Category Archives: Food

Fitness and Nutrition (or Reminding Myself Of The Basics)

Posted on February 6, 2018 | Comments Off on Fitness and Nutrition (or Reminding Myself Of The Basics)

About 2 months ago, I shared how I was invited to be a part of the Runner’s Fit and Fueled course. I was so excited to be starting my year off the right way and to learn more about proper nutrition when it comes to fitness. I have studied nutrition a lot (many people with eating disorders know a ton about nutrition and food) but I was worried about how I would do when my fitness level was likely lower than what the others in the group were at.

But now that the official course time is over, I can say that I had nothing to worry about! The others in our private Facebook group were very supportive and most of the focus was on nutrition and not fitness. That was a big relief because I didn’t want to feel like I couldn’t do what was being taught because of my fitness level.

And I had every intention of doing this 4 week course exactly as it was set out and reading each of the lessons and watching the videos as soon as they came out. But of course, best intentions don’t always happen that way. Life took over and I wasn’t able to do the 4 week course when it was all released. I was feeling a bit frustrated because I wanted to do this as my first month of the year, but if I had done that I wouldn’t have been able to give it my full attention and I knew that I needed to do that.

Fortunately, this course wasn’t restricted to just the 4 weeks that it was happening. The Facebook group is still there and I can view any of the videos whenever I want. And I know that I will be wanting to go back to the videos a few times because I know that things will connect with me at different times. And I have all the handouts downloaded on my computer as well. And I have a feeling those handouts are going to be something I use for a while.

What I loved about the way this was taught was something I wasn’t expecting. Because this is a course for runners, there are days that are your hard run days and days that are your easy run days. And of course you also have rest days. And the nutrition was broken down into what to eat for each of those days to maximize what you are doing. For example, what to eat before and after a long run to help your body work at its most efficient. Or what to eat on a rest day to not mess up all the hard work that you put into things on the other days.

While I don’t necessarily have hard or easy run days, I do have days where I have a workout and days when I don’t. And I can look at workout days as hard days and days off as easy or rest days. Each of those types of days has sample meal plans to use with different options. And as someone who struggles with meal planning, this is an amazing resource for me! Some of the things in the meal plan are things I already eat, some are things I have eaten in the past and kind of forgotten about, and others are things I wouldn’t think of as a meal option. So I’ve been going through the meal plans and seeing the best way to implement them in my life.

While the plan has some elements of carb cycling, it’s not necessarily that. It’s more about eating what will make your body work the most efficient way possible and making sure that all your nutrition needs are met. There are so many diet ideas out right now and I’ve been checking out a few of them. But it’s been overwhelming. The Runner’s Fit and Fueled course seems to be more about the idea of getting back to good and wholesome foods and not fitting into a certain diet plan or hitting certain macros each day.

I know that I’m going to keep referring back to everything in this course for a while. While it may seem like basic nutritional information, for me it was almost a reminder that sometimes a meal plan doesn’t need to be something crazy or elaborate. It can just be filled with good options that will help you work out and keep you full. I don’t need to stress about getting into a certain mindset or tracking things like crazy. I just need to get back to basics and make sure that I pay attention to what my body is saying.

If you are interested in doing this course (and I recommend it for anyone who has a regular fitness routine), there will be another round starting on March 5th. I feel like this course really did help me get into a better mindset about what I want to do with food and how I feel about fueling myself. And I hope that if any of you are looking to learn more about nutrition and how it affects how you work out that you will sign up! And you can use the promo code BOMBSHELL to get $5 off!

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Default ThumbnailRunner’s Fit And Fueled Course (or Planning On Starting 2018 The Right Way) Default ThumbnailMy Fit Foods (or Looking At Some Post Cleanse Options) Default ThumbnailWhat Fitness Goals Are Next? (or Continuing To Impress Myself) Default Thumbnail3 Workouts In A Row (or Using Fitness To Beat A Cold) Default ThumbnailIt’s A Fitness Challenge (or Being Calm and Plank Time) Default ThumbnailActing Like A Duck (or Reminding Myself That Positivity Is Important)

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Posted in Fitness, Food, Health

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Doubling Up On Friend Time (or It Feels Like We Just Saw Each Other)

Posted on January 25, 2018 | Comments Off on Doubling Up On Friend Time (or It Feels Like We Just Saw Each Other)

I’m always so grateful when I have friends who are still in my life even if I haven’t seen them in a while. I wrote about a friend like this recently, but I got to experience more of that this week.

After doing the drop-off at My Friend’s Place, I went to meet a friend for a late lunch. This friend is someone who was in UCB classes with me and I don’t think I had seen her since our last class. But we stayed in touch through social media and this past weekend asked me if I had any free time coming up. She recently had surgery and wanted to meet up. And it worked out so perfectly that I was free after the donation drop-off and that it happened to be in the same neighborhood that she lives in!

We ended up meeting at Mel’s Diner which is always fun. We were spending so much time starting to catch up that we had to stop so we could decide on what food we wanted. We quickly decided so we could get back to our catch up time. The surgery that she had was very similar to the surgery I had on my hip. She didn’t have to have her cartilage removed like I did and her injury was caused by the shape of her hip socket and not bone spurs, but it was pretty much the same issue. And I was shocked by how fantastic she was doing! She was only a few weeks post-op and was already walking around and looking amazing! At that point when I had surgery, I was still on crutches and taking painkillers.

Besides our surgery talk, we also talked about acting. She has been wanting to get back into acting (she took a bit of a break) and I think that it’s a fantastic idea. I remember from when we were in class thinking that she was really talented. And I know that she has taken a lot of great acting classes so I think that she would be ready to go with auditions pretty quickly. She just needs to get some of the business stuff done and she’d be ready to go. It’s always exciting to watch someone talk about a career that they love to do. And when she was telling me about acting I could tell that it was what she is passionate about.

She’s also a Disney person like me! So of course we had to talk about different rides and things that we love in the parks. She has an annual pass so we were saying that when she is more recovered from her surgery and could walk a bit more that we need to have an adventure at the parks. I’m really looking forward to that because I can always use more Disney friends!

And while getting to have this catch up with a friend was awesome, it was a double friend day because of us going to Mel’s. A friend of mine works there and she happened to be working while we were there! It was just luck that it happened that way but I’m so glad it did! I love getting to catch up with her too (even though we do stay in touch over social media, it’s not the same). She is also an actor and we met working on a project together. We occasionally audition for the same parts, but we have slightly different looks so we don’t always see each other at auditions. So getting to catch up even briefly while I was at her work was a nice treat!

My friend and I ended up being at our lunch for a few hours before I needed to head home to do some errands. But getting to see her as well as my other friend really revitalized me. Being around great friends is one of the self-care things that I know I don’t do enough. Sometimes I forget how much it boosts my mental health when I get a few hours to sit down and talk to a friend. And not just talk to anyone, but someone who listens and is able to give great advice. That is something I am so grateful to have in my life and I need to remember to do this more often.

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Default ThumbnailHaving A Little NYC In LA (or Getting To See A Friend Again This Year) Default ThumbnailA Friend Party (or A Casual Hangout And Catchup) Default ThumbnailHelping Out A Friend (or Getting To Act) Default ThumbnailA Friend Weekend (or Getting Up Early and Not Doing Much) Default Thumbnail“2 Broke Girls” Again (or Seeing A Friend Be Awesome!) Default ThumbnailHip Surgery Anniversary (or This Feels Like A Milestone)

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New Year More Brunches (or Awesome Company, Not So Awesome Restaurant Service)

Posted on January 10, 2018 | 1 comment

It’s been a while since I’ve had a brunch hangout with my WIF mentoring group. We’ve been meaning to do one, but with our schedules and the holidays it seemed like we couldn’t find a time that most of us could go. We had to keep putting it off, but we finally found time in January to schedule a brunch so we could have our overdue hangout.

So many of our brunches have been at the same place, but we have been wanting to try a new place. I’m not going to name the place we went to (because I’m not trying to publicly shame them), but we went somewhere new for us that was still pretty close to my house so I was happy about that.

Even though our last brunch was a few months ago, I was pretty limited in what my updates were about. I shared about the SAG-AFTRA convention and how I was getting ready for the upcoming pilot season. And since most of the women in the group are friends with me on Facebook, they have seen some of my random posts about online dating and were asking me about what was happening with that. I used to feel pretty bad about my lack of updates, but I’m more comfortable about it now. I know that I am not in total control of when I will have fun and exciting updates but that when I do everyone in the group will be so excited for me!

But for me, the highlight of our meetings is getting to hear what everyone else has been up to. I think that we all had a bit of a slow time because of the holidays so there weren’t as many updates as normal. But we were all understanding with each other and ended up chatting about more social things than business things.

While our hangout was fun, the brunch part wasn’t as good. We ended up having some pretty bad service. When we arrived, it took a while before we got water (the restaurant maybe had 3 other tables with customers) and then another 30 minutes before we could order. When they brought out the food, they brought everyone’s food but mine at first. I assumed that my food would be coming soon, but after 10 minutes I was still waiting. I told everyone else to start eating, but one of the women in the group got mad and tried to figure out where my food was. Finally they brought it out so we could all eat.

I got the pork belly hash and it was pretty delicious. While we were annoyed by the service, the food was at least pretty good. But the service kept being weird. It took about another 30 minutes from the time they took our empty plates to the time we got our checks. And then I experienced something that was the weirdest service thing.

My bill was about $14 and I put a $20 bill in and expected to get change. I was going to leave some of the change as the tip and when I got my change I took out some money to leave. But then I counted what I had left and it didn’t add up. It took me a minute to realize that the server didn’t take money for the bill. All she did was break my $20 into smaller bills and give it back to me. If I hadn’t noticed that, I would have left only paying a fraction of my bill and not leaving a tip at all. Even with not-so-great service, I still wanted to leave a tip. And if I had underpaid, I would have felt horrible. I’m glad I noticed it before I walked out, but I thought it was so strange.

But even with the odd service issues, the brunch was still a great one. I love getting together with the group and having some time to reflect back on what I’ve done and celebrate everyone else’s victories. I know that the rest of the group feels the same way and it was actually something we talked about at our brunch. We know that most of the mentoring groups don’t meet after their mentoring circle is done or on their own during the year of the mentoring circle. I had that experience in my first group. But with this group, we lucked out because we just clicked. There are 2 members of the original group that don’t participate anymore but a majority of us really do our best to make these brunches.

Even though we missed the last few months of last year, I think we are back on schedule for doing these every other month. We might run into the same problem again at the end of the year with the holidays again, but even if we only meet 4 or 5 times over the year instead of the 6 that we try to that is a lot. And I get so much out of each of these meetings so I will take whatever I can get in a year!

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Default ThumbnailA Casual Brunch (or More Hangout And Less Catchup) Default ThumbnailAnother Business Brunch (or A Delayed Mentoring Circle Meeting) Default ThumbnailBrunch Time (or Keeping Up With Our Group) Default ThumbnailNetworking Brunch (or Having Lots To Share) Default ThumbnailBrunch Celebration (or Everyone Has Awesome News) Default ThumbnailWrapping Up An Awesome Year Of Movies (or Still Loving SAG-AFTRA Film Society)

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Posted in Acting, Food, Fun Stuff

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Holiday Cheesecake (or Birthday Twins and Twinkle Lights)

Posted on January 9, 2018 | Comments Off on Holiday Cheesecake (or Birthday Twins and Twinkle Lights)

The last few years it has been a tradition for my birthday twin, Joanna, and I to get cheesecake around the holidays. We haven’t always been successful with our timing, but we have been pretty good about at least doing it eventually between our birthday adventures. But this time, I wanted to make sure we were on top of it and I texted Joanna before around Christmas to find out when we could get cheesecake. Somehow, we both ended up being free right before NYE so we made a date for our cheesecake outing.

I was totally looking forward our hangout and then of course it ended up happening right as I was starting to feel my worst. But I wasn’t going to miss this tradition so I took some painkillers and hoped for the best. Fortunately, Joanna is such an amazing friend and understood that I wasn’t feeling so great. So she probably took charge more often in the conversation and I’m so grateful for her for that! We knew that it was going to be crowded and that there would be a wait for a table, but normally when they tell us it will be an hour it’s really just a fraction of that. But this time, we ended up waiting almost 90 minutes for a table. But we were determined to get our cheesecake and figured this just gave us more time to catch up.

We both have been having adventures in online dating so we were sharing stories about that. And she had just been to visit her family so she was updating me on how everyone in her family are doing. It was a pretty chill hangout and catch up but I’m always so grateful that we get to spend this time together. She and I both have weird and sometimes crazy schedules so we don’t get to see each other that often. More often than not, the only times we see each other are for our birthday and for the cheesecake. So we need to maximize each hangout.

Once we finally got a table, we ordered pretty quickly. We’ve both been to Cheesecake Factory enough to know what we want (although the flatbread that Joanna likes was just taken off the menu) and we got to looking at the menu at the cheesecake which was the most important part of the meal to us. I ordered a salad for my dinner and we decided on red velvet and tres leches cheesecake to have. We’ve learned that we can ask the server to split each piece of cheesecake in half, so we each get half of each slice.

Somehow I always have room for dessert even though I was still feeling pretty awful. But I knew I ate too much so we decided to walk around a bit after dinner. All of the Christmas lights were still up at the Grove and it really was beautiful. It was the first time this season that I had seen the lights and I’m glad I didn’t miss my chance to check them out!

We also went to check out the tree, but it’s so big that it’s almost impossible to get a photo of the entire tree!

But we decided that the tree was the perfect background for us to take a photo together!

It wasn’t as crowded by the tree and decorations as it was near dinner, so it was nice to be able to walk around and not feel totally squished. The crowds are the main reason why I rarely go to the Grove, but whenever I go there I’m reminded about how nice it is there and how fun the holiday decorations are. But I think that it will probably be a once a year type of adventure. Plus, most of the stores and restaurants there are places I can go to somewhere else so I’m not always that motivated to drive over there. But it makes a perfect place to meet for our annual cheesecake dinner!

After checking out the decorations, it was time for us to head back to our cars. I really was trying to keep a smile on my face and ignore the pain I was in, but I knew I needed to get home to get some more painkillers in me (I ended up missing a party I was supposed to go to after dinner because I was feeling so horrible). But even though I wasn’t feeling that great, I’m so glad that I went out for cheesecake. It’s an important tradition for us and also it was a nice distraction from how I was feeling!

While I know that Joanna and I have good intentions to try to hang out again before our birthday, I know that there’s a good chance that the next time we will see each other will be for our birthday dinner. But at least we both know that we try to hang out more often and when we do get together we maximize the time that we have!

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Reflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals)

Posted on December 29, 2017 | Comments Off on Reflecting Back On 2017 (Kind Of Reaching My Goals)

I can’t believe this is my last blog post of 2017! It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I was writing my goals for the year. This year definitely wasn’t what I expected it to be, but that was mostly for the best. But because of things not being the way I thought they would, some of my goals didn’t end up happening the way I thought. For some goals I totally surpassed what I expected and for others they didn’t happen. But even with the non-successes (I don’t consider them failures), I learned a lot.

My first goal I had for 2017 was 181 workouts. When I set that goal, I expected to be out for a little while when I had surgery so I thought it might be a bit of a stretch. I tried to make up for the time I thought I would be missing by doing more weeks of 4 workouts a week. That ended up being my new normal which was pretty exciting. And then I didn’t have surgery so I didn’t have to take the time away that I thought I would. But that didn’t slow me down and as long as the last few days this month go as planned I will be ending the year with 196 workouts!

I was pretty shocked when I looked at my total and saw how far over my goal I had gone. I knew I was going to be doing more than I thought, but I didn’t think I’d be 15 workouts ahead of my goal. That’s pretty amazing and even if every workout wasn’t the best one, consistency is so important and I think I’ve proved to myself that I have that.

My next goal I had for the year was to get through my liver surgery as easily as possible. I’ve got a history of having an easy time with surgeries, but this was going to be the first time I would have to stay overnight at the hospital and it was a much more extreme surgery than any I’ve had before. Well, as you all probably know from all of my posts about it, I didn’t have surgery. So technically there was no way for me to accomplish this goal. But I reframed it in my mind to be more about getting through this entire situation about my liver with less stress. And I think I did accomplish that. I think that I will always be a little nervous before going in for an MRI because I don’t want the tumors to grow, but beyond that time I really don’t think about my tumors that much at all. I do think about them once a day when I do visualization, but after that I try to not focus on it.

Next was to work on my recovery and hopefully reduce my binge episodes. I’m torn on how I did on this goal. I think that I have made some big strides in my recovery and there was some time where my binges were the most infrequent they have ever been, but that didn’t last. I don’t know what I need to do to keep that momentum, but my awareness is higher than ever and I consider that a win. I think this past year I’ve also become more aware of how long this recovery journey may take and that even if it doesn’t feel like I’m taking steps forward I am. I wish that some of my progress was more obvious and the results could be seen, but I think I’ll just have to wait a bit on that. But it’s a good thing that there isn’t a deadline to be recovered.

Next was a money related goal. I wanted to reduce my debt to be at a number that I had in my head. That reduction would have been about 25% of the debt I have and would have been amazing. I didn’t quite make it to that number, but I did get my debt down about 19% which is better than I have done before. This is also after getting a major reduction in my hours at one of my jobs. I went from 12-15 hours a week to 4 which cut my income down a lot. So to be able to reduce my debt that much and re-budget my life with the reduced money coming in is a big step. I wish I could have done more, but I also know that the circumstances weren’t easy and to reduce the debt at all took a lot of work.

I also set a goal to have a new PR in my 5K race. That worked out pretty well for me since I had a new PR at the one 5K I did this year. I had that PR on the course with the hills which usually slows me down. But because I had my running intervals longer that made up for any decrease in speed I had on my hills. To PR is awesome and I’m so happy that I was able to do that. But I was sad that I only had 1 race this year and that I didn’t have another chance to try to improve on that PR. Next year will be weird because neither of the 5Ks I usually do will be happening, but at least I know that I hit my 2017 goal for my races!

And my final goal for this year was to have more fun. I think I totally succeeded in this! I had so many Disney and Universal adventures with friends. I went to a lot of fun parties and just tried to have a lot of fun with the random things of life. And even though dating can be crazy and stressful at times, I’ve been having fun with that too. It does help that I’ve been turning all the bad stories into stories for my book so whenever I have a bad date I think about how funny it will be when someone else reads it. I haven’t gotten serious about anyone yet, but to have fun with dating is something that hasn’t really been in my past before and I’m glad that’s kind of my experience now.

Overall, I think I had more wins than non-successes with my goals. I might not have achieved everything I wanted, but that’s not really what goals are about. If they were all easy to reach then I didn’t set them high enough. I need to be striving for things and not reaching my goals does motivate me to do better. Look at my workouts as an example. I missed my goal in 2016 but far surpassed it in 2017. Missing that goal last year motivated me to do even better this year.

My next few posts will all be about what I’ve got in mind for 2018. I’ve got some big goals again that I’m thinking about and I’m excited to share them next week. But for now, I guess that’s a wrap on posts for 2017! It was a great year for me and I’m so grateful for you all following me on my journey! Have an awesome NYE (and please don’t drink and drive!) and hopefully we all have an incredible start to 2018!

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Default ThumbnailRecapping My 2016 (or Almost Doing All That I Wanted To) Default ThumbnailMy 2018 Goals (or Pushing Myself And Being Gentle With Myself) Default ThumbnailMy 2017 Goals (or I Know This Year Will Be Amazing!) Default ThumbnailReflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals) Default ThumbnailReaching New Goals (or Time To Go All Out) Default ThumbnailAn Almost End Of The Year Review (or Looking Back At My Goals)

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Posted in Celebrations, Dating, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Saving

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A Very Low-Key Christmas (or Not Spending My Day Off Doing My Usual Stuff)

Posted on December 27, 2017 | Comments Off on A Very Low-Key Christmas (or Not Spending My Day Off Doing My Usual Stuff)

I really didn’t do much at all this year on Christmas. It was a bit unfortunate that it fell on my day off of work because it didn’t feel like much of a break. In fact, it was a bit annoying at times because I would think of an errand that I would want to run like I do on a normal day off but couldn’t do it because everything was closed. Since I couldn’t do my normal day off stuff, I tried to not really focus on doing much at all.

Originally I was thinking about hanging out with some friends for the day with watching movies and getting Chinese food. I do that a lot and it is always a fun way to spend Christmas. But as it got closer to Christmas, my friends weren’t able to meet up. Some ended up having something to do with relatives that weren’t that far out of town. Others didn’t feel like doing anything that day and didn’t want to get dressed to leave their house (I don’t blame them). And other friends ended up getting the nasty cold bug that has been going around and I was happy that they weren’t going to come over to expose me to getting sick.

But spending Christmas alone isn’t that big of a deal to me. It would have been fun hanging out with friends, but I was able to just be lazy for the entire day and do everything that I wanted to without worrying about anything. It’s award screeners season and I’ve got access to all my digital screeners (the DVDs haven’t started arriving yet). So I spent a bit of my day watching some of the screeners so I don’t feel like there is a crazy rush to watch them all before I vote for the SAG Awards.

I also hadn’t had a chance to catch up on shows that I have been recording on my DVR or streaming so I started to watch some of those. And I love to read and wanted to get through some of my library books so I spent a lot of time doing that. And of course, I got my Chinese food. It was just delivery food since I was on my own, but I made sure not to overdo things. And once I was done eating, I didn’t want to keep the leftovers in my house because I didn’t want to keep eating when I knew I didn’t need to. So all my leftovers went in the trash as soon as I was done. It did feel like a bit of a waste of money for what I spent on food, but the wasted money is fine when it is helping me. Plus, I figure I save a ton of money on other things by having free movie screeners or getting books from the library so I didn’t have to feel too guilty.

I didn’t see anyone besides the food delivery guy the entire time. I spent the day in sweats with no makeup on and my hair up in a top knot. I was kind of a basic white girl for the day, but that worked for me. I didn’t feel like making an effort if I was just going to be home alone for the day and it is nice to not worry about things.

I know I need to do some of my regular errands during this week after work to make up for not getting them done on my day off, but I didn’t have a ton that I had to do anyway. And with my next day off being New Years Day, at least I know that most stores like grocery stores are open so I don’t have to put things off for another day.

I’m sure that for some people reading what I did for Christmas is a bit depressing. But Christmas isn’t really a holiday I’ve ever celebrated. It feels like just another day to me. And yes, I would have loved spending time with friends seeing movies and going out for dinner but I can also do that other nights. I like that I have my traditions on Christmas that can be done on my own or with my friends. But whether or not I’m celebrating the day with others I always seem to have a good time.

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Default ThumbnailA Solitary Christmas (or Just Enjoying Being Alone) Default ThumbnailA Christmas Lunch (or The Levin-Levin-Levine Summit) Default ThumbnailLow Key Labor Day (or Just A Regular Weekend) Default ThumbnailLow Key Halloween (or Costume Flashback) Default ThumbnailLow-Key Halloween (or A Work In Progress) Default ThumbnailHave A Low-Key 4th (or Friends, Fries, and Fireworks)

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Not Wanting To Wait Until The New Year (or Managing The Crazy Times)

Posted on December 21, 2017 | Comments Off on Not Wanting To Wait Until The New Year (or Managing The Crazy Times)

My schedule has been crazy for a while. Part of it is my fault with planning a lot to do, but I think that the holidays are always a crazy time. I keep saying that things will be normal again on this date or that date but then something else comes up that changes that entire plan.

For a long time, I said my schedule would be fine once the 300th episode party for the podcast would be done. But then I had more parties to go to (even if I didn’t end up going to all of them) and then family things to help with and that seemed to stress me out. I think also not having any extra time off for the holidays is throwing me off because it won’t feel like I have a break. I just have my regular work schedule happening and my next day off work for a holiday isn’t until the 4th of July (too many holidays happen on a Monday which is already my day off work). So it feels like I’m in something that just keeps going and going without a break to have a sense of having time to catch up. I still have 2 days off a week, but usually for holidays I get at least one extra day or one regular day becomes a half day. Not so much this year.

With all this craziness, I’m lucky that my fitness schedule isn’t too affected. Next week and the week after will be a bit weird, but I will still get in my workouts one way or another. I know that this is something to be proud of because for so long I would consider this craziness an excuse to take a break and not work out. But instead, I’m almost annoyed when I can’t get in as many workout as I want to because of holiday schedules. And while in the past my food plan might have gotten out of control too, it isn’t as bad as it has been in the past. It’s not great, but I know it could be so much worse. But since I know it could be better I want to work on that. And it’s just far too easy to say that I’ll work on it when I know things are normal again.

I don’t want to get into the mindset of waiting to fix things that aren’t going the way I want them to be. That’s the problem of waiting until Monday, next month, or next year. And with it being near the end of the year it is really easy to think that I’ll just fix it on January 1st. But I know if I wait to do that, it won’t happen. It’s far too easy to procrastinate and get myself deeper and deeper into whatever hold I’m digging myself into.

And if I keep telling myself that I’ll wait until it gets normal, I know that won’t ever happen either. There may be a small break of time where things seem very routine and easy for me, but I know that it’s not all the time and when it happens it is very brief. More often than not, my life is crazy with times of insane stress of too much stuff and then insane stress that I’m not doing enough. And I want to work on being better prepared for those times.

As much as I want to say that my life will be normal again after the holidays, I know that there’s no way that it will be true. I’ve got a trip planned with my mom and sister-in-law in February, I’ve got the busy season at my day job, it’s almost pilot season for acting and I’m hoping to have some more auditions, and I’m guessing that my dating life is going to continue to be crazy for a while. All of those things have a good chance of stressing me out and making it feel like my life isn’t normal.

Maybe I just have to think of all the craziness in my life as the normal times and when things are easy for me those are the crazy and weird times? I don’t know. But I do know that the more I’ve had to work through times like this (and it happens a lot because I know I blog about it a lot) the better I get at managing it. This is one of the first times that it’s really seemed much easier for me and I don’t feel like I’ve had a huge setback when dealing with the stress. I’ve had minor setbacks, but they are much smaller than they have been in the past. So I think they are also easier to bounce back from.

I know that each time I write about this I say how I should be happy that I’m seeing progress and acknowledging that I have to work on these things is major progress. It doesn’t always feel like that when you are in the crazy times, but I think that I’m finally starting to believe it.

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Default ThumbnailRecovering From Thanksgiving (or As Always It’s Back To The Grind) Default ThumbnailHow Long Can I Wait? (or Wanting To Shop At The Last Minute) Default ThumbnailStaying Calm In The Crazy (or Is This Month Over Yet?) Default ThumbnailStarting The Year With A Lot Of Transformation (or Who Will I Be By Next Year?) Default ThumbnailFirst Week of Workouts After The Challenge (or Weird Workout Times) Default ThumbnailWaiting On The Wait List (or The Text That Made My Week)

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Posted in Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

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Runner’s Fit And Fueled Course (or Planning On Starting 2018 The Right Way)

Posted on December 7, 2017 | 1 comment

There are several things that I struggle with, but some of them are things I struggle with more often than others. And one of those things that is a constant struggle for me is nutrition and food. This will likely be a struggle the rest of my life as that is the nature of having an eating disorder. Hopefully the struggle is easier to deal with as I get into recovery, but I’ve come to the realization that it will never completely go away for me.

Another thing that has been a more recent struggle for me is getting back into running more. I’ve had some setbacks that have prevented me from working on my running, but I’ve also had excuses that really shouldn’t be stopping me. And I don’t have any 5K races that I’m working toward right now so my motivation for working on my running has decreased. But I do want to fix this as I know how awesome I’ve felt every time I’ve had a new accomplishment with running and I want to get that feeling back.

But I want to really work on both of these struggles in the new year and I think I found an awesome opportunity to do so! I was invited to participate in the Runner’s Fit and Fueled course that is starting on January 2nd! This course will include lessons, videos and handouts that is all about training as a runner and the proper nutrition that runners need.

In the course I’ll get sample meal plans, grocery lists, strength training workouts, a Facebook group for support, and guidance on how to get fit and reach my goals. This seriously sounds like the perfect way to start off the new year for me! It’s not as structured as some of the other nutrition things I’ve done before, but I think that will be good for me. This will teach me how to live normally but accomplish these goals. I won’t be on a strict diet plan that isn’t maintainable for me in the long run.

I’ve done a lot of nutrition things in the past, but this is the first time I’ll be doing a running course too. I know that I’m still a beginner runner, but I want to get better. I know that my endurance isn’t what it was earlier this year and I want to get back to that. I haven’t done a run outside of a workout in a while and now that it’s cooler in the mornings and afternoons I don’t have an excuse not to do them, but I haven’t been doing it. So I’m hoping that the guidance and motivation that I will get in this course will help me get back to that.

Of course, I’m a bit nervous about being such a beginner runner when others in the group might be people who have done marathons or other long runs before. But getting over those nerves to do something that is good for me is something else I need to struggle with. There is no reason why I have to be an expert before I try to get help. There’s nothing wrong with getting help at the beginning of my journey and I’m sure that the others in the group will be happy to help me out. That’s how I feel where there is someone new at Orangetheory and I can help them out.

Since I still have time before this course starts, I want to work on some goal setting ideas for what I want to get out of it. My big goals are a bit too big to be able to accomplish within a month, but I can create some smaller goals that I can work toward. Being better at cooking at home and not having as much sugar in my diet is one thing that I really want to work toward with my nutrition. And for my running I’d love to have some more running PRs with timed events and maybe even run further than I have before. And if I can find a 5K race toward the beginning of the year to use as a goal, that would be awesome too!

The Runner’s Fit and Fueled course starts on January 2nd, but the price goes up on December 15th so I recommend signing up now! And if you use the promo code BOMBSHELL you’ll get $5 off! I would love to have some of my readers in the course with me so we can support each other in reaching our goals!

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Default ThumbnailFitness and Nutrition (or Reminding Myself Of The Basics) Default ThumbnailA New Year Of Workouts (or Finally Starting To Feel Like Myself Again) Default ThumbnailTime For Some Planning (or Trying A Challenge Again This Month) Default ThumbnailMeal Planning and Learning French (or Monthly Challenge Time) Default ThumbnailBalancing My Workouts (or Doing Some Planning) Default ThumbnailMy 2018 Goals (or Pushing Myself And Being Gentle With Myself)

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Another Disney Birthday (or Eating All The Foods Again)

Posted on December 6, 2017 | 3 comments

I love getting to celebrate my friend’s birthdays at Disneyland. I don’t really get to do it since my birthday is during the summer blackout for my annual pass. But celebrating someone else’s birthday at Disneyland makes me as happy as if it were my birthday. And this week, I was at Disneyland to celebrate my friend Dani’s birthday!

And not only was it an adventure to celebrate Dani’s birthday, we also wanted to go and try more of the foods at the Festival of Holidays at California Adventure. I had gotten to try several things the last time I was there, but there was so much that I wanted to try. And I still had a lot of tickets left of my Sip and Savor pass and this was possibly the last chance I would have to use it.

When we got to the parks, we immediately headed to the annual pass area for the Festival of Holidays so Dani could get her Sip and Savor pass. We all knew we’d be trying a bunch of food, and the pass really was the best option for us.

Over the time that we were in the parks, we all got to try a lot of food. I personally got the brisket, a eggnog macron, crab salad on polenta, a pretzel, and chocolate pot de creme. It was all delicious and the serving sizes were pretty good. I ate a bit too much, but I couldn’t help myself!

And between the eating, we did get some rides in. We let Dani pick the rides since it was her birthday. She wanted to check out California Screamin’ before it goes down for refurbishment.

And we went on Guardians of the Galaxy where we finally had a new song on the ride! I have now heard 4 of the 6 songs so I’ll hopefully complete that list soon.

And we went on Dani’s favorite ride, Toy Story Mania. It took 2 tries to get on that ride because it broke down right before we rode it, but we returned later that night and we were able to get on before we left.

We usually have a plan when we go to Disneyland, but this time we didn’t. So we ended up doing a lot of walking and going back and forth a lot. It was great because we all got a ton of steps in (we figured we walked about 7 miles that day), but I was feeling some pain.

But when we went over to the Disneyland side, I had a chance to rest. My friend Christopher was at Disneyland with his wife and kids. They were hanging out on a bench waiting to watch the castle light up at night. So we decided to join them and check out the castle. It was a very windy day so we knew the fireworks would be canceled, so this was our only chance for nighttime entertainment while we were there. It was awesome getting to catch up with a friend and we all loved seeing the castle change to the winter look. And while the castle was undergoing its transformation, fake snow was falling which just seemed magical!

The last ride that we went on at Disneyland was Small World Holiday. It’s always so pretty to see all the lights on the facade of the ride.

And the ride is fun during the holidays too. It’s different from the version during the rest of the year and I’m always happy to ride it. I don’t mind the regular version, but the holiday one is much better in my opinion. Maybe it’s all the extra lights that they add inside the ride!

After our ride, we decided to get a nice photo in front of the castle. Michelle’s annual pass includes Photopass photos now, so it’s nice to be able to take advantage of the photographers that Disneyland has. There was a line for the photos, but it went pretty quickly so we were able to get our nice group photo without too much of a wait.

By that point, we had walked back and forth quite a bit between the parks and it was starting to get cold. The temperature wasn’t too bad, but the wind made it feel much worse. We all decided that even though we would have loved to have gone on a few more rides that night, we were ready to head back (and to get into a nice warm car!).

My pass is good for part of next week and then I’m blacked out until the new year. I don’t think I’ll be making it next week but I know I’ll be back in January when my pass is good again. It’s almost time to renew my Disneyland pass and there is no question that I’ll be doing it. I get so much happiness out of my Disney days and I can’t imagine not having them anymore!

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Default ThumbnailAnother After Work Disney Adventure (or Holiday Time And Random Fun) Default ThumbnailAnother Disney Monday (or Fantasyland and Parade Time) Default ThumbnailAn Easy Disney Day (or Another Eat All The Foods Adventure) Default ThumbnailHappy Birthday Dani (or Another Awesome Disney Day!) Default ThumbnailA Disney Birthday! (or Princesses and Awesome Ears) Default ThumbnailAnother Disney Day (or Gaston And AP Days)

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Posted in Celebrations, Food, Fun Stuff

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Family Thanksgiving (or Relaxing In San Diego)

Posted on November 28, 2017 | 3 comments

As I have the past few years, I was down in San Diego for Thanksgiving. My grandma lives there and she cannot travel, so the rest of us come to her to celebrate. And again, my parents rented a house that was big enough for a good chunk of my family to stay in so I didn’t really have to worry too much about planning for the trip.

I ended up going down after I was done with work on Tuesday. I know traffic could be potentially bad so I was prepared to spend a long time in my car. I had to make a quick stop first to pick up some pies I was bringing with me, but it was technically on the way so it wasn’t that much of a detour for my trip. With no traffic, it’s about 2 hours to get to San Diego. But there was one time (not Thanksgiving but another holiday) where it was over 7 hours to get there. But somehow there really wasn’t too much traffic when I was driving and it was under 3 hours to get there. And I arrived just in time to see a gorgeous sunset.

The next day, I started by having to work one of my jobs for a few hours but it was before much was happening at the house. And once I was done working, I grabbed my Kindle and went outside to read. It was pretty hot so I was hanging out in the shade. But I wanted to take advantage of the amazing view that we had from the house.

That evening was my grandma’s birthday party. Even though we had stuff planned every day, the trip was pretty lazy and I didn’t have to do too much at all. It was nice to have time to relax and I definitely took advantage of that.

On Thanksgiving, I had my workout with my family and then I tried to help my mom get everything ready for dinner. We’ve found that it’s actually much easier to make most of the stuff we eat in advance so there wasn’t a ton that had to be cooked. But I did help get the table ready with the plant/place cards I made and decorated with the photos that my mom had printed out.

Everyone loved the plants, especially after we explained the meaning behind them. And it was so fun having family photos on the table because we were all checking them out and remembering when those photos were taken. And while the kid’s table didn’t have photos, they did have their plants and I think they were able to entertain themselves.

It was a bit stressful for my mom to do dinner again, but it turned out amazing! All the food was so good and getting to spend time with almost all of my family is something that I know I am lucky to get to do. It’s nice that we do this every year and that we know this tradition will continue.

After dinner we cleaned up and then things were pretty casual. We were mainly hanging out as a family in the living room and my cousin’s kids were entertaining us. It was the perfect way to spend the evening.

The day after Thanksgiving I had to spend the morning working but for most of the time I was working in the kitchen so I was around everyone. My great-aunt, great-uncle, and second cousin came by later and when they arrived I ended up finishing my work shift in the room I slept in. But I was done about an hour after they arrived so I didn’t miss out on too much family time.

I spent most of that afternoon outside with my grandma. My cousin’s kids were playing in the pool and my grandma and I were watching them. And Tucker seemed to be very focused on them too.

My grandma has some memory issues, but she was having some pretty good days while I was there. So we were talking about the pool that she had at her old house and how all the grandkids loved to play in it. We were always in the pool whenever we were visiting them. And my grandma loved to see kids playing in the pool and having fun. My cousin and her kids aren’t in San Diego that often, so I know my grandma appreciates the time that she does have with them.

And no family gathering would be complete without a game of backgammon. My grandma is amazing at the game and my grandpa used to say that she was a witch because she can always get the roll she needs. She struggled a bit with the game, but she still managed to beat my cousin by getting all the doubles that she needed to come back in the end to win!

As much as I would have liked to have stayed longer, I did have to get back to LA so I could get ready for the next day. I left just before dinnertime and was lucky again that traffic wasn’t that bad. But to get to spend 4 days with my family is something that I know not everyone can do so I’m glad that my schedule and jobs allow me to do that.

The next time we will all be together will be Thanksgiving next year. I’ll see my immediate family before that (and hopefully my grandma too), but to get everyone in the extended family is a once-a-year thing. But that’s ok because we seem to maximize the time we have together.

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Default ThumbnailOne More San Diego Day (or I Don’t Know When I’ll Be Doing This Again) Default ThumbnailGirls Day In San Diego (or It Might Be My Last Time Doing This Drive) Default ThumbnailFull Thanksgiving Week (or Lots Of Family Time) Default ThumbnailFull Thanksgiving Trip (or Being With My Family In San Diego) Default ThumbnailSan Diego Day (or Some More Family Time) Default ThumbnailPre-Burning Thanksgiving Calories (or Working Out In LA and San Diego)

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