighed In (or A New Orangetheory Challenge) Default ThumbnailMeasuring My Success (or I Really Shouldn’t Have Stepped On The Scale) Default ThumbnailChallenge Winners (or OK Being A Loser)

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Podcasts and Twitter (or An Evening Out With Some Actors)

Posted on December 18, 2014 | 1 comment

Monday evening was a pretty fun evening for me. I had done my workout in the morning so I would be free for the festivities.

First, there was a gathering for fans of the podcast that I work for. Also, some of us on the team of the podcast attended. It was a casual get-together at Chipotle. I got there a bit early and met up with the community manager and one of the hosts of the podcast.

It was a nice catch-up for us and I’m always happy to go out and get some Chipotle. Soon, some of our listeners showed up to hang out with us and meet the team in person.

I love getting to meet new people who are as motivated as I am to work in the entertainment industry. There are so many people out there who aren’t working hard for themselves and are waiting for their agents and managers to do everything for them. I’m not like that and it’s so great to find others like me.

After dinner at Chipotle, we walked a few blocks down the street to where the LA Actors Tweetup was happening. On the way, we passed a step and repeat for some event that Netflix was doing. There wasn’t anyone there, so we took the opportunity to take a photo or two.

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We got to the Tweetup just as it was starting. I hadn’t been to a Tweetup in a while. They are either on nights that I have other things to do or I’ve been out-of-town. But since we were doing the podcast hangout before the Tweetup, I made sure to clear my schedule.

I got to see some friends who I hadn’t seen in a while and meet a bunch of cool new people. But around 9pm, I was exhausted. I had gotten up at 6am and I didn’t know it at the time but I was getting sick (as soon as I got home that evening my nose was completely stuffed up). So I made my rounds of goodbyes, which always takes forever, and headed back home.

It’s always so great to meet people who support the same things that you do or support the projects that you are a part of. I really should make more of an effort to attend more Tweetups and similar events. For a while, I didn’t want to change up my workout schedule because I was scared that it would be a sign that I would stop going. But now I’m feeling more comfortable shifting my workouts as long as I’m still getting my 3-4 workouts in during the week.

Again, this is all a great sign that I’m transforming into a better person.

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Default ThumbnailAnother IAP Hangout (or The Entire Team In One Place) Default ThumbnailCelebrating 200 Episodes Of The Podcast (or Come and Celebrate With Me!) Default ThumbnailTweetup Time (or Back To Acting) Default ThumbnailAnother Actor Night (Tweetup And Inside Acting) Default ThumbnailSeeing Actors Supporting Actors (or An Awesome Union Working Project) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Find Ways To Be Creative (or Podcasts and Online Shows)

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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