Monthly Archives: February 2016

Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

Posted on February 29, 2016 | Comments Off on Workout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness)

I really had a great week of workouts this past week. I was very nervous that I’d have a bad week (more on that in a bit), but it ended up pretty good and I think that I could not have improved on it.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday morning. I got home late on Monday night from Sacramento and had my WIF meeting on Tuesday afternoon. So my only workout time option was 7:30am on Tuesday. I’m not the biggest fan of those early mornings, but they’ve become much more tolerable as I’ve done more. Bruce (who is usually my coach on Fridays) was my coach that morning and he saw me in the lobby while he was wrapping up the 6:30am class. I think he was pretty shocked to see me since he usually only sees me in the afternoon.

Tuesday Morning With Bruce

I was super happy to see that Tuesday’s class was a run/row day! That means less time on the treadmill for me so I try to do speed training. Most of my treadmill segments were at 3.5 miles an hour, but I did do some bits at 3.6 miles an hour and it didn’t feel as difficult as it did the week before! So that’s some good improvement for me. And the rowing was 200 meter sprints, so I was able to really push myself on those without getting too tired.

Even though I was pushing myself a lot in class, my heart rate stayed pretty low. I’m thinking it was a false reading because I was really out of breath in class and felt like I was pushing myself as much as I normally do. Maybe it was low because I was tired or something, so I didn’t let the low heart rate affect me too much.

Wednesday was another fun class because it was my Wednesday coach JZ’s birthday class! Technically her birthday was later in the week, but it was the Wednesday class closest to her birthday so that counts too. The treadmill section of class was a solid block (so 30 minutes without the breaks on the floor) and it was full of push paces. It almost felt like almost every part of the treadmill time was a push or all out with very limited base paces between them. Most of the push paces were 1 or 2 minutes so they were a bit long but not too long. I was able to maintain my regular push pace of 3.5 miles an hour (which isn’t easy on the long treadmill days). But with all those push paces (and the incline associated with them), my hips were hurting me pretty badly by the time we got to the floor.

I’m not sure if the treadmill time was too tough on me or I was just having an off day, but I was having some serious issues with my balance on the floor. I was trying to do my best, but I was spending a significant time trying to balance myself and not doing the workout. I was able to do at least one round of everything on the floor, but I can usually do at least 2 rounds.

After the class, of course we had to take a birthday photo with JZ!

Happy Birthday JZ!

My last workout of the week was on Friday (I only did 3 workouts this week). It was a switch day, but the switching between blocks wasn’t the way we usually do them. For me starting on the treadmill my blocks went treadmill, row, treadmill, floor, treadmill, and finishing on the floor. The treadmill rows were pretty tough with long push paces including a 3 minute push pace (which is the longest we do). That 3 minutes seems to take forever, but I was able to get through it and didn’t hurt too much. And for the brief all outs we had to do, I was able to do 3.6 miles an hour even after the really long push pace.

My legs were feeling wobbly after the treadmill blocks, so I was a bit careful on the floor blocks. We were supposed to do running man and plank jacks on the Bosu for one of the blocks, but I knew that it would be too much for me. But I was able to do them without modifications on the floor. There was a time that I couldn’t do either move at full speed, so to know that I’ve improved enough to not need modifications for the basic move made me feel really proud of myself.

This coming week will either be a 3 workout or 4 workout week (I’m still trying to decide if I’ll go on Saturday). But I’m happy that I’ve been pushing myself more and more each week because I’m really starting to see some big improvements in my workouts, strength, and endurance. Even if I’m not losing weight right now, improvements are signs of progress and that’s really what I want!

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Default ThumbnailAn Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body) Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running And Hills (or Back To A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailA Short Workout Week (or I Would Have Ended On A High Note) Default ThumbnailA Planned 3 Workout Week (or Medication and Workouts) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Workout Wins (Or 3 Days Of Awesomeness)

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Lack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week)

Posted on February 26, 2016 | Comments Off on Lack Of Planning (or No Home Cooking This Week)

After doing so well with cooking recently, this past week was a serious let down for me. I had ever intention of trying to do some real cooking this week, but that never happened.

Part of it is due to my schedule. I got back late on Monday night from my trip. And while I did go to the grocery store, I wasn’t going to cook at 9pm for the week. Tuesday after work I had my WIF meeting. Wednesday after work was my workout. And while I could have cooked after getting home from my workout, I wasn’t feeling up for cooking after taking over an hour to get home. Thursday I had a friend at my house after work and I didn’t want to be rude and cook while they were here. And tonight I’m supposed to be meeting a friend for dinner. It’s just not my week to have free time after work to prepare and cook meals.

I guess there were little places in my schedule that I could have cooked, but I don’t think I’m really the person to cook a meal that I don’t need to eat that night and to use all of it as leftovers. I’m still easing my way back into cooking and I think knowing that what I’m making is going to be my meal is more normal to me than just cooking and storing everything immediately. When I cook, I do get hungry (even if I just ate). So knowing that I will be eating that meal when it’s done is a way to stop the cravings to want to snack while I’m cooking.

Just because I’m not cooking doesn’t mean I’m eating like crap. I’m doing my lazy version of cooking with the easy to prepare things that I bought at the grocery store on Monday night. These aren’t the most balanced meals and I’m sure I could do better, but sometimes I need something easy like a waffle with peanut butter and a banana so I don’t get really hungry and order delivery food (which is almost never the good option). I’m finding better things to keep in my house to use as easy meals so I don’t feel like there’s nothing in my house to eat. A lot of these things are frozen, but I think that frozen food doesn’t have to be bad food. Trader Joes sells lots of good frozen veggie options and I love their frozen prepared brown rice. Those plus a protein (like the frozen cowboy burgers) are great meals that I can put together in minutes.

I’m lucky that breakfast is pretty easy for me, and dinner is easy enough (but I know it could be better). The place that I’m struggling is lunch. I used to miss lunch a lot because I would get distracted by work and forget (never good before having an after work workout), but I have an app that alerts me to eat by 1pm now. So at least I’m not forgetting anymore. But I’m still struggling about what to eat because it needs to be easy enough to prepare because I don’t want to step away from work for too long but also needs to be easy to eat since I have to take bites between customers if someone calls or starts an online chat.

I’m working on meal planning (but not looking at bulk cooking as the plan) right now. I know that if I plan things out better, I can grocery shop better (and probably spend less money) and I won’t have the “what can I eat” feeling at mealtime. While I had a decent plan going last year on the cleanse, I think that it worked for me so well because the lack of variety. I need more variety than what I had then, but too much variety is too overwhelming and too expensive. The balance is tough to find, but I’m working on it.

I know this weekend will not be including cooking because I’ll be out-of-town again, but I’m hoping after getting back from that trip I can get back into my groove and continue to enjoy lots of healthy, delicious, and easy meals that I cooked myself.

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Default ThumbnailBaby Steps With Cooking (or I’m Cautiously Optimistic) Default ThumbnailForced To Do Some Cooking (or Making The Best Of Things) Default ThumbnailStill Figuring Out Meal Planning (or Will Food Ever Be Easy For Me?) Default ThumbnailDoing More Cooking (or Maybe It Does Save Time) Default ThumbnailHome Cooking (or Getting Into A Routine) Default ThumbnailHome Cooking (or Getting Used To Making What I Eat)

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The First Mentee Meeting Of The Year (or Catching Up On Life)

Posted on February 25, 2016 | Comments Off on The First Mentee Meeting Of The Year (or Catching Up On Life)

Even though we think that our official time as a mentoring circle is done, my fellow mentees and I have made plans to keep our meetings continue. We are hoping to stay on an every other month schedule, and we just had our first meeting this week.

I was a bit stressed out about this meeting because I was out-of-town until the day before. While my house wasn’t crazy dirty or anything, I really wanted to be able to clean before everyone arrived. And I had to figure out a time to get to the grocery store to get food for the group, but I had limited time. Fortunately, I had planned ahead and went to the grocery store late on Monday night after flying back home. And my job wasn’t too crazy on Tuesday, so I had some time to do quick bursts of cleaning between customers.

It ended up being another small meeting because some of the others ended up getting last minute conflicts (I’m working on planning future meetings better to hopefully prevent this so more of us can make it). But it is nice having a small group. The small gatherings always seem more like a hangout and less official, but that can be nice from time to time and I think that has allowed me to become really great friends with my fellow mentees.

Of those of us at the meeting, most of us said that we didn’t really have much of an update to share. I was one of those people. In the past 2 months, I really haven’t done a ton for my acting career. I did complete my UCB class and got new headshots, but beyond that I haven’t really done much. I’m still self-submitting for acting parts and I’ve got a couple of things that may be in the works soon, but that’s not really an update. I did end up sharing some of the things that are hopefully going to be in the works and got some great advice on them. But the main part of the advice was I couldn’t do anything until things are progressing.

But even with non-updates, I love hearing what everyone else is doing. I think all of us think at a time that everyone else is further along in their career than them, but it’s nice to see that that’s not the truth. Everyone has leaps at their own pace so there’s no real way to tell who is further in their career than others unless there’s something very concrete to compare to. It’s great to hear what people in other creative jobs other than actors are doing to get ahead in their careers and to learn more about that particular job path. The better educated I am in all aspects of the entertainment industry, the better in my mind.

With the non-updates, we spend most of the time just chatting about random fun stuff. We talked about travel, workouts, dogs, classes, and living in LA. It was a great evening to center myself after a crazy weekend and to help get my mind and career back on track. It was a reminder that even if you haven’t done anything for your career in months, you still have wonderful things to update people about and you shouldn’t discount what you have to say or share. And it was a great night getting to know my friends better and to realize that even though the mentoring circle ended officially, it’s just beginning for real.

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Default ThumbnailMeeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority) Default ThumbnailEnd Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch) Default ThumbnailLast Official Mentee Meeting (or Planning For 2016) Default ThumbnailAnother Mentee Meeting (or Beach Brunch) Default ThumbnailEvil Twin Brunch (or Catching Up On Life) Default ThumbnailBack To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

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Girls Weekend (or Hanging Out With My Mom And Aunt)

Posted on February 24, 2016 | 2 comments

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, I think you know that I’m pretty close to my mom and to my Aunt Cindy. I love getting to hang out with them and we had a really great girls weekend 3 years ago when they came to LA to hang out with me for a few days. And this past weekend we got to have another amazing weekend hangout!

After dealing with a bunch of flight delays for my trip with my mom and sister-in-law last year, I got some credit to use on Southwest for a future trip. I thought maybe I’d use it for a trip to Tahoe or something else, but I realized that the one year mark of getting that credit was coming up and I was going to lose the credit. So my mom and I decided that we would go to Sacramento (I flew she drove) where my Aunt Cindy lives to hang out with her! I haven’t really spent a ton of time in the Sacramento area except when I’m there for Thanksgiving. But then I’m usually hanging out at my aunt and uncle’s house and not really exploring the area too much. So I was super excited for this trip!

I flew out after work on Saturday. This was my first time flying while taking Vyvanse and I was so nervous that I would have a horrible panic attack on the plane. But I’m happy to share that just like at the dentist, I did surprisingly well on the plane! I even got to enjoy the view a bit. It was awesome seeing snow out the window since we’ve been dealing with such a horrible drought the past few years.

Snow From The Sky

Once I landed, my mom picked me up and we went to check into our hotel. All we did there was drop off our bags and then we headed straight to my aunt and uncle’s house. It was so awesome to be there again, it had been several years since we had Thanksgiving there. My uncle was spending time with a friend of his while my mom and I were there, so we all went out to dinner to work on planning out our next day. Dinner was fun (we went out for Chinese food), but I was excited for our full day the next day.

On Sunday, my aunt came over to our hotel and we were off on our adventure. Our first stop was the Folsom Zoo. My aunt is a volunteer there so she led us on an amazing tour!

Folsom Zoo

I know some people don’t love zoos and I’ve had some thoughts about them after seeing the movie “Blackfish”. But the Folsom Zoo is actually an animal sanctuary. The animals there were illegal pets, animals that were hurt and couldn’t go back into the wild, or donated after someone could no longer care for them. They don’t buy or sell animals and they don’t have a breeding program to increase their animal population. So I had no concerns with seeing the animals there.

We saw a ton of different animals at the zoo including monkeys, bears, tigers, wolves, horses, pigs, snakes, birds, and chickens.

Monkeys Bear Chicken

The animal we saw the most were peacocks. They were all over the zoo and since they technically aren’t zoo animals, they run free all over the property.

Peacock

The zoo is pretty small, so we were there for about an hour before heading out to our next adventure: the Folsom Prison Museum.

This might seem like a weird adventure to go on (especially since it’s located right next to the prison), but it was a really good little museum. The man working there was a guard at the prison and he had a lot of interesting stories to share. We got to see a video about how the prison was built and the architectural history behind it. The museum also had some artifacts from the early days of the prison and a section dedicated to Johnny Cash.

We had a minor moment of panic when we were inside the museum and heard a siren go off, but it was a signal that it was noon and not anything scary. As we left we saw people heading into the prison for visiting hours, but it was cool to see it after learning so much about its construction.

Folsom Prison

Our next stop was downtown Folsom. We got a quick lunch at a pizza place and then walked a few blocks to the old Folsom Powerhouse. The Powerhouse is a state historic park and there was a very nice museum that we walked through first that explained the history of the powerhouse and the history of having electrical power in the state.

After the museum we headed down a short path to see the old powerhouse.

Folsom Powerhouse

There was a really knowledgeable guide inside the powerhouse who told us all about how it worked, showed us some historic pictures, and even showed us a beaver that was living under the powerhouse that you could see through a grate in the floor. We were also able to walk down to the lower powerhouse (it’s not always open). While walking around, we were so grateful that we lucked out on the weather and it was a gorgeous day!

Gorgeous Day

Our next stop was supposed to be the Folsom Museum, but they were closing early that day and we only had a few minutes to walk quickly through everything before they closed.

Since we weren’t spending time at the Folsom Museum, we decided to do some walking around and checking out the stores. My mom found something really cool to get my grandma for Mother’s Day and I found something that I’m going to give Rayshell for her wedding (I can’t post it on here yet because I know she reads my blog!). There was also a store that had some really cool decorative things made out of old silverware. I really liked them, but they were a bit pricy. I have no idea if I could do it myself, but I think if I found some awesome cheap silverware I might try it.

Crafty

After all that walking around and exploring, we headed back to the hotel to rest a little bit and then headed out for a quick casual dinner to end our girls weekend. It was a super full day and I had a great time, but I wish that I had a bit more time to spend with my aunt. But overall, it was an awesome Sacramento adventure.

On Monday, my mom and I were originally going to try to go to the Walt Disney Museum (my brother and sister-in-law gave me tickets for Hanukkah), but timing things out with rush hours and my flight home (which was out of San Jose) wasn’t going to work out. So we just drove straight to Saratoga so I could hang out with my dog and my dad.

We didn’t do anything too fancy when I was hanging out in Saratoga. I hadn’t been home in 2 years (since the first time I met Tucker), so there were a bunch of cool new things my parents wanted to show me in the house. We also took Tucker to the dog park (his favorite place!) and for a couple of walks. He’s gotten bigger since I saw him at Thanksgiving and he’s calmed down a bit too!

Tucker

Before I knew it, it was time to go to the airport to fly back home. I had another relatively calm flight and was home in time to get a good night sleep to get ready for the week.

I really had the best weekend with my mom and aunt. We’ve joked that in 3 years we’ll have to figure out another adventure to do together, but I really hope that we are able to do something together as a group sooner than that. We do such fun adventures/trips together and I can’t wait to see what we plan on doing next!

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Default ThumbnailA Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much) Default ThumbnailA Weekend With My Mom (or An Adventure In Palm Springs) Default ThumbnailSan Diego Day (or Hanging Out With Family On My Day Off) Default ThumbnailFamily Weekend (or Hanging Out With The Dog) Default ThumbnailSpa Time (or A Relaxing Day With My Mom And Sister-In-Law) Default ThumbnailA Tahoe Weekend (or Let It Snow!)

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Staying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

Posted on February 23, 2016 | Comments Off on Staying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?)

In my effort to do more fun adventures this year, I may have overdone things lately. There are a bunch of things back to back in my schedule and it’s starting to stress me out a bit. But I know my schedule calms down soon so I’m just trying to focus on getting through things.

My schedule craziness has a lot of factors in it. I’m currently doing the Orangetheory Weight Loss Challenge. While the weight loss challenge isn’t too crazy, one of the requirements made my schedule a bit weird lately. You have to do 3 workouts a week, but the weeks are from Friday-Thursday. So when I did a workout on a Thursday instead of a Friday recently, I had to make up an extra workout on a day that I don’t usually go on. While that alone didn’t make my schedule crazy, it did eliminate a free afternoon that I’m used to having and that threw things off a bit.

I’ve also just spent the weekend out-of-town. I went to Sacramento with my mom and my aunt (recap to come tomorrow) and being out-of-town for about 2 1/2 days changed when I would have time to do things about in my life. I had to rearrange when I could do errands that I typically do on the weekends. I had to figure out a new time to clean, do laundry, and do grocery shopping. With most of my afternoons the week leading up to the trip busy with workouts, I had to figure out when I had little breaks in my day (typically before 9am) when I could do things. It’s not horrible to have to schedule like this, but when things are a bit different they can be stressful for me and make me feel a bit too anxious.

I’m also going out-of-town this weekend. This time it will be to San Diego for Rayshell’s bachelorette party. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, but again it’s requiring me to do some crazy scheduling. The party is from Friday evening until Sunday. Fortunately, I got that Saturday off of work so I could drive late on Friday night (after my workout) or early on Saturday morning without having to worry about working until 11am. And while some people will be hanging out there for a good chunk of Sunday morning, I will need to be back in LA by noon on Sunday because it’s Oscar Sunday! I made a really simple costume for the party so I don’t need much time to get ready, but I still need to get back to LA, get ready for the party, and I’d like to do laundry then too. I have the option of driving back late on Saturday night and I’m still debating about doing that. I think I might not know what I want to do until I do it.

Besides those two weekend trips (which I hadn’t planned to be back to back but are), I’ve got some other fun adventures in the next few weeks. I’m going to see my WIF mentees soon, I’ve got another bonus show at the Pantages that I just got tickets for, and some of my friends and I are trying to figure out a time to go whale watching together.

These are all super fun things coming up. And I’d love it if I could get used to schedules like this. I think it could be really good for me to have more social time and less alone time at home. I love my alone time to read or watch TV, but I might do better with less of that. I’m already alone most of the day working at home, so making my afternoons, evenings, and weekends more social helps to balance things out. I think that I might have jumped into making myself busier with both feet instead of easing into it and I’m a bit overwhelmed right now.

Despite my stress, I’m really excited about every event I’ve got in the next few weeks. I do plan out my blog posts and I love that my upcoming schedule is pretty full with fun posts and less boring ones (like this one). I hope that you enjoy reading about all of my upcoming adventures and hopefully these next few weeks for me go by without too much more stress added to it.

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Default ThumbnailA Bit Over-Scheduled (or Starting To Stress Out) Default ThumbnailTrying To Avoid Holiday Burnout (or Staying Home For Self-Care) Default ThumbnailSocial Days Off (or Finally Seeing Some Friends) Default ThumbnailTrying To Stay Calm (or Not Letting Panic Take Over) Default ThumbnailTrying To Go With The Flow (or Staying Calm And Remembering To Breathe) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out)

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New Challenges In My Workouts (or Breaking Some Of My Own Rules)

Posted on February 22, 2016 | Comments Off on New Challenges In My Workouts (or Breaking Some Of My Own Rules)

I had a full and challenging week of workouts last week. Not only was it a 4 workout week, I did 3 workouts in a row! That’s a double whammy in my mind! But even with the possibility of things being really tough for me, it wasn’t that bad of a week.

I did get off to a very odd start on Monday. I don’t know if I was too tired or just feeling out of it, but for the first time since I got them I forgot to wear my calf sleeves for my workout. I have no clue how I did this (my heart rate monitor lives under my calf sleeves so I had to move them out of the way to put on my heart rate monitor), but it happened.

The calf sleeves are good for helping my calf feel stronger, but they also help my shin splints so I was extremely nervous to work out without them. It was a 30 minute treadmill block and while I had a little pain, the treadmill wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected it to be. I did try to keep things a bit easier for me since I was so scared to injure myself, so I didn’t push myself too much with the incline or the speed. But it was worth going easy on myself if that is what kept me from getting hurt.

After the treadmill block, I tried to be tough on the floor work. I ended up going lighter than usual on the arm work, but I still tried to be kicking butt on everything else. We had some rowing on the floor blocks including a 250 meter row. And I was able to do my 250 meter row in 56 seconds! That’s not a personal best, but it was better than my goal time of a minute! The only downside on the floor work was when we had to be in a plank position and I did it on my toes (which I’ve been testing out doing instead of being on my knees). I didn’t think about doing it without the calf sleeves and I felt my calf muscle pull a bit. It wasn’t a painful pull, more of pressure, but it still scared me and I dropped immediately to my knees so I didn’t risk hurting myself.

All things considered, my workout without the calf sleeves wasn’t bad, but I don’t plan on repeating that mistake again anytime soon.

Forgot Calf Sleeves

Tuesday I was thinking that maybe I would be on the bike (to help break up my 3 workouts in a row), but then I saw that my friend Amanda was in class so I took a treadmill next to her. Everything was in 5 minute blocks and we did do switching between blocks so I was pretty happy. When we switch, I don’t hurt as much on the treadmill so I felt like it was a bit of an easier treadmill day. The last block of that day was a partner block, so Amanda and I got to work together. One person had to row 200 meters and the other person had to do squats the entire time. It wasn’t an easy block and I’m sure that Amanda was wishing that I would row faster so she could stop with the squats, but we got through it without too much trouble.

Wednesday we were back to not switching between blocks, but since we had a switch day the day before I was ok with that. We had a 3 minute push pace, which is still one of those big challenges for me. I was able to do it at 6% incline at 3.5 miles an hour, so I was pretty happy with myself. I’m starting to think that I’m almost ready to have my base pace back at 3.5 miles an hour. I might test that out another day when we have switching between blocks because it won’t be a solid 30 minutes at 3.5 miles an hour or faster. But since I’m able to do the longer pushes without too much trouble, it’s a really good sign. I also decided to test out my speed on my all out pace. When we had one, I decided to go a bit crazy (for me) and set the treadmill at 3.8 miles an hour. It was super tough for me and I know that I’m not ready to have the treadmill at that speed on a regular basis, but I got through it and it was a nice little challenge for me. After all that speed on the treadmill, my legs were feeling a bit weak by the time I got to the floor work. There were a ton of pushups that day, so even though my arms were so tired my legs got a break.

Friday should have been my day to be on the bike since I’ve decided that my 4th workout of the week will be on the bike to make sure that I don’t push myself too hard. But when I found out it would be a run/row day, I knew I wanted to be on the treadmill (it’s easier to transition quickly to and from the rower from the treadmill for me instead of the bike). I figured since it was a run/row day that it would be ok to push myself a bit more because the treadmill time would be a bit limited.

The treadmill segments were .125 and .15 miles and I was doing all of them at 3.5 miles an hour and 8% incline. That’s a high incline for me considering that the treadmill segments took me over 2 minutes each time. I typically only do 8% incline for all outs which are always a minute or less. But I was able to do all my treadmill segments like that (I just had to take a little break after each segment to catch my breath before moving on to the rower) and my rows were ok. I wasn’t pushing myself as much as I did earlier that week, but I was still doing my rows within the recommended times.

The floor work was a pretty good variety of moves. We had some lunges, arm work, ab work, squats, pushups, and leg work. I was able to do my lunges with one foot on the workout bench, but I wasn’t able to hold weights in my hands because I needed to keep balancing myself on the wall. I’m very unstable balancing on one leg, but I really want to get back to where I used to be with my balance. And the only way to do that is to push myself even when it’s not the most comfortable thing. I also pushed myself on the TRX straps. We had to do lunges to single leg squats, and I used to always do double leg squats instead. But on Friday, I decided that I was going to go slow and see if I could do the single leg squats. They weren’t pretty or fast and I had to use my other leg for balance, but I was able to do them for the first time! Again, I was pretty unstable and unbalanced, but the more I’m able to do these the better I’m going to get.

I felt like almost every workout this week was a different challenge for me, and I think that I succeeded in all of them. This week will be a bit easier for me, but now that I know some new limits that I can push myself to, I’m going to test them out if I can!

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Default ThumbnailSome Holiday Workouts (or Back On The Treadmill This Week) Default ThumbnailMore Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest) Default ThumbnailSwitching Things Up (or Challenging Workouts) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Normal Workouts (or Balancing Hard Work And Taking It Easy) Default ThumbnailWorking Through Physical Challenges (or Not Letting Feeling Bad Ruin My Workouts) Default ThumbnailTough Workouts (or Having Challenges Every Day)

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Still Cooking (or It’s Almost A Habit)

Posted on February 19, 2016 | 1 comment

I’m scared to be too excited about this, but I’m happy to report that I’m still doing a lot of cooking at home. I’m not doing this because I have to for a specific reason (like a diet plan or limiting food options). I’m doing this because I want to.

Most of my cooking is still pretty basic. It’s not as much of a lazy thing, it’s more because I don’t want to have to buy a ton of ingredients or risk a recipe coming out badly. Turkey burgers and sautéed veggies are still a staple for me. It’s super easy and fast to put together and while it isn’t the most flavorful meal it keeps me full. And when I’m getting home late after a workout, I really don’t want to have to spend a long time putting together food.

But when I do have the time, I’m testing more and more recipes so I can have more things that are easy enough to put together and are very tasty. So many cookbooks seem to have dozens of ingredients (and things that I don’t always keep in my house), so I’ve been doing a lot of searching online for recipes that include a lot of what I already have (or something that I decided to pick up at the store that week).

This past weekend while doing my grocery shopping, I decided to pick up some ground beef. I honestly had no plan of what I would do with it, but I figured I could make meatballs or hamburgers or something. So I did some searching online for fun ground beef recipes and what came up most often was meatloaf. I’ve made meatloaf before and it didn’t come out so great because the outside was overcooked and the inside was undercooked. But then I started to do a search for meatloaf muffins and found enough basic recipes to put something together myself.

I made meatloaf (made pretty simply with a pound of ground beef and added a minced onion, diced a red pepper, added some ketchup (about 4 tbs), some Worcestershire sauce (about 1 tbs), a cup of bread crumbs, an egg, and some salt and pepper) and mixed it up pretty well. Then I took a disposable cupcake tin and divided the mixture into 6 portions. I baked it for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees (I waited until a meat thermometer got to 160 degrees in the middle of one of the muffins) and they looked pretty amazing. I also made smashed potatoes (I microwaved baby potatoes until they were soft, smushed them onto a baking sheet, and baked them with some garlic olive oil while the meatloaf baked) and my food looked pretty incredible.

More Home Cooking

Between the prep time, the baking time, and the time to let things cool down so I could serve myself; it was only about an hour from start to finish (and I was able to do all the dishes while the food was cooking). That’s not bad at all and the food tasted pretty great! The potatoes could have used a bit more olive oil on them (and maybe some actual garlic on them too) and the meatloaf had a bit too much Worcestershire in it, but overall I was pretty happy. And I know the next time I make the meatloaf I’ll add some more veggies in the mix because you couldn’t tell they were in there at all. Maybe I’ll add some mushrooms, carrots, and zucchini since I usually have those in my fridge anyway. And the recipe is pretty easy to double, so I can always make even more and freeze them so I have easy microwave meals on days I’m too tired to cook (instead of having limited time to eat leftovers in the fridge).

I’m seriously proud of myself for cooking when there isn’t a specify reason I have to. This is the start of making cooking more of a habit for me. And I know that this habit has started and stopped for me a couple of times in the past, but this time things are different. I’m not trying to be trendy (by following a specific plan or tying to bulk cook). Those trendy cooking things work for so many people but I guess it doesn’t help me. I just need to cook when I feel like it, allow myself to have easy meals on nights that I don’t, and to have enough variety to not get sick of what I’ve made and want to go and order delivery food instead.

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Default ThumbnailStill Having Some Cooking Fails (or Trying But Not Being Perfect) Default ThumbnailFirst Time Bulk Cooking (or Making My Kitchen Smell Yummy!) Default ThumbnailI’m A Lazy Cook (or I’m a Fake Vegetarian) Default ThumbnailCooking At Hipcooks (or Remembering Cooking Doesn’t Have To Be Hard) Default ThumbnailCooking Routine (or Adding Flavor) Default ThumbnailDoing More Cooking (or Maybe It Does Save Time)

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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Replacing My Scale (or Somehow It Wasn’t A Big Deal To Me This Time)

Posted on February 18, 2016 | Comments Off on Replacing My Scale (or Somehow It Wasn’t A Big Deal To Me This Time)

I’ve seriously had a love/hate relationship with the scale. I refuse to look at any scale other than my own because I know that the scale might not be calibrated correctly and I’m not being weighed in the condition that I always weigh myself in (which is first thing in the morning after going to the bathroom and before I eat or drink anything). If I have to get weighed in somewhere (like at the doctor or for an Orangetheory challenge), I do blind weight where I step on the scale backwards and don’t find out what it says.

I’ve had panic attacks related to my scale. If I have to replace it, I feel like all the effort I had previously put into my weight loss is worthless because the new scale might weigh me differently than the old one. I’m aware how crazy that sounds, but panic attacks aren’t rational and that’s really what my crazy brain thinks. So I’ve gone months in the past without a working scale (which doesn’t help my panic attacks either because I’m terrified I’ve gained a ton of weight and don’t know it), or I search high and low for the exact same scale I previously owned thinking that somehow that would make a difference.

I don’t know when this issue with the scale started, but it’s been like this for a very long time. So when my scale was acting weird I got really nervous. I would step on the scale and a variety of error messages came up. But since it would eventually zero out I thought I could weigh myself. But I would get such an extreme range of weights from the scale. It could start at 375 pounds and then go down to 17 pounds and everything in between. So I knew that something wasn’t right and it needed to be fixed.

First, I changed out the batteries thinking that it would fix the issue. But even with the new batteries I had the exact same error messages (mainly it was an overload message which shouldn’t have happened because the scale is good up to 400 pounds and I’m not near that weight at all). So since the new batteries didn’t work, I immediately went on the search for a new scale and was scared that it would take a long time to be ok with a new one.

I’m shocked that I went onto Amazon, found a scale with decent ratings, and felt totally ok ordering it right then and there. Because of Amazon Prime the new scale was at my doorstep early the next morning and the old scale went immediately into the trash.

New Scale

As soon as the new scale was set up (I’m happy that it came with batteries so I didn’t have to buy them), I stepped on it. I weighed 4 pounds more than I did on my old scale, but that’s ok. That is my new current weight and as long as this scale keeps working that will be the weight that I will be working with.

It was as simple as that. No panic attacks (although I was mad that my scale broke and the company had gone out of business so I couldn’t get a replacement or any help) and I’m fine with the new scale. I don’t know what changed in my life to make this so much easier than all the other times I’ve had to do it in the past. I still plan on doing blind weights when I’m not at home, but I know that doing that will keep me from worrying what the scale says at other places or under other conditions. I wish that so many other things that cause me panic attacks or anxiety could go away for no reason like this did. So many things would be so much easier if that happened, but I know that it’s a bit of an unrealistic dream.

I’ve got a few other things coming up that have always caused me panic that I haven’t had to deal with recently (more on that in another post) and I’m cautiously optimistic that somehow they will be easier for me now. I had that experience at the dentist recently and there really is no reason for it. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the Vyvanse dose I’m taking. It’s supposed to make my panic/anxiety disorder worse, but maybe it’s making it better?

I can only hope that that’s true.

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Default ThumbnailAttempting To Go Scale-Free (or A Personal Challenge) Default ThumbnailEnding My Scale Hiatus (or That Will Be A One-Time Experiment) Default ThumbnailMy Love/Hate Relationship with the Scale (or Can I Drop Kick a Scale without Hurting Myself?) Default ThumbnailMeasuring My Success (or I Really Shouldn’t Have Stepped On The Scale) Default ThumbnailReality TV (or How Losing 200 Pounds Can Be Something That Is Booed) Default ThumbnailGetting Weighed In (or A New Orangetheory Challenge)

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

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Marathon Viewings (or Olympic Trials and Workout Friends)

Posted on February 17, 2016 | 2 comments

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, the main reason my friend Kate came to visit was to watch the Olympic marathon trials. To be honest, until Kate had mentioned she wanted to come to town for the trials, I had no clue that they were happening now nor that they were happening in LA. So I’m grateful that Kate was coming to watch them because I learned about them too!

The Olympic trials took place in downtown LA (they had to do a bunch of laps on the course to complete the marathon), and since I had to work in the morning Kate took the light rail there and told me where she was so I could meet her later. Fortunately for Kate, the course was only about a block away from the train station, so it was pretty easy for her to get there. She gave me a heads up where she was watching and as soon as I was done with work I got in my car to try to join her.

It wasn’t easy to try to get to the course. A couple of streets were closed, there were lots of confused drivers, and it didn’t help that the LA Marathon packet pickup was taking place in the same area at the same time so there were even more people getting stuck on the roads. I thought that I’d have to either keep circling the area or stay in my car when I was parked in a semi-legal spot. But after parking in a questionably legal parking space and sitting in my car, I saw someone move a cone blocking a street so he could get onto the street (it was a street a block away from the course). I found a parking spot at a meter and the meter had already been paid for! So I parked my car and walked over to meet Kate.

By the time I had gotten to the course, the top finishing men had already passed by for the final time. So I never got to see them, but there were still lots of men working on finishing the course (it wasn’t easy in the heat so many runners either had to go slow or were at risk of passing out). But I was there with plenty of time to see the top women come by one more time. Kate had a runner that she was rooting for and had seen online that she wasn’t in the top 3 (only the top 3 get to go to the Olympics), but we were still excited to see her.

While I have no desire to ever do a marathon, it was still pretty awesome to see these amazing athletes running by me. And when the top 3 women came by, the entire crowd was shouting and cheering for them. It was so cool to be there to witness that. And the woman who Kate was rooting for was in 4th and the crowd was just as excited to see her go by as they were for the top 3.

Olympic Trials

We left a little bit after watching the leaders run by since Kate had to get to LAX for her flight home. I was able to watch the marathon trials for about an hour. And while I did wish that I had the chance to be there longer, I’m grateful that I was able to watch even a little bit.

The next day was the LA Marathon. I had gone out to the course in the past to cheer on the marathoners and was planning on doing the same thing again. I had a couple of friends running and I asked them all to tell me their average mile time so I could try to get out to the course in time to see them go by.

It was much easier to get to the course than the Olympic trials course, but it was still a bit difficult to park. I found parking after about 20 minutes, but sadly I missed the first person that I wanted to see running by at mile 19. But I still had a few other friends to be on the lookout for. So I double checked their posts on social media so I could see what they were wearing (it makes it easier to find them when I know what outfits to look for).

While I was waiting to see my friends come by, I cheered on the other marathoners. It was another hot day and the runners were having a tough time. I know that every person who was racing earned every mile that they went and some of them had to battle for every step. But even in the heat, so many people were still running with a smile. And of course, there were some pretty awesome costumes too. With it being on Valentine’s Day, there were some Valentine themed costumes like Cupid or wearing all red. I even saw one guy wearing a full tuxedo. And then there were the fun costumes like Forrest Gump and someone in a Gumby outfit (they must have been dying in the heat inside of that thing!).

I kept checking my watch for the time because I knew approximately when my friends should be coming by. I was terrified that I missed seeing them all (sadly, I missed 3 of my friends but I think one of them might have been faster than they expected). But after being out on the course for a little over an hour, I finally saw some familiar faces!

LA Marathon Friends

Jonathan (who is the business manager of Orangetheory) and Jordan (aka The Balanced Blonde) were running together. This was Jordan’s first marathon and Jonathan was staying with her. I was so excited to see them come by me and I know that they both heard me cheering them on. They both looked pretty happy and were looking strong at mile 19 (which is amazing to me!).

I stuck around for a little bit longer looking for my other friends, but after realizing that they would have had to do their miles 4 minutes slower than expected to still be on the course, I realized that I missed the rest of them and went home.

Even though I never want to do a marathon, I love getting out to the course to cheer people on. It’s such a huge accomplishment and you never know if you cheering someone on will give them the encouragement to ignore the pain or negative thoughts in their head and help them keep going. I know that there have been people on the 5K courses who have been that person for me. So I just want to make sure that I pay it forward.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Year Of Marathon Watching (or We Tried Our Best) Default ThumbnailDoing Some Marathon Watching (or Helping Random Runners Power Up) Default ThumbnailBeing A Spectator (or Watching And Not Wanting To Do The Marathon) Default Thumbnail26.2 (or No Marathon For Me) Default ThumbnailBeing A Marathon Supporter (or Cheering On My Cheering Buddy) Default ThumbnailLA Marathon (or Cheering On My Friends)

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A Speedy Friend Visit (or Making The Most Of 24 Hours)

Posted on February 16, 2016 | 1 comment

When my friend Kate stayed with me the last time, she mentioned that she might be coming to town in February to watch the Olympic marathon trials. I set the date aside in my calendar and was really excited when Kate told me that she had booked her flights and that she wanted to stay at my place again. But because of her work and the varying costs of flights, Kate was only able to be here for 24 hours (almost exactly). So I was planning out how to make this the most awesome 24 hour visit ever!

Kate got here on Friday afternoon (which is why I couldn’t work out on Friday). I picked her up at LAX and I was super excited to see her. I miss having her live in LA, so even when her visits are super speedy it makes me so happy to have her in the same city as me. It’s funny that it’s such a big deal because since we graduated high school, we’ve lived in the same city for a very limited time. But since she moved to LA briefly I am even more excited when she comes back!

I had gotten an email from the SAG-AFTRA Film Society earlier that week that there was going to be a screening of “Hail, Caesar!” at the DGA that evening. So I asked Kate if she wanted to go to that and she did. It was actually her first time going to a screening with me (for some reason we could never coordinate schedules with the screening schedules when she lived here). But this time it worked out pretty nicely so as soon as I had picked Kate up we headed over to the DGA.

Since the screening wasn’t until 6:30, we had some time to grab dinner before the movie. We walked across the street to The Counter (I love that place!) for burgers and some catch up time. Kate filled me in on her work and her cats and I filled her in on the craziness of everything and my workouts. We had to eat pretty quickly to make it to the screening, but it worked out fine.

I really enjoyed “Hail, Caesar!”! It was really funny and even though some of the jokes were very much about the entertainment industry, I think that enough of the movie isn’t insider stuff that everyone should be able to enjoy it. I was laughing quite a bit through the movie and I think that the entire cast was amazing!

After the screening, Kate and I walked over to the West Hollywood Orangetheory location. I don’t work out at that location, but I wanted to show it to Kate because there is a Orangetheory near where she lives and she’s thinking about checking it out. Even though the studio was closed, the manager (who I’ve met several times and he knows me) was there and he let us in. I showed Kate the various equipment inside and I chatted with the manager about the crazy workout from Thursday (where there was 22 minutes on the floor straight). We didn’t want to keep him there too long after hours, so Kate and I headed out and headed back to my house.

The next day was the main event that Kate came to town for: the Olympic trials. I’ll share more about this tomorrow but Kate went early in the morning and I was able to join her there after I was done with work. Even though I missed most of it, I got to see a little bit.

After we were done watching the racers, we headed over to my side of town to get some lunch at one of my favorite places, Lyfe Kitchen. Even though they have so many good things on their menu, I tend to get the same things each time. I love their BBQ chicken flatbread but instead of fries (since I had some the night before), I got a side of steam veggies with my food.

Lyfe Kitchen

After lunch we only had a little bit of time left before Kate needed to be back at LAX for her flight home, so we were trying to figure out what to do. We finally decided on doing a bit of random searching in the car for new wine bars. My favorite local wine bar, Bottle Rock, closed down right after the last time I was there so I was on the search for a new place. I knew that any new place I found wouldn’t be walking distance like Bottle Rock was, but I still wanted to see what other places were out there.

I had randomly seen a wine bar driving around a few weeks ago, so we headed over there first. Sadly, the place wasn’t open yet for the day. But we were able to see a menu online and it looked promising. After checking out that place, we did a search on Google Maps for other wine bars in the area and we set off on an adventure! We ended up checking out 2 other wine bars (one that looked good and one that didn’t) and then it was time to go to LAX.

Considering that this was all done in 24 hours, I think we succeeded in maximizing the limited time that Kate had in town. She kept saying that this wasn’t really a friend visit since she was coming here for the Olympic trials, but I lucked out because she was staying at my house. So I wanted to make sure that Kate had a fun time in LA and didn’t just feel like she was flying in, sleeping at my house, watching the Olympic trials, and flying out.

I’m just glad that Kate was just as up for going on as many adventures as we could like I was.

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Default ThumbnailA Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much) Default ThumbnailMarathon Viewings (or Olympic Trials and Workout Friends) Default ThumbnailOne More Outing To Bar Food (or A Friend Leaving LA) Default ThumbnailLast Happy Hour Of 2015 (or A Speedy Catch Up) Default ThumbnailLong Layover Visit (or Celebrating With My Mom In Person) Default Thumbnail3 Movies In 4 Days (or I’m Grateful For Free Screenings)

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