Category Archives: Tough Stuff

Almost Ready To Make A Movie! (or Can You Spare A Buck?)

Posted on April 26, 2016 | 1 comment

I’m so excited about the short film that my friend Christopher has written for us to star in! It’s a super cute story, I like the character I’m playing, and I think it’s going to be a really fun shoot! I’m so happy that Christopher wrote a film and had me in mind for the other lead. And since he and I are basically the only actors, we haven’t had to do any additional casting.

After meeting with my friend Bryan, he agreed to direct the film (which makes me so happy!) and he connected us with his friend Jaime who is going to be our producer. We’ve been getting things done pretty quickly and we think we will be able to shoot the film at the end of May or beginning of June. But then we found one small roadblock that’s preventing us from scheduling our shoot.

Money.

We are cutting costs where we can (and Christopher and I are going to do deferred pay so we aren’t paying ourselves for the project), but it’s not cheap to make a movie. Even a 10 minute movie like ours will be has costs like sound, camera equipment, lighting, editing, and other post-production costs. We have reached out to all of our friends and I think we have a great crew put together and they have all agreed to work at a reduced rate to help us keep costs down.

We put together a budget that is as limited as possible without putting the quality of the film at risk. Even though everyone is helping us keep things as cheap as possible, after we pooled our money together (I’m taking mine from my new computer fund) we found ourselves a bit short. We need about $2200 to make sure we can afford everything we need to in order to make this film a reality. It’s not a lot of money, but we’ve all stretched our personal budgets as much as we could and that’s how much left we need to find. We thought about ways to raise the money, and we’ve agreed that a Kickstarter campaign is the best way to go.

I hate asking people for money and I don’t expect any of you to donate (although if you want to I’d be so grateful!). But what I’m asking of you all is to please share our Kickstarter campaign with people you know. You might not be able to give anything, but someone you know might want to do it and you are the way to connect them to us. You never know who will want to help a short film get made just because they think it sounds cool.

As with all Kickstarter projects, we have rewards for various levels of donations. We are going to have a link to watch the finished movie online for some donors. Other donors are going to be able to name my pretend kids in the movie (I play a single mom). If you are an actor or know an actor, we also have a limited supply (we only have 5) of headshot shoots with our director Bryan! The donation level for the headshots is a fraction of the cost of what headshots normally cost, so this is a great deal for getting new headshots done! And if you know an actor who might want new headshots soon, you can donate at that level and gift the reward to them. And for the ultimate reward, our highest donation level gives you a producer credit on the film plus you get to be on set while we are shooting!

We have donation levels from $1 to $1000. Even a $1 would be amazing because if enough people each give us $1, we’ll reach our goal! I don’t care if we have 20 donors or 2000 donors. As long as we are able to fund our project, I’m ecstatic! The most important thing to me is that we are able to film what I think will be a wonderful short film and that we get to share it with the world!

If you have the ability to donate, any amount will be such a gift to us and every single dollar will be appreciated more than you probably think. And if you can’t donate (and trust me, I can relate to not being able to donate), please share this post or our Kickstarter campaign online so others can see it and they can either donate or share. We know the only way to make this film happen is with help and we can use as much help as we can getting the word out about this!

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Default ThumbnailCast and Crew Read Through (or We Get To Make A Movie!) Default ThumbnailMaking A Movie (or Pulling An All-Nighter) Default ThumbnailWomen In Film (or Brunch and Ghostbusters) Default ThumbnailBeing Proactive (or Bringing Acting To Me) Default ThumbnailMy Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (or A Movie With A Fun Friend) Default ThumbnailFiguring Out The Next Step (or I Need To Keep Acting)

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Another Year Another Orthopedic Surgeon (or Not Worrying About My Hips As Much)

Posted on April 21, 2016 | 1 comment

I wrote last year how I was meeting a new hip surgeon because my original hip surgeon had left the hospital I go to (I loved my original surgeon and wished he was still with Kaiser). At the appointment last year I was told that some of the issues I had been told I have in the past weren’t quite correct and there were other issues that I needed to worry about.

I left that appointment a bit confused. I tried to be ok with the idea that I had the wrong diagnosis originally and that there was a new plan in place. But the more I looked up hip dysplasia (what the new surgeon told me I had), the less it made sense to me. I don’t have the same pain and walking issues that dysplasia patients have. I know that I had bone spurs and torn cartilage because it was seen on the MRI and that is the surgery I had. I couldn’t understand how my original surgeon could have missed something so big when he operated on me and examined my hip so many times. And lastly, I hated the surgery options that the new surgeon gave to me when I looked more into them. One of them had a very extensive recovery and it still would be a hold over until I had a total hip replacement.

With all this confusion in my head, I decided that I really wanted to get another opinion and another treatment plan figured out. My Wednesday Orangetheory coach, JZ, has a similar hip issue that I have (but hers is much less severe and she was able to treat it with stem cells). She was going to refer me to her doctor, but he wasn’t Kaiser and I wasn’t going to go outside of my insurance. But then JZ told me that a guy who sometimes works out in her Wednesday class is an orthopedic surgeon at Kaiser and introduced us. He doesn’t specialize in hips, so he couldn’t meet with me. But he got me a referral with the hip specialist at Kaiser Panorama City (where he works). While I don’t love having to drive so far to meet a doctor, I figured that it was worth my time to see what was going on.

I had my appointment this week on Tuesday and things couldn’t have gone better for me! First in my appointment was another set of x-rays. The x-ray techs were super nice to me and laughed because I knew exactly what positions I had to get my body into for the next x-ray (I had 4 taken).

After the x-rays, I went back to the exam room and waited for the doctor. It seemed like it took forever for him to come back and I started to panic a bit. I was worried that it was taking so long because there was something really bad in my x-rays and he was trying to figure out how to break it to me. But when he finally came into the room, he seemed to be all smiles.

He started by asking me my history and what my original and secondary diagnoses were. We discussed the surgery I had (which was almost 10 years ago!) and the treatment plans that I got from the original surgeon and the one I met last year. Finally, he asked me about the pain that I’m feeling in each of my hips and he did a quick exam to test the rotations on my hips.

After that, he brought up my x-rays and said that my right hip specifically looks much better than it did last year which is not something that he would have expected to see based on my history.

Hip X-Rays

(last year is on the top and this week is on the bottom)

He said that the arthritis is still showing in my right hip and you can see where the points are that are worse off. But he said that if I did have hip dysplasia, it is so mild that I don’t need to treat it. He pretty much agreed with what my original surgeon said felt like I was doing a pretty great job so far. My hips look as good as could be expected (or maybe better since the space in my hip socket is better now than a year ago). He did discuss how I need to lose weight (I know that and explained to him that I’m working on recovery from an eating disorder) in order to keep my hips as healthy as possible. He also discussed potential knee issues that I could have down the line, but honestly right now I’m only worried about my hips.

This surgeon said that the only surgeries that he could see me needing in the future are hip replacements (no alternatives to total hip replacements will work for me). But he doesn’t see me needing them anytime soon so I don’t need to worry. When I feel like I’m in so much pain that I can’t keep going, then replacements will be the next step. But for now I can keep doing what I’m doing, keep taking my anti-inflamatories (I take ibuprofen for pain and Zyflamend as a daily supplement), and I’m going to start taking Glucosamine to see if that helps. But this surgeon pretty much said that he expects that he will be retiring before I need my next surgery so it’s likely that this will be the only time I see him.

I left Kaiser feeling better than I have in a while! I don’t have any negative feelings toward the doctor from last year, but I’m glad that he wasn’t right in what he said. Knowing that my original diagnosis was correct and that I’m not in need of surgery any time soon is a great feeling! Of course, I wish I wasn’t in any pain and didn’t need any surgeries but that isn’t my reality.

The only thing that bugged me a bit is there really isn’t anything for me to do know for the pain I feel. The pressure and pain that I feel in my right hip is from the arthritis and that will be that way until I get the replacement. It would be awesome if the doctor had said that there was something I could do now or a medication that I could take to make all the pain stop now.

Overall, this was exactly what I wanted this appointment to be. I was told that my original plan was the right plan and that I’m doing everything right for now. This took such a huge weight and stress off of me and I’m just so grateful that I can put my hip fears out of my mind and just focus on pain management when needed and continuing to be as active as I can!

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A Day At Universal Studios (or Trying Not To Let One Negative Thing Bug Me)

Posted on April 20, 2016 | 2 comments

Even though I had a full day at Disneyland on Sunday, on Monday I had another big adventure! I had scheduled an outing to Universal Studios with my Disneyland buddy June and some of her friends!

When I was new to LA, I had gotten an annual pass to Universal Studios a couple of times. Then when I worked there at Halloween Horror Nights in 2007, 2008, and 2010 I had free tickets from working. But since my last season of working in 2010, I hadn’t been back to the park. They had made a bunch of upgrades and changes over the years, but this month they opened The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter so I figured it was time to go back to check it out (it also helped that Costco is selling an annual pass for $94!).

Overall, I think the day went pretty well. But there was one thing that got to me. But first, the good stuff.

As soon as we got to the park, we made a stop to get lunch (we got there around 12:30). We could have chosen to eat somewhere outside the park, but we figured why not have some fun and eat somewhere inside. We originally thought we would eat at the restaurant in the Harry Potter area, but the restaurant had a pretty long line so we decided it wasn’t worth it. We ended up at the restaurant in the Simpsons area of the park and we all got some pretty yummy burgers!

After getting some food, it was time to have some fun! The first ride that I went on was the Transformers ride which had been built since the last time I was in the park so it was new to me! This ride is a simulator ride that does move around a track and has both a 3-D movie and sets combined. I really like simulator rides and I thought this one was extremely well done! The sets and screens blended together nicely and it really felt like we were moving the entire time! I wish we had time to go on it again, but since I have an annual pass I can now go on it whenever I want.

After that ride, we headed back up to the upper lot to meet up with one of June’s friends who was joining us. We met up at the Harry Potter section of the park where we got some Butterbeers to cool down in the heat.

Butterbeer

I thought it was pretty good and I think I’ll probably get it again the next time I’m at the park. We also wandered around the area a lot admiring how cool it looked and seeing all the kids use their wands to make things happen in the store fronts.

Wizarding World

We did ride the Forbidden Journey ride, but more about that in a bit. We also rode the little rollercoaster in that area. Even though it is a kid’s coaster, it did go pretty quickly and I thought it was really fun.

When we left Harry Potter, we headed down to the studio tour.

Studio Tour

One of June’s friends had never been on the studio tour and they had changed things since I had been there, so we were all pretty excited to go on it (plus, we got to be in the shade and got a bit of a breeze when the tram was moving). The studio tour is such a classic. I love getting to see the various backlot spaces and the fun things that are added to the tour (like King Kong) are always entertaining. And I love going past Bates Motel since that is where I worked for 3 years.

Bates Motel

Since the last time I was at Universal Studios, they had added a Fast and Furious thing to the tram tour at the very end. It is done similarly to King Kong with giant screens wrapping around the tram (and they even have a screen in the very front unlike in King Kong). It was really fun and a cute addition to the tram tour, but I do miss the avalanche/Mummy cave that used to be there.

After the tram tour, one of June’s friends needed to head home. We walked around the upper lot a bit checking out all the fun little signs that Universal has added to make the upper lot more fun (and more like Disneyland).

Universal Streets

Then we headed over to Waterworld to watch the show (and enjoy the shade in the stands). The show has been around for a while and it hasn’t changed much, but it’s still really fun to watch the performers doing the stunts.

Waterworld

Ok, now time to talk about the not-so-fun part of my day. The first ride we rode in the Harry Potter area was the Forbidden Journey ride. When that ride opened in Florida there were dozens of news stories about how fat people were being turned away from the ride. I knew that the ride here had similar restrictions, but a couple of my friends who are 2 sizes bigger than me rode the ride and had no issues. And I searched a bunch of online forums and it seemed like my measurements would fit into the seats just fine.

Harry Potter

I loved walking through the line (we took our time since there really wasn’t a line and we wanted to see everything) and right before you get onto the ride there is the “fat police” who looks for heavier people and makes them try a test seat to see if they fit. And yes, I got picked out by the fat police.

I’m sure the employee was trying to be nice, but it was pretty humiliating especially since everyone else walking through the line saw what was happening. And honestly, I fit into the seat just fine. I just wasn’t able to close the harness to the level they needed it to be closed for really random issues. First, the seat tilts back and since my hips don’t bend all the way I had to be part way out of the seat to get the harness to come down. And my arms weren’t able to get the harness all the way down (there was maybe an inch between me and the harness) because of the angle of the seating. But when one of June’s friends came over, she was very easily able to push the harness down to the level that they need it to be at. The employee said it would be fine for me to ride so we headed on our way down the ride.

When we got to the ride, I had the same issue with not being able to get the harness down to where my body is. I asked the employees there to help and they said they weren’t allowed to push down the harness (again, there was like an inch between my body and the harness). They were trying to take me off the ride when I finally convinced them to let June’s friend out of her seat so she could press the harness down for me. Even after everything was fine, there were 3 employees asking me if I was sure if I wanted to ride the ride and if I was ok. Yes I wanted to ride the ride! I was just mad at them because they wouldn’t help me pull a safety harness down (and I understand that maybe they legally cannot touch a safety harness, but I was still annoyed).

The ride itself was fun. I loved the half movie half real set aspect of it and even though the 3-D has been getting negative reviews I didn’t think it was that bad. But honestly I didn’t enjoy the ride as much as I could have because I really felt awful for being called out by the fat police.

I’m so insanely grateful for June and her friends for being so cool about all of it. They never made me feel bad and they also agreed that it was pretty ridiculous that they refused to help me. They didn’t make it feel like a big deal and after we were on the ride they never brought the subject up again because there was no need. But even though we weren’t talking about it, I was still thinking about it.

Now that I know that because of the tilt of the seat it is difficult for me to pull the harness down, when I ride again I’ll sit down first and have a friend help me pull it down. But this also means that I cannot go to the park alone if I want to ride because I need the help. Honestly, I think even if I was 100 pounds less I’d have the same issues because my hips literally won’t bend that way when I’m sitting tilted back. So it’s not even as much of a weight thing for me as it is a hip issue thing for me.

I really tried to not let the fat police incident ruin the rest of my day at Universal, but it definitely put a damper on my day. That one tiny experience was really the only negative thing about the day and it sadly is one of the bigger memories.

Hopefully the next time I go to Universal I will have a better experience and will have better memories of the day.

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Working Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend)

Posted on April 18, 2016 | Comments Off on Working Out While Sore (or Still Recovering From My Weekend)

Between my 5K from Saturday, dancing my butt off at the wedding on Sunday, and doing a lot of walking with the dog all weekend; my legs were feeling a bit tired this week for my workouts. I was feeling it every morning when I woke up (and I was basically limping in for the first hour or so each day) so I was grateful that all my workouts this past week were in the afternoon so I wasn’t feeling too horrible. But even though I was not as sore during my workouts, I still was trying to be careful because I knew if I worked too hard that I would be sore from longer than I wanted to be.

My first workout of the week was on Tuesday afternoon (I wasn’t sure what time I’d be getting home on Monday so I didn’t want to have to stress about getting back in time for a workout). I was still hurting quite a bit on Tuesday so I was so happy to see that it was going to be a run/row day. Not only was it a run/row day, it was called the easiest run/row day ever! My sore legs were so grateful to hear that!

The run/row format was pretty easy. The first round was a 30 second push pace, 30 second all out pace, and then over to the rower for a 100 meter row. The next round was a 1 minute push pace, 30 second all out pace, and then over to the rower for a 100 meter row. Each round just increased the push pace by 30 seconds and the rest stayed the same. The longest one was a 3 minute push pace and if we got past that we were supposed to work our way back up. I did the first few rounds at 3.7 miles an hour because they were short and I was still feeling a bit slow from my race so I wanted to prove to myself that I can be faster. The next few rounds were at 3.6 miles an hour and the 2 1/2 and 3 minute rounds were at 3.5 miles an hour. I made it through all the rounds, but I didn’t make it back up. But I’m ok with that. I was going really fast for me and even though I was progressively getting slower I was still staying on the faster side for me. And since the treadmill time was so limited, my legs didn’t hurt too much by the time we switched to the floor.

We had a lot of squats on the floor which were fine for me. But then when we did lunges I struggled a lot because my calves were feeling so tight. I knew they were tight a bit because that was the soreness I felt, but I guess I didn’t realize how much the treadmill would affect me. So the lunges were done with less movement than I would normally do, but I felt pretty great about everything that I did.

Wednesday was a day that had all 3 types of workouts (endurance, strength, and power). It was a 30 minutes on the treadmill straight type of day and my legs weren’t having it. I tried really hard to not have to take breaks in the middle of the blocks, but I was really hurting. I realized after class that maybe I should have taken one of my stronger painkillers instead of the ones that I normally take, but since it’s been a while since I’ve needed one of the strong ones I didn’t even think about taking one. During the strength block, I was supposed to go really high on the inclines on the treadmill, but I just kept it at 8% for the entire time even though the runners had to do an incline higher than that. I just focused on finishing the cardio and not working out super hard.

For the floor time, I tried to do all my lower body work with 20 pound weights and all of my arm work with 15 pound weights. We also had a lot of ab work on the floor with medicine balls. Typically I use 8 pounds for a medicine ball, but there were none of those left so I used 10 pounds. I felt the difference (and I felt it in my abs when I woke up the next morning) and while it wasn’t easy I was able to do it.

Friday was another run/row day! Someone commented about how there have been so many run/row days lately and I don’t think they were happy about it. But those really are my favorite days (or a second favorite to partner day workouts). This time the run/row was a bit tougher than the one on Tuesday. For power walkers, the longest walk was .13 miles and the shortest was .05 miles. And for all of us the rows were between 250 and 100 meters. The plan was designed to do at least one entire round of all the segments, and I was able to get through the entire plan and was starting on the first one again when time was called. By Friday, my legs were feeling a bit more normal (having Thursday off helped a lot) so all my treadmill segments regardless of length were 3.5 miles an hour. It helped that all treadmill segments were less than 2 1/2 minutes, but all these little sprints are helping me get ready to bringing my base pace up from 3.4 to 3.5 miles an hour again (where I was before my torn calf).

On the floor, there were a lot of squats and lunges again. For both things, I was using 20 pound weights (one weight in each hand). With my squats those aren’t too bad, but it’s always tough for me to do lunges with weights in my hands because I don’t balance that well with lunges. But I took my time, put the weights down if I needed to steady myself, and was able to make it through. We finished up the floor block with 4 minutes of abs using a BOSU ball and when we were done I was so glad I made it through.

I debated about doing a 4th workout, but I didn’t want to push it too much. Friday was the first day my legs were feeling almost normal again and I didn’t want to overdo it and prevent myself from feeling normal again this week. I’m not exactly sure when my next 4 workout week will be, but it will need to be soon. I’m signed up for the Triple Buddy Challenge at Orangetheory. From April 18th until May 18th I’m partnered up with 2 friends to try to get in 45 workouts between us. So each of us will need to do 15 workouts. I’ve done this before (and we were successful) so I’m not too worried about it. I just need to plan out the next month of workouts to make sure that I do my part or more to make sure my team wins!

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Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Posted on April 15, 2016 | Comments Off on Back To Normal (or Catching Up On Life)

Even though I was only gone to Santa Barbara for a couple of days, when I got back to LA it felt like I had been gone for a lot longer. I’ve done other weekend getaways before, but for some reason it felt like this one was different. I’m glad I was out-of-town as long as I was (I had time to relax and see my family), but I’m also happy to be home.

The first thing I had to catch up on was work. I did miss work on Saturday last week (which was fine because I had worked extra hours not too long ago to cover for a co-worker), so I had to see what had happened while I was gone and if there was anything weird that I needed to know about. I ended up logging into my work email on a day off to see what went on while I wasn’t working and I looked at some of the issues that my co-workers had to make sure I was ready for any customers with the same issues. It didn’t take too long, but since my brain was in vacation mode a bit it seemed to take longer.

Also, in my other day job, I’m getting more hours soon. I can’t start the new hours until I have some training (and they might have to set me up with some work computer stuff), but since I know that it’s coming up I want to make sure I’m prepared. I’m trying to do as much as I can now with my current responsibilities because I know that when I get my extra hours my time needs to be split between my current work and the new work that I’m being trained on. I need to figure out a good time management system to split up my hours and I’m trying to look at that now before I have the extra responsibility to deal with.

I’ve also been busy working on the short film my friend wrote for us to star in. We have our director and our director got us a great producer. We’ve had a couple of phone meetings to work on budget and other things and we are all hopeful that things will be ready to go at the end of May when we are hoping to shoot. Even though I’ve produced a documentary before, working on a narrative (scripted) film is very different and there are things to think about that I didn’t have to worry about with the documentary. Fortunately, everyone else is much more experienced than I am so they can help guide me to what I need to help with. It’s a little overwhelming, but I’m so excited to be working on this project and seeing what ends up happening with it after it is done.

Besides all of that work plus the usual stuff that I have to do every week (errands can get annoying and time-consuming!), I’ve been running around like crazy and I’m finally starting to feel caught up on life. I have some really fun adventures coming up over the next few weeks and I don’t want to have to stress about not having a ton of free time to catch up on other things. It seems like I have weeks where everything is overbooked and crazy and then weeks where I’ve got nothing to do. I wish the weeks would be a bit more mixed up, but I’m dealing with the craziness (and lack of sleep) just fine for now and I know soon enough I’ll be wishing I had more stuff to do.

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Posted in Acting, Fun Stuff, Tough Stuff, Work

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Just A Bad Day (or Focusing On Good)

Posted on April 8, 2016 | Comments Off on Just A Bad Day (or Focusing On Good)

Yesterday was a pretty bad day for me. I really have no clue what started it. I was feeling fine when I went to bed the night before. I got a decent night sleep and didn’t have any issues waking up with my alarm. I didn’t even hit the snooze button a million times so I wasn’t groggy when I got out of bed. It really should have been a great day, but it wasn’t in the cards for me.

I usually don’t do errands outside the house before work, but I had to go to the grocery store to get a couple of things for meals the next couple of days. I think the first mistake was not eating anything before going to the store (it was 8am and I wasn’t hungry get). I bought a couple of things that I probably shouldn’t have gotten. And then I ate some of those things as my breakfast.

When I’ve eaten “bad” foods before, I sometimes feel off and a little sick. I have felt pretty sick on occasion, but that’s pretty rare and it usually doesn’t happen until that night or the next day. But this time, I was feeling sick about 10 minutes after I ate. I won’t get too graphic, but my body was basically rejecting what I had eaten.

This took me by surprise. Obviously, I don’t want to like the “bad” foods so feeling awful afterward was not the worst thing ever. But I don’t know why this time my body reacting so badly and so quickly. While I have been doing better with my food, it’s not a huge difference like it has been in the past. So I would expect that my body would have had worse reactions when I had been “good” for a week or more and then had a binge. But that wasn’t the case this time and I think this was the worst I ever felt.

I felt pretty bad all day long, but the worst was over before my work shift started. I was feeling pretty low and depressed all morning. There was no reason why I had a binge and it made it mad that I had done it. I wish that I had more control, and I’m getting there. But yesterday was just out of my control in the morning and my body (and mind) was paying for it.

Instead of focusing on how badly I felt, I tried to find some positive motivation online to get me into a better mindset. I found a bunch of sayings that I liked and since I couldn’t pick just one I made a collage of them.

Motivation

The most difficult part of recovery for me really isn’t the recovery part of it. It’s getting over setbacks and relapses quickly. It’s so easy to think that you just ruined everything and you might as well wait until Monday/next month/next year to start over. I’m happy to say that after my bad morning I was back on track for lunch and dinner. I wasn’t feeling hungry for either meal, but I made myself eat because I knew if I didn’t that I would get very hungry either late at night or by breakfast today and that’s when I make some of my worst choices. So I ate small healthy meals for both lunch and dinner. I know I’m still over my calories for the day because my morning was so bad, but at least I’m a bit more on track now.

Even though I got back on track by my next meal, my morning did affect how I was feeling the entire day. Part of it was the physical sickness which was a reminder of what I did. But despite my best efforts I was still thinking about what I had done and was mad at myself.

I’m hoping that today will be a better day and maybe I learned something from this (and will handle it better if/when it happens again). All these little lessons will one day build up to help me be in recovery and I just need to keep reminding myself that baby steps are better than no steps at all.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Set Back (or Why Can’t I Just Learn My Lesson) Default ThumbnailCounting Every Calorie (or Seeing Things In Black and White) Default ThumbnailYup, I’m Sick (or Trying To Take Care Of Me) Default ThumbnailHaving Bad Days (or Did I Make Myself Sick) Default ThumbnailWith The Good Comes The Bad (or My Vyvanse-Free Weekend) Default ThumbnailAnother Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

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Relaxation (or Taking Some Time To Myself)

Posted on April 7, 2016 | Comments Off on Relaxation (or Taking Some Time To Myself)

I’ve been busy with a lot of things lately. Between work, workouts, acting, and other stuff I feel like my days are getting filled up really quickly. This is awesome and I’m so happy about it, but sometimes I realize that I need to take a step back and relax for a bit. I’m finally getting better at realizing when my body feels like it’s getting to a breaking point, so when I started to feel like that at the beginning of this week I took some time to myself. I’m glad that I didn’t get to the point where I got exhausted and needed a few days to get back to my usual self. This time, I really only spent 2 afternoons being selfish and doing things for myself and I feel back to normal already.

I ended up canceling plans that I had made this Monday to do some stuff that I needed to do but had been putting off. Even though my plans were more fun, getting stuff crossed off my to-do list is really nice too! None of the things on my to-do list were urgent, so I had been putting them off for a while. I think knowing that I should be doing something but not was causing a bit of stress in my life. So getting those done relived some stress and made the rest of the things I needed to get done not feel as overwhelming.

I’ve also rediscovered my love for the library. I used to use the library all the time. My original e-reader was a Sony because at the time that was the only one that could get library e-books. But then I almost forgot about the library and I let my library card expire (did you know they could do that?). So a few weeks ago, I went down to the local library branch to get a new library card so I could start enjoying library books again. I’ve checked out a bunch of stuff lately. It’s so easy to get library books on my Kindle (much easier than my old e-reader) so I’ve gotten a ton of new books lately.

I feel so silly that I haven’t used the library lately, but now I’m back and obsessed! After running the errands I had to run on Monday, my afternoon and evening were spent reading and that was such a perfect way to spend the day. I still have books that I buy, but I’m so glad that the library is pretty well stocked with e-books so I can curb that spending habit. I know I’ve spent a lot of money on books (I love them so much!) and if I could limit my book spending just to the books I love so much and know I’ll be reading over and over again, that will help me budget better. I still can’t get over how this wasn’t something I thought of sooner, but at least know I’m on the right track to reducing my spending habits without reducing my reading material.

I also spent time getting ready for my upcoming trip for Rayshell’s wedding. I had already gotten a dress to wear and some cute and comfortable shoes. But I realized that if I was wearing open toed shoes at a nice event my feet probably should look nice. So on Tuesday after work, I went to my favorite pedicure place and splurged on a pedicure. My last pedicure was last spring, so I think that I had deserved to get another one. And I found the perfect color to put on my toes for a wedding!

Pedicure

I’ve still got a couple of other things that I need to do before this weekend, but there’s nothing that feels so big that it will be tough to complete. I want to be able to enjoy my weekend (which includes the wedding and a 5K race) and not have to stress about things at home or things that need to be done. Most of the things on my to-do list now are ideas that I’d like to work on (like reorganizing my desk and cleaning out my workout clothes drawer), but they won’t affect me if they don’t happen this week or month. I would like to work on checking things off more often so they don’t build up like they have. That’s just something else I need to work on in my self-improvement so I can maybe start treating these relaxation days and rewards for getting stuff done!

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Default ThumbnailSo Much Reading (or Really Taking Advantage Of The Library) Default ThumbnailWorking On Money Priorities (or What’s Worth The Splurge) Default ThumbnailStill Being A Bit Selfish (or Using Some Pressure) Default ThumbnailA Very Low-Key Christmas (or Not Spending My Day Off Doing My Usual Stuff) Default ThumbnailHaving A Book Nerd Moment (or The Little Things That Make Me Smile) Default ThumbnailBooks and Roses (or A Day By USC)

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Finding New Limitations (or Trying My Best)

Posted on April 4, 2016 | Comments Off on Finding New Limitations (or Trying My Best)

This past week my workouts seemed to focus on things that were issues for me. This was not the fault of any of my coaches, it’s just what it was and for some reason it got to me (and inspired my post on limitations last week). I tried to do my best each day, but there always seemed to be a reason why my body wasn’t going to be able to do that.

Monday started off pretty great. We had a workout that was endurance, strength, and power so it was a nice combination of things. It was a switch day so I was able to push myself a bit more on both the treadmill and the floor. I loved being able to push myself because we had a long push pace on the treadmill (3 minutes) and a longer than a sprint row (600 meters) that I really wanted to work on. I’m better with sprints than anything else, so when things aren’t exactly a sprint it’s a great time to push myself without doing too much. Besides the rowing, we had some lunges with the TRX straps which is also great because I can do better lunges on the straps than I can without support.

But then we reached the end of the workout where everyone went to the floor. I thought it would be a core blast like we do sometimes where we do a bunch of crunches and planks. Those are tough, but doable. But instead of a core blast, we had a glute blast. At first I thought I should be able to do it, but then I realized that every single move in the plan were things that my body can’t do. Either my body doesn’t move that way right now because of how my hip sits or I know it would cause me some serious pain because that’s how I feel the most pain right now. My coach was able to give me my own plan (I ended up doing all ab work then instead), so I wasn’t just sitting and waiting on everyone. But it just made me so mad that I wasn’t able to do something. Even with all my limitations there is something I can do to modify it to make it ok for me. This was the first time where there was no way I could try or modify it to work for me to be the same thing as everyone else. It just hit me that I really hate my restrictions and that I want to figure out what steps to do next to get myself fixed.

That frustration actually worked to my benefit on Wednesday. I was chatting with my Wednesday coach (who has a similar hip issue but hers is super minor so it was able to be treated with stem cells) and she realized that the Kaiser orthopedic surgeon she wanted to introduce me to was actually in class that day! So she introduced me to the doctor and he and I got chatting. He actually doesn’t take patients on like me, but he said that if I got him my Kaiser information he would refer me to one of the other doctors at his hospital that could help me. This isn’t really a workout situation, but I have to say that the doctor was awesome because the next morning I got a call from Kaiser Panorama City (which is about an hour away from me) and I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon in 2 weeks! Hopefully I can get another opinion on my situation and get a treatment plan in place!

Ok, back to my workout.

Wednesday was a strength day, which means hills on the treadmill. But it was also a run/row day! I think most people think I’m crazy for loving run/row days as much as I do, but they make me so happy! The run part was all at 7 or 9% inclines and each segment was pretty short. I think the longest I was on the treadmill was about 3 minutes. And the rows were all sprints that day. They were either 300, 200, or 100 meter rows. 300 still is a long sprint, but it’s so much easier for me to push myself for 300 meters than it is on the longer rows. So I was able to get my wattage up even though my hips were struggling on the rower. When we got to the floor, I had realized I overdid it a bit on the run/row so I had to take things a little bit easier than usually. All my arm work was with 15 pound weights (I knew I could probably do 20 pounds but I was tired) and I took moments to breathe when I was down on the floor doing crunches. By the end of the class, I was pretty glad I got through it but I was so exhausted!

Friday was another endurance, strength, and power day. Unfortunately, the treadmill blocks were all back to back so I spend 30 minutes on the treadmill. And for some reason on Friday, my body was just giving up on the treadmill. I was doing ok at first, but then I just needed to keep taking breaks. By the end of the treadmill time, I was almost needing to do a quick break every minute to stretch out my hips. I know that part of the pain was weather related, but this was more than I am used to. It makes me nervous that I had that much pain because I’m doing my 5K this week, but hopefully by the time it’s race day I’ll be doing better (and all this training I know is helping).

After I was finally done with the treadmill, I was pretty happy to get over to the floor. It wasn’t easy on the floor, but all of our rows were timed sprints so I was only on there for 1 minute or 30 seconds each time. I definitely pushed myself on the rower and got some of the highest wattages I’ve ever gotten on the rower before. We also had something new on the floor with our burpees. Usually we do burpees either just with body weight or holding a Bosu. But this time we did our burpees with a medicine ball. While the weight wasn’t as great as when we use a Bosu, the increased instability with the planks made it new and more difficult than usual. It took me a moment to get steady before I could move my legs back and forth, but it wasn’t that tough and I felt pretty happy that I could do it without any extra modifications.

This week at Orangetheory is Peak Performance Week. I’m going to be there for 3 days and I don’t know yet what challenges will be on the 3 days that I’m there. So I guess I’ll have to be surprised on what I’ll be doing and hopefully whatever I do gets me in the best place I can be for my race on Saturday morning!

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Default ThumbnailAn Easier Workout Week (or Ignoring My Head And Listening To My Body) Default ThumbnailLots Of Different Workouts (or Struggles and Successes) Default ThumbnailMore Progress And Steps Back (or Trying My Hardest) Default ThumbnailShort Workout Week (or Finding Ways To Fit It All In) Default ThumbnailPushing A Bit Too Much (or Glad I Took The Weekend Off) Default ThumbnailStill Taking This A Bit Easy (or Not Going To Push Too Hard)

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March Recap (or I Almost Hit All My Goals)

Posted on April 1, 2016 | 3 comments

Now that March is done, I wanted to recap my goals I set for the month and how I did on my monthly challenge. I’ve been loving the goal setting work that I can do in my Spark Planner and it really has helped me to break down my goals into nice chunks so they don’t seem overwhelming!

First of all, my monthly challenge for March was to not get any delivery food at all. I don’t need to spend the money on it (and it’s not the cheap way to eat) and I know that I overeat and consume too many calories when I get delivery food. While there were a couple of times where I was feeling really lazy and just wanted to get something ordered in so I didn’t have to cook, I’m happy to share that I did not get any delivery food for the month.

I did go out to eat and sometimes got food to bring home, but that is a much more controllable amount of food and there are no minimums I have to meet in order to order. I’ve gone a month or so without delivery food in the past, but it’s never really been a conscious effort before. This time I had a reason to do it and a reason I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. I know that it’s not reasonable to say I will never get delivery food again (I do always get Chinese food delivered for Christmas), but I really do want to keep this new habit up and extremely limit how often I order in. I’m not sure what I want to limit it to, but I think once a month max seems like a good goal. I’ll have to see how it goes as time goes on, but I’m glad I set this goal for myself so I could prove that it’s not difficult and a lifestyle that I can maintain.

As for the rest of the goals I set for March, I did ok. I got all the workouts in for the month that I wanted to. I did try a new yoga app I have on my iPad (and I’m going to keep doing that). I worked on my budget and reevaluated things and figured out where I can save and where I can avoid spending. And I went on a ton of fun adventures with my friends.

The ones that I didn’t quite get done are having a home cooked meal every week. I did that for 4 of the 5 weeks this month. That’s not bad, but I know I could have done it that one week I didn’t and it frustrates me that I wasn’t able to motivate myself enough to do it. It does help that I’m keeping my house stocked with easy to put together things so I can eat those and not get delivery food. But microwaving something isn’t home cooking. And I had a goal to read one eating disorder book this month. I read about half of one book and the first few chapters of another. But there was always another book that distracted me and I didn’t finish the ones I set a goal to. This isn’t horrible, but I want to finish at least one of those books soon.

I’ve also spent the past few days thinking about the goals I want to set for April. I know that I have a certain number of workouts I want to get done, I want to do the home cooked meal once a week again, and I want to not order delivery food for the month. Those I think will be easy enough to do and I almost feel silly for writing them down because I see them as things that I will automatically do.

As far as the goals that are a bit more of a stretch for me, I’m still working on them and hope to have them figured out in the next day or so. I want to set a goal for a certain number of iPad yoga classes this month, but I don’t know how many I want to do. I also want to set a goal of something related to going out and having fun, but I’m not sure how I want to phrase it.

And the hardest thing for me to figure out is what my month-long challenge for April will be. I think it’s so difficult for me because each month I’ve had 100% success with my challenges. It doesn’t need to be that way (and the 30 days of completion don’t have to all be in a single month), but I’m really stuck in that mindset.

One of the ideas I thinking about has to do with weighing myself every day. I’ve rarely weighed myself every day. It can drive me crazy with the little fluctuations that everyone has. But I haven’t been doing so great with weighing myself once a week, so it could be a long time between weighing myself and I don’t want to avoid it. I realized that this month, I went over 3 weeks between weighing myself and I was starting to feel a bit panicky. I had no idea if my weight was up a bunch or down a bunch and I was terrified that I was going to be way up because I was avoiding reality. I was up by about 6 pounds, so it wasn’t that horrible but I know that I don’t want to repeat that gap between my weigh-ins.

I am a bit afraid that if I weigh myself every day I will get very obsessive with it, but maybe that fear is the exact reason why I need to set this as my challenge. I don’t have any other challenge ideas in mind right now, and if I don’t have anything else by this weekend I’ll probably set the weighing one as my challenge. But I’m not 100% ready to write it down just yet.

I hope that you guys are enjoying these monthly recaps as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing them. I think it’s so important to set goals and before this year I really only focused on annual ones. Now that I have weekly and monthly ones, I’m realizing how much I was skipping out on before and I almost feel like I am making up for lost time now.

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Default ThumbnailMonthly Recap Update (or My New Habits) Default ThumbnailMay Challenge Recap (or It’s Time For Meditation) Default ThumbnailWhat I Plan To Do This Year (or 2015 Goals) Default Thumbnail2015 Recap (or How I Did On My Goals) Default Thumbnail2014 Goals (or Hoping To Get More Goals Done This Year) Default ThumbnailReflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

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Knowing My Limitations (or Going Easy On Myself)

Posted on March 29, 2016 | 1 comment

I’ve struggled a lot with my limitations and how much I can do. This isn’t just workout related (although that is a big part of things), it’s also about scheduling myself and not getting overwhelmed. It’s so easy for me to think that I can do 100 things in a day and then get upset when I only get 10 of them done. There’s so much I feel like I should get done every day and there are days where it’s suddenly 8pm and I feel like I’ve done nothing at all.

I’m like that with my day jobs. I work really hard at getting both of my main day jobs done each day. Many days I can to both at the same time (working one in between the customer calls/chats at the other), but sometimes there’s just no way to make that happen. That’s fine and I know most people can’t work more than one job at a time, but it’s still frustrating when that’s how I imagine my schedule to go that day. I’m working harder and harder at creating backup plans for myself, but I sometimes get upset when I realize that there’s no way to complete both jobs at the time I expected. It’s really childish that is upsetting me, but I guess I’m just so used to having a set schedule and things ending exactly at the time I expected them to. That’s the benefit of having a job with a set schedule instead of one that is on my own time. But the jobs on my own time are the ones with the flexibility I need so those are better for me.

It’s the same thing with clothes and shoes. I really want to be able to wear cute things, but sometimes that can’t happen. Some of it is due to the clothes I want to wear not coming in my size (which is so annoying!) and some of it is how it fits on me. I know that everyone probably has this problem, but I hate when I see something in a catalog or online on someone my size but it doesn’t look right on me. It’s the main reason that I really don’t do online shopping (except for my workout clothes). Or there are tons of cute shoes that I’d love to wear but I can’t because of my hip issues. I’m trying to find cute shoes that are more “comfort” style shoes, and fortunately many companies make super cute comfort shoes. I’ve been struggling with what I will wear to Rayshell’s wedding. I didn’t want to wear the same dress I’ve worn to several weddings and I actually found something online at Target and it fit me perfectly. But now I’m stressed out about what shoes to wear. Sometimes I feel like I just want to collapse and cry when I can’t figure out how to do what I want.

This has been an issue for me for a long time, but lately it’s been getting worse. I’m not exactly sure what brought it on. But I am taking on more projects (day job and acting related) that take up time. And I have more events where I need cute outfits. And I feel like I should be making progress with my fitness because I work so hard and then I have a setback or don’t make progress at all. I’m sure I’m just in a slump right now, but it’s not fun at all.

I’m really trying to figure out better ways to set myself up for success. I’m doing  a lot more planning in my life right now. Planning out my day more specifically than I have in the past allows me to find where I have extra time to get things done that I haven’t been able to complete when I thought I would. And I’m working on closet planning to be able to put together more outfits and see what I have and not focus on what I want to get for a specific event. I think that having more organization in that sense will help me find some peace in what is stressing me out lately. And if it doesn’t bring me peace, hopefully it will allow me to pinpoint exactly what is bringing on the stress and frustration so I can work on that specific issue and not the issue in whole.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Rut In My Life (or Time For Some Shopping) Default ThumbnailFinding New Limitations (or Trying My Best) Default ThumbnailMore Cute Workout Clothes (or Why Can’t More Companies Be Like Old Navy?) Default ThumbnailMixed Up Workouts (or Not Knowing What To Expect) Default ThumbnailThe Tale Of Two Fitness Studios (or Knowing Where Your Home Is) Default ThumbnailTrying A New Spin (or Knowing When A Place Does Feel Like Home)

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