What a month.

So far, June has been a little bit ridiculous.  I came back from Mexico, started my job up again (but in a different, much more boring location), and started my second summer class (Intro to Fiction - should be interesting, but I am not looking forward to all the writing).  I would love to put up some pictures from Mexico for you guys to see, but while I was gone, my computer more or less committed suicide.  Some hardware is broken and my computer isn't picking up internet networks, so I can't use my computer for the interbutts.  As I live decently off campus, internet time is going to be way limited to the little I can do at work and whenever I get my butt off my couch and into the library.

That being said, let's get back to foooood!

I ate really well in Mexico.  Delicious food, but also healthy - traditional Mexican food is about as healthy as any dietitian would recommend, honestly.  I also read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, and I have to say that the book changed my outlook on this whole healthiness journey thing.  I  highly recommend that you guys read this book (and watch Food, Inc.).  His advice in the book boils down to what the banner on the front cover says: "Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants".  I also read Garbage Land: On The Secret Trail of Trash, which has enlightened me on the subject of trash and why I should produce less of it.  Those two books combined have me craving the farmer's market, fresh foods, real foods, and an attitude toward food that lets me enjoy it. 

Although I did start this blog to help me lose weight (a goal which I think is still feasible), I have to be honest and say that I was getting pretty sick of the calorie-counting and the overthinking about which nutrients I was getting and ways to get better nutrition for fewer calories, etc.  I've never been good at math, and all that work was exhausting.  Michael Pollan's book made me realize that it's okay to enjoy food for what is it - tasty, greasy, fatty, whatever - while not worrying about what it may do to my waistline.   I know that I always eat better when I'm exercising regularly, so I think I will be putting this blog toward a new focus: a focus on exercise (and fun exercise), and cooking.  I've noticied a correlation between eating out and feeling fat (duh), so I really need to not do that anymore.  My boyfriend and I (since he's living with me and my roomates at the moment) keep saying that we need to quit eating out and start cooking at home more, and I have to say that we've been doing a pretty good job.  So, I think I will try and take pictures of the tasty meals we cook at home (sure to be full of veggies and good things, since we like to eat real food) and blog more about how I'm exercising and less about how many calories I'm eating.  I'm hoping to start using my overeating workbook I won from Alexia starting tomorrow, and I think I should be able to work through it before the summer is out. 

I'm happy to find all of you guys still blogging away - I've missed reading about what's going on in your lives!  I won't be able to comment often, but I'm definitely reading when I can.  And when I get my computer back, I'll be able to blog like normal.  Yay!  : )

Hasta luego!

¡Hola de México!

Hola, amigos!  I´m here in México, having a splendid time.  I´ve had some delicious food, some incredible experiences learning about Mexican culture and history, and have tried some of the most delicious fresh cheese!  Hahaha.  I hope you are all doing well out there in the blogosphere.  This is my first visit to an internet café, so I won´t be able to read your blogs much.  So far I have eaten pretty healthy stuff - we have had fresh fruit, granola, and yogurt for breakfast each day so far.  Delicious.  I´ve tried papaya, guayava, and pitaya.  I only liked pitaya, the others have a weird taste for me.  But yeah, I only have an hour on the computadora, so I better say adios.  :) 

Adios!

Hey guys!  I know it's been a long ass time since I blogged.  Here's a recap of my week at home:  driving, eating terribly, not exercising, not riding a bike as it was mostly cold and rainy, but still hanging out with a bunch of people I love.

I'm now getting ready to get my butt to the airport so I can go to MEXICO.  I'm so excited!  I'll be back in three weeks, and there will surely be a ton of pictures.  :)


Hasta luego!

Um...what?

Wow.  Spring semester has flown by.  Between my 300/400-level classes, 20 hrs of work a week, bellydance classes, homework, and trying to eat well, the months have sped past me without me noticing them at all.  I'm currently at the end of the semester, and still wondering what's coming next, what do I have to do today, tomorrow, this weekend.  What work is there to do?  I just can't relax. 

Things have finally wound down enough to where I can do a little blogging again.  Yay!  I've missed this.  My boyfriend and I were just talking last night about how badly we've been eating lately - pizza and ice cream one night, hot dogs, banana pudding my roommate made...it's just bad.  But now that I can focus my energy on things not school, I'm dying to pick up some healthy eating habits again. Just last night I turned down Andrew's offer of Chinese food so we could go to a healthy, organic restaurant downtown called Laughing Planet.  Today I had to work pretty early, and work always screws with me - I had a donut and a ton of cheese - but my lunch sandwich was full of veggies and I ate it with a little pineapple cup.   Also had a bowl of Frosted Flakes this morning.  Not the best, but at least I ate breakfast.  So now I'm just trying to get through my finals, sort out some loose ends for classes, and then I'm going home for a week!  Yay!  I plan on riding a bike every day.  I love bike riding when it's nice out.  I don't do it here much A) Because our city is really hilly and I just don't have the muscles to climb those hills all day long and B) My bike tires are flat.  I have to take it to a gas station sometime to put air in them...but I don't think that's gonna happen soon.  :P

I know I've been really absent trying to finish up school, but I'm about to be super absent again - I'm going to Mexico!  I leave for my trip on the 17th, so for 3 weeks I won't be around.  I'll be sure to take pictures of my Mexican diet though!  Hoping to eat some tasty fruits/veggies I haven't had before.  :D


Well, I need to hop on some studying here.  Just thought I'd say hi!  I hope everybody is having a good week so far!

jafdkls;jfks

Just a quick post to let you all know I'm not dead.

School is killing me. Work is killing my back.  Lack of exercise/terrible food is killing my scale.

I'm quite sure I've gained back to 208, if not heavier.  I can't ever get enough sleep, so I'm always tired, so I always eat sugary/carby things because my body needs the energy.  Vicious cycle, if you ask me.

Also, I could get so much more homework done if I never had to sleep.  Or eat, for that matter. Sigh, evolution, adapt me to my lifestyle already!

Check ya later, kids.  Loving your blogs lately.  <3

Let's talk about motivation, shall we?

What a nasty word, motivation.  It sticks with you, making you feel comfortable and happy, and then one day another beginner passes by and it runs off to be with them, leaving you to trudge back to that bastard pint of ice cream.

Motivation (motivate:  to provide with a motive or motives; incite; impel) is important when you're trying to lose weight.  If you can get into a routine and stick with it, that's great - perhaps motivation isn't as much of a factor for you.  But when life more or less punches you in the face, what do you need to get started again?  You need motivation.  So, how do you get motivation to be faithful to you and stick around for those times when you need it most?  Surround yourself with it. 

As far as my efforts are concerned, I sometimes feel like I'm living two lives here.  The one where I spout all this talk about how I'm getting started again, about how I'm going to lose weight for real this time, about how my life will be different and I will not be afraid to be myself for fear of being ridiculed for the weight that does not define who I am.  And then there's my second life, the one that kicks in when I step away from my blog and eat pints of ice cream, blocks of cheese, and sit on my ass all day watching Youtube videos instead of exercising.  For me, the thing that's preventing me from reconciling these two lives, the one in which I succeed and the one in which I keep myself from changing, is a great big motivation-shaped hole.  It's almost the end of a rough semester.  I have a lot to do.  I'm tired.  The last thing I want to do is go to the gym, or go outside and jog, or make my kitchen even hotter by cooking when it's already nearly eighty degrees outside and when one roommate refuses to do any dishes.  All I want to do is nothing.  Although the weather is gorgeous, summer is usually the time of the year when I spend the most time being sedentary.  Why?  Because I hate hot weather.  It makes me sweaty and uncomfortable, and I feel five times as fat for every five degree rise in the temperature. 

But if I have a talent for anything, it's for finding the good in what seems to be nothing but bad.  Yeah, summer sucks for me because I'm overweight, can't wear any cool clothes because I don't like the way my arms, legs, feet, whatever look in them, and want to do nothing but sit in front of a hurricane fan with my feet in an ice bath.  However, I can turn this around.  I have that power.  I can choose to look at this summer as torture, or as motivation.  What better motivation is there, after all, than to imagine a summer where I can actually wear real shorts?  When I want to go outside because I want to swim and play volleyball and go jogging on the beach?  How amazing would that feel?

That thought alone is becoming enough to incite me to action.  Back in January, when I started this, it seemed so far away.  But now it's reality, and I will be surrounding myself with motivation. 

To begin with, I got the workbook I won in Alexia's giveaway!  It came in the mail on Monday.  So far, I've learned that I fit more into the category of a compulsive overeater (totally agree with that one), that I think about food incorrectly, that I need to spend time listening to my body, that I need to focus more on giving myself the correct nutrition than an arbitrary number of calories, that I am considered obese, that I am at an increased risk for obesity-related diseases and problems, along with a whole lot of other information about nutrition that I was thrilled to learn.  A lot of people out there have Weight Watchers or a similar program to help them redefine their relationship with food and exercise, but before now I was trying to go it alone, more or less.  I am so happy I got this workbook - this is really the exact tool that I needed, and it couldn't have come at a more perfect time.  The next section deals with meal planning and focusing on major components of nutrition that you should eat every day, and I can't wait to get started with it. 

Other things I'm going to be doing to motivate myself is to create a homework/work/exercise schedule for the rest of the semester.  I really need to plot out days to do homework so that I can exercise, and I feel like sticking to my schedule might be difficult but I'm going to do it.  (Do or do not, there is no try).  Not only will this get me back into the swing of things a little, but it will make sure I get my homework done, too.  :P  I'm also going to change the background on my phone that I see a million times a day to one of those photos I took at the very beginning in my sports bra and workout pants.  That image smashed against my stubborn brain will at least keep my goals present in mind, since I have a habit of letting them slip away during the daytime. 

If motivation won't come back to me, then I will have to drag it kicking and screaming to the gym with me.  Expect a lot more success in the future.  (By the way, I've already started - on Monday I went out and jogged intervals.  I'm not just blowing wind here). 

Well.  I need to go to bed, haha.  Good night, friends!  <3

Videooooo!

Hey guys!  Here's a video for ya:  sorry, the sound isn't that great, so you're going to have to turn your volume waaaay up to hear me.  I think my voice sounds kinda weird, but...whatevs.  I recorded this last night before I went to bed.  Enjoy!


My face!

Uh...can you come back here for a minute?

Yeah, I'm talkin to you, Weekend.  Why did you leave me so quickly?  We had just gotten to be good friends!

Anyway, I am a bit sleep deprived, and sleep deprivation tends me to make me personify any- and absolutely everything.  I am facing another long night of homework this evening, but wanted to come and post here before I got started.  How is it already Wednesday?  I swear I last posted yesterday.  This week is flying by, and so is this semester.  I'm only, what...three weeks to the end?  And in that time I have a 4 page paper, a 10 page paper, two presentations, and countless semester-end quizzes and crap to deal with.  In three weeks.  You should all hope and pray I don't kill somebody in these coming weeks.

So my last post was a pretty happy one, what with that second moment and all, and I am happy to say that moment has not faded!  I have eaten very poorly the past few days, an exact replica of my old diet, but I've been very aware of what I've been doing to myself both psychologically and physically.  Today, I have been focusing on choices, specifically healthy ones.  Before anything has gone in my mouth, I have stopped and thought "Is this a healthy choice?"  Not even, "Will this help me lose weight?", because although I talk about it a lot and it is the basis of this blog, my health remains my biggest focus.  So, "Is this a healthy choice?"  If no, I put it back or pulled my hand away.  If so, I ate it.  So far today I have made one unhealthy choice - I ate a cupcake at work, because it was the rare combination of white icing with vanilla cake (usually they make the vanilla cupcakes with chocolate icing, and I would rather have the white).  So I had one because it was kind of special.  I only ate 2/3 of it - a friend ate the rest.  But it was a choice I made, and I am choosing to not eat anything else unhealthy for the rest of the evening.  Here's a quick breakdown of what I've eaten today:

Breakfast: vanilla yogurt with vanilla almond granola
Snack: A small piece of whole wheat bread (about 1/2 a piece of regular bread) with a bit of hummus and lettuce, string cheese
Lunch: A tasty salad with a dark-leaf mix, smoked turkey, 1/2 slice of swiss cheese, almonds, green peppers, onions, and Asian sesame dressing.  And the cupcake.

And although I am going to Starbucks tonight, I'm gonna try to stick to green tea and no brownies.  Things are looking up!  I got a mini-solo in a choreography that my bellydance group is performing in less than a month (yikes!), so I'm excited!  April is gonna be a rollercoaster, fo sho.

Hasta luego, amigos!

*click*

You know that moment when you first realized you wanted or needed to lose weight?  When you realized the potential within a life full of healthy food and exercise?  When you made those first steps toward changing your life around?  When you laid our your goals, your methods, your plan, and set yourself on that lifelong track?  Do you remember that moment? 

I remember my moment.  And I remember letting that moment go about mid-semester.  And now, I'm having a second one.

I was doing so well, and then school knocked me off track.  Knocked me so far off, in fact, that it's taken me this long to even find my track again.  I wandered blindly through a forest of bad food choices, unable to find the right direction to run in, and unwilling to even run or do any exercise again.  But I've stumbled upon my track once again.  It's spring, and the sun is out, and I'm ready to go.  The past couple of days have been spent in evaluation of what went wrong and how I can fix it.  And now that I've won Alexia's giveaway for the overeating/binge eating workbook, and now that I've gotten a grant for $900 to help pay for my Mexico trip and actually have money to spend again on food, I have all the tools I need. 

I'm tired of feeling tired, and heavy, and slow.  I don't want to sit all day.  I want to get up, go outside, and enjoy my life.  I crave that feeling of lightness that comes from eating well, the energy that comes from exercise.  I miss feeling like a well-oiled machine.  I guess I forgot that machines need maintenance, and I stopped caring for mine.  But school has become manageable again, and with the rest of my year looking like it's going to be wonderful, I'm ready to get back to where I was and to where I want to stay - my happy, healthy place.  I know the next time I let myself wander back into the land of bad choices I will remember the past month or so and I will quickly turn back around and get healthy again.  I never want to feel this run-down for this length of time ever again.  I've gotten some great advice from some great people on how to get started again, and I will succeed.  As in every other arena of my life, from school to relationships, failure just is not an option.  I will not fail at being a healthy and happier person. 

I have to do some homework to do at the library, but when I get back I'm cleaning all the bad things out of my fridge and pantry and I'm going to the store with my paycheck to buy good, healthy foodstuffs.  I'm sure there will be pictures when I get back.  I'm glad my mind has clicked back into place.  : )

Ugh.

I can't believe this.  My day started out terribly, after not having gotten nearly enough sleep and having to be at work at 7am.  Then I pretty much failed a Spanish test because I had the date wrong in my head and didn't have enough time to study for it.  So I went to class all day, came home and crashed for about an hour (I'm so exhausted today...I haven't slept well at all for the past two weeks.  I wish I could admit myself to the hospital for exhaustion and just chill for the next five weeks without doing anything but magically getting A's in all my classes).  And then I got up to go to my bellydance class, and I saw it - my car.  My poor Guido.

I live on the corner of two very busy streets, midway between two very loud and very populated party central areas near campus.  Usually I just get to laugh at the drunk people as they wander past my corner, but I guess today one of them decided to take their car and wander right into my car.  The back is completely trashed.  Like, my bumper was laying in the road, back windshield glass sparkling in the sunset, trashed. 

I almost cried.  You should cry.  Because it's April Fool's and I just got you.  :D


I know, I know, I'm evil.  But unfortunately, the only thing untrue about the above story is the part about my car.  Today did kind of suck, and I am completely exhausted.  However, I have made progress!  Today, I chose a banana to accompany my lunch sandwich instead of a cookie.  I ate only three servings of cheese, including the cheese on my sandwich.  I have had two servings of fruit and two servings of vegetables so far today.  Progress!  I didn't eat very well at breakfast, opting for a giant sugary donut thing that has at least 500 calories in it.  I chose this because I was about ready to pass out from hunger when I got to work (literally...) and needed something in my stomach.  But I had milk with it!  So that puts me at five dairy servings today hahaha.  I told you I love dairy.  :P  So I snacked on some cheese, had a sandwich with smoked turkey, swiss cheese, and a whole lot veggies on it along with my banana.  And then I didn't eat again until I got home, and I had a tropical fruit cup and then I shoved a few tablespoons of peanut butter down my throat before dance because I woke up starving.  I needed something that would keep me full without filling up my stomach, because doing undulations on a full stomach is pretty much a surefire way to throw up absolutely everywhere.  :P 

So.  I expect that PB to keep me going for a while, and I'm going to take a little baggy of carrots to snack on at work when I get hungry.  But only when I get hungry.  I have not mindlessly eaten at all today.  :D

I'm feeling good!  We're practicing a pretty high-energy dance for our recital and I was definitely sweating.  I'm pumped up and awake now and would love to go the gym...but I have to go to work. Booo, work. : ( 

It's been a gorgeous day here, so I guess I can't feel too bad about my meh day.  How has your day been going?  Toodles!