And....I'm back.

So I was really starting to feel guilty beacause I quit the gym back in the middle of July.  Honestly, I was so annoyed with the other people that went in the morning that they would seriously ruin my morning.  Not to mention some guy was hitting on me every morning and I'd finally had enough. I packed up my mental 'luggage' and left that place.  In place of my work outs, I started hula hooping.  I got pretty good too. It's a really fun hobby to pick up and Youtube is an awesome place to see tutorials on tricks and what not.  I also decided to cut back on red meat (hamburger mainly) and diet pop.  I never believed the myth about drinking diet pop until I actually cut back on it.  I have a friend that works at the gym, so I got a hold of her and asked her about rejoining the gym.  It'd been about 2 months and I was starting to feel really bad about my lack of exercise.  I was worried that I was packing on all these pounds again and whenever I ate something fattening or 'carby' I'd be sitting there imagining the fat just placing itself back into the places it had dissapeared from. She told me that I wouldn't have to pay another enrollment fee since I had just recently quit, so I jumped on it. I was back in there the next day, pedaling away on the stationary bike.  I decided that weighing myself needed to happen because I was anxious to see how much weight I gained or didn't gain since I'd quit the gym. Much to my disbelief, I'd actually LOST 12 pounds in that two months. I guess the mix of hula hooping, no hamburger and diet pop actually did work.  So that now puts me up at a grand total of 35 pounds lost. (Pat on the back). I'm making it a point to work harder at the gym. Over this past weekend, I rode 10 miles on the bike, and over the past few days, I've run a total of 3 miles. Psh, 3 miles, I know, but for a person who despises running at much as I do, that's quite the accomplishment to me.

Aside from the 'no hamburger/no diet pop' policy, I've been trying to train myself to portion control.  Let me break down the Weightwatchers diet for you:

Portion control - Take smaller bites and eat less of something. If you have a giant steak, only eat until you are full and take the rest home for later.  That's why they always say that you don't have to deprive yourself of eating foods you love. You can still eat them, just STOP eating when you feel full.  Something I try to do when we go out now is if I want to get something on the menu (pizza - because I love pizza), I get a dinner salad before hand, or a cup of soup (a vegetable, broth based soup, creamy soups do not work for this idea because they are loaded with fat and sodium). By the time you get your actual dinner (or the pizza in my case) you are somewhat full, and won't devour the entirety of the entree (25 peices of pizza). If you like cheeseburgers as much as I did (remember, I'm cutting back on eating hamburger meat), cut the cheeseburger in half before starting to eat and set it aside. I bet by the time you eat that half, you're full. Then you don't feel as guilty about eating it, and you have some for later.

Dietary fiber - Dietary fiber absorbs water as it passes through the digestive system. In other words, this helps you poop.  Start checking labels, the more dietary fiber that is in food, the better it is. It's easily digested.

That's pretty much it. Portion control, and foods with dietary fiber. The higher the dietary fiber, the lower the point on the system.

By no means am I any kind of expert, but it's just little everyday tactics that get easier after awhile. I do things now and I don't even notice. I got a cheeseburger from McDonalds a few weeks ago for the first time in 2 months out of desperation for the taste of fast food and I actually found myself cutting it in half and saving the rest. Once I put the other half in the fridge, I felt silly. I feel silly even typing it. I also found a new love for fish. Once I got a taste of a good slab of grilled salmon, it's all I want to eat. There are so many ways to experiment with chicken and fish, with different seasonings and breadings. I also switched from regular Yoplait yogurt to Greek yogurt.  Greek yogurt is always recommended by whoever, Jillian Michaels and whatever, but I tried it and I never want to go back to the Yoplait crap. They have such different textures. Greek is thick and pasty (and awesome with fruit or honey I might add), and Yopliat is runny and gloopy.  The only problem I ran into is that Greek yogurt is really expensive. I was pretty bummed about it actually. $1.50 a cup? Gawd.  So I tried Aldis one day and was extremely happy with the outcome. $.89 a cup, and taste just as good as the expensive ones. I will warn you though, you really have to have a taste for it because I tried to get all the girls at work on the Greek yogurt horse and they weren't having it. There were a lot of crushed faces in the room and a lot of wasted yogurt.

Oikos - good
Yoplait greek - shit
Dannon - good 
Aldis brand (Friendly Farms) - awesome

And that's my lesson for the day.

By the way, if you want to watch something that will really change your mind about eating fast food, watch the documentary 'Supersize me'. 



Garage Sales

Since October is near, a lot of towns are having their Oktoberfests which means garage sale season begins.  The town I work in was having it's garage sale weekend so I decided I would get up early and venture into the psychoville to find a bike I've been looking for.  The fancy neighborhood of the town is where I wanted to go because a co-worker of mine lives there.  I was hoping she would drive around with me, but she kept insisting that driving wasn't going to happen and that she refused to go despite it being in her neighborhood. I ignored her warnings. Ben wanted to go fishing that morning, and all my friends were preoccupied sleeping and what not so I had to go solo.  I got up early Saturday morning and when I arrived to the neighborhood of choice, I was shocked at what I saw.  Normally when you think of garage sales, you picture an entire town, some people walking and most just slowly scooting along in their vans or vespa scooters or whatever, pissing off everyone who got stuck behind them who isn't participating in the garage festivities.  This was different.  People were packed along either side of the road, leaving nothing but a tiny path in the middle for cars to squeeze through.  Families were piling out of their Hummers and BMW suv's, sporting fanny packs and visors, pushing strollers, walking down the middle of the path, making it nearly impossible to get through.  I was dumbfounded. I called my co-worker repeatedly in a panic because she never around her phone. When she did finally pick up I immediately questioned her on the strange event happening in her neighborhood.  She gave me the 'I told you so' speech, and I eventually ended up in her driveway.  It was definitely an advantage knowing someone in the neighborhood because there wasn't anywhere else to park.  It was basically a flea market with no parking lot. 


When I left my house that morning, it was windy, cold, foggy and on the verge of raining.  I decided that jeans and hoodie would be a good choice.  Upon arriving to Pleasantville, the sun popped through the clouds and radiated a whole lot of heat and sunshine throughout.  I figured this would be a good opportunity to get some exercise, but thereafter, was doubtful it would be very enjoyable to walk the neighborhood in skinny jeans and what not. Now sweating and irritated, I stopped at my first house.  I don't know about some woman, but me personally, I think sweating is the most annoying thing that could happen right after you get done putting make up on and doing your hair.  Granite, I had my bedhead-do up in a messy bun thing and wasn't wearing much make up, but I've been growing my hair out so I have a lot of baby hair growing in. So when I start sweating, the baby hair sweats into a curly cue and makes a perfect swirl on my shiny forehead. I ended up buying a wine holder for Ben's bomber beer bottles.  We're not big wine drinkers, but I'm trying to accomplish an Italy/Mediterranean look in my kitchen and thought it would be a nice touch.  I also bought a few decorations for kitchen 'theme', and a Hoover Wind tunnel vacuum for $15 bucks.  I was unsuccessful on the bike, but I got a vacuum so that's good.  The vacuum I have at home now is a hand-me-down from Ben's grandma. The vacuum is a 1980 Winter Olympic Electrolux vacuum.

The thing is still kicking good and strong, but it's a pain to use. It's like dragging a little kid around in a store that doesn't want to be there so they just go limp and you have to pull them around like a big wet noodle.

On the way back to my car and before I bought the vacuum, I saw what I thought was the PERFECT bike for me. It was a maroon woman's mountain bike with a water bottle holder and squishy silicone butt pads, which is unnecessary, but a perk.  Now my co-worker, Rochelle, always tells us stories about two of her neighbors. I will just say their names are Dee and Judy.  According to Rochelle, Judy was influenced by Dee and turned into a real bitch even though she used to be an nice person.  Judy lost a lot of weight, and is now 'very blessed'. Blessed about the weight loss and blessed about life.  Once again, this may just be me, but I get extremely irritated when people describe their lives as 'blessed'.  It's one thing to be 'blessed' if you are a religious person and stick solely with your religious views or if you are a cancer survivor, but people who drink a lot, eat a lot of fast food and smoke cigarettes bother me when they describe their life as 'blessed'.  Anyway, when I walked up to Judy to ask her about the bike, she was munching viciously on a stick of celery. I asked her what she wanted for the bike and she told me it wasn't for sale. Turns out, it was Dee's bike. Dee had ridden the bike over to visit her bff Judy and had so conveniently parked the bike amongst the garage sale items.  At this point, Judy, Dee, and their husbands were all questioning me about what kind of bike I wanted. How old did I want the bike to be? What color bike did I want? Etc.  Feeling completely stupid now, I just kept saying, "Thank you" and slowly trying to back away, but I felt like they were keeping me there to entertain their garage circus.  Finally Dee says, "What about those people across the street? They are selling bikes."  to which I replied, "Those are men's bikes, I don't really want a men's bike".  The reason I do not want a men's bike, is because generally, men are taller then woman.  I am 5' 4", and I have short legs. I am not going to buy a men's bike that I have to struggle to climb onto. I had already looked at those bikes, they were pretty tall as far as 'climbing up onto'.  I guess my response must've offended her because she looked taken aback. "What's wrong with a men's bike? I ride a men's bike. I've been riding a men's bike for years!"  At this point, I'd have enough, told her I would 'keep it in mind' and stomped off through the grass to Rochelle's house to get my car.  People are unbelievable. Who cares if I don't want a men's bike?  Why did my preferences about bikes offend her? If I have something in my mind that I want, I'm not going to get something else because some celery munching, visor wearing weirdos thinks I should. 

So overall the day was success and I only spent a little under $30 bucks.  I could have spent about $300 on all the decor I found, but luckily I ran out of cash in my wallet and had to call it quits.  That is why I do not keep a lot of cash on me on all times, it makes it way easier to spend. One thing I did learn though is that I am going back next year and I am definitely bringing someone with me.

Hula Hooping

Hello friends. I realize I've been gone for quite a long time, but I've been extremely busy.  Once we got back from Florida I was pretty much bombarded with work at the office.

I realized that my blog is going nowhere fast, and I want to give it a kick start. My blog was originally intended to keep me on track of my weightloss journey by blogging about it everyday. That was obviously short lived.  I kept up on my word though as far as my personal goals. I guess I decided that instead of busting ass and practically killing myself, that I was going to do it my way.  It occured to me one day while going over the Weightwatchers diet, that all it is, is portion control and eating a lot of dietary fiber and proteins.  I joined the gym, was there about 2 years, and then hated it. All the old people would congregrate in there in the morning and gossip (loudly--usually yelling across the entire gym to each other), and then some guy started hitting on me every morning and I'd finally had enough.  The gym was split into two parts, one being cardio and one being weights. I would be allllll the way over on the bike, and he would be alllll the way over on the bench press, and he would come allllll the way over to where I was biking and turn the fan on above me that was on a timer. That fan is obviously not going to be cooling you off, so why are you coming all the way over here to turn it on???? Then he would awkwardly start asking me about my life...where I went to school, why I wasn't there yesterday, etc...I probably could have told this dumb ass that I was married and he'd say, "Oh, cool...so when are we going to hang out?" Vultures I tell ya. Not to mention I'm sweaty and in my gross gym clothes, so....I don't get it.

I ended up quitting the gym and taking up hula hooping.  You can hula hoop for hours, break a nice sweat, and it's so much more fun then going to the gym. This is just my opinion of course, but I personally hate the gym.  I find it to be repetivtive and boring, whereas hulahooping, is only $20-30 bucks for a decent homemade hoop and you can pretty much do it anywhere.  I made my own hoop firstly, which required a trip to Menards, 1" plumbing tubing, 1" pvc tube connector, a few rolls of duct tape and colored electrical tape and ta-da! My hoop. 

When I made the hoop, I did not follow the key point in which you are supposed to put a hair dryer on the the openings to widen it and put the connector in. Instead, I just got a smaller connector and duct taped it together so after a little bit, the hoop eventually stretched out into a tear drop shape, so every once in awhile I have to cut the tape off and retape it. After a month or so, I ended up buying another one off my friend who makes them, so I have both of them now. The purple hoop is weighted because of the particular piping I used, so it's better to exercise with. My red and black hoop is bigger, lighter, and ideal for doing tricks with.  I will eventually be posting a video on here as soon as I can muster up the courage.  I feel a little weird knowing that my face will be on youtube, so I'm biding my time, but I'm picking it up quick and I LOVE it. I would suggest it to anyone who wants to switch up their exercise routine.