Posted onJune 20, 2019|Comments Off on Wrong Turns Lead To Good Things (or A Random Run-In)
It’s probably good and bad that I have so many things that are routine in my life. Sometimes that means I’m on auto-pilot and that can lead to repeating a mistake or not being aware when I should. But it also helps to be efficient when you know the routine and what to do in what order. I’m in a routine with grocery shopping which is something I’m trying to stop. This isn’t necessarily referring to foods I eat when I have binges, but my day to day normal food. I know which aisles in which grocery stores the things I want are.
Breaking this routine is a hard thing to do because I’m not super inspired by food or cooking right now. So it’s easy to get the few things I know that will work for my meals and just get out. When I have the time to be a bit more methodical in the grocery store, I take advantage of that and try to break out of my rut and find new things. And that’s something I was able to do earlier this week.
I was at the store looking for a few things that I normally don’t get. It wasn’t anything fancy or weird, just some condiments that I wanted to add to some of my regular food to give me some variety. I had no clue where to find those things in the store so I was wandering up and down every aisle. And while I was lost and looking for the last few things on my list, I heard a familiar voice saying my name.
It was one of the women in my mentoring group! We’ve actually run into each other at the grocery store before. Our group has been lucky and most of us live very close to each other. But there’s only been one member of the group that I seem to run into at the store. I think we live closest to each other so that does explain it. But it’s always still a surprise and so fun when we run into each other like that. We usually get to do some catching up and it always makes my day better.
This time, I was even happier to see her randomly because her husband recently went through a major health incident. He needed surgery and was in the hosptial for a while. I knew about this because she emailed our group, but I had been hesitating to email her back because I didn’t know if her husband was still improving or if things had taken a turn. I was hopeful he was continuing to heal, but I was scared to email something if it was going to upset her. And then I felt guilty for not emailing. It was an unnecessary thought cycle and I didn’t know how to get out of it. But seeing her at the grocery store allowed me to apologize as well as know that she and her husband are ok.
And that’s exactly what happened. It obviously was a very stressful time for her, but she has been handling it so well. And her husband has been making strides in his recovery that even surprises his medical team. The situation was not something I would hope anyone would go through, but they are having the best case scenario of a bad situation.
I also got to hear some of the little updates about other things in her life. But I joked that she should wait to tell me some of those until we have our next brunch as a group. But the little things I did hear are all amazing things and I love that she is continuing to progress with her project and that things are working out so well for her. She has been working on this project for years and I love that it is all coming together. It gives me hope that all the hard work that I’m doing will pay off in a similar way.
I would have loved to spend all afternoon catching up, but I did have to finish my grocery shopping. I had frozen things in my basket and I was still on the hunt for the things I needed. Turned out those things were only 1 aisle away. But I’m so glad I didn’t find it sooner because I probably wouldn’t have run into my friend and had that awesome and unexpected moment in my day.
Sometimes, I think even if you don’t realize it at the moment, you end up going exactly where you are supposed to be. And this random grocery run-in was the perfect example of that.
Posted onJune 12, 2019|Comments Off on Super Productive and Super Lazy (or A Balance Over 2 Days)
I write on here so often about being super busy or super productive and then the opposite and being very lazy and unmotivated to do things. I usually talk about how I know there is a swing back and forth with these two things and eventually, it balances out. I just have to remember that it will balance out and not focus on one time and worry that I won’t have the opposite.
But I had those two types of day back to back recently and it was pretty funny. I’m not used to them happening so quickly and it was only after those two days were done that I was able to see how crazy it was.
Sunday was an exceptionally productive day for me. I had an appointment just before noon and my plan was to enjoy my morning and take my time before that. I knew I could do things after I was done so I planned to do all my usual Sunday chores later. I went to bed on Saturday night later than I would have liked to, but I knew I could sleep in a little bit. It’s a rare treat for me to sleep in and it’s not easy for me to do it because I’m in a very consistent sleep schedule, but even if I can’t keep sleeping past 7am I usually will spend my morning being lazy in bed reading or something if I don’t have to rush around in the morning.
But for some reason, even though I didn’t get that much sleep I was wide awake at 7am. I couldn’t just stay in bed and relax. I was ready to start my day. I was able to get most of the things I needed to do that morning before 11am. I was shocked how much I did and when I got home after my appointment I continued working hard and got a lot of things checked off my list that I was planning on doing throughout the week. I wasn’t exhausted or anything doing all these things. It just felt like I matched my energy level with what I was able to do.
The next day was my day off work. I still have a workout in the morning so I don’t sleep in. But I still have time in the morning before my workout so I usually do a few things around my house before heading out. I did manage to do that, but after my workout I had no motivation to do anything. I did shower and get clean after I got home from Orangetheory and put on some normal clothes, but that’s pretty much all I did.
I did think at first that this might have been a reaction to doing so much the day before. I also was wondering if I might be getting sick because I know a lot of people I know have colds. It could have been either of those, but what I think is more likely is that the weather had a drastic change. It has been very mild and even foggy lately. And on Monday things felt like it became summer overnight. It’s not nearly as hot as I know summer will be, but it was a huge jump up.
I was used to my house being in the 70s during the day and at night without needing to use any fans, heaters, or air conditioning. It’s been really nice and I have been enjoying keeping my door open during the day and in the evening before I go to bed. Having the door open seems to always make my house seem cleaner and fresher.
But on Monday, it got very hot inside. I didn’t realize it right away but when I finally thought about how it was so warm inside it was already over 90 degrees inside. It was significantly cooler outside so I tried to cool my house down by opening my doors and windows. But it wasn’t working as well as I would have liked. And I think the heat made me very lazy. Fortunately, I had the ability to be lazy and I didn’t worry about it too much.
But yesterday, I had a lot of work to do. I had to find a balance between being productive and lazy. It’s still pretty hot out so I started running my air conditioner. I love having it and it makes my life so much better, but I also have to close up my house to run it which is a little sad. But at least I won’t have the heat making me tired and lazy.
For all the times I complain or remark about how I need to find the middle between being lazy and productive, I don’t think I’ve ever had the switch so quickly. But at least I found some humor in the situation and it seems to have balanced out a bit for now.
Posted onJune 10, 2019|Comments Off on Doing Some Theme Workouts (or Unique Challenges At Orangetheory)
This past week of workouts at Orangetheory were really fun for me. First of all, I was having a week where I was feeling good. I wasn’t feeling as great as I know I can, but it was a significant difference from the week before. And also, most of my workouts this past week were fun themed workouts! It wasn’t like Hell Week or Mayhem Week where they are all super hard. These were different themes and they all were really enjoyable while being tough.
Monday’s workout was an endurance day, but it was also a switch day so I was able to push myself a bit harder than I normally could for endurance workouts. This was the one workout that wasn’t really a theme, but it was still a great class. We had a bit of a run/row element which helped to split things up even more. Even though I was finally doing better and not feeling nauseous, I always feel like it takes me a workout or two before I feel like myself again. And this class seemed to be a great way to ease back in.
I started on the bike and cardio had a 1 minute all out pace. I did my new all out resistance level since I knew we’d be going to the rower when we were done. Once we switched to the rower, we had distance rows with pulsing half squats between. That was the end of that block and then my group stayed on the rower so we started there. We had a 1 minute all out row before going back up to cardio. And on cardio we had a push pace, base pace, and push to all out pace to end the block. Because we were on cardio a bit longer, I used my lower push and all out resistance level. After that then my group was on the floor but we did the cardio and rowing rotations one more time just after the halfway mark of the workout.
On the floor the first block had chest presses with weights, tricep extensions with weights, and knee tucks. I was able to use my normal weights for the chest presses, but when I got to the tricep extensions I struggled. I think I slept funny because my neck was just feeling off. So I had to switch to lower weights. And the second block had shoulder presses with weights, lateral raises with weights, and scissor kick static crunches. Again, I went a bit lower with the weights than I would have liked to have been. But I also knew it was a random reason why and not something I should have to struggle with the rest of the week.
Wednesday’s workout was Catch Me If You Can. I didn’t do this workout the first time they had it so I was excited to try it out. The idea was that we had distance goals for cardio. If you didn’t make it to that goal when you were supposed to, you were caught. People on treadmills had to walk at a high incline for the rest of the block if they were caught.
But it was a bit different for me on the bike because there wasn’t really a punishment if we didn’t make it to the distance and were caught. And when I saw the list of the distance goals we were supposed to hit, I knew I would only make it for the first half of them. But what I did was while I was still chasing the goals I had my resistance level between my base and push paces. And when I was caught, I put it between my push and all out so it made it very tough on me. While I knew before we started when I would probably be caught, that didn’t lessen the fun I had with the challenge.
On the rower, we had rowing and squats. We started with a 600 meter row and 20 squats. The rows and squats decreased each round. I didn’t make it as far down the plan as I would have liked to, but I was very happy about the rowing I did and how consistent I was able to keep my pace. And on the floor, we had one long block. We had skier swings with weights, rollouts on the ab dolly, bicep curls with weights, side planks, and hip bridges with weights. I went very heavy for my hip bridge weights, but I didn’t go too heavy for the rest because they were all high rep exercises. But it was still a strong way to end my workout.
Friday’s workout was a new and interesting one for me. We had a very unique rowing challenge where we were supposed to work together as a group and try to row at the same pace and pattern. It was supposed to be like we were a real rowing crew. That was totally a challenge to stay with the others, but it was fun to try! I found out later it was supposed to be a themed class for the Dragon Boat Festival which explained the team rowing.
For cardio, we had our own distance challenge for the entire block. The treadmills had rounds of .25 miles (the bike had rounds of 1 mile) followed by a minute of walking recovery. The goal was to do as many rounds as possible and to keep your speed either the same or increasing each round. I started with doing the distance challenge at my push pace resistance level, but after 3 rounds I had to decrease it to be at the level between my base and push for the rest of the workout. I was feeling a bit off due to lack of sleep the night before, but I just tried to focus on pushing myself when I could. I was actually very glad to have a repeating challenge for cardio because it helped me take my mind off of it.
For rowing, we alternated between the group challenge of rowing together and having rowing on our own. The group challenges were 2 minutes, 90 seconds, and 1 minute. While I’m not the slowest rower, I do row slower than most. I struggled a bit to keep up with everyone else, but I discovered if I did short rowing strokes that it was much easier. When we had the rowing on our own, we had a distance challenge within a certain time. The time was always long enough to allow for some rest time and I did take advantage of that break. I needed it to be ready for the next group row.
And on the floor we had 1 long block. We had step up with weights, hip swings with weights, tricep extensions with weights, plank jacks, and sit-ups. I have been modifying the step ups so I could do them, but I can’t do them with weight because I have to hold onto the straps. So I decided to do lunges with weights instead so I could still have weight work. We started with lower reps but they increased by a lot each round so I did have to switch up my weights in order to still have good form when we had a lot of reps.
And Saturday’s class was themed for Best Friend’s Day. The entire workout was a partner workout, but we were always at the same section of the room as our partner. We did tag each other to switch things up, but we weren’t moving around the room within a block. Instead, we were constantly switching as a class. We had 4 blocks at each section of the room. 3 of the blocks were 3 minutes and 1 block was 1 minute, but the 1 minute block was done solo and without workout with our partner.
For cardio, it was the only time we weren’t really working with our partners. For the 3 minute blocks we had a 3 minute distance challenge and the 1 minute block was a 1 minute all out. I wanted to keep my resistance level either between my base and push level or at my push pace level, but I could only do that for the first 2 blocks. For the last 2 I had it at my base pace level but I made an extra effort to try to pedal faster to make up for the lower resistance.
On the rower, we were rowing next to our partner. We worked as a team and one of us was doing a 100 meter row and the other was doing a recovery row. As soon as the person doing the 100 meter row was done, the other switched from the recovery row to doing the 100 meter. We switched back and forth the entire time for the 3 minute blocks. This seemed easy when I heard that’s what we were doing, but it was so much harder than expected. The recovery rows were so quick so I never felt like I was catching my breath. And for the 1 minute block, we had a 1 minute all out row.
And on the floor, we worked with our partners again. We switched back and forth doing either an exercise or a static move for the 3 minute blocks. We had shoulder presses with weights (the static move was a static hold of the weights), front squats with weights (the static move was holding a squat), high rows on the straps (the static move was holding the high row position on the straps), and superman (the static move was holding a plank). We alternated between the moves quickly so the static moves didn’t feel like a rest. The reps started low and increased and it was tough to keep going with the higher reps. But I knew my partner was counting on me so that was extra motivation. And for the 1 minute block, we had 1 minute of burpees. I used the bench to modify them, but I tried to go quickly and was able to do 10 in a minute.
I really loved this past week of workouts. I don’t always need themed workouts, but it’s so fun when we have them and I find that they seem to be challenging but in unexpected ways. I know we have some other great workouts coming up and I’m really feeling motivated to find how I can push myself before I have to worry about feeling awful again.
Posted onJune 6, 2019|Comments Off on Finding New Ways To Be Creative (or Almost As Good As Acting)
One of the biggest downsides to pursuing an acting career is that I am not in that much control. I know that I could create my own work, but that still requires things to happen that I don’t control completely. And with bigger auditions and jobs, it depends on me being called in by the casting director to audition and up to multiple people if they want to hire me. Even with all that uncertainty, I love acting more than anything and could not imagine not pursing it.
But I do crave having creativity in my life and I can’t get that always from acting. It’s tough because I’m not creative in other traditional ways. I can’t draw and actually get frustrated because of my lack of drawing abilities. I’m not really a writer even though I write on here and I’m working on a book. Or maybe I am a writer but I don’t find it a creative outlet? Either way, writing doesn’t fill what I am looking for. I’ve tried so many other things that could fill the creative need in my life and I never have found something that fills me like acting does.
I’ve come to the realization that nothing will be as good as acting is for me. I kind of knew that going into trying to find more creativity in my life. If something made me feel as great as acting does, I would go do that instead. But I still hoped I would find something even though I didn’t think it was possible. So I had to change my mindset so I wasn’t looking for a replacement for the creativity of acting. I was looking for something to supplement acting.
I still probably have some searching to do but at least for now I have found a few things that are adding that creativity I crave in my life. First, the work that I’ve been doing for my union slate has been creative when I wasn’t expecting it to be. The direct work that I’m doing isn’t necessarily creative because I am posting on social media. There is a bit of planning that I guess is a creative thing, but I’m not sure. But the unexpected creativity that I have found with that is that I have been working with our graphic designer (who is a close friend of mine) directly to come up with ideas for what we want to post. While I am not the person doing the creation of the graphics, I do get to have some input with what we are doing. And that’s been awesome.
I’ve also done a little bit of work behind the camera. Working behind the camera is not something that I love or want to pursue. But I guess when it’s for something that I am passionate about and want to be a part of no matter what, I do enjoy it. I can’t share too much about what I worked on, but it was with many of my friends. I was in charge of helping with teleprompter work which really has no creativity involved. But I was sitting right below the camera to run it and was very close to what was being filmed. Getting to watch someone work through different takes was something I normally don’t get to experience. While I’m used to different takes when I’m filming something, I usually am a part of that scene too so I can’t just sit back and watch the process. It was almost like getting to watch an acting class with someone who is such a talented actor. The day I was behind the camera was actually a tough day for me before I got there. And while I was there and after I left, I was in a much better mood.
I still want to find other ways I can be creative that I have the ability to control. I don’t know if that means finding things that I haven’t tried that I can do or to find a way to make writing feel more creative. I would love any suggestions you all have because I know that being creative does make me happy and I want to have as much of that as possible.
Posted onJune 5, 2019|Comments Off on A Random Brunch With A Friend (or So Many Pancakes)
I’m aware that I am pretty set in my ways with so many aspects of my life. I have my favorite foods, my favorite stores, and my routines for getting things done. It’s not a bad thing to have routines and patterns, but it can sometimes be hard to break out of that when you are so used to it. Breaking away from the norm is one of the things that I get from doing my monthly challenges. Sometimes it is hard to change. But other times all it takes is a friend reaching out and me deciding to go along.
I was doing some errands this past Sunday when I saw some texts from a group text I’m in with some of my Orangetheory friends. One person in the group was craving pancakes from a particular restaurant and wanted to see if any of us wanted to go. It was a restaurant that I hadn’t been to before and I’m not usually a big fan of pancakes. But I was getting frustrated with my errands so I said I’d go just to give me a reason to stop going crazy with what I was trying to do. She gave me the information for the restaurant and I was there pretty quickly. And I lucked out with finding parking in their parking lot so I took that all as a good sign.
We went to A-Frame in Culver City which is a Hawaiian restaurant. But one of the things they are known for is their all-you-can-eat pancakes on the weekends. They have a few different varieties of pancakes that you can choose from. You get one variety at a time and they come in stacks of 2 pancakes. So they aren’t crazy huge, but they are still filling. Since this was my first time there, I wanted to try a few different types but I also didn’t want to be overstuffed.
I started with the standard buttermilk pancakes and got the fried chicken with it (you can get fried chicken with any of the types if you’d like). Next I had the banana macadamia nut ones without chicken. And I got the sweet red bean ones with chicken as my last plate. And they were all really delicious! They were light and fluffy and very flavorful. I think my favorite was the banana macadamia nut ones because they tasted like banana bread. And even though I don’t really like fried chicken, I enjoyed the chicken too! They weren’t greasy which made me happy. And they chicken was so good with the maple syrup too!
I wasn’t able to finish all 3 of my plates (I was super impressed that my friend was able to!) but I definitely got my money’s worth. Good food and good value are important to me when going out to eat, but the most important thing I think is having good company. And it was so much fun to have brunch with my friend when we rarely get to hang out outside of our workouts. She is also an actor so we were talking a lot of industry related stuff, but we also talked about lots of random things. It was the perfect thing on Sunday when I was really feeling down about my errands not going the way I hoped they would go.
We both had things we needed to get to that afternoon and we also were both very full after all the pancakes, so we didn’t hang around too late. And I felt a food coma coming on after eating something that I usually don’t eat. It was still worth it even though I was dragging on a bit for the rest of the day. This isn’t a brunch treat I will do that often, so I’m glad I took the time to enjoy it.
And I was so glad that my friend invited me out to somewhere new. I don’t know if I would have gone there if a friend didn’t specifically invite me out there. I’ve been trying to make brunch plans with a few friend (brunch seems to be a time of day many people can meet up) and I seem to always suggest the same place because it is where I like to get brunch and I don’t know a lot of other places. But this random brunch at A-Frame really made me realize that I do need to make an effort to either look into new places or have more friends suggest where to go. Because I never know when I will go somewhere I have never heard of and discover that it’s amazing and that I want to go back!
It’s crazy to think that after this month the year will be half over! I’ve said it dozens of times (and will say it probably thousands more), but time is just going so fast! I do love that I have so many checkins with myself to not let time slip by. I have things that I do to check in every week and every month and it does help me stay more mindful as time goes by. And one of those checkins is my monthly challenge.
Last month, I had a challenge to work on my sleep a bit more. I have finally gotten to a place where I don’t struggle to get up in the morning. Even when I can sleep in on a Sunday, I still usually wake up at 7am since that is the time I get up every other day. But because I naturally get up early, if I stay up late it means I just won’t get the sleep I need. And I had been noticing that I was going to sleep later and later even on the nights I needed to be up early. So I wanted to work on my better bedtime routine so I could be closer to getting all the sleep I needed most nights.
There were still a few nights that I know I was up too late and I did suffer for it. But I am in a better place now with being used to going to bed a bit earlier now than I was before I started the challenge. I did think about it more when I wanted to watch another show before going to sleep and I would often decide it wasn’t worth staying up. I still have a lot of work to do so that I’m averaging enough sleep a night when I take tossing and turning into account, but I’m much closer to that.
One unexpected thing I did discover about myself while doing this challenge was what later bedtime would also work. While I don’t want to be getting under 5 hours of sleep a night, there is something about making sure you are in the best part of your sleep cycle when you do wake up. So if I’m up a bit too late, I now have a slightly better idea of how much later I should stay up so getting up doesn’t feel as hard. It’s weird to think that sometimes forcing myself to have less sleep will result in not being as tired, but it does work. But it’s not something I want to get into the habit of and I want to work on increasing my sleep.
My sleep challenge is going to continue over the next few months for sure, but I’m glad I did focus on it last month so I could get some of the better habits started and I have a better idea of what to work on. I knew I needed to fix things, but the specifics were a bit up in the air until I tested them out and I discovered new things that I hope will help me.
I wanted to shift to a bit more concrete challenge this month so my progress was easier to see. I had a few ideas of what I could do, but I ended up being inspired by a few different things that happened. First, my phone gave me an alert that I was running out of space. I am waiting to see if Apple will release another smaller iPhone because I don’t like the giant ones, so I have to do what I can to make my current phone work as long as possible. I also realized that I wasn’t using my iPad the same way I had been using it when I got it. I still use it and am so grateful to have it, but I was just getting frustrated with a few things that were’t working the same way my phone would do.
So I decided that for this month, I’m going to do some digital organizing. I have already been clearing things out of my phone to add more space, but I know there is so much more than I can do. And I know that a lot of my frustration with my iPad comes down to not finding my apps as easily because they aren’t organized the same way and I just grab my phone because it is easier.
I know this is really a first world problem, but I know that being more organized on my devices will help me be more productive. And that really is my goal with so many different aspects of my life. I don’t want to have to waste time trying to find where something is on a device and then waste time being frustrated after I can’t find it. I do have a bit of this issue on my computer as well with a few things on there that I don’t need or links in my bookmarks that are outdated, but I don’t notice it as much. Maybe that’s because I spend so much time on my computer with work so I don’t feel like I’m wasting as much time. But I want to try to work on that as well.
I’m sure in working through this organizing I’ll discover other things with my devices that I want to work on. Maybe I’ll find new systems to make my life easier. Or I’ll discover new apps that I will want to help with things that aren’t as simple as they can. Doing any sort of audit or organization really brings out new and interesting things. I’m excited to see what I will discover over this next month working on it.
Posted onJune 3, 2019|Comments Off on Normal But Still Hard (or Having My Own Workout Challenge This Time)
We just had Mayhem Week at Orangetheory and that was a week of challenging workouts. And this past week of workouts, the workouts were technically normal but they were still a challenge for me. It was my week of nausea and that makes things feel so much harder than they should be. But the past few times I’ve had to deal with the nausea I have been finding new ways to work through things. And that’s what I continued to do this time.
Monday’s workout was a themed workout and it was supposed to be a 3 partner class. I usually love partner workouts because it pushes me to work harder and do more. But in this class I was so nauseous and I didn’t want to slow a team down or have my partners wait on me so we can switch. So I told my coach that I volunteered to be on my own, and it happened to work out that way. I was glad that I could be alone because I did need to take a lot of breaks in the workout.
The way the partner workout was supposed to go was to have the rower as the pacer. The floor and treadmill switched back and forth until the rower was done and they all switched. For me, I just did 1 round of whatever we were supposed to do at each section of the room and switch when I was done. The cardio work was the easiest for me. All the bike distances were very short and I was always done in under 3 minutes. I kept the resistance level at my base pace level which helped me not have too much nausea on the bike.
For the floor, it was always the same exercises and the reps decreased each time. We had low rows on the straps, burpees, pushups, and sit-ups. I used the bench for the burpees and pushups which did help the nausea a bit, but it was still slow for me on the floor with the breaks I needed to rest.
The rower was the toughest part of the workout and what made me most grateful for being on my own. They were all long distance rows and I took significantly longer than I usually do. It started with a 1600 meter row, then 1200 meters, and I was doing the 800 meter row when class was done. If I had partners for this workout, I would have been so stressed out on the rower. For example, 1600 meters should be 8 minutes or under and I usually can do that. But because of needing the breaks to let the nausea pass, it took me almost 14 minutes. I would have hated knowing my partners had to wait almost twice as long to switch. I was happy knowing I was on my own and just doing what I could.
Wednesday’s workout was an interesting day with a mix of endurance and power. It was also another bad nausea day so I went into the workout just planning on doing the best that I could. We had 4 blocks at each section of the room and 2 of the blocks were about 5 minutes and 2 of the blocks were only 1 minute. Sometimes we had time to work through different exercises and sometimes it was just a quick change around the room.
For cardio, for the longer blocks they were pretty standard endurance blocks. We had push paces and base paces with an all out at the end. I did manage to change up the resistance levels a bit, but they weren’t what I usually use. And for the 1 minute blocks, we had 1 minute all outs. Again, I did go up a bit with the resistance level but it wasn’t what I normally do.
On the rower, the longer blocks were rounds of 100 meter rows and lunges. And the shorter blocks were 1 minute all out rows. The first time we had a longer block I was fine with the lunges. But the second time I was just not feeling ok and it was taking me so much time to get on and off the rower. So I just rowed that block without the lunges.
And the floor had side lunges, skater lunges, upper cuts, and leg lifts for the longer blocks. And the 1 minute blocks were 1 minute of burpees. I was glad the longer block didn’t require modifications but I did use the bench for the burpees. Considering how I was feeling going into this class and how much movement there was, I was happy with what I did even though it didn’t feel like much.
Friday’s workout was a benchmark challenge day. It was the 12 minute run (or bike) for distance. I’m still newish to doing benchmarks on the bike, so I didn’t feel the same sort of competitive spirit as I did on the treadmill. I’m grateful for that because I didn’t feel like I had to push extra hard to beat myself when I wasn’t feeling so great.
I did set a goal for myself on the bike and I was very happy to see that I did pass that goal. I kept the resistance level between my base and push level so I wasn’t going as hard as I probably normally would for a challenge like this. But it worked for how I was feeling and I still felt like I was doing more than I normally would.
On the rower we started with a 3 minute row. Then we had single leg bicep curls and hip hinge rows using weights. We continued that pattern but decreased the row each time. It was a tough row block and I did take a lot of breaks. And doing any single leg work is difficult for me so the bicep curls were hard. But I was grateful that the work we had on the rower were things that I didn’t have to modify too much because of how I was feeling.
And on the floor we had a mix of strap work and ab dolly work. On the straps we had Y raises, high rows, and low rows. On the ab dolly we were supposed to do rollouts and pikes, but I couldn’t do either of those. I did the rollouts on the straps instead of the ab dolly because of my nausea and I did knee tucks instead of pikes because of my hips.
Saturday’s workout had a heads or tails theme. Each section of the room had a heads option and tails option. We had 2 blocks at each section so we did do both, but the coin flip was to see what we started with.
For cardio, one block was doing a specific distance and then squats after you completed the distance. You repeated the pattern until that block was done. The other block was rounds of 30 second all outs with 30 second recoveries. I was doing much better by Saturday and was able to use my new resistance levels for everything.
On the rower we had a similar pattern to cardio. One block was rounds of all out rows with recovery rows and the other block was distance rows with squats between each row. The floor had different blocks but the heads or tails determined if you had to start the block doing burpees to squats. The first block had lunges, sit-ups, and triceps on the straps. And the second block had pushups to plank jacks, sit-ups, and sumo squats using weights. I used the bench to modify all the exercises that involved plank work, but other than that I was doing everything normally.
Obviously this wasn’t the same type of challenge as Mayhem (or Hell Week), but it was still a challenging week for me. I’m just glad that I made it through and I’m hopefully back to normal now. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see how this week goes!
Posted onMay 29, 2019|Comments Off on Just A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy)
Many people had a 3 day weekend this past weekend. But whenever there is a holiday on a Monday, it doesn’t really affect my schedule. Since I work Tuesday-Saturday, I just have my normal time off. I used to mind this a lot more than I do now. The only thing that bugs me about having holidays that happen on a day that I typically have off is that it isn’t easy for me to do my errands. I like to get things done on Mondays since most people work that day. When others have that day off, it makes stores more crowded than I am used to them to be. That’s a minor inconvenience, but considering how many holidays fall on a Monday it is something that I deal with often enough.
A lot of people did something for Memorial Day weekend. I thought about trying to do something, but the weekend was when my nausea really kicked in so I decided it was best for me to focus on myself and trying to make myself feel better. I’m still looking for the miracle combination of things that will make my nausea either not be as severe or go away completely. I’ve tried so many things and while I haven’t figured it out yet I still stay optimistic. There are still lots of things I haven’t tried, although some of them are more expensive so I’m going through the cheap stuff first.
Even though this past weekend was supposed to be easy, it ended up being a very busy weekend for me. I’ve been doing a lot of work with the union election and that doesn’t take time off for holidays. I still feel so lucky that I get to be so involved and that others have been happy with my work so far. But I still want things to be better and I spent time over the weekend working hard at that. We also have figured out better ways to communicate as a group so I had a lot of messages from others asking questions or putting in requests for things they are looking for.
I also spent a lot of time just catching up on things that I have been slacking on lately. I’ve been working on organizing and cleaning my house for a while and this is a much bigger project that I thought it would be when I started. But I’m glad I have gone bigger because I think when I’m finally done it will be so worth it. I have been slowly going through the things in my house and discovering things I forgot about or things that I know now that I don’t need. I’ve been making donation piles as well as trash piles and it has been so nice to see things not feel as cluttered.
Along the same lines as organizing, I also had to catch up on a lot of deep cleaning that I know I haven’t done. I wanted to be able to hire a cleaning service for a one-time cleaning to do a big deep clean, but that’s just not in my budget and I can’t keep putting things off until I feel like I have a clean slate. I have been going around my house to see what cleaning supplies I have (I keep some in my kitchen and some in my bathroom) and found a few things I was lacking and some things that I needed to throw out. I’m still working on organizing everything and taking an inventory, but it’s also in a much better place than it was before. I also noticed that I no longer had a mop (I don’t remember getting rid of the old one, but I also don’t remember the last time I had one), so I made a quick run to the store to get one and spent part of my Sunday mopping my entire house.
And of course, I did take some time for myself to relax and be lazy, but it really ended up being a minority of the time I had over the weekend. I probably should have done more laziness because my body was really feeling like I needed it by Tuesday, but I was also grateful I got so much done. So on Tuesday, I made it feel a bit more like the weekend. I still had to work just like normal, but I made no plans for the evening so I could do a lot of the laziness I forgot to do over the weekend.
I know that before I know it, I will be saying that I feel like there is nothing happening in my life and that I need more to do. But for now, I’m definitely in a phase of life where my lazy days are busier than my busy days can be when things are slower.
This post is going to be a little different from my usual workout recap, but it’s for an awesome reason. First, this past week of workouts was Mayhem Week, which is similar to Hell Week. All of the workouts were extra hard and if you completed 4 out of the 6 workouts you got a hat. I was totally excited to get the hat, but even more excited when my friend Andrew asked me if I wanted to collaborate again. He and I worked together in the beginning of the year when we discussed our Orangetheorygoalsfor the year. This time, he was planning on doing all 6 days of Mayhem and a vlog for each day. He asked me to be a guest on one vlog, and since he was going to do all 6 workouts I asked if he could do some recaps for me!
So this post is all quick recaps of the workouts from both of us. Andrew (which will be the italics text) has something to say every day. I had a lot of rest days (which I will discuss at the end of this post) so I don’t have as much to say. But before I get into our recaps, Andrew wanted to share a little bit about his plan:
This year was my second All Out Mayhem at Orangetheory (kind of strange to write that) and, unlike last year, I decided to go beyond the minimum amount of classes to ‘complete’ the challenge and aim for all SIX days…
Those six days came and went and since I’m still alive, I thought I would give a quick review of each class (written RevRun-style, soaking in a tub of Epsom salt).
Sunday (Unrest)
Me: Rest Day
Andrew: To Paraphrase Maya Angelo, “people won’t remember what you said or did, but how you made them feel”. That’s me with this workout. I don’t remember what the format was exactly, but I do remember during it I began to question my plan of doing this 5 more days in a row…
Monday (Bedlam)
Me: This was the day that I appeared on Andrew’s vlog, so you can see a little bit about my experience on there. I was happy to have a 3 group class because we didn’t have nearly as many all outs as the 2 group class. I had to go a bit lower on my resistance level on the bike because all of the all outs were at inclines/high resistance levels, but even going lower than normal made it hard for me. I didn’t get as far on the rower as I would have but I still had a great time with this workout and felt amazing after completing it!
Andrew: This was the day with the 20 (Yes, TWENTY) All Outs on the treadmill. While it did have a “sticker shock” effect upon hearing it presented by your coach, it really wasn’t that bad -Although I might have preferred to start my Monday morning with the 3G version (only 12 All Outs). Spoiler: in hindsight this day ended up being my favorite.
Tuesday (Epocalypse)
Me: Rest Day
Andrew: This is when my body started to get a little mad at me. With this being my 3rd day in a row, my legs and arms really started to hurt. After class, I actually had to foam roll the backs of my arms (you can laugh) to relieve the pain.
Wednesday (Commotion)
Me: This workout was a bit weird for me because the rower at my station wasn’t working. So instead of having 15 minutes at each section of the room, I had 30 minutes on the bike and 15 minutes on the floor. But it turned out that the rowing blocks actually were almost no rowing but instead 30 seconds of rowing and then we finished the block with sumo squats and tricep extensions. The floor was all squats, sit-ups, and push ups. Everything was very repetitive and I was so glad to have work after my workout so I could sit and be lazy.
Andrew: I hated this one. Moving on.
Thursday (Disturbance)
Me: Rest Day
Andrew: At this point in the week, my body was giving up. I powered through however and made modifications to both the floor and the tread blocks to not make matters worse for my lower legs & feet (I threw the burpees away).
Friday (Pandemonium)
Me: This was the first workout of the week that I had my horrible nausea. I am so glad it started toward the end of the week because I honestly was expecting it all week. We had a ton of squats in this workout and they were unfortunately making me nauseous (which I don’t think has ever happened with squats before), but I just took my time and did them at my own pace. The floor was all upper body and went much better than I thought I could do with how I was feeling.
Andrew: I remember telling the staff at the front desk before that I was jealous they got to sit there while I had to go workout (I swear I like Orangetheory y’all, I’m just dramatic lol). By the end of class I decided I had put in way too much hard work & dedication to end the week with a less than average effort. So I spent the last 30 seconds at a 10.2 on the treadmill -super high for me!
Overall, I’m really proud of myself for sticking with my goal of going all 6 days. The point of Mayhem for me was to get myself back on track with my consistency and I think it truly worked.
*drains tub*
As you can see, I only did 3 days of Mayhem. I don’t know what I was thinking but I thought it ended on Saturday so my Saturday workout would have been the 4th day. I only realized my mistake when I was in class on Friday so it was too late to do anything about it. I had a moment of real disappointment and feeling mad at myself, but I got that thought out of my head quickly. I still did 3 days of Mayhem and 4 workouts that week since I did still go on Saturday. That’s not something that everyone can do.
And what Andrew did with doing all 6 workouts is even more incredible! I’m so lucky to have friends like him who inspire me to do more and work harder. Hopefully I will be able to do better with the planning for Hell Week and Mayhem next year.
Make sure you go to Andrew’s channel to subscribe so you can see all of his vlogs about his fitness journey! And you can see my appearance regarding Monday’s workout below!
Posted onMay 23, 2019|Comments Off on Les Miserables (or Another Classic 19 Years Later)
My group is coming to an end to our season at the Pantages. We only have 2 more shows left and they are both in July. After that, one friend and I will be continuing for the next season which will be starting in October. But I will miss the group we have this year because it’s been so great (I miss my group from last year too). It has been a great season this season and I’ve said it many times that I’m loving seeing classic shows again or shows that I’ve seen before. And this week the show was another show I was familiar with.
Before this week, I think I had only had seen “Les Miserables” one other time on stage. I saw it when I went to NYC with a high school group 19 year ago. It was an amazing trip and I got to see some incredible shows. One of the other shows I have left for this season is a show that I saw on that same trip (although that show is one I’m not as familiar with). But even though I’ve only seen the show on stage one other time, I have seen other adaptations of it since then. There was the movie a few years ago which did a great job of keeping the adaptation close to the stage show. And I’ve heard the songs in other shows I’ve gone to. Since the show is almost all singing, knowing the songs pretty much means knowing the show.
We were seated up in the mezzanine this time since we were not attending on our usual night. But we were almost in the center which is a nice treat. I do think I still prefer being close to the stage and to the side because I like being able to see the actors’ faces, but being in the center and not having any part of the stage blocked is good too. And even being almost in the back is still close to the stage compared to other theaters. I know that next season won’t be the same because some of the shows are at the Dolby and that’s a much bigger theater. But hopefully our seats there won’t be in the far back.
“Les Miserables” requires some incredible singers. Not only does the show pretty much only have singing and no dialogue, but there are so many songs that I know are technically difficult. I’m not a singer at all, but I still know when a song is tough to sing. So having strong singers is a requirement for the show to succeed. And this touring cast really did have some talented performers! I was getting chills at times during some of the more dramatic songs. I was prepared to cry while watching it since I know I have cried before with this show. Somehow I was able to hold it together, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t emotional or didn’t enjoy it. I just think I was so focused on watching it that I didn’t have the time to have the emotions hit me or make me react.
Something I’ve been enjoying with all these shows I’ve been able to see is how the sets work. I know with touring shows the sets can’t be as elaborate as they are on Broadway or if a show is staying in a theater for a long run. I think most of the shows I’ve seen the past few seasons have had very interesting sets and I’m always fascinated to see what they do and how they use what they put on stage. This show was no different. They used the depth of the stage in a unique way and used the buildings in the town almost like curtains to block the stage to change the sets. Since they didn’t use the regular curtains and had a set acting as them, the show didn’t have to stop when the sets changed and they were still able to use lots of different set options. And they had a screen on the back of the stage that they used for a few moments to convey motion. The first few times they used the screen it surprised me. And toward the end of the show when they used it to show movement in the sewer it was so perfect and I loved what they were able to do without making it look like a movie or theme park ride.
This show was one that my entire group was familiar with and I think we all went into it knowing we’d enjoy it. Obviously with it being a sad show we didn’t leave gushing about how much we liked it or talked about things too much. We all kind of took time to let it sit with us. But even though we weren’t saying it, I think everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.
I’ve got a bit of time now before my last 2 shows this season. But with how quickly time is flying by, I’m sure it will be here before I know it!
What I’ve Been Eating (or Does It Really Matter If I’m Still Under My Calories?)
