PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE LET THE SCALE AT THE HILTON IN COLUMBIA BE RIGHT.

Yesterday was Monday. Weigh day. But you'll see to the right column there's not a weight there. I was scared. Yup. Scared to get on the scale. Nervous about what I would find. A weekend with friends in town followed by an Oscar Party...wasn't feeling too confident. But I carried on. Got a good workout in yesterday while in Columbia and then again this morning at the hotel. And then, after my workout-- in shoes and everything I got on the scale at the hotel.

202. You've got to be kidding me. 6 lbs? With shoes? Too good to be true. But seriously folks...can a scale really be 8lbs off? I'm hoping NOT. I promise to weigh on my official scale next week. ALSO....I found Beyonce in Columbia last night during our Fit For Flight adventure. Boom. Beyonce.

Moving sucks balls.

I hate moving. But honestly, you wouldn't think that if you knew me because I move all the time. Seriously since 2010 I've moved 4 times with a few temporary's in there too. That's a a lot of packing, un-packing, situating, arranging, hanging, un-hanging, organizing, taping, securing, measuring, shimmying, you get the point. But you know what moving is? A work out. That's right...I've gotten more fuel (Nike Fuel, that is) in the past few days than ever before and that's because I've made myself do a "cardio move". Every trip to my car in the garage in my old building...I ran (to and from). Every trip up my stairs in my new house...I run. I lift everything over my head like I'm pressing weights...it's actually been a great workout.

Another thing I hate...going through my closet. But there has been some good news. I have 2 new pairs of jeans that fit me again. Well, they are actually jeans I bought online this year that SHOULD have fit...but didn't and NOW THEY DO! I still have plenty of clothes that don't fit but back in November I was down to 1 pair of jeans that fit...now a whole pile. On the right are the jeans that fit. On the left...still some room to go.

Dedication

There are some people with crazy amounts of dedication in terms of their weight loss goals. I have a friend Susan that can turn weight loss on and off like a champ. She'll eat 500 calories in a day. Exercise 2 hours a day...shit like that. Not me. I'm not that girl. Part of it because I know I would never be able to or WANT to sustain that type of lifestyle. But part of it has to do with the type of life I want RIGHT NOW. I was worried that I would gain weight this week even though I worked out with my trainer twice and was very active-- good thing I didn't. Reason I thought I might is that I had some indulges this week.
Monday: Good food day.
Tuesday: Good food day until dinner at the Local Three with business partners. AMAZING food. Nice wine. Great meal. BUT....I didn't binge...I ordered 3 small plates, shared all of them, and didn't finish any of them. I was able to taste everything I wanted to but made sure that I never ate past full. Until dessert and we ordered one of everything. I still didn't eat too much-- just a bite here and there but when we left my stomach was pretty mad at me.
Wednesday: The aforementioned bagel day (good dinner though)
Thursday: I had 3 pieces of small valentines candy, some dessert with dinner, some white bread with dinner (Cioppino).
Friday: Good food day minus the mac & cheese for dinner (you can't win em all)
Saturday: Good. Drank half a beer. Had Mexican dinner with Janet but didn't over indulge.
Sunday: Good.
I lost half a pound. Decent.
I need to do better to only have 1 or 2 day's that involve alcohol and/or food situations that aren't conducive to weight loss.

Core Fusion Barre Class

I believe that I have taken my last Core Fusion Barre Class and I'm not sad about it one bit. About a year and a half ago I was introduced to Exhale Spa...an amazing gym concept that had a signature class...Barre. My friend and health mentor Veronica suggested I join this gym in New York and start taking the class...I did it and somewhat enjoyed the class. I really liked that it was super close to my office in NYC.
When I moved to Atlanta I continued my membership at Exhale as the gym is close to work and my office and it's gorgeous. The best part about the gym in Atlanta are the great people, the variety of classes and the spa amenities. But today in class I hated every minute. I almost pulled a "Roy Milner" and left class early. I had ZERO fun.
Don't get me wrong...I'm all for a tough workout but there's something about the pace, the fact that it starts with planking (which I hate) and ends with abs (which I hate) that it makes sense that I hate the class. And I've decided that this year I want to have FUN while I workout. So I'm going to force myself to take at least 2 dance classes this week and get a hike in as well. I've got to mix up my workouts and enjoy them!

Bagels, saggy jeans and morning workouts

Random thoughts are just running through my head this morning. First, the bad. 

I ate bagels yesterday. I think in total throughout the day, I had 1.5 bagels. I enjoyed cream cheese on the bagels. I felt horrible about this but I fucking love bagels and we had a meeting and there was this whole big basket of Einstein bagels and I couldn't help myself. It was like I was possessed. 

The jeans that I put on this morning are a little saggy in the butt!! I'm through the moon about this. They are my comfortable fitting jeans but now they are comfortable and LOOSE! Hell yes. Don't judge me for wearing a sweatshirt to work. 

Mornings are usually tough for me. Once I wake up I typically have pretty good energy--- it's the waking up thing that I have the hard time with. Today I planned a 7:30 AM workout with my trainer and I FEEL AMAZING afterwards. Tons of energy, great mood and also very focused. I've got to start working on in the morning and then doing something fun after work (hike, dance class, project around the house). 

Keep it movin

I got up this morning and got on the scale and the good news is that I didn't gain any weight. The bad news? I only lost .6 of a pound. I think a few weeks ago I would have been upset with that but I'm happy to be moving in the right direction.
This afternoon I made my way to the gym for a Core Sport class and folks...that shit is hard. Lots of jump backs, planking, push ups, twisting and generally pain. Tomorrow I'll work out with my trainer and I'm planning on taking Wednesday off because my stupid wrist is still in lots of pain from the Cali workouts.
But the best news of all? On Saturday, I fit into some jeans that I couldn't fit into a few months ago...and you know what? They looked good! Go Me!

Groceries

I've always known what I "should" be eating to lose weight and be at my healthiest but it was awesome to get a reminder when we were out in Cali. It can be tough for me to grocery shop since I'm typically never home for more than a few days in a row but I have a 2 week stretch in ATL coming up so I took myself to Whole Foods this weekend. The majority of purchases were veggies with some protein, grains, and dairy added in (no cheese). You should have vegetables with every meal...and not just any veggies-- green leafy vegetables (lettuce is not included). So for breakfast this morning I had scrambled eggs with garlic and herbs, half of an Ezekial muffin and some asparagus? Yes....Asparagus for breakfast. Why not? Dinner tonight was a little unbalanced as it consisted of brussel sprouts and peanut butter but sometimes you just got to make it work. I'll weigh in tomorrow morning and I'm a little nervous considering I didn't work out today and I drank too much last night....we shall see.

Emotions.

The oddest thing happened yesterday when I was working out with my trainer. I started crying. I'm not sure exactly why this keeps happening but it does. The more I thought about it I realized that this entire process is the first time in my life that I've dedicated myself wholeheartedly to something that is very challenging. I'll be honest, I've skated through life being pretty good at stuff. School was never a problem, I excelled at sports and the ones I didn't I didn't play, I always figured out how to have the best friends a girl could ask for, jobs seems to appear and I've tended to excel at most of them. Sounds pretty awesome right? Well...this whole, get your ass in shape and lose a lot of weight journey...this shit is hard. It's physically very challenging for both muscular and cardiovascular reasons. It's emotionally very challenging because I'm not the best at it-- in fact, I'm often the slowest or the least skilled. I've gotten through life knowing my strengths, playing to them and not focusing on things that I didn't do well....unfortunately that's not an option here.
When I was talking to Brandy (my awesome trainer) yesterday I told her my goal isn't to be able to do everything THE BEST...rather, my goal is to accept what I can do and be proud of that and I'm not quite there yet. I'm constantly judging myself and getting down on myself for what I struggle to do rather than being proud of what I struggle THROUGH and get DONE. Perhaps I should see a sports therapist or someone who can help me through my workouts.
Bottom line...this journey is just that, a journey. But certainly one that I'm dedicated to and know that I will be better for it in the end.

My neck, my back...you get the point

My wrist hurts. I didn't know it was possible for a wrist to hurt like this unless you broke it. My back also hurts along with my shoulders, butt, quads, abs, and calfs. Oh yeah, and my fingers hurt too. But...I'm alive and kicking fuckers!

Yesterday was a day for the ages-- a day that was very well documented in pictures and video so I'm sure at some point you'll all see for yourself exactly how, um...amazing... yesterday was. I'll give you a brief run down.
7:00 AM Light breakfast
7:30 Run to the beach house (1 mile- on the sand...and I'm not talking east coast packed down hard sand...I'm talking sink 6 inches every time you put your foot down sand)

7:50 Warm up with my new favorite person-- Britta. Turns out even warms ups can keep me sweating
8:00 Yoga with Beth (really enjoyed this yoga class)
9:00 Real Breakfast accompanied by some work with a nutritionist and then a quick trip to grocery store to shop for dinner
10:30ish SERGIO. This dude is the real fucking deal. Basically we each had a space on this blacktop of sorts and we had to do a bunch of different sets of painful shit and in between each set run about 200 yards in the aforementioned sand. We had to do the entire thing 10 times. So let's get this straight real quick. 15 push ups of different varieties...run. 30 squats of different varieties...run. 60 ab situations of different varieties...run. 10 Burpees...run. (THAT'S 1). Let's just say each trainer was given 60 minutes or so and we stopped at minute 30 so he could finish our workout doing something else. No one completed 10. I got through 3.5. I puked in my mouth. I cussed Sergio under my breath. I might have cried a little. I definitely cried a little. I don't ever want to hang out with Sergio again. I'm sure he's a great dude...different strokes for different folks.
Noonish: Lunch.
1:00 ish: 2013 Planning
2:00 ish: Back to the energy draining sand with my main man Andrew. This was a circuit workout that involved shoveling sand, crunches, TRX work, throwing an 8 pound ball over a volleyball net and catching it, ladder work...1.5 minute sets and then switch for 2 rounds. I loved this...I can do anything for 1.5 minutes.
2:30 ish: Core workout with Linda...Linda ain't no joke either but luckily my time spent at Core Fusion had me prepared for this one...now, don't get me wrong-- it was hard as shit...but it wasn't out of my comfort zone and I enjoyed the class.

3:30 ish: DONE WITH WORKOUTS! Next we got to meet with Britta about our goals, we got interviewed for the website, we got a freaking massage, and we got to go in the Fat Tank...which was actually really cool. Because I was actively WORKING MY ASS OFF I wasn't able to take pictures during the day but not to worry...we were documented by plenty of people.
6:00 ish: Cook amazing dinner
9:30 ish: ASLEEP

Now we're talking

This is just unbelievably cool. Yesterday I arrived in LA to meet my fellow Poster Children and get this retreat started. Everyone is very different with different fitness levels but needless to say they are all what seems to be super fit. Lots of talk of tough mudders and 100 mile races and snowboarding and electrocution and the what not. I'm not gonna lie...I got a little scared. We were held up in HQ yesterday for a few hours so some of us took advantage of having a gym on the premise (talk about a new way to think of ON PREMISE) and got in a quick cardio session. 

Then we all jumped on a limo/shuttle type of thing and headed to Oxnard. We were greeted with a healthy dinner prepared by our HR team which was great. 

WAIT, WAIT WAIT....Before dinner when we checked into our hotel we got these AWESOME bags filled with amazing tools. Shirts, ropes, videos, towels, a hoodie (and you all know how much I LOVE HOODIES) and of course Red Bull to keep us fueled up. 

But today is the day...the day where boys become men and I become, well, hopefully I just stay alive. My spirits are high and confidence is at a decent to better than decent level. BTW...I totes ran almost a mile yesterday. I'll report later...wish me luck. 

Fuel bits.

I'm all sorts of technology empowered as my Nike FuelBand arrived today. Now I have a FitBit and FuelBand...not to mention my amazing scale. My fuel band will be free if I take 1,000,000 steps in 90 days...this averages to 11,111 steps per day which is absolutely do-able if I'm active every day...what it won't allow for are days where I don't work out. Like today...today I'm sick and miserable and have taken very few steps. But tomorrow I just KNOW I'm going to feel better. I'm not going to push myself in the morning as I have to be at the airport by 7:30 to make my flight and my doctor really wants me to rest and drink tons of liquids. But my journey to LA starts tomorrow for my Poster Child training/boot camp of sorts. I have no doubt this will be one of the hardest challenges physically since I was playing soccer at a very competitive level but I'm mentally and physically ready to give it my everything. Go me.

Sick and tired

This week has truly wrecked me. Or perhaps it's been the last month considering I've been on the road every single week. You can only run for so long before your body tells you to stop, and turns out my body is screaming at me. Sore throat, some sort of gross drip down my throat, ears that can't hear and a headache. I'm scared to take my temperature. Tomorrow I'm going straight to my doctor to get some med's so I can be 100% for my trip to LA on Tuesday for Poster Child kick-off!

I spent Friday and Saturday on App Ski Mountain getting ready and executing a snowboard/free ski jib contest and it turns out that humping up and down a mountain is hard fucking work. I got cardio in every day of my trip which I'm pretty pumped about and am hoping that it will help me this week when in Cali. I'm going to weigh in tomorrow since today I was in Boone this morning. Over the last 5 days on the road I've also eaten relatively well--lots of salads, veggie burgers and only 1 indulge meal (breakfast on Friday).