Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Losses and Gains

I've gone back and forth about whether I wanted to write about this. It's more comfortable to keep things superficial, to write about TV shows and treats and good times. But what's the point of a blog if you can't share your deepest insecurities with all of your friends (and probably some strangers)? So I'm going to go there.

I'm fat. The short version of my story is that I've been fat since middle school, to varying degrees. Every few years, I would get motivated and either diet or start working out on the regular, and some weight would drop off. But I've never been able to maintain a healthy weight for my size (per BMI standards).

I wanted to be OK with being a big girl. I am who I am, and I should embrace it, right? But I felt awkward being bigger than all of my girlfriends and embarrassed when I couldn't shop at "normal" (i.e., not plus-size) clothing stores. But more than that, I wanted to be athletic. I literally fantasized about going for a run around my neighborhood (and not dying afterward) or taking a hike with friends on the weekend.

December 2010
So, in 2011, I joined a gym. But after dropping 25 pounds initially, the weight loss stalled. And then reversed itself completely, after I started a new job that included a long commute and lots of stress. I kept working out, and even upped my intensity, but I couldn't figure out why I wasn't making progress. It finally occurred to me that  I would never be truly healthy or lose weight with any permanence unless I changed my diet.

I went vegan in 2008, so I wasn't eating a lot of fast food or things you would typically consider "junk," but I'm a carboholic. I love bread, pasta, candy, cake  really anything baked or sugary, and I'm in. All in. I can polish off a box of Oreos in 24 hours, no problem. But – although delicious – it didn't make me feel good.


In May, I started meeting with a nutritionist/trainer and realized the effects of what I was putting in my mouth. I worked toward cutting out processed foods and simple carbs and focused on vegetables and protein (which included Greek yogurt and cottage cheese, so no more veganism for me. Still don't eat meat, though). Slowly, the weight started coming off. Seeing results motivated me to continue my healthy habits.

Nearly six months later, I'm down 38 pounds, and that feels great. But the number on the scale has become less important to me. I'm focusing less on losing, and more on what I've gained. There are so many things I can do now I could never do before  planks, chin-ups (maybe just chin-up, singular, at this point), burpees, etc. I feel capable and powerful, and that only makes me want to be more capable and powerful. And I actually look forward to working out! I'm excited to get up and go to Turbo Kick every Saturday morning, and I schedule other plans around my set workouts.

October 2013

I've really tried to look at this as a lifestyle change and not a diet (cliche, I know), because it's not something I'm going to be done with when I reach a certain size or weight. I finally understand that I have to keep eating well and working out for the rest of my life to feel my best. But it's still a struggle sometimes. I love to bake, and while I know I can't eat a cake every weekend like I used to, it's been difficult to give that hobby up completely. But now I make a treat, pre-portion out a few servings, and give the rest away. Or, if we go out for pizza, I'll have 1-2 slices and eat a salad on the side. It's not about being perfect, it's about making better choices. So I try to keep it to a few "splurge meals" each week.

Another part of this has been accepting myself for who I am. My penchant for treats may mean I'll never be a thin person, but I can still be strong and fit whilst indulging in the occasional cookie. I can embrace my thunder thighs, because I worked hard to build those muscles. I can get excited about how much I can bench press or the fact I can almost do a pistol squat without assistance. So that's what I'm gonna do. It's not always fun, but I have a feeling it's worth it. :)

Side note: I'm not trying to fat-shame anyone in any way. Everyone is different, and I know there are myriad reasons why people are heavy, and I'm not trying to fault anyone for it. I'm happier when I'm healthier (and at my heaviest I was certainly not physically nor emotionally healthy), so that's what I'm working toward. And if you're in the same boat (or were, or want to be), I'd love to hear from you! I'm always down to share stories, workout ideas, recipes, etc.




Monday, October 28, 2013

Birthday wrap-up

Clockwise, from top right: T. Bob hanging out at the playground on our walk; My painted pumpkin; Enjoying his birthday ice cream at Benihana; Demon guarding the gate at The Frightmare Compound.








This weekend was my husband's birthday (for purposes of this blog, he will henceforth be known as T. Bob). Since it's five days before Halloween, and he loves Halloween, celebrating typically involves a fair amount of holiday activities. On Friday night, we had dinner at Bao with friends and then went to see Bad Grandpa. It was funny, but there were a little too many poop-related jokes for my taste (which I should've expected from a Jackass movie, but oh well). However, I highly recommend the AMC Theatres at Flatiron Crossing;  they recently upgraded to all-recliner seating, and you choose your seat when you buy your ticket, so it's convenient and cozy, two of my favorite things.

On Saturday, we had lunch with family at Benihana. They sang a birthday song in Japanese, which was highly entertaining. After lunch, we enjoyed some birthday cake, which I have dubbed the Fail Cake. T. Bob loves carrot cake and I've used this recipe before with great success, but this year it just did not work out for me. I set out to make a two-layer, nine-inch round cake. I greased and floured my pans and baked as usual, but when I tried to remove the cake from the pan, it would not budge. Like, at all. One of the rounds ended up ripping in half after I shook it a little too vigorously. But no worries, I just decided I would leave them in the pans and we would have two separate, smaller cakes.

Then it was time to decorate. Now, I am not a great cake decorator by any means, but I have taken the first series of Wilton decorating classes, and I have some basic skills under my belt. But I threw caution to the wind and decided to freehand a dinosaur onto this cake. Ordinarily, I would've made a piping-gel transfer and then covered it with frosting, but I got overconfident (and also lazy) and thought I could do it all on my own. It turns out I could not:

The Fail Cake. There aren't even children around to bla – uh, take credit for this.

So I added another element of fail to the Fail Cake. On the plus side, it was still very tasty, and T. Bob ended up smashing it together with ice cream and extra frosting, so I don't think he was too upset about it. 

That afternoon, we decided to get started on the Halloween portion of the festivities, so we bought pumpkins and some hard cider and headed home. As I am extremely accident-prone and also lazy, we opted to forgo carving this year and painted them instead. Way less labor intensive.

My spiderweb pumpkin with T. Bob's Joker.

We rounded out the evening with a walk through the trees to check out all the fall colors (including a pit stop at the playground), a trip to the Frightmare Compound, and Sleepy Hollow (the movie, not the TV show, though I've heard good things about the latter). We're headed to Vegas on Wednesday, so I'm sure we'll do some more celebrating there  because all birthdays deserve to be celebrated for at least a week. :) What fun Halloween (Halloween-y?) activities have you all been up to?

Friday, October 25, 2013

My First High Five

I love the "High Five for Friday" posts that Lauren at Lauren Elizabeth does every week. I think it's a nice way to show appreciation for things going on in your life, even if they're just small things. And it gives you a glimpse into other people's lives, which is fun (if you're nosy like I am). So here's my High Five for this week:


1. I have found my dream car (part of a classic car collection I saw on Saturday night). I primarily like it because of its color. I know nothing about the "technical" aspects of it. Except it's called a VW Thing, which is another reason I like it.

2. Coffee is a part of my life again! I switched to green tea for two weeks, which I thought would be easy, as I only drink one cup of coffee per day, but dang. I need that one cup.


3. It's the husband's birthday weekend! His actual birthday is tomorrow, but celebrations begin today. I'm sure I will describe them in graphic detail at some point next week.

4. The weather. And fall. It has been so freakin' nice here for the past few days.


5. These shoes  I keep them in the box (not sure why), then forget I have them for long periods of time. Then I rediscover them and fall in love all over again. And they match my dream car. I might be obsessed with this color.

Hope y'all have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Things I Used to Love: The OC

I've always had a soft spot for soapy teen dramas. Maybe it's because my own teen years were a little, uh, mellow (i.e., I was a major nerd who rarely did anything she thought might get her in trouble) and so I like to see what life on the other side was like. Or maybe I just have terrible taste in TV shows  if it's on the CW or ABC Family, I've probably seen it and might be obsessed with it.

Back in my college years, one such obsession was The OC. Bad boy Ryan Atwood moves in with the affluent Cohen family in Newport, CA, and WORLDS COLLIDE. He becomes best buds with Seth, the Cohens' son, and falls for Marissa Cooper, the debutante next door. All while wearing a tank top and leather choker (swoon-worthy at the time, but that look doesn't really hold up 10 years later). Over the course of four seasons, all sorts of hijinks ensued (including but not limited to fistfights, embezzlement, affairs, murder, and the Jewish/Christian winter holiday celebration known as Chrismakkuh).

Unrealistic plot points aside, the show was pretty great. I loved the dynamic between Sandy and Kirsten Cohen, the Chrismakkuh episodes, the witty banter, and random pop-culture references. And they were one of the first shows to do the whole "Tonight's episode featured songs by ..." music tie-in, which is pretty cool.  But my favorite part of the show was Seth. He may very well be the original hipster, and I loved him for it. He was a curly-haired, longboard-riding, comic-book reading nerd who hated living in the Newport bubble. I was all about his kind of geek-cute.




I'd been wanting to do a rewatch for a while, but sadly it is not available to stream on Netflix and I'm way too cheap to pay $2 an episode to watch it on Amazon via instant video. Fortunately, the universe smiled upon me and I found the first season on DVD for $10 at 2nd and Charles (such a cool shop – you should check it out if there's one near you) a few weeks ago. And now I am 10 episodes into teen-drama heaven. If you care to check it out, Amazon has the complete series for $55 (only 57 cents an episode!) or you can (randomly) watch season 3 on The WB's site. Be warned, if you do, you are going to get the theme song in your head. FOREVER. But it might be worth it.


Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Feeling fall


Y'all, it is seriously beautiful out (side note: yes, I say y'all, and no, I'm not Southern). I love summer, so it always takes me a while to appreciate fall (and the corresponding drop in temperature). But we've had several days of sunshine, and the leaves are all of the colors, and I'm embracing it. I've been chowing down on honeycrisp apples, which are my favorite and available in abundance this time of year. And dreaming about these cookies, which seem like quintessential fall treats. So, get thee to a pumpkin patch! Or at least to Starbucks for a pumpkin spice latte. :)

Monday, October 21, 2013

Chocolate + Caramel = Awesome


Better Than Sex Chex Mix
I saw this Better Than Sex Chex Mix on Pinterest a few weeks ago, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It kinda seemed like my perfect treat: chocolate, caramel, and a sprinkling of sea salt? Three of my favorite things. Also, cereal and marshmallows AND candy? So many layers of awesome. So it had to be made.

The recipe can be found here; I modified slightly to use mini Rolos instead of mini peanut butter cups and skipped the white chocolate drizzle, since I forgot to buy white chocolate chips (oops).

The title of of this post may be stating the obvious, but this stuff is seriously good. I found myself snacking on the caramel-coated cereal as it cooled, and that was delightful just on its own:

Caramel-coated cereal. Not much to look at, but it sure tastes good.
Adding the caramel drizzle.

The finished product. 

I'll leave it up to you to decide if this is indeed better than sex, but I can say it's pretty dang tasty. And fairly addictive – I may have preemptively split my husband's share into a separate container to avoid eating the whole pan myself. Next time (and you can be sure, there will be a next time) I might add small pretzels, just to change up the salty/sweet ratio a bit. But there's really nothing to complain about here as-is.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

TBT: Things I Used to Love

I'm a little obsessed with Throwback Thursday posts on Instagram and Twitter. I love seeing photos of people from before I knew them (or celebrities, before they were famous), or remembering that time in my life, if I knew the person then. It's just fun, ya know?

So I wanted to tweak that concept a little bit and apply it to my blog. Since I blog (or plan to blog, at this point) about things I love, I thought Throwback Thursdays would be a good way to talk about things I used to love, back in the day. Which is not to say I no longer love these things, but maybe I've outgrown them, or they're not really around anymore, etc. So my love for them has mellowed, let's say.

I thought I'd go way back for this first post, to the early/mid '90s. Every Sunday, I'd stake out a place in the living room around 11:45 in preparation for my favorite show: Ghostwriter. No, not Ghost Rider, the comic book/stellar Nicholas Cage movie, but GhostWRITER. This show was about a ghost who helped a group of teens solve mysteries/crimes by re-arranging letters on signs, sheets of paper, etc. to give them clues. And I LIVED for the show (nerd alert!). Check out the amazing opening credits and tell me it doesn't look awesome:


Good stuff, right there. Sadly, it was pulled from the schedule in my pre-teen years, and I was devastated (nerd alert, again!). It was the first in a long list of brilliant but cancelled TV shows I would go on to watch.  But thanks to the glory of YouTube, I can revisit this masterpiece whenever I so choose. And now, so can you! You can thank me later.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

... And I'm back in the game

So, I decided to hop back on the ol' blogging bandwagon because I've missed writing. I used to write all the time. I have about a dozen comp notebooks I filled during my high school years, before I started blogging at LiveJournal in the early '00s. But in the past few years, my writing has fallen by the wayside. And I want writing to be a part of my life! I love writing! And as I hurtle toward my 30s, I'd like some way to document the goings-on of my life while I'm still young enough to remember them. :) So here I am, blogging again.

I've spent the past few months debating what to blog about  baking, pop culture, veganism, etc. I thought I should stick to one theme to make it more appealing to readers. But I ultimately decided that I'm just going to blog about life. I enjoy a lot of different things, and it seemed silly to limit myself to one thing (and challenging, in terms of generating content on a regular basis. As much as I'd love to bake every day, it just doesn't happen). 

So, yes. Expect a little of this and a little of that, as I feel this blogging thing out. And please excuse any awkward phrases, my grammar and usage skills are a little rusty, but I'm hoping they'll come back with regular use. If we're not already acquainted, you can learn a little about who I am/what I'll be blogging about in the About section. And away we go!