Some inspiration from that Half-Assed book

A big part of my life had been dedicated to weight loss lately. I considered it to be my hobby, but no matter how much I wanted to focus on dropping more weight, life insisted on carrying on around me.

People would always be getting married, dying, and moving-though I hoped they'd stop doing it all in the same month. I had sometimes thought it would be nice to lock myself away on a fat farm where all my food and exercise could be controlled, but I preferred living in the real world....

This is an excerpt from Jenette Fulda's Half-Assed: a weight loss memior.

These are my thoughts EXACTLY! I need to stop making this many excuses about why it's ok to not work out to my 80% potential today, or why it's fine to have a cheeseburger for dinner and 4 Nestle Toll House cookies every other day. It's ok to cut myself some slack sometimes, but I'm overindulging in it. This is is why I've been in the same 5 lb range for the past like 4-5 months now. I haven't reached my goal weight/size and I'm still carrying around too much fat for a girl of my height and bone structure.

I'm finding it challenging to focus on completing multiple missions successfully, but the reality is I'm always going to have exams, or practicals, or clinic. I'm always either going to have to wake up early or come home late or do both...and if I'm not doing these things it's because I'm on vacation so I can't use that as an excuse either.

Part of getting out of the fat mentality is to accept this is how life is and learn to effectively deal with things without having to have a side of cheese fries to soothe me.

Oh and I did see hot guy at the gym...actually I see him a lot nowadays. More on that later.

Will I see hot guy tomorrow at the gym?

These last 30 pounds to lose are a huge pain. I've been at the same weight give or take like 5 pounds for months now. I weighed myself and saw I put on a couple more pounds than the last time, but I'm not recording it because I'm PMSing and bloated as hell.....so I know I didn't actually get fatter.

I'm trying to find new sources of inspiration. I'm finding it hard to focus on multiple things at once. Focusing on passing all my classes and losing weight is just proving too much to do at the moment. After tomorrow I'm going to have 3 consecutive no exam weeks before finals so I'm hoping to be able to lose 10 pounds by the time I see my family for the winter break. 10 pounds in a month and a half is pretty realistic for me, agree?

Jason Mraz and my new biker jacket

I had a really good last 24 hours.

I got my proficiency stamp for both retinoscopy and the slit lamp this morning. This means that I am now capable of determining your refractive error for your glasses/lenses prescription and evaluating the heath of the front of your eye. WOOOHOOOOOOO!

I realized that I just don't have enough workout clothes. I keep having to do laundry because of my workout clothes and I handwash my two sport bras. So I went over to Bebe Sport and while I was there I found this really cute biker-inspired jacket that was on clearance.

I also finally got a ticket to the upcoming Jason Mraz concert thanks to one of my dear classmates!

I went to my first spinning class in years! I'm anticipating being sore as hell in the morning. Ok so remember that hot guy at the gym? I assumed he was a trainer or someone that worked at the gym because of his body and the fact that he looked older. I found out via a casual question to my trainer that he's actually a medical student!!! Ok I thought I know of all the Arab guys in the health professions campus, how on earth did I miss this one really hot one? He must be like a 4th year doing off-site rotations or something. So now I'm on a little mission.....

That's cardio my love! plus the hot guy at the gym

Before last week's workout session I sent the following text message to my trainer:

Can we do more ab stuff? we all have muffin top issues.

"We all" includes the 3 other girls I train with as a group.

Here's the reply I got:

That's cardio my love!

I went through this stage where some misguided advice had me belive cardio was bad and the focus should be on strength training. I think they're both pretty important for success. Not only that, but how much strength training can one stand to do? If I can get it in just twice a week I'm happy.

One major issue I have that prevents me from working out everyday is washing my hair. I have naturally dry curly hair and I can't wash it everyday. I also hate working up a sweat and not being able to wash my hair, so I try to focus on getting in a comprehensive workout 3 times a week and just staying generally active throughout my day over working out on consecutive days. Today however I tolerated not washing my hair when I got back from training because I told myself I'm going to go for a jog first thing in the morning. My hair is still damp with sweat, ewwwwww

In different news, today at the gym while waiting for my trainer the absolute hottest guy approached me. He said "salaam alaikum" (the Muslim greeting) and asked me if I spoke any Arabic, if I was a student and in what college, how I like it here, bla bla bla. Not only did he have the nicest eyes and smile but really nice biceps too. He told me he was Syrian. The arrival of my trainer cut the conversation short and I could swear I saw a hint of disappointment across his face. He seemed too old to be a student, even a grad student, and if he was a trainer I think I would have seen him before. When he turned around after saying bye I was disappointed to see a huge tattoo across his bicep :(

I'll do anything for my treats!

Hey Folks!

I realized yesterday that some of my newly acquired habits aren't the healthiest. I'll do anything for my deserts (sweet and salty), even if it means not eating other stuff to make room for it. Yesterday I had a mere 220 calorie dinner so that I can have 3 nestle toll house break and bake cookies (dude these are to die for).

Also because I plan on snacking on a handful of tostitos and dip (I'm craving these so bad) lunch will probably be an apple.

Today I'm wearing pants for the first time that I bought about a month ago but couldn't fit in. I got them from Victoria's Secret in a size 8, I couldn't find the exact pair on their website but they look very similar to the one in the picture-they just don't thave those cargo side pockets. It's surreal to think that a year and a half ago I was a 16, which is really not a good place to be if your 5"1.

My lowest weight in years

I weighed in at 143 today! that's 2 pounds less than the last time I weighed myself and the lowest weight I've been in years. It's pretty exciting!

Although I still have a bad starbucks drink almost on a daily basis (yesterday I had TWO, a mint hot chocolate and a pumpkin spice latte) I attribute this to the fact to two recent trends. 1) I'm pretty physically active nowadays. I walk a lot and I walk fast. I almost never take elevators even if I'm carrying a lot of stuff. I've been working out 2-4 times week but even if I dn't get that in it's ok because I feel like I'm always running around.

TWO...I've been eating LESS. Although this isn't the greatest thing with the amount of stress and the work I have to do there have been a few days where I forget to eat (today was one of those days, I had an anatomy lab practical and was on panic mode for mostof the day before the exam so I totally forgot to eat). The weird thing is in the past that would never happen to me, being stressed out means I EAT! Also I realized that being full isn't conducive to studying and the possibility that I may fail out of optometry school is good enough motivation to not eat a lot these days.

Checkout my new profile

I just realized that I never actually had a blogger profile set up for this account. I have just spent my studying break updating it so check it out and see all the cool stuff we have in common!

BTW this past couple of days I've been eating really well (with the exception of the starbucks drinks, I just can't get around that at the moment) but I'll be honest I'm always hungry and I feel miserable and angry at the world. I just kinda want some fries and big mac.