Monthly Archives: September 2016

Not Letting Stuff Define Me (or Controlling My Emotions)

Posted on September 16, 2016 | Comments Off on Not Letting Stuff Define Me (or Controlling My Emotions)

I’ve realized lately that I’ve been having some serious up and down swings in my emotions. I don’t like having such wild swings in my emotions because it really takes a lot of time and effort to calm down when I’m feeling depressed or anxious and when I’m super excited I crash really hard later. I’m not sure if this has been going on for a while and I didn’t notice it, or if it just started. But either way, I want to get some things under control.

I’ve been making some really great strides in my eating disorder recovery lately. The number of binge episodes per week has been down the past few weeks and I’m steadily losing weight. I’m finding new ways to distract myself when I’m having a tough time and I’ve added in extra physical activity into my day (yoga plus the extra running) which not only is a distraction but helps to balance out the calories on my bad days.

I’m really happy with the steps I’ve made and I know that the results are showing by the number on the scale and a few friends noticing as well. Seeing things going the right way is extra motivation for me to keep going and the momentum has been really nice. This wasn’t something that I set out to start, but it happened naturally and I think that is one of the reasons that it has been working well.

But then the other day I was doing a weigh-in for a fat loss challenge that is going on at Orangetheory. I know that I won’t be winning because it is tough to make drastic fat loss happen at the weight I’m at. But since it was free to enter the challenge, I figured why not go ahead and do it.

For the initial weigh-in, I told the person who was running the scale that I want to do blind weight. I do this for all doctors appointments and any time I have to weigh-in somewhere that is not my controlled environment. I know how crazy my weight can fluctuate through the day plus every scale is a little different. So I only weigh myself on my scale at home (which I do first thing in the morning) and I don’t look at the weight on any other scale.

The person running the scale looked at me like I was a bit crazy, but I explained that I’m working toward recovery from an eating disorder and this is how things are best for me. He covered up my weight but since I wanted to see what my fat percentage was he didn’t block that with his hand. It was a number that is lower than I know it has been in the past, but still higher than it should be.

When I did my second weigh-in this week (for the mid-point of the challenge), I did blind weight again. My fat percentage went up even though my weight and the pounds of fat I have went down. This is part of the issue with losing weight when you are as heavy as I am. You don’t always lose it the way you want to. I did lose some muscle as well (but that has to happen because the pounds of muscle I have now is not a number I can have at my goal weight) and that’s why the percentage went up.

Before I stepped on that scale, I was feeling pretty amazing about myself. After stepping on it, I was feeling miserable and like I wanted to go eat a bunch of crap food since I didn’t feel like my efforts were paying off. It made me feel like I’ve been wasting my time with all the work I’ve put in (which isn’t true in the least) and that I might as well not try.

It’s not just weight issues that are making me have such crazy swings in my emotions. Someone I respect said something pretty hurtful to me. I don’t think they meant to say it or put it the way that they did because they apologized soon after, but it still upset me. I was obsessed about thinking what I did to deserve it or why they wanted to say that to me. Even though they said they didn’t mean it, I still felt like what they said must have been the truth and that stuck in my head.

Unfortunately, having that happen to me did cause me to binge. It sucks, I feel awful, and I wish I could go in time to change it. But what’s done is done and now I’ve been working back toward where I was before and getting on track again. I know that setbacks are a part of recovery, but somehow they are easier to accept when I don’t know what causes them versus when something I can pinpoint triggers it.

I need to find a way to let go of having such strong reactions to things that may or may not be in my control. I can’t control what a scale other than mine might say or that my weight loss might not be happening in the most ideal way (which would be only losing fat but gaining or maintaining muscle). But I can control how I react to it and that’s what I’m trying to work on now. And hopefully whatever is making my emotions swing so much will be under control again soon and I’ll be back on track and kicking butt!

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Default ThumbnailMy Love/Hate Relationship with the Scale (or Can I Drop Kick a Scale without Hurting Myself?) Default ThumbnailAttempting To Go Scale-Free (or A Personal Challenge) Default ThumbnailNot What I Want To Weigh (or About A Month To Go) Default ThumbnailKeeping My Emotions In Check (or You Are Not Your Brain) Default ThumbnailNot Letting A Slip Up Be A Set Back (or I Splurged Again) Default ThumbnailHeat and Hormones (or Not Letting Cravings Take Over)

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Posted in Tough Stuff

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Anna Faris Is Unqualified (or Listening To A Live Event)

Posted on September 15, 2016 | Comments Off on Anna Faris Is Unqualified (or Listening To A Live Event)

I’ve written in the past that I’m a bit of a podcast junkie (currently, I listen to 39 different podcasts). I love podcasts and I also work for one. One of my favorites is Anna Faris Is Unqualified. If you aren’t listening to this yet, download it and I know you’ll love it! It’s so much fun and everyone on the show are always entertaining to listen to. Unqualified is one of the few podcasts that I listen to on the day that it is released and I’m sad it doesn’t have episodes more often.

A few weeks ago, they announced that they would be doing a live show for the podcast and the tickets were going to be a lottery system. Everyone applies to buy tickets by a certain date and then after that passes they select the winners and they are the ones who get to have the tickets. It’s actually a pretty great system because the scalpers can’t try to get all the tickets the second they go on sale. So I entered the ticket lottery, but since I rarely win anything I figured I wouldn’t get to go.

But then about a week ago I got the email that I won and got tickets! I was so shocked and excited! So this week my friend Erin and I went to Meltdown Comics (where the show was held) to check out Unqualified Live!

meltdown

We got there right before the doors were supposed to open and I’m glad we got there then because we were toward the beginning of the line and so many people showed up a few minutes after us. After we got checked in at the front, we all lined up in front of the Nerd Melt Showroom to wait to be let in. While we were waiting, I got to look around Meltdown a bit. I’m not a comic book person, but the store looked pretty cool and I think a ton of my friends would love going there.

comics

Once we got inside the room where the show was happening, Erin and I found some seats in the first row on the side. We were so excited to be sitting so close to stage and our great luck in getting amazing seats!

front-row

The show started with the theme song for the show being sung live by Josh Ostrander and that was really fun to experience (sorry, I didn’t get any photos of that). Then, Anna and her producer came out to start the show! And as soon as they sat down, I learned that maybe our super amazing seats weren’t as amazing as I had thought. Because this ended up being my view for a good chunk of the show.

sim-sarna

Fortunately for Erin, she was able to see just fine and I’m happy she was able to enjoy things. And it totally was my choice to sit there so I only have myself to blame.

And my view wasn’t totally ruined the entire time. When Anna brought up Allison Janney up on stage (Anna and Allison did a demonstration on how to slap another actor for a scene), they moved up toward the front of the stage so my view wasn’t as obstructed.

allison-janney

And then about after an hour I finally got the courage to tap the producer on the back to ask if he could possible move his chair back a bit so I could see. He looked so apologetic and moved his seat back so I could see the rest of the live show. I wasn’t expecting him to move his seat at all (he was busy working and making everything go smoothly), so I was so grateful that he went out of his way to make sure everyone in the audience was having a good time.

And even though I couldn’t see most of the show, that really didn’t ruin my experience. I’m used to listening to podcasts so not having a visual made it seem just like any other podcast I listen to. And just being in the room with all that creative energy made me so happy and I had the best time that night!

Toward the end of the show, Anna wanted everyone to stand up to hold hands (she ended up borrowing my hand sanitizer so she didn’t have gross hands while doing it). Because I was so close to the stage and everyone up there, I ended up holding hands with the producer and Erin and we had to stand on stage to reach. We both found it pretty funny that somehow we ended up on stage with the team for the podcast by the end of the night. It just was amazing.

After the show was done, I got to talk to some of the podcast team a bit (love talking with people who understand what it’s like to produce a podcast!) and then Erin and I got a chance to talk to Anna as well! I have to say, while all the celebrities I’ve met have been kind and generous people, Anna is on a totally different level with how wonderful she is! She was so patient taking photos and talking to everyone who wanted to meet her. She honestly was grateful for every person who got a ticket for her show. And she was just a delight to get to talk to. And of course, Erin and I had to get a picture with her.

anna-faris

While I’ve run live events for Inside Acting in the past, this has inspired me to do so much more with our next live event. Unqualified really did an amazing show and I only hope that our podcast is this much fun for our listeners as this was for me. It’s been a full day since seeing the live taping and I’m still on a high from the wonderful energy that was in the room and how much fun I had there!

I’m just hoping that they will have another live episode, I’ll be able to get tickets for it, and maybe then I’ll pick a different seat so I can experience the entire live event!

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff

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Another Universal Day (or Having Much More Fun)

Posted on September 14, 2016 | 2 comments

I’ll admit, my last trip to Universal Studios wasn’t the best time. I felt bad about being stopped by the “fat police” for days after it happened and it really upset me every time I thought about it. I know I’m probably making a bigger deal out of it than it was, but for me it was just humiliating and I never wanted to have an experience like that again.

After that trip to Universal, I did some research online and found out that for the accessible loading area for the Harry Potter ride they have a loading area that doesn’t have a moving walkway (which means I would have more time to get onto the ride). It reminded me of the accommodations Disney makes on Space Mountain so I kept that in mind for when I could go to Universal again.

I made it back to the park this past Monday and I’m happy to say that the day went so much better! I went with my friend June, but it turned out my friend Robert was going to be there too so we all got to hang out!

We started our day with taking the Tram Tour. Both Robert and I are ex-employees so we had a bunch of fun talking about our time working at Universal while on the tram tour. And I got to show him different places that I had to go for work while I worked there for Halloween. I got to share with him some crazy stories from my 3 years there and all of us enjoyed seeing the silly stuff on the tour. One of my favorites has always been Jaws and I got a pretty decent picture of the shark coming up to the tram (we were sitting in the first row of our car so it was tough to not get the tram railing in the photo).

jaws

And of course we got to go by my old workplace on the tram. Because Halloween Horror Nights is about to start, the Bates Motel was hard to see because of the HHN stuff that is already in place.

bates-motel

But the War Of The Worlds area (where I worked my second year at HHN) was still looking as great as ever!

war-of-the-worlds

After the tram, we were starting to get hungry so we walked over to the Harry Potter section and went to Three Broomsticks for lunch. Both June and Robert have been to the park a bunch so they both have been working their way through the menu at Three Broomsticks. They were able to share with me what was good and what was too filling to eat for a lunch if you are planning on still riding more rides.

While I am working on HDE, I also wanted to make a good choice for food. There were a couple of things that looked good to me, but I also knew that I didn’t want to feel too full and I might get a snack later. So I ended up getting the chicken salad (which was one of the cheapest things on the menu so that was nice) and I was pleasantly surprised by how giant the salad was!

lunch

It was really good, but not as filling as I would have liked. I ended up being hungry again sooner than I would have wanted to, but that’s not the worst thing. If I had planned things out better, I probably would have gotten a side of something with my salad. That will just have to be something I do next time.

After lunch, we headed over to the Harry Potter ride so I could hopefully have a better experience. Robert wasn’t going to ride it, but because of the alternative loading area he was able to wait where the load/unload area was (and he held our purses so we didn’t have to use the lockers). The alternative loading area was actually a fun adventure to get to and while the wait was probably longer than the regular wait, it was totally worth it! Oh, and I wasn’t stopped by the fat police so that was pretty awesome too!

The bench you ride on it brought over to the side where you can load. Nothing is moving around it and I was able to get into the seat easily without feeling rushed. June helped me pull the harness down and it locked easily. When the employee came over to check the harness, he asked me if it was too tight because I could loosen it 2 clicks and still have it low enough to be ok. I don’t know if I’ve gotten that much thinner or what happened to me last time was a weird experience, but obviously I am small enough to have harness options now. I did loosen it one click (we put it down really tight because that’s what they did last time to me). After we were all set in the bench, they handed us the 3D glasses and the bench moved over toward where the regular ride was.

When we moved over, we had to wait a minute or two for our bench to have a turn to go into the ride system. But while we were waiting we were able to see all the benches from the back that were on the ride track! Both June and I are total geeks about seeing how the rides work, so this was so exciting for us. Even when we started the ride we could see a bit of the track and arms controlling the benches before we got into the regular ride.

I seriously enjoyed this time on the ride so much more than last time! I know that last time I was feeling pretty upset the entire ride time and that made it tough to focus on the ride and have fun. This time, there was no stress and everything was just amazing for me! And when the ride was over, we got moved back over to the alternative loading area where I could take my time getting out of the bench (which I needed because my hip was locking). And after we were out of the ride, we were able to see a bit of the ride track for the regular loading area (which was behind us) and found out the loading area is actually 20 feet above the ground!

After that, Robert had to head out to get ready to work that night. But June and I were going to stick around a bit longer and headed over to watch Waterworld. It’s such a fun show to watch and I enjoy it every time! And we sat all the way on the far side, so it was a different view than I’m used to seeing.

waterworld

Our final ride of the day at Universal was the Minions ride. This is in the place that the Terminator ride used to be in and I had never been on it before. It was a cute little ride, but probably not one I’ll be doing all the time. It was a bit jerky and it’s in a corner of the park that I’m not usually in. But I’m glad we got to ride it this time because I’ve been curious about it.

I think it’s pretty clear that this trip to Universal was significantly better than the last time. I’m so glad I learned about the alternative loading for Harry Potter because I know I’ll be using that from now on. It really helps me and makes a huge difference in my enjoyment in riding the ride. It’s tough when I feel super rushed to try to get in and out of a ride and this makes that go away.

I’m not sure when my next trip to Universal will be. My Mondays are starting to get really busy and my pass might not be good for Sundays at all (and if it is, I’m not sure if I want to deal with the crowds). I’ll totally be there again at least one time before my pass ends next year, I’m just not sure how soon that will be. But I’m already looking forward to it!

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Default ThumbnailHoliday Time At Universal (or Enjoying Another Castle Show) Default ThumbnailOne More Universal Day (or Getting In All My Rides) Default ThumbnailA Day At Universal Studios (or Trying Not To Let One Negative Thing Bug Me) Default ThumbnailAnother Year Of Universal (or Hanging Out With A Little Wizard) Default ThumbnailA Universal Evening (or Checking Out The Castle) Default ThumbnailA Wizard’s Birthday (or A Full Universal Day)

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More Eating Disorder Research (or Reading About HDE)

Posted on September 13, 2016 | 3 comments

I’ve been keeping up with my monthly challenge to read a book about recovery every day. I’m pretty much doing the 10 pages a day (sometimes a few extra pages in a day) so that I’m not overwhelmed or feeling like I need to do a ton of reading each day. I think this was a really great challenge to set for myself and I’m happy that I’m not finding it too difficult to continue doing it each day. I think that it can only be a positive thing for me and I’m excited to see what I’ll learn with each book I read.

At the rate that I’m reading, each book takes a little more than a month to finish. So I’m getting close to finishing my second recovery book now and I’ve been learning quite a bit. The book I’m reading now is called “How To Have Your Cake And Your Skinny Jeans Too”.

hde

I’ll admit that I didn’t love the title when I saw it the first time (I’m not a fan of gimmicky books), but there was something about it that caught my attention and it was on sale as a Kindle book so I got it. Since each book is taking me so long to read, I have to buy them instead of getting them from the library (I only get 3 weeks with library books), but I’ve got quite a few that I’ve already bought and I’m sure that buying 1 book a month or so won’t be too expensive.

When I started to read the book, I wasn’t quite sure where it was going with how it was going to discuss achieving recovery. But after a few days of reading and getting into it I discovered that it is all about hunger directed eating (or HDE). The idea of HDE is that you will eat what you want because if you don’t it may turn into a binge later. If you deprive yourself of something for too long you will go crazy when you have a chance to eat it.

The idea of depriving myself and then going crazy with the food is not a foreign concept to me. I’ve had that happen and it’s not fun at all. But the idea of eating everything that I crave and want is terrifying because I know that when I do that in the short-term it ends badly for me. But the idea of HDE is that while the short-term may be a lot of “bad” foods, eventually you will get sick of just eating those and your body will start to crave the foods that you should eat and your diet will have more variety in it.

Following HDE does seem like it could be something for me, but like I said the idea scares me so much. All of my fears are things that are written about in the book, so that does make me feel a bit better. Nothing I’m afraid of isn’t discussed in one of the chapters with a solution or explanation of how it will work out. So since it seems like I have totally normal fears of HDE I’ve been testing it out a little bit.

I’m not going 100% with HDE yet because I don’t want to have the days of endless eating of foods that I crave. Those will cause my workouts (and probably my work at my day jobs) to suffer and I can’t afford that right now. But I’m trying to follow my cravings more than I normally do and see where it takes me. Along with those cravings, I try to meal plan around it so that I can get my 3 meals in for the day but staying as close to my calorie goals as possible.

It’s not going too badly. Once I started to plan around the cravings I have, I’m starting to see how they can fit into my every day life. The issue I’m still having is the volume of the foods I’m craving that I eat. This is something discussed in the book and it is similar to the mindful eating that I’ve been working on. I need to start paying attention to how I feel while eating things (and not going into a trance) and see when my body is saying that it is ready to be done with the food I’m craving.

This is something that is going to take time and I don’t know if HDE is going to work for me in the long run. What I do know is what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working and I need to start trying other things (even if they scare me or seem like it could never work) to see what will work and what will be right for me. I’m just glad that I’m at a point in my recovery that I can try things out like this and not feel hopefully when I have a set back and just view it as a learning experience.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

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Time To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

Posted on September 12, 2016 | Comments Off on Time To Push Myself Again (or Running Some Hills)

Ever since I started running again, I’ve pretty much avoided running whenever we had to do hill work at Orangetheory. While my first few run attempts at Orangetheory were sometimes at a 4% incline (because I forgot it was set to that while I was walking) or a 2% incline (because the 1% felt almost downhill to me), that was while I was doing much slower running and I wasn’t going for as long. But since I’ve gotten into slightly longer running segments, I’ve pretty much decided that if we had to do hill work that I would be walking during it. But this past week of workout got to test that limit and I’m pretty excited about what I was able to do!

Monday’s workout was a 3G workout with 3 groups of people. That was because of the holiday, but since I rarely get to do 3G workouts I was pretty excited to get to have that on Monday. Usually with 3G workouts, we are split into 3 groups and we spend time on the treadmill, rower, and floor as a single group. But this time, it was a 3G 3 buddy workout. So basically we all were split into groups of 3 and we worked together as a team the entire time. There were 6 rounds and each round each group member was on the treadmill, the rower, and the floor.

In each round, we had different things to do on the floor. Sometimes we had planks, sometimes we had hop overs, sometimes there were lunges, and sometimes there were burpees. We repeated going whatever was the plan for that round until we were tagged by a teammate. And on the rower we were rowing until we were tagged out. The entire workout timing was set by the person on the treadmill.

On the treadmill, if you could run 6 mph or faster, you ran for 1/4 mile. If you couldn’t run that fast, you did half of the distance but you had to be at 4% incline. While I can run 6 mph for a bit of time, I couldn’t do an entire 1/4 mile at that speed. So I went for the half distance at an incline option. Because I didn’t want to overdo things, I did do it as a run/walk. I ran for a minute at the incline and then I put the incline up to 6% and walked it until I was done (I pretty much could get it done in under 2 minutes every time).

The run part was definitely a challenge for me at times. While I’ve done running at that incline in the past, it’s not really something I’ve done that much lately. And I had to do it 6 different times! Toward the end it felt like the incline was at least double what it really was at, but I’m glad I made it through it and I think it was a great training thing to do with my upcoming races (since it’s not always a totally flat road).

Wednesday’s workout was a strength workout, so a lot of the work on the treadmill was on hills. I did try to run at least a little bit of each of the hill runs, but when we were getting to the higher inclines I wasn’t able to make it more than a few seconds before I had to slow down to a walk. Walking up hills isn’t necessarily easier for me, but I think being slower does help me not feel like I’m doing too much at one time. Fortunately, we all some all-outs that were on a flat incline so I could run for all of those. And I even did one of the 1 minute all-outs at 6 mph (which was really intense but I felt amazing when I was done).

On the floor, we had some lower body work like squats and hip work. We also had some arm work to do and for all of the weighted work I was able to use 20 pound weights. I’m feeling like I’m getting closer to being able to use 25 pound weights soon, but when I tried them a bit this past week they were just a little too heavy and I wasn’t feeling like I was safe to do the work we were going to do. I’m always terrified that I’ll drop a weight on my foot or something, so I’d rather use slightly lighter weights that I can feel in control with than heavier weights that don’t feel as in control.

My last workout of the week was on Friday. My legs were feeling a bit tired after doing my outside run on Thursday, so I know that I need to figure out a good way to balance those workouts in with my Orangetheory schedule. I had some shin splints on Friday morning (I didn’t feel them at all on Thursday so they surprised me), so I was glad that when I got to my workout it was a bit less treadmill work than normal.

The workout had elements of endurance, strength, and power which was probably the best thing I could have had that day. We started with power on the treadmill and a 2 minute push to begin the block. I ran for 1 minute of it and then walked the second minute. Then we had 1 minute all-outs followed by walking recovery. I ran for all of the all-outs (I think we had 4 of them) and I was noticing my shin splints weren’t starting to hurt as much after that block. I’m not sure why that happened, but I was pretty happy about it.

For the strength block on the treadmill, it was hills again. I decided to walk for all of the hills just because I had done so much hill work earlier in the week and I had pushed it a lot in the power block with the running. But at the end of the strength block we did have an all-out on a flat incline so I was able to do some running for that one. And for endurance, we actually went over to the rower instead of staying on the treadmill. We had a 2 minute row, 1 minute to rest, and then another 2 minute row. I was able to get over 400 meters for each of those rows which isn’t bad and I was pretty tired by the time we headed over to the floor.

Thankfully, the floor work seemed to be focused on arms and upper body work more than anything. For all of the arm and shoulder work, I was using the 20 pound weights. And when we had some lower body work, even though we had the option to use weights I decided not too because my hips were starting to get a little sore and I didn’t want to have bad form and risk hurting myself.

I’m really glad that I tested out running on hills this past week. I don’t know if I’ll try doing that every week (I definitely felt it in my hips after each workout), but it’s always good to keep pushing myself. I really do want to focus on my running endurance more than anything right now and while hills aren’t the best way to do that, it’s not the worst either. I have ideas of what I need to do for my training for the next few weeks to be ready for my race in November. I’m still a bit worried that I won’t be able to do the entire thing as a run/walk (which is my biggest goal), but hopefully whatever I’m able to do between my Orangetheory workouts and running on my own will help me get close and closer to that goal!

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Default ThumbnailLots Of Running and Rowing (or Proof Of My Progress) Default ThumbnailFiguring Things Out (or Finding A Balance With Running) Default ThumbnailPushing Myself (or So Many Hills!) Default ThumbnailWorking On Pushing Things (or Hoping I Am Stronger) Default ThumbnailLots Of Running And Hills (or Back To A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailHoliday Workouts (or Hills, Hills, and More Hills)

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

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My First “Real” Run (or Testing Out My Birthday Present)

Posted on September 9, 2016 | 2 comments

While I’ve been doing bits of running for a few months at Orangetheory, that’s the only place I’ve been running since I started again. It feels safe to run on the treadmill. Nobody at Orangetheory is judging what I can or can’t do. Nobody cares if I’m dripping sweat. Nobody (except my coach) is even really paying attention to me. I’m able to feel safe in trying things and pushing myself to new limits.

But I’m aware that running on a treadmill is very different from running outside. And if I really do want to run/walk my 5K in November I have to start getting used to being outside and not being dependent on a treadmill to control my speed or intervals. I did a bunch of research last month about running outside and different apps for intervals to see what I could do to help me in this journey. And when I talked to my “running guru” (who is my best friend) she recommended looking into running watches.

I’ve had workout watches in the past. They always seemed to be too complicated to figure out how to do what I want to do. None of them had GPS on them so I could pretty much just time things and not know my pace or distance (unless I was doing a race and then I knew the distance). But the more I looked into running watches, the more it seemed to make sense. So when my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told them I wanted a running watch. And I found last year’s model (it still seems like one of the better models) without the heart rate monitor option for a pretty decent price!

While I had gotten the watch about 3 weeks ago, yesterday was the first day I was able to test it out. I’ve been working on getting my sleep schedule back on track, so I’m finally waking up again at 7am each day. And yesterday I had a free morning before I started work at 10am, so I figured I had to stop making excuses for myself and get my butt outside to do a run/walk.

There is a path not too far from my house that has no traffic on it. You can technically run all the way to the beach, but then you will encounter some crosswalks that you have to get through. But I figured I could just go back and forth on one section between two crosswalks and then I wouldn’t have to worry about traffic, getting stopped at a red light waiting to cross, and if I got really tired I’d be close enough to my house.

Before going out, I set my watch to do intervals of 1 minute each. I actually ended up setting it up a bit incorrectly, but the error was in how many intervals I wanted total and not the timing so it worked out ok for me. And I had read the instructions for the watch and it seemed pretty easy to start and stop the timer so I wasn’t too worried about how this would all work.

As soon as I got to the path, I started the watch and started running. Because I hadn’t run outside before, I had no clue if I was going quickly or slowly. But I was going and it felt pretty good so I was happy with it. The first interval ended quickly and I was glad that running for that minute outside didn’t feel too bad or that different from being on the treadmill. I know that my walking was slower than I’m used to, but again, this run was all about trying it out and not trying to work on speed or anything.

I did 6 sets of the run/walk intervals (so 6 minutes of running and 6 minutes of walking) when I was starting to feel pretty tired. I’m used to being able to stop to drink some water or wipe away sweat and I really wasn’t doing that this time. It was starting to get a bit hot out and one of the directions I was running was into the sun. After one more interval, I was heading back toward my street and I was feeling a bit too tired to run (and I didn’t want to risk hurting myself by doing sloppy running). So I spend the rest of the way walking back and cooling down a bit.

Once I got to the end of the path by the crosswalk, I stopped the watch so I could see what I had done. I’m sure there is a way to see my pace or distance on the watch while I’m moving, but it was only showing me the intervals so I didn’t know how far I had gone and I honestly was feeling pretty clueless about it. It felt like I was not going that far, but I knew I was out there for 17 minutes so I figured I’d be close to a mile at least. I was pretty happy when I finally saw the result.

garmin

I would have loved to have gone farther, but I also have to remember that I’m trying to ease my way into running outside. The downfall in the past for me have been doing too much too fast. If I can only do a mile at a time for the next few weeks, that’s ok. Eventually my endurance is going to be better and I can go farther and run/walk longer.

Once I got back home, I was checking out more stats from my workout. A lot of things don’t make sense to me yet (I don’t really get the cadence stuff), but there was one screen that I totally got and was super happy to see.

my-mile

This is not a mile PR for me, but the fact that I was under a 15 minute mile when I didn’t have a treadmill telling me my speed or distance is awesome! My big goal for my next race is to average under 15 minute miles, so this made me so happy! Again, the endurance thing is my main concern now, but I know I can work on that.

I feel like this was a very successful first run/walk outside. I’d love to be able to do 1 outside workout a week and hopefully I can make that happen. It is a bit intimidating running outside where people can see me (and judge me), but I need to not worry or focus on that. I know that I’ve made massive improvements in my running over these past few months and that’s the most important thing.

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Default ThumbnailBirthday Workouts (or Just Having A Good Week Of Workouts) Default ThumbnailUpping My Game (or Getting Serious About Running) Default ThumbnailExtra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailA Birthday Present For Me And My House (or Thank You Mom And Dad!) Default ThumbnailUnexpected Birthday Present (or I Love Having Technology That Works!) Default ThumbnailChristmas Hangout With My Birthday Twin (or Witnessing A Real-Life Romantic Comedy)

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Day Job News (or Things Are Getting Better)

Posted on September 8, 2016 | Comments Off on Day Job News (or Things Are Getting Better)

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my day jobs. For the most part, things are the same as always. I’m still working my box office job plus my data entry/calendar management job from home. I’m also working for my old boss time to time with in person box office work and I still babysit on occasional weekends. My hours each week range from 43 to 68 hours in a week depending on how many hours I work my occasional jobs, but even at the lowest number a week I’m finally making a more livable income.

What I’m making isn’t making it easy to pay off my credit card debt. I was recently able to pay off about 5% of what my remaining debt is, but that’s less than I was hoping. I really felt like I’d have it paid off by now, but I think it’s going to be a bit more time before it’s gone. But each of the jobs I work adds to my income and adds to what I can pay off each month so I’m grateful for each work hour I get.

But while I’m not making as much money as I would love to make, I’ve gotten some pretty awesome news with all of my jobs in the past few weeks. It started with my occasional box office job. I’m going to have the opportunity to have more shifts in a month now. There needs to be some coverage for the box office at other shows than the ones I typically work, so I’ll get a couple of extra shifts. Each of the extra shifts will only be 2 hours, but I might be able to get 3 of those in a month. 6 extra hours isn’t a lot, but that money will pay off one or two utilities bills at a time so it adds up!

I also got some good news about my work from home box office job. A few weeks ago I got an email from the owner of the company asking me to call him. My first thought was that I was fired (even though there was no reason I should be fired) so I called him back immediately. The stuff he needed to talk to me about was only about how our pay system works (he needed some information from me that he didn’t have) so I didn’t have to worry about anything. And during that call, he asked me if I was having any issues with the job that he should know about.

I told him that while I love working this job, it’s not giving me all the flexibility I was expecting when I took the job. Since I don’t get scheduled for full shifts each day, I have the potential to work an extra 2 hours each weekday if I had to make up hours. I’ve made up hours in the past when I go out-of-town or have a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day. It’s never been too big of a deal, but I’ve always had to go through both my boss and manager.

Fortunately, the owner agreed with me that flexibility should be fine since I do have those hours each week that I usually don’t work that can be used as make-up hours. I just have to go through my manager (which is easier since we are both on chat together every work day) and I can make up the hours based on when we feel it would be best. Now I have the flexibility for auditions that I’ve been needing and hopefully as I get more auditions this arrangement will continue to work for us all.

The last day job I got great news about was my data entry/calendar management one. When I was hired, it was just under a 2 year contract. The end of that contract is coming up at the end of this month and I’ve been stressing a bit about if that contract wasn’t going to be extended. That job is over half of my income each month, so I need that money. I just got the email this week that my contract is going to be extended for at least another year! The budget is still being worked out so the number of hours each week may change (I don’t know if that would go up or down), but as long as I’m still working that job at least I know I’ll have some more regular income coming in.

But since I was so worried about that job not getting an extension on the contract, I’ve been spending time over the past month looking for another job that I could do. I focused mainly on jobs that I could do along with the jobs I already have, but I was also open to finding a full-time job that had the flexibility I need. There really aren’t a ton of full-time jobs with flexibility (more people who have those either start as part-time or start with no flexibility), but then I was listening to a podcast that had an interview with a woman who owns a virtual assistant company.

In the past, I’ve tried to get jobs as a virtual assistant. But so many of those companies require you to use a PC and I have a Mac. I didn’t want to have to buy a different computer just to work a job with, so I never applied to them. But when I found out that the company that was interviewed loves people who have Macs, I applied immediately! Because of my schedule and when they could do Skype interviews it took a bit of time before I could interview for the company, but I finally had my interview this week and it went really well! The next step is to wait to see if they have a client that needs a virtual assistant that matches my skill set. And things tend to start at 5 hours a week, which I feel pretty confident that I could do.

Eventually, the virtual assistant job can be more hours (and you can take on more than one client), so over time it may become one of my main day jobs. I’m not thinking that far in advance right now, but it doesn’t hurt to have some potential plans in mind when I’m looking at new day jobs. Of course, I hope that sooner rather than later a day job won’t be necessary as I will hopefully make all my income with acting. But I also have to be realistic.

Considering that not long ago I was completely out of work and feeling hopeless with my day job situation, I’m pretty happy with how things are going right now. They can always be better, but I think the path I’m on is one of the better ones that I’ve had lately. I’m finally feeling some stability, I can make some plans for purchases I’d like to make, and I’m making steps on my debt reduction. I can’t ask for that much more than that.

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Default ThumbnailTime To Make A Game Plan (or Guess I’ll Be Doing Some Job Hunting) Default ThumbnailStaying Super Busy (or Another Job) Default ThumbnailWork Begets Work (Old Bosses Possible New Jobs) Default ThumbnailEarly Days (or 2 Weeks Of Long Shifts) Default ThumbnailMaking Ends Meet (or Needing a Side Job to My Side Job) Default ThumbnailJob vs. Career (or Being Undercover At My Day Job)

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Low Key Labor Day (or Just A Regular Weekend)

Posted on September 7, 2016 | Comments Off on Low Key Labor Day (or Just A Regular Weekend)

I know so many friends of mine were so excited to have a 3 day weekend this past weekend. For me, it’s a normal weekend since Mondays are always a day off for me (and I worked my regular Saturday shift as well). It’s weird to see so many people saying how amazing having an extra weekend day is when I know that everything is the same as usual for me (I won’t even get extra time off at Christmas or New Years because of the days of the week the holidays fall on).

My holiday weekend did get off to an exciting start with my outing to the Bowl. But being out later than normal for me (plus my hips were killing me) caused me not to get that much sleep on Saturday night. I woke up later than normal on Sunday feeling groggy and still tired. I’ve been working lately on getting my sleep schedule to be the same pretty much every night (it’s been tough for me) and sleeping in really did seem to throw my entire day off.

I spent the beginning of my Sunday during my usual errands for the weekend, and then my friends Marie and Chris were throwing a Labor Day party. They did their party on Sunday so people would have Monday to recover from being out all night. And while I didn’t get to make drunk fruit like I have for several parties, I did have some of the leftovers from the Bowl (fruit and sea salt brownies) to contribute to the party.

I really wanted to be social and have a great time at the party, but the exhaustion was hitting me pretty hard. I still had fun seeing all my friends and just having a good time being outside with everyone, but I was just feeling off while I was there. I was hoping that I could get over that feeling once I was at the party and around all the energy of my friends, but unfortunately it stuck with me. I managed to stay at the party until about 9pm and then felt it would be best for me to get back to my house to get a decent night sleep.

Labor Day wasn’t anything special for me. I did my usual Monday morning workout and then I really didn’t have much of a plan. I thought about trying to see if any friends wanted to hang out that day, but I never got motivated enough to try to make some plans.

So instead of being out at a BBQ or some other party on Labor Day, I spent the day at my house watching movies and being lazy. It wasn’t the best thing I could have done, but it seemed to be the best thing for me at the time. I really enjoyed just relaxing and watching movies that I’ve been wanting to see while on my couch. I took a couple of breaks throughout the day to read (something else I love) and then went back to watching movies. It really was an ideal day for me and I finally got over my exhaustion and felt back to my normal self.

Now that the summer is over, I’m getting ready for fall and the end of the year (which will be here before we know it!). I know I’ll get time off of work for Thanksgiving but like I said before I won’t get any extra time off for Christmas or New Years. It’s not horrible to not get any extra time off, but I was sad when I realized that I would only get my usual Sunday and Monday off for each of those. But I’m planning on maximizing those two days off each week through the fall and I’ve got some really fun things that I think I’ll be able to do with my weekends coming up!

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Default Thumbnail4th Of July Weekend (or An Early Holiday) Default ThumbnailAn At-Home Labor Day (or The Unofficial End To A Weird Summer) Default ThumbnailLow-Key Halloween (or A Work In Progress) Default ThumbnailA Very Low-Key Christmas (or Not Spending My Day Off Doing My Usual Stuff) Default ThumbnailA Very Low-Key NYE (or I’m Glad I Don’t Have To Impress My Friends) Default ThumbnailLow Key Halloween (or Costume Flashback)

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A Night At The Bowl (or Movie Music With Friends)

Posted on September 6, 2016 | 1 comment

I really was hoping to make it to a couple of shows this summer at the Hollywood Bowl, but after going to see “The Little Mermaid” earlier this summer I hadn’t made it back until this past weekend. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go, but time and money were limited this summer and things just didn’t line up.

But the show that I got to see this past weekend was the night of John Williams, which is one of my favorite shows ever! And I really lucked out with my tickets. I knew that several of my friends had already purchased tickets, and once I found out the night they were going and where their seats were I went online to look for tickets. There was only 1 seat left in their section and it happened to be the seat right next to them! So I bought that and we were all able to sit together!

Even though I was going to the show with several of my friends, because we were all coming from different parts of LA I ended up getting there by myself. I took the Bowl bus over (which is probably the easiest and best way for me to get there) and it just happened that we all arrived at about the exact same time! We met up right as we were going up the first set of escalators which could not have been timed better if we planned it!

Our seats were toward the top so we had a bit of a walk to get up there. I don’t mind the high up seats since they are cheaper and you get a great view of some of the fun things that happen at the John Williams show. And once we finally got to our seats, I was excited to see that not only did we have a great view of the stage but we had a great view of the Hollywood Sign as well!

Bowl and Sign

I usually don’t sit on that side of the Bowl, so seeing the sign (and the Griffith Observatory) was a treat for me!

The first half of the show was conducted by David Newman. He had some great stories to share with everyone and there were some fun musical tributes. There was a section that was just clips of Paramount movies to the score from “Forrest Gump”. They also played the first 10 minutes of “Star Trek Into Darkness” and had the orchestra play the score live. I really liked that (it reminded me of seeing “The Little Mermaid” earlier this summer) and that score is just so dramatic and wonderful to hear. I’m glad that was one of the parts for the show.

After intermission, John Williams came out. In the past, he conducted the entire show but I actually enjoyed seeing 2 different conductors playing music from movies I love. Even though the music sounds the same, there is just something different watching it live with a different conductor. And once John Williams came out, there was just one thing everyone was waiting for.

Star Wars

“Star Wars” music live really is the highlight of the show every year. So many people there bring light sabers with them (including several of my friends) and I love seeing all of them glowing while the music is playing. I usually hate glowing things at concerts, but this is different and special. It almost enhances the music when you see so many people enjoying themselves.

Besides hearing music from “Star Wars” we also got to hear the score from “Superman” which was something I remembered hearing at one of the shows a few years ago. It’s another beautiful score and I just sat back and enjoyed the music.

There are always at least a few encores at the show (John Williams really hams it up but it’s so much fun to see everyone screaming for him to come back out). The final encore every time I’ve been to the show has been the score to the closing scene of “ET”. And this year was no different. The score builds up to such a dramatic finish and you can just visualize the movie playing as the music is happening. And the closing of the score also lights up the inside of the Bowl with a rainbow (similar to how the end of the movie has a rainbow). I just love seeing it and it makes me happy every time.

ET

The show was really just as amazing as every other year that I’ve gone to see it and I’m glad that this has become a bit of a summer tradition. Since the season for the Bowl is pretty much done now, I doubt I’ll make it back there until next summer. But getting to go twice in a summer is still awesome and I’m glad that this is something I’m able to do pretty much every year!

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Continuing To Impress Myself (or A New PR)

Posted on September 5, 2016 | 1 comment

This past week of workouts were pretty amazing for me. I had 3 workouts which was fine (especially since I did a “workout” at Disneyland by walking almost 8 miles there). I wasn’t expecting to have anything awesome happen since I had such a wonderful PR with my mile the week before, but I’m glad that I surprised myself!

Monday’s workout was an early one for me. I usually go in the morning, but I went an hour earlier than normal so I could have more time at Disneyland after (and I’m aware that I’m crazy for going to Disneyland after a workout). Getting up earlier than I’m used to was a bit tough, but fortunately my workout didn’t feel that much harder than my usual morning one.

This time, we had an endurance day. On endurance days we have really long push paces and I usually can’t run for the entire thing. Usually I try to run as much as I can, but since I didn’t want to overdo it before Disneyland I decided to run for 1 minute of each push. I’m sure I could have done more, but considering how bad my hips were feeling that night, I’m glad I didn’t push myself more. We also had a row block as part of our cardio where we were doing 90 second sprints. Those were pretty short sprints so I was able to do them without too much trouble.

On the floor that day, we did some more rowing with 300 meter sprints (which takes me about 90 seconds so all the rows were about the same). We also had a lot of variety with the floor work with using the Bosu, straps for rollouts, weights with the squats, and body weight with plank jacks. I was definitely feeling exhausted after the workout, but I’m glad I didn’t skip a Monday because of Disneyland.

Wednesday was a bit of a sad day. My Wednesday coach, JZ, has been my Wednesday coach since my first full week at Orangetheory. I’ve loved having her as my coach each week and she’s been not only a great coach but has become an awesome friend too. There have been very few weeks where she wasn’t my coach on Wednesdays and I love having that consistency in my life. But JZ has her own company and that is starting to take up more time so she cannot teach classes on a regular basis at Orangetheory anymore. She’s still going to be on the sub list (so hopefully I’ll get her from time to time) and she’s going to work out there too so this workout wasn’t a goodbye, but it still was a bit of a downer.

JZ

Even though I was sad about this being JZ’s last regular class, I still wanted to kick some butt in the workout. It was a power day so I was excited to have shorter push paces so I could do more running. The push paces were between 2 minutes and 1 minute and I’m happy that even thought the 2 minute ones were tough, I still ran for the entire time! The second half of the cardio workout was a run/row (usually a run/row is the entire cardio workout) and it was a combination of push paces to all out paces. The longest time on the treadmill was 2 1/2 minutes, and I did manage to run for that entire one. I was really exhausted on the rower after that, but I’m just happy that I’m doing slightly longer running times more often now.

On the floor that day, we had 4 short blocks and each block started with holding a plank. The first time (which was 30 seconds) was easy and I felt pretty confident that I wouldn’t have a problem with any of them. But each time they got longer and it was harder and harder for me to hold the plank. When we had to do it for 2 minutes, I was taking a couple of breaks because my core just couldn’t stay up. I used to be amazing at planks (when I had a personal trainer 10 years ago, my PR was over 3 minutes in a steady plank) and I really do want to get back to being able to do that.

Friday’s workout was another endurance one, but this one had a challenge in it as well. In the beginning of the workout for cardio, we had a 6 minute challenge for distance. I’ve done 5 minute challenges and 7 minute challenges, but never a 6 minute one so I wasn’t sure what distance I was going to hope for. But I figured if I could be at a similar distance to my 7 minute challenge one, I’d be happy.

I did the 6 minutes as a run/walk with running for the first minute, walking for the second, repeating that for the third and fourth minutes, and then running the last two minutes without a break. It wasn’t easy and I was tired because I was pushing my speeds to be a lot faster than I’m used to. But I was so happy to see that I not only matched my best 7 minute challenge, but I beat it!

6 Minute

After the challenge, we had another 7 minutes on the treadmill doing regular endurance work. I tried to run a bit more, but I was pretty tired from the challenge so I stuck with walking until we had the all out at the end of that block.

Then we switched the floor so the other half of class could do their first 6 minute challenge. On the floor, it was a long block filled with squats, rowing, burpees, hamstring work, and abs. After we got through that, we had a 500 meter row. My time on the rower wasn’t great, but between the challenge and all the floor work I was ok with that. I only made it over to the rower once during the floor block and then it was time to switch again to be on the treadmill.

We repeated the 6 minute challenge and I figured I could bump my speeds up more since I knew this was the last 6 minutes on the treadmill for class. I was going a bit too fast in the beginning so I had to bring my speed down a few times, but I was able to keep the same pattern I used the first time. And when we had the last 30 seconds, I got my speed up to 6.0 miles an hour and sprinted to the end. And since I worked so much harder the second time, I managed to PR on the challenge compared to the first attempt.

6 Minute #2

That’s almost 1/2 mile in 6 minutes! I remember when I started at Orangetheory that it would take me about 5 minutes to go 1/4 mile! I did wonder if I should have tried a bit harder because I might have actually been able to make it to that 1/2 mile mark, but this just gives me something to strive for next time so I can have another PR.

After the second challenge, we headed back to the floor where we did a lot of work on the Bosu (which mean I could sit down for a lot of it). I’m glad I had that time to catch my breath and decompress from the workout because it still boggles my mind sometimes that I’m not just running but running at speeds I never imagined I could do!

This workout continued to prove to me that I am making major progress even if I doubt it at times. When I don’t have things like treadmill challenges or rowing challenges to compare myself to, I can feel like I’m stuck even if I’m not. I’m trying to get that stuck feeling out of my head because I don’t think it’s going to help me improve on my endurance, and that’s my big focus now. I know I can run/walk for a mile, but I need to be able to do that for 3.1 miles in about 2 months. I know that I can always just walk it if I get too tired, but my goal is really do to the entire thing as a run/walk and that’s only going to happen if I get my endurance up a lot in the next 2 months.

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Default ThumbnailBuilding My Endurance (or Lots Of Running) Default ThumbnailFiguring Things Out (or Finding A Balance With Running) Default ThumbnailBuilding Up Endurance (or Shocking Myself) Default ThumbnailBuilding Up My Running Skills (or Getting A New PR) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Normal Workouts (or Balancing Hard Work And Taking It Easy) Default ThumbnailWhat Fitness Goals Are Next? (or Continuing To Impress Myself)

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