Falling off the wagon.

Well. It's safe to say this week I've fallen off the wagon. I got in some kind of funk over the weekend and I'm still not out of it. I went to the gym once this week. And when I did go to the gym, it took me OVER AN HOUR to get there. My schedule this week was 8am-430pm, which is prime rush-hour traffic time. I have a 30 minute commute as it is. So the traffic leaving work made it absolutely ridiculous. I know, I know....excuses. But who wants to sit in extra traffic to go to the gym? It's just annoying.

I also went out to dinner/to a baseball game/out to lunch multiple times. It's what happens when you're dating. But I had one too many cheat days and far too few workout days. Effffff.

HOWEVER........remember how I couldn't make it up that damn mountain last week??? Well guess whaaaaaat....I did it yesterday!!!!! Hoolllllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaa. And it was actually a date. Which made it more fun. It also made it more nerve-wracking because I really, really didn't want to look like an unfit drama queen in front of this guy. But, I didn't drink a ton of wine the night before, we went before it got sweltering hot, and we took gatorade. It wasn't easy, but we only stopped a few times to get the gatorade out of the backpack and take a few sips and keep going.

The view from the top of Iron Mountain was pretty great:

Total distance was 6 miles. I was proud of myself. So even though I've fallen off the wagon this week, I still managed to squeeze in a wonderful Non-Scale Victory!!!

I know, I know, a few days late. Sue me.                   :) 

Anyway, this week was also the start of kickball!!!!!!! I haven't written about this at all and I'm not sure why, but about a month ago I signed up for a govavi kickball team with some friends. One friend of mine played last year and loved it and has been bugging me to sign up with her. Well, when I finally got a new job that allows me to have a social life (what a strange concept), I signed up, and got two other girlfriends to sign up too. Basically, you join a team based on location and the night of the week you want to play--or you can join a specific team with friends--and each week you play against some other team. The games are 'sponsored' by a local bar, and after the game you go to that bar and enjoy a couple free pitchers together and have fun. It's all silly. But keep in mind I've never, ever, ever been athletic in my life. I have zero hand-eye coordination (or foot-eye) and I have a giant fear of getting smacked in the face with a ball. As in dodgeball. Kickball entails a little dodgeball element so I was pretty worried overall about looking like an idiot and getting hit in the face with a ball. 

To give you an idea, this is me (courtesy of WhatShouldWeCallMe)

PLAYING SPORTS

Some people:

Me:

Well, I did manage to make myself look like an idiot (in a cute, endearing way according to my team.....) but I didn't get hit by a ball. Win for me!! 

We lost the game, but still had fun. 

I highly suggest if you live in the San Diego area and like playing any random sport and meeting new people, sign up for a govavi league. You can play anything from kickball to beach volleyball to flag football, and they also have clubs, like running and hiking. 

Alright, now it's time to get my ass out of bed, make breakfast, and go to the gym. This is a new week. And I WILL be going to the beginner cycle class on Wednesday at my gym. 

Happy Sunday everyone!

I am my own worst enemy.

Happy Saturday!!! And what a happy one it is indeeeeeed. 

OK, to be honest, this week has been a little rough. I won't go into any juicy details, I'm just having a hard time with some personal things. But I still LOVE my job and my puppy and my friends and that's all that's really important. 

But today is a new day. And to kick off this glorious weekend (it's seriously gorgeous here in San Diego this weekend) I went on a hike with one of my best friends. She's always had athletic ability and hikes pretty often, so I was already intimidated to be going with her, but I was the only one who screwed myself over. See....we all know by now that I'm a wino. Well last night I had too much wine to not follow up with a buttload of water--especially considering I was planning on waking up early and going for a hike. Instead, I went straight to bed, and didn't even have my first sip of water until we started the 6 mile hike (3 miles up, 3 miles down). Bad idea. Oh, I also didn't eat any breakfast. Because I woke up, got dressed, took a picture (see below) and left. Baaaad ideaaaaaa. We were about a mile from the top of the mountain and I felt like I was going to faint. My first thought was, this can't seriously be happening. I'm in MUCH better shape than I was the last time I went on a hike and I knew I could make it up without much of a problem. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was about to pass out, seeing stars, the whole 9 yards. My friend semi-scolded me for not drinking any water or eating breakfast and it was pretty obvious the problem was that I was dehydrated, not unfit to finish the hike. I finished my bottle and half of my friend's, but we logically decided to head back down because it was already at least 80 degrees and only getting hotter. 

I'm bummed and disappointed in myself.  I feel like I sabotaged this goal in a way. Dunno why, but that's what I feel. I mean it was an accomplishment to make it a 4 mile hike and it was a gorgeous trail up Iron Mountain, but I wish I hadn't have prepared the way I did. Or didn't haha. Anyhoo, next time I know to do it differently. Here's what I wore: 

You can take the girl outta the country but you can't take the country outta the girl. Realtree visor, orange top, and realtree otterbox on my iphone. And of course I just love cheetah too much. Anyway, here's the start of the trail we hiked: 

Pretty amazing, right? Unfortunately that's about the only shade you get the rest of the way lol, and I was too busy trying not to faint to take any more pictures. But there will be a next time, and I will take pictures. 

And just because it's funny, let me tell you about last night. Two girlfriends and I had a relaxed night just hanging out, drinking wine, and chatting. My one friend who's house we were at literally could open a boutique out of her bedroom. She has rows of necklaces, then more rows of bracelets, then more rows of hanging earrings, a bowl of stud earrings, a row of sunglasses, a stash of hats--ranging from fedora to big and floppy--scarves, purses, it's INSANITY. After about 3 glasses of wine my other friend and I couldn't help ourselves and decided to play dressup. When in Rome, right? 

Here's our finished products: 

We could have played dressup all night. Literally. And my other friend actually bought a pair of her sunglasses for 2 dollars hahaha. It was a good time. 

Anyway, follow me on instagram and you would have seen the collage of our looks, and my amazing ThirtyOne bag that finally came today!!!!

I. Am. Ob. Sessed. 

I can't WAIT for it to just be freaking summertime so I can fill that baby with booze, snacks, magazines, and tanning lotion and head to the beach--or to a country concert tailgate :) Ahhhh sooooo closseeeeee. 

Alright, that's all for now. At least I now have completed my goals of going on a hike and taking a class at my gym. Baby steps. 

Have a lovely weekend lovelies!

Weekly check-in and goals (a day late...)

Well. I'm posting this a day late buttttttt oh wellllllll. Sue meeeeee.

Anyway, my goals last week were:

-Go to the gym at least 4 days out of the week

-Take a class at my gym

-Go on a hike

-Track food on myfitnesspal 4 days of the week

I didn't do so hot. But it wasn't entirely my fault...ok about half. I couldn't go to a class or on the hike because of the work schedule I was given after I had made the plans. I have a new job, people, I can't say no! So see, 2 out of the 4 were out of my control. The other two, however....................

I DID track on myfitnesspal 4 days out of the week. It's actually starting to become a nice reminder for me. And still, it blows my mind that it's basically the same exact system as weight watchers online, yet it has every food I've tracked so far already in it. Maybe I would have stuck with WW if it had that and I didn't have to sit and figure everything out I was eating?

Anyway. I went to the gym 2 days last week, had a very glutenous weekend, and then last night I went for a run because it was too late to go to the gym. So I did ok. Not great. But that's ok.

So my goals for THIS week are.....

#1: Go to a class at my gym. I've got a date with a girlfriend for a beginner's cycle class tomorrow at 6pm. God help us.

#2: Go on a hike. I have the whole weekend off (hoollllllllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaa) and I'm hoping one of my hiker-friends can go with me. Not to be a total downer but bad stuff tends to happen to single women around these parts who go on hikes/runs alone. Chelsea King, anyone? Yeah. I'm not going on a hike by myself.

#3: Track my food 5 days out of the week.

#4: Make it to 180 by Tuesday. That's 2 pounds away. Gotta pull out all the stops haha.

I also got the shirts I ordered off ebay this morning. They actually fit pretty great and, let's just say you can't tell if my high-beams are on or not, so that's always a good thing. I'll post a picture tomorrow since I'll be wearing one to the gym for the cycle class.

I hope everyone else did better on their goals than I did! But that's why we continue to set them, right? Anyway, at least Jess did awesome.

In other news, today was my first day on the phones at work! Basically they let me loose haha. It was terrifying, but I'm slowly getting used to it. I have tomorrow off so I'm sure Thursday will be a little rocky at first but I know it will get easier and easier. I'm loving my new job!!!


Alright, time for bed. Night night, world!

Thursday ramblings and goal updates

Happy Thirsty Thursday, y'all! If only I was actually celebrating a 'thirsty' Thursday... I digress. Again, today was on the unhealthy side at work. People bring my office sweet treats for some reason. And I have ZERO self control. Like, not an ounce of it in my body. That's how I got in this little weight predicament to begin with! Ahhh. So I might have had a cookie. Well really it was a peanut butter and jelly cookie sandwich. Yeah. YOU say no to that. And then a chocolate peanut butter ball.

And maybe one more at the end of the night.

But other than that I ate well...

And I went to the gym after work. I did 30 minutes on the elliptical you can add an incline to, and cranked the incline and the resistance up so I felt like I was actually doing something (read: my aversion to ellipticals and stationary bikes). Then I did some of Mama Laughlin's Arm Workouts (love these) and some leg presses. And then I tanned.

It's almost summertime, people! And I gotta look better than I did last year in a bathing suit. God, help me.

So the new plan is to take a 10 minute break at work every two hours and just get up and walk down the hallways we're allowed to walk down (joys of working in a 5-star hotel), then on my lunch, I will either make my own or hurry down to the cafeteria and make a sandwich, and go out and walk around outside. I do work at one of Southern California's most iconic beach hotels, after all.

Hopefully this helps me not feel like such a fat fattie after I get off work.

Also, I took dorky pictures of myself this morning to show off one of my new work outfits:

That top has buttons down the back if you can tell...sorry for the bad lighting. I live in a tin box so there's not much as far as decent lighting for picture-taking is concerned. Anyway, the top and ankle pants are from New Yrok & Co, my favorite store for buying work clothes. BTW, I'm in a Large/12 hellllll yeaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!! And the shoes are from Aerosoles. Sometimes they do have some redeeming cute shoes. 

And I'm loving being a blondie again. 

Now let's talk about those goals I set on Monday. 

I'm actually surprising myself at how great I'm doing! Unfortunately I do work on Saturday so my planned Saturday hike with some girlfriends has to be postponed. And I work too early to be able to attend the morning cycle class at my gym on Saturday. BUT I have next Wednesday off and there's a beginner's cycle class at my gym at 6PM, so that goal will be completed at least once next week! The hike will have to be put on hold temporarily. I'm doing a prettttty good job tracking my food on MyFitnessPal--and I'm loving how many more options it has loaded into it than Weight Watchers did. Yeah it might not be exact when I'm making a sandwich and I select 'turkey sandwich on wheat with mayo' in the app, but it's close enough. 

I guess that's all for now. 

Happy weekend everyone!

My new fitness obsession

I found my new favorite thing to do at the gym (and least-favorite)....the CIRCUIT ROOM! I didn't want to be a total creep and take a picture of it, and this is the best I could find on google...

The machines look similar to that, but in the center of them is a row of aerobic steps, so it's basically like that Curves gym--btw, is Curves still around even???? Anyhoo, it's 10 weight machines and you start on any one of them, do it for 1 minute, switch to a step and do some aerobic exercise for another minute, go back to the next weight machine, and so and and so forth until you've done a whole body workout in 30 minutes. It's legit. 

HOWEVER, and this is a big one, it's clearly very easy for people to 'do' the circuit workout and not actually do anything beneficial for their bodies. In the two nights I've done it I've seen multiple people basically waste 30 minutes. Mainly it seems they don't know what they're supposed to do for 'aerobic exercise.' And frankly I probably wouldn't either if I hadn't grown up watching my mom and her friends do the 90's step workouts in the living room lol. But still. And tonight there was this woman, bless her heart, who was doing 1 minute on the weight machine, then during the 30 second transition period she would do her version of an aerobic exercise and then do another minute on the next weight machine. I'm not sure if she realized she'd been doing it wrong by noticing she completed it in 15 minutes instead of 30...but is that a huge gym no-no to tell someone they're doing something completely wrong? Or is it helpful? What's the gym etiquette on that exactly? 

And speaking of gym etiquette, I almost went mean-old-lady-crazy on a couple of 12 year olds in that circuit room tonight. First of all, when I was a teenager (a TEENAGER, NOT A TWEEN) I was only allowed in the gym if my mom was there with me. So why were these kids allowed to roam freely? Anyway, they just jumped in on random machines, cutting people off, messing with the weights just to basically play, and nobody said a word. I almost lost my mind. Maybe it's because I was half-raised-in-the-south that it drives me nuts how kids act in these parts, or maybe I'm just a prude, but come on. Parents, anyone? 

OK I'll get off my soapbox. 

So far I'm doing well on my goals, but the hike isn't going to happen because of my schedule :( 

But my first day of work was WONDERFUL! I can't wait to see where this job takes me. 

Alright that's all for now. I'm hoping starting this circuit workout regularly with running in my neighborhood (because I've discovered I actually prefer it to the treadmill which forces you to keep a pace when I'd rather do my own thing) will help me reach my Operation Red Bikini goal!! Woot woot!

That's all for tonight. Farewellllll!!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Well this is my first WILW post, linking up with This Kind of Love, so here it goes:

I'm loving how amazingly goy-geee-ussss (that's gorgeous) it is outside!

Got to enjoy my Sunday with one of my best friends/sorority sisters at my favorite place on earth, Coronado. By the way, did you know an entire bottle of wine will fit inside of a 7/11 Big Gulp cup? Sure does. 

I'm also loving the fact that a few days ago I weighed myself to find out I'm 3 pounds away from hitting the 20-pound mark!! Helllll yes!!!!!!!! So, just for shits and gigs, I tried on this pair of coral straight-legged jeans I got from J Crew Factory back in September. They're a 32, and when I bought them they were a tiiiight squeeeeze. But I couldn't pass up a pair of coral jeans, so I bought them anyway, even though they were uncomfortable and I had to wear a loose top. Well, ladies and gents, even though I am still wearing a loose top, they fit WONDERFULLY yesterday!!! 

Jeans from J Crew Factory, Top for NY & Co,
shoes Ralph Lauren from DSW

I even had some extra room so when I went on a date with the friend-boy to Gingham (if you live in San Diego, head out to La Mesa and check it out) I could enjoy a cheeseburger and not have to unbutton them! 

BTW I'm also loving that I rocked a butt-part. I just felt uber confident last night. And today at the beach. I like this feeling.

Lastly, for the first time in months I went to Miguel's today. If you're near a Miguel's, it's hard to resist just swinging by for some QUESO!! I love me some Miguel's queso. And beer. And maybe some fish tacos. 

We might have asked for 3 bowls of it for the 2 of us. Judge me. 

Anyhoo, that's all for me on this lovely Wednesday! What are you loving today, non-existent readers???