handcrafted life plan, the 3rd installment

Ahhh, the Las Vegas trip was just what I needed. Sun (ok, maybe too much of that). Adult beverages.  Fancy food and In N Out burger.  Relaxed vacation time with TJ. No worries about scheduling activities before naptime or bedtime. Gambling (yay!). Winning (more yay!).

BabyT had a GREAT time with my parents and remembered we were "on pacation" and seemed to be cool with that. We were really happy and energized to see her after several days.  Win-win.

Photo by angietorres on Flickr

In my Inbox today was a newsletter from the I Will Teach You to be Rich blog. In my binge consumption of personal productivity blogs, I started reading this one again and subscribed to his newsletter.  It's mostly about personal finance and increasing your wealth but has some good content on the psychology of why it's so hard to "just do it", whatever that right thing is, be it saving money, losing weight, or figuring out how to quit your day job and follow your passion.

Well, today's newsletter was about some short exercises you could do to focus on a goal for the next 12 months.  How freakin' timely! 

I decided to tackle the weight loss thing first because of all the brain space I've been using for it, when I could be using that space and computing power for something much more interesting.

I've already gotten started by following the "new" Atkins eating plan for the past 2 months, drastically reducing my carb intake (with some slip ups, but not nearly as many as I expected).  That's a post topic on its own so I won't go into details now.

The goal setting exercise, originally written by Susan Su, had a series of questions designed to be answered as specifically as possible about the vision you have for your life after achieving your goal.   Of course this visualization technique isn't new, but I liked the short question format, and the fact that the exercise was designed to last about 20 minutes so I couldn't get caught up in writing up the document perfectly or formatting, or stupid stuff like that.  Using those answers, I boiled down my goal into a concise statement that I'm supposed to post in places where I'll see it often.

So here it is.  My goal by Labor Day 2012 is this:

• Body weight of 128-136 lbs via
• Atkins/low-carb eating plan and
• At least 15 min of exercise daily

I realize I could have just stopped with the weight goal, but I've got health concerns that will be alleviated by a low-carb diet long term (huge family history of diabetes, to name one).  And I know that just 15 min of exercise will dramatically improve my energy levels and my mood so I'd like to keep that as well.  Not to mention I fail to see how I could maintain my weight without it. 

If you're interested in setting your own weight loss 12 month goal, here are the questions I used, which I revised from Susan & IWT's financially-worded ones.

In a year:

• What will I weigh?  (you could also use a different metric here, like BMI or body fat %)
• What will I look like and what will I wear?  (this is a HUGE motivator for me.  I love clothes.  be specific about sizes, styles, stores, etc.)
• How much exercise will I be doing?
• What will I be eating?
• How will I feel?
• What will my health be like?  (name specific health measurements or conditions here)
• What will my family and friends think?
• What does my Tuesday look like?  (pick a working day for this)
• What does my Saturday look like?  (pick a weekend/non-working day)

I'd love to hear about the questions that you'd add to this list.  From this exercise, you're supposed to develop a roadmap on how to get to that goal. 

My plan, a la ZenHabits, is to pick one habit to alter each month. I haven't mapped out the 12 months yet, but the first month was an easy choice for me - track my carb intake and weight each day.

I HATE tracking stuff, and this is where I go off the rails, but I've found that when I don't track, I don't pay attention.  Or I guesstimate... poorly.   The online tracker I use is pretty simple and doesn't have that much overhead.  So I've got to figure out how to remember to do this.   If I actually track as per Atkins plan requirements, I can figure out how many carbs I can eat and still lose weight.  And I'm a girl who loves those carbs, so really, it's in my best interest to keep track.

So there it is.  One easy-to-define, but hard-to-execute goal for the next year.  Wish me luck.

We love you

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. I've been feeling very stressed out and can't really pinpoint why. Work is busy, but not *that* busy. We're not traveling much, and don't have too many social commitments.

I think it's because I have a lot of things clattering around in my brain, a lot of half-finished projects and goals, and no real sense of priority among them. I'd like to learn how to sew, make a bunch more jewelry for my Etsy shop, have a perfectly-organized house, tackle the yardwork in our horrendous backyard, bathe the puppies every 3-4 weeks, catch up on the giant "to be ironed" pile in my closet, get into shape, do fun and interesting things with my husband, take the puppies to the park every day, etc.

You get the picture. The list is neverending. I'm not very good at just sitting still and BEING. I am always thinking of what I need to do and what's next. Which makes me not a lot of fun to be around, really. But not only that, it makes me sort of 'float' through life, without really focusing on what I'm currently doing. I get up, go to work, fritter away some time watching TV or surfing the Net, go to sleep and start all over again. I catch up on errands and chores on the weekend. Not the most fun existence, and it's making me stressed out all the time.

And really, I have a pretty awesome life. I should be enjoying it more.

I started reading David Allen's "Getting Things Done" last week on the bus. I already know the principles from the "Managing Action" course I took a couple of times at Microsoft, which is basically using Outlook as a tool to apply the GTD principles. Now I love a good time management system.

One of the first things you do in the GTD system is identify your projects. I realized I have a ton of projects and have never really identified what's most important to me. This post on an awesome blog called ZenHabits, really hit home for me.

So here goes. The stuff that's most important to me, in no particular order:

• TJ and the puppies
• Really, truly, getting control of my weight (yep, still at it)
  
• Staying in touch with friends and family (yes, I'm really bad at this)
• Making our house a home (my castle and all that...)
• Being crafty, and secondarily, working on my etsy shop
  

So, you might notice that my work/career is not on this list. I like my job. As a way to earn money, it's better than getting repeatedly poked in the eye. But I'm (finally) discovering that my job can't make me happy. It can definitely make me UNHAPPY but it's not bringing me great joy.

But it does bring me a way to buy shoes and pay for everything else on my list of priorities. So it's necessary, but for me, not a real priority. So for now I'm going to focus on the stuff that makes me happy. Of course, I'll still show up for work and do a good job while I'm there, but I'm going to try and keep it confined to my work day. Not a lot of extraneous email checking at home, or "getting ahead" by putting in 10 hour days. Because I'm the sort of obsessive perfectionist that'll let it totally take over. Yeah, there will still be days where I need to work late because of a customer problem, but I'm not going to voluntarily *choose* to work late. I'm going to practice being just a bit less of an overachiever, and see if that gives me more time to focus on what's really important.

So what did I do this weekend to further my new set of prioritized goals?

• Baked brownies for TJ's birthday month
• Baked pumpkin muffins for myself (not very pumpkin-y)
• Made a kickass healthy beef stew for both TJ and me (and he likes it!)
• Went to the dog park on both days
• Walked an hour with Aimee yesterday
  
• Walked 5 miles with Aimee today for our half-marathon training (yeah, baby!)
• Wrote down everything I ate today
• Finished and put away the laundry
• Ran the dishwasher twice
• Went grocery shopping with TJ
• Emailed my mom (finally!)
  

Not bad, huh? I feel a lot better about clarifying my priorities. I think it gives me a framework to cross off the stuff that isn't important. I felt more relaxed this weekend than I have in weeks. Months, maybe even.

And now, I'm just sitting on the couch, under my favorite down comforter, with two sleeping dogs curled up next to me. TJ is here too. Life is good.

I don't feel so well

So the party last night was FUN. Smaller than last year's gathering, but by the end of the night everyone was talking to each other. I worry about that a lot - inviting friends from disparate groups and wondering if people will talk to each other and have fun. Last night we had Caltech friends, TJ's old job friends, my new job friends, and my old job friends.

I was feeling the aftereffects of those 3 lemon drop martinis this morning and TJ pointed out that I'm out of practice. This is true. We do have the occasional bottle of wine, but for the most part I don't drink, even on a weekly basis. Which is fine. I think my limit is probably 2 drinks from now on - the last couple of hard liquor times have been a little rough on me.

I feel a lot better in general this afternoon but am not really motivated to do much. I had a long to-do list for the party and it wiped me out. So I am sitting on the couch, enjoying our wireless internet and my pretty MacBook, and the nice fire my husband so kindly started for me in our fireplace. A nice relaxing way to spend a Sunday, if I could only get those nagging voices to be quiet about all the things I *should* be doing right now.

Oh, and after all that obsession about the Hello Kitty sewing machine, and my reading through both the user's manual and a general book about sewing, I am actually too scared to try to thread the machine. I am working up the courage to approach it. Wish me luck.

And in other news, I signed up to walk the Seafair Half Marathon in June. A few coworkers are running in it. I'm not that brave, since I'm so out of shape, but could definitely think about walking it. The super-cool thing about this event is that I'd get to walk across the 520 bridge. On a clear day, I bet the view is stunning and I'd get to enjoy it for the whole 30 minutes or whatever it takes to get across. I'm pretty stoked about that.

I also convinced my friend Jenn to walk with me. Are any of you interested?

Interestingly enough, I swore I wouldn't walk another half marathon after the one I did in Sept 2004. But somehow that feeling wore off and I'm ready to do it again. But this time, I will be sure to train with an accurate distance measure so I don't think I'm done when I have a few miles left to go! My trusty Omron HJ-112 pedometer should help with that.

Get it while it's hot

Post 'n' run today. Things I am happy about:

1. Amazon.com's MP3 Download service. No DRM, which means I can use this music anywhere. Heck yeah, I'll pay for it, cuz I actually *for real* own the music once I've downloaded it. Yay Amazon. And they have Kix! And Poison! No Def Leppard yet, though.

2. Podfitness - download personal trainer workout audio, and their engine mixes it with playlists on iTunes. I've done 2 of the treadmill walking workouts so far, and it ROCKS. Makes me hate working out just a little bit less. For $20/month, this subscription is TOTALLY worth it. (And since I'm not paying for a gym right now, that works just fine for me.)

3. Sucessfully getting up at 6:40am to go to the dog park with Allison. EVERY DAY. (Well, on weekends we meet at 9:30am). I've never missed a day I said I'd be there. And we've only taken a handful of days off since November. Go us!

4. Spikeman is back to his usual whiny Beagle self. No more morose and sickly Spikeman. The old, happy, "give me a treat NOW" Spikeman is back! YAY.

5. I sold "A Year of Earrings" on my Etsy shop, and it was bought as a birthday gift for another friend of mine. I can't wait to get started on making the earrings - it's so much nicer to work on a specific project for someone you care about.

6. Friends. You all are awesome. For a variety of reasons, but most of all because you're honest and don't spout the party line at me. Because we can be REAL with each other. YAY!

C'mon puppies, it's time for bed.

Give me one more chance

Working full time sure is time consuming! I already miss my part-time days of leisure. Oh well, tomorrow is Friday and I can't wait for the weekend, just to have some mellow time. And a nap would be nice.

The bus commute is going well. It comes frequently enough that I haven't waited for more than 5 minutes at any time, and the trip is actually shorter than the time I walk to/from the bus stops.

I used my pedometer today to see how much I've been walking daily, and I clocked just under 12,000 steps. That included a trip to Marymoor, but I had already hit 9200 at the end of my walk to TJs building at the end of the day. So woo hoo - without much extra effort, I'm getting the amount of walking that I'm supposed to.

And I am noticeably less tired this week, and my feet feel better too. The heat + all the walking last week made them pretty uncomfortable even though I was wearing my comfiest shoes. Ah well, I guess all of my cute heels are going to have to stay home from work. Does that mean I get to buy more of those cute not really athletic sneaker-type shoes? I've got about 4 pairs of those already in red, green, black and brown. I've had my eye out for a blue pair and have yet to find one I like, though.

Well, tomorrow I'm having lunch with Meera, a girl I met at Michael's when I was in the bead section. She works somewhat near my office. That should be fun.

Hope you all are doing well, and thanks for all the good wishes about the new job!

Keep your drink, just give me the money

We did a lot of weeding today in preparation for TJ's parents' visit. (Hi Mom & Dad!) It was pretty satisfying, even though it still looks bad in our front yard. At least, it looks better. With our wacky weather here, and the fact that we pulled out all the evil ivy groundcover last summer, the weeds have pretty much taken over the front yard. Except where we paved over the lawn. Maybe we should just pour concrete over the whole thing and call it done.

I made some more jewelry this weekend. I redid the silver bracelet I bought in St. Barth's, since it was just on a thread with these sort-of adjustable knots. I strung the centerpiece on wire and added some Caribbean colored glass beads. I'm pretty pleased with it:

So I'm glad I can wear that bracelet again since it reminds me of that fabulous vacation. In fact, I'm wearing it right now. yippee!

The other necklace I made today was from some 99-cent beads I bought at Goodwill, bits of a $5 necklace from a thrift store, and other random beads I bought over the past few weeks from eBay and Artbeads.com:

Oddly enough, the inspiration for this one was the bottom of our bathmat - it's got these cool stripes in peach, hot pink, dark brown and off-white. Or maybe I should come up with a better story, like it reminds me of the sunset in Morocco. That sounds better.

I'm thinking of turning our second guest bedroom into my beading area. It's getting to be too messy to leave the stuff out on the kitchen table, and I'm always afraid one of the dogs is going to eat any beads that I drop because usually things that fall from the kitchen table are Yummy Treats.

Oh, and I walked on the treadmill for 40 minutes while watching last week's "So You Think You Can Dance". I love that show. Except for the weirdo "contemporary" dancing and all of the writhing around on the floor. And the bare feet and tight outfits. Ugh.

There was an amazing, amazing performance by Anya & ? of the Viennese waltz, to "You and Me" by Lifehouse (a guilty pleasure song for me, totally indistinguishable from any other gravelly voiced Nickelback, etc. band). It was gorgeous and graceful, and seriously *moving*. Weird. I had no idea watching a dance performance could do that for me.

Hope you all are having a nice weekend!

I cannot forget the way I feel right now

So it got to that point on my iPod Shuffle, where I was really sick of the songs on there. It was time to wipe it out and start over so that I would be pushed during my upcoming workouts. That was only one of the small things I had planned to do yesterday. But it inexplicably took all day to get this done.

Our Vista Media Center PC in the living room was totally acting up. Maybe it felt ignored since we hadn't watched any movies on it, or maybe it was cranky because it was missing some critical updates. But this is the machine that holds all of our MP3s from our ripped CDs so it needs to be running properly and working on the network.

Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't yet work with Vista, so in order to get my iPod set up, I need to do it on our office computer, which is all the way upstairs. Anyone who's been to my house knows that there are about 5 mini-flights of stairs between these two computers. So troubleshooting home network issues is not quick, though it does burn calories.

I finally figured out that the stupid Norton firewall, plus some settings in Vista were preventing our XP computer from connecting to the Vista one. At 11pm. Mind you, I started this whole process around noon. Just to be clear, I didn't work on this all day. Which was good, otherwise we'd probably have a very sad Media Center PC with a hammer in it and all of its plastic parts scattered in the living room.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I downloaded about 10 new songs from iTunes in the past couple of weeks. I've been writing down what songs I'd like to download when I hear them so that I remember what I want when I'm on iTunes at home. Here are some of my new favorites:

• "Little Wonders" - Rob Thomas
  
• "Too Little, Too Late" - JoJo
  
• "In da Club" - OutKast
  
• "Not Ready to Make Nice" - Dixie Chicks
  
• "Would You Go With Me" - random country guy

So when I got to the gym today, I fired up the ol' iPod, and had one of the best workouts I've had in ages. I went back to week 3 of the Couch to 5K program, since I haven't run consistently since March. And it was a breeze. I was actually having fun, which is something I rarely experience during exercise. So I'm hoping that by next weekend, I'll be able to start Week 4 again and pick up where I left off.

That was a great way to start the weekend. And tonight, I'm going to see Vienna Teng at the Triple Door. Twice. Woo hoo!

Ooh, and thanks Leslie for pointing out the Grey's Anatomy character quiz! It tells me I am most like Addison: "strong and independent but occasionally need a shoulder to cry on." Interesting. Hopefully that doesn't mean I would also want to be part of a crappy spinoff show. Wow, that show was bad. So if you watch GA, take the quiz and let me know who you are!

What you get is what you see

So far I am quite enjoying the Intuitive Eating. I had an apple pastry and a piece of string cheese today around 5pm which powered me through my workout. Maybe not the most nutritious choice, but I am still playing around with the idea that I really *can* eat what I want.

I finished week 3 in Couch to 5K today - yay! It definitely seemed easier, both physically and mentally. Week 4 looks interesting and challenging - a couple of segments of 5 minutes running, and 1 of 3 min for a total of 13 min running. I'll need to make sure my iPod is loaded up with good stuff to get me through 5 whole minutes of running! But I'm definitely looking forward to it.

My workouts at Sound Health with Tracy end next week (sad!). I need to come up with a good plan for getting those strength training workouts in on my own. She's providing me with a sheet that lists the exercises and muscle groups, and some different options, so I just need to find the 30min 3x a week and do it.

Well, time for bed. Gotta get up early tomorrow to attend a presentation by one of my coworkers. G'night!

I'm gonna wait till the midnight hour

Yawn. I really should just go to bed. But I need to brag about completing the first workout of Week 3 on Couch to 5K. Two segments of running for 3 min straight. Woo hoo! It doesn't sound like much but for me it was a big deal since the last 5K I did was in December 2004. Now I'm just 10% of the way there - hah!

I've been watching American Idol (for the sixth season in a row. crazy). It's been fairly underwhelming. The boys pretty much suck, and the girls are much better but all of the good ones sing R&B which is my least favorite type of music. And everyone is into the big, belting, yelling style of singing. Not a lot of subtlety there.

And speaking of subtlety, I watched the last half-hour of the show where they're looking for a new Pussycat Doll. Talk about inane. It was so bad it was hilarious. But really, no one wants to watch people puking on TV. Not even if it's supposedly hot girls puking. That doesn't make it any better.

I spent a good deal of time this evening trying to figure out how to get my SmugMug pictures to display in a slideshow on this blog. Apparently it can't be done without writing some serious code. And I'm just not up for that challenge right now. So I'll wait around and hope someone comes up with a SmugMug widget thing for Blogger.

Well, I'm one day closer to my iPod Shuffle. I'm also jealous of Kristin's new red ipod Nano. I can't wait to see it and put my grubby little hands on it when we meet in Puerto Rico at the end of the month!

These places and these faces are getting old

I guess I'm in one of those posting phases now. It seems to depend on how crappy a mood I'm in. Less crappy = more posts. I've been feeling pretty good these past several days, and feeling a lot less anxiety and stress. I think it's because of my new pseudo-plan to get into shape. Or more accurately, my plan not to have a specific plan and just pay attention to the choices I'm making.

Today was not a great day for me at work - I woke up feeling exhausted and congested, even after 9 hours of sleep (yes, I know I'm lame). So I slept a couple more hours, did a bit of work from home, then went into work after lunch. I finished my major tasks I had planned for today. This week is going to be a slow one - tomorrow we have a 3 hour (!) division meeting at a hotel. Which effectively kills productivity all afternoon.

And Wednesday is our division ski trip. I probably should have signed up in the interest of getting to know my team, getting some exercise, etc. But I just couldn't get excited about a whole day of attempting to stay upright on skis with a group of people I barely know. (Spouses are not invited.) It made me tired just to think about it. So I'm planning to use the day to play catch-up at work. Since it'll be quiet with everyone else gone, it's going to be a great day for that.

Tomorrow morning I'm planning to start Week 3 of Couch to 5K. I think it'll be fine - the longest running segment is 3 minutes and I feel prepared for that. I'm actually kind of excited about it, and even thought about going tonight, but it's already 10pm and if I work out this late, I'll never get to sleep. But I am thrilled to have an exercise thing that I'm actually looking forward to!

I bought some new workout pants at lucy last week, and I love them. Yes, they are horrendously expensive for gym pants but they're made of that nice fabric that wicks away sweat, they fit great and they have pockets. Which are surprisingly hard to find in workout pants. Plus having a cute new workout outfit that fits well is actually motivating me to work out. Unfortunately all of my previous cute workout clothes from the pre-wedding workout frenzy don't fit anymore. sigh.

If you're reading this, and you're a friend of mine in real life, I probably owe you email or a phone call. I've been really stressed the last couple of weeks, and was in hiding for a little while. I promise I'll catch up with you soon.

To everyone else who's just dropping by (like my fellow Couch to 5k-ers), hope this week is a good one for you!

She goes on curating your domestic museum

What I've been listening to: Vienna Teng, Dreaming Through The Noise. It's a *fantastic* album. I can even appreciate the songs I usually skip through (the more jazzy, experimental sounding ones), but there are only 2 of those, and the other ones are so good that it makes up for it.

I drove to Seattle today for the last day of my class, and it was amazingly traffic-free both ways. I think I actually got there quicker than I do on weekends! Handy tip: if you get to downtown early, park at Pacific Place - it's reasonable, compared to other parking garages and nearly empty before 9am. I paid $18 for about 6.5 hours. On weekends, or for 4 hours or less, it's much cheaper.

I said goodbye to Buddy the Espresso Dog and his coffee-making person Scott. They seem to have a sort of friendly strangers coffee club - anytime you go to his cart there are a few people sitting or standing around talking to each other about various interesting things. That's what I like about cities, or at least accessible ones like Seattle. I don't really feel threatened or afraid (like I did the few times I was in NYC) and it's got a well defined, fairly clean downtown (unlike LA). Again, another thing about Seattle that reminds me of Pittsburgh.

Which reminds me - I'm going to Pittsburgh in October for Kristine's wedding. YAY! I can't wait - I haven't been back there since Karthik and Maya's wedding 8 years ago. Thanks to Deloitte Consulting, I got us free first class tickets to Pittsburgh and a 3 night stay at a nice hotel. Consulting was the job that keeps on giving, I guess.

I did some shopping today but nothing terribly exciting. Replenished my stock of Aveda shampoo with the nice big liter sized bottles, and got a free tote bag. Since I buy so much stuff there, I joined their rewards club for $10 and got a little makeup bag of samples (I'm such a sucker). But they send me cards for free samples every month, and I got a free regular sized lotion for my birthday. I love that store.

Today I got a pair of nice jeans at J. Jill to tide me over the next few months, in a size I really prefer not to own. Quel horreur. But at least I'll have something decent to wear.

This week I finally went back to the gym for a free "bhangracize" class. It was really fun, more like a dance class than exercise and the hour went by pretty quick. I've learned my lesson signing up for series of classes (I never make it through the whole thing) but if they offer single sessions again, I'd definitely go. The class was *packed* and the music was fun. Exercise is so much better when it doesn't seem like a chore.

So where is everybody? I haven't gotten too many comments lately.

These boots were made for walkin'

Warning: very self-indulgent post ahead, read only if you're *very* bored.

If you read any weight-loss/self help literature, they all warn you that losing weight will not make you a happier person. The same things that made you unhappy will still be there, they say, and you shouldn't lose weight and expect to suddenly have a better life.

Well, I disagree. The few years that I spent in my early 20s, when I got rid of the "Freshman 15" (in reality, more like 40!) and before I wrecked all that lovely progress by taking a job that required me to travel 100% with a fat expense account, were some of the best I've ever had. This was also partly due to being crazy in love with the dude who is now my husband, but there was something else there too.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm very content with my current life and really do give thanks for all the good things that have happened to me. I have a baseline level of well-being that I've *never* had before and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

But the gray cloud came back this year, the same one that hung over my latter years of college and a little bit of grad school. Kind of a rumbling, low-level discontent. I went to one of the free "mental health" counselors in college, and gave up after one session when he attributed the mood to boyfriend issues. Plus, I had so much freakin' work to do, I couldn't waste time yammering with him. I knew he didn't have it right, but I wasn't really sure what "it" was either.

Sometime over this past week, I finally figured out what "it" was. It was what Oprah (annoyingly) calls a "lightbulb" moment, but for me it was just a "well, duh!" moment. It *is* the extra weight making me feel like this, and the fact that I'm not really doing anything to get rid of it. And it's one of those self-propagating things. I feel bleh, so I don't want to go to the gym. I feel bleh, so I didn't go to the grocery and now I have to pick up some crappy fast food for dinner. And of course, weeks and months of that, and here I am, weighing almost as much as I did when I graduated from Caltech. And with a metabolism that's 10 years older.

Like I said before, I don't want to be "trying to lose weight" forever. In reality, I'll always have to watch what I eat, thanks to my hatred of exercise and love of anything deep-fried. I start out full of enthusiasm on a diet/exercise plan, but lose interest when it gets tedious. (Which doesn't take long!) So I guess I need to try something a little different, and really "get" that I need a slow lifestyle change, not a total overhaul with an unsustainable program. (Hard to do that with all those makeover reality shows that emphasize huge results in very short times.)

So I'm starting with what worked for me before, something *very* simple. When I was 23, I lost nearly 40 lbs in about a year. And it wasn't horribly tedious. I just got into a routine, and *did* it. Every morning I walked for at least 40 minutes on the Burke-Gilman trail, which was luckily, right behind our house. I had great music, and just bundled up when it got cold or rainy. It was a non-negotiable thing, even if I woke up late. After a couple of weeks, I'd walk for an hour, or just try to walk farther than the last time. And a month or two later, I realized I didn't hate exercise as much, and even went to the gym to lift weights or do cardio there a few times a week. Eventually, I started running. And liked it. But it was all very gradual, and I hardly noticed I was working so much harder than when I started.

And eating right just followed. I didn't obsess about the Weight Watchers plan, and had days where I didn't track things, but I still made progress. I really thought about what I was eating, and just avoided eating the junk. That was what *totally* worked for me.

In contrast, the hardcore diet and exercise plan I got from Le Pro Club before the wedding *did not* work for me. It just made me angry and resentful. Yes, it worked, when I followed it, but most weeks, I just couldn't do it, and it made me want to eat things *precisely* because I wasn't "allowed" to have them. The workouts seemed like punishment and I just wasn't enjoying the process. (Though fitting into a size 10 wedding dress was nice!) As you might imagine, all of that weight came back, and more, the year after the wedding. (But at last we had great wedding pictures!)

Now, approaching my 31st birthday (holy crap that seems old! what happened to 19?) I'd like to do this, not for some event, or round-number birthday, but just to be done with "the process". My closet situation is dire and I refuse to buy the next pants size. So I started slow. I'm going to commit to at least 35 minutes of walking every day this week, not counting walking to work, which will just be a bonus. So far I'm 2 for 2 :). No drastic changes to my eating habits, except a conscious effort not to eat total crap that I could easily live without (for example: bacon, alcohol, dessert, mayonnaise). That's doable and doesn't make me want to crawl back into bed.

Spike was my walking buddy today. I found a new leash that reduces the stress on my arm, and (I think) makes him pull on it less. (We never did train him how to walk nicely on-leash.) Never mind the fact that the leash is called "Cujo" - it's *amazing*. I think the bungee cord in it is too tight for him to pull very hard, so he almost walks like a normal, well-behaved dog now. Woo hoo.

Thanks to everyone for bearing with me. I think I might be on to something this time.

Where are we going, so far away?

I started a blog for work-related stuff (see link at right). I can't figure out what to write there. I've been in my job for about 3 weeks now, so I don't really know enough to tell the world about anything. Oddly, that blog has made it to Google, while this one still doesn't come up when I search for it.

I'm really hungry. But I've eaten my calorie allotment for the day, and thanks to being sick, haven't really exercised much in the past few days either. So chowing down on mango tofu snax or whatever else is in the fridge is probably not a good option for me at 11pm. But I'm also not tired enough to go to sleep either.

A family friend sent us an Amazon.com gift certificate for the wedding so I just bought us a George Foreman grill (woo hoo) and The Princess Bride on DVD. I'm betting that the grill will help me keep my protein intake up after I'm no longer under the watchful eye of Sarah the dietician. And I had The Princess Bride on video, but since we haven't yet unpacked the VCR since moving to Seattle in November 2002, I think it's just time to move to the 21st century and get it on DVD.

I watched "Supersize Me" yesterday. Yikes. Having talked to a lot of people who saw it, I kind of knew what to expect, but it makes a pretty powerful (if biased) statement. That's about all I needed to stop eating fast food forever. Except Kidd Valley, a local Seattle burger chain, which I think isn't as processed as McD's, etc. And In N Out, which to my great pleasure, was deemed free of fast food evilnesss in the book Fast Food Nation. I love that place. Though their "made from real potatoes" fries suck. After watching the "extra" segment on the "Supersize Me" DVD where the McD's french fries did not decompose after 10 weeks of being in an unrefrigerated glass jar, I'm pretty sure I can do without those. But good french fries are still one of my favorite foods ever. (Thanks Amma, for passing on the salty-deep-fried tooth, instead of a sweet tooth!)

I'm trying to convince myself to get up and go to 8am low-impact aerobics. They do weights on Friday and it's a pretty good workout. I feel out of place because there are not too many people under 50 years old in that class. And they all know each other and have inside jokes and stuff. Kind of weird for a group fitness class, but at least they're having fun. I've never really understood the idea of socializing at the gym. I'm smelly and wearing fairly ratty clothes, little makeup, and my hair's all over the place. Doesn't make me feel like introducing myself and making new friends, that's for sure! Plus I really don't want to spend any more time there than I have to, so let me just get my 1 hour workout in and leave. But maybe I'm just antisocial...

Speaking of antisocial, I think I'm done blogging for today. A shout out to Kristin who is spending the weekend in sunny Florida. Drink a mai tai for me!