Proof is in the Corduroy

I have a habit, when it comes to weight loss, to setting a perfectly realistic goal, getting close to meeting it, and then basically fleeing in terror from it.



I don't know why. It's silly, really. I guess I get so freaked out about NOT managing my totally achievable goal that I sabotage it?

Who knows.

I'm a crazy person.


BUT! Weight loss goals are sometimes very sneaky. I can see the scale-based goals sneaking up on me, go crazy, and sabotage my timeline.

I never sabotage my timeline by skipping work outs, it's always with a little extra food. An extra tortilla here, some ice cream there... But while this is going on I'm still exercising like a maniac, so the inches keep creeping on down.

I measured again today and I am now up to a total of 37.75 inches lost from the places I measure.
That's pretty awesome!!

And I can even prove how different I look!! Remember way back when I made a goal to fit into a certain pair of pants by Christmas? Well I WORE those pants on Christmas!!!

The proof is in the.... er... Corduroy?

Freestyle Rapping

I have never been "cool."

If dorkiness were a hole in the ground, and my personality was a shovel, the hole would be so deep, that if I even tried to do something cool, like become a freestyle rapper or push a baby buggy out of the way of a speeding car, to redeem myself, I'd get confused and end up digging DEEPER into the dorkiness pit because I'd be so deep into the earth that the surface would be closer on the opposite side.

See? I just inadvertently proved my own point. The first things that came to mind when trying to think of something inherently "cool" and non-dorky were
1) freestyle rapping

and
2)something cliche that only happens in cartoons and satirical comedies.

 

I'm not even the "cool" type of dorky like you see in romantic comedies.
"Oh look, her skirt got caught in a car door and now you can see her adorable cartoon character underpants!"
No.
I'm the other kind.
I knocked over an entire DVD display in Best Buy with my butt while out shopping.
It was loud.
And dear bf, despite being 3 aisles away, knew from the noise what had happened and that I did it.

Because I'm cool like THAT.
And then I knocked over a whole DIFFERENT display in an entirely DIFFERENT store just an hour later.
With my butt.
Again.
And he still knew what happened from across the store and wasn't surprised.

Suffice it to say, coordination is NOT one of my strong points.
So when I walked into my usual gym class last night to find a guest instructor who wanted us to have a bosu, stability ball, weights, mat, jump rope, resistance band, AND had ladders laying on the ground at either end of the room... I knew I was in trouble.

But you know what? I had a GREAT time. I messed up a lot, I fell off the bosu, I laughed so hard when attempting to balance on one foot and bounce a stability ball in my non-dominant hand at the same time that I thought I was at risk of peeing my pants, I slapped myself in the face with a jump rope, you name it. It wasn't pretty, but it was still fun, and it was a fabulous work out.

It made me realize that while I've gotten pretty darn badass at the stuff I do in my regular classes, I'm maybe NOT the super cool all around bad ass that I like to think I've become.

Changing things up is GOOD, trying new things is good, and keeping my body guessing is great.
So I decided to go ahead and sign up for 20 sessions of personal training while they're having all their new year's deals.
I feel a little guilty about it. I'm a former athlete, I know my way around a gym, I know how to lift weights and use the machines and in what combinations they are effective. I don't know that a personal trainer can really teach me anything NEW, exactly, but I do think that they can challenge me in ways I'm not challenging myself, just like I was in that class last night.

I'm still a little sick to my stomach at the thought of the price, but I'm trying to convince myself that I'm really going to work hard to make it worth the cost!!

First session is on Wednesday, so I plan to take some before pictures and measurements, and see what a difference 20 sessions makes!

Wish me luck!

Not Recommended for Zombies

As my weight loss gets more and more significant and apparent, more people ask me about it.

"You've obviously lost a significant amount of weight, so what have you been doing?" It's usually another woman who asks. It started out with people I see regularly through work, but now it's extended to strangers at the gym and cashiers at the grocery and drug stores I frequent.

My answer is always the same "The common sense, old fashion way, really. More moving and better eating."

The response to this answer is ALWAYS the same, and it's getting really frustrating.

Seriously people?
I basically tell you that losing a bunch of weight is idiot proof, and that you already know how to do it, and you get disappointed?

I'm tempted to like invent a "diet" or "supplement" and just tell people it only works with the sparkpeople.com program. I guarantee you they'd suddenly be interested.

How is it that people try crash diet after crash diet after crash diet, stupid over-expensive (and sometimes dangerous) diet pills, and who knows what other crazy weight loss schemes with little to no success, and then get DISAPPOINTED when the answer is so simple?!?!?!

I guess, actually, I get it.
How many times did I try to lose weight with diet and exercise before I got it right?
I guess some people get to a place where they really don't think they can do it, that the only way it will ever come off is with a magic potion or a secret combination of foods, or something really crazy and extreme.

So here we go, just in case anyone reading this was wondering if I've been doing some super secret fad diet and keeping it from you and all for myself.

The secret:

Use your damn brain.

*Brains not recommended for zombies.

Stupid Brain!

Lately, when I'm out in the real world, I think of funny stuff all the time and think "oh hey, I should write about what a spaz I am in this situation and draw artistic representations of myself experiencing it while being shaped like a bean!"

But when I'm in front of a computer, my brain does this:

So, ummmm... I haven't been blogging.
And when I have it's been blogging ABOUT blogging, but mostly about not blogging, and I'm starting to feel like I'm in some kind of loop of lameness and being mad at my brain.

So I'm sorry!

Blame The Cough Syrup

I haven't been able to think of anything especially funny or cool to blog about in... well... probably ever, but I like to at least tell myself some of these are funny, so I'm going to go with "awhile."
Yes.
So I've decided to just blog about WHATEVER I WANT TO BLOG ABOUT.
After all, it's my blog.  If you're reading it you probably know me and like me enough to kind of humor me and pretend my life is interesting.  

 

If you don't know me, then, please believe that I am pretty and smart and very impressive and have much better grammar than is represented here. 

 

Also interesting enough to have a blog.

 

So I will just blog about whatever "exciting" things are going on with me.  Please don't let the "" undermine how exciting I am if you don't know better and might believe I'm actually exciting.

See? Skydiving.  That's like the definition of exciting.*

*I have never actually been skydiving**.

**I did dream about it a couple of times though.***

*** I woke up terrified.

 

 

So on that note:
I TOTALLY managed to sync all of my album artwork properly with both iTunes and my ipod last week.
This is approximately my 247th attempt at this.  Or 4th.  The amount of sheer frustration, though, I think is better represented by the number 247.  It just has a nice ring to it.
Go ahead; try it out.

 

Nice, right?

 

Two-Hundred-Forty-Seven.....

 

Huh?  What? Where was I...

 

Upon completing the task successfully, about 2 hours after I meant to go to bed, I shrieked in triumph and threw both arms up in the air. 
It was a technology field goal.

 

 

 

The cat was mostly annoyed I'd awoken her and the boyfriend was surprisingly unfazed by the whole shrieking situation and noisily rolled over in the bed upstairs and "knocked" something onto the floor to create a thump of reproachfulness.

 

But I still felt really bad ass.   So I started blabbing to people about my bad-assedness expecting people to be at least as impressed with me as I was with myself.  I mean, have you ever tried to get iTunes to do something it doesn't want to do? 
I should get some kind of award.

Don't act like you're not impressed.

 

But no one was impressed.  Like not even a little.
So then I tried to more forcefully impress upon my good friend how very impressed she should be. But, you see, there's something wrong with my brain.  
I didn't describe the process or how difficult it was or the ongoing battle with google or any of that logical stuff. 
I just started spouting at her. 
Really fast.
In the voice of iTunes.
Here's the actual string of texts I sent to her:





"oh, you mean you went through the trouble of finding and copying and pasting all of that because you actually want to SEE it?"

"I thought it was for informational purposes"

"Why would you want to see any but the very few that I was able to find for you?"

"Is my album artwork not good enough for you?"

"What are you trying to say?"

*sniff

"What do you mean you're only using me because you have to?"

"you're USING me? I thought you loved me!"

That's pretty much what iTunes is like
a terrible, insecure, self-centered, overly-emotional girlfriend
with a low IQ

 

 

And I stand by my assessment. 

And if you don't know me and are still reading this.  You're pretty awesome.  Or bored.  In either case, please continue to believe that I am smart, pretty, interesting, exciting, do exciting things, and have better grammar.

Also, I have the flu.  So if it so happens that this post is a lot more insane and a lot less entertaining than I think it is, blame the cough syrup.

But it was SO FESTIVE!

I haven't been posting much lately.

Mostly because I've been making a dedicated effort to be a real-live grown-up, and to my surprise, grown-ups are boring.

Not so much to my surprise, I'm not very good at trying to be a grown-up.
At ALL.

I try to do grown up things like buy ONE little cute, office-appropriate Halloween figurine for my desk. Grown-ups can be fun too, I tell myself, grown ups can have this cute little ceramic Daisy Duck dressed in a purple witch outfit on their desk and it's totally okay but still festive. I don't NEED to pull out my cotton spider webs and light up spiders and over do it this year.

But she looked so lonely...

(mostly people got startled and terrified and I really like it)

And then before I knew it I had a blinking light up mini jack-o-lantern, witch-themed window clings, and a giant hanging jack-o-lantern totem pole.

But it was so festive!

Make-up every day. That's something grown-ups do. I will do THAT!


Stuff no one's doing at work that we should probably be doing? I will do those. I will do ALL OF THOSE!!

Especially the facebook and the twitter.
And the browsing around the internets a lot to "look at sample websites" to update ours.



I will clean ALL of the apartment before I have people over. And then I will KEEP it that way!


I'll probably never be a grown-up.

I'm gonna go dig the gold-lame turkey plushy out of my filing cabinet and put it on the chair in my office

Sometimes Having a Brain is Inconvenient.

Sometimes having a brain is really inconvenient.

Examples of this over the last week or so:

Attempting to come up with a fun blog idea

Folding Laundry

To Breakfast or Not to Breakfast

Time Travel

Chocolate Math

You Don't Have a Femullet, So Things Could Be Worse!

Thursday was a really exciting day for me, but not in the way I'd hoped it would be...

I discovered on Tuesday that I procrastinated buying jeans and dress pants in a size 12 for so long that I'm actually a size TEN!!! As in 10!

My reward for getting back to a size 10 was to get one of my favorite hair cuts from college. My very favorite requires a LOT of upkeep, so I decided to go for my second favorite.

Unfortunately, the only picture I have of myself with that haircut is this one:

I love that picture, but it doesn't show much of the hair.

So after hours of browsing the intertubes I found THIS one:

It's perfect!
(But don't worry, I swear to never make that face. Well maybe if I have like really bad indigestion and am also experiencing an allergic reaction that puffs up my lips to 4x normal size and way too red)


I printed it out nice and big and headed off to zumba.

I felt awesome in zumba. I was having a good time, I can do all of the jumping without my knees hurting, I know the moves now and don't have to concentrate so hard. Just general fun times.

Well about 5 minutes in I had one of those very sudden uncomfortable tickley nostril moments, and after a giant sneeze was sure there was a big ugly booger lurking somewhere.... But I couldn't find it. I kept checking my hands, my shirt, my pants, my sweat towel, the floor. I felt all over my face trying to find it. I tried to subtly check my hair.
Nothing.

Oh well, it must have been a tiny booger and gotten stuck on the bottom of my shoe or something.
Right?

Wrong.
When I scurried out to my car to hurry off to my hair appointment I found it. I was checking my mirrors and discovered it.

In the middle of my forehead.



And it wasn't tiny.


So there's that.

And THEN came the haircut. I was so determined to get the haircut just the way I want it that I drove 25 minutes away to the small town by my folks' house and have it done by the person who used to cut it that way for me.

It doesn't look like either of those pictures.
It looks like a puffy mullet with bangs that are way too short, no hair left on the sides of my face, and too much hair left in the back.
I hate it.

And it's going to take MONTHS and MONTHS to grow back enough hair by my face to rescue it.

I figure in 4-6 months it will actually grow out to a pretty hair cut...

In the meantime I guess I just get to be really creative in ways to style it?
Good thing it's fall and I have an extensive hat collection!

So just remember, no matter how bad things may seem, you don't have a femullet. So things could be worse!

Booby-Trapping Chubberchaun Bastard.

It all makes so much sense now!!!

Some of you may remember that I used to write rather frequently (and heatedly) about my constant struggle with Blobby McFlabface, the chubberchaun who hides in my rolls and attempts to expand his flab mansion with whispered suggestions of naps and designer ice creams and the like.

So you may also have noticed that I haven't written about him in quite some time.

That's because I hadn't HEARD from him in a really long time. Maybe the faintest hint of a whisper about how my couch is really comfortable and sitting empty and alone while I'm at the gym, but never anything with much force, volume, or convincing power.

I thought perhaps with the steady collapse of his flab mansion he had moved on to greener (or flabbier) pastures (or thighs).

Now I know better.

I've lost 45lb so far, and do you know what that adds up to?
The approximate weight of the mythical chubberchaun!
Coincidence?
I think not.

"Oh yay!" I can hear you thinking.
No yay.
No yay at all.

Today I got undeniable evidence that Blobby McFlabface has, in fact, taken on physical form and is lurking around my office, car, and home and trying to booby trap me into creating enough flab-space for him to move back in!!

I got up to fill my water bottle a little bit ago. The kitchen is just down my hall and it took only a minute or two to walk there, fill my water bottle, top off my brita pitcher, and walk back to my desk.

To a pack of HoHo's front and center on said desk.



WTF?
Where did these come from?
1) Most of the producers and staff here are douche-canoes in one aspect or another and none of them would be nice enough to give me anything, except maybe a cold.
2) The few exceptions who WOULD be nice enough to give me something have all very nicely commented on my weight loss and would not be so rude as to bring me HoHo's of all things.

Time to investigate!!!

But there's NO ONE in the building. It's a ghost town up in here. Just me and the dust bunnies (and they don't have the upper body strength required to find, transport, and deposit HoHo's).

So it's official. Blobby McFlabface is wandering about and booby trapping me.
That Bastard.

What Is This? Jellyfish Skin?

I am, officially, back into pants that haven't fit me since early in my senior year of college. Probably about this time in 2005.

While it feels AWESOME to pull those jeans out of the "someday drawer" and realize that 'someday' is, in fact, TOday, it also comes with some pretty horrifying revelations.

Like,

Who in the hell thinks it's even remotely appropriate to wear pants that low-waisted?

What the heck is this fabric? Jellyfish skin?

Did I really think this whiskery bleach line business by my crotch was a good idea?

Who's been stashing tacky, trashy clothes in my someday drawer?









I'm looking at you, cat!


You think this is SO funny don't you?

So, unfortunately, those jeans are going straight from the 'someday' drawer into the 'for someone else' donation trash bags (which are slowly taking over the guest room).

But you know what?
It feels a lot better to have aged out of my college jeans than it did to know I grew out of them!
And also to wear jeans made of actual denim with out anything accenting my crotch or buttcrack.
Who thought that up and how did I fall for it?

The Gym is Un-Hipsterizing Me...

I discovered about a year or so ago (much to my horror) that I am, probably, a hipster.

When I argued angrily with the accusation and expressed my hatred for hipsters, my brother referred me to a book called 'stuff hipsters hate' and the one on the cover?

Hipsters.

I googled and wiki'd and was so ready to disprove it... and had to admit he was right.



So, being a hipster (but not one of THOSE hipsters), I tend to pretty much despise popular music.

I hate it.

It was a point of pride that I had no idea who these pop stars were or what songs they sang and could give people a genuine blank stare when they talked about them. Some of it would sink in by nature of not living under a rock, but not much, and that was the way I liked it.



I'll admit it, I've even been caught saying things like "that's so mainstream."
*cringe*

Well now I find myself in an odd position... I LOVE my classes at the gym. They make me feel strong and young and powerful and like my body is capable of so much more than I ever gave it credit for.
And ALL of the music used in those classes is pop music.

I find myself singing along to some of it in the grocery store and doing zumba moves in the dvd isle in Target and doing turbo moves at friends in the video game store and just generally embarrassing dear BF in public.
It's awesome.


I found myself really enjoying one particular one that was even rap-like, and much to the shock of my boyfriend decided to look up what lyrics I could remember on YouTube and therefore find out what the song was and who did it so that I could download it.

And, to my horror, it was a KANYE WEST song. To my credit, it was only the very last verse of a Kanye West song and was performed by a person I have since learned is Nicki Minaj (or something like that) and from what I saw on YouTube she's really weird and therefore cool in my mind and non-embarrassing to like. I just liked that she threatened to eat people's brains and said things with weird inflections!! Is that so wrong?
I didn't download it.
But I may or may not have been caught on more than one occasion looking up just her verse on YouTube to listen to while I clean. Not that I'd admit to it.
That's so mainstream.

Even worse was what happened to me last night. There's one fairly poppy song that we listen to when warming up or cooling down sometimes that I kind of secretly enjoy. It's cheerful and great to just grapevine back and forth to and do various stretches. I saw the girl next to me singing along and so said:
"I've been enjoying this song lately, who is this chick?"

The girl started laughing so hard I thought she might pee or pass out, and then explained to me that it was Justin Beiber.

I'm pretty sure all of the blood drained from my face.
I wanted to snatch it all back and come up with some snide sarcastic defense remark like it'd been a joke set-up all along...

But it was a girl I talk to in class and in the locker room all the time. She'd have seen right through it.

So instead I let out an over-dramatic movie moment "Nooooooooooooooooo!!!"

So I'm ready to admit it.
My gym classes have ruined me.
I secretly enjoy SOME pop music now...

Cake is Awesome!

"Eating a big slice of cake is totally fine as long as it's my whole lunch."

When my best friend said this to me on Saturday, despite all the changes in my relationship with food, my response was:



"That's an awesome plan!"



And then we went for a long walk around the lake!

Go figure....

To my credit mine was a small slice of cake, which I baked using the can of diet soda trick, and I didn't eat the frosting, so the calories certainly weren't anything to be concerned about...

But cake is NOT nutritious. Especially when you don't use the eggs and oil and can't even kind of sort of claim the nutritive properties of those...

And I have half the produce section PRE washed and sliced and as convenient as possible for salad fixing.

Oh well, I'm not worried about it, just goes to show that there is ALWAYS more positive change to be made, which means there's always something more to work toward, and always a reason to keep learning and moving and doing and changing and all that fun stuff!

Terror in the Cereal Aisle

Sometimes trying to be health conscious makes me look like a crazy person.

Especially in the grocery store.

Last night, for example, I terrified at least 3 strangers in the cereal aisle.

They were just going about their business, trying to buy breakfast items and tea, and were forced to share the isle with a large, sweaty, probably smelly woman in her rumpled gym attire picking up cereal item after cereal item, angrily yelling "sugar!" in a disgusted tone, and then throwing them back in a serious pout.

This was occassionally interrupted by glaring at them and shouting "how can you call yourself a health food and put sugar as your second ingredient!" in the granola section with hands on hips.

I'm sure dear bf's attitude of gruding acceptance, and occassional apologetic glances toward the startled strangers helped aleviate some of the fear. At least the crazy person seemed to have a warden of some kind.

And the person who I'd visibly startled when shouting "I LIKE A GRAPES!" and then darting in front of them to pick the best bag was somewhat prepared when they entered the dairy isle to find me with my whole upper body between the yogurt shelves to get the last few Fago 0% greek yogurts while they were on sale and simultaneously singing a song I made up as I went along about finding one that only contained milk and active yogurt cultures.


Active yogurt cultures is made up song GOLD, by the way.

At least I make a trip to the grocery store a little more interesting, right?

Blobulous Monster Face, Apparently...

Compliments on my weight loss have been a bit of a two edged sword lately.

Mostly the dreaded "you can really see it in your face!"

While this is great, and makes me feel good, I can't help but panic on the inside and wonder what kind of blobulous monster face I was walking around with!!

How did I not notice I had a giant fat face?

I mean, I'm pretty sure my double chin is gone, and that that's what they're talking about, but in case you haven't noticed by now I have a pretty active imagination. I mean, need I remind you of when I first felt an ab under my flab and was pretty sure that it was one of the face-sucker offspring from the Alien movies and was going to burst out of my body and prance down a diner counter singing showtunes?


And if I still have so much to lose do I just have a regular fat face now as opposed to the giant one?

And when people say "you look good" and I thank them, and then they go "no, really good" like they're arguing with me, and I also know I have so far to go...

What does THAT mean?


'Cause if just kind of average fat is 'really good' as compares to how I looked a few months ago... I don't wanna think about it!!!

I know this is all just being overly critical of myself, but I had to vent about it a little!

Just imagine the weird things I'll think when I'm in a single digit pant size and get THOSE compliments...

Uh oh, there goes my imagination again!

Please F@*% Off? Pretty Please?

1) Denial

2) Anger

3) Bargaining

4) Depression

5) Acceptance

Right now I'm somewhere between anger and bargaining, but I just thought I'd share my USUAL path to having the plague...

I'm gonna try and kill it with vitamin C, cough drops, water, and sweating it out at the gym tonight and hopefully avoid the self-pittying snot-pile phase.