I'm Still Here!

I haven't gained weight....or lost weight. Actually I gained a few pounds over the break because I went restaurant crazy in Los Angeles, but then lost it when I started school. I'm back again to working out with a trainer. I'm just consumed with life....mainly school.

I was sick at the end of last semester so I missed some of my finals and had to take them as a makeup at the beginning of this semester...it was killer and some of the didn't go well. So my break was spent preparing for those exams and as soon as those were out of the way I got busy trying to get caught up with school since I missed the first week of classes.

The numbers are going up

This is really frustrating. I'm done with my period and dinner last night was an apple. The past couple of weeks I've been working out AT LEAST 4 tims a week and although I do have slipups here and there generally speaking I've been eating well. However I weighed in at 146 this morning after going to the bathroom and even with no clothes on. That's a 3 lb gain from the lst time.

I probably have put on muscle mass but still I should have really lost more fat. I don'eat strength train like crazy, it's something I do twice a week.

So now I'm going back to the drawing board to see where I can cut more corners but I really really don't want to do that. I don't know if I can be any better at the moment. I already eat healthier and exercise more than my roomates and most of my friends and classmates. My incentive to stay that way is that I'll be losing weight and it sux when I'm not seeing those results. Ok there are results but they're very slight. This weekend I put on a pair of size 10 Trina Turk dress pants and they were loose. When I bought them in August they weren't tight, but more fitted. I also bought a vest from Bebe in a size medium....I still couldn't get all the buttons to close but it was still wearable. So I probably lost like 5 pounds of fat in the last 3 months.

Ok I have been having one too many espresso truffles from starbucks, but when I get those it's in place of a meal as to balance out. Also I've been eating more carbs, but still it's in moderation! I've been eating cereal for breakfast every morning but it's the kashi brand with all that fiber in it so I thought it's a good choice. I did have some chocolate cake but literally maybe 5 bites.

I just don't know how much better I can be. I hate to think that I was meant to stay this way.

Today I caught the football!!!

Yes folks, I caught a football today and felt like a normal person playing at the park.



I didn't want to jump in the game and annoy everyone with my football skills which include "can't catch the football to save my life" and "can't throw the football either". Don't get me wrong I am a fit girl, just not an athletic one..........eff this I'm going in!

I was upbeat and perky which made people think it was a good idea to keep throwing the ball to me, and I proved to be great at stopping the football with my body. I would jump towards it with my arms outstretched intending on catching it but it would just slam into my body instead. I'll count how many bruises I incurred when they start showing up in their full form by tomorrow morning. I also could swear I fractured my wrist at one point, but since I can type this I can put that to rest.

People usually give you some kind of heads up when they want to throw to you and my eyes widened when the super tall kid who plays every sport pointed in my direction to get ready. "Wow he's kinda far", I thought. It went up really high and was coming down far from me so I had to run to it with my arms up in the air. I jumped, caught it with both hands, hugged it tightly against my chest, and landed with both feet on the ground all with minimal shrieking.

"I FINALLY CAUGHT THE BALL YAYYYY" I cheered for myself and it seemed like the whole park followed with a round of applause and some hoots!

NFL training camp here I come!!!!!!!

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 :(