Category Archives: Food

A Birthday Celebration (or An Orangetheory Reunion)

Posted on December 15, 2015 | 1 comment

When I started working out at Orangetheory, I didn’t have any expectations of making new friends there. I wasn’t thinking that people would be mean or anything, but I’ve never really made friends in a workout setting before. The closest I had to friends at a workout place was meeting someone at Richard Simmons who mentioned having an opening at her work and I ended up working for her (and she and I are friends now).

I’ve worked really hard at making friends as an adult, and I think that there is something about Orangetheory that just lends itself to people becoming friends. I’ve made some really good friends there, but the people I think I’ve become closest to are Lindsay and Sarah.

The 3 of us used to always work out together on Wednesdays and Fridays. But now Sarah goes to the Santa Monica location and Lindsay goes to the West Hollywood location. So we don’t see each other that often. So when Lindsay invited me to her birthday party, I said yes right away! And when I found out Sarah would be there too, I got even more excited!

The party was at Toca Madera, which is pretty close to where I live. I had never been there before, but I had checked out the menu ahead of time and it was pretty much healthy Mexican food.

Toca Madera

The restaurant was pretty crowded and loud, but we were seated in the back room. It was still a bit loud, but it was much more relaxing than near the bar in the front. And we were seated below this amazing tree with tons of lights and lanterns on it. It was gorgeous!

Lit Tree

There were 10 of us at dinner, so we got a couple of orders of guacamole to share at the table. And the restaurant serves tortillas and butter (instead of bread and butter) so we got a decent amount of food in before our dinners arrived. And one of Lindsay’s friends who wasn’t able to be at the party had ordered champagne for the table!

Birthday Girl

For dinner, I got fajitas (or the closest thing to fajitas there is). It was perfectly cooked and delicious and I was very happy with my order.

Dinner

There were several pages of tacos that you could get, and most of the girls at dinner got one or two orders of tacos. I know I need to go back another time so I can test out some of the tacos and sides (I got a taste of their street corn and it was amazing!).

Another one of Lindsay’s friends brought an ice cream cake. So after the dinner dishes were cleared, the cake came out.

Birthday Cake

It turns out that this type of ice cream cake is Lindsay’s favorite and she was so excited to see that someone had arranged for it to be there! I really enjoyed it, but it was a bit cold inside the restaurant (they had one of the skylights open and it is brisk in LA now). But I still finished it because I’m also a huge fan of ice cream cake!

Before I knew it, it was time for me to head home. I wished I could have stayed longer, but it was already pretty late for me and I knew I had to be up early the next morning. But before I left, I had to get a picture with Lindsay and Sarah.

OTF Friends

I’m so happy that Lindsay invited me (and Sarah) to celebrate her birthday with her. It was really awesome to get to be there and I love that my workout friends have become more than workout friends. We try to hang out when we can and even though we don’t see each other on a regular basis anymore, it’s ok because I appreciate the random times we see each other even more.

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday, birthday party, dinner, friends, Orangetheory, party, workout

Checking Out A Local Restaurant (or A Birthday and Pizza)

Posted on December 8, 2015 | 1 comment

This past Saturday was my friend Dani’s birthday. I’ve definitely gotten to know Dani well over the past year. Between our season tickets to Pantages and her now working out with me at Orangetheory, she’s no longer just a friend of a friend. So I was super excited to be invited to her birthday party and getting to celebrate with her!

I had to work my second box office job on Saturday (making it a double work day), so I knew that I was going to be a bit late. But fortunately, I thought the show was later than it was so I wasn’t as late as I thought I’d have to be!

The party was held at Bella Vista, a Brazilian pizza place that’s pretty close to my house. But I had actually never been there before! It was described to me as all you can eat pizza, so I was pretty excited to check out the offerings.

The way it worked was that the servers came around from time to time with different pizza options. If you wanted a slice (or two) of that pizza you let them know. If you don’t want that pizza, another one will be by soon.

I sat next to Sarah (who was also part of the Pantages tickets group) and she had been to Bella Vista a couple of times before. So she was helping me know what pizzas are crowd favorites and what was on some of the pizzas that I was unsure about. And since the slices are on the smaller side, you can try a bunch of pizzas without filling too disgustingly full.

I pretty much had basic pizza while I was there. I enjoyed the four cheese and margarita pizzas. And I tried the fried garlic one because that was Sarah’s favorite (I agree that it’s pretty awesome!). And then I got a bit more adventurous and tried one that had bacon and spinach on it (I’m not normally big on the bacon/spinach combo but this was yummy).

After getting our fill of savory pizzas, it was time for the sweet pizzas to come out. I had the chocolate strawberry and the caramel coconut ones and they were ok (I think the savory pizzas were better). After all of that pizza, I was beyond full!

There was a pretty big group at dinner and I didn’t know everyone so I stuck with staying next to Sarah. And Dani came over to chat with us too. And my friend Kate (who is the one who introduced me to Dani) flew in for the party and ended up staying at my place that night (it was a nice little mini-visit with Kate).

I think that Dani had a pretty amazing birthday dinner. I had a great time and I know that I’ll be going back to Bella Vista for pizza in the future. There are a bunch of other adventurous pizzas that I didn’t feel gutsy enough to try then that I’d like to try now! Hopefully I’ll think of a good excuse to have all you can eat pizza soon!

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged birthday, dinner, friends

Full Thanksgiving Trip (or Being With My Family In San Diego)

Posted on December 1, 2015 | 4 comments

My Thanksgiving trip to San Diego was from Tuesday until Friday last week. I had to work on Wednesday and Friday, but since I work from home I was able to bring all my stuff with me to San Diego and worked from the place we were staying (I did the same thing last year).

Those few days in San Diego were pretty packed, but it was a great family visit. I was nervous how it would be without my grandpa there, but it wasn’t as weird as I expected.

Tuesday I drove down to San Diego (it took 4 hours) and arrived there to have some dinner and spend a bit of time with my parents, aunts and uncle, and grandma. We really didn’t do too much that evening (I was pretty exhausted), but it was good to be around my family.

Wednesday I started with a short work shift. I worked in the kitchen so I had my family hanging out with me. It wasn’t a horribly busy shift so I’m glad that I worked in the kitchen and not in my room. That afternoon my mom, aunt, uncle, and grandma had some errands to run. So I spent a lot of time relaxing at the house and hanging out with my dad and aunt.

Wednesday evening was my grandma’s birthday dinner. We used to do this on Friday after Thanksgiving, but a couple of years ago we moved it to Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I think it’s better that way. We had a private room for the family, so it was nice that we didn’t have to worry about being too loud or my grandma being distracted by a lot of noise. While my grandma isn’t as involved in the conversations as she’s been in the past, she had a nice birthday dinner and it makes me happy to see her so happy.

Thursday starting with the workout at Orangetheory. After we got back from the workout, we helped set up the dining room for dinner (we did this in our gross gym clothes so we didn’t get our nice clothes dirty). The dining room has a gorgeous view and even though we weren’t able to see it at dinner, it was very nice to look at during the day.

I did a last minute grocery store run for my mom after that (who would have guessed that grocery stores would be out of green beans?!?) and then helped my parents get the bears set up to give out to the family before dinner. We put all the bears on a couch and covered them with a sheet so nobody would see them before the presentation. Of course with our sick sense of humor we thought that we made it look like we were hiding a dead body and my dad added some shoes and a hat to the pile to make it look even sillier.

My cousin Stephie and her kids arrived after that and my cousin Adam was able to take a Thanksgiving day flight to arrive in time to help carve the turkey (we’ve named him the official family turkey carver).

We had a pretty nice spread for dinner and the evening went really well with no awkwardness with my grandpa not being there.

I didn’t end up using the face paint on my cousin’s kids (they took the face paint home so it won’t go to waste). It was a bit weird not doing that tradition, but the evening was pretty full. And after dinner was done, I went to see the final Hunger Games movie with my cousin and her husband (that’s been our tradition for the past few years).

The next day, my grandpa’s ashes were being scattered at sea. The entire family was going on a boat, but I was not able to get the day off of work so I stayed back with the dog. I’m a bit sad that I wasn’t able to spend time with the family, but I’ve gotten seasick in the past so it was probably for the best.

I had fun with the dog at the house and took lots of silly photos of him. This is him trying to help me work.

After my family returned from the boat, I had enough time to get some leftovers for dinner and then I packed up my car to head back to LA.

I’m so lucky that I got to spend as much time with my family as I did. I know that not everybody gets the time off from work or have the ability to travel. I might not have had the time off of work, but I have the luxury of bringing my work with me and since San Diego isn’t a huge drive it’s not a big trip for me.

We are planning on going back down to San Diego to the same place again next year for Thanksgiving. It’s a great house that fits the family nicely and the set up is pretty ideal for a big family meal. I know I’ll be back in San Diego before next November, but I’m glad that I have next Thanksgiving to look forward to as well.

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff, Travel

Tagged dinner, family, San Diego, Thanksgiving, travel

What I’m Thankful For (or Happy Thanksgiving!)

Posted on November 26, 2015 | 1 comment

I hope that you all are spending Thanksgiving exactly how you want to be. Whether that is with your actual family, with your chosen family, or just hanging out by yourself.

I’m with my family in San Diego right now celebrating but I just want to share with you all what I am thankful for this year.

First of all, I’m very thankful for my family and the fact that I get to be with so many of them today. We are celebrating with 4 generations of the family (plus the dog) and we are only missing a few people who couldn’t make it. We all live crazy lives so it’s a miracle that we can all get together as a family once a year. I’m glad that I have this tradition in my life.

Beyond being thankful for my family in general, I’m so thankful for my parents. We’ve had our fights from time to time, but almost all of the time our relationship is unconditional love. I didn’t realize how lucky I am to have that until an adult when I learned that many people I know didn’t have the same relationship with their parents. I know that they don’t get why I don’t have a “real job”, but they try to understand my passion and they support it.

I’m also super thankful for my friends. So many of my friends have become my family over the years and I don’t know what I would do without them. When I’m having a bad day, they remind me why things are really good in the world. When I need to rant about something stupid, they are there to listen. And when I need to celebrate even the tiniest thing, they are celebrating as much as I am. I try so hard to be as good of a friend to all of my friends as they are to me, but they are all so awesome that I’m not always sure that I can compare.

I’m grateful for my day jobs. Both my day jobs are from referrals and for the most part they are both exactly what I need. I could use a bit more flexibility in one of my jobs, but it hasn’t really caused an issue for me lately. But to be able to work from home and pretty much make enough to get by is such a luxury that I know that many of my actor friends don’t have. So I’m grateful that the friends who got me these jobs considered me when they knew of the job openings.

I’m thankful for my acting class. It’s been tough to get back into improv classes, but each week things are getting better and better for me. I’m feeling more comfortable and like I’m doing the right thing at the right moment for me. I’m still trying to plan out what the future will bring as far as more classes go. But each week I’m leaning more and more toward taking the next level of classes. I’ll just have to see what my schedule looks like in the new year and what my money situation is like.

Finally, I’m thankful for the communities that I’ve been welcomed into or that I’ve created. I’ve had an acting related community around me for a while. But now I have a blogging community and a workout community that I can turn to for support and advice. Those have been so invaluable to me and I know that within those communities I’ve made some lifelong friends.

I’ll do my Thanksgiving recap next week on here. Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing with you all the big gift that my immediate family will be presenting to my extended family at Thanksgiving dinner tonight!

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged family, friends, grateful, thankful, Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Meal Prep (or Hopefully Everything Tastes Great)

Posted on November 24, 2015 | Comments Off

Soon, I’ll be heading down to San Diego to be with my family for Thanksgiving. It’s probably going to be a long drive (a combination of holiday and rush hour traffic), but I’ve got lots of podcasts to keep me company while I’m making the drive.

My mom is making pretty much everything for Thanksgiving this year (technically my family is hosting it at the house we are renting in San Diego), but I really wanted to help out. I know that my mom works hard to get everything done, so if I can do a little of that work for her I know that she’ll have some extra time to be with everyone.

I first offered to make the feta, pine nut, sun-dried tomato dip that I made last year. I know that it’s a pretty easy recipe and that everyone seemed to like it when I made it last year (although I personally think that my mom makes it better than I could ever do). I also said that I’d make the blueberry banana bread since everyone likes that too and it can be breakfast for a couple of days. Then I thought about what else I could make in advance that my family might like. And I decided to make the black bean dip that I love for veggies. I’ve personally been adding salsa to the dip to make it a bit spicy, but it’s doesn’t last as long that way (maybe it’s too watery?) so I made it the normal way.

The only time I’d have before driving down to make all the food was on Sunday, so I made that my cooking day (even though only one thing actually has to be cooked). The first thing I got done was the blueberry banana bread since I figured I could do the dips while it was in the oven. It’s simple enough to make and within about 10 minutes I had that recipe done and in the oven to bake.

Next I worked on the black bean dip. Again, it’s super easy to put it together. I think the most time consuming task was to drain and rinse the beans. I got that done and in a disposable Tupperware container to bring with me.

Then I ran into a big of a snafu. I only have one food processor bowl and both of the dips needed to be made in the food processor. I had washed the bowls for the bread and the food processor after finishing the bean dip, but I used my kitchen towels to dry the bowls (not sure why I did that but I did). So I couldn’t really dry my food processor. So I took a break while that dried and then about an hour later got started on the feta dip.

I’m hoping that the feta dip turned out ok. It seemed more difficult than last year to make. The food processor didn’t want to process it. I had to start and stop several times and try to mash things down myself. I finally got it to look the way I feel it should look (it’s a bit smoother than I like it to be), and it seemed to taste ok to me. It has a few days for the flavors to meld together. Hopefully it just gets better with time.

I know that making 3 things for Thanksgiving is much less than most people have to make. But for someone who has been struggling to make more things from scratch, making 3 things from scratch in one day is a lot! But I think that it all looks pretty good to me!

Hopefully when my family gets to eat them that they enjoy them! I’ll have to let you all know how it goes when I do my Thanksgiving recaps next week!

The next few days of posts will be written before Thanksgiving, so they won’t totally be Thanksgiving related. But I want to share with you all what I’m thankful for this year, the gift that I had made for my mom that she will be getting tonight, and what my mom, dad, and I worked on to give to everyone in my family this year for Thanksgiving.

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged baking, cooking, family, food, recipe, San Diego, Thanksgiving

Focusing On The Happy (or What Will Be Good At Thanksgiving)

Posted on November 19, 2015 | Comments Off

After talking about how stressed out I’m getting about getting everything done before Thanksgiving, I decided to take a step back and focus on the good things that will be happening next week. I think I realized that I need to focus on the good after reflecting on my happiness checklist yesterday. I’ve realized that happiness and good things haven’t been as much of a focus as it should be and I wanted to remedy that.

Obviously, we are all trying to remember that last Thanksgiving was pretty epic and will likely be impossible to top. It wasn’t just that almost the entire family was there at one time, but we had amazing weather and everyone seemed to have a great time. We have the same rental house this year as we did last year, but since my grandpa won’t be there (and a few other family members will be missing due to scheduling issues), it won’t be the same even if we have the amazing weather again.

I’m really excited to see my family. So many family visits lately have been a bit on the sad side, so it will be nice to have a family gathering that should be happier. There are a couple of things that have been planned for Thanksgiving (that I can’t share yet because they are surprises) that may bring a bit of a somber mood, but I think we are all focused on making our family holiday a happy thing.

I’m super excited to give my mom her Hanukkah gift. I’ll be sharing what I got her next week (again, I can’t ruin the surprise), but I think that she’s going to be shocked by what I got and I think she will love it. And I can’t wait to give my dad his birthday present because I think it’s something that he’ll be so happy to have but never would have bought for himself.

I can’t wait to see my cousin’s kids and do some face painting on them. I bought a big face paint kit this year and I think it will be a bit crazy when my cousins and I start painting their faces. We can get more creative than we’ve been in the past, but we can get over the top as well. But I know that when the kids have their faces painted and they are showing the designs off to everyone that the entire family should be smiling. I think everyone has gotten a kick out of this weird tradition that I started by accident.

And of course, I can’t wait to see the dog! It’s been a while since I’ve seen him and he’s gotten so much bigger! I’ll be working with him on a trick or two and my parents have been telling me how much better he’s gotten with his obedience training. The other day Tucker was at the dog park and tore up his skin from a bush. My parents didn’t realize he was hurt at first because he didn’t cry, limp, or show any signs of being injured. But once they saw it they took him to the vet to get it checked out (we might be a bit overly cautious because of what happened with Chaucer). The vet said it needed to be cleaned and stitched up so that was done. And instead of putting Tucker in the cone of shame, the vet recommended putting Tucker in a shirt so he can’t lick at his stitches.

I think he looks so silly and cute at the same time! I don’t know if he will still need to be wearing a shirt next week (his stitches don’t come out until after Thanksgiving), but he will look cute whether he’s clothed or naked. Tucker is officially now our dog with the most scars. And they’ve all been very minor injuries that Tucker doesn’t even notice. That dog either doesn’t have a ton of pain receptors or he is so distracted when he’s playing that he ignores any pain he has. But all his scars have fun stories and he seems to not mind visiting the vet (I don’t know if he loves being in the shirt).

And of course, the food and company are things to look forward to next week. I’ll be in San Diego for about 3 days so I’ll have a lot of time to hang out (even if I do have to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving). No matter what happens over Thanksgiving, I’m so grateful that I have the chance to spend time with 4 generations of my family and be surrounded by people who I love and who love me. I know that that is a luxury that not everyone has and I need to be grateful that I do have that.

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Posted in Celebrations, Family, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged family, happiness, holidays, positivity, San Diego, Thanksgiving

Baby Steps Back To Cooking (or My Check In Kicked My Butt Into Gear)

Posted on November 6, 2015 | Comments Off

I recently did a check in with myself on how I’m doing for my goals for the year. I’m actually pretty proud of myself on how well I’m doing on my goals and that I may get pretty much all of them checked off by the end of the year.

But the one goal where I would have to give myself a failing grade would be cooking more often for myself. I got into the groove of cooking for a while, but the novelty of it wore off (yes, it felt like a novelty and not a requirement) and I got lazy again. I haven’t been eating take out or at a restaurant all the time, but I’ve definitely been taking advantage of frozen meals and easy things.

I feel like cooking for myself on a regular basis is going to be a battle for the long run. Part of the problem is my eating disorder. I can forget to eat and then when I get hungry I’m starving and want something to eat now. I don’t want to have to spend time cooking something.

I really should be on an eating schedule and set alarms to remember to eat at the right times. But my schedule can be a bit crazy so sometimes it’s not possible to eat when I want to. There are days at my day job where I’m on back to back customer calls and chats for a couple of hours. Sometimes, I don’t get a real break the entire shift. I can usually run and grab a protein bar or banana to eat, but microwaving food sometimes takes too long and my food might sit in the microwave for an hour after cooking before I can eat it.

The one meal that is easiest for me to control is breakfast. With the exceptions of Mondays (when I’m doing a workout at 7:30am because of my class), I always have at least an hour after waking up before I have to work. That’s more than enough time for me to make some sort of breakfast for myself. I’m still usually preparing something that requires minimum effort (avocado toast, peanut butter on toast, fruit, or ricotta cheese and honey), but it’s still better than other options that are out there.

With lunch on workdays always being something tough for me, I’m moving my focus on to dinner. While it’s not easy to cook after getting home from an afternoon workout (when I’m starving when I get home and need to eat pretty quickly), there are still plenty of evenings or afternoons that I can bulk cook or just make something that will have leftovers for a day or two.

I need to get back into the habit of doing that. Every time I say that, something is weird in my schedule that makes me say that I’ll start next week. Next week then has issues in it too. And it’s an endless cycle. I’m taking the baby steps into cooking dinner at home. I’m trying to get things at the store that make things easy to prepare. It’s not the cheapest option, but it’s still cheaper than eating outside of my house. And if the leap from where I’ve been to cooking is too big, these smaller steps can help bridge the gap.

I’m still working through this and like I said that it’s an ongoing battle. I hate that this is something that comes so easily to so many people and it’s so tough with me. But hopefully I can start transitioning back into cooking so that next year I can be closer to the goal that I set for myself this year.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged binge eating, bulk cooking, cooking, eating disorder, food, meal planning

How Is This Year Almost Over? (or Doing A Check In On My Goals)

Posted on October 28, 2015 | 1 comment

I was on the phone with a friend the other day and it came up that this year is over in 2 months. I know I say this every year but it’s crazy how fast the year is going by! It feels like my birthday was just a few weeks ago!

I’m not the type of person to do quarterly check ins with my goals (so many friends are trying to get me to do this and I’m thinking about maybe doing it next year), but with 2 months left I did want to see how I’m doing with what I set as goals for this year.

My first goal was to do 175 workouts at Orangetheory this year. Not counting the workout I’ll be doing today, I’m at 142 workouts. I’m very much on track to hit my goal, but I need to get back to 4 workouts a week soon so I make sure that I get there. But it’s very possible and I’m really happy with myself that I’ve gotten this close so far.

My next goal was having at least 4 home cooked dinners a week. This one I’m not doing so great with. If you could microwaved dinners as home cooked (I don’t), then I’m doing amazing. But I’ve really gotten out of my cooking trend that I was in for so long and I’m struggling to get back in to. A lot of that has to do with working one of my jobs on the weekends when I used to do meal prepping or knowing that I won’t be at home many nights a week. This is a scheduling issue that I’m always working on and I know that I need to make it a better priority in life.

Next on my list was getting down to 2 main day jobs. This one I actually did! I now have my box office from home job (which I’ve been at for over a year) as one of those main jobs and my data entry job with my old boss as my other main day job. I also have my sporadic jobs (babysitting, the film festival, my weekend box office job with an old boss), but I’m definitely down to 2 main day jobs. I have to admit that I’m shocked that I accomplished this one since it was the hardest one in my mind. I’m now looking at some other day jobs with more flexibility (my main box office job isn’t as flexible as I’d like it to be), but I’m very happy for now with the 2 main jobs I have and I’m super grateful to have them both.

Getting into an improv class was checked off the list last week when I started at UCB and I’ll be doing those classes for 6 more weeks. Again, I’m super shocked that I got this done because I’ve been wanting to do it for a while and haven’t had the chance or money to do so.

I haven’t been able to travel a lot this year. I’ve gone to San Diego a bunch and I went to Napa earlier in the year, but I was really hoping to do another New York trip this fall. There were schedule and financial issues with doing that trip, but it’s looking like it might be in the works for 2016.

And my final goal (as it always has been) was to keep blogging. I’ve had people ask me how long I can keep up blogging 5 days a week every week and I’m happy that I haven’t quit doing that yet. There may come a day in the future that I miss a day or that I decide to go down in the number of posts a week. But I’m still happy with my schedule as it is and it seems that you all like reading my posts too.

So that’s my almost the end of the year check in with my 2015 goals. They aren’t all done yet, but I’m making huge steps and progress so far and I feel like on December 31st I will be looking back and realizing that I got most or all of my goals accomplished for the year.

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged cooking, goals, improv, job, Orangetheory, progress, travel, UCB

Following My Doctor’s Instructions (or Days Off From Vyvanse)

Posted on October 16, 2015 | 1 comment

At my last appointment with my therapist, we covered a bunch of things. We discussed my decrease in exercise due to my calf tear and the anxiety it caused me (if only I knew then that coming up there would be a week where I could only work out once). We talked about my happiness checklist and the fact that I’ve continued to do it every day as he asked me to. I’m still one of the only patients who has actually followed through with this homework assignment he has given to many patients. And we also talked about how I was doing on Vyvanse.

I’m very torn on Vyvanse. Since increasing my dosage to 2 pills a day instead of 1 pill a day, I’ve noticed that it does help me more often. But it doesn’t help all the time like I wished that it would. I know that it’s an aid and not a miracle drug, but that doesn’t stop me from wishing it was a miracle drug.

While it does help at times controlling my hunger (and I do sometimes forget to eat most of the day) it isn’t a weight loss medication so I’m not seeing a huge change on the scale. I know that I shouldn’t judge the medicine’s success by what number is on the scale, but I do.

I expressed these frustrations to my therapist when I was there last. He brought up a suggestion to me that I’ve been trying to test out. He wants me to try going one or two days a week without taking Vyvanse. He wants me to do that on days that I’m not doing anything that may put me in a tough situation with food.

At first, I didn’t want to do this. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Since this is a time release medication it’s good to have days without it so my body doesn’t get used to it. I’m close to the maximum dose that my therapist would prescribe, so he doesn’t want to keep increasing it because I will max out soon. So having days with no medication and then days with medication is a way to keep my body from getting used to the dosage.

I wasn’t sure when I’d try doing this at first, but then when I got sick I just forgot to take my medicine (despite the alarms I set on my phone). There were 3 days in a row that I didn’t take it. Those 3 days were pretty much a blur to me due to how sick I was, so I can’t say if I felt that different compared to when I’m taking them. I tried another day without medicine this past Sunday (it wasn’t a busy day for me so it seemed like a good day to try it) and I did notice a difference. It’s almost as if my anxiety got worse because I was terrified on how I would feel without the medicine.

But I got through the day just fine and since then the past few days have been better days for me. I don’t necessarily feel like the medication is working more. But it feels like the concerns that I have in my head every day are a bit quieter for me. It’s not going to be easy to find days that I’m ok with not taking my medicine, but I’m going to try to find one day a week that I can do it. If I can’t, that’s ok but at least I’m making a real effort in trying it. And knowing how much better I feel this week is motivation to keep having a day off.

Of course, I still wish that Vyvanse works more than it does. It’s unrealistic but I can dream. But at least now I have a much more positive opinion of Vyvanse than I did before and I think that will help with the success of the drug.

Are any of my readers on Vyvanse? I’m curious about your experience on it because when I’ve done Google research it seems like I’m having a unique experience. If you don’t want to comment (and be public about being on it), feel free to use the contact page to send me a message privately.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged binge, binge eating, doctor, eating disorder, medication

Evil Twin Brunch (or Catching Up On Life)

Posted on October 14, 2015 | 1 comment

With being super busy with the Convention, being sick, and just trying to catch up on my day jobs; I feel like my fun time has been limited. I’ve been working on scheduling more fun things (adding them to my calendar is helping me remember to actually do the fun things and just not plan to do them). Going to the screenings helps me relax and have fun. But I also need to be social (going to the movie with a friend isn’t exactly social).

I knew my Evil Twin had the same pilot audition that I did, but we weren’t there on the same day. So I suggested that we get together for brunch to discuss our auditions and just have a fun day out.

We decided to meet up on Sunday at Luna Park (I’ve been there for dinner, but never for brunch) since it was between where we each live. We got there pretty much when they opened (we weren’t sure if it would be really crowded or not) and ordered some drinks right away.

While they have bottomless drinks for brunch, I knew I only needed one mimosa with brunch. We ordered pretty quickly so we could start with our catchup chat.

While I had a pretty good audition for the pilot, my Evil Twin didn’t have as great of a time. There were issues with the office running behind (it happens), parking difficulty, and construction blocking how you would normally walk to the office where casting was located. I was so grateful that she warned me about all of that after her audition so when I had mine the next day I gave myself extra time to deal with all of that. These issues with auditions happen from time to time, but they can throw you off your game if you aren’t expecting them.

She also told me about another audition she had this past week (I wasn’t asked to audition for that one, so it was cool to hear about it) and then we moved on to our usual random catch up.

Of course there was talk about Disneyland (she’s going when I can’t go but hopefully we can do another Disneyland day soon), family, and her cat who happened to get out the other day and seemed traumatized by whatever he saw on the other side of the door.

Eventually, our food came and I might have ordered too much because I took a really long nap at home that afternoon. But their brunch was just as delicious as their dinner and the mimosa I ordered was so strong that I couldn’t even finish half of it!

After hanging out for a couple of hours, we both had to head out to do our Sunday errands. Even though it was a somewhat short visit, getting one on one time with my Evil Twin really did boost my spirits and help me feel back into the normal swing of things. It’s always good to spend time with someone who completely relates to a crazy and sometimes unknown schedule. We are lucky that we both were able to schedule our brunch easily and didn’t have to reschedule a time or two.

My schedule is still a bit crazy, but it’s starting to normalize and should be relatively normal (unless I get a ton of auditions) until Thanksgiving week. It will be nice to have some normalcy and expected things in my schedule before things get crazy again with time off at Thanksgiving (and going to spend time with my family) and the craziness that my day job experiences around the holiday. It’s so weird that I’m already thinking about the holidays, but they will be here before you know it!

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Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

Tagged acting, brunch, friends, hangout

Category Archives: Food

A Birthday Celebration (or An Orangetheory Reunion)

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Checking Out A Local Restaurant (or A Birthday and Pizza)

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Full Thanksgiving Trip (or Being With My Family In San Diego)

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What I’m Thankful For (or Happy Thanksgiving!)

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Thanksgiving Meal Prep (or Hopefully Everything Tastes Great)

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Focusing On The Happy (or What Will Be Good At Thanksgiving)

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Baby Steps Back To Cooking (or My Check In Kicked My Butt Into Gear)

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How Is This Year Almost Over? (or Doing A Check In On My Goals)

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Following My Doctor’s Instructions (or Days Off From Vyvanse)

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Evil Twin Brunch (or Catching Up On Life)

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