Category Archives: Health

A Free Weekday (or Planning Ahead For Fun Things)

Posted on January 21, 2014 | Comments Off

While I was out sick last week from work, I missed some schedule changes that were made. So when I returned on Friday, I learned that we were going to have Monday off because of the MLK Holiday. I still ended up working on Sunday so it didn’t feel like an extra day off, but it was a pleasant surprise.

A lot of times with these extra days off I try to plan some sort of adventure. But since I’m still in recovery mode from this cold, I tried to take it easy but have a fun time as well.

I went out to lunch with my friend Kate. She’s currently job hunting so I wanted to catch up on that with her. And I had my usual randomness to catch her up on. Since I will be unemployed soon, we are trying to figure out some fun outings to go on when we both are out of work. One thing that is definitely on our list is to go to California Adventure at Disneyland. Kate has never been in that part of Disneyland before and I told her that she has to do it (she agrees with me).

After a nice lunch, I continued on my adventures by doing a little shopping for a trip that I have in a few months. My sister-in-law, Krystle, and I are going to New York for a few days in March. I don’t really need too much stuff for that trip, but there is a new Nordstrom’s Rack I wanted to check out and shopping for that trip was a good excuse.

I’m still not in “standard” sized clothes, so shopping is still pretty tough. And the plus size clothes options are pretty pathetic. But I did managed to find a 100% cashmere sweater that was only $40. So I got that. And I’m still on the lookout for a trench coat for my trip. I don’t really own any rain coats or nice jackets and I’m pretty sure that I will need that for my trip. It might not be as cold in March as it is right now in New York, but it will probably be colder than it is right now in LA (where it’s been 75 degrees and sunny every day).

Shopping for the trip is really getting me excited about it. Krystle and I really need to get on top of doing some planning. We have our flights and hotel booked, but that’s it so far. But I’m looking forward to doing whatever we end up doing because I haven’t been to New York since the summer I turned 17.

After my shopping (where it seemed everyone was shopping because it took me almost an hour to pay), I headed back home to do what I usually do on Sundays to prepare for a full work week (grocery shop, clean, do laundry). I’m starting to feel almost back to normal again and I feel like taking the time yesterday to have some fun has really gotten me ready to be back at work for a full week.

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Health, Shopping, Tough Stuff, Travel, Work

Tagged cold, day off, friends, holidays, lunch, New York, plus size, shopping, sick

Enough With Being Sick (or Holy Moly I’m Craving Exercise)

Posted on January 20, 2014 | Comments Off

I really spent most of last week being sick. I worked on Monday and stayed home Tuesday and Wednesday knowing that I was way too sick to work. I went in to work on Thursday but as soon as my boss saw me, he sent me home. I guess I looked pretty sick still. I finally returned to work on Friday but I still wasn’t completely better.

I’m not so good at sitting at home waiting to get better, but that’s what I had to do. For those few days I was sick, even walking down my driveway seemed to wear me out. And I didn’t feel too sick while I was sick, which bothered me a lot. I felt like I could do whatever but then when I tried it I was exhausted. But I did manage to make it out of my house each day while sick.

I’m writing this on Sunday and I’m still not completely better. I had to stop taking decongestants because you can only take them so many days in a row. But I’m still not able to breathe out of my nose all the time. It’s pretty annoying.

Midway through the week, I really wanted to go to SoulCycle. Obviously with a fever I couldn’t go. But I was so shocked that I craved working out. That’s a new thing for me. Normally I’m looking for ways to get out of a workout, not ways to tell myself that I’m healthy enough to go.

But I think I need to wait until I can breathe through my nose before doing a workout like spinning. So I’m still waiting to return. Hopefully in the next few days all my congestion will go away.

I’ve got a few weeks left at work before we are supposed to go on another break and I really want to make the most of my time there before not having any income (outside of unemployment). Being out this past week really didn’t help. But I’m taking extra shifts working at shows on the weekends. I did one tonight (Sunday) and I’m scheduled to do another one this upcoming Saturday night. Every little bit helps. And working is helping me to start feeling like I’m healthy again.

Even though being sick totally sucks, I’m still trying to look at the positives. I used to get sick a lot more often. Before my tonsils came out a few years ago, I seems to have strep throat or a cold every other month. Now, since I don’t have my tonsils anymore, I seem to only get sick twice a year. And I have to be very grateful that I got sick now and not at a time that I’m visiting my parents. My mom is still going through chemo (only 2 more left!!!) and she cannot get sick. I don’t know if it will be the same when she’s going through radiation, but I know that if I was home this past week, it could have been very very bad for my mom.

Hopefully this will be the last post about me being sick for a while.

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Posted in Fitness, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged cancer, chemo, cold, job, sick, time off, work

Measuring My Success (or I Really Shouldn’t Have Stepped On The Scale)

Posted on January 17, 2014 | Comments Off

Even though I know historically I always gain weight when I’m sick, I decided to torture myself and step on the scale on Wednesday (on the 3rd day I was sick and when I was finally starting to feel a bit better). I had recorded every single calorie I consumed while sick (even ever 15 calories I drank when I had Emergen-C) and was pretty much under 1,000 calories each day (about 600 less than my usual goal). Want to know what happened?

Compared to my weight on Sunday, the last time I weighed myself, I gained 7 pounds.

I knew this would probably happen. I shouldn’t have weighed myself because now I’m just upset about it. Those 7 pounds weren’t easy to lose. And hopefully they will come off quickly now that I’m starting to feel better. They could just be water weight. But I don’t know why I have to be pretty much the only person in the world who gains weight while they are sick.

Even though this was expected, it still put me in a funk. It didn’t help that I was still dealing with a fever (which finally broke on Wednesday around lunchtime) and was taking a second day off of work (which means less money earned). I wasn’t able to go out and do something to cheer myself up.

So I decided to do another measurement of my body. I haven’t done one of these in a while so I wasn’t sure what the results would be.

While I had gained a half inch on my waist and on my hips, everywhere else I had lost! I had lost 1.5 inches off my arms, 2 inches off my bust, 1 inch off my belly (where my belly button is), and 1.5 inches off my leg! That’s a lot!

It’s also proof that the work I’m putting in is working. It’s working slowly, but that’s ok. It’s going in the right direction.

Even though I’m not happy at all about the scale, I am happy that I stepped on it. It forced me to go back to doing body measurements to look at my progress. I need to be more committed to doing those on a regular basis. Maybe once a month? The scale seems to be such a liar to me sometimes. I need something else that feels truthful.

Hopefully these 7 pounds come off as quickly as they showed up. Even though my inches are down, I want the scale to be down too.

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged scale, sick, weight loss

A Weekend Catchup Post (or Maybe The Craziness Made Me Get Sick)

Posted on January 15, 2014 | Comments Off

After 2 days of posts about me being sick, I’m sure you are all wanting to read something different. So this is about my crazy Saturday (which now looking back at it might have made my immune system a bit low and made me catch this cold).

Saturday is normally a short shift day for me. I work from 10-2 and have the rest of the day free. This past Saturday I had to open up because my boss was too sick to be there. Plus, I had previously volunteered to work at the show on Saturday night because I knew I would be asking for the upcoming Saturday off. So I knew that I had to be back at work at 6pm for the show shift.

I’ve done split shifts in the past. They aren’t my favorite thing, but they are a necessary evil at my job. Normally, I’d go home between the shifts to get some work done at home and get dressed (regular shifts are very casual but show shifts are dressy business). But since this past Saturday was SoulCycle’s anniversary, I decided to spend my time between the shifts in Santa Monica.

The first shift I worked was a little crazy. There were some projects that we had to work on and the phone kept ringing off the hook, preventing us from finishing the projects in a timely manner. Everything got done, but it was a little stressful. I had some free time between the shift and my spin class, so I hung out in my car and read a book.

Spin was awesome! It was Patrick’s class, which I always enjoy. It really helped get the stress from my shift out of my body and get me ready to go back to work again. I also almost broke a personal record for the most calories burned in spin class (I was 14 calories short of my all time best).

Then I quickly showered and got ready at SoulCycle to go back to work. I ate a quick dinner as soon as I got back in my office and then headed into the theater to work.

My show shift went pretty smoothly. I’ve done plenty of show shifts so I’m familiar with what needs to get done. And while the show was going on I get to read my book (which is awesome because technically during that time I’m getting paid to read!).

I was finally done with work and got everything cleaned up. By the time I left, it had been 12 hours since I arrived at work.

I’m wondering if all the craziness and stress from the day contributed to me getting sick. I was doing well with all of my co-workers being sick around me and then right after my shift is when I started to feel a bit off.

If this crazy day made me sick, that’s ok. It was worth it. I got a lot of work done and did an awesome spin class! I consider that a win even if getting sick is not.

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Posted in Fitness, Health, Work

Tagged cold, job, show, sick, SoulCycle, spin class, work

Yup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me)

Posted on January 14, 2014 | Comments Off

All that hope that I wouldn’t get sick didn’t work. I managed to work my short shift at work, but I felt pretty miserable the whole time. And pretty much everyone was out sick except for one co-worker and my boss (although my boss was technically still sick, he just had to be at work yesterday).

I tried to keep drinking water during my shift to help flush this cold out of me. I also focused on doing that at home in the afternoon. But sadly, I seem to be getting a bit worse.

My boss said that I could take today off if I wasn’t feeling great (I have to be better by Wednesday because I’m working at a show). I haven’t quite decided if I’m taking a personal day or not, but I’m leaning toward staying home. I know that I don’t really stand a chance at getting much better by being at work all day. But if I stay home, I can rest and let my body fight this bug.

I just hate taking days off if I can help it because my job doesn’t have paid sick or personal days. So if I don’t work I don’t make money. But sometimes getting better is much more important than making money. And after seeing my co-workers try to work sick and stay sick for a long time, I want to make sure that doesn’t happen to me.

I know that there are a lot of debates out there if you should eat when you feel sick. My co-worker expressed concern yesterday when I mentioned that I hadn’t eaten yet that day. He felt that it was important to feel my body so it would have energy to fight the bug.

But this is another thing that my eating disorder affects. I didn’t feel hungry yesterday. And I don’t want to force myself to eat when I’m not hungry. That’s something that I’ve been fighting for forever. I did eventually have some soup and rice toward dinnertime, but I pretty much ate nothing all day. And I’m ok with that. I wasn’t feeling light-headed or faint like I get sometimes when I am very hungry and have skipped a meal. So I figured my body had enough fuel to last for that time.

Hopefully, whether I end up going to work or not today, this is the beginning of the end of this cold. I hate feeling sick and I know that I can’t afford this right now.

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged cold, job, sick, time off, work

A Quick Post (or I Really Hope I’m Not Getting Sick)

Posted on January 13, 2014 | 2 comments

This is going to be a short post. There has been a super nasty bug going around my day job. One co-worker was out for 2 days with it, another co-worker has been out for 3 days (and counting) with it, and my boss came to work sick on Friday and missed work on Saturday because he was so sick.

I have a pretty consistent tell that I’m about to get sick. I have this thirst that I can’t quench. No matter how much I drink, I’m still horribly thirsty.

On Saturday, I worked a long split shift (I’ll post about that day soon) and felt fine. I felt a little thirsty when I got home on Saturday night, but I also barely had anything to drink the entire day. So I figured it was normal.

I babysat on Sunday for my friend. I still was feeling a bit thirsty, but I figured I was horribly dehydrated from Saturday still. I had no idea that I would be sick or I never would have babysat.

I watched the Golden Globes last night and I started to feel worse. I’m now taking cold medicine as a preventative thing because right now I can’t afford to be sick. There’s a big show at my work for the next few weeks and we all have to help out. My plan for today is to go to work because there is only a half shift scheduled. If I feel horrible, I’ll re-evaluate the next few days. Hopefully either this is nothing or the cold medicine makes it go away quickly.

I should have probably done more preventative measures after 2 people at work got sick, but since I normally am one of the first ones to come down with something at work, I thought maybe this one would pass over me.

I also hate being sick because I always seem to gain weight while sick. Even if I’m not eating, my weight creeps up. So for the next week or so, I think I need to avoid the scale.

That’s all for my rambling for now. Please think healthy thoughts for me so I can feel better soon!

2 Comments

Posted in Health, Tough Stuff, Work

Tagged cold, health issues, job, sick, work

Finding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time)

Posted on January 9, 2014 | 3 comments

I’m struggling a bit with food again. As someone with an eating disorder, I guess I should be prepared to deal with this for the rest of my life. I just hope one day it gets easier.

I’m really working hard at staying under my calorie goals every day, but there keeps being something that prevents me from doing that. And part of it is because so much of my social life revolves around food.

Now, I don’t want to make my friends who have gone out to meals with me feel bad. That’s not what this is about. I just don’t understand how they can eat the same things as me (or more) and not have issues with it. I’m feeling insane guilt and sometimes feeling like I screwed up my whole day.

It’s hard to find the balance with healthy and fun foods, but I know it’s possible. I see people do it all the time.

And maybe I do have some sort of health issue causing problems again. I’ve met with an endocrinologist many times and some of my test results have come back suspicious. But whenever they re-test me, everything is fine again. Maybe I have to go through that process again (although it does involve blood work and I’d rather avoid dealing with needles if I can help it).

I know that a big part of what keeps me on track certain days is working out. If I work out in the morning, I have more calories to play with during the day (although I normally don’t eat my exercise calories). And if I work out at night, I feel like I have to be good all day so I feel ok to exercise after those meals. I can’t work out every evening right now because of my work schedule, but I’m looking into doing that when I’m (f)unemployed again.

I also have to think back to the time I was on the RFO Diet. For those months, I literally could not eat when I went out for meals with my friends. Sometimes I would bring my supplements with me and have them there, but more often than not I just sat there and enjoyed the company. I might start doing that again so I don’t eat foods that I regret later.

And trying restaurants I’ve never been to before is another way to prevent my guilt eating. At restaurants that I’ve been to when I’ve not worried about my weight, there are some very bad choices that I used to love to eat. And if I go back there, I’m tempted to have those things again because my memories of them are that they were delicious. There’s one sandwich at Jerry’s Deli that I used to always get. I still think about it from time to time, but I don’t go to Jerry’s anymore because I don’t want to have to deal with how many calories it is.

Sorry for the little rant today. I’m getting frustrated with my weight loss (it’s stalled right now) and I don’t know what else I can change. But I promise tomorrow will be a very exciting and positive blog post. I can’t tell you why yet, but make sure you read here tomorrow to see what happened!

3 Comments

Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged calories, diet, food, weight loss

Looking Back At 2013 (or Where Did The Year Go?)

Posted on December 31, 2013 | Comments Off

I can’t believe it’s the last day of 2013! As the title says, where did the year go? I know that when I was little my mom joked how time moved faster the older you got, but this is ridiculous!

2013 was a year of highs and lows. I wanted to look back today at the year starting with my goals that I posted a year ago.

My goals that I had for 2013 were to continue on my weight loss journey, continue paying down my debt, do 5 5Ks, do my first 10K, find alternative income, take an improv class, and keep blogging.

I did continue on my weight loss journey. I’m not as far as I would like to be, but I’m going in the right direction. While I did pay down my debt, I also spent on that credit card which didn’t allow me to pay off as much as I could have (I need to work on that). I did 9 5Ks this year. But I didn’t do a 10K. And I don’t know if I ever will do one. But coming to that realization was a big step for me. I looked for alternative income and haven’t found it yet. But I’m getting closer to finding what else I can do that fits into my schedule. And sadly I didn’t get around to taking that improv class. But I was looking at the schedule for 2014 and I’m trying to decide which day the class would be best for me. And as you all know, I’ve been blogging 5 days a week every week (and plan to continue that).

While I didn’t accomplish all the goals I had, the lessons I learned about those goals and what I really want was much more important to me.

This past year had some amazing highs and some very low lows.

The big lows for me include my mom finding out that she has breast cancer. But she is over 1/2 done with this second chemo and is doing amazing. We have high hopes that she will be declared cancer free at the end of treatment and this will just be a memory for us. Also, the losses of Dante and Chaucer were very tough for me. I don’t know anyone who could go through losing 2 dogs in 6 days without having a breakdown. While I still am very sad about these losses, I’m able to share what happened without crying now.

One of the highs for my family was my brother’s wedding in September. It was a great event and the first family vacation my immediate family has gone on in a long time. And for me, a huge high was discovering SoulCycle and how much I love the class! I never thought I could love a workout like this and since it is low-impact, it is good for my hips.

It’s tough sometimes to focus on the positives that 2013 had since it is ending with a lot of sadness. But I know that 2014 will be a better year and I look forward to all the great things that are in store for me!

Tomorrow, I’ll share my goals for 2014!

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Posted in Family, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health, Saving, Tough Stuff, Weight Loss

Tagged 5K, goals, New Years, plan, resolutions, SoulCycle

5K #9 (or I Still Don’t Like The Rain)

Posted on December 10, 2013 | Comments Off

5K #9 was this past Saturday. And before I recap my race, here’s a little information about me.

I hate the rain.

Well, I guess that’s not completely true. I like the rain when I can stay inside and not have to deal with it. I will avoid running errands in the rain if I can help it. And while I do own umbrellas, I never remember to use them (or it takes too long to close them up when I’m getting into my car so I get wetter than if I was not using an umbrella). I’m definitely a California girl who prefers sunshine to anything else.

And of course, the forecast for race day was rain. Lots of rain.

On Friday, I went to get my race number and shirt after work. I was lucky that the pickup location was only a few blocks from work, so it was easy to get over there.

I went to bed hoping that the forecast was wrong. Or maybe that the rain would stop during the race.

When I woke up, this is what the forecast looked like.

See that dot that says Santa Monica? That’s where I was going. And it was going to be raining for a long time.

My friend Kate was also doing this race (she was going to run it so we weren’t necessarily racing together), so I picked her up and we headed over to the race area. We lucked out in finding a parking meter about a block from the start/finish line so we hung out in the car until it was closer to the start time. I took my before picture in the car because I didn’t want to get wet.

Once it was almost race time, we headed over to the start. Kate went up to the front of the pack with the fast runners and I hung back with the slow runners/walkers. It was drizzling at the start, so while I wasn’t happy about rain, it wasn’t too bad.

I’d say for the first 1.5 miles, it was drizzling with an occasional quick shower of rain. Not great, but not horrible. But right before I got to the 2 mile marker, it started to pour. I’m talking sheets of rain where it was hard for me to see. I was absolutely soaked. My clothes had water dripping off of them.

I finally finished (in under an hour so I’m happy about that) and headed back to the car where Kate was waiting for me (she wanted to get out of the rain too). I had Kate take a quick after photo of me, but you can’t tell how drenched I got.

And even though I don’t like the rain and hated being wet, I’m smiling because I did it! Not only did I do another 5K (and almost double what my goal was for this year), I did one in the rain, which is something that I never thought I’d do. I don’t know if I’d like to do another race in the rain, but if I’m signed up for one and it happens to be raining that day, now I know that I can finish it.

I can’t believe I’m done with my 2013 races. When I set the goal to do 5 this year, I thought that would be a stretch. I’m really proud of myself that I did beyond my goal. I’m looking forward to the ones I’m planning on doing in 2014. I’m not necessarily going to focus on the number of races, but I want to sign up for ones that seem like they would be super fun to do.

And of course, I’ll keep doing recaps of the ones that I do end up doing next year.

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Posted in Fitness, Fun Stuff, Health

Tagged 5K, goals, race, rain, Santa Monica

Recovering From Thanksgiving (or As Always It’s Back To The Grind)

Posted on December 4, 2013 | Comments Off

I was back to work as usual on Monday after Thanksgiving. It was very nice to have 5 days off from work (it was almost like being unemployed again!), but it’s nice to be back and making money too.

Since there are still holidays coming up, the next few weeks at work will be a bit weird. We have time off for the holidays, odd shifts because of the shows going on, and a work holiday party. So even though I’m back at work, I think I only have one week this month that is a normal work week.

I’m also getting back to my usual food and exercise plan. I gained more weight than I expected over Thanksgiving. I knew I would gain some because of the extra food, but I was still a bit shocked when I got on the scale on Monday. I think some of it was random water and stress weight because when I weighed myself yesterday I was already down 3 pounds.

My focus for the last few weeks of this year are to continue my routines that I’ve worked out. I’m finding spin classes that fit into my schedule a bit better (including a free class at SoulCycle on Fridays right after my shift ends so I can go straight from work). I’m trying to stay good at bringing my lunches to work (good for helping me lose weight and save money). And I’m working on just being happier with myself in general.

I know that I didn’t lose as much weight this year as I thought I would, but I’m on track to be down about 40 pounds this year. To some people that may seem like a lot, and to some people that may seem like nothing. It’s only a portion of what I need to lose, but even if I only lose that each year, I’m still heading in the right direction. And I need to keep that in mind. As much as I’d like to have lost all my weight this year like I did the two times I did the RFO diet, it’s not realistic for me anymore.

But as I spent some time before writing this looking back at my older posts, I’ve realized how far I have come this year. And as I start thinking about my goals for next year, I’m getting excited about what my life might be like a year from today.

Comments Off on Recovering From Thanksgiving (or As Always It’s Back To The Grind)

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

Tagged goals, SoulCycle, Thanksgiving, weight gain, weight loss

Category Archives: Health

A Free Weekday (or Planning Ahead For Fun Things)

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Enough With Being Sick (or Holy Moly I’m Craving Exercise)

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Measuring My Success (or I Really Shouldn’t Have Stepped On The Scale)

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A Weekend Catchup Post (or Maybe The Craziness Made Me Get Sick)

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Yup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me)

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A Quick Post (or I Really Hope I’m Not Getting Sick)

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Finding A Balance (or Eating Healthy And Fun At The Same Time)

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Looking Back At 2013 (or Where Did The Year Go?)

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5K #9 (or I Still Don’t Like The Rain)

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Recovering From Thanksgiving (or As Always It’s Back To The Grind)

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