Category Archives: Tough Stuff

I Know The Holidays Can Be Tough (or Trying To Give Support To My Friends)

Posted on November 17, 2017 | 3 comments

When I was younger, I was diagnosed with depression. At the time I thought that the diagnosis was correct even though no medication was helping me. Now looking back, I’m pretty sure it was a misdiagnosis and my depression was more of a side effect of my eating disorder, panic/anxiety disorder, and mild OCD. But even with it being a misdiagnosis, I understand how helpless things can feel at times. But fortunately for me, I can get myself out of that mindset before things get too bad.

But that’s not the case for several of my friends. I have many friends who have depression and other mental issues that lead to depression. I’ve had friends attempt suicide and have been the person that someone calls in the middle of the night to hear a voice of reason when things seem impossible. I’m more than happy to be that person for my friends because I don’t want to see someone harming themselves because they don’t think anyone cares or can’t get a hold of someone. I sleep with my phone on and next to my bed so I can be available for calls in the middle of my night. I’m fine sacrificing sleep if it helps someone else not do something that cannot be reversed.

Like many other mental health issues, I think depression and suicide are getting more attention in the media and that it is becoming less stigmatized. If you haven’t seen last week’s episode of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (spoiler alert), the episode is themed about this. I think that this episode was so powerful and that they will continue to be as sensitive about the subject in the coming episodes. But just because something is being discussed publicly more often doesn’t necessarily make it easier for those dealing with it.

I know that depression can hit at any time of the year, but I also know that for some of my friends it can be worse during the holidays. If you are used to being with your family and can’t do that it can be tough. If you are surrounded by happy people and you feel like an outsider, it can be tough. Anything can be a trigger and it doesn’t have to be for a reason or make sense. But when depression hits and you feel like there is no escape it doesn’t matter what else is happening in the world. You just feel like you need out and that isn’t always the right thing to do.

I’m posting this now because I’ve recently had a few friends try to kill themselves. I’m glad that all of them were unsuccessful in their attempts so they are still around and are able to get help. But it’s still hard to think that someone I love that much felt like they were unloved. And no matter how much I try to support them, I know that depression is a personal battle and they have to work on it on their own. But not everyone has the same support that my friends have and I want to make sure that everyone knows where they can get help.

One of the best ways to get help if you feel like there is no other choice is to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

There is someone you can talk to 24/7 and help is free and confidential. They can guide you to resources to get help and will listen to you without judgement. And if you are a friend or family member of someone who is suicidal, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can help you too. There are resources so that you can help someone else. I have used those before to help my friends. And I’ve also used their guides on how to report suicidal posts on social media so you can help someone who you may not know in person. Sometimes people joke about suicide and it’s tough to tell if they are being truthful or not. I’ve reported people who weren’t being serious on social media, but I’d rather be more cautious than to think someone is joking when they really are reaching out for help.

Hopefully if you are feeling helpless or know someone who is that you know that help is possible. I know that it doesn’t always seem that way, but it’s true. And when you talk to someone who has overcome depression they will tell you that there is hope and help when you need it. And once they are on the other side they are so grateful that they didn’t do something that they couldn’t come back from.

I know that for my friends battling this that many of them have a long way to go. But I love them so much and want to support them in any way I can. And I’m in it for the long haul with them. They are with me with battling my eating disorder and know how wonderful it feels to have someone supporting me on my best days and worst days and isn’t wondering how much longer it will take me to get over things. So by doing the same thing for someone else (even if it is about a different mental health issue), I’m just trying to pay forward the support I’ve been so lucky to get.

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Default ThumbnailIt Can Be Tough To Get Help (or Trying To Be A Good Friend To My Friends) Default ThumbnailFriends Helping Friends (or Not Being Afraid To Ask For Support) Default ThumbnailFinding Time For Friends (or Busting Out Of My Routine) Default ThumbnailJust Wanted To Say Thank You (or You All Help Me More Than You Know) Default ThumbnailI’m So Glad My Friend Called Me (or Forcing Someone To Get Help) Default ThumbnailTesting My Running (or Holidays and Friends)

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A Mid-Week Realization (or Forcing Myself To Run)

Posted on November 13, 2017 | 1 comment

Last week, I blogged about my lack of 5Ks in my future and how I felt that was affecting my workouts. That post was in the middle of this past week of workouts and it was what I needed to get my butt back in gear. I was struggling during the beginning of the week because I was having horrible nausea (I’m looking into finding new medications that should help me) but when I wrote that post I was coming to the end of the problem and was able to get back to what I know I should be doing.

Monday’s workout was a power and strength day and it was one of the worst days for my nausea. I was terrified that I would throw up during class and wondered if it would be dangerous to take more medication before I was supposed to (I didn’t, but for me to want to means it was really horrible). Because I was feeling so awful, I only had a goal to get through class and not worry about anything else.

It was a 3 group class and each section of the room had 2 blocks. On the treadmill the first block was increasing 1 minute hills and the second block was 45 second all out paces with front raises with weights in-between each all out. I had to decrease my speed for the entire time because just walking fast was making me feel sick. But I did manage to do what I could and didn’t give up which was all I could ask for.

On the floor, the first block was squats, lunges, and scissor ab work. And the second block was lateral lunges, rotations on the straps, and plank work. Unfortunately, there was a lot of up and down while on the floor and that again made things tough on me. I took time to sit and tried to feel more like myself while I was working because I knew that pushing myself harder wasn’t going to be a good thing for me.

And on the rower, the first block was 200 meter rows with shoulder presses in-between each row. I didn’t look at my rowing time because I knew it was bad. And the last block was a 6 minute row for distance and I ended up taking a break every minute or so to try to feel better. It was a tough class to get through and I tried not to be hard on myself because I know that these were not normal circumstances for me.

Wednesday I was finally starting to feel better and I had the extra motivation of trying to get back to my running. And this class ended up being a run/row switching format so it was a good opportunity to work on my running. It was interesting to switch a couple of times during a run/row, but that allowed me time to rest and recover. There were 3 blocks in the run/row and the first block was .1 mile runs with 200 meter rows. I was able to run every time I had the .1 mile run. The second block was 3 rounds of 30 second intervals, 2 rounds of 45 second intervals, and a 1 minute all out pace to end the block. I ran all the push and all out paces and walked my bases. And the last block was an incline .1 mile run which I ended up doing as a walk because I didn’t feel ok with running on an incline. And the rowing in the last block was 200 meter rows that increased each round.

The floor was a lot of arm work and lunges. The first block was single arm snatches, pop jacks, and lateral lunges. The second block was lunges with weights, upright rows with weights, and crunches. And the last block was rows on the straps, pullovers with weights, and plank work. I felt pretty strong on the floor and only had minor moments of nausea so I was feeling proud of myself. And I did a decent amount of running so that really helped my confidence.

Friday’s workout was a power day so it felt like another perfect opportunity to work on my running. All of the blocks on the treadmill were really short. The longest block we had was 4 minutes but most of them were closer to 3 minutes. The first few blocks started with a push pace that was between 30-90 seconds and then had a base pace and ended with a push pace to an all out pace. I ran all the push and all out paces and walked my bases. This was more what I was used to so I was feeling amazing!

On the floor, we mainly had 1 long block. In that block, we had 3 sections that each had 2 moves in them. We were supposed to do 3 rounds of the 2 moves in that section and then go to the rower to do a 1 minute row for distance. The moves were push ups, skaters, chest presses using the straps, low rows using the straps, lunges, and plank work). I think my rower was having issues because it was telling me I was only doing 40 meters in 1 minute when normal for me is around 200 meters. At the end of the workout, we went over to the rowers to row in the same pattern as the treadmills. It was a 3 minute row for distance and again my rower was having issues with telling me the distance. It ended up saying I did just over 100 meters when I know it was closer to 600. But I was able to row for the 3 minutes without stopping so that was an improvement over the beginning of the week.

I was feeling pretty awesome about my running when I got to Saturday’s class and found out it was an endurance day. Those are tough days for me to work on running, but I was going to do my best. Since it was a 3 group class, I knew I’d only be on the treadmill for about 15 minutes so that helped. The treadmill was distance runs on our own time. We started with a .25 mile run which I was able to run without stopping. Next was supposed to be a .5 mile run and I was going to try to do running intervals. I did about 90 seconds of running before going down to my walk and thought I could get back to running after about a minute. But my legs were feeling like they weighed 1,000 pounds and I ended up walking on an incline to finish it. But I did do it as a .5 mile run/walk and not doing the power walk option of .25 miles.

Next I was on the floor were we had increased rep work. Each round started with 5 burpees (I was so glad my nausea was gone because the burpees would have been horrible otherwise) and then we had squats, push ups, sit ups, and pull ups on the straps. Those other moves started at 10 reps each but went up 5 reps each round we did them. I made it through the 20 rep round before time was called to switch to the rower.

On the rower, we started with an 800 meter row and the row went down 200 meters each time. Between each row we had jumping jacks with a medicine ball. About halfway through the time on the rower, things switched to be squats with the medicine ball between each row. I was able to do my 800 and 600 meter rows without stopping and the only reason my 400 meter row had a break was to learn about what the new move was going to be in-between the rowing.

While this past week of workouts got off to a tough start, it ended on a pretty great note. I had 3 decent days of running including running .25 miles without a walking break. It wasn’t that long ago that running that distance without walking seemed impossible and I was able to just jump back into doing that. Hopefully I can figure out some more motivation for my running and I can figure out better ways to handle my nausea so this doesn’t become an issue for a week each month.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Walking Week (or Trying To Not Be Anxious About Progress) Default ThumbnailBack To Balancing (or A Pretty Routine Workout Week) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Walking and Biking (or Getting Through Some Low-Key Workouts) Default ThumbnailA Long Workout Week (or Being Emotional And Going Easy) Default ThumbnailFeeling More Back To Normal (or A Good Week Of Hell Week Prep) Default ThumbnailGoing Big During Peak Performance Week (or A Week Of PRs)

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I Guess I Am Doing Some Cutting Back (or My Willpower Is Coming Back)

Posted on November 9, 2017 | Comments Off on I Guess I Am Doing Some Cutting Back (or My Willpower Is Coming Back)

I’ve been trying to work on getting my food back on track and it’s not going the way I was hoping. I want to get back to how things were last year but it seems like things are preventing me from doing that. Or at least that is the excuse I have been making to myself. I really want to work on this but it’s not easy and I know that the more frustrated I get about things the harder it will be.

Since this has been so difficult, I’ve wondered if I have lost the willpower I’ve had in the past. It’s never easy for me to have willpower and I know that it’s not something that I can get back easily. And of course, I know that willpower isn’t necessarily real, but it is nice when things are going easily for me and that I don’t have to think about food. I don’t think it will ever be easy for me and it’s been tough to understand that reality. But I think that knowing it is a step forward.

But while I’ve been in a bit of a funk about my lack of willpower about my food, I’ve realized that I haven’t totally lost my willpower. While I’m not a huge clothes shopper, I do like to shop and when I find things that fit and are a good price I usually get them. It’s not too often I find things that are right for me so I feel a need to get them if I do find them. I know that this is a problem and I’ve been trying to be better about not buying more stuff. I’m trying to go through my closet to see what I already own because I have rediscovered things that I forgot I owned. But there are still times that I can’t resist an amazing sale.

But yesterday I was looking at the Nordstrom Rack Clear The Rack sale online and found a bunch of things I’ve been thinking of getting in the sale. There are some dresses I’ve looked at that are down to almost $10 (they were $50 previously). I looked at a bunch of stuff and had a lot of tabs open with what I was thinking of buying. I was just trying to decide what I wanted and what I could skip on getting.

But the more I looked at what I was looking at, the less I wanted to get it. I have been wanting to get a lot of these things for months so I don’t know what changed. Maybe it was the money I didn’t want to spend (even though getting 6 things was going to only be about $60) or maybe I didn’t want to buy things until I lost more weight. But whatever the reason, I closed all the tabs with all the things I was looking at and didn’t buy anything.

It was a bit depressing for a minute thinking that I was no longer interested in things that I have been wanting for a while. But then I realized that not buying this stuff was a bit of willpower. Nothing I was looking at was something that I needed. It was all fun stuff that I liked but could live without. So by not getting them I was resisting spending money that I didn’t need to spend and getting clothes that I don’t need.

I know I’ve mentioned before that I wish my willpower could be transferred from one area of my life to another. I’m good at having willpower for things that aren’t too important, but when it comes to the big things it’s not always there. I don’t necessarily know how to find it again and it’s a mystery to me a lot when I do have it. But maybe being aware of having it in an area of my life that I’m not expecting it I can use that to try to find it where I need it.

I know that being on the right track with my food now is a tough thing. I have lots of things coming up that are going to make it easy to fall into bad habits that I’m trying to avoid. I have the holidays coming up and all the parties that happen this time of year. Again, I don’t want to use these as excuses, but I’m aware that allowing for things to not be as structured as I’d like will help in the long run. I don’t want to feel like I’ve screwed everything up and will try to start another time. I’m not putting off getting back on track because then I will never do it. But I need to find the balance I need to have in my life and the willpower that will help me not go off the rails like I have in the past.

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Default ThumbnailGetting Out Of A Food Funk (or I Need To Get Back To My Good Work) Default ThumbnailRoutine Time Again (or Getting Back On Track) Default ThumbnailCounting Every Calorie (or Seeing Things In Black and White) Default ThumbnailHonesty Time (or Going Backwards) Default ThumbnailNot Letting A Slip Up Be A Set Back (or I Splurged Again) Default ThumbnailCutting Out My Favorite Drink (or Goodbye Diet Coke, Diet 7-Up, Fancy Water)

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Trying To Make A 5K Plan (or Maybe This Is The Motivation I’m Missing)

Posted on November 8, 2017 | 1 comment

I’ve been feeling a bit stuck (or even going backwards) in my running lately. It’s unfortunate that I’ve been feeling like that because I have made some amazing progress. But things like getting sick or having a weird schedule have been affecting me more than I would like. I want to get back into making awesome progress with my running, but I don’t know what it will take.

You might have also noticed that I haven’t written about doing a 5K in a while. I usually have a race around this time of year, but I actually won’t be doing one. The race that I normally do was supposed to be last month but then it never happened. It was very odd because it was promoted as a certain date but you couldn’t register for it. And then the week it was supposed to happen they announced it wouldn’t be happening. I wasn’t thinking I would be doing this race since there was nothing about it online, but it was still a disappointment when it didn’t happen.

And I haven’t signed up for the race that I usually do in the spring yet. That race has always been a 5K, 10K, and half marathon. But we got an email earlier this year that the race was merging with another race and it now appears that there are only options to do a 10K or half marathon. It’s also more expensive now. So I’m not sure what I want to do about that.

I’ve never done a 10K but I’ve been considering it. But I said I would want to do a 10K as a Disney race because that would be extra motivation to work hard. And then Disney announced that there won’t be any races coming up at Disneyland because of the construction happening. So there went that idea.

It’s weird to not have any 5Ks in my future. There are a few other races I’ve done in the past that I’m thinking about doing toward the end of this year or sometime next year, but it’s not the same as the tradition that I’ve had for the past few years. But I really think I need to get back into doing races because I think that is what I need to do to get my running back to where it was.

When I have a race that I’m getting ready for, I’m so competitive with myself. I always want to PR on a race and I know that I have to work really hard in my treadmill workouts to do that. Plus, then I also go out and do running workout on my own. Right now, I don’t feel the sense of urgency that I have in the past and maybe that is allowing me to be a bit lazy in my workouts. As much as I want to blame not feeling well, I have to remember that one of my last 5Ks was right after I had been at the hospital for the day with horrible stomach pains (which helped to lead me to discover I have the liver tumors). If I could have an amazing race after being in the hospital, then I can work on my treadmill workouts after feeling sick.

If I had a race that I was working toward, I would push myself to work harder in my workouts because I know what I have to be able to do to match what I’ve done in the past and I usually push myself to do more than that. I have a goal in mind that I’m working toward and I didn’t realize before how important that is for me in my workouts. I really need another race to know is coming up to keep me accountable and working hard. Otherwise, I can take it easy but still feel like I’m doing a good job because I’m there for my workouts.

I need to look at my schedule to see what 5Ks I could possibly do and which ones aren’t too expensive. And I am going to think about doing that 10K in April but I’m really torn if I think I’m ready for that or not. But the planning needs to start happening because if I don’t then these races will happen and I won’t be a part of them. And as hard as it is to believe, I think I actually miss doing 5Ks. They have been a part of my life for a while and it feels weird not to be doing them or having more medals to add to my collection. Hopefully I can figure out a plan to keep doing them so that I don’t feel like something is missing in my workout life.

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Default ThumbnailTraining For A 5K Without Planning On Doing Them (or I Think I’m Only Doing 3 5Ks This Year) Default Thumbnail2 Out Of 3 Done (or I’m Surprised I’ve Done Well So Far) Default Thumbnail5K Update (or Why It’s Not A Goal For This Year) Default ThumbnailPushing Myself (or This Will Make Me Feel Better If I Only Get 9 5Ks Done In 2013) Default ThumbnailSurprising A Friend Headed To Broadway (or I Have More Motivation To Plan My NYC Trip) Default ThumbnailNot Being So Hard On Myself (or Missing A Workout Goal This Month)

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Finishing Hell Week (or I Need To Get Back To Running)

Posted on November 6, 2017 | 1 comment

After doing 4 Hell Week workouts the week prior, this past week I only had to do 1 more Hell Week workout in order to earn my shirt. Even though I was tired from having my first 5 workout week, I knew this past week I wanted to stay on track and do a 4 workout week. It’s nice that 4 workouts a week is becoming so normal to me, but I’ll admit that I think that after a 5 workout week I probably should have taken things a bit easier.

Monday’s workout was the final Hell Week workout for me (there was another Hell Week class on Tuesday, but I wasn’t going to be working out on Tuesday). This time the class was called Inclines Of Death. I was prepared for this to possibly be the hardest of the Hell Week classes, but I think I lucked out by having this class be a 3 group workout. It wasn’t as tough as some of the other Hell Week workouts but it was still a tough day.

I started on the floor this time, but the floor and rower people worked together (kind of like a partner workout). On the floor we had triceps, chest presses with weights, chest presses with straps, rows on the straps, hammer curls, and rows with weights. We had some of those moves and then we tagged out the person on the rower and did a 500 meter row. When we were done on the rower, we tagged the floor person and repeated things. And when it was my turn on the rower, it was the same thing as the floor except that I didn’t set the pace. So I rowed until I was tagged by the floor person and I did the floor work until the rower tagged me.

The last rotation for me was on the treadmill which was all inclines. Because I had done so much on the floor and the rower my body was not really too happy to be on the treadmill. I ended up walking everything at a much slower speed than I’m used to. The format for the treadmill was to go up 1% every 30 seconds until we maxed out and then we went down 1% every 30 seconds. When we were working on decreasing the inclines I decreased it to 8% and then stayed there for the rest of the treadmill time.

I didn’t love that I ended Hell Week with a workout that wasn’t to the best of my ability, but I still completed 5 workouts and earned my Hell Week shirt. And not only was this day the day I completed Hell Week, it was also my 600th Orangetheory workout! That’s pretty amazing and I am proud of myself!

Wednesday was a run/row workout that focused on strength and power. Because of some issues traffic I got to the workout a bit later than normal and had to start on the floor instead of on the treadmill (there will be a studio opening up in a few months that will cut my commute to my workout from 30 minutes to 5 minutes and I can’t wait!). The floor was focused mainly on squats and my thighs were feeling it! We had goblet squats, regular squats, weighted squats, jump squats using the straps, and lunges to squats. We also had pull overs, jumping presses, and ab work.

After the floor, I got to work on the run/row. Usually a run/row is one long block for that half of class, but this time we had 2 blocks. The first run/row block was decreasing distances with increasing inclines and increasing rows. The second block was increasing distances with decreasing inclines and decreasing rows. I ended up walking all the treadmill segments but I was able to keep my speed at my normal speed and the inclines at the inclines that were recommended to do (instead of a lower incline). And my rowing wasn’t super fast, but I finished in under the recommended time each time I was on the rower.

Friday ended up being kind of a run/row too. It was pretty great to have 2 run/row days in a week since they tend to be my favorites. But this time, everything was timed and we weren’t on our own to switch back and forth. Everything we did was a distance challenge. We had a 6 minute challenge on the treadmill, then a 3 minute challenge on the rower, and then repeated both things. On the 6 minute run challenge, I would have loved to run the entire thing. But I realized that I hadn’t done a lot of running lately (which I really need to fix) so I had to do the 6 minutes with run/walk intervals. Both times I did it I ran for 2 minutes, walked for 1 minute, ran for 1 minute, walked for 1 minute, and ran for the last minute. But I did increase my speed for the second attempt so I was able to get farther than I did the first time.

When I was on the rower, I wanted to focus on keeping my wattage up but my speed down. It’s tough to do that since my wattage only seems to get high when I’m moving really fast. But I did my best to figure out quickly what a good pace would be that I could try to do for the entire 3 minutes. The goal was to get between 600-900 meters in 3 minutes. The first time I got 627 meters and the second time I got 634. Unlike on the treadmill, I can’t really tell if I’m going to beat my time or distance. While I can see if my speed or wattage is higher, it’s tough to tell if I’m doing better. So it was a surprise to me that I beat my first row!

The floor was 3 blocks. The first block was a long one with deadlifts, alligators on the straps, and pushups. The deadlifts were supposed to be single leg deadlifts and I did do one round of them like that but while holding onto the bench to keep my balance. I know it’s good for me to work on balance but it’s tough to do with my hip issues. But challenging myself with these were good for me. But I wasn’t able to do more than one round as single leg work, so the other times I did them I did them with both feet on the ground. The second block was skier swings, hip bridges, and toe touches. And the last block was a 3 minute core blast.

Saturday was a 3 group workout that had endurance, strength, and power. I went into the workout with the intention of doing running, but I had a combination of a bad hip day and horrible nausea. So again, running wasn’t in the cards for me. On the treadmill, we had 2 blocks. The first one was more endurance based with longer push paces. And the second one was more strength based with working with the inclines up higher. I was able to do my incline work a bit higher than I normally do which was great since I was a bit down on myself for not running at all.

I was on the rower next where we also had 2 blocks. Every block was focused on 1 minute rows for distance. On the first block, we had wall sits between each row. And on the second block we had squats between the rows. I know that I can do 300 meters in a minute if I work really hard, but I also knew that I’d be doing lots of attempts at 1 minute rows. So I just tried to work on keeping my pulls long on the rower and I averaged around 230 meters each time (which is better than the 200 meter minimum we were supposed to do). The wall sits were much easier than I expected and I was able to balance a lot better than I could the last time I tried doing them.

And on the floor, we had a mix of things. We had squats to shoulder presses, triceps, squats with flys, knee tucks, and hip bridges. I was starting to feel super nauseous on the floor and that wasn’t helped by going from standing to laying down as often as we did. I just tried to keep breathing and going slow, but I was really waiting for class to be done because I didn’t want to feel any worse.

Overall, it was an ok workout week. With each individual day, I thought I had done well. But as I look as the week as a whole, I’m a bit disappointed with myself. I know that there have been outside circumstances that have preventing me from running or making all the progress I have been hoping to make, but I don’t want to make excuses for myself. I know that I can do better and I need to make myself do better. I want to be running more often and seeing what new running goals I can hit. It’s been a while since I’ve had a big running accomplishment and I think I’m due to make that happen soon.

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Default ThumbnailMaybe Not That Much Running (or Training For Thanksgiving) Default ThumbnailExtra Running Time (or Figuring Out What I Can Do) Default ThumbnailFinishing Hell Week (or Fires and Being Tired) Default ThumbnailFinishing Up 12 Days of Fitness (or This Felt Like A Long Hell Week) Default ThumbnailGetting Back To Normal (or Finishing Hell Week and Race Prep) Default ThumbnailFeeling More Back To Normal (or A Good Week Of Hell Week Prep)

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Another Attempt At Mindfulness (or I Think I Need To Work On This Until I Figure It Out)

Posted on November 1, 2017 | 2 comments

I’ve tried to work on mindfulness multiple times and it has never seemed to stick with me. But it keeps coming up in my life and I feel like that is a sign of something. So I’ve been inspired to try mindfulness again and the timing is perfect since it’s time for another monthly challenge! But first, time to recap last month’s challenge.

Last month, I challenged myself to work on doing daily speed cleaning. Ideally, I would spend 5-10 minutes a month focused on a small space in my house to clean and organize it. I wanted to do this because I had felt like my cleaning was getting overwhelming and I didn’t know where to start. So I wanted to take away the pressure from doing a big cleaning in my house because that seemed to be what was stopping me. I set an alarm to work on this each day and I tried my best to do what I could.

I wasn’t totally successful with this, but it went better than I thought it would. There were several days that I couldn’t do cleaning because either I was gone all day (like during the Convention) or I had no energy because I was sick. But when things like that weren’t stopping me, I really did accomplish a lot. And by telling myself I only had to do one small cleaning thing allowed me to just do it and not worry about not having time to finish it. There were some times that I did a really small cleaning job like using a new multi-hook hanger to put all my tank tops in one spot (it also saves room in my closet). And then there were other times where my small cleaning job ended up getting me motivated to do a bigger cleaning job. But it has gotten me into the habit of spending a bit of time every day working on this so that I don’t feel overwhelmed again.

Last month went well and I’m really hoping this month will too. Mindfulness has been a struggle for me each time I’ve tried to work on it. I’ve found little things that have worked, but they aren’t enough. I want to be more aware of so much in my life. This isn’t just a food thing because there are days where it seems like the entire day slipped away without me knowing what happened. I want to avoid days in a fog like that if possible.

The book that I’m reading as my 10 pages of a recovery based book right now is all about eating mindfully. I actually wish I had read this book when I first started trying to be more mindful because it’s pretty great. Each section has a lesson along with some action steps to take. And so many of these action steps are things that I haven’t done before or thought of doing before. I actually think I need to go back and start reading from the beginning to take notes on things because I haven’t been doing that. And that is part of my challenge for this month.

I want to go through the book again and other resources I can find and start finding action steps to take to work toward mindfulness. Maybe the reason why it has failed to stick with me before is because mindfulness is more of an idea and less of something I can do. If I had steps to take and work with, that would probably be better for me. I need something tangible or to check off on a list to work with and I don’t know why I didn’t think of doing this before.

This month’s challenge won’t necessarily be about putting mindfulness into practice right away. I’ve tried that a bunch and it hasn’t worked. But instead, this challenge is going to be about researching action steps and ideas to put into use over time. I want to devote time every day to re-reading the book I’ve been reading as well as looking online or in other reference books to make a list that I can use moving forward. I want to make mindfulness work for me and it’s not something that I can just turn on right away. I need to work toward it and I have failed at doing that before. Because other challenges have come to me so easily, I assumed that this one would too. But I am learning and have realized what I hope will be the missing step to be able to implement this into my life in the long-term.

I know that this seems like a much more passive monthly challenge than others have been, but this is what I think I need to focus on this month. And there are only so many things I can add to my life with these monthly challenges, so having one that is more of a reflective thing is probably going to help me not get burned out on them. And I totally don’t want to experience burn out because I just got my 2018 Volt Planner so there will be another year of monthly challenges next year!

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Default ThumbnailMonthly Challenge Update Time (or One More For 2017) Default ThumbnailNot Perfect This Month (or Challenged With The Monthly Challenge) Default ThumbnailAnother Monthly Challenge Down (or July and August Challenges) Default ThumbnailA Goal Setting Experience (or Mindfulness Seems To Be A Theme) Default ThumbnailA Dapper Day Attempt (or Trying To Make The Best Of An Afternoon) Default ThumbnailContinuing To Work On Myself (or More Reflective Challenges)

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I Hate Complaining About The Heat (or Can It Be Fall Now?)

Posted on October 26, 2017 | 1 comment

If you don’t live in LA, you might not know we are going through a pretty bad heat wave right now. It’s hopefully going to end soon, but it’s been miserable. I know that we have had some heat waves in October in the past, but this is much worse than normal. It has been hotter now than it was over the summer when we had heat waves. Just the other day, this was the temperature by my house (where it rarely gets to 100 degrees).

I know that I’m luckier than others. I do have a little window a/c unit that I can use. And my a/c is pretty energy-efficient so when I use it my electricity bill doesn’t double or triple like some a/c units do for my friends. But even though it isn’t expensive to run, I try to limit how often I run it because I don’t want to get dependent on it and use it more than I can afford. But it’s nice to now that I have it there so that I’m not dealing with nights where it is still over 90 degrees inside my house when I’m trying to sleep.

Over the past few days, I’ve had just fans on for the first part of the day and then when I get home from a workout or whatever I did that afternoon I have to run my a/c until I go to bed. Then I can usually get my house down to a reasonable temperature to sleep in. But it’s still not fun to be stuck in the heat, especially when it heats up my computer while I’m working too. I haven’t resorted to sitting on ice packs like I did in the past, but I’m getting pretty close to that. I also got these cooling towels over the summer to help me sleep when it was too hot inside my house at nighttime. I have been using those around my neck or on my back while working to keep things more comfortable.

I really hope that it cools down soon. I want to feel more comfortable in my house and I hate what the heat does to my body. I’ve been working hard at getting things back on track but now it’s tough to tell if it’s working or not. All of my clothes feel way too tight on me but I know that my body is swollen from heat because nothing fits including shoes (which isn’t affected by weight loss or gain for me). Fortunately, workout clothes have a lot of stretch in them so I’ve been wearing those a lot. But I want to know that my efforts to get things back to how they should be are working and the best way to tell that is how my clothes feel on me. And having everything feel too tight does mess with my head a bit.

I’m sure it’s annoying to complain about the heat. But honestly that is occupying a lot of my mind right now. There are other things that have been bugging or annoying me, and having it be ridiculously hot doesn’t make things any better. But I am trying to make the best of things right now. I’m grateful for my workouts because there is really great a/c at Orangetheory. And it does motivate me to get out of my house more to relax somewhere else. It’s nice to have something breaking up the day when I have been working from home for 7 hours. I hate staying home all day so a post-work errand or adventure is good and now it has the added bonus of hopefully being a place that is cooler than my house.

I do wonder if the heat is really that bad or my negative attitude about other things is making is worse. Either way, it’s not fun and I keep checking the weather report to see when things will be getting better. If things are accurate, today will be about 20 degrees cooler than yesterday (but it will still be warm) and it will drop another 20 degrees by next week. To have it go down 40 degrees in a week is proof on how hot it is right now!

So for now, I’m just going to keep working and doing what I’m doing since there really isn’t anything that I can do to fix this. And before I know it, I hope that I’ll be complaining about how cold it is. Although I do prefer that sometimes since I can always add more clothes to warm up.

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Default ThumbnailHeat Wave In LA (or Another Post About The Heat) Default ThumbnailHeat and Hormones (or Not Letting Cravings Take Over) Default ThumbnailAnother Post About The Heat (or I’m Not Getting As Upset This Time) 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)

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This Might Be A Breakthrough For Me (or Trying To Believe I’m Not Unloveable)

Posted on October 25, 2017 | Comments Off on This Might Be A Breakthrough For Me (or Trying To Believe I’m Not Unloveable)

I’ve talked about how in my past I’ve had someone who told me how I was unloveable. They tried to convince me that nobody would ever want to be with me and that anyone who claims to love me is lying to get something out of me. They tried to tell me how my friends didn’t love me and that my family was embarrassed by me. They told me the only way to change this was to stop being fat because being fat was being a 3rd class citizen. This didn’t cause my eating disorder (I had that for years before this conversation) but it didn’t help either.

As much as I wanted to not believe what they told me, I couldn’t get the idea of being unloveable out of my head. And the fact that I had really bad luck dating reinforced this and made me believe it more. I have been cheated on several times and that made me think that I wasn’t worthy of being the only person that someone wants to be with. I have tolerated not being treated the way I should be treated. And I allowed this to happy to me because I really did think that I wasn’t worthy of something better.

I know that I am worthy and lovable but it’s tough to believe that sometimes. Even with all the luck I’ve had lately with online dating, I still don’t believe that maybe someone will like me for me right now. And because of that, I have noticed that I am putting up with things that I shouldn’t have to. I am trying to be more open-minded about things, but being open-minded doesn’t have to mean lowering my standards. And I have noticed lately that I’ve been tolerating things I shouldn’t have to and I don’t want to put up with that anymore.

There is one particular guy that I’ve been seeing very casually for a little while. I hadn’t mentioned it really on here because we weren’t serious and I was still going out with other guys since I didn’t know where this would be going. I’m not a fan of casual dating because I like to know what is happening, but again I’ve been trying to be open-minded and didn’t feel like I needed to rush or push things. So we had been seeing each other on and off for a little while and it was going fine for a while.

But then things changed. He seemed to be flaking on me and then reappearing like nothing happened. I think if you are texting someone every day for a while and then you don’t text for a week or two you should probably apologize. But he didn’t and I didn’t want to push anything so I never really asked about it. I gave him another chance and he did it again. And again I thought that maybe I would give him another chance because I didn’t want to end something that was fun.

I’ve never been the person to end a relationship. Even when I was cheated on, it was more of a mutual decision than me ending things. And I’m sure that a part of the reason why I’ve never been the person to end things is because I’m terrified that the person I’m going to end things with is the last person who would want me. I don’t want to end something and risk being alone the rest of my life. I know how crazy that sounds, but that’s really how I was thinking.

But with this guy, I knew that I was pretty much done with him. I understand casual dating doesn’t mean you hear from them every day, but that doesn’t mean you can be a flake or fail to follow through with plans you have been making. So I decided to end things with him. But even though I knew that is what I wanted to do, I couldn’t get the courage to do it. I didn’t want to just send a random text to him saying that I thought we should both move on. So I waited for him to send me another text so I would have something to reply to.

It took about a week between when I had decided I wanted to text him and when he texted me next. And he texted me to ask what I was up to for the weekend and I was honest. I told him that I had fun seeing him but that I thought that this thing had run its course and ended. I was shaking when I sent the text because I couldn’t get the voices out of my head. But when he texted me back, I knew it was the right choice. Because his text back to me was something about how he was busy watching football. Not really the response I was expecting and I don’t think he actually looked at what I sent to him. About 3 hours after he responded, he responded again asking what I was doing for the weekend. And I sent my text back to him saying how I thought we shouldn’t see each other again. That was a few days ago and I haven’t gotten another text from him.

I still feel terrified that I will never find another guy to go out with, but I’m trying to keep those thoughts quiet compared to what I know is true. I am lovable and I will find someone who treats me the way I deserve to be treated. I don’t have to tolerate something that isn’t right because of a fear of being alone.

I really feel like this was a huge breakthrough in my life to prove that I am worthy of things that I want. I don’t have to settle in any sense of my life. And I’m hoping that this breakthrough will have the potential to lead to more breakthroughs in other parts of my life where I know that I haven’t felt worthy before. I need to get that voice out of my head telling me that I don’t deserve things because that was just one person’s opinion of me and not the truth.

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Making It Through A Tough Week (or I’m Glad I’m Scheduling Some Fun)

Posted on October 20, 2017 | Comments Off on Making It Through A Tough Week (or I’m Glad I’m Scheduling Some Fun)

While I was finally feeling a bit better this week, it was a tough week for me. I’m still working on getting things back on track. The convention throws me off a bit and then being sick made things worse. I set my monthly challenge this month to be working on cleaning, but things got so much worse when I wasn’t able to do it. It’s been getting overwhelming and I’m trying to not let it get to me.

And this week was a week where I guess some people decided to be extra mean to me. I don’t know what I did to deserve it or if it was deserved, but I take it personally. Usually when customers get angry at me at my day job for not doing something I can’t do, I don’t stress. I can’t override company policies or give out information that I don’t have access to. So when people get upset with me for not doing them, I don’t mind because I know I’m not doing anything wrong. But this week, a customer decided that she was unhappy about something I did (which is a normal thing for us to do) and make a complaint on social media. Fortunately my manager knows what we go through and knows that I didn’t do the things she said I did, but it’s still tough to deal with it. Even though I’ve been working this job for a few years, I’m still in fear of being fired for something. I doubt that will happen, but my mind still goes to that place.

I also dealt with some online dating meanness. One guy did something that isn’t bugging me, but I’ve decided I don’t want to go out with him again so I’m working up my courage to tell him that. But another guy accused me of something that I know I didn’t do and was pretty horrible to me. I talked to a friend after it happened and we both think that I didn’t do anything wrong, but the words this guy screamed at me are still going through my head and I wish that I didn’t have a tiny bit of fear that they are true. I know they aren’t and that this guy has issues that I didn’t know about, but I still hate that I believe that what others say about me is true.

I am focusing on the positives with all the negativity I’ve dealt with. My work situation has been dealt with and I am going to rephrase how I say some things so customers aren’t misunderstanding me. I can see how someone could get the wrong idea if they don’t hear everything that I’m saying so I’m going to make it a bit simpler so that there is not that risk. And with the guys who have treated me badly, I’m just not going to tolerate it. I’m not going to give them another chance because I’m done with dealing with things like what they did. And I know that not putting up with stuff like that is progress. I still deal with low self-esteem, especially when it comes to dating. But I’m starting to believe that I’m worth better than what I have tolerated and that’s good (I bet my therapist would be so proud of me!).

Because this week was a bit of a low point, I’ve been making an effort to add more fun stuff into my life for the next few weeks. I’ve got some fun friend hangouts planned and a few things that I want to do. And I’m making an effort to focus on my happiness checklist stuff to add more happy things into my life. There are a few places where I’ve been slacking that I know will make me feel better and I need to work on doing those more. I’m not going to let this negative week affect me any longer. I’ve dealt with it, I’ve gotten mad about it, and I’m ready to move on. I don’t plan on dwelling on it, which is part of the reason I’m writing about it.

I’ve said that this blog is a bit of therapy for me and that’s exactly what this post is. I’m mad and I can feel my body relax and my mind calm down as I’ve been typing each word. I also like to be honest about my life on here and I don’t want to put up a front. Everything hasn’t been good for me this week and I’m not going to pretend like it was awesome. It kind of sucked, but that’s life. And I’m moving on to what I hope will be an amazing and awesome week next week.

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Me Too (or We Need To Stop Normalizing Sexual Assault)

Posted on October 17, 2017 | 1 comment

There has been so much in the news lately about sexual assault. A lot of it has to do with Harvey Weinstein and everything that he did over the last few decades. And then there’s talk about what our current president has done. But sexual assault is sadly something so common that it seems like most of us have dealt with. If you were on social media, you might have seen all the “Me Too” posts. Women (and men) who have dealt with sexual assault or harassment posted this so that hopefully others will realize how big of a problem this is. And I was one of those who shared it.

I consider myself extremely lucky. I’ve been in some pretty bad situations and have usually gotten out of them without too much harm. I questioned originally if I should post about it because I know what others have gone through is so much worse than what I’ve dealt with. But then I realized that by downplaying what I went through I was a part of the problem.

My issues have included things from strangers and from men that I knew. They were both physical and verbal situations. And it sadly has happened to me a lot. I’ve had a guy tell me on a date (not recently) that he could do whatever he wanted to me because nobody would believe that a fat girl would be raped. I’ve had a guy who was my friend get into a bed with me when I thought he was going to be sleeping on the couch. I was at a party once and in telling a story to a friend I grabbed my boobs. Someone I had never met at that party saw that, came up to me, and grabbed me while introducing himself. He said that since I touched myself that I was telling others they could do that too.

The verbal stuff has been both in my personal and professional life. I had a day job many years ago where my manager liked to talk about my weight and how all guys must find me disgusting. She questioned how I could be intimate with anyone. And she liked to say this in front of others too. And because we were all scared of losing our jobs (we had seen others get fired for telling her to stop), nobody said anything. I guess I should be happy that at my jobs it’s only been verbal and nothing physical has happened to me.

But there is one thing in common for all of these situations. Even though I might have been disgusted, embarrassed, or wanting to punch someone; I didn’t really do anything. When I’ve been physically threatened, sometimes I am able to fight back and stop it. But in the case of the guy at the party grabbing me, my friend and I were shocked into silence. And we didn’t really think to tell anyone for a bit and we weren’t able to find the guy after that to find out who he is.

Part of the reason I didn’t do anything was because I was too shocked to do anything. But a bigger part of it was because I didn’t think it was a big enough deal to make a fuss about. I’ve had friends who were raped and I feel lucky that my situations have been so minor. And in some situations, I didn’t necessarily think that anything was wrong until years later when sharing the story with someone else. I just assumed that everyone dealt with it and it wasn’t a big deal.

And that thinking is a huge part of the problem. As a friend of mine put it, we have normalized sexual assault. When we are in school and a boy snaps our bra straps or pulls at a skirt, we are told that he’s just teasing because he likes us. When we are catcalled while walking down the street we are told that we should be flattered. And there seems to be an excuse for almost any situation we are in. Even if you are raped, you are told that it happened because you were drinking/wearing a skirt/wearing pants/walking outside/inside your own home at nighttime/dared to exist.

Fortunately, it seems like a majority of people are horrified by what happened. But it makes you wonder what took so long for people to notice. Maybe we did need the “Me Too” campaign so that people who haven’t been affected could see how widespread it is. Unless you are avoiding social media you can’t help but see that a majority of the post in your feed have to do with what others have encountered. Some people think that women are faking their stories and I’m aware that someone might accuse me of that. But I’m willing to take that risk because I know what the truth is in my life

And for anyone who is feeling helpless, you don’t have to be. If you witness something, stop it. If your friend is making jokes that make you uncomfortable, you don’t have to tolerate it. My co-workers were in fear for their jobs when my manager was harassing me, but if one of them had stood up for me I think that would have given me the courage to do something at the time and not waiting until I was planning on leaving the job anyway. And you can believe people when they tell you something happened to them. Don’t blame the victim. The only person at fault for harassment or rape is the one harassing or raping someone. The victim wasn’t asking for it and can’t be held responsible for someone else’s actions. We need to stop this rape culture of victim blaming and normalizing harassment and start standing up for each other.

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