I got my ass kicked by a black box.

Let me start at the beginning. After working out w/ a trainer for a little over a year, I know that if you really want to lose weight you need to incorporate weight training into your cardio routine. I know that cardio alone isn't going to cut it. That being said, since the first of the year, I've been trying to lose weight w/ strictly cardio. Call me stubborn, I just love trying to prove people wrong. Turns out, good old Trainer Tyler was right. After doing my 5k training for 5 days a week for 3 weeks, I went to my weigh in on Wednesday and I stayed exactly the same. I lost NOTHING. I got home at 8:30 and ran/walked FIVE DAYS A WEEK and stayed exactly. the. same. I was so pissed. Then sad. (yeah, I cried). And then frustrated.

So, I've decided to accept defeat and incorporate strength / weight training into my 5k training. I'm trying to alternate every other day (which becomes a conversation in my head about which I hate less...running or weight training).

My cable box offers exercise tv on demand so this week I decided to delve into some workout routines on there that incorporated weight training.

Let me tell you...between Jillian & Bob, they have both officially kicked my ass through the tv AND assured me that I can NEVER actually be big enough to warrant a place the Biggest Loser Ranch...because I will ACTUALLY DIE. Jillian Michaels strikes fear in me like no one else can and at least when I'm working out w/ her with the television between us, I am able to take a break without fearing her yelling face within centimeters from my own.

I have muscles in my butt aching that I never knew existed.

What will you tell your children?

Let me start by saying this post is not nearly as deep as the title suggests.

When I was in high school (and obviously still living at home) my dad would ALWAYS wake me up in the morning on the weekends. My mom could usually bargain with him to let me sleep until 9:30 but that's as far back as she could push him.

He'd always wake me up and immediately follow by asking me, "What will you tell your kids when they ask you what the morning of [INSERT WHATEVER THE DATE WAS OF SAID SATURDAY MORNING EARLY WAKE UP] was like?" This was his reasoning for not letting me sleep past noon. (There was also one time he came into the room to hang a bulletin board above my bed - with a hammer & power drill - and told me, "Oh, you didn't have to get up, I was just going to [make a bunch of ridiculously loud and obnoxious noise] hang this up").

My response then was always, "What are you going to tell your grandchildren when they ask you what the night of [INSERT SAME DATE AT ANY TIME PAST 9:00 P.M. AS HE'D BE ALREADY FAST ASLEEP] was like? Although my argument was far less effective as I was usually doing something more important with my time than waking up my sleeping father (given that I was 16, by "more important" I really mean something along the lines of "driving w/ friends past our crushes houses to see if they were home").

My point is this - I never have been, nor will ever be, a morning person. Quite honestly, it's high on my list of fears I have regarding bearing children. Those things wake you at the very wee-est hours of the morning and I'm just not sure I'm okay with that yet (though I'm pretty sure at some point I will be).

My second point is that I am facing the reality that I am going to have to start getting up before work and getting my workouts in then. I've been doing a really kick ass job (go me!) of working out when I get home at night. However - beginning my workout at 9:00 p.m. makes for a "jacked-up-can't-sleep-oh-this-show-about-nothing-I've-ever-cared-about-is-so-interesting-awake-til-midnight" Angie. And then, mid-afternoon-trying-to-get-work-done-while-my-eyelids-are-doing-their-best-bend-&-snap (a la Legally Blonde*)-impression-over-my-eyes, Angie is furious that I didn't go to bed earlier. And to be quite honest, I can't handle internal Angie's fighting all day long!

So, to recap. I hate getting up in the morning. I already hate the time I get up and it's not even that early. I have to start getting up even earlier. To workout.

(disclaimer: I do understand there are bigger problems in the world. However, if you've ever been given the unfortunate task of waking me up, you know this is a pretty tough one. But to prove that I understand there are bigger issues at hand, I did not (even though I really wanted to), put FML at the end of the above sentence. I mean, really, it's more like "Frick my life").

*when trying to think of the best description of what my eyes are doing right now, this was the most dead on one. They slowly close down and then SNAP back open. It's not every day you get to use Legally Blonde to describe a bodily function.

Instant Gratification

I love things that give you immediate results. It's probably why vacuuming is one of my favorite household chores. You can immediately see a clean rug the exact second you swipe the vacuum over it. I also love cleaning bathrooms. Call me crazy but it gives immediate gratification that you've worked on something and the results are there shining in your face.

Given my affinity for immediate change after work, you can see how working out / eating healthy can be a frustrating process for me. I've really kicked it into high gear after the first of the year.

• I have consecutively worked out 5 days a week for the past 3 weeks.
  
• I have been watching what I eat (not AS well as I could be, but I've definitely improved over the last few weeks of December).
• I have been drinking at least 64 ounces of water a day (during the week at least). This is a BUTTLOAD more water than I used to drink. 64 ounces more to be exact.

So, given that I've been busting butt (most nights after 8:30 due to my crazy schedule), eating things that are good for me (tasty, but not as tasty as say, a cheeseburger & fries), and drinking boring old water (instead of my beloved Diet Coke), you may also understand how frustrated I was to be up 3 pounds at my weigh in today!

What the what?!?!?

I'm doing my best to not slap any innocent passerbys this morning after my meeting with the dreaded Scale. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude and realize maybe the good stuff I'm doing just hasn't kicked in yet. And most of all, I'm reminding myself that I can't give up just yet...to just tighten things up a bit more and see the results come next week!

And for those of you Biggest Loser fans, I SO did not pull a red team and throw the weigh in, believe me! :)

Self praise

There is a list of things I do when I ACTUALLY get my butt up and work out.

First - immediately after I work out, I put a star on the calendar on the fridge. We've got this whiteboard calendar and quite honestly, aside from my practice schedule for cheer & Christian's work schedule, we RARELY look at, let alone use this calendar, but I get to put a red star on it every time I work out. I LOVE putting that star on the calendar. I spend a significant portion of my work out thinking about putting that star on the calendar.

Secondly - I get to put a sticker on the calendar at work (this inspired the star on the whiteboard home calendar). We have a competition at work and every day you work out you get to put a sticker on the calendar (I used to be these super cute Popsicle stickers, but now I just have these plain star ones, which I'm less excited about, but still pretty pumped to use. Plus once I use up all the star ones, I can get some new even-cuter-than-Popsicle ones). At the end of the week whoever has the most stickers on the calendar does NOT have to pay a dollar, everyone else does. At the end of the month, whoever won the most weeks, wins the money in the kitty that was collected over the weeks. Honestly, it's not the money for me, it's looking at the calendar and seeing more shiny stars than ladybugs, snowflakes and skulls (the one dude in my department). I am usually not terrible competitive, but I LOVE kicking my co-workers asses in this competition. STARS DOMINATE, FTW!

Thirdly - whenever I next see / talk to the BF after working out, I immediately tell him that I worked out. Then I wait for him to (as he always does, because he's wonderful) tell me how awesome that was, how proud he is, etc. Then, AFTER he's told me that, I drop the bomb of how I improved or upped my workout that time. So it's all "yeah, you're proud and I'm awesome BUT, get this! You can be even more proud and I'm even more awesome than you originally thought when you were proud and I was awesome!" I am fully aware that this makes me equal parts of obnoxiously annoying and totally praise needy. I am also fully aware of how incredibly patient and awesome he is to over look the obnoxious and reaffirm the needy. He doesn't know it - but I LOVE when he says he's proud of me. I look forward to it more than red stars and shiny stickers.

So while overall, my goals are to be able to run and lose weight and in general be a healthier person in the long run. In the short run (the run I'm more familiar with right now), stickers on the calendar and "I'm proud's" from the BF are what keeps me going!

New week, new slate.

Last week was just a weird week. And just when I thought it couldn't get weirder, it did. But this week is a new week. C and I decided that 2010 didn't officially start until Saturday and we're already much happier w/ the results of the New Year.

Few highlights of the weekend / random thoughts:

• Vacation - we got closer to actually booking a trip for the two of us. We're thinking a cruise in March. If anyone has any suggestions regarding cruise lines / ports of call our ears are open. He's never been on a cruise & I haven't been on a cruise since I was like 12 and am pretty sure my priorities have changed a bit since then.
• Health - I won the exercise calendar challenge at work last week - for having worked out 5 days. I only won by ONE sticker though - so I'll have to keep up the 5 days a week work out schedule if I want to keep the winning streak going. This week - I bump up to running 2 mins and walking 3 which I tried a little bit last week and felt exhausted. Should be challenging.
• Spirit - we tried a new church this weekend. And while I'm extremely proud of us for getting our butts out of bed earlier than usual on a Sunday morning for something as grown up as a church service - the congregation was a tid bit on the bat shit crazy side for our liking. Good to know though - we can cross that one off our list and try again next week!
• Work - I've got a busy but exciting week at work. We've got 2 full days of training and while some might think that's boring, given that I didn't even understand the job title when I was offered & took the position and have had little to no training since (honestly, I've had maybe an hour), I'm SUPER excited to actually learn more about what I've been doing the past 6 months!

So there's all that. And probably more. But this is what I have time for today!

Alls well that ends well.

Christian is a-ok. He made it through the procedures like a champ. Charmed the pants off the nurses throughout the whole thing. Came out of his twilight sleep smiling and making jokes. Including asking if he could "do the running man to check if he was too dizzy to leave", if he "set a record for how quick it took him to come out of the twilight sleep" and my personal favorite, telling the nurse he has a lot of hair on his arms because "he's gotta make it through these winters". Nothing major was found, he's overall healthy and just a few minor dietary adjustments and he should be back to good. Great news and I couldn't have been happier to hear it. I know both things were just routine procedures and none of the Dr.'s seemed too worried about what the results would be, but you just never know. And, if I've said it once, I've said it a million times, as a control freak, not knowing really chaps my ass. (ugh, hate that phrase, but it just does such a fantastic job of being equally descriptive and disturbing - thus really driving the point home).

Given that he wasn't allowed to eat at all yesterday and had to eat a boring diet the day before, he's decided that there's no rules this weekend for eating super healthy. And of course - given that I'm his standard dining companion, I'm included in this treat weekend! I'm taking him out for whatever his little heart desires for dinner tomorrow (I'd assume Japanese or Mexican as that's our standard practice) and we'll be spending Sunday at my parents. The place where, on game days, there's enough food to feed 50 people and never more than 4 1/2 in attendance (Baby Jack is the 1/2...in case you were wondering).

Finally - as health scares, no matter how severe or mild, usually do, I'm prompted to tell all the people in my life how much I value having them here, how much they make me who I am as a person and how grateful I am to be blessed with their presence! So have a good weekend and give extra hugs and kisses to yours! (*steps off soapbox*).

How minor is minor?

The BF, That Guy, Christian, (whatever you want to call him) is going in for a couple procedures tomorrow at the Hospital. While they're not actually cutting him open, he will be put under for a bit. I'm doing my best at not being nervous and knowing that they are professionals taking care of him and that this happens all day everyday all over the world. But, if you wouldn't mind, some extra good thoughts and prayers sent his way wouldn't hurt.

Also - on a completely irrelevant side note - project fat to 5k is coming along quite well if I do say so myself. I mean I know it's only week one, but I've only taken one day off. And today I bumped up the running minutes to 6.0 which is a whole mile per hour more than I was running before. AND, it actually felt better than the 5.0 pace. AND, it's 10 mile per hour pace...which is impressive...or at least it is to me! :)

They're not resolutions.

They're goals. And they don't have a specific time limit (per say). And they've been in the works long before 12/31/09 at midnight.

I dislike New Years Resolutions. I feel like I need to make goals all year long (and sometimes don't even achieve them - see my list of things to accomplish by my birthday, which was last week, also see the short list within the list of items crossed off...I'm working on it, I swear).

However, given that it is a new year, a clean slate, and a time to reflect on the last and look up on the upcoming, I have come up with a list of goals I'd like to start working on in 2010. I'm not restricting myself to accomplish them all, but I'm at the very least working towards them all in 2010. And let me also say, it's a very scary thing to post them where other people, with their judgy, judgy eyes can read them, analyze them, and worst of all HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEM?!?!

I'm breaking them down into Body, Spirit & Mind.

Body -

• I'd like to lose an additional 30 lbs this year on top of the 20 I lost last year. I'm continuing Weight Watchers and REALLY sticking to it more closely.
• Run. That is really the main goal. I haven't run a consecutive mile since probably middle school (I was really good at scheduling appointments on the day we were forced to run the mile in gym class). I'd like to run a 5K. At some point. I will probably spend the entire year ramping up to that point.

Spirit -

• I don't like to talk religion much, but the BF & I have decided to work on a strengthening our faith and our relationship with the Big Guy. We both used to be rather strong in said relationship, and have lost it along the way.

Mind -

• I'd like to read more. I'm setting the goal at 5-10 books this year. (yes, I realize setting a range makes me some what non-committal, you should know this about me). I used to read more than I do, and really I don't have a ton of spare time, but I will later in the year and would like to spend more of my spare time reading. (and running, but probably not at the same time).

And I am pretty sure this last goal covers all three in one way or another - the BF & I have decided we'd like to budget our money better so we can travel. There's a lot of things we'd both like to see and places we'd like to go. So this year, we're gonna.

Those are my goals. Now you can see them, and judge them if you will, but most importantly you can hold me accountable for them. Just a little "Hey, did you lose any weight this month?" or a "Hey I read this AWESOME book you should read, to cross off one of your 5-10", or "I ran this far today, how far did you run??" (Because we all know I do love a good competition).