where do I even come up with this stuff.

okay so before I begin to explain this week, let's talk about some stuff.

first of all, calling me 18 times in 30 minutes after you practically molest me in the parking lot of the olive garden isn't the way to win me over. Classy. I seriously pushed this dude off me, TWICE and he continued his lewd and lascivious behavior, I drew back to give him a right hook, Zach Freeman style. If Zach did ANYTHING in his 25 years on this earth, he taught me how to throw a punch and held a refresher course every year. that's the only class I got perfect attendance in, mother fuckerrrrrs. I've never had to do use that particular skill because I generally will sass someone to death but I was never more ready in my life, but he finally got the hint. Then when I got home he binge called me enough to where I had to change my number. Again, general housekeeping announcement, if you don't have it and would like it, leave a comment here or connect with me on the facebook. If you don't want me to text you, then just remain silent and hope I forgot about you. mmmk. Oh and the dude wasn't 31 he was closer to 40. aka closer to my mom's age than mine. which I find repulsive. I don't find people of a certain age repulsive unless it comes to dating. Again, my blog my rules. Sorry if you're older than 33ish. no can do.

speaking of no can do. no can do anything. haha, seriously I had such a rough week anxiety wise with everything. BUT! I do have some news. Today was my 3 year anniversary in the ER, and well, April 7 is my first day not in the ER haha. I took a job doing insurance stuff off site! So there's that. I got a new bed, and I was terrified last night I was going to break it. Long story short when I was at my heaviest I broke a couple lawn chairs because I exceeded the weight limit and well, yeah, sad story bro, but anyways I pretty much have PTSD and sometimes feel like I'm going to break everything I sit on so last night for like an hour I sat in my floor and cried because I was afraid I would break my bed. I don't know why I got so fixated on that but damn, it was kind of a mess. I finally just said...well. I'm never gonna know till I lay on it...and well, it didn't break. it didn't even squeak in protest when I laid down. hallelujah.

anyways, I went to spin on Sunday, then lifted Monday, zumba on Wednesday and then did a short metcon tonight that Darin wrote. It ACTUALLY wasn't as bad as it looked. I've stopped wearing my polar heart rate monitor, if you've been missing the standard required selfie, calorie burn and motivation quote from someone else's IG on my IG. I just can't deal with it anymore, like I get so damn fixated on how many calories I eat, how much I don't eat, how many calories I burn, my weight, my body fat percentage as calculated by this thing I got off amazon Darin told me not to buy because this is exactly what would happen IT'S LIKE HE CAN SEE THE FUTURE. ha. seriously though. I don't know when exactly I'm going to learn to listen to el jeffe. that's Spanish for the boss. though he's just the boss of nutrition and fitness. aka life. I don't know why I can't stop being stupid.

Darin said in one of the many emails exchanged this week:

 "I reeeeallllyyyy want you to sit back and appreciate this stuff for what it is- a chance to figure things out and learn about your body. BUT I also understand the impatience, etc, so I'm not going to ask you to just smile and accept a daily shit show as a fact of life. But I would encourage you to look at where you are now and enjoy the moment for what it is- an improvement over where you were."

SO. Today I was thinking. The number on the scale hasn't gone up THAT significantly, I mean I'm 98% sure the few pounds I do see on the scale are water weight because God knows I didn't hit a gallon once this week, but. I also don't think I've done as much damage because I'm a weee bit smarter than I was, say, a year ago. Because now, even when I'm just picking "the lesser of the evils" / eating in the cafeteria/ getting fiscally raped for sub-par food, I'm a little smarter about it. I'm thinking, well, If I get chicken that can be protein, and it looks like about 4 ounces so that's 120ish calories and 20g of protein, and I can get a small salad and watch the cheese/dressing/fats, and I'll drink water, but oh they sell poptarts up here, lettuce is basically calorie free, avoid all colorful veggies, Jesus knows they can't touch anything on this plate or I'll just have throw this all away plate included, okay just get some water and don't even think about mountain dew. your kidneys are probably still working on processing the amount you drank in 1998 MOVE ON NESS! the point being made here (there is one?) I do see that a year ago I would have said fuck it and got some poptarts and mountain dew and maybe some cheese fries and moved on with my life and not have went to the gym. I have a chance to improve little by little and maybe instead of beating myself up over not being so consistent, I can be a little happier than while I'm not where I want to be, thank God I'm not where I was.

though that's not a free pass. My sweet friend Kirsten sent me a fucking AUTOGRAPHED DANA LIN BAILEY POSTER. God bless her sweet sweet soul. It says "show the world who the fuck you are" on it, and she sent me a bottle of superHD and bad news is, I didn't eat anything ALL DAY. Apparently it's also an appetite suppressant. whooooooooooops. So, yeah. It's been a little crazy these last couple weeks but I WILL get better. Maybe not tomorrow, but little by little becomes a lot. Hell, I didn't lose 100lbs in 10 day, and I won't gain 100 in 10 days. It doesn't work like that. So, with that my friends, tomorrow is always a new day. Zumba and spin this weekend! let me say, Alan is my FAVORITE instructor at the rush. I literally laughed out loud when we were doing jump lunges and I never even crack a smile doing lunges, I mean who the hell does, but I think it was a pitbull song on and because I'm slower at switching my feet, I don't know if that's really true but that's what it feels like because we all know elephants don't jump, anyways, I was jumping rather high and Alan was like "shoutout to the girl in the back with the sweet tats jumping higher than me!" ha. I died laughing then was embarrassed because then everyone was watching me in the mirror and that's like my worst nightmare. group fitness classes are a hit or miss, but alan has the best music and is incredibly funny. So! if I'm awake in time (don't judge me for not setting an alarm) i'm gonna hit that up in the morning. Maybe that can be fasted cardio. Hell I don't know. I just know that my alpha aminos taste like artificial sweetener and so does that nasty cake batter protein. ugh. I'm PISSED that it's gross. BUT anyways. Long story short, I also hit 160 on the seated leg extension for 3x8, 135 on lying leg curls and 12.5s on lateral raises haha what a letdown, right? but I love lateral raises so that's okay.

anyways, I'm on a sugar high DON'T ASK ME WHERE I GOT IT but I'm off to watch some TV and get ready to sleep in for the first time in a long time. If you have any questions, feel free to not ask me them. and this blog had 20k views over it's lifetime. I don't know which of you is reading and rereading but I don't think 20k people have seen this literary masterpiece or I feel like I'd be locked up in a psych unit. but that's neither here nor there.

see ya'll next week. stay buff and stuff.  I feel like that's how I should end this from now on. How do we feel about this? feel free to keep your comments to yourself. or you know. let me have it.

where's waldo?

I need a volunteer to follow me around and slap the unhealthy food out of my hand on a daily basis. the pay is my gratitude and some snark, applications accepted starting.....now.

ha.

if only.

my blogging schedule is kinda like a game of where's waldo! except more like where is Vanessa and her less than informational weekly newsletter filled with bitching and sass?! you never know when it's gonna pop up. SURPRISE. First Sunday blog in quite some time.

I suck. at all of this. at cardio, lifting, metcon'ing, eating good, eating bad, eating at all, water intake. I just can't seem to get it together. Granted my life has taken a few unexpected turns, everything has worked out so far but damn. I would love to have a week where I write a blog post and I'm like yall I did everything this week and I did fucking amazing. But what kind of blog would this be if I actually did what I said I was going to do?

I am the queen of excuses, that's about the only thing I've been the queen of lately. that and bitching. what? me? I know right. I went to the gym on Monday and lifted a little, on Tuesday I ran a mile for cardio, then Wednesday-today I've not done much other than run my mouth. I've worked over time this week, and trying to unpack(still!), work, and deal with life, well. shit happens. So I'm calling (for the 482nd time...this year) Monday a re-do of sorts. If NOTHING ELSE, I will get my big ass to the gym every day for SOMETHING for at least 30 minutes. I WILL get my 156 ounces of water in, and I WILL be thankful for the opportunities I've been given. or, I WILL BE ballooning back up to my starting weight and I promised myself I would never seen a certain weight on the scale again and it's a very reasonable limit I set. I know, the scale isn't everything. But when you're trying to lose an ungodly amount of weight, it kind of is. It's how I validate what I'm doing is working, even though that shouldn't be the case. I get obsessive over numbers, quick. My macros, calorie burn, weight, etc. I need to get off the OMGIFIDONTBURN900CALORIESINAWORKOUTIMAFAILURE thought process. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back for a shitty workout but anything is better than nothing, plus the longer I stay out of the gym because "30 minutes isn't worth it" (SINCE WHEN) the harder it is to go back and the more sore I'll be the next day. Though, I think I'm going to be a little uncomfortable tomorrow. I went to the rush's R30 class, it's like an interval spin class and I didn't hate it, at all. I think if I made that my Sunday cardio, that would be enough for me to keep interested but not burn out on it like I do everything else. It was rough, but the last spin class I went to I was probably 50 pounds heavier and it was hell on earth. So progress is progress! Then after that I cooked up some intervals. 20 seconds rope slams, 12 step ups/leg, 10 burpees x 4 rounds. all in all it was like a 45 minute workout including spin and right at 480 calories. I also did some leg extensions, and hit 160 for 6 reps. WHAT. I remember when 50 at the YWCA was enough to make me sore as hell. I'm a slow learner sometimes, but I know that post workout you need protein and carbs. So I had a shake, and then the bananas at my house are rotten (not really rotten, more like just ripe) and I gagged because the texture was disgusting so then I gagged through a cup of natural no sugar added applesauce. Then I remembered I bought 3 cans of pineapple chunks today and I LOVE pineapple. whoooooooops.

speaking of whoooooooops. for probably months, Darin has said AM cardio would be a good idea and I am not a morning person. Once I actually get up, I'm fine...but getting up is the problem. I like to lay in my bed for a while and then well, next thing I know it's time for me to get ready for work and no cardio has been done. Though Wednesday I did knock out some morning cardio and I felt more awake throughout the day and I was like WHAT NEW MYSTERY IS THIS. I wasn't nearly as tired....but what did I do Thursday? no AM cardio. I just hate waking up, sleeping is one of my FAVORITE activities. My bed is so comfy, and I like to lay here and watch Netflix on my laptop. Livin the good life. This week my goal is 3-4 mornings. I have a treadmill (old and rickety it may be) that I can walk on. It's maybe 10 steps from my bed. How lazy am I? tune in to my instagram next week and find out.

anyways, I know this isn't the sass and snark you all seem to love, but this is where I'm at. I feel like a huge massive narwhal sized failure. But it's a bump in the road, not the end of it. I just need a little help, that's all. Growing up is hard. They never tell you about all the shit you have to deal with, and how hard it is to go from having your parents and step-parents doing everything for you, cooking dinner, fixing cars, giving directions, building stuff, to just being like OKAY GO. Do I even adult? no. god no. Now here I am, burning food left and right, finding out just how expensive groceries are, getting behind on laundry, snoozing my alarms, trying to figure out how to survive on my own AND lose another ungodly amount of weight. I signed up for all of this, but I had no idea how much I was getting myself in to.

life. but it's been such an adventure so far. Rebecca and I living together should really be a t.v. show...or at least a youtube series. Like when neither of us knows how to cook chicken correctly, how to empty the can thing on the vaccum cleaner or how to hang pictures. Heaven help us all.

 

thanks for being part of my life here, ya'll. It's "just a blog" but it's one of my favorite things. Who knew so many people would like my online diary so much? I was gonna say I feel kinda like Anne Frank but um, yeah. no. I'm gonna stop myself there.

till next week mi amigos!

rants and raves

this may be full of rants. so just kick back and relax and hope you're not part of my wrath.

so, first of all, can we all just agree that pinterest is not the place to be finding workouts? SERIOUSLY. I am so sick of signing in to look at apartment decorating ideas or funny memes to see "BURN 1000 CALORIES WORKOUT"... okay first of all, I did an HOUR, 60 long minutes of cardio one day and only burned 725. and I weigh as much as a small elephant. So you, miss I might weigh 130 pounds on a fat day doing 25 jumping jacks aren't going to burn 1000 calories in less than 3 hours. And those "get flat abs" workouts. You can do sit ups until the cows/I come home, but guess what. still not there if your body fat percentage isn't low enough and news flash, you can't spot train. You can't be like oh I want abs and do sit ups 400 times a day and see them in a week. You lose from everywhere, and genetics determines a lot of it. So for the love of all that is good and holy just CAN YOU STOP? like can we not right now?! bodybuilding.com has some bangin workout plans. Find one there. where people generally have some sense and aren't 14 year old girls writing "workouts" and getting 1000 repins a minute. and for the record, let's stay off the diets we find on pinterest too. the "army" diet or something like that where you eat saltines and strawberries for breakfast, first of all that is disgusting and second of all, no. why? what is the point of that? like what magical properties do white crackers with an abundance of salt have? the ability to make you hypertensive at the age of 13? I fail to see the weight loss properties of this diet. Clearly I should be the boss of pinterest.

I also can't deal with people on instagram commenting on other people's stuff being rude. like, commenting isn't mandatory so why the fuck are you trolling trying to start arguments? get a life. and speaking of get a life, if ONE. MORE. beachbody coach comments on one of my transformation Tuesday pics being like "great! i'm in a fun inspiration great grand amazing awesome fitness group on facebook, add me so you can join!" i'm going to lose what little mind I do have. First of all, do any of the 200 hashtags I just used have anything to do with p90x, insanity, turbo fire, shakeology or any of the above? NO. Do I say in my about me, that's what I do? no. so stop copy and pasting insincere comments on my damn pictures asking me to buy shit from you. you're welcome to fuck off.

now that we're past that, this week was rough. Much like hurricane Vanessa hit Asheville, hurricane Darin hit my plan. Though I kind of asked for that. I asked for a meal plan, and well. damn. that was a bit harder than I expected. Monday was a shit show to say the least. there was a fire 3 houses up from mine, and I was supposed to get up and do fasted cardio, the morning after the time change. Then when all that sucked, I tried to choke down some egg beaters/not real eggs/the ones that literally look like snot cooking in your pan/ with some spinach, onions and tomatoes. Lets just say by the time I gagged down some plain greek yogurt I was over it. So this week was a combination of IIFYM with a day of weight watchers thrown in. Though Darin did werk some magic and changed some stuff this week so it looks more manageable. We'll see how all this goes this week when I try again.

I'm still studying to get my ACSM trainer cert, and let's be clear. Some of that stuff is nonsense, one of the paragraphs I read in the consult chapter was about not encouraging clients to quit their jobs so they can work out. who the hell would ever be like I'm gonna quit my job so I have more time to exercise?! and who would tell them to do that?! well, that one girl who won the biggest loser goes to the gym 4 times a day (allegedly)...which, let's also just agree that the show isn't called "the healthiest looking loser", its the biggest loser. She won. I can also say I hate Jillian Michaels training style. I don't respond well to being yelled at and bitched at constantly when I work out. I also don't work out 8 hours a day and I would kill myself if I had to listen to her yell for 8 hours. Also, vomiting isn't necessarily a sign that you're doing something right. They should call the show "inducing bulimia on morbidly obese people via exercise" not as catchy, no? I used to think I wanted to be on that show. Then I read about what it's like and said hellll no. Then found Darin who thankfully was nothing like Jillian Michaels. Though that's absolutely what I expected. Anyway, the point is, one fine day I'll be better than Jillian Michaels at all this. I won't yell, no one has to do push ups and no one will vomit on the daily when they work with me.

There are days I feel like giving up and days I feel like I can conquer the world and deadlift 200 pounds. Those days I take advantage of and stick around and do some extra stuff, like cardio and leg extensions. On the days I don't feel so good, well, I do the best I can. I haven't lost any weight consistently since before my brosef died, but that's life. I miss him more than I could ever imagine, but given the chance I wouldn't bring him back if I could. He was really proud of me for losing all this weight, so I need to get my shit together again and make him proud from wherever he's watching. So, let's see where this week goes. I'll report back next week per my usual.

oh, and even after a few bad days, I was trying to figure out if I could stand wearing my new heels to work all day and a little baby quad came out to play. Let's not judge the paleness or babyness (see what i did there?) of said muscle. but loooooooooooook! :)

 

I may or may not have stared for a while/few hours. Clearly I'm not Dana Lin Bailey but it's okay to be happy with the progress...I know what my legs looked like 6 months ago. and it wasn't posted on this blog. progress is progress!

 

 

also this is my 159th blog. Who the hell would have thought this would have lasted this long? not me. I hope this is still entertaining. It is for me. and clearly that's what matters. ha!   

New adventures in never never land.

well, a lot has changed in the last 2 weeks-ish. Clearly by the title of this blog I've been watching Peter Pan. Haters gonna hate. I usually don't go on a hiatus from this literary masterpiece too long, but I've had really weird writers block. the last 402 times I've sat down to write this, it's been a Herculean task. but alas, lucky readers, not anymore. 

 

so. in the last week I've gotten a bangin new tattoo that hurt like hell, an actual meal plan from el jeffe (that's spanish for 'the boss'... thank you senora hoyle, actually just kidding. you were the worst spanish instructor in the world) and an apartment WHAT. Long story short, I don't think I mentioned it here because contrary to what it may seem like, I like to keep the drama to a minimum. I moved out of my apartment at the beginning of February, and my roommate left about 2 weeks ago. I ran in to my sweet neighbor Kelly, and she said my old landlord hadn't rented the place yet, and he called me Tuesday night. So Rebecca and I are moving back in to my apartment in East Asheville! for at least 12 months now haha, this is the 3rd time I've moved in 60 days. I'm sure my dad is over this whole situation because he's the poor soul who gets to help me move this stuff.

 

I also purchased a treadmill from my aunt paula. yay. which will come in handy because fasted cardio every damn morning has made it on the plan. EVERY. MORNING. weekends should automatically be excluded from everything. it's 15 minutes, which is reasonable for a normal human. I however, am not a normal human. I have considered getting up, doing said cardio, and then laying back down for an hour but my best assumption is that would be counter productive. I mean, getting up half an hour early isn't the end of the world. Yes, I mean half an hour because Jesus knows I'm not going to pop out of my bed like the damn easter bunny and hop on the treadmill all the way to cotton town. Is that where peter cottontail went? am I the only one who remembers that? am I making that up? who the hell knows. Anyways, moral of the story is, I'm not the most excited morning person in the world. I'm also supposed to eat egg whites and a cup of vegetables for breakfast and my very first thought was who the hell eats eggs and carrots at 6:30 in the fucking morning? That was my thought process word for word. then I realized, I can make an omlet. and by an omlet I mean I can make scrambled eggs with shit in them. I don't think I've ever successfully made an omlet. I've been kind of IIFYM'ing it for a bit, and when I stuck to it like I should, I lost weight. But I think right now some serious consistency and a little less wiggle room might be the best option. I know this is trail and error, so I'm trying to calm the fuck down. I'm moving my shit back to Asheville tomorrow, then I have to work all weekend, so I'm thinking I'll work like 7-3 on Sunday, then grocery shop and meal prep and get my shit together for Monday. I'm also supposed to drink 1.75 gallons of water a day. i'm going to go ahead and put a work order in for my desk to be moved to the bathroom. I mean, it is an excuse to get up and move, but I'm not a fish. I just want to be a lean mean string bean. and by mean, I mean incredibly pleasant little lamb. we all know that's not gonna happen. People who don't know me don't expect the tattoos and mouth. The guy doing my sweet tat last weekend's name was Brody, and he spent his night laughing at me. The closer he got to my elbow with the tattoo gun, the more I cussed and it didn't even make sense. It was like I had tourettes. We were talking about flying and I was like "I don't do heights, this table is even a little too high for me but SHIT FUCK DAMN BRODY" and my head twitched. I kind of wish I had that on tape. Both boys in the shop laughed and then said "damn girl you got a mouth", SURPRISE. it's amazing what you say when you have a needle being drug through your skin where there is basically nothing between the needle and bone. Earlier he asked in the initial "hey, how are you", "is this your first tattoo sweetheart?"....try 6th. #alldayson. I will say I have a fairly high pain tolerance but I was ready for that to be over by the time he said "all done"...then he had to clean it off, which was almost as bad as the actually needling. Now it's all scabby and itchy, but it's beauuutiful. It's also the start of my half sleeve.

 

back to the point of this blog. workouts were good on Monday/Tuesday, then shit went downhill because well, packing my stuff for the third time in 2 months is a mess. Even though I have two boxes in my car I hadn't gotten out/unpacked yet haha, so I got a headstart on that.

 

Super excited for this new chapter. Living with my twinsie will surely be an adventure, but a fun one annnnnnnnd one of my absolutely best friends, Kalynn and her husband are moving on to the same street on Tuesday. NEIGHBORS! So, while things have changed drastically for me in the first 90ish days of the year, things will settle down soon. I have to take things one day at a time, and stop worrying about 10 months from now.

Anyways, this is where I am right now. I'm willing to give everything a shot, and hope for the best. But we don't get what we wish for, we get what we work for. So here's to a weekend of moving, work, meal prep and the start of a new adventure. It's a whole new world, a dazzling place I never knew....

Bet you'll never guess what movie I'm watching next :)