Day 95, Nathaly: Then & Now

So, it's been 5 days and I still don't exactly know what to say... I've kind of be avoiding this post because -- what can I share that is of any use of any of you out there??  This whole journey has been so personal and in-my-head that I struggle with crafting a "final" post.  I'm honestly still processing and feel I've probably learned just as much in this last week post-PCP or so as I did the first 5 days of the program. Sooooooo.....

Before and after pictures is what you're after, right? lol That's a simple measure of progress. This first set you'll likely be familiar with from our PCP Flickr stream:

Day 1 ...................................................................................................... & Day 90

In the 90 days of the Peak Condition Project, I:

• Lost 10 kilos (22 lbs)!!
• Lost 9 cms off my waistline, 8 cms off my thigh, and 2.5 cms off my bicep (I started measuring on Day 22, actually -- so these numbers only reflect 68 days of fat loss)
• Returned to a bra-line width of 34 inches
• Went down 2 full pant sizes (from a 12 to an 8 -- and maybe 3 if you consider that I really should've been rocking 14s but refused to accept it)

But these numbers are meaningless, really..  So much of the benefits I've derived from these last 90 days has been in terms of increased self-confidence, self-appreciation, and a slowly increasing sense of the value of self-care (still working on that last one!). In the 90 days of the Peak Condition project, I:

• Began to feel sexy again (enough to recently return a small collection of thongs Ramiro has probably completely forgotten about back to my undies dresser from a box at the bottom of the closet)
• Realized how little of me I dedicated to me in the past
• Learned I actually enjoy jumping rope -- I think I've been getting lots of those happy-chemicals to the brain b/c of it!
• Collected a small toolkit of easy-to-make, delicious, balanced and good-for-you meals (if you've got more, send them my way!)

And this next set of pictures, offers a slightly longer historical timeline. "Then" was October of 2009, when I decided I'd had enough of my chubbiness and decided to once again attempt to take control of my weight & body image issues..  I did this by eating smaller portions (of whatever I wanted), taking the dog on longer walks, and going to university fitness classes 1 or 2 times a week.  A couple months later, I realized this approach wasn't terribly productive and I decided to up the ante -- I started counting calories and publishing my weight on Facebook once a week as a status update. I learned that the community accountability piece was something I really benefited from and started to lose about .5 lbs per week on average, but did some definite yo-yo'ing and lots of stress eating (2nd year of grad school...) and was still feeling frustrated. 

By the time Ramiro mentioned this cool thing one of his co-worker's was doing (have you all met Mr. Will Awesome?), I was again ready to take another small step forward, but the hubster seemed to think I was better off taking a leap instead and urged me to consider doing the PCP. And, frankly, he was RIGHT.  (So nice to have that sort of vote of confidence from my better half). Doing it as a couple was by far my the biggest source of strength for getting through this all, and well -- here're the pics to prove it was a good move!

Then............................................... & Now
(I tried to re-create the shot as best I could, but I can't find that sweater anywhere.. )

There's so much more to say (about setting good priorities and truly living healthily), but I think I'll try to capture that in another post.. Maybe the words to express my heartfelt appreciation for Patrick and Team Fantastic-Carrots-who-eat-LAGs-for-breakfast will come to me sometime soon.  Keep posted, if you wish.  And thank you, thank you, thank you for believing in us!

Heart hugs,

Nathaly

Well, and just for fun -- a Halloween family shot!

A bumble bee, Marge Simpson & Bat-dog

Day 78, Nathaly: Indulgence 3, Free Clothes, Commitments

Hi folks,

More than Ramiro does, I really count on indulgences. So, before he read the email describing our 3rd and final indulgence, I knew it was coming and had decided I was gonna be the bigger person and declare that I didn't deserved it (given my recent slacking from the 350 Global Work Party stuff).  Surprisingly, Ramiro was also considering not taking an indulgence, that is until I read the email from Patrick and realized this was a full blowout meal and convinced him and myself against our prior thoughts.  So I figured -- fuck it!  Bring on the cheese & chocolate!! (which I've been missing big-time) and it didn't help that it was raining out, the fridge was empty of all protein sources and junk is never more than a phone call away soooo...

We ordered a pizza! There are no pictures of it b/c the snarfage was all-encompassing. I made the phone call around 8pm (after much debate weighing going to the store or ordering out while figuring out how to acquire a post-indulgence/PCP-compliant protein source for the following day's lunch) and we quickly noticed that the time of day would make working out after dinner ridiculous, so we got to banging out the workout only to be rudely interrupted by an early pizza delivery kid making it so that the pie sat there on the coffee table smelling of absolute deliciousness all through those fucking planks. URGH.

And here's the verdict:  honestly, not that great..  Certainly not amazing enough to be worth HALF of my daily caloric intake.  I mean, WTF?!  Don't get me wrong, it was lovely and made by a locally-owned company that uses VT flour to make organic whole wheat crust with yummy sauce and a good balance of toppings to cheese. Frankly, it was a pretty good pizza, but somehow.. it didn't do it for me.  It felt almost like an indulgence wasted because I had made it out to be so much more than it was. After the meal, I shared the thought with Ramiro and he thinks it's a matter of associating pizza with the greater satisfaction that comes with the pizza ordering phenomenon -- that quick burst of joy that comes from the ease of getting a warm, cheesy meal delivered right to your doorstep and then pushing the couches together for the ultimate in non-bedroom comfort and then cuddling up next to the hubster to watch a fun movie on the tube on a rainy weekend evening with little Tigger curled up at our feet. aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.

Dude, was he right!!  I was COUNTING on that pizza to be all those things for me when, in fact, all it is is..  well, only a pizza. lol  Hence, my issue with emotional eating and why Indulgence 3 was once again a lesson in my struggle to treat food like what it should be: nourishment!

OK -- that took a little longer to write than I was hoping, so on to item 2 of the title! Free clothes!! Here in crunchy/green VT there is a lovely thing called the Front Porch Forum -- it is truly made of awesome.  It's a free neighborhood-based daily email ranging from offers for canning jars to reports of missing pets and debates on downtown-sidewalk-sitting. Oops -- sidetracking again. Anyways there was a free clothes event called "Attire for Hire" (which I learned about on the Front Porch Forum) hosted by an organization whose mission it is to help people get ready for the professional world.  I scored a bunch of stuff! A couple pant suits, lots of button-down blouses & professional jackets, some skirts and even a leather jacket.  I mean seriously -- two boxes of clothes for FREE!!  OK -- i'm still reeling in joy, but that is also beside the point. lol.  Here's what I want to talk to y'all about: I've been having some issues with my current PCP status (á la recent posts by Kim).  I'm closer to where I want to be, but I'm still not really feeling great about my body image and the act of trying on a bunch of clothes in front of a mirror really brought that home for me. As it turns out, I'm only really a fan of the today-me that exists in the mirror for about a half-second at a time (while taking a top off over my head).  At that moment, when my arms are reaching up and stretching my tummy fat across a temporarily longer torso, I feel a little sexy.  So, here's the disappointing part: I started this program b/c I wanted to a) lose weight, b) deal with my stress eating (see above) and c) develop some life-long-fitness habits.  And yet, what keeps me going is the way I look in the mirror??  I mean, I'm really not a vain person, but how superficial is that?!

Which brings me to the commitments aspect of this post.  I decided yesterday that it would be a waste of my time and energy up to this point to NOT keep going with the program until I got to the point I want to be at.  And that point isn't some pie-in-the-sky super model ideal (my goal person is Ugly Betty, for heaven's sake!).  So then I stopped to think about what the ultimate me-look really is and realized that my actual goal person is me at 17, except with my current boob size & my adult woman fuller hips. And to take it a step further, it was me that summer in that two-piece halter top..  Wow -- do I sound sad to you? Cuz I'm depressing myself with my cliché-ness.

Anyways, there it is.  It's not a great reason to want to continue the PCP, but as long as it keeps me on this good thing, I'm going with it and will have to deal with the psychology of all this at some later time.  lol

Thanks again for listening!

heart hugs,

Nathaly

Day 59, Nathaly: Confessions

We're pretty sure Ramiro's got a sinus infection -- horrible headaches and stuffed nose for about 2 days.  And yet it's 11:09p.m. and he's in the other room doing triceps dips and I'm skipping for the day.  

There you have it.  Fucking Tuesdays. 

Good updates on the climate organizing front, though:  website actually pretty up-to-date!  check out 350burlington.org for more info. :)  This is an initiative of yours truly, 4 other volunteer organizers & and slew of fellow organizations hosts.  Amazing what you can put together in a couple months & a lot of emails.  We've got one senator & one congressional rep lined up to talk at the evening rally and have been selected as one of the top 10 primary "Global Work Party" actions for the US.  

Oh, that reminds me -- another confession:  I had half a crepe with scallion cream cheese in it for breakfast. 

So, i'm f*cking up much more than I'd like, but I've also lost 15 lbs in 2 months, so I think the problem is two-fold:

a) I'm feeling a little too good with where I'm at. I know it's pretty anti-PCP to say this, but to be perfectly honest, I never intended to reach any kind of  "peak" -- i'm feeling like where i'm at is maybe good enough for my lazy ass, frankly.  Now that I recognize how hard it is to look like Patrick, I've decided I guess I don't care that much..  well, the truth is that I knew that all along, though -- I signed up for this to lose weight and develop some healthy eating & exercising habits.  Haven't I done enough?!  Now, don't worry folks -- I'm not quitting on ya, but I'm certainly making a clear statement of where my normal set of rationalizations have taken me today.  Wow -- hope no newbies are reading..  lol

b) I'm really missing my favorite foods. I can deal with the exercises OK as long as I've started them before dinner.  Exercising after dinner and/or after a long day (like my Tuesdays always seem to be) is practically unbearable.  I think today is the 4th day I've skipped the workout on the PCP.  Well, except for the jumps -- I think I've only missed two days of that..  I don't really get much out of pumping iron (or rubber with handles, for that matter) in my kitchen with the hubster.  It's fun sometimes, but I'd much rather be playing volleyball or taking a dance class or learning capoiera.  Why am I not doing THAT?  I know why -- I never made the time.  And I usually made too much time for eating junk.  

UGH -- so, is it possible to separate these two pieces?  Learning how to put Naty's health & mental wellness has been the theme of 2010, it seems.  I'm fucking 28 years old!  Shouldn't I have learned these habits earlier?!?  No one in my family exercises regularly and we eat rice & beans like it's our job -- friggin portions that are completely out-of-control, but perfectly "normal" by Dominican standards. 

La Bandera Dominicana, (a phrase which literally means the Dominican flag, but is commonly used to describe our most typical meal). As described in popular merengue lyrics: "arroz, habichuelas y carne -- tambien espaguetti y concón". "Rice, beans & meat -- also spaghetti & concón"(that hard almost-burnt rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the pan..)  We love this shit!  Oh, and PS:  this is a typical serving for lunch for the average woman.  Dudes would def have 2nds. 

OK -- so i'm fighting an uphill battle here on most accounts:

• family history of obesity & diabetes -- as well as no exercising and little veggie consumption
• bad habits all my life, which really reared it's ugly head during college, when I started to choose all the wrong foods at the dorms & got into my late-night pizza habits
• I tend to under-emphasize the importance of self-care -- I really throw myself at the organizing stuff and place its importance over valuable me-stuff like (like the PCP) & even family time (poor Ramiro often bears the brunt of that..)

So, there it is.. What goes through my head every day & why I'm sticking it through with the PCP at least until I figure it all out..

Day 57, Fantastic carrot knows no fear...Pain on the other hand...

Day 57 -- My, how time flies. Today's workout was a both a tremendous success and failure. Before I started this program my eating schedule was really up in the air, like everything else. I ate when I was very hungry, and eating was a far second priority to being entertained. I've mentioned my A.D.Dness in past posts; my mind pretty much needs constant input in order for me to maintain sanity. Boredom is painful. I'm at my worst when i'm bored for any length of time. Anyway, this causes my meal time schedule to fluctuate. As the program has progressed my managing of food has improved, but today my mind got the better of me.

I woke up around 11 and had breakfast around 12 something. Naty came home and wanted to eat out so lunch was down the gullet at 2:30pm (way too soon after breakfast and morning snack). As soon as I snarfed down the p.c.p compliant salmon sandwich I knew it was going to sit there all day. Dinner came sometime later, but the damage had already been done.

When exercise came around I had to summon the intestinal fortitude of my forefathers to mentally dictate "I will do lunges and frog jumps now" (frog jumps is what I call them, I always make believe I'm handcuffed). Lunges were a bear -- nothing new there.We had to do frog jumps in the backyard as to not disturb our downstairs neighbors. Mind you, it's 10:15 at night and we're in our backyard in sweat pants under a flood light. It's come to this. In the last post attention was brought to the rest periods in between the sets -- with that fresh in our minds, we endeavored to complete the frog jumps with the correct break times in the charts. I had one of those awesome moments when that little voice in your head is telling you in a semi-panicked, but sincere voice "pretty sure you can't do this chief, we sent the order to the quadriceps and they agree. We will hit you with the pain if you don't cease and desist immediately." That was on set 3, by set 4 my body was trembling pretty hard core. I had to reach in deep and play every grunting exercise movie montage I could muster (ALL the Rockys...and G.I.Jane... just being honest).

Set 5 was an out of body experience. It was kinda like my carrot plank vision. I knew I was jumping, I knew I was counting the jumps, but I don't know how my body was following through with the order. It just was.

The limits we set on ourselves can be re-set. That's what I learned today. I finished all the sets with the right rep count in record time. Going back up the stairs to our apartment was arduous. We limped and swayed like two drunkards. The feeling of personal accomplishment was great and was a bit of a perspective-changer. It's funny how some of the biggest wars we wage are all quietly fought in our heads. Naty was four feet away and  could not have had a clue I was going through such an intense experience. I'm actually surprised I'm voicing my thoughts to this extent. Hope it helps any.

After the high of finishing the leg exercises faded some, my stomach was again center stage. I got through a bit more than half the shoulder exercises before I had to stop or risk immediate expulsion of dinner. There's the failure bit -- if I had woken earlier and spaced out my meals correctly, today would have been an all-around smashing success. Not the case. Workout Day 57 incomplete. That sucks, man. I'll get it right.

ROCKY MONTAGE!!

Day 51, Together: Indulgence!

So, I (Nathaly) had a little hiccup of frustration planning out her indulgence, but the final product came out just fine and was VERY enjoyable!  As you can see in Day 49's post, I had definitely been craving deep-fried cheesy goodness.  I got most of what i was looking for in the following:

Bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers! (50 cal each). 

• Cut jalapeño pepper in half, scoop out veins & seeds.  
• Fill with 1 tbsp of fat free cream cheese
• Wrap with 1/2 a strip of uncooked bacon.  
• Seal shut with a toothpick (I was out, so I ended up having poppers that popped open during cooking) 
• Broil on high for 10 minutes (turn once, halfway if your oven is like mine and likes to cook the back half of the tray more than the front). 
• Oh!  And be sure to lay the little suckers down on a small rack on TOP of the baking tray so the bacon drippings don't get all over the poppers -- that can be a little nasty! 
• I made 24 (to finish off the 12-pc package of bacon and not be tempted with it in my freezer) and invited some friends over. :)

I was VERY surprised they could be made for 50 cals each (45 actually), and chowed down on 5 which only added up to 250 calories -- UNDER HALF of my allotted indulgence!! :-D (talk about good times!). So I walked my butt over to the corner store and was gearing up to buy a bottle of Long Trail Blackberry Wheat (135 cals), when I realized the store was closed for the night!  UGH.  Saddened, but really not all that upset, I decided to pop another popper (at 300 cals now) and then sat at the couch wondering what more I could eat with minimal effort (I was feeling too lazy to walk to the market at 9pm on a Sunday).

I decided I'd be OK with enjoying a serving of Ramiro's indulgence treat (only after MUCH cajoling -- he didn't wanna share even though he knew he wasn't allowed to down it all, lol):

sickly deliciousness (300 cal per 1/2 cup).

Surprisingly, this STILL left me under the 700 cal maximum, so I think all in all it was a pretty good day!!  I was planning on meeting a friend at a bar yesterday so there was a small chance I would've ordered a Blackberry Wheat just cuz, but he rescheduled and anyways, that would've felt a little too far on the cheating side of the spectrum (to split up my indulgence over two days). YAY for keeping indulgences positive! :)

Lesson learned:  I need a full day to think through my "need" to eat cheese fries covered in bacon bits and slathered with ranch dressing.  In the end, I usually make the right choice, but since I like to be in control, the thought of those amazingly delicious (but honestly pretty horrible dishes) being "forbidden" can get the best of me.  A simple alternative to cut back calories is to make it yourself!! Yay for home cooking!
**********************************************************************************

I (Ramiro), decided to further experiment with my ice cream addiction.  For my first indulgence, I had 400 cals of my favorite Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Chocolate Fudge Brownie. I was surprised to find it bitter-tasting and overly chocolate-y.  For this indulgence, I tried my absolute top favorite, Vanilla Swiss Almond from Häagen-Dazs -- all 700 calories. It was much creamier than I remembered and almost too sugary. It wasn't bad at all, just incredibly intense, but I could've easily made do with half the portion I served myself (2.5 servings, according to the nutritional information). The result: a bad stomach ache and a slight headache.

Lesson learned: My ice cream addiction is subsiding.

Day 49, Nathaly: Saturday musings

 I know it's Ramiro's turn to offer some PCP wisdom nuggets, but I think having the newbies join the flock has made me want to share more.  SO:

1.  I really wanna indulge.  In fact, I wanna over-indulge. A LOT. So much so, that every time I look up the calorie count for something I wanna snarf (as a snack or appetizer, mind you!!) I realize it's closer to the 1000-1500 range.. WOW -- scary, huh?  So, i'm thinking I'm gonna have to put some work into this and home make the preferred item, but that means I'd have to eliminate both pizza and french fries from the running (i'm no good at making either of these.. Sad!).  OK -- so, here's what i've been craving:  something cheesey & gooey á la nachos or loaded fried potato skins or jalapeño poppers.

Eliminated from the running:

Chili's Loaded Nachos (w/ chicken, the 8-count version: 1050 cals)

Outback Steakhouse Cheese Fries (amazingly, the nutritional menu counts one of these as 6 servings.  Each serving 355 calories. I wonder if that's including dunking them in the ranch dressing? Probably not..

Domino's hot wings. 12 piece = 1200 cals.  This time i'm sure it doesn't include the dipping sauce.

Jalapeño poppers -- My usual allotment: 6.  They come in at 150 EACH, so that add up to 900 calories!!  

WTF, man?!  Here's what i'm realizing:  a) I can't BELIEVE I used to eat this stuff REGULARLY without hesitating. b) Why do I even WANT this?  I mean, I'm a HUGE fan of the Meatrix & Food, Inc. & other such eat meat sustainably (ie, conciously and seldomly) type initiatives -- I'm making MYSELF upset just knowing that I'm craving this sh*t. And last, but not least, c) what's up with my obsession with deep-friend, cheese covered goodness?!  UGH.  Now I feel like I've learned nothing on the PCP -- SO disappointed in myself right now.  However (!!), if I eat one of the above and get really sick -- wouldn't that be a good life lesson?  On the other hand (...), if I eat one of the above and DON'T get sick -- uh...  I don't wanna even think about the consequences..  3 months of really awesome healthy living completely lost, money down the drain, back to a terribly unhealthy body image and completely emo relationship to food.

UGH.

There were other things I wanted to say, but now I'm mad at myself because of my indulgence fantasies..  I"m gonna go remember how much I love maple yogurt.

Day 48, Nathaly: Slacking with the updates DOESN'T mean we're slacking!!

Hey all,

SOOOO sorry to be slackers this week.  I actually have had several personal ah-HAH moments and I'm a loser for not sharing it with you all, but I wanna send a shout out to Kim, especially for reaching out to check in on us via email.  (Funny to think we don't really use email in Team Mango -- when did we choose that name? lol -- given how much I rely on it for my day to day communication).

OK -- so how to sum up the last 5 days?  There's been frustration and there's been moments of real, deeply-entrenched strength.  I'll try to go day by day.  The veggie post was done on Sunday night, so this is gonna be a long one.  APOLOGIES FOLKS -- we both PROMISE to be better!

MONDAY
The new form of jumps has meant re-acceptance of my abilities with the rope (I took to it naturally from the beginning).  I love love love getting thumbs up from cars driving by smiling at me jumping my little heart out in front of my house every morning.  I think my fave moment so far though, as certainly been from a little girl who was obviously impressed by also really shy and still managed to give me a double thumbs-up.  SO cute.

So, what had happened was that I was chugging along from Day 1 (50 jumps in a row) to somewhere around the end of month 1 (up to 200 in a row) and I realized that b/c it was so difficult to maintain, my breaks in btwn sets were going for too long (and therefore, I was taking too long getting jumps done).  So I went back down to sets of 100, but when the 2-min sets started, I worried I would tank. Turns out that because I also re-committed to doing jumps in the morning (based on Patrick's email about how that's when they've got the greatest fat-burning effect), they've been totally manageable.

TUESDAY
Definitely fell off the bandwagon this evening.  It was a SUPER long day starting with a morning 350 organizers mtg (I'm helping to plan a huge local day of action around climate solutions on 10/10/10 as part of the 350.org campaign's climate movement building -- if you've never heard of 350, def check it out and sign up!) and followed by a full day of work and then running up to campus for a grad school gathering and some work on my grad thesis and culminating with a two hours rehearsal with the Burlington Choral Society for our upcoming concert of the Duruflé Requeim and Britten Te Deum Festival.  LONG LONG day.  Anyways, I was perfectly PCP-compliant all day with the diet, but by the time I got home at 9:30pm, I just needed to sit (the wrong choice, I knew even as I made it..) We popped in our latest Dexter netflix arrival which was interrupted by a friend stopping by and before I knew it, it was 11pm.  I was absolutely exhausted and knew that I was just not going to make it.  Ramiro got a little pissed that night (as he had waited for me to do them with him, like I promised) but was a total champ and proceeded to do his workout even at that super late hour.

WEDNESDAY
I knew that Tuesday had been bad and made sure to get up early enough to do my jumps before work.  I had my 2nd choir day of the week (I also sing with the choir at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington), but I planned my day around it and did just fine.  It helped to have gotten a really good night of sleep in, of course. Victory for the day: a guy stopped by the office with a tray of assorted Lake Champlain Chocolates.  he offered each of us one and I grabbed my favorite flavor (dark chocolate mint) as i didn't wanna go into the i'm-on-a-diet spiel.  I set it on my things and gave it to one of the interns the following morning without too much mental struggle (felt very much like bilbo baggins asking himself in the 1st LOTR why he shouldn't keep the ring, "it's such a little thing, what harm could it do?" lol.  YAY NATHALY.

THURSDAY
A friend came in from California late Wednesday night and I was really worried about waking him up in the morning, so after getting ramiro his breakfast and a cup o' joe (those guys stayed up pretty late catching up and playing video games), I stayed in  bed til 9am (NICE) and then took Tiggs out for a nice long walk and did my jumps outside.  It was a slow morning and I realized that in order to get everything done (walk, jumps, shower, bfast) and feel comfortable getting to work without feeling rushed, I need a full two hours.  DANG.  I honestly can't imagine how you all who ALSO do the workout in the mornings handle it.  More power to ya!
That evening we decided to call the day our "saturday" (the 7th day of our PCP week which would normally be only jumps) in order to enjoy some time with the folks from out of town and some other friends. The host made a spaghetti dinner and I had some salad and a bite of carby-loveliness and did a great job of resisting the homemade chocolate cake, but the red wine and Long Trail Ales had my mouth watering..  In a small dip in my rock solid sweets resistance record, as I was helping to clean up, I decided to let Tigger have a nibble at a spoonful of cake someone left on their plate and gave my finger a lick.  WOW was that yummy.  Made seeing that half-eaten tray soo much harder to resist.  lol.  And, knowing our indulgence was around the corner, gave my mind plenty of fodder for going back and forth with questions and such..

FRIDAY (today)
I've been exhausted lately.  We were up late last night and ramiro got crazy allergies from the bunnies at our friends house, so we all slept in.  A morning without the alarm makes for a very difficult time waging the hour, however, and I was in bed until 11:34am.  Wow.  So, I made Tito some coffee and took Tigger out and was only done with jumps at 12:35pm.  Which meant breakfast and lunch kinda collided a bit.  We went to a local Jewish diner to spend a last couple hours with our friend from out of town and had to be really creative to stay within PCP.  To be honest, neither of us ate enough probably, but at least everything was within bounds, except for a couple bites I had of latke (fried potato pancakes) before giving it away. We went to the market to pick up more milk and eggs and when I got home, I did a little reading and felt that exhaustion coming in again DESPITE the frigging 10.5 hrs of sleep!  I was also a little cold, so I used that as an excuse to curl up in bed ("I'm not napping -- really!") and proceeded to sleep the afternoon away, only to get woken up by a VERY exciting message from Ramiro -- our PCP indulgence is of 500-700 calories!  WOOHOOOOOOOO  I was so excited (and thankfully ready to be up again), I flung my arms all around the air and hit the hubster in the face.  LOL.  So, obviously, not a good day, but INDULGENCE, here we come!!

OK -- last two things, i've been saving to share:
1. At some point last weekend, I think (or maybe Tuesday.. possible why i was so wiped out that night), I made the mistake of skipping BOTH my breakfast carbs and lunch carbs.  Never before would I have known how incredibly important they are to functionality.  How do those atkins ppl function?!?  I mean, honestly, I ended up having to add a slice of toast to my dinner meal that day.

2.  How could it have taken this long to learn to do push-ups effectively??  I guess, my arms have been too high this whole time.  It was only Wednesday of this week that I actually did push ups correctly and i've been feeling it ever since.  I really hope my boobs don't shrink too much!!

OOH -- last thing, i promise (SORRY for the long post!!):  YUMMERS BFAST SANDWICH IDEA:  Smear half and avocado all over your breakfast bread carb portion and layer an egg onto THAT.  LOVELY!!

OK -- DONE

Day 33, Nathaly: Scheduling

OK -- so there are some perks to being a graduate student.  For starters, I am among the lucky few who get paid to go to school (via a USDA fellowship).  How AWESOME is that?  I'm still not over how blessed I've been.  Secondly, you get to learn from and study alongside a lot of really fantastic people.  And last, but certainly not least, you set your own schedule!

So, as I transition from graduate student to "Master of Science" (hah!) and from the flexibility of summer to the schedule of the fall, i'm faced with the need to figure out how I plan to do everything I want to do.  I've struggled with over-committing myself to causes for years.  Now that i'm trying to take care of me, I need to find that balance between my work (at the moment, my full-time job is getting a job), my activism, my singing, my health and my relationships.  Usually, work, Ramiro and activism are at the center of my life and everything else just kinda hovers, but I'd like to move forward giving all the other aspects of well-rounded-happy-me some time, as well.

Things I need to remember as I move forward with that:

Lesson 1:  I can't do jumps/workouts after dinner.  My tummy just doesn't handle it well.
Lesson 2:  I need to get up earlier.
Lesson 3:  I need to plan my days, almost like I budget our income, if I actually want to do it all (and not forget the basic stuff like dishes & laundry).
Lesson 4:  I need to call home and far-away friends more often.  I forget it's actually fun times.

There's other stuff, but that's what I can come up with for now.  So, this fall I'll be starting a 30-hr/wk internship, singing with two choirs, attempting to get my project writing into a publishable state and working with a small group of organizers to put together an amazing 350.org 10/10/10 Global Work Party for Burlington, VT (if you haven't heard of 350.org, check out the website).

Anyways, being healthy through all that is a challenge I'm actually looking forward to!  If I can get through this, I'll have learned skills to actually move me through my normal life AND even stay fit -- wow.  It's a lot to ask of myself, but this is a great time for me to learn!  And, as always -- thank goodness Ramiro's around to help me figure it out. :)

PS:  we're having a bit of a heat wave up in VT.  Jumps have been sucking BIG time.  Hope y'all are keeping cool!