Monthly Archives: July 2017

Mixing Up The Workout Week (or Still Working On Being Easy On Myself)

Posted on July 17, 2017 | 2 comments

This past week of workouts was another 3 workout week. I originally planned for it to be a 4 workout week, but some plans for Saturday changed that (more on that later this week). But honestly, having it be a 3 workout week was probably for the best since it was another tough workout week. I hate when my body isn’t willing to do what I know it can do and I struggle with not pushing myself to do more than I’m able to do. But this week allowed me to practice being easy on myself and hopefully that will get me ready for this week since it’s Peak Performance Week again!

Monday’s workout was not what I was expecting. First, I arrived at the same time I usually get there at but all the treadmill cards were already gone! It’s pretty rare for me to not get a treadmill card (maybe under 5 times in the 3 years I’ve been working out) so to have to start on a rower was very weird. But while I was preparing for that weirdness, we also found out that the workout was going to be a 3G workout too. That time on Monday may be 3G from now on so that will be different. But maybe that will be a nice since then in a 4 workout week I’ll pretty much have 2 3G and 2 2G workouts each week.

With the 3G workout we had 2 blocks at each station and we switched between each block. On the rower we started with increasing row distances and had squats with medicine balls between each row. And on the second block we had decreasing row distances with shoulder work with the medicine ball between each row. That went pretty well for me even though I wasn’t going that fast and didn’t have times that were close to my PRs. On the floor, it was a mix of upper and lower body work. Between the 2 blocks we had bicep curls, lunges, deadlifts, hip bridges, shoulder work, and back extensions.

But the treadmill is where I really struggled. I can do fine in switch or partner classes so I thought maybe started on the rower would have been ok for me. But I think I’ve realized that the problem comes from not warming up no the treadmill. Maybe my hips need that walking time to get ready to run? I’m not sure but whatever the reason the treadmill was not my friend during class. When I got to the treadmill for the first time, we started with a 2 minute push. I started by running but had to stop within the first 30 seconds. My hips were hurting so badly and I was scared that I would hurt myself if I kept running.

It’s frustrating to not be able to run and it seems like this is happening more and more often. I need to look into more stretching and hip strengthening work because there is something happening that I need to work on. I did everything in that first block as a walk and just tried to think about it as something I had to do to stay healthy and safe. But fortunately the second block had 30 second all out paces so I did run those and felt a bit better about myself. But for this class, I had my lowest calorie burn ever (even lower than when I was on the bike or just starting out). That’s tough to see since I know I worked hard, but again I also know that I tried my best given the pain I was in.

Wednesday ended up being my best workout of the week. It was an endurance day and we didn’t switch between blocks. What we had were 2 different 11 minute distance challenges. Lately when we’ve been doing distance challenges, I just try to run for the entire distance. But I’ve been feeling like I’ve been burning myself out lately and I haven’t been doing a lot of speed training. So I decided to follow the coached program and run for the push paces and walk for the base paces.

The first challenge was decreasing push paces so I tried to bump my push pace up .1 mph each time. And for the second challenge it was increasing push paces. But since I knew what I was able to do with the decreasing push paces, I went even faster than I had with the same time in the first attempt. It wasn’t my fastest running ever, but it was pretty good. My distances aren’t records for me, but I’m still happy that I went further on the second attempt than I did on the first and that I did get my speed training done.

Once I got to the floor, I was a bit tired from the running, but nothing too horrible. The first block on the floor had squats, abs, and lunges and then we had a 2 minute row for distance at the end of the block. The second block was strap lunges/squats, pull ups on the straps, and more lunges. And again a 2 minute row for distance at the end of the block. I was feeling a bit off (my period was starting and I’m still having issues with feeling sick when I have my period) by the end of the floor, but again it was nothing too horrible.

Friday was another off day for me. I knew it was going to be a strength day so I assumed I’d be doing a lot of walking. But within the first 2 minutes of the warm up in class, my nausea took over and I was feeling like I needed to throw up right away. This is exactly how my period was for me as a teenager (and the reason I went on birth control originally to stop my periods) and it’s annoying that I still have the same problems now. Fortunately I didn’t get sick, but I did step out of class to take one of my anti-nausea pills. Most of the time those pills kick in right away, but I don’t know what happened because I never felt better in class. I tried to focus on walking on the inclines the best I could, but I was taking breaks every few minutes to put my head down because I was pretty much dry heaving. I wasn’t feeling so horrible that I didn’t think I could continue with class, but it was pretty bad.

Once I was on the floor, I decided that I was going to take it easy and just do what I could. There were 3 blocks on the floor and the first block was triceps, chest, and squats with burpees. Fortunately most of that didn’t seem to make me feel that nauseous. The next block was squats with shoulder work and then rowing. I wasn’t focused on making my rowing fast or strong, just good form. I did the 400 meter row in just under 2 minutes which really impressed me. I wasn’t expecting to be even close to what I can normally do. The last floor block had arms, strap rowing, and running man work. During that last block I was finally feeling a bit better although still not 100%. I was pretty happy that the workout was done since I knew I just needed to get home to rest.

It’s weird to me how much having my period back affects my workouts. But I guess I should just consider myself lucky that I got a 15 year break from this and only started to have my period again at the end of last year. But I do need to think up a better plan on how to handle the issues I have in my workouts during that time. I don’t want to have to take a week off each month because I feel horrible.

I was originally going to work out on Saturday, but I had some plans change and ended up cancelling that workout (more on that later this week). But it was probably better that I skipped the workout since I was feeling so off. And I know I needed the rest and break time so that I could do the best I can during Peak Performance Week! I’m excited to see what I’m able to do now and can’t wait to report back to you all next week!

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Default ThumbnailRowing And Partners (or Enjoying A 4 Workout Week) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Workout Week (or Being Ok With Being Ok) 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 ThumbnailWorkout Celebrations (or A Week Of Awesomeness) Default ThumbnailBeing Patient With Myself (or Being Ok With A 3 Workout Week)

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Time Is Flying By (or How Is Summer Already Halfway Over?)

Posted on July 14, 2017 | Comments Off on Time Is Flying By (or How Is Summer Already Halfway Over?)

It seems like I’ve been super busy and not busy at all lately. I go through times where I’m on the go for days on end followed by days where I have nothing to do. I’d like to be able to spread out the stuff I do more, but I know that’s not always realistic.

But this week has been a bit slow and I finally have gotten on top of some tasks I’ve been putting off. And one of those tasks has been to get through my emails that I haven’t taken action on yet. I’m usually really on top of my emails, but things have been distracting me and I haven’t been taking care of things the way that I normally do. I’ve been trying to delete stuff I know I won’t have time for or have passed, but I’ve realized that a lot of stuff that I wanted to go to have already happened.

I don’t know how it’s already the middle of July. It hasn’t really felt like summer yet (although it’s been hot enough to need my a/c so that proves it’s summer). And it probably hasn’t felt like summer because I really haven’t done many of the things I usually do during the summer. I’ve been going to movie screenings (which is a big summer thing for me) and I haven’t been able to get to Disneyland since my pass is blacked out for the summer, but there’s so much that hasn’t happened yet this summer that I figured I would be doing.

I haven’t gotten to the beach at all. I don’t go to the beach every summer, but whenever I do make it there I’m always so happy and enjoy it. And it would be so easy just to get stuff in my car and go to the beach. It’s so close and doesn’t take much effort. But somehow I just haven’t made it there and I really should try to figure out when I’m going to set aside some time for it.

And the biggest thing that I was surprised I haven’t done yet or at least made a plan for is going to the Hollywood Bowl. I’ve looked at the schedule before and found some things that I really wanted to go to, but I never asked around to see who else wanted to go with me and buy some tickets. There’s no good reason why I haven’t done this yet and now the summer is half over I really need to get planning or I might not make it to the Bowl at all this season.

It’s not that I haven’t had other things taking up my time this summer. I’ve had my Pantages tickets and work keeping me busy. And work was extra busy because one of my day jobs was allowing me to almost double the number of hours I worked. That extra money really helped out with some expenses this summer and it was worth not doing as much fun stuff in order to make more money.

And I think that I might still be in a bit of the mindset that I don’t want to make plans too far in advance because I’m still afraid that I will need surgery. That’s the reason I didn’t make plans for the summer to begin with. I didn’t want to have plans and then have to cancel them because I was still recovering from surgery. I know that I usually recover really well, but I didn’t want to set myself up for failure. And when the surgery got cancelled I didn’t make the effort to make the plans that I was putting off.

I know my next MRI won’t be until September or October so there’s no reason not to make plans this summer. But I guess I’m still a bit paranoid that something will happen and I’m putting stuff off when I don’t need to. It’s funny how this surgery has kind of altered how I’m scheduling things even when there is no current surgery plan. This is one of the reasons I was uneasy about not needing the surgery when I planned. Now the idea of it is hanging over my head and I feel very uncertain and hesitant to do much.

I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my summer, but I totally haven’t been taking advantage of it. Hopefully I can make the second half of summer much more exciting and interesting than the first half and I can try to get as much of my favorite summer stuff in! It’s just a matter of finding the time and money (and hopefully the friends who want to come with me) to do it!

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I Might Write A Book (or The Bumble Avenger)

Posted on July 13, 2017 | Comments Off on I Might Write A Book (or The Bumble Avenger)

My online dating adventures have been pretty ridiculous. While there have been some really great guys that I’ve met (and a few that I’ve seen more than once and hope I’ll be seeing again), it seems like a majority of the stories I have are not-s0-great ones. I’ve been lucky that most of the time I can figure out a guy isn’t a good person before I ever meet them. So most of the time when I go on a date with someone, there has already been some vetting and I feel pretty ok about it.

Of course, that’s not always the case and I’ve had some really bad dates where I spent more time getting to the date than I did on the date. I’ve also gone out with a guy who was engaged at the time because I didn’t search his name online like I do now. If I had looked him up, I would have seen that his wedding website was the first result in the search and his Facebook profile photo is with his fiancĂ©e. I regret not looking him up before the date, but I’ve learned.

With the guys that I haven’t met, there are a variety of reasons why I didn’t meet them. Sometimes they just have something creepy about them, sometimes they are trying to get me to meet them at a hotel and won’t accept me meeting them somewhere else. And yes, I’ve encountered more guys who aren’t actually single. In fact, this week I rematched with a guy I matched with a few months ago (we had unmatched for some reason or another). Back then, I wasn’t doing searches on the guys I’m talking to. Now I’m smarter and I found out he’s married. He was only married 4 months when we were talking before. I called him out on it and he deleted his profile.

With the engaged/married guys, I feel bad about it even though I know I didn’t do anything wrong. And I’m starting to message the fiancĂ©e/wife on Facebook so they know what their guy is doing. Most of them haven’t seen the messages because they are in their filtered messages, but at least I can feel like I’ve done something about it and hopefully they will find out that they are involved with a cheater.

I post some of the craziest stories of my adventures in online dating online to my friends, and most of them think it’s so crazy what I’m encountering. And with all my posts about how I’m finding out someone is a cheater and telling their significant other, a friend of mine called me The Bumble Avenger (even though not all the cheaters have been from Bumble).

Several of my friends have been telling me I need to write a book about what I’ve been experiencing. I just keep telling people that I don’t think my experience is that unique and I’m not a writer.

But then I got to thinking. I’ve done online dating before and what I’m experiencing now is nothing like what it was like before. It is totally crazier now. Maybe it’s because of how much easier it is to have a dating app versus using a website? Maybe people are finding it easier to cheat? So maybe my story is something that I should share with others beyond my private social media.

And as far as me not being a writer, I know that it’s true. I have over 1,300 posts on this blog (how did that happen?!?!?!) and I’m almost at my 5 year anniversary (more on that next week). Clearly I’m a writer whether or not I believe that it’s true. Maybe I just don’t think of myself as a writer when I look at screenplays or novels. But non-fiction books can be in a similar format to a blog.

So because so many people told me to do it, I’ve actually started to write an outline for a book. I have no idea what will come of it, but I’m glad I’m starting now. Even putting together the outline I’ve realized I’ve forgotten some of the crazy stories that happened to me in April and May. So it’s a good thing that I’m at least writing these stories down now even if nothing comes out of it.

If I do actually write the book, I don’t know what I would do next. I’ve thought that maybe I wouldn’t want my name on it, but I think it would be easy to connect me to it because my stories are pretty unique. I don’t feel like I would go back and change blog posts to try to hide my identity, but maybe people wouldn’t be able to connect it to me. If it does have my name, I would think carefully about how much I would want to reveal. And of course I would have to have people look things over to make sure nothing I’m saying could reveal who any of the guys are (I wouldn’t use any of their names but I don’t want something else in there to be a way to connect back to them).

This is seriously at the very beginning stages of everything. I haven’t really written much yet, but it will be something I want to try to work on at least a few times a week. It would be fun to see what I could do and you never know what could happen out of a project. I doubt I knew 5 years ago that this is where I would be with my blog and I’m so grateful that I started it when I did. Maybe the book could be the same thing for me.

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Working On Forgiveness (or Accepting Things As They Are)

Posted on July 12, 2017 | Comments Off on Working On Forgiveness (or Accepting Things As They Are)

Between my recent appointment with my therapist, working on the 12 week journey of “The Prosperous Heart”, the goal setting workshop I attended, and just me thinking things through; I’ve come to a lot of ideas about myself. One of them is how I need to work on mindfulness. I thought I had been working on that, but clearly based on what I’m discovering about myself that is still something I really need and want to work on. That’s a tough one for me to do, but obviously it’s important to me since it has come up for me so much lately.

But I’ve come to another conclusion about myself that I haven’t really had the chance to work on even though it has come up in almost all the same places as figuring out I need to work on mindfulness. And the thing I realized is that I need to work on forgiveness. This isn’t really about forgiving others (although there are a few people who I probably should work through my anger about). This is more about forgiving myself and that’s not an easy thing.

It’s funny how I came to this realization because this week’s chapter in “The Prosperous Heart” is all about forgiveness. I read the chapter after I thought that I wanted to work on it, so it really felt like fate to me. And it got me even more motivated on trying to work out what I want to forgive myself for.

As far as within the work I’m doing for “The Prosperous Heart” I have to be able to forgive myself for not remembering to write down every single expense that I have. I pretty much write down everything, but I realized this week that I had been forgetting to write down the quarters I spend for laundry each week. That’s not a huge deal, but I wanted to do everything right and forgetting to track some cash expenses isn’t part of that plan.

I’m also working on trying to forgive myself for not making the progress I should have been making in my weight loss. I’ve unfortunately gained some weight this past month and that really makes me mad. That progress was really tough to get and to lose it is so frustrating. I know that I can’t be perfect and always lose weight, but to gain weight is something that I still view as unacceptable and it’s not easy for me to realize that to slip up is normal. I want to be able to get back on track, but its hard.

And the latest thing that I’ve been trying to work on forgiving myself about is a bit tough to discuss. To make a long story short, I have come to realize that while I was taking the birth control pill it was changing my personality and repressing certain emotions. Since getting my IUD in I’ve come to find out more about who I really am and part of that is why I’ve been putting myself out there so much with online dating. But I’ve started to wonder that if I had switched from the pill to the IUD sooner (or never went on the pill), maybe my life would have been so different. Past relationships of mine might not have failed. Or a different relationship could have happened. It’s tough not to think about the what ifs, but I can’t help myself.

The dating one has been hitting me the hardest because I’ve been going over so much in my head lately with past relationships and what might have been if I hadn’t had the issues that I now know the pill was causing me to have. It’s so crazy to think that I didn’t realize that I wasn’t my full self for almost 15 years. I don’t want to keep looking back, and that’s why it’s so important to work on forgiveness. I know I don’t have anything to really forgive myself for with past relationships, but I want to forgive myself for the feelings that I’m having about them.

Just like with mindfulness, this is not going to be a fast process. It will take me a while to learn to forgive myself and to just accept things as they are. Hopefully moving forward I won’t be as hard on myself, but I know myself well enough to know that I probably will still be my harshest critic. That’s just who I am and maybe I need to forgive myself for feeling like I need to change that too?

I don’t know what has brought so much reflection on my life lately, but I have to think that it’s a really positive thing. These changes I’m hoping to make can only be for the better and hopefully I will see more positive changes in my life once I’m able to implement these more often.

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Surgery Anniversary (or I Guess It’s Good I Almost Forgot)

Posted on July 11, 2017 | Comments Off on Surgery Anniversary (or I Guess It’s Good I Almost Forgot)

Last week was the 11th anniversary of my hip surgery. In some ways, it feels like this was a lifetime ago. In other ways, it feels like it was only maybe a year or two ago. I still think all the time about my surgery and what else I might need to have coming up, but it’s not as huge of a focus of my life as it’s been before. That could be because I have other medical issues that are a bit more important right now. But whatever the reason, I was thinking so little about my hip surgery that I almost completely forgot the anniversary of the surgery.

I actually ended up remembering on the day of. Usually, I think about it leading up to the day and then acknowledge it the day of. This time, I was working and all of a sudden looked at the calendar with a shock thinking I had totally forgotten about my surgery anniversary. It was almost a sense of relief that I didn’t totally forget and could still say something about it being 11 years later. But it’s crazy to think that I easily could have had the entire day go by without remembering it.

I’m no longer thinking of milestones the same way with my hips. Before, it was just trying to do better than my surgeon’s predictions. There are still potentially 3 more surgeries I could need, and he felt like I would not be able to make it this long without having another surgery. I’ve completely surpassed that prediction so I’m not thinking too much about it. Now, it’s the goal that he got in my head that it would be ideal if I could avoid getting a hip replacement until I’m 40.

The problem with hip replacements are that they don’t last forever. You do need to replace the replacement, and sometimes that can be every 10 years. Each time you replace them, that’s another pretty major surgery. So to wait until I’m 40 would limit how many times they would have to replace them. Ideally, I’d like to avoid hip replacements completely but I’m aware that it’s not necessarily the most realistic goal. So I just want to stay on the plan to not need a replacement for at least another 6 years.

I’m still doing most of the things my surgeon told me to do to keep my hips as healthy as possible for as long as possible. I’m not doing things that are risky for me falling and potentially breaking my hip like skiing or skating. But I am running now and I know that it’s not the best thing for me to do. But I’ve come to a place where I’ve realized that maybe I need to be a bit riskier with my hip health to keep me happy and healthy. I can go without skiing forever if I have to, although I have been wishing I could do it again. But now that I’ve started to run, I’ve realized that I can’t drop it like I dropped other stuff. I haven’t been feeling any extra pain with running and until I know that it’s causing harm I don’t feel like I need to stop.

I’ve also realized that if I want to live in a protected little bubble to prevent future surgeries, I could do that. But I’ve lived in fear of needing my next hip surgery soon for too long and I don’t want to have it hold me back anymore. I think that I’ve grown so much as a person over the past year or two and I don’t want to stop making that progress. So if I have to take a few extra chances in my life with my hip, so be it. Also, worst case scenario is that I need to get a hip replacement before I’m 40. That’s not the end of the world and I’m still doing much better than my surgeon expected me to do.

Even though I almost forgot my surgery anniversary this year, I think that I’m going to think of it every year and remember how far I’ve come in that time. 11 years is a long time (1/3 of my lifetime!) and I know that there was no way for me to know that I would be in the place that I am now back then. I was in so much pain before surgery and I’m so grateful that I haven’t had to experience that again since waking up after the surgery was done. I was looking back at the photos my parents took of me right after I got out of the hospital (which was only about an hour or so after surgery) and the smile on my face is just so huge. I know the smile then represented getting through surgery and not being in pain anymore. But now, it represents a new beginning to my life and being able to do things that I never dreamed I’d be able to do.

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Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Health

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A Weird Workout Schedule (or Out With The Old And In With The New)

Posted on July 10, 2017 | Comments Off on A Weird Workout Schedule (or Out With The Old And In With The New)

I’ve had a few weeks of 3 workout weeks, so it was nice to be able to get back to a 4 workout week this past week. 4 workouts a week is starting to feel so normal to me which still surprises me. But even though this was a 4 workout week, it was a bit of a weird week. It was weird because of a few things including the holiday and my Orangetheory location was getting an equipment upgrade and was going to be closed down for 2 days. But none of the weird stuff was going to stop me from getting my workouts in.

Monday’s class was an endurance day where we didn’t switch between the blocks. We technically had 2 different 10.5 minute challenges, but I forgot to reset my treadmill before the first one and wasn’t able to do the challenge properly. So since the first challenge wasn’t going to be for distance for me, I did it with the plan the coach gave (instead of just running the entire thing). So I ran the push paces and walked the base paces without worrying too much about distance.

For the second challenge, I did remember to reset my treadmill and very determined to PR on my 10.5 minute challenge. I ran the entire thing which is still a big accomplishment for me. I started at 4.5mph like normal and occasionally did a bit at 4.7mph as a little sprint. I knew I’d be close to my old PR (which was .812 miles) so for a minute toward the end I went to 5mph and for the very last 30 seconds went to 7mph just to get every bit of distance I could get. I’m glad that I did that because I did PR, even if it wasn’t as much of a PR change as I was hoping it would be.

Once I got to the floor, I was pretty tired but I wanted to do the best I could. The first block was arms, lunges, and abs so that wasn’t too bad after all the running. The second block was arms with squats and ended with a 500 meter row. I was excited to try the row because I wanted to PR on it too. I didn’t know what my 500 meter PR was going into class so I was really excited when I finished it thinking I got a new best time. It was a bit frustrating to realize that I tied with my PR. I know I should still be happy to tie with my PR when I’m tired at the end of class, but as you all know I’m super stubborn with myself.

I also went to Tuesday’s workout since I do try to work out on holidays. This workout was a 3G 3 partner workout and it was set up as 3 blocks that were each 14 minutes long. A lot of partner workouts are for the entire class, so it was cool that this one was broken up into smaller bits. Each workout had a similar goal which was to see how far the group could get on the rower in 14 minutes even though each block had a different station controlling the switching.

For the round where the rower controlled the switching, it was 400 meter rows. For the other rounds, it was just rowing for distance but I think we all pretty much averaged 400 meters each time we were on there. When the treadmill controlled the switching, it was .2 miles (I did it as a power walk for .1 miles) and the other rounds were running or walking for distance. For the floor, we had a decent amount of variety. When the floor controlled the switching, it was lunges and ab work. For the other rounds there were biceps, pop jacks, dead lifts, and squats.

As a group, we did best on the rowing distance in our first round which was almost 3100 meters. The other rounds weren’t too bad with about 2900 meters each time but I know that we wanted to top our first round row. It was a pretty tough workout, but it was a good workout and a nice change from what we do normally. And knowing that we’d be switching between stations every 3 minutes or so was pretty helpful in getting through the tougher moments.

Wednesday’s workout was a power day and we switched after 2 blocks. Normally I would run that workout, but it was my 3rd workout in a row and I was feeling a bit sore and tired so I ended up walking. All of the treadmill blocks started with a 2 minute push pace and 1 minute base pace. After that, it was push to all out paces with different times. But on the very last block on the treadmill, I knew I’d do a little running. After Wednesday’s workout, all the treadmills and rowers were going to be replaced. It was my last time on the original treadmill 11 (my favorite treadmill) and we were encouraged to go for our fastest speed ever because we were ending on a 30 second all out. Since I wanted to give my treadmill a proper goodbye, I ended with 30 seconds at 8mph. It’s probably too fast for me (I think that speed is for someone with longer legs), but I was able to do it for 30 seconds and felt like I gave the treadmill good farewell.

And yes, I’m aware that I probably sound crazy for having a favorite treadmill like this, but I think most people at Orangetheory have their favorites and knew that the new treadmills probably wouldn’t feel the same as the ones we were used to.

On the floor, each block had a 200 meter row in it. I was averaging 37-38 seconds per row which isn’t bad but not my best either. We also had a lot of plank/core/abs work in the blocks. I was tired because I did a tough workout but also because it was my 3rd workout in a row. I knew that I couldn’t be too tough on myself that day for not always doing my best. And I’m happy to say that I was able to go easy on myself and felt glad that I was able to do what I could do.

Orangetheory was closed on Thursday and Friday to spruce things up and get the new equipment in, so my next workout was on Saturday. As usual for Saturday workouts for me, it was a 3G workout. I got there a bit late and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to start on a treadmill, but somehow not only did I get to start on a treadmill but I got to start on the new treadmill 11! The treadmills looked similar to the old ones, but I could feel a difference. They do still need to be a bit balanced out (very common issue with new treadmills), but it was good to be on my normal treadmill. I was dealing with some hip pain, so I planned on doing a lot of walking. And that worked out well because it was a strength day.

There was some push pace times at a flat treadmill incline, and I did run those. But for all the incline work, I walked and I’m glad that I did. It wasn’t a really difficult hill workout, but I know I couldn’t have done it as a run. I did try to run briefly at 4% and it was feeling pretty bad. So pretty much all my treadmill time with the few moments of push paces on a flat incline were walking.

On the floor, we had 2 blocks. The first block was lunges and shoulder work followed by abs. And the second block was lunges, abs, and pushups. Each block was only about 7 minutes long so it went by pretty quickly. And on the rower, we had rowing with work with medicine balls in-between each row. My rowing was pretty slow, but that might have been because of the new rowers. The seats are different with these rowers compared to the others so it might take me a bit of time to get used to it. But I’m sure they will feel normal to me soon.

After completing Saturday’s workout, I went to the app on my phone that I use to track my workouts. Having an app like that is so much easier to figure out if I’m on pace to hit my workout goal for the year than if I tracked it on paper or something. And Saturday’s workout was a bit of a milestone one for the year.

I’m ahead of pace to hit my workout goal for the year and that makes me pretty happy. Hopefully this momentum continues!

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Have A Low-Key 4th (or Friends, Fries, and Fireworks)

Posted on July 7, 2017 | Comments Off on Have A Low-Key 4th (or Friends, Fries, and Fireworks)

Since the 4th of July party I usually go to was on the 1st, I had the 4th of July free. I wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to do that day, but I knew I was going to enjoy having an extra day off. So many holidays are on Mondays (or have fallen on a Sunday) so I don’t get an extra day off that often. It’s a real treat when there is an extra day that I can relax and have fun.

I figured I’d try to go and see fireworks somewhere, but I really didn’t have a plan. For the last several years, I’ve pretty much gone to Chris and Marie’s party. But I used to go to other events before. About 4 years ago I went to the fireworks show in Studio City. And for a few years before that I went to the show in Culver City. But with my friends living all over LA, I wasn’t quite sure where I would end up this year.

I texted some friends to see who was interested in going to a show and most people either had plans or didn’t feel like driving in holiday traffic. I don’t blame them because I didn’t want to drive that far and usually I have plans. But fortunately my friend Grace (she works for the podcast with me and also goes to OTF) had no plans and was up for coming to my side of town! So after she had some acting work to do, she headed over and we went to the Culver City fireworks show.

The Culver City show used to be at Culver City High School, where I used to be a substitute teacher. I was pretty familiar with the school and we watched the fireworks from the football field which was pretty fun. But since the last time I went to the show, they moved from doing the show at the high school to West LA College (a community college in Culver City). It’s still pretty close to my house, so it didn’t take us too long to get there.

The seating is on the grass of some of the sports fields there (I think it was the soccer and softball fields) and most people bring blankets and chairs to sit on. I had a big beach blanket that stays in my car, so I grabbed that for us to sit on. The gates opened at 4pm and we got there around 7 so a lot of the field was already claimed by other people. But we didn’t need too much room for 2 of us and found a spot that seemed pretty good. Since fireworks go up high, I wasn’t too worried about being very close. And I wasn’t expecting to see the show that was on the stage before the fireworks (I think it was just different musical acts).

It was pretty awesome getting to hang out with Grace. We’ve gotten to hang out a bunch lately and she is so awesome! She’s pretty new to LA still so I’m always sharing random LA advice with her. But she’s been kicking butt considering she’s still new to town! I wasn’t doing that much for my career when I moved here, but then again I was focused on college then. But it’s awesome to be friends with someone who is super motivated because that motivates me to do more.

There were a bunch of food trucks there to buy food and Grace went on a food run while I held down our blanket. It took her a while because of the crowds, but I didn’t mind because there was some really great people watching. It’s such an interesting crowd that goes to this fireworks show. It’s not the typically LA event and it really has a small-town feel to it for being in the middle of a major city. I loved seeing all the families having fun and the kids acting like kids and not being jaded by the world.

Grace ended up getting us some french fries and they were so good! They were so good that I forgot to get a photo of them before we ate them! It was the perfect treat to have while we waited for it to get dark for the fireworks to start. I had looked at what time sunset would be, but the show had to start much later (closer to 9pm).

In the past, I’ve always been impressed by this fireworks show. For being a smaller show, it’s one of the longer shows. And this year was no different. It was about 20 minutes of fireworks to lots of different songs. We couldn’t really hear the songs because all the speakers were placed close to the stage, but it didn’t matter. Seeing the fireworks is still awesome and exactly what I wanted to do for the 4th of July.

After the show was done, Grace headed out to get an Uber home while I headed back to my car. Taking an Uber would probably have been the better option because the parking garage was a total mess trying to leave. I didn’t even move my car from the parking spot for about an hour. It took me almost so long to get out of there, but once I was out of the garage it was only a few minutes to get back home.

It was a low-key 4th of July, but it had all the elements of what I wanted to do that day. I’m glad that I got to do exactly what I wanted to do that day and it was a nice way to have a day off before getting back to all the craziness of my life.

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4th Of July On The 1st (or Another Awesome Party With Friends)

Posted on July 6, 2017 | 1 comment

With 4th of July being on a Tuesday this year, I was pretty sure that the party I usually go to for the 4th wasn’t going to be on Tuesday. I wasn’t sure what day it would be, but when I found out it was on Saturday I wasn’t surprised. So Marie and Chris decided to make their party Celebrate the 4th on the 1st and it was perfect!

The party started in the last afternoon which worked out really well for me. I had the goal setting workshop until about 2pm and went to the party pretty soon after everyone left the workshop. I had every intention of making Drunk Fruit like I have in the past, but that didn’t end up happening this year. I don’t know what happened, but before I knew it it was Friday night and I hadn’t gotten any of the stuff I would need to make it. I felt bad that I didn’t bring it, but I did bring some sparkling lemonade so I wasn’t totally empty handed when I arrived (although not bringing anything is ok too).

It was the usual crowd at the party and that was exactly what I was hoping for. I had missed the Memorial Day party so I hadn’t seen a lot of people since the Oscars party. Even though I had told many people about my tumors shrinking, most of them hadn’t seen me since I got the news. So a lot of people wanted to hear the entire story and know more about what the plan is now. I wish I had more to say about the plan besides we are waiting for another MRI in the fall, but I think everyone was just happy that I didn’t have to have surgery back in April and that things are looking positive for me.

Most of the time I was at the party, I was just socializing and hanging out with everyone. I did get some food since it was a BBQ and there is always amazing food there. I tried not to think too much about how much I was eating because I didn’t want to stress out about it. But I know I did overeat a bit (I felt it the next day) but since it was a rare occasion I tried to be ok with that.

A lot of the socializing was about online dating since I’m not the only person having random adventures because of it. Everyone seems to think I have the craziest stories, but I think everyone else has some epic ones too. And we were showing off the random people we’ve been matching with on various apps and doing some swiping together as a group on each other’s profiles. It’s nice to know that my friends are having the same experiences as me on online dating since sometimes it makes me wonder if I’m doing something wrong. But clearly it’s not just me.

But the one thing I had to make sure to do while I was at the party was the traditional photo that I take with some of my friends. It all started a few years ago when we ran through the sprinklers and we’ve recreated the photo each year since. We haven’t had the sprinklers on for the other years, but I think having to pretend is what makes the photo so funny. This year, one member of our group was out-of-town so we couldn’t have the exact same photo. But we left a space for her and I think our photo looks pretty amazing!

And I think that the photo looks pretty great in the series that we’ve got going so far.

I love that we’ve been able to keep this tradition up and I know we are all looking forward to adding more and more photos each year.

Since it was a few days before the 4th, we didn’t really expect too much as far as fireworks go. There were some random fireworks from time to time, but nothing like we’ve seen in the past. Some people did go up on the roof to watch, but I was wearing shoes that would not have been safe to go up a ladder in. So I stuck with staying on the ground and I didn’t really see any of the few fireworks that went off. But that was ok since I was planning on going to see fireworks another time.

I stayed at the party pretty late (at least pretty late for me) and was starting to feel tired so I knew I needed to head home. It’s not a horrible drive home, but it’s not the closest place and I know that sometimes there are sobriety checkpoints on the way home. So I wanted to leave at a decent hour. But I was at the party for  long enough to get to see all my friends and have a great time. There’s nothing more that I could ask for at a party.

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A Goal Setting Experience (or Mindfulness Seems To Be A Theme)

Posted on July 5, 2017 | Comments Off on A Goal Setting Experience (or Mindfulness Seems To Be A Theme)

I’ve been pretty good about setting goals for myself. I set goals each year that I want to be able to accomplish in a year. I also set weekly and monthly goals in my Volt Planner. While goal setting is relatively new to me, I feel like I’ve gone in head first and really have embraced it. I like to have things to try to achieve and while it is frustrating when I don’t make a goal I’m learning how to be ok with that.

So when the podcast I work for was going to do a goal setting workshop, I was so excited to be able to participate! I ended up hosting the event at my house because it is a pretty central location and my living room is a good space to hold events like this. It ended up being a pretty small group, but I think that allowed everyone to get more out of this workshop than they would have if we had more people.

The workshop was based around the idea of the 4 Tendencies that Gretchen Rubin created. There was a quiz to take to help us figure out what type of person we are. Of the 4 Tendencies, I was a pretty even mix of 3 of them (Upholder, Questioner, and Obliger). I don’t know what I was expecting, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be the other type (Rebel). But to be a mix of the other ones was interesting.

I know that some of the reasons I’m a mix is because of my OCD and panic/anxiety disorder along with me wanting to be a perfectionist. But I totally want to look more into these things so I can learn more about each type and see if there is a way I can maximize knowing this to help me do better with my habits and goals for the future. I haven’t really thought about how I could adjust my goal setting process to benefit me so this was really educational for me.

After learning about what type of person we were, the next step was to work on our goals. I’ve already got so many goals for the year and I really didn’t want to cover something that I already am working on. We were advised to try to only set goals for parts of our lives that we need to work on. If we have a goal but are making good progress, we shouldn’t be writing it down since that goal is working.

So for me, the first thing I wanted to do was to write what is working in my life so I can remove my focus from that. The main things that are working for me right now are my day jobs and my exercise. I do have goals for both of those things right now, but I’m doing really great with them so I didn’t need to brainstorm more about it. And once I had that written down I worked on focusing on what I wanted to do.

I got it narrowed down to 3 aspects of my life that I know I want to set goals in. I want to have new goals in my personal relationships, financial life, and my recovery effort. I wrote down several things within each aspect that I know I want to accomplish in the long-term. Most of them are pretty basic, but again it’s always good to write stuff down. I don’t have a lot of variety in what I want to set goals to do, but those few things that I’m focused on aren’t necessarily the easiest.

For personal relationships, that’s about dating and friendships. I want to be more active on both sides. I need to set more plans and not have my relationships just be virtual (FB with my friends and online dating with dating). I want to be ok with being bossy or forceful with trying to make plans. I’ve been ok with being wishy-washy and not trying to get something scheduled. But I don’t want to be ok with that anymore. That’s how I can go months without seeing a friend or spend weeks messaging back and forth with a guy online. I want to be more aware of the relationships that I’m focusing on and not getting as distracted.

For finances, I want to stay aware as well. I’m doing pretty great with that so far but I want to make sure that it continues for a long time. Mindless spending is easy to do (especially with online shopping) and I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to use shopping as a distraction for something else. And hopefully by doing that I will reduce my spending, get my debt more in control, and be in a better place financially.

And for my recovery, it’s a very similar thing. I want to work on being more aware. I want to use what I’ve learned recently in therapy and really work hard and seriously on taking those steps. I don’t want to make excuses for myself and to take responsibility for whatever I chose to do. I don’t want to let my eating disorder rule me. I want to be making choices, even if those choices are bad ones.

After writing down these ideas and 90 day and 6 month goals for each one, I totally noticed a theme. Everything is about being mindful and aware. I don’t know why this has become such an important thing to me now, but clearly it’s something I need to focus on. I don’t feel like I’ve been on auto-pilot, but maybe I have and I just didn’t realize it. Maybe I needed to combination of my appointment with my therapist and this goal setting workshop in the same week to come to this realization.

Whatever brought this realization to me, I’m glad that it’s more obvious than ever on what I want to focus on and what I think I really need to do. Saying that I’ll be more mindful is easy to say but hard to do. But I think that having some action steps and ideas is going to help me get closer to accomplishing this mindfulness now and hopefully things will snowball from there in the right direction.

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A New/Old Challenge (or Using An Idea From Therapy This Month)

Posted on July 4, 2017 | Comments Off on A New/Old Challenge (or Using An Idea From Therapy This Month)

A new month brings the end to one monthly challenge and the beginning of another. Although technically my last monthly challenge is still going.

I set it to be my challenge last month to track all spending including cash. This is something that I’m doing for the 12 week journey for The Prosperous Heart. I had already started the tracking before the beginning of June, but I wanted to work really hard at it during the month. We are about halfway through the book’s plan so even though my monthly challenge has ended for it I’m still going to be tracking for another 6 weeks. It’s usually pretty easy for me to do my tracking since I do that for all credit card spending. But to remember to track cash was a bit tougher.

Most of the time with cash spending, I’m just keeping my receipts in my wallet and then writing them down later. But I’ve realized that I don’t always get receipts or I throw them out because of habit. I’ve been making a big effort to remember every time I get my wallet out to spend money. If I don’t get a receipt, I text what I spent to myself so I have it in my phone for when I get home to write it down. It took about a week to get used to it, but I’m now remembering to track everything including putting quarters in a meter or giving a friend money to pay for parking. I don’t know if I’ll keep up this cash tracking after I’m done with The Prosperous Heart, but it is good now for me to be hyperaware of all my spending.

When it came to my challenge for July, I was stumped for a while on what I wanted it to be. It’s not that I’m feeling unmotivated, it’s just that I don’t know what else I want to change in my life. The things I want to change are all big things and not right for a monthly challenge just yet. But as it seems each time, I got inspired just before the month started on what I wanted my challenge to be.

When I saw my therapist, a lot of what we discussed was me becoming even more mindful in life. I can be on autopilot at times and that is not a safe place for me to be. I need to stay aware and it’s not easy to remember that if I’m daydreaming or off thinking about something. I have that problem with a lot of things in my life, and what keeps me on track is to set alarms and reminders on my phone. I have so many reminders on my phone throughout the day that sometimes it’s laughable. But it really has helped me stay on track.

One of the ways my therapist has told me I can work on being more mindful is to work on my breathing. I was telling him that at times I can almost zone out while running and he said that it’s because of the rhythmic breathing. That’s the basis of meditation. So by working on more mindful breathing, I can get into that meditative state and hopefully be more mindful while doing it.

This challenge is very similar to the mindfulness one that I did last year. But it is good to repeat monthly challenges especially when I have new tools or ideas that can make that challenge better. I did pick up some ideas from my therapist that might work to make this mindfulness thing stick for me. I also have a new motivation because I have experienced this mindfulness/meditative state in other times in my day and just didn’t have the words to connect that that’s what I was doing. Now that I’m more aware of what it feels like when I get into that state, I think it will be easier to get into it when I try.

I’m doing a similar thing to my other challenges by setting a reminder for myself for this. This time, I picked a few times that I know can be tough for me and set a reminder to take a breathing break. My goal is to take that time and take about 10 rhythmic breaths to recenter myself and hopefully get myself more focused and aware of what I’m doing and what I want to do. I’m aware that this won’t stop me from binging, but that’s not the goal my therapist has for me. He wants me to be aware of when I am binging and accept that is what I am doing. If I’m going to do it, it has to be because I chose to do so and not that I’m unaware that I’m doing so.

I don’t know if this awareness will come within this month. It’s actually probably pretty unlikely that it will happen that quickly. But even if it makes some of my binges aware instead of feeling like I’m in a trance, I will consider that a huge step in the right direction for me. And I know that this challenge isn’t really just for this month. This challenge starts this month but it will likely be something that I will have to try to do for years if not the rest of my life. I want to work on mindfulness and I’ve tried to do it before, but this time feels different and I hope that the results are different too.

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