Category Archives: Tough Stuff

Celebrating A Friend’s Birthday (or Not Letting Feeling Gross Stop Me From Being Social)

Posted on July 24, 2018 | Comments Off on Celebrating A Friend’s Birthday (or Not Letting Feeling Gross Stop Me From Being Social)

I’ve been pretty good about not letting my recurring nausea get me down too much. I still do my workouts, even if I have to do a ton of modifications in order to get them done. And sometimes I can barely do the workout, but I figure doing something is better than doing nothing. I’ve felt like this for the last year and a half (since I started having the nausea issues) and it’s never been something I’ve thought twice about. And I’ve never had issues with working when I feel sick either. It does help that I work from home and I can work from my bed if necessary.

Even though I am good with maintaining my workout schedule and not asking for time off work, I am not always dealing with my nausea in the best way. Obviously when I’m sick all day and it’s one of the brutal days I don’t expect to be able to do anything. But even when it’s only mild I have used it as an excuse from time to time. And that’s something that I really shouldn’t be doing because it can isolate me 50% of the time. I need to work on pushing myself to do more when I’m not feeling totally perfect and this past weekend gave me a good opportunity to do that.

My friend Marie was having a small birthday gathering at her house. She’s done this for the past few years but I’ve never been able to make it before. Sometimes I have had to work and sometimes I had a previous commitment that prevented me from going. But this year I happened to be free that afternoon/evening and I wanted to make sure I showed up.

Her birthday gathering was an all-day movie marathon. I knew I couldn’t be there for the first few movies because I had work and my workout, but I was determined to make it for at least a little bit of time in the afternoon. I was having a nausea day and after my workout ended up taking a nap to try to make myself feel better. Unfortunately I wasn’t doing that much better after my nap but I just told myself that I had to push through. I took my medications that can help (they weren’t really helping this day but it was better than nothing) and told myself that I was going to make an appearance and could always go home after being there for a little bit.

Besides wanting to celebrate Marie’s birthday with her, I had a little extra motivation to go. They just adopted a dog and I wanted to meet her! She’s a cute little puppy that was rescued from Thailand so she’s a bit skittish. But she was getting more comfortable in her new home so it was ok for people to come over to see her.

I got to the party while one movie was just ending so I headed to their backyard to just hang out and chat with the friends who were there. And when the movie ended and people came out to join us, I was having a good time talking to people even though I just saw many of them a few weeks ago for the 4th of July. But like I always say, I love just spending time with these friends and I’m grateful for any opportunity I get to see them.

When the next movie was starting, I debated about going in to watch it. But I still wasn’t feeling great and was thinking about leaving soon so I decided to stay in the backyard being social. Some of my friends wanted to take my phone to swipe on dating apps so that ended up being entertainment for a bunch of us. And of course we were all watching the new puppy and seeing all the fun things that she was doing.

I ended up staying at the party much longer than I thought I would. I probably stayed a little bit too long because I was feeling really nauseous on my drive home and was worried I’d need to get off the freeway so I could be sick. Fortunately, that didn’t happen and I made it home without any incidents. But it did make me much more aware of the signs my body gives me when the nausea is about to take a bad turn.

While this wasn’t the most active thing to do, it still was something that in the past I would not go to because of how I was feeling. But I’ve been more and more open with my friends regarding the nausea so they are all very understanding. If a wave of nausea hits me and I just have to breathe to let it pass, they understand and don’t freak out or overreact. I need to remember this more often because I use my fear of how my friends will treat me as a reason to stay home when I feel sick.

I know that it’s going to take some time to get into the habit of not letting my nausea stop me from being social, but I’m glad I had an opportunity to try it out and prove to myself that I can do it. And of course I’m still hoping that in the near future I will figure out some plan that will make my nausea go away and no longer be an issue for me.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailBeing Social and Nauseous (or Taking Some Inspiration From My Workouts) Default ThumbnailOver Scheduled In The Best Way (of Taking Time For My Friends) Default ThumbnailHappy Birthday Rayshell (or I Love Casual Hangouts!) Default ThumbnailHow I Spent My Actual Birthday (or Friends, Friends, and More Friends) Default ThumbnailA Special Birthday For A Special Friend (or Celebrating A “College” Friend) Default ThumbnailA Birthday Brunch (or Celebrating With Some Fabulous Ladies)

Comments Off on Celebrating A Friend’s Birthday (or Not Letting Feeling Gross Stop Me From Being Social)

Posted in Celebrations, Fun Stuff, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Sometimes I Miss Not Caring (or The Grass Is Always Greener)

Posted on July 13, 2018 | Comments Off on Sometimes I Miss Not Caring (or The Grass Is Always Greener)

It’s been interesting being one of the only single people in my group of friends. So many of my friends who are married or are in serious relationships have loved hearing about my online dating adventures. They live vicariously through me and usually they ask if they can swipe on the apps for me. I limit them to swiping on Bumble because on there the woman has to message the guy first. If I let them swipe on Tinder, that could lead to a creeper message I don’t want to see. I always will get gross and creepy messages, but I like to limit those if possible.

A lot of the time, I complain to those friends that I just want to meet someone so I can get off of the apps. I am having fun dating and it’s so different now compared to other times in my life, but I also am tired of meeting new guys and hoping something will happen. I’m tired of the bad dates and the stress before a first date wondering if it will be good or bad. I do think I’ve been lucky compared to other single people as I have had more good dates (or bad dates with good stories) than truly awful dates. And nothing too horrible has happened to me which is a risk every time I meet someone even though I meet them somewhere public and a friend always knows where I am and when I am home safe.

Whenever I complain, many of my friends in relationships say that being in a relationship isn’t necessarily easier than dating. I’m aware this is true and relationships take work, but it’s a different type of work than dating. Some of them miss being single and having freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want. But I know that even though some of them miss their single time, they love their significant other and are glad to have the love and companionship from them.

The grass is always greener no matter what the situation is. I want to be in a relationship and some of my relationship friends want to be single (or at least single for a day so they can do whatever they want). But the grass is also greener for me when I compare myself to my old self.

Prior to about a year and a half ago, I rarely dated. When I did date, I really didn’t care too much about it. I did have some nerves about things, but they were more muted than they are now. I never imagined a future with any of the guys I went out with and I never really cared if I never saw them again after the first date. You’d like having fewer dates would have made me care more about each one, but that wasn’t the case for me.

I am not totally sure why things were the way they were before, but I am curious if it has to do with being on hormonal birth control before. I know that any hormonal birth control can change your mood and how you feel certain emotions. So maybe for me it was muting my feelings about wanting a relationship and companionship. This is just a theory, but it seems to make sense with the timing of things. Either way, before about April of last year I didn’t really care about dating and now I do.

And even though I’m having fun (despite some of the sucky parts of dating I’ve experienced) and it’s nice to feel wanted and enjoy that feeling, I miss not caring. I miss when dating wasn’t something I thought about all the time and didn’t care about. I miss not wondering if a guy who I like likes me back or if he’s going to text me back. I’m trying to not stress about the little things, but I do. I miss feeling neutral about things and not getting my hopes up or feeling heartbroken.

I think even with the annoyance of caring about things, I do still prefer now over how things were before. I do want to get married and have kids and I have to date to do that. I am learning about myself through dating a bit and I’ve become much more confident and self-assured. And I have learned that I don’t have to be as tolerant of people treating me badly like I did before. I can stand up for myself and I’m not scared about being called a bitch for doing so. I guess in some way, learning to care about dating has made me not care about what some people think about me.

While my dating adventures have made for some interesting blog posts, I do hope that these are not going to happen for forever. I am trying to stay optimistic that there is someone out there for me and that we will connect somehow. Chances will be we meet on an app since that’s the only place I’m really meeting guys, but you never know. And I know that even when I meet someone who is right for me that I will still stress out about things. But hopefully that stress will be easier to deal with when it’s about one person and not that I’m stressing about who I’ve met, will be meeting, or wondering if I should be meeting.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailAdventures In Online Dating (or My Luck Might Be Changing) Default ThumbnailEnjoying Valentine’s Day (or Celebrating The Love I Do Have In My Life) Default ThumbnailDoing Some More Dating Reflection (or It’s Been An Interesting Year) Default ThumbnailWorking On Some Second Chances (or Trying To Stay Open Minded) Default ThumbnailMiss You Already (or Women Filmmakers and Cancer Patients) Default ThumbnailMy Current Diet (or I Miss Food)

Comments Off on Sometimes I Miss Not Caring (or The Grass Is Always Greener)

Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged , ,

I Wasn’t Expecting To Write About The Heat Again (or Lazy Days)

Posted on July 12, 2018 | Comments Off on I Wasn’t Expecting To Write About The Heat Again (or Lazy Days)

I just wrote about the heat and how it had been affecting me lately. Fortunately since I wrote that post, it has been a bit better. It’s still very hot, but it’s much more tolerable. My little a/c unit can finally get my house below 80 degrees at night and I’m not feeling as heat sick.

But just because it’s better now doesn’t mean that this entire week has been affected by how it was earlier. I wrote about how I hadn’t been sleeping that well. I’m not the best sleeper, but I can usually get 6 hours of sleep when I’m in bed for 7-8 hours (I do toss and turn a lot). With this heat, I had been averaging about half of that. Over the weekend (when I wrote the earlier post), it hadn’t really affected me too much. I was tired, but I was still able to get things done during the day.

But by Monday, this lack of sleep really caught up with me. I was supposed to attend a union event on Monday evening that I had been looking forward to for about a week. It was about the commercial contracts and I knew that there was going to be a lot of information shared that I wanted to know about. And I knew that a bunch of my friends would be there and I love having a chance to catch up with friends at different events.

I didn’t have work on Monday but I did have some things I needed to do that morning and afternoon. I got those things done and went home to decompress a bit before getting dressed and leaving my house to go to the meeting. The next thing I knew, it was a few hours later. I ended up taking a nap but it felt more like passing out for several hours because I don’t even remember laying down on my couch.

I figured that after that on Monday, maybe I’d be doing better. I slept better Monday night to Tuesday morning but within an hour of starting work I was feeling ready to go back to sleep. I couldn’t ever remember being that tired before and I felt awful that I might not be pulling my weight at work. I fought to stay awake during my 7 hours of work (I may have fallen asleep briefly a few times while working) and as soon as I was done with work I went to lay down on my bed to try to nap again.

I woke up almost 4 hours later! I ate some dinner when I woke up and tried to stay awake for a few more hours and then went to bed at my normal time. I was worried I might not be able to sleep because of taking such a long and late nap. I did struggle a bit falling asleep but I was asleep within maybe 30 minutes of trying to sleep. And I woke up my normal time on Wednesday morning feeling so much more refreshed.

I know they say that if you don’t sleep that you can’t catch up on sleep by sleeping in another day. But I honestly finally feel like I got the sleep that I didn’t get over the weekend. Maybe because I had such a severe sleep deficit and that it was during such a short time period that somehow I did make up the time I lost. I usually so good about going to bed and waking up at the same times every day. Even when I stay up late, I’m almost always up at the same time (which can be annoying at times). But I think these past few days really affected me more than I expected and I really just want to be back to normal.

I know that it’s not a bad thing to have lazy days every now and then. But I feel like I had just gotten over being sick and all the lazy days that I had when I was not feeling well. I also hate that I’ve been lazy because it makes for boring posts on here! I was really hoping to be able to write about the union meeting that I didn’t make it to. And I really haven’t been doing much this week because of feeling off and I don’t know what I’ll be writing about tomorrow yet. I’m sure I’ll think up something, but I really prefer it when my life is interesting so I know I have some good content for you all to read!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailThis Cold Really Took Me Down (or Several Days Of Doing Nothing) Default ThumbnailJust Being Lazy In The Rain (or Not Much To Write About) Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy) Default ThumbnailHeat Wave In LA (or Another Post About The Heat) Default ThumbnailSuper Productive and Super Lazy (or A Balance Over 2 Days) Default ThumbnailI Hate Complaining About The Heat (or Can It Be Fall Now?)

Comments Off on I Wasn’t Expecting To Write About The Heat Again (or Lazy Days)

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged , , ,

Another Post About The Heat (or I’m Not Getting As Upset This Time)

Posted on July 10, 2018 | 1 comment

I know the entire country has pretty much been through a massive heat wave lately. It’s been brutal here in LA and I know that I don’t have it as badly as other people have had it. In LA, so many people were without power and when the temperature at night is still in the 90s that can be pretty miserable to sleep. I’m glad that I’ve had power this entire time (so far) and that I have a bunch of fans and my window a/c unit to keep things tolerable.

Even though my house is tiny, the window a/c doesn’t cool down my entire place. But it makes it much better. This heat wave is so much worse than what we’ve had before so it’s extremely rare to get my house below 80 degrees.

The past few days I’ve been running the a/c almost from the time I get up until I go to bed (I feel weird about running it while I’m sleeping) unless I’m not inside my house. And because the evenings are still hot I haven’t been able to open up my house at night to try to get some fresh air and cool things down more. It’s a bit claustrophobic when everything is closed up all day so I can cool down my house, but I know this is temporary.

Sleeping has been rough for me lately because of the heat. My house is still usually around 85 when I’m going to bed and my bedroom is a bit warmer than that because of how the sun goes through the windows. I’ve got a fan next to my bed and I have a cooling towel that I put on me while I try to sleep. I end up waking up once or twice a night to get some cold water to drink and to get the cooling towel wet again so I can try to stay cool. But I do toss and turn a lot at night when it’s this hot and my sleep has been suffering.

The other thing that has been affected by the heat is when I eat. I am not getting hungry until really late and that is not a good thing. I hate eating that late and I have been trying to make myself eat dinner at a more reasonable hour, but I’m just not able to do it. Usually when I should be having dinner I’m on my bed or couch with the fan pointed at me and just trying to stop sweating. This issue is also affecting my sleep because when I eat right before going to bed I get heartburn and that is never fun.

And as always, my body is super swollen in the heat. I know that most people have this issue, but it always hits me hard when none of my clothes fit me. I have a very limited wardrobe that I can wear in the heat and that I would want to wear when it’s this hot out. I’m pretty much sticking to yoga capris and tank tops. They are feeling tight on my body (and my workout clothes feel 2 sizes too small), but I know this is a temporary thing and has nothing to do with my weight loss efforts.

This is something I battle with every time we have a heat wave. But even with the extra issues with sleep and food, I think I’m dealing with the heat swelling so much better this year than I have in the past. I knew this was going to happen and I decided to not look at the scale and plan what clothes I could wear when things would feel tight. Planning for feeling this way has been helping me even if I have some moments where I’m so frustrated that things aren’t fitting or that it’s a struggle to fit into something that normally is so easy to wear.

The temperature here in LA is supposed to be getting better every day and in a week it should be normal or even a little cooler than normal. As much as I hate being super cold in my house, that is a bit better than feeling this heat sick. But feeling this way is usually very limited and I know that in a few days I should be over it and won’t have to keep complaining about it.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailHeat Wave In LA (or Another Post About The Heat) Default ThumbnailHeat and Hormones (or Not Letting Cravings Take Over) Default ThumbnailI Hate Complaining About The Heat (or Can It Be Fall Now?) Default ThumbnailHating The Heat (or Again, My Body Is Lying) Default ThumbnailI Wasn’t Expecting To Write About The Heat Again (or Lazy Days) Default ThumbnailDealing With Heat And Humidity (or I’m Very Lucky The Pandemic Didn’t Happen A Few Years Ago)

1 Comment

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged , ,

Independence Day Thoughts (or I Know I’m Privileged)

Posted on July 4, 2018 | 1 comment

It’s Independence Day and I am off work today and spending it with friends. I think most people in the US are celebrating this holiday in some form and I hope that you all are too. But in this political environment, it feels weird to be celebrating freedom when it doesn’t feel like everyone has the same freedoms I do.

There are so many things that are not great about this country right now. Even before the current administration, racism was a problem. The Black Lives Matter movement was due to racism and the injustice in what should be an equal system. There are so many cases of black men being treated differently from white men. White rapists are considered guys who made a mistake and are given light sentences (if they go to jail at all) while the same consideration isn’t given to black men who have the same offense. White men who are mass shooters are misunderstood loners while any shooter who isn’t white is a terrorist. White men might be taken into custody without injury even if they are pointing a gun at police while black men are shot when they aren’t facing the police or have a weapon. This isn’t what happens every time, but it happens enough that we can see there is a problem.

And then of course there is the current immigration issue. While illegal immigration is an issue and I do not believe that people who come into this country illegally should automatically be able to live however they want here. But I also don’t believe that people should automatically be jailed and have their children taken from them. Some people are coming here because their lives are at risk in their home country. We have a system to seek asylum here and even people doing that were being jailed even though they followed all the rules. This issue has been an issue prior to the current administration and I’ll admit that I was not aware of the deaths that happened due to turning someone away then. But now that I am aware, I think there needs to be a change. And if I talk about all the children that were separated from their parents with no plan on how to reunite them, this post will probably never end. But I think everyone can agree that there was no need to require children to be separated (previously it was an option that was rarely used) and I’m glad that the requirement was ended. But I still hope that those families can be reunited.

Those issues don’t directly affect me, but they affect people I love and those that they love. But an issue that does affect me directly is the idea that the Supreme Court may try to overturn Roe v. Wade when a new Justice is appointed. I do realize that if it is overturned that it goes back to being regulated by the state and California will protect the freedom of choice for women, but this issue does go deeper than that. If the Supreme Court eliminates the freedom to choose, that can be more than abortion rights. If the government can force you to continue with a pregnancy that you do not want, will they start forcing people they don’t deem worthy to terminate a pregnancy or force those they don’t want to have kids to be sterilized? I know that it sounds like a huge jump, but when they take away the rights of women to choose what to do with their bodies that can mean a lot of things and can lead to things we can’t imagine right now.

There is also still the debate about healthcare. This may end up not being revealed until the insurance premiums for 2019 are shared, but I think all of us are expecting monthly costs to go up as the individual mandate has been removed. There is no incentive for healthy people to get insurance so the average cost per insured person goes up. And that makes the monthly premium go up. I’m hoping that this won’t happen, but that does look like to be what will occur and we all just have to hope for the best. I know some people aren’t affected by this since they are healthy and don’t go to the doctor, but I’m not that fortunate. But I am fortunate because my family helps me with my insurance costs because even with insurance they are expensive (I will write a post about this tomorrow, but I was just at the doctor and it was over $300 for the appointment, tests, and medications).

I know this is a bit of a downer post for what should be a celebratory day. But as I’ve become more politically involved and educated I do recognize my privilege and the idea that I should be celebrating and enjoying today is a privilege that not everyone gets to enjoy. I enjoy so many freedoms that others who have the same rights as me don’t get to enjoy. And if I can’t recognize that and at least try to fix it or educate others, then I’m a part of the problem. And that is not ok with me.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailHappy Thanksgiving (or Just A Super Quick Post) Default ThumbnailPlease Vote (or Seriously, Please Vote) Default ThumbnailWhat Is Happening? (or Why I Support Black Lives Matter) Default ThumbnailMemorial Day Weekend (or Not Really Doing Much) Default ThumbnailOverwhelmed By The Election (or Politics Time) Default ThumbnailMore Thoughts On Online Dating (or Not Letting My Past Dictate My Future)

1 Comment

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged

Finding Ways To Treat Myself (or I Wish Money Wasn’t An Issue)

Posted on June 29, 2018 | Comments Off on Finding Ways To Treat Myself (or I Wish Money Wasn’t An Issue)

This post is similar to what I’ll be writing when I do my recap of how my monthly challenge went, but it’s a bit different. I’ve been working on reconnecting to myself and doing things that make me happy. And as I’ve been working on that, I’ve discovered one area where I’ve been not really able to work on things. And that is doing things that feel special to me or treating myself.

It may seem like I treat myself a lot because I do fun things. But most of those things are something I’ve saved up for to do (like my Pantages tickets or my Disneyland pass) or things that I get to do for free or at a discount because either I review them on here (and I will always disclose when I get a discount or free item for a review) or because I have a connection with someone who can help me out (like when I got to go to the friends and family day at Face Haus). But beyond the things that have been planned for a while or that I have a connection to, I really don’t seem to go outside of the set things I spend money on.

Of course, a lot of this has to do with lack of funding. If I had unlimited money (or significantly more money), I would not hesitate to spend on things I wanted to do. I’ve been wanting to get my house professionally cleaned recently. I don’t need a weekly or even monthly cleaning person, but I’d love to do a deep clean from someone who knows what they are doing once or twice a year. This doesn’t have to be expensive, but it’s not in my budget right now. I’d also love to either buy fresh flowers or have a delivery of fresh flowers on a regular basis. I have some friends who do this and it always seems so nice to have flowers in your home. Plus, flowers always seem to put a smile on your face, even when you ordered them for yourself. And then there are all the fun monthly/quarterly subscription boxes that so many people do and love. I have a list of ones I’d want to try if I could afford it.

All of those things are more of luxury splurges because I could be fine without any of them. But then there are the more basic splurges that I’ve been not doing either. I don’t get pedicures regularly, but I try to do it a few times a year (I have issues with my toenails sometimes and a pedicure is cheaper than an appointment with a podiatrist). I’ve been saying for almost 3 months that I was going to set aside time to go get a pedicure but I haven’t done it yet. Money is a small part of why I’ve been putting it off, but I also just don’t feel at times that I deserve it or should do it. It’s the same with buying clothes. I would love to buy the rare nicer piece of clothing that doesn’t feel as much as throwaway clothing. I’ve got some things picked out that I’d like to get and I haven’t purchased them. This one is a bit about money but also a bit about wanting to wait until I’m a different size to buy stuff. Either way, I’m delaying doing something that I’d like to do.

Obviously I can’t just go out and buy all the things I want and do all the things on my list. I do need to budget and find where the money is in my budget to spend. And some of these things may need to be something I save a few dollars a month for and then later this year I can do it. But I’m also looking at adding another job to what I’m doing. I’ve got one job that should be very part-time and won’t pay a ton of money, but I think it will cover at least my cable and power bills each month. It should be starting in the next month or two and I’m excited about it. And I’m meeting with someone soon who knows me through the podcast I work for and wanted to see if there is something that they can hire me to do. They don’t have a specific job for me to apply for, but they wanted to see if we could work together.

If I have these new jobs, they will probably fit into my schedule with my current ones. And I plan on doing them all if possible. I could use all the additional income toward my debt and then once that is eventually paid off I could reevaluate things. The priority is to pay off my debt as soon as possible, but I also know I need to allow some flexibility to have some fun money. But until I have that extra income, I think my list for how I want to spend the fun money is going to have to just stay a list for now.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailSpreading Some Holiday Cheer (or Finding Cheaper Ways To Make People Smile) Default ThumbnailWorking On Money Priorities (or What’s Worth The Splurge) Default ThumbnailGoing Back To An Old Habit (or Finding Control With Budgeting) Default ThumbnailFinding New Money Issues (or Looking At Doing A Fresh Budget) Default ThumbnailWorking on Budgeting (or Spending Money To Save Money) Default ThumbnailWorking On Money (or A Prosperous Heart Update)

Comments Off on Finding Ways To Treat Myself (or I Wish Money Wasn’t An Issue)

Posted in Beauty, Fun Stuff, Saving, Shopping, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , , ,

Just Surviving The Workouts (or Hoping Next Week Will Be Better)

Posted on June 25, 2018 | Comments Off on Just Surviving The Workouts (or Hoping Next Week Will Be Better)

I knew going into this week of workouts that I was going to have days of nausea. I was very lucky it didn’t affect me too much the week prior, but since coming off the pill and having regular periods again I have not had a period without nausea. I always hope for the best, but the realistic side of me makes me worried and I try to not let that affect my workout too much.

Monday wasn’t that bad of a day for me. I knew I’d be going to Disneyland after the workout so I wasn’t pushing myself too hard and the nausea was pretty minor. It was a 3 group class and we spent 15 minutes at each section before moving on.

For cardio on the bike, we had 3 short blocks. The first block was a 3 minute push pace with a 1 minute all out pace. The second block was a 2 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, and a 1 minute all out. And the last block was a 1 minute push pace, 1 minute base pace, 1 minute push pace, and 1 minute all out pace. I stuck with my usual resistance levels but I wasn’t pedaling as fast as I normally could. The nausea waves were coming during my time on the bike, but they were over quickly and not as severe as I know they could be so I felt good about that.

On the floor we had some work that was timed and some work that was by the number of reps. We had skater lunges, seated knee tucks, push ups, chest flies, and bear step plank work. I knew I couldn’t do things where I was horizontal with my face toward the ground because that makes me feel worse. So for the push ups and the bear steps I did modified push ups using the bench for both. It was still tough doing that, but I wasn’t feeling as sick as I would have if I was completely horizontal with my face toward the ground.

And on the rower we started with a 100 meter row with 10 squat presses using a medicine ball. Each round we went up 100 meters on the rower keeping the medicine ball work the same. The goal in 15 minutes was to get to 2,000 meters which didn’t seem that tough since usually I can do 2,000 meters in under 10 minutes. The first few rounds weren’t too bad and I was able to row without stopping and quickly get to the medicine ball work. But as each round went on the rowing was more and more difficult and I needed to take breaks. I got to about 1,900 meters when class was done which was a bit frustrating that I was so close to the goal (I would have rather been at 1,500 meters and been really far from hitting it).

Wednesday was a pretty brutal day for me. I’ve had bad nausea days before, but this was a totally new level of bad. I debated skipping the workout, but I knew that I would be mad at myself if I did that. So I showed up and figured that even if I could barely do anything it would be better than doing nothing.

The cardio portion was similar with rounds of push to all out paces ranging from 1 minute to 30 seconds. I tried to stick with my usual resistance levels on the bike, but my legs were moving very slowly. It reminded me of the week before doing Everest on the bike where it felt like my legs were in jello or syrup on the high resistance levels. But I just kept trying to keep moving and not caring how little I was able to do. I had to take so many breaks to let the nausea pass and I just let my body control what I could do. I had taken 2 medications which are supposed to help with the worst nausea but they didn’t seem to touch how I was feeling this day. Fortunately I have an appointment with my doctor soon so I’m going to ask if there are other options so I don’t have too many days like this.

When we got to the floor, I realized this workout was not designed for the issues I was dealing with. We had 3 blocks and each block started with a rolling burpee. This means we start on our backs on the weight bench and do a sit-up. Then we are supposed to stand, put our feet on the weight bench (so our head is lower than our feet), do a push up, and then put our feet back on the ground to start over with the sit-up. I knew this was not possible for me to do. So I did the sit-up, stood up and turned around so I was facing the bench. I used it to help with my push up so I didn’t have to be horizontal and then turned around to do the sit-up again. It added time to my work, but I needed to do this. The other work we had included some plank work so again I used the bench to put my hands on so I didn’t have to be face down on the ground. When class was done, I was ready to be home and just try to get the feeling of nausea over with. While it did get better after class, it didn’t go away.

Friday was an interesting day. Since starting to go to the Culver City studio I haven’t done many afternoon workouts. My Saturday ones are at 11:20am which could still be considered the morning. But I hadn’t done a 4pm workout in a while. But some of my workout friends were going to take the 4pm class and I wanted to join them for a workout reunion! It was another bad nausea day and I honestly have no idea if working out in the morning would have been easier or harder, but it was going to be an afternoon workout no matter what.

It was an endurance based workout but we did switch between blocks so that helped. But I know that the nausea was awful because my friends kept checking in on me. I guess I looked really green sometimes and really pale other times. They don’t usually see me when I’m this sick so I think it freaked them out a bit. But I just kept reassuring them that I was fine and I pushed through the best I could.

For the cardio, there were 3 blocks that all had a similar pattern. It was 3 rounds of push paces to base paces and ending with a push pace to an all out pace. The first block had the push and base paces for 1 minute, the second block for 45 seconds, and the last block for 30 seconds. I tried my best to just keep pedaling on the bike and I surprised myself a bit by how well I did. I did take lots of breaks to let the nausea pass, but considering how horrible I was feeling earlier it was significantly better than what I was expecting.

On the floor, even though we had 3 blocks it was really 1 long block that we kept working on during each block. We started with a 600 meter row and then had add on exercises. We started with lateral lunges and regular lunges and then each round we added on another thing. We also had hip hinge reverse flys, weighted hip bridges, and sit-ups (which I did as crunches). Then we had a 300 meter row and started with all the exercises and each round we were supposed to take away something. I did the 300 meter row and started doing all the exercises again, but that’s as far as I got.

Even though this was another pretty brutal workout, it was made so much better by having my friends there. It was a rare treat and we talked about trying to make this happen once a month or every other month and I hope we are able to do it!

Saturday was a little better, but still a pretty nauseous day. It was a strength based workout and there were no switches so I was on the bike for about 25 minutes before moving to the floor. There were 3 blocks on cardio and each block started with a longer push, then had 2 rounds of base to push paces, and ended with a 30 second all out. Overall it was easier for me to bike than it was earlier in the week, but when a wave of nausea hit me it was much more severe and literally stopped me in my tracks. Usually I can slow down the bike before letting it pass, but this time I had to stop completely immediately because it just took over. I know this probably sounds so horrible and it’s probably bad that I’m getting used to this, but it’s the reality of my life now.

The floor had 2 blocks. The first block was supposed to be all ab dolly work, but I couldn’t do any of it on the ab dolly. First were roll outs which I couldn’t do because being horizontal with my face toward the ground makes things worse. So I did roll outs with the straps instead. Then we were supposed to do pikes (which I usually do as knee tucks) and that was the same issue with the roll outs. So I did leg lifts instead (which my coach said was basically pikes on my back). And the last thing were hamstring curls which I just can’t do on the ab dolly so I did hip bridges with a weight on my hips.

The second block went better. We had hip hinge reverse grip low rows, sumo squats, and shoulder work. Normally for the low rows and shoulder work I would use 15 lb weights and the squats would be either 20 lb or 25 lb. But I decided to challenge myself to make up for my issues with cardio and did 20 lb weights for the row and shoulders and a 30 lb weight for my squats. It was tough, but not as tough as I thought it would be. We also had 200 meter rows in this block and I did manage to do it in under 40 seconds which is pretty decent for me.

It was unfortunate that I was accurate in this past week of workouts being lots of nausea days. But I think I’m dealing with them better now than I have before and I’m more familiar with the modifications I’ll need to do and what I can do instead. There is a chance that some of this week will still be not so great, but I know that by the end of the week I should be better. And not only will the nausea go away, but I’m finally over this cold I had! So there is a chance I might be trying the treadmill for the first time in about 7 weeks!

SaveSave

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailWorking Through Physical Challenges (or Not Letting Feeling Bad Ruin My Workouts) Default ThumbnailBirthday Workouts (or Just Having A Good Week Of Workouts) Default ThumbnailA Mid-Week Realization (or Forcing Myself To Run) Default ThumbnailAn Off Workout Week (or Just Trying To Do My Best) Default ThumbnailSurviving Hell Week (or I’m A Liar) Default ThumbnailA Planned 3 Workout Week (or Medication and Workouts)

Comments Off on Just Surviving The Workouts (or Hoping Next Week Will Be Better)

Posted in Fitness, Health, Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , ,

Finding Time For Friends (or Busting Out Of My Routine)

Posted on June 22, 2018 | Comments Off on Finding Time For Friends (or Busting Out Of My Routine)

This is a problem I’ve mentioned before on here, but I know that I’ve been neglecting some of my friendships lately. It’s not really anyone’s fault, time is limited for a lot of us and we just don’t think about scheduling time for each other. I’ve also said how social media has given me a false sense of seeing my friends more recently than I really have. And it’s true that it does because sometimes I’ll look at my calendar and realize that almost a year has passed since seeing a friend when I feel like I am up to date on their life.

I’m also a bit lazy with some of my friendships because other ones have hangouts that are pretty much built into my schedule. I see my friends who go to musicals with me once a month and those are in my calendar way in advance. Some of the musicals scheduled are over a year away but I know I’ll be seeing my friends then. It was also this way with my friends that I work out with, but that changed since my workout schedule changed. So some of my workout friends I haven’t seen in a long time.

I’ve tried to make conscious efforts in the past to fix this and I’m in a phase of life where I’m doing that again. I’ve got a pretty good routine going on with what I do from week to week. But I need to change that in order to see my friends. This week was a pretty decent one for me to do that because other things in my life weren’t taking up time. I’m even doing an afternoon workout today in order to see my workout friends again! And I went to a movie with another friend after work one afternoon this week. I usually don’t do that, but I wanted to see this friend and I wanted to see the movie so it was a perfect plan.

Since this is an ongoing problem for me, I was trying to think about why it was hitting me so hard right now. And then I realized that there was another routine of mine that was different too. It’s been a slow transition, but I’m not on social media as often as I used to. I used to see everything on Facebook. I would sort my posts in chronological order so I knew when I was caught up. But over the course of the past month or two, I haven’t had the time or desire to check out social medial as often. Now I just look at the top posts out-of-order and scroll for a bit before I move on.

Since I’m doing that, I’m not feeling as connected to my friends’ lives as I was before. I know I’m missing out on things online and that’s pushing me to feel like I want to see people in person. that’s a good thing since online relationships aren’t as strong as in person ones and I know I need to be better about seeing people in person. If this is the motivation that is getting me to see more people in person, then I guess it’s a good thing. I don’t see myself being on social media significantly more in the future just because of my life and how things are taking up time. So if I want this feeling to go away I have to make an effort to see people in person.

I think the other thing that has been making me feel this way is how much I’ve been relying on my friends lately. Life has taken a lot of weird turns lately and I have been asking more and more often for support from my friends. I usually try to be strong and don’t want to bother people asking for help. But I know now that it’s not a bother to ask and that it really is something that I need. And I’ve been asking for help and receiving it which has been amazing.

I’m sure things will ebb and flow with friendships just like with everything else in my life. When things get crazier and my schedule is more packed, I’ll end up neglecting some friendships again. And when I have the time to be reflective and think about what is happening, I’ll make more efforts to stay in touch with people. I’m just grateful that my friends have the same issues that I do and none of them hold it against me when it’s been months since I’ve seen them.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailMore Friends More Fun (or Still Building My Social Circle) Default ThumbnailRemembering To See My Friends (or Actually Scheduling Hangouts) Default ThumbnailFeeling Understood (or The Relief Of Shared Problems) Default ThumbnailFinding A Social Life Where I Can (or Virtual Parties and Distance Hangouts) Default ThumbnailMaking Friends As An Adult (or Am I Weird?) Default ThumbnailBusting Out Of A Funk (or Controlling My Happiness)

Comments Off on Finding Time For Friends (or Busting Out Of My Routine)

Posted in Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff

Tagged ,

I Guess I’ve Been Very Lazy (or I’m Sorry This Isn’t That Interesting)

Posted on June 15, 2018 | Comments Off on I Guess I’ve Been Very Lazy (or I’m Sorry This Isn’t That Interesting)

I’ve had times in the past where I’ve struggled with what to write on here. My life isn’t always super interesting and I do try to schedule stuff from time to time because I know they will make a good blog post. And I really felt like I had been doing things lately that were fun, but this week I’ve really struggled with topics to write about on here.

I don’t know what I’ve been doing with my time that feels like I’m busy but I’m really not. I’ve been doing a lot of work stuff lately and doing some random side projects for friends (I’ve recently been doing some graphic design work and am finding that I’m able to do more than I thought). I’ve had some dates recently, but nothing too crazy that it needs to be a blog post on here. And I think I’ve just been very focused on getting better and that has been tricking me into thinking I’m busy.

And I know I’ve spent a lot of time just being lazy. I want to use the excuse of trying to get better as the reason for my laziness, but I know that’s not really it. I’ve just been in a low spot physically and mentally and I think that being lazy is the way I’ve been recovering from it all. I do feel so much more like myself, but I still am having moments where things feel overwhelming and I need to take some time to decompress. But those moments are getting less frequent so I’m happy about that.

It’s also been getting hotter in LA lately. I was hoping we’d still have more June Gloom to help keep the temperatures down. But it’s been getting hotter and that means it’s been hotter inside my house all day while I’m working. I’m so grateful that I have my A/C so I can keep it cooler. I would love to use the A/C as little as possible, but it’s very tough for my house to cool down even when I open up all the windows. For example, as I’m writing this it is 71 outside and 84 inside after running my A/C. And if I opened up the windows, I know that it wouldn’t be getting much cooler inside by the time I go to bed. I know that because I dealt with that for so many years. It’s just the way that my house was build and how the insulation works.

The heat adds to my laziness, but I can’t completely blame it for how I’ve been feeling lately. But because of everything that I’ve been dealing with lately, I’m just trying to be extra gentle with myself and not trying to feel guilty for being lazy. I do have some things planned coming up that will be fun, but I’m not going to push myself to schedule more just so I could have better blog posts. I’ve said it before, but showing how boring life can be sometimes is an important part of this blog. I don’t love having to admit it, but I also don’t want to be only posting the best parts of my life and having a fake online persona. This is the real me and this is really what I’m dealing with.

I do feel bad when my posts on here aren’t as interesting because I know that you all reading these don’t necessarily find them interesting either. But I did make a commitment to myself that I was going to blog every weekday and I’ve been doing that for so many years now. I’m not going to let a lag in my social life ruin that streak I’ve been having.

At least the weekend is almost here and I know I’ve got some fun things next week happening. That doesn’t mean I won’t necessarily have some boring days, but I am looking forward to having something fun to write on here!

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailJust A Normal Weekend For Me (or Lazy Days Are Surprisingly Busy) Default ThumbnailI Wasn’t Expecting To Write About The Heat Again (or Lazy Days) Default ThumbnailSuper Productive and Super Lazy (or A Balance Over 2 Days) Default ThumbnailHappy 100th! (or Guess I Might Be A Writer) Default ThumbnailAn Interesting Start To My Unemployment (or Trying To Always Look At The Positives) Default ThumbnailHaving Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out)

Comments Off on I Guess I’ve Been Very Lazy (or I’m Sorry This Isn’t That Interesting)

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged , ,

It Can Be Tough To Get Help (or Trying To Be A Good Friend To My Friends)

Posted on June 14, 2018 | Comments Off on It Can Be Tough To Get Help (or Trying To Be A Good Friend To My Friends)

It wasn’t that long ago that I wrote about depression and how a few of my friends were going through very tough times. I had some friends who had tried to kill themselves and fortunately they were no successful in it so they could get help. Even though I always have made myself available to my friends if they need someone to talk to, they didn’t necessarily reach out to me before they tried to end their lives. I know this is a very selfish thought, but I was angry at them for not calling me so I could help them.

With the recently celebrity suicides in the news, a lot of people are wondering why Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain wouldn’t have asked for help. They had so many people in their lives who cared about them and would have been there for them. Everyone is always saying that if you need help that you should ask for it. But I’ve learned from what my friends experienced that it’s not that simple. If they are in a head space to ask for help, they will do that. But because mental illness can make you think untrue things are fact, they sometimes have said that they believed that they weren’t worthy of getting help or that none of their friends would have helped.

As much as I want to convince them that those statements aren’t true, I know that I can’t necessarily change their minds. I can tell my friend every day that they are a worthy and amazing person and they might still have the voice in their head saying that I’m lying to them and that they’re worthless. I can’t force mental illness to go out of someone’s mind by my positivity, despite how hard I try to do that. I wish I could make that true, but it can’t always be true when someone is in a deep depression.

It can feel like there is no way to help a friend if they won’t reach out to you when they need the help. I have struggled with figuring out how to be a good and supportive friend when it feels like the support isn’t enough or doing the trick. But after the suicides last week, more and more people are being open about their battles with mental illness and there have been some commonalities with the stories with what has helped.

So many people have shared how they were very close to killing themselves when a friend randomly called or texted them. Sometimes people were reaching out to them to make plans, and sometimes it was just to share a stupid story or meme they found online. Whatever it was, that contact was enough to snap them out of the mental illness fog they were in and realized that they needed to get help because they weren’t safe. I’ve personally experienced that with a friend. They were about to kill themselves when they got a text from another friend. I don’t know what the content was of that text, but my friend ended up calling me while they were driving to the hospital to be checked in. They snapped out of it and were able to be admitted to the hospital to get the help they needed.

We can’t always be constantly checking in with our friends when we know they are struggling, but we can all make more of an effort to be better friends and to remember to just say hi via text to friends every so often. That’s a good thing to do for friends with mental illness as well as friends who don’t. It helps you stay connected to friends when it’s so easy to let months go by without talking to a friend. When you see them posting on social media, it can seem like you’ve been in touch when you really haven’t. I’m guilty of this quite a bit and I’ve been working on fixing it. And now I have a bigger reason why I need to fix my bad habits.

Of course, if you need help and know you need it, there are many ways you can do that. If you have a friend you can reach out to so you can make sure that you can be safe, do that. If you don’t have that or can’t do that, you can call 911 or drive to a hospital to get help. And there is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline that you can call or text to talk to someone.

While this might not sound like good news, but the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has reported a significant increase in calls in the past week. But that is good news because people are getting the help that they need by a trained professional. Hopefully they are able to find all the resources that they need to continue to get help and they will be able to get through this. It takes such a strong person to not only admit they need help but are able to take action to get the help they need.

You Might Also Like

Default ThumbnailI Know The Holidays Can Be Tough (or Trying To Give Support To My Friends) Default Thumbnail“BLUE” (or Supporting A Friend’s Film) Default ThumbnailWorld Mental Health Day (or Seeing So Many People Be So Open) Default ThumbnailFriends Helping Friends (or Not Being Afraid To Ask For Support) Default ThumbnailRemembering A Year Ago (or Still So Grateful My Friend Got Help) Default ThumbnailI’m So Glad My Friend Called Me (or Forcing Someone To Get Help)

Comments Off on It Can Be Tough To Get Help (or Trying To Be A Good Friend To My Friends)

Posted in Tough Stuff

Tagged , , , ,