Starting Over...Reinvention

Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.

~ Maria Robinson



Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about starting over. Planning for an upcoming wedding, and trying to work out my future, has my mind locked in on long-term goals. Where do I want to be working 5 years from now? Where do I want to be living? If we want to travel, we are going to need flexible schedules and money and time, or at least a job where I can go from place to place. All of these thoughts have just been circling and circling in my head (especially late at night, when I'm trying to fall asleep!). My late night revelations have me considering a few things: Starting over my blog, starting over my career, starting over with school, and starting over with working out.

I miss blogging. I really do. I often find myself composing posts in my head while driving around for work, it's just that by the time I am able to sit down at my computer and type, I've either forgotten what I was going to say or fall asleep. I miss keeping up on what everyone else is doing! I miss the support- both giving and receiving. My friend advised me to start scheduling blogging time into my life- to make it an actual appointment in my phone so I stay on top of it. I'm going to try this and see how it goes. (I've been doing the same thing with my workouts and it's been working, soI'm fairly confident I can do this!) Sometimes, as I'm sure we all can attest to, it is difficult to keep on top of social life happenings when work is so demanding.
Speaking of work, I love my job. It's hectic and chaotic and time-consuming, but oh, so worth it! When I'm out running programs with the girls and they are laughing and smiling and telling me how much fun they're having; or when I see them randomnly out and about and they run upto give me a hug, it just makes me feel like I'm on top of the world! The only down side to my job is that it is non-profit and we don't always have it in the budget to get raises. This is such a year (and I know a lot of people are in similar place, especially in today's economy). I love my job,but the pay is not a livable wage. For the most part, I end up living paycheck to paycheck every month, with only a few dollars I can tuck away into savings. It's hard to think about leaving my job, but knowing that I have a wedding to plan ($$$$$), which means that we have to find our own place to live (and pay rent and utlities, etc), makes me realize that I have to do something to bring in more money.

My only concern is that, while I do have a Bachelor's degree, it is in music and theatre, and without a teaching certificate that degree won't get me very far. I started researching areas of work that I am interested in learning more about and could see myself doing as a career. The one that interested me the most - Communications and Social Media Management. So, I've been researching a few online graduate programs to apply to and hopefully, will get accepted to one where I can start in the fall. It's going to be interesting trying to balance course work and a full time job and wedding planning, but if I'm determined enough, I know I can do it.

All of this retrospection has been euphoric. I'm very excited to go back to school and possibly expand my marketability and steer my life in a more solid and confirmed direction. To keep with my theme of bettering myself, I contacted my friend, Coach Kurt from Becomming an Ironman, and hired him to be my personal trainer. We had a 3 hour meeting where we discussed what I wanted to do (tone and strengthen and continue with fat burning), as well as completed some assessments to see where I am physically with upper body strength (FAIL) and cardio (WIN). Kurt came up with a very do-able workout routine for me to follow for the next 6 weeks. In the mornings, I do my Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD, and in the afternoons I do strength training at the gym (chest press, shoulder press, bicep curl, tricep extension, and row machine). We are starting off slow so I can build up muscle and not hurt myself. Plus, I gave him a time-frame of about a year and a half where I would like to get to the point where I solely have to maintain from there on out. It's been going very well- I haven't missed a workout yet! I'm pretty proud of myself. For example, yesterday I was incredibly tired after work but knew I had to do my strength training. I made myself go to the gym and felt SO much better for it. It's only been a week and a half, but I'm well on my way to making this a routine- afterall, don't they say it takes 21 days to make something a habit?



Where, Oh Where, Has My Motivation Gone?

I'm depressed.

That about sums up the past few days of my life. I have no real reason to be depressed- my boyfriend is amazing and probably the sweetest guy on the planet, my job is time-consuming but fulfilling and fun, my family and friends are all healthy, finances are starting to straighten out... so, why am I depressed?

Because, despite all these other wonderful things, I've lost my motivation to do anything.
I've kept up with my bikini body boot camps, but I haven't done any other workouts. LAME.
I go to bed every night and think "tomorrow I'm going to get up and run", I even set my alarm and lay out my clothes. But, when that buzzer goes off, I reset my alarm and go back to bed. I can't seem to drag myself up and out. Not even down to the living room to do a quick workout video or anything. Ugh! I'm so frustrated with myself, I could seriously spit!

I keep giving myself little goals:

Run 50 miles and I will treat myself to a full body massage.
Get under 200 and I can have a shoe shopping spree.
Run any distance today and have an ice cream.

But, nothing seems to do the trick. I even keep trying to visualize different things to get myself going:

Being skinnier for my 10 year high school reunion.
Being a size 14 for 2013.
Losing another 10 pounds for summer.

Nothing. It's as if my brain gets what I'm telling it but my body refuses to take the message.
*sigh* I don't know. I'm at a loss. I was excited a bit yesterday because I bought something in a size 14/16 and it felt a little lose, but then some of my old clothes don't seem any bigger on me. And this morning I hopped on my boyfriend's scale. It said I had gained 15 pounds. I burst into tears. He tried to console me and tell me that the leg on one of the sides is broken so the numbers are wrong, but I know it's a lie. How did I gain 15 pounds in 2 weeks?! It's not like I've been stagnant- I'm still always up and about with work and rehearsals. I haven't even been eating as much because I don't always have the time to eat. Maybe that's part of the problem- maybe my wacky eating habits are killing me.

Either way, I just feel as if I worked so hard to get down to 207 and now this. I'm taking gigantic steps backwards and I don't know what to do. Even now, I just want to cry. I want to go to the gym while I'm still angry at myself but I'm literally working/rehearsing until goodness knows when tonight. And I want to wake up early tomorrow for a run before work, but I know I'm going to be exhausted.

Please help.  

Week 1 of Bikini Body Bootcamp

I'm frustrated right now. I had this whole beautifully written post all done up for you about my first week doing the Bikini Body Boot camp and as I hit submit, my computer crashed and erased it all. FAIL!!

Let me see if I can recap a bit (mind you this won't be as amazing as my original post- now lost forever!).

Week 1 was the 10 Minute Bootcamp Workout by Jeanette Jenkins

I was very sore going into this because I had spent the day before out doing a complete overhaul on my garden (removing stumps, weeding, wheeling rocks, etc). I refuse to kneel when I garden so I always end up in a long-standing squat or just flat out bending over- probably not the smartest, but it works for me.

Anyway, it was only a 10 minute workout, so I decided to give it a shot before I went to work. It may have only been 10 minutes, but boy did I work up a sweat! Love it! The workout consists of 5 moves:

1. Burpee Push Shuffle (this was a challenging one to start off with, especially after having just woken up)
2. Squat Leg Lift Medial Delt
3. Front Kick Two Hand Touch (this was my favorite!!)
4. Back Row Fly with Booty Tap
5. Grand Plie with Overhead Extension (this was my second favorite)

The exercises vary with how many reps you do of each- some are 10, some are 25, so on and so forth.
But, as I said before, I was definitely mopping up some sweat with this routine, and I really like that. I may add this in as one of my cross training days. Who doesn't love a quick fat-blasting, toning session?
Anyway, the link above has the video you can follow along with to do the workout. I am also going to post links to all the workouts on a separate page on my blog.

In the meantime, give this boot camp session a try and feel free to leave me a comment with which exercise was your favorite!

It's Going to be a GREAT Day!

I know it's only about 10am, but so far, today seems like it's going to be an AWESOME day!

"But why?", you may ask. Well, mainly because I got myself up and out of bed at 5:30 this morning and went to the gym for a run. Yup. Even though it was only 24 freezing degrees outside and my car was a monster block of ice, I shivered my way to the gym for a run.

Want to know what makes it better though? My run was pretty epic! I did a 35 minute run and managed to do 2.6 miles! That's 13:27min/mile! That's about 40 seconds faster than most of my usual runs! AND (yes, there's still more!) I managed to run the 30:12 of the 35 minutes! Frigging sweet! My lungs still aren't too happy with me, but I've stopped caring. They're going to have to get on board with the rest of my body and start functioning at high capacity again. Darn slacker organs.

I'm also pretty psyched because I went to Ocean State Job Lot the other evening and scored a fair amount of gluten-free food for real cheap. Seriously- I got two boxes of pasta, 3 boxes of crackers, a loaf of bread and 2 huge things of coconut water for $10. SWEET!! The gluten-free challenge is getting better. I'm not having as many cupcake based dreams cravings as I was before. I think my body is starting to get used to the switch. I am proud of myself because I had lunch with a coworker at an italian restaurant yesterday- I can proudly say that I did not eat any rolls, nor pasta, nor even the croutons in my salad. I also ordered this amazing risotto meal with peppers and onions and scallops in it! YUMMY! I ate half and have the other half for lunch again today.

It feels good to be eating healthier again. Today's menu consists of:

Breakfast-  Oikos greek yogurt with blueberries on the bottom (and a handful of almonds mixed in).
Snack 1- Granny Smith apple with Bee's Knees Peanut Butter
Lunch- Left over risotto meal and a LARGE salad with cut up deli sliced turkey/chicken/ham
Snack 2- Pine nut roasted hummus and baby carrots

Haven't figured out dinner yet, but I'm sure it will be pretty awesome as well.

What are some of your favorite snacks?

First Run of the New Year

I got in a run today!

Source

SO EXCITED!!

My friend Tina and I got together and went to the gym today (probably not the best idea because it was jam packed with people working on their own New Year's resolutions- but I managed to snag a free treadmill). I was only going to do a short 1.5 mile run, but I hit 1 mile by 12:40 and I felt good, so I decided to keep going. Considering how out of shape my lungs are from this stupid cold-thing that won't leave, I'm actually pretty proud that I made it to 3 miles in 44:32. Not as fast as I would like, but not bad considering I am sick and I haven't really run in a loooooooooooooooooong time.

After my run, I cleaned my machine and headed to the weights. I focused on my back and shoulders today doing back extensions, lat raises and a few others. I decided to up my weights from what I had been doing so I know I'm going to be sore tomorrow. It's all good though- it was nice getting back into my old routine. Tina and I are going to the gym again tomorrow morning. I'm planning on another 3 mile run and then some bicep/tricep work. I'm trying to take advantage of as much running time as I possibly can right now, while at the same time trying to make sure I don't overdo my runs and wear myself down before I can really get started again. I'm still kind of disappointed in myself that I slacked off after I finished the half marathon. Especially because having had so much time off, my endurance (the little I had built up) has suffered. Grrr!

Here is my ideal workout schedule or this month (we will see if I can stick with it):

I am planning it for just one month to see if I need to update/change anything as I progress in it. My goal is also to do my workouts in the morning... which means I'm going to have to start getting up earlier. Boo!! Oh well, if I want to accomplish my fitness goals for this year, it needs to be done, right? Right.

Happy Holidays

Ok, I'm a little late on the holiday message, 

but I hope everyone did have a Great Holiday!

 Source

I was very very spoiled by both my family and my boyfriend- much more than I deserved!
I got a great stash of exercise stuff (what better way to re-motivate myself into working out again!).
A 5lb kettle bell, Wii Just Dance 3 (cause we all know how much I love that game), and a new BRIGHT PINK running jacket are just some of the goodies this kid got to open on Christmas day!

Needless to say I've already sported my new jacket (just to see how it felt) and I've done a Just Dance 3 workout (epic!!) and a kettle bell circuit. I know I gained some weight over the holidays (I went up 8 lbs - boo! hiss!!) so I'm determined to drop those pesky 8 and another 15 by my birthday at the end of February.

For now, Just Dance is going to have to suffice, at least until my cough/chest congestion is gone. It's hard to run when one cannot breathe. I finally gave in last week and went to the doctors. Got put on antibiotics and allergy meds to help dry me out. The doctor then told me he wants me to start drinking a gallon of water a day. A gallon!? I mean, I hydrate pretty well. I usually hit my 8-10 eight ounce glasses of water per day... I always have a water bottle stashed somewhere... but a gallon seems a bit much. I'm doing my best though (even if my bladder isn't happy with me).

One problem I've been running into though is how much I crave salt while drinking ll this water. I think I'm flooding my system a bit too much so my body is trying to get some electrolytes in there (same as when running long distances, right?). So, I may have to add a bottle of gatorade in along with my new hydration plan. I'm also working on spacing out my cups of water. Sometimes I intake about 3 glasses of water in a very short period of time (because I get thirsty), so I'm trying to slow my pace and drink one glass of water every hour and a half or so (unless I get thirsty... but I figure if I'm maintaining a steady intake, I shouldn't get overly thirsty, right?).

Anyway, how was everyone else's holiday?! Anyone get any fun/exciting/new/unusual presents?!

A Nun Walks Into the Gym....

Today was a LOOOOOOOOONG day!

It started at 5:15 this morning when I woke up (WAY before the sun, I'd like to add) and headed to meet my friend Tina at the gym. We both hopped on the Arc trainer for 25 minutes for some rocking cardio. I decided that today would be a great day to up the intensity level on the machine and it most definitely kicked my bum. I don't know if most of you know what an Arc trainer is, so let me explain:
The Arc Trainer, in my humble opinion, is an awesome cross-training machine. It combines low impact movements with high caloric bun and helps with endurance. Also, depending upon how you lower or raise the incline of the machine, depends on how intense your hamstrings, glutes and quads are going to work (lowered incline=more work, higher incline=less work which seems odd but is very true for this machine).

Anyway, since I lowered my incline and raised my intensity today, my body was not very happy with me. Tina and I barely made the 25minutes before we decided to hit the weight machines. We always focus on our abs during our strength training (After all, a strong core is super important for running, right?) but I also try to focus on my back, shoulders and arms. We spent about 30 minutes or so going through our weight routine before we decided that we wanted to end with another 10minutes of cardio. So, we hopped on the treadmill and she walked at an incline while I jogged for 8 minutes and sprinted for 2. It was a good workout, but the sprint at the end had me completely drenched in sweat (seriously, I had little rivers running down my arms- it was gross).  See for yourself

Okay, so maybe I don't look that sweaty, but trust me, it wasn't pretty.

Despite my swampy self, it was an awesome work out. She and I even discussed setting up a more organized routine throughout the week for our weight work. Instead of doing 30 minutes of random machines, we are going to do a separate body part each day. So, for example, Monday would abs, Wednesday arms, etc etc. We think that we have a good base right now but that isolating will help so much more.

I was planning on doing an 11 mile run tomorrow morning, but I realized I have to work at 11am. And standing on my feet for 5 hours after doing that long of a run is not my idea of fun. So, I've decided to push my run to Tuesday (the one day next week when I don't have to work). Granted, I will be in rehearsals for my show (which opens next Friday!!!) but I will have plenty more recovery time between Tuesday morning and Tuesday evening. 

Also, I figured I would give everyone a little chuckle and show y'all my costume for the show. It's called Nunsense, and it's a musical (about nuns... go figure). It's hysterical and I'm so honored to be working with such an amazing cast. I can't believe it's almost time to open the show! It's crazy! And believe me, it's going to be hot dancing around in these costumes:

I am the second from the left (holding the maracas).

Are you laughing? I know I am. Me as a nun?! Priceless!

This is what has been keeping me uber busy the past few weeks- trying to memorize lines and lyrics, practice blocking and dance routines, and learn harmonies and solo numbers. See? I wasn't lying before when I said I had been consumed by rehearsals haha I now have photos to prove it! 

One last note: please don't forget to DONATE to my fundraiser for the National Stroke Association HERE! Remember,  every $1 you donate gets you an entry into my awesome give away!!