Tag Archives: 2024

A New Year Of Workouts (or Another Short Workout Week)

Posted on January 8, 2024 | Comments Off on A New Year Of Workouts (or Another Short Workout Week)

After completing my goal of at least 200 workouts in 2023, I immediately started on my workout goals for 2024! I got in 3 workouts this past week, which isn’t necessarily my normal workout week, but it’s what worked best for me. I have my tradition of working out on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, and because of the NYE workout, I only did 3 workouts for the first week of the year since I didn’t want to do 5 workouts in a week. I know I could have done it, but it didn’t feel right. I also worried about how I would feel this week, and I didn’t want to push it.

My New Year’s Day workout was a 2 group class since I didn’t go at my normal workout time. I thought maybe it would still be a 3 group class since the classes at the beginning of the year can be pretty full, but I think it was still a bit early for the crowd so it wasn’t a packed class. It’s always a nice change for me when I get a 2 group class in my schedule since I rarely take them. Typically, they only happen on holidays since I have that day off of work and don’t have to wake up as early to get to my workout. And I think it was a nice class to ease into the week with because it focused a lot on base pace so I wasn’t going too crazy. I also didn’t get that much sleep the night before since I was out, so even with sleeping in, I didn’t have as much sleep as I would have liked.

I wasn’t worried about how I was going to feel in Monday’s class, other than being tired. But I was worried about how I would feel on Tuesday and Wednesday. I increased my injectable medication this past week. This was the first increase I’ve had in over a year, and I know that every time I’ve increased it, the side effects got worse for a bit. I still have been having side effects at the old dosage, but they can vary from week to week. I think it just depends on the exact spot I do the injection. Sometimes I get it in the right spot and things aren’t as bad. But it’s hard for me to predict how I will feel. But I had a good idea that I would feel pretty off after the new dosage. I didn’t do my injection until after my Monday class since I wasn’t sure if I’d have an immediate reaction. And throughout the day on Monday, I was feeling some side effects. They weren’t as bad as they have been at times, but it was a weird queasy and uneasy feeling. I don’t know how to explain the different types of nausea I experience, but this was different from any other type I have dealt with. The only good thing was that I wasn’t getting physically ill on Monday, so I had high hopes about how I would feel in my workouts.

Unfortunately, something in my workouts must have triggered something in my system because on both days I had to leave class for a break to be sick in the bathroom. This is something that rarely happens to me, but it’s happened before and I know what I need to do so that I can be ok to be back in the workout. I’m sure it sounds crazy to come back to work out after being sick, but it’s something I’ve gotten used to from other nausea I experienced. If I know what exercise triggered it, I just make modifications so that I don’t have to go through that again. And I usually avoid exercises that have me in a plank or face down since I know those can make me feel really nauseous.

But even with being sick in both of my other workouts this past week, I feel really good about the workouts I did. I focused on what I could do without feeling worse and tried to go harder on those to make up for what I wasn’t able to do. I also was grateful that I wasn’t feeling worse because I have experienced much more extreme side effects in the past. I know that worse side effects can hit me any week and just because this past week wasn’t as bad as expected I’m in the clear. But it was nice that I was able to start 2024 with some good workouts, even if they weren’t the best that I could do.

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My 2024 Goals (or Things Already Might Need To Change A Bit)

Posted on January 3, 2024 | Comments Off on My 2024 Goals (or Things Already Might Need To Change A Bit)

Happy 2024! I hope everyone had an amazing New Year’s and the year has gotten off to a good start already. I had a pretty chill and low-key New Year’s (except for one thing) and that’s exactly how I like to do things. Before I went out to celebrate with friends, I set aside some time to work on my goals for 2024 and I came up with 4 that I really want to focus on for this year. But I might have to make a few modifications already.

My first goal for 2024 shouldn’t surprise anyone who has seen my goals over the past few years. I want to do at least 200 workouts this year. This is the same number I have had as my goal for a few years, and I don’t expect that I will ever change this since 4 workouts a week at Orangetheory feels right to me. I know I’ve had random weeks when I’ve done 5 workouts in a week, but I can’t imagine doing that regularly. I hope that I will do a few more than 200 this year, but this number allows me to have some missed classes if I get sick or something else prevents me from getting to a workout. But as long as I get to at least 200 workouts in 2024, I’ll be happy.

My second goal for 2024 might need to be changed. The original goal I had for myself was to find a way to save money so I could finally go on a vacation. I still want to see if I can accomplish this goal this year because it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a vacation. I think my trip to Catalina was my last vacation, which was awesome, but I’d love to get away from LA for a fun trip this year if possible. But on New Year’s Eve, my car was hit by a firework and has some pretty decent damage on the door. My car is drivable and the lock and door work, but it will need to be fixed. And I know that any work I do on my car will be pretty expensive. I’m going to work on getting some estimates soon and I’m going to look into whether I want to go through my insurance or not (going through insurance might end up being more expensive if my premiums go up after making a claim). But the amount that I was hoping to have for a vacation may have to go into fixing my car instead and a vacation might have to wait another year. I’ll just have to see how expensive the repair will be.

My next goal is a continuation of one from last year. I want to go as full force as possible with my acting career this year. I am starting the new year in a good place with a lot of things happening for my acting career. I have a new agent, I’m getting new headshots, I’ve re-edited my reel, and I’ve worked on updating my online casting pages. There are other things I haven’t had a chance to do or look into just yet, but I’ve made a lot of progress in the last month that will help to support things moving forward this year. I know that getting auditions and booking jobs aren’t fully in my control, but I’m doing whatever I can to make sure I’m ready for opportunities and I hope that I see some new progress in my career over the next 12 months.

My final goal for 2024 is another one that I feel like I’ve kind of done in the past, but it’s still important. I want to find the time to enjoy life. It’s so easy for me to wake up early, go to my workout, work my day job, make dinner, go to bed, and repeat. Week to week my schedule is pretty consistent, which isn’t a bad thing, but it also makes time go by without me realizing it at times. I want to enjoy my life as much as possible because that is the point of life. I do make plans with friends when I can, but I need to be more active in reaching out to friends and scheduling things. I have some days that are really difficult for me to do things after work, but that’s not every day. So I should take advantage of the evenings when I do have more flexibility and do things that aren’t just sitting at home and doing nothing.

I know these goals aren’t anything crazy or extreme, but I think they are good goals for me to focus on so that I can make the most of 2024. I still will have my monthly challenges that will push me to do more than just these goals throughout the year. But I think these main 4 goals are things that will really benefit my life in the long run. And I hope in a year, I will be reflecting on these goals and proud of what I have been able to do.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Saving

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Wrapping Up My 2023 Workouts (or Still Making Sure I Hit My Goal)

Posted on January 1, 2024 | Comments Off on Wrapping Up My 2023 Workouts (or Still Making Sure I Hit My Goal)

My final week of workouts for 2023 wasn’t my normal workout week. On Monday the studios were closed because of the holiday. And Tuesday had reduced hours since it was the day after Christmas. The reduced hours meant none of the class times would work with my work schedule, and since I wasn’t going to take the day off after having a day off, I just had to miss that day. But I still got in my Wednesday and Thursday workout, plus I got a workout in on Sunday for New Year’s Eve!

I knew this past week was going to be a tough week with pain and nausea, but I kind of got lucky and the worst day of the week for me was on Tuesday. Tuesday was pretty brutal for me and I was struggling a lot while I was working, but at least I didn’t have to go through feeling like that and working out. So it was probably for the best. I still wasn’t feeling great on Wednesday or Thursday, but at least those days were better for me.

And Thursday’s workout was a day I wanted to feel as close to normal as possible. First, it was a signature workout day. We had Everest, which is always a big challenge to get through and I wanted to see if I could get close to my past PR. But also, Thursday’s workout was my 200th class of 2023! In past years, I have gotten to my year’s workout goal a little bit faster than I did this time. But as I mentioned in my last post, I had a few things that set me back in and cut into my workout plans. But at least I got to my goal before the end of the year!

Everest went a lot better than I had expected. I was able to pedal a lot faster than normal for the beginning of the climb which added to my distance. As the incline/resistance levels went up, I did slow down quite a bit. That always happens and that is why I work hard at going quickly in the beginning. As the incline/resistance levels went down, I really focused on my pedaling speed and making sure I was going faster as the time was counting down. For the 3 group classes, Everest is 14 minutes long, so it wasn’t any longer than I normally am on the bike. But I knew that any breaks I might take could ruin my chances of getting close to my past PR so I pushed myself to try not to take any. I did have to take one quick break when my nausea really kicked in, but that was not that long. And when the challenge was done, I ended up beating my past PR and getting a new one!

I have no clue how I did that, but I also know I might have pushed myself too much because the rest of that class was not nearly as good for me. My nausea was hitting me really hard. But I guess I should be glad I was able to hold off feeling horrible until after the challenge was done!

And my final workout of this week and for this year was on Sunday! I didn’t go too early in the morning since I wanted to sleep in a little bit to stay up for New Year’s Eve. If I didn’t have to work in the morning, I probably would do a slightly later workout since I think my body does better in later classes (but working out after work doesn’t work for me so I have to do early morning classes). I was feeling rested and ready for my last class of 2023 and I had a surprise when I got there. The coach for that class was someone who worked at the Brentwood studio that I hadn’t seen in years! She wasn’t a coach the last time I saw her, so this was my first chance to take a class with her! I had so much fun in that class and it was awesome to see someone I hadn’t seen since much earlier in my fitness journey.

I’m so proud that I was able to get to my workout goal for the year. I don’t think I’ll ever make it higher than 200 classes in a year since going more than 4 times a week is probably pushing it for me. But knowing that I pushed myself 201 times in 2023 is something I am so happy about accomplishing!

Here’s to getting to my workout goal in 2024 and beyond!

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Goal Recap Time! (or Things Didn’t Go Exactly As Planned)

Posted on December 27, 2023 | 3 comments

It almost feels like I’m doing a recap of my 2023 goals too early, but since I’m not blogging as often as I used to, now is the time to review how my year has gone! And while I haven’t completed everything since there are still a few days to go, I have a pretty good idea of how my goals for this year will turn out.

My first goal I had for this year was to do 200 Orangetheory workouts. This is one of my goals that hasn’t been completed just yet. This will be done tomorrow, so I will get it done before the end of the year. But I really expected to be to my goal by now since I’m usually over 200 before the last week of the year. But this year, I had a few things that caused me to miss some workouts. I was pretty sick toward the beginning of the year and I missed a week of workouts. I had a day that I couldn’t get out of my parking garage and missed that morning’s workout. The hurricane/tropical storm closed the studio for a day so that was another one that I missed. And this week, I’m only getting in 2 workouts because the studio was closed on Monday for the holiday and it had limited hours yesterday so there wasn’t a workout time that I could make it to with my work schedule. But even though I won’t be getting in as many workouts as I thought I would this year, I will still get to my goal of 200 workouts before the end of the year and that’s something I’m still proud of.

My next goal I had for this year was to work on getting more sleep. This one I consider to be a bit of a success but not as much of a success as I was hoping it would be. I still am working on getting to bed earlier so I can get more sleep, but I have been a lot better about not getting sucked into a book and staying up super late reading the entire thing. I do have a time that I want to try to have my lights turned off, but I’m not always doing that on time. I have been doing a lot better with getting myself ready for bed earlier, but I am continuing to work on shifting that a bit earlier. It’s not easy to do this since I am still trying to do things after work and if I go to bed much earlier that reduces my free time a bit more, but I’m trying to remember that I can just make a sacrifice for the 4 days I have to be up early and not be too worried about free time those evenings and focus on scheduling things when I know I can sleep in a little bit more the next morning.

The third goal I had for this year was to continue setting up my condo. This was another goal that I feel like I had some success with but not quite what I had hoped I would do. I did get a new tv and tv stand for my living room, which helped the room feel more complete. I moved everything out of boxes for the most part even though I haven’t found new office furniture that I like. But I am learning to live with what I currently have because it’s not cheap to replace things. I don’t want to just buy something cheap because it works for now, I want to find pieces that will last. And with my office, I feel like I keep learning more about what will be functional and what is just a design idea that I like. But I have been looking at getting new dining room furniture and I think I have found the perfect thing. I am getting fabric samples now and I’m hoping that it will work out exactly like I hope it will so I can have a new dining room sometime this coming year.

And the final goal that I had for this past year was to rebuild my acting life. Well, this one really wasn’t that successful for me but it also was a bit out of my control. I wasn’t expecting a long strike this year that essentially shut down the entire industry. I also wasn’t planning on randomly finding out that my agent isn’t my agent anymore and needing to look for a new agent. But I’m finishing out this year on some really positive notes (which I’ll write more about when I do my monthly challenge recap), so it wasn’t a complete wash. But I had to rebuild a lot of things that I wasn’t expecting to instead of building upon what I thought I already had.

I’ll be sharing my goals for 2024 soon, but since not everything was accomplished this year that I wanted to, I set up some goals that I feel will be building upon the ones that I worked on this year. And even though my goals this year weren’t perfectly completed, I didn’t fail at any of them either. I found ways that I could succeed and accomplish them even if they weren’t exactly what I planned to do. And making steps forward is totally a win for this year!

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