final step to getting in shape

2007-01-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, so after week number one, even though I went to the gym every day and ate well, I didn't go to the gym on monday because it was the one day a month that I don't go to the gym (other than fridays). I ate well and exercised every day this week as well. Except for tongih (my regular friday night off). Didn't go to the gym (was planning to go at lunch but then got word that I had a conference call right when I was planning to go, but then my boss forgot to conference me in. Went bowling with the associates and ate an amazing amount of junk food. Oddly enough a couple of shots and some mixed drink later and my bowling game actually improved. Given that I was throwing nothing but gutter balls, that wasnt' saying much. I don't plan to go the gym on monday (my supposedly weekly weigh in date that I have yet to do) beause it is a holiday so I will go jogging instead. Maybe week three I'll get around to weighing myself. For now, exercising and eating right will have to be sufficient.

2007-01-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

new year. New plans. I'm at 198. Problem number one. I let work get to me. Problem number two, even when work doesn't get to me, I get bored. So I eat. It can't go any further than that. enough is enough. Took some time to think over the past week. It is clear I can't get in shape here the same way I did in Cleveland. It was one thing to have that sort of routine when there were no places to eat and nothing to do but work out, and nothing but time on my hands. Here, I have other things to do, and resturants to try, and dessert to eat. So, for the first time in my life, it looks like I will have to go on something that resembles a diet. At two pounds a week, I need to be exceptionally strict until midmarch. Back to having my priorities in order. Life goes on.

2006-12-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

So I hit the gym hard monday, tuesday, and wednesday. Thursday and friday I took off. yesterday and today I went out jogging. In cleveland, I always made my weekend days my days off. But I think I am going to change that here to thursday and friday. Those are always the hardest days for me to do anything. I've been eating well too. Although I had a couple of cookies and other holiday goodies, there has been no bingeing on sweets for the past two weeks. It felt so good to go out jogging. Although I'm now insanely sore. But oh well. I'll get over that. I'm amazed at how much I've declined in the past few months. I seem to be back at square one. Oh well, I'll get there. All in good time.

2006-11-27T21:37:00.000-08:00

well, i went on a month long detour. Oh well. back on track. day two. protein drink. tofu casserole, carrot, banna, carrot for a snack, dinner, tofu casserole, and cheese and crackers, sweet potato dish. 65 minutes cardio.

2006-10-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

thursday i went for a movie and pizza with my roommate. No gym. Friday i went to the gym at lunch, 60 minutes of cardio. Then after work I went to a dance class. Total weight, I am down 5 pounds. Now off to SF for work for a week. The hotel supposedly has a great fitness center. I think I'll try to stay on Eastern time, and get up early and get in 90 minutes of cardio a day. Fortunately, I think the being really really hungry all the time for three days was hormonal. Thursday and Friday I wasn't hungry at all.

2006-10-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

breakfast was a small breakfast burrito and a small side of potatos. I was sooooo hungry. lunch was paneer tikka. dinner was a subway sandwhich. 55 minutes of cardio at the gym. followed that with 1 hour of dance class. loved the class. made me aware of how much weigh i've put on. I really can't see it. I have a blind spot to my own body. But I can see that it affects the way I move. I can't weight till I've lost some of the weight. I have to miss my dance classes next week. Bummer. but I get to go the san francisco. Ok, tomorrow night I'm going to a movie with my roommate. If I'm going to hit the gym, I need to do it before work. Must get up an go to gym.

2006-10-16T18:29:00.000-07:00

Decisions. do i take the day off from the gym? I went to a dance class. and I've been to the gym for the past five days straight. breakfast was a protein drink. lunch was a pb&j on wheat bread and enchiladas. Dinner was pb&j and a slice of pizza. that means i'll probably break even on calories. I can take a day off from the gym. rest will be good. and then I'll be able to hit hard tomorrow. I've been dragging at the gym, so it is a good day to take off, especially since the dance class is the vienese waltz. certainly a dance that keeps you on your toes. i really wanted peanut m&Ms today. i had nothing to do all day and I wanted to eat. but I didn't. I did chew through two packs of gum though.

2006-10-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

day 12. breakfast was... a blueberry scone. lunch and dinner were kungpow tofu with rice. I had some oj after I got back from the gym. 60 minutes of cardio.

2006-10-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

day 11. scrambled eggs and two pieces of toast for breakfast. at noon. pizza for lunch at around 3pm. Enchiladas (230 calories) around 6. Subway sandwhich for dinner. 60 minutes of cardio at the gym. Signed up fora yoga class tomorrow morning. Signed up for salsa class wednesday nights and will sign up for vienese waltz monday nights. all in all a good day.

2006-10-13T22:37:00.000-07:00

ok, I'm on day... ok, I don't actually remember what day i'm on. I ate a little more today than I usually would, but I've been hungry lately. two small chocolate chip bagels for breakfast, paneer tikka and veggie samosa for lunch, and cashew tofu with white rice for dinner. Spent 60 minute at the gym. cardio. standard. i feel better. i actually enjoyed my time at the gym today.

2006-10-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

I took yesterday off from the gym. I was going to go but decided to try to go to bed early. I was so tired I fell asleep on the couch. I was out cold, drooling and everything. I've had trouble sleeping lately. Work has gotten busier. I didn't get to sleep earlier. I didn't feel guilty about not going to the gym. I had done cardio for seven days straight. And I had eaten well. Today I had a protein drinkfor breakfast. Paneer tikka (cheese with grilled veggies on naan) for lunch and chinese takeout for dinner. I've been hungry lately. Still, even with eating out twice I was still within my calorie goals. Or at least I think so. I actually have no idea how many calories that stuff has in it. Oh, and I had two pieces of toast. I love toast. 60 minutes of cardio. Given that there was no snacking (other than the toast), today was an on day. This is day 9.

2006-10-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

So the official weigh in at the end of day 7 - 2 pounds down. Today went well. protein shake for breakfast. huge lunch. I was really hungry. tikka nan and a veggie samosa. dinner was my enchiladas and two pieces of toast with butter. looove toast with butter (note, the enchiladas only have 230 calories and so don't make a full meal without other food). and a glass of orange juice. actually the juice was after 60 minutes of cardio. so yes. day seven was a success. Week one was a success with me surpassing my goal by one pound. yaaaah week 1. once the gazillion paper cuts i have heal (long story) I am going to go get a manicure.

2006-10-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

Today is day...ok, I don't actually know what day it is, but I think it is day six. Protein shake for breakfast, subway for lunch, chinese for dinner. 60 minutes of cardio at the gym. Plus I was running around the office all day trying to get stuff ready to send to the government. As usual, ate too much dinner. But just a little too much, and I didn't get around to eating until after 8pm and I was sooooo hungry. but no snackign at all. Although I was eyeing Will's snapple. Pure sugar looked so good mid afternoon. But nope. Day six. Trudging right along.

2006-10-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

Day 5. 2 small chocolate chip bagels (1 with light cream cheese) and orange juice for breakfast (I was really hungry). A veggie patty subway sandwhich for lunch (no cheese or mayo), and black bean and corn enchiladas and peanuts for dinner. Plus some orange juice after I got back from the gym. 60 minutes of cardio. 1.5 pounds lost. I tried to edge the thingy over to two pounds less than i weighed five days ago, but it just wouldn't go. So 1.5 it is. I can live with that. Not craving junk food (unless you count the chocolate chip bagels). Not really craving food of any type. I don't know what it is that switches over in my brain that allows me to go from eating tons of junk food to not eating any and being ok with it, but if I could bottle it, I could make a fortune.

2006-10-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

I'm on day 4. If I lose 1 pound a week (which would be a reasonably average amount to lose in a week), it will take me 20 weeks to get back to where I was in April before finals. 20 weeks. 140 days. Yeah. Check in with me at day 140. Which reminds me. I need to buy shoes.

2006-10-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

The day started out fine. Found by ballroom shoes. Headed off to a ballroom dance class. Went downhill from there. I don't know if they changed the schedule or are just very disorganized at this place, or possibly both but then minutes before the class was scheduled to start, there was no sign of the previous class ending or anyone who looked like they were in charge to sign up with. Plus, the class that was going on certainly wasn't the class on the schedule. So after waiting around for five minutes, trying to figure out who was in charge, or what to do, I decided to leave. Came home and took a nap. I've been having trouble getting enough sleep lately, so it felt good. ate lunch around 4:30. Heavily weighed skipping the gym. I didn't go to the gym on weekends before when I was losing weight. I'd usually take those days off. But then decided that since I hadn't gone to the gym Monday or Tuesday, that I really couldn't skip saturday and sunday. I compromised though. I decided that if I go the gym every day Monday through Friday, I can skip saturday and sunday if I want to. I went to the gym. I was kind of tired though, so I cut out the last 8 minutes of cardio. So today was 52 minutes. This was day 4.

2006-10-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

Today it was cold and rainy. I didn't want to go to the gym. I reasoned that I had gone to the gym the past two days. I had walked to work and home. I had eaten well. I ate a little too much dinner. But other than a cliff bar, no snacking,at all, all day. veggie burger and some lentil soup for lunch. protein drink for breakfast. Hunan tofu with brocoli for dinner. I was tired, and my apartment is warm and comfy. I could skip one day. Then I changed clothes and went anyway. 60 minutes of cardio. and that doesn't include the walk to and from the gym. This is day three. They say 21 days makes a habit. Goals for this weekend. find my ballroom dance shoes. clean out my car. do laundry. make food for next week. find dance classes.

2006-10-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

Today started out fine. I had my protein drink for breakfast. Had stuff to do at work for the most part. I get in around 9. Lunch around 12:30 (I had an appointment at 1:30 and so couldn't take lunch later). Subway sandwhich. around 4:30 I got hungry, so I chewed some gum. Something I wouldn't do in public, but in the privacy of my office I was ok with it. 6:00pm I'm ready to walk out the door. Finished everything I had to do. Check with the partner who tells me I'm not going home yet. Ok. No problem. 7pm rolls around and they decide to order food. Weird guy asks me if I'm staying for dinner, I say ask partner, Parnter says, yes, I'm staying. So we order italian. It didn't show up till after 8:00pm. I desperately wanted to get something from the vending machine. I was starving. But I didn't. Ate dinner. Ate a little too much. Spinach and cheese raviolis. Then I go home. It is raining. I really don't want to go to the gym. I want to stay nice and comfortable in my bed. None the less, I haul my ass off to the gym for 60 minutes of cardio. Come home. No late night snacking for me. Hell, I ate dinner like three hours ago. Not even hungry. I will admit, the regular exercise does help regulate my mood.

2006-10-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

Ok. I've been a slacker. I haven't been to the gym regularly. At most I've gotten there three times a week. Sometimes only twice. And I've eaten an obscene amount of junk food. I eat when I have a really good day. I eat when I have a really bad day. I eat when I'm bored. I eat when I'm stressed. Yep. I am pretty much eating all the time. I've put on a total of 20 pounds. None of my clothing fits. I could come up with a zillion excuses. I was taking BA and Evidence at the same time while doing my writing requirement and taking Secured transactions and some other class I'm not remembering at the moment. I was dealing with having both of my parents at my apartment for graduation. I was traveling for interviews. I was studying for the bar exam. I didn't know where I was moving and my lease ended in a week, in two days, a week ago. I was moving to DC and I hadn't found an apartment before I moved here. I was starting a new job. I got blindsided by problems at my new job. Ok, have I covered them all? So time to get back on the wagon. No excuses. No regrets. No junkfood. None. Zero. Nada. I'm addicted to sugar and I can't just eat a little of it. And back to daily at the gym. That means if I think I'll be working late I either have to get up early to hit the gym or go at lunch time. Or take an hour off at dinner. Point is, I have to get there. And damn it, I have to find dance classes. They tend to keep me happy. Here we go again.

2006-06-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

So, after nonstop eating during finals and parents' visit, I put on somewhere between 10-12 pounds (note, finals season for me lasts about four weeks plus one week of recovery. Parents' visit lasted another week, plus three days for recovery). So for the past two weeks, I've been hitting the gym. Everyday. Doing 4 or 5 spin classes a week. and walking. One of these days I'll manage to get out jogging, but I'm pretty tired after the spin class. Plus I've been doing weightlifting, and adding in an additional 30 minutes of cardio around the spin class (usually ten minutes before and 20 minutes after). Before that I was going jogging three or four times a week. After three weeks I've lost 4 pounds. Given the degree of workouts I've been doing, this was somewhat disappointing. However, this is the time of the month where I tend to retain water. So I wouldn't be particularly surprised if by the end of the week, five more pounds were gone. Not because I was actually losing pounds, but just getting rid of the excess water. That would be more in line with what I would expect after four weeks of working out and eating well.

2006-05-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

ok. law school is over. Has been for a week. I spent most of the week sleeping and eating junk food. It was raining, so I didn't go out jogging. After a week of rain, today I decide i was going out jogging regardless of the rain. It was brutal. My body did not appreciate the week of eating junkfood and sleeping. well, it kinda liked the sleeping. For the past couple of days I've been trying to figure out what to do and reviewing for the bar exam, and readign a book in spanish. I'm fairly content. Parents show up tomorrow.

2006-04-16T21:18:00.000-07:00

ok, heading into the brutal weeks of the semester. common sense is that you don't take business associations and evidence at the same time. I actually wouldn't have a problem with those two courses. it is taking those two on top of bankruptcy and secured transactions AND trying to do my writing credit that is causing problems. I'm almost back on track as far as fitness goes. Trying to get out of the habit of eating when stressed or board still. Did reasonably well Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Went to two dance classes on Thursday, the spin and abs class friday, 5 mile jog saturday, 3 mile jog sunday. tomorrow i'm either taking the day off of going to two dance classes. I really don't have time to go to dance class, and really don't even know if there is going to be a ballroom class. which irritates me. maybe I'll call. Next week is going to be critical. I need to get my revised paper in, get BA down solid, and get evidence down. Evidence is closed book, so if I wait until the last week, I'm toast. BA just has a lot of material. but I already have my outlines done for about half of it. If I can get a solid revised paper in, Evidence outlined, and assignment 5 from BA outlined by Friday, I'll be set up pretty nicely for finals. I'll still have to do all of bankruptcy and secured transactions, but that won't be too bad. There is still time. There has to be time. Fitness. No junkfood this week. I'm just not going to overeat this finals. enough is enough.

2006-03-26T17:22:00.000-08:00

ok. so for tomorrow. 350 for my protein drink in the morning (30 grams of protein). lunch. Hmmm. 180 calories worth of tofu gives me 14 grams of protien. 300 calories of pasta. 100 calories of sauce. That leaves 570 for dinner. I think I need to expand my eating horizons. this eating pasta with tofu every day is getting old. I couldn't go to the farmer's market this week because of the class on saturday. I have some lettuce left over. I could make some lentil soup tonight. I have half an onion and some carrots. I could have lentil soup and salad for dinner. I wonder if I have any walnuts to put in the salad. If I don't, I'm sure I have soy nuts. 300 for the lentil soup. 150 for the salad. Usually I'd add a slice of bread but I don't have any bread and everything is closed for the evening. hmm. Maybe I'll add a slice of tofu to the soup. that will add an extra 100 calories. close enough. Note to self, buy some muchrooms (those blue oyster ones were really good) and think of something more interesting to put on the pasta. Maybe I'll make some orzo pasta salad this week. orzo. sundried tomatos, feta cheese. I think that is about all there is.

2006-03-26T15:25:00.000-08:00

So for the past three weeks, I got into the habbit of snacking on junkfood. There are two problems, one that my body actually wants the calories because I'm trying for a calorie deficiency, and two, I actually really like the junk food. So, back on the wagon. Damn it, I am only 10-15 pounds away from my goal. Why is this so hard. Ok. So the plan for the last week of march and the entire month of April is dance classes on Monday and Thursday. Jogging on sunday and Tuesday. Bike class on friday. Weight training and cardio on wednesday. If I can lose 2.5 pounds per week, I can be down to my goal weight by my birthday. Back to the obsessive calorie counting. ok. Today. Breakfast was a bowl of cereal with soy milk. aabout 280. Lunch was peanutbutter and sugar, probably around 400 and pasta, probably around 400 as well. plus a bowl of frozen berries. about 100. Dinner so far was a protein drink after I got back from jogging. probably around 350 (I put extra protein in it). ok, so we're at 1520. how much is my goal. ok, if one pound is 3500. and I want to lose 2.5 pounds per week. that means I need to have a deficiency of 8750 per week. That is 1250 per day. Ok. my base level is 1750. I generally do about 600 worth of cardio a day. Hmm, well, at that that only puts me at allowing me to consume 1100 calories per day and that won't work. I get cranky if I have less than 1500. Ok, so I need to make sure I do an additional 400 calories worth of activity a day. Ok. so if I get some sort of movement in my day, I can probably count on about 100 calories worth. That means I need to burn an extra 300 per day at the gym. Sigh. An extra 30 minutes. Oh well. I can do that. For five weeks. Then I'll be done with both law school and being overweight

2006-03-05T08:48:00.000-08:00

Ok. for this week, no sugar (unless it is in chocolate soy milk). No candy. no baked goods. I seem to be hooked. Time to get back on track.

2006-03-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

focus. damn it.

2006-02-10T17:28:00.000-08:00

The queasy stomach problem continued monday. It eased off a bit tuesday, but I still didn't have any appetite. Same for Wednesday. By Thursday I wasn't worried about keeping food in my stomach but still had no appetite and was exhausted. Didn't make it to the gym at all all week. Did go to my dance classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. End result, lost two pounds for the week. Personally, I'd prefer to lose the weight by going to the gym than by being sick. None the less, this evening, after my cycle class, after rehydrating, fully dressed, 167. And somehow, I'm back into cycling too. I would love to be in phenomenal shape by the time cycling season hits. Get a new bike, find some new people to ride with. This may be my best season yet.

2006-02-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

ugh. So yesterday I just started off wrong by going to Yours Truly on the square for brunch. The food tasted fine, but I've gotten so used to unprocessed food that I didn't enjoy it. I had this sort of grilled cheese sandwhich on white bread with pesto, and tomatoes and mozarella cheese. It tasted fine. But it wasn't very filling. And probably really high calorie. Well, the day just went downhill from there. I don't even remember what I ate, but I do know that I went to buy candy. I haven't eaten candy since the semester started (I've been to busy with school work and dance classes). I ate the whole box of hot tamales. Which made me feel sick. And I didn't go to my yoga class. Anyway, I didn't feel like getting up this morning to go the cycle class either. In fact, I didn't make it to the gym at all. All I wanted to do was sleep. Anyway, around fivish I decided I should eat something even though I didn't feel hungry. I made my protein drink. I was ok for about an hour. Then I started to feel sick. I got up to start cleaning, and I felt really sick. Shortly after that, I threw up. And then continued throwing up until there was nothing left in my stomach. I felt better after that. Apparently, the protein drink did not agree with me. Ugh. What an unpleasant experience. Given that I hadn't eaten anything else all day, I opted for an apple. Apples are usually fairly safe. My stomach isn't exactly comfortable, but the apple is still in there. No more eating at that restuarant and no more candy for me. Ugh. This is awful.

2006-01-30T19:20:00.000-08:00

my Sunday morning yoga instructor is moving to Saturday afternoon. I don't particularly care for the replacement (she knows about as much about yoga as I do, which isn't a whole lot) so my weekly yoga class has now relocated to Saturday afternoon. I think I'm ok with that although I actually really liked doing yoga on Sunday mornings. However, now I can take the Sunday morning cycle class, if the instructor is good. What else. Today I ran on the treadmill. 5 minute warm up, 33 minute jog at 11 minute mile, and a 5 minute cool down. Then I went to the muscle conditioning class which emphasized the lower body. I was tired by the end of that. Then off to bankruptcy, and then to my dance class. The dance class was interesting. Aaron isn't teaching it any more. Rebecca is. Totally different. She is far more... well, serious somehow. I am still ridiculously uncoordinated. And amazingly uncomfortable in my body. I don't know how to get more comfortable in my body. I'm in dance classes four nights a week. I work out daily. I do yoga. I don't know how to know my body better than I already do.

2006-01-22T17:27:00.000-08:00

Went to my morning yoga class today. I'm still struggling with some of the transitions. But I was able to do wheel, so that was exciting. Nothing like a yoga class to convince that I am both much more tone and muscular than before and have huge flabby thighs at the same time. eh. Came back. relaxed. Went jogging in the evening. Stepped it up to the 5 mile route. Brutal. Amazing how quickly that fades. I was dragging. I think part of it is that it is hard to go strong on the weekend when I went hard all week. Part of it is that I havent been jogging lately. Oh well. That is changing. Haven't been able to go to any of my muscle conditioning classes lately. They conflict with my class schedule. Somehow I have to work the squats and lunges into my other workouts. Hmmm.

2006-01-20T17:33:00.000-08:00

Went to the cycle class today. That instructor also has an amazing body with no body fat at all. He worked us hard. Then he did a 15 minute ab class at the end. After that I went and jogged on the treadmill. I was planning to do 33 minutes (3 miles at an easy job) but after about a mile and a half I was exhausted and so walked a bit and then showered. I felt great after I was done. Amazing. It might be the work hard, cool down, and then warm back up sequence. I haven't felt this good in ages. In other good news, I weigh 169.0, which means I not only lost the holiday pounds put an additional pound on top of that. And that is weighing myself at the end of the day, wearing shoes, soaked in sweat after drinking a bottle and a half of water. Not bad. Not bad at all. So that means I'm aiming for 167.0 by next Friday. The dance classes are interesting as I learn how to move my body. Probably the most stereotypical feminine thing I've ever done. Me trying to be graceful. I've gotten pretty good at picking up steps. Styling is not so easy. I think part of my problem is that my body weight has changed so much that my balance has changed. Easier to do the steps, but harder to know what my body is going to do. Plus, now we're starting to add in hand motions. Haven't gotten that down yet. Getting my hands and feet to do different things can be somewhat challenging. I'll get better over time I'm sure.

2006-01-19T21:03:00.000-08:00

dropped the pounds I put on over the holidays. My jeans fit right again. They had gotten just a bit snug in the thighs. Amazing that a couple of pounds makes that much difference. Between my dance classes and my time at the gym, I'm definitely getting into shape.

2006-01-16T10:08:00.000-08:00

It never ceases to amaze me how I am sore the day after my Sunday morning yoga class. I didn't feel tired during the yoga class. I wasn't sweating. I wasn't hurting. And yet today, my arms are sore in the front and back, my chest is sore, my upper back is sore (in a good way), somehow, even my ribcage is sore (I didn't even know I had muscles there). My butt is sore and my thighs are sore. All this from a workout I didn't even feel.

2006-01-15T15:16:00.000-08:00

Friday and Saturday I did no exercise at all. Felt great. Definitely needed a break after last week. I did get a fair amount of reading done though. All the reading for the first week in secured transactions and probably evidence as well. There is a bankruptcy textbook snafu so don't have that done yet. Most of my reading for BA. Still trying to decide if I want to take settlement law. Cleaned the kitchen. Baked a squash soynut thing. Think I might bake some bread tonight. Had some beans and tortillas and lettuce for lunch. Dinner was the protein drink. Might have something to eat a bit later since breakfast didn't happen. Went to my 90 minute yoga class this morning. Went jogging this afternoon.

2006-01-12T21:45:00.000-08:00

Somehow, today just didn't go so well for food. It started off ok with a protein drink at 10am. I decided to go see a movie. But I was a bit late getting out of bed. So by the time I showered, I didn't have time to grab a bite to eat before I left. Then when I got back from the movie, I only had a few minutes to eat something quickly (some lentil soup and an apple) before I went and got my hair cut. Then I went to trader joes. And when I got back, I only had a couple of minutes before I had to leave for my dance lesson, so I ate two luna bars (180 calories each, but 10 grams of protein each). From the dance lesson, I went to melissa's and now it is 12:48 am and I don't want to eat. Oh well. At least I got enough protein even if I didn't get enough overall calories. Tonight was a ton of fun. It made up for the lack of fun last night.

2006-01-10T20:12:00.000-08:00

Not a bad day. got up at noon. had lentil soup and bread and peas (the kind you usually find in chinese stir fry. I was planning to make a salad but got lazy. Went on a three mile jog. Had a protein drink, some more lentil soup and peas. Went to my three hours of dance classes. Had a great time. Am definitely improving (not that I am particularly good, but at least I'm not floundering around stepping on my partners' feet most of the time).

2006-01-09T21:21:00.000-08:00

Ok, so after several weeks of eating junk food, back on track. The scale at the gym said 174.8 which would mean I put on 4.8 pounds. But I don't buy it. I weighed myself after my workout and after I had rehydrated. Plus it is the time of the month where I tend to weigh a few pounds more. I'm guessing I put on about two pounds. Today I went to the gym to do my muscle conditioning class and my cycle class. But then realized I forgot a shirt and went back home. By the time I got back to the gym, I would have missed the first 20 minutes of the muscle conditioning class, so I just did 30 minutes of weight training on my own. Then went to the cycle class. Then had falafel for dinner. Then went to my dance class. Lunch was cheese ravioli thingies that were awful. But I didn't eat lunch until 2pm and I still haven't gone grocery shopping, so my options were limited. After my dance class I went over to Melissa's to watch a movie. I resisted the urge to eat. It was late, and I really have no need to be eating at 10 pm anyway. I think I'm finally ready to make that commitment to lose those last 15 pounds (or 19 or 17, or whatever it is)

2005-11-29T19:09:00.000-08:00

So dancer guy is totally full of himself. I was talking to him and he mentioned that he wanted to move to California. We got to talking about housing prices and he mentioned palm springs. While Palm Springs may not be San Francisco, it is still not cheap. We were still talking about prices, and I said it was really expensive and he puffed up and said well I'm a computer programmer blah blah blah blah like he was the most important person in the world (don't remember exactly how he titled him self). And I looked at him, and said "yeah, and in in six months, I'll be a lawyer, doesn't mean I'll be able to buy a house in California." Note, I never ever voluntarily tell anyone I am in law school. I don't volunteer what I do and if I am asked point blank, I say I am in grad school. Only if the person then directly asks what I am studying do I say law. To put that bit of information out there is totally out of character for me. It took him about three seconds to process the information to which he responded, well, then you'd be able buy a house there too. To which I responded not if I don't want to work 80 hours a week. The conversation pretty much ended there. I would never tell someone that I thought made less money than me that I made a lot of money (a somewhat moot issue at the moment but still). I mean, what if I were working retail somewhere making 15k-20k a year (not improbable in Cleveland). I used to make that (although with benefits (401k, health, dental, profit sharing, stock options, employee stock purchase program)it was more like 28K plus unlimited free flights). You know, I'm starting to think that I really can't read Ohio guys. There have been several at this point that I thought were nice but turned out not to be. Might have to reevaluate my evaluations skills.

2005-11-28T17:22:00.000-08:00

The monday night spin instructor is absolutely gorgeous. He does triathelons. I swear he has no body fat on him at all. I don't think I've ever seen thighs that lean on anyone, man or woman. His music selection is pretty good too.

2005-11-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

My landlord cracks me up. She is by far the best landlord I've ever had. When I call with a problem, she fixes it immediately. If I call at 9pm on a Saturday night that someone is in my parking space, she not only answers the phone, but will come over and either find another space for me to park or have the vehicle towed. I called Wednesday afternoon with a list of problems that I just hadn't gotten around to calling her for and she actually tried to get people out there Wednesday and when that didn't work, she tried to get a plumber there on Friday. Anyway, I finally got around to telling her that I had used the fire extinguisher (a year ago) and so she brought be a new one. She was trying to put it in the holder on the wall. When I used the fire extinguisher, I had flames coming out of the microwave and so had difficulty getting the fire extinguisher off the wall because it was like a foot from the microwave. It is very easy to do, you just have to unclasp the thing, but when you have flames and a lot of smoke, this is not as easy as it sounds. I finally just tried yanking the thing off, which didn't get it off and succeeded in bending the holder. However, this may not have been entirely my fault. The holder is supposed to be attached with four screws. My landlord attached it with two because two screws attaches the thing pretty firmly. And unless you happen to be me yanking on the darn thing with a pending fire in the kitchen and smoke billowing making it difficult to breathe or see, two screws is all you need. But without the other two screws, the top is not attached to the wall and was effectively bent in half. Anyway, my landlord was trying to get the extinguisher to sit flat against the wall which it refused to do because the metal frame was bent. She's looking at it, and pushing it and bending it, and finally turns to me and says "well. Now I know why it came with four screws." She then determined that when she put extinguishers in the remaining suites, she would use all four.

2005-11-27T14:40:00.000-08:00

went to my yoga class today. I've finally lost enough weight that I can do most of the poses, or some version of them. I still struggle with some of course (I'm relatively new at yoga). I can see that the muscle toning class has made a big difference. I've started to develop a fair amount of upper body strength, which is proving critical. Today I notice a big change though. I was wearing a tank top, which did not cover my belly every time I leaned back really far, or twisted, or whatever. Rather than having floppy arms, legs and belly, in the mirror I saw lean firm arms, legs, and belly. Admittedly, my thighs could stand to be a bit more tone. But everywhere else I looked strong and lean. Note, this isn't about how I look in yoga class. It really doesn't matter what I look like in yoga class. This is more about how my body looks that I happened to be in yoga class when I noticed. This afternoon I went jogging.

2005-11-21T16:50:00.000-08:00

I've been slacking lately. I haven't been making my protein drink in the morning. Instead I've been grabbing a cliff bar and running out the door. Yeah, because I'm too busy to take the whopping 90 seconds it takes to make the drink. I ate some candy when I was under the deadline to get my paper draft done. I tried to eat nachos too but couldn't. I took a few bites, but couldn't keep eating. Somewhere along the line I lost the ability of overeat. I noticed a difference in my performance when I didn't eat right. My jog was brutal. Not fun at all. Although part of that was that I had skipped breakfast, eaten a light lunch and then went jogging at 4 in the afternoon. I also learned last weak that going joggin on saturday afternoon makes my sunday morning yoga class not so pleasant. I think I'll go back to and stick to my Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday jogging routine. If I go jogging the day before yoga, I'm all tense and my leg muscles are tired in the yoga class. Today I went to the muscle conditioning class followed by the cycle class. The cycle class was way to warm. The people downstairs said they had the air on in there, but it wasn't on. It was disgusting. The mirrors all fogged up. I had puddles of sweat around me. That actually wasn't the worst part though. The worst part was when I walked outside the cycle room. The gym was freezing. My body was still sweating. My body temperature dropped so fast it nearly made me sick. I was shivering by the time I got to the locker room. I didn't waste any time getting undressed and into a nice long hot shower. No dance classes this week. Next weeks starts the foxtrot and the Vienneese Waltz as well as the cha cha cha and the rumba. Should be fun.

2005-11-15T10:23:00.000-08:00

Today my butt and the back of my thighs are sore. Could have been the walking lunges in muscle conditioning. Could have been the hill climbing in spinning. Could have been a combination of the two (my legs were definitely starting to hurt by the end of the spinning class). Either way, I'm definitely sore. I suppose toning in those areas couldn't hurt.

2005-11-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

I got this email from someone today, and it made me laugh out loud. I even forwarded it to my dad (who used to be an engineer).

Real life is way better than TV (Applied physics and construction mishaps)

To anybody who champions the better treatment of heavy equipment
everywhere, I apologize for the gleefully recounted tale of destruction
that follows. To everybody else, just go ahead an laugh your fucking
heads off, because stuff like this just doesn't happen very often.

Some of you may be aware of the fact that the Ohio and Erie Canal
Towpath provides a nice, relatively level, and somewhat scenic ride from
Cleveland, more or less all the way to Akron. As it happens said
towpath runs right by my office. In fact we have a couple of windows
facing it. We're located on a pretty busy road that the towpath has to
cross, and the powers that be have apparently decided that it will be
safer for all parties if the cyclists and pedestrians don't have to
cross the road on the road.

Through the aforementioned windows, we have had the opportunity to watch
the construction of this cycle and foot bridge. Ordinarily,
construction is pretty cool to watch. There are great big machines
belching black diesel soot, the movement of great piles of earth from
point A to point B, and lots of people busily making the world a better
place for generations to come.

When things go horribly wrong at a construction site, however, the
results are frequently hilarious (so long as nobody gets hurt, of
course). It all started a couple weeks ago...

In order to build the bridge, they were sinking holes using an auger.
I'd guess that the auger was around 80 feet long, and 14 or 16 inches in
diameter. Of course, in order to turn such a big drill bit, you need
pretty big drill. In this case, the drilling rig was attached to a
large crawler crane, and powered hydraulically. This is not your
father's Black & Decker. Even with this much power, however, sometimes
you drill
into something just a little harder than you can cut through. When you
do this with a hand drill, the result is usually that either you lose
your grip on the drill, or you spin the bit in the chuck. Not so here.
They got the drill about 10 feet from the desired depth, and got it
stuck. They twisted it back and forth for a while trying to break it
free and back it out. Then disaster struck. The auger snapped off of
the drill.

At this point we're all watching, and wondering how in the hell they're
going to recover the auger. It's not as though they can just pull it
out with a pair of pliers or something. Shortly a man showed up with a
welder. To clarify, he arrived in a 3/4 ton pickup truck towing a
welder. Not a welder on a trailer, the wheels were attached to the
welder. Using a second crane, they hoisted the welder to the level of
the drill. The guy got in the bucket of an excavator and hung on while
they raised him to the height of the welder. He then grounded the
welder to the auger, and started doing his thing. Here follows an
excerpt of the conversation between Kendall and I:

K: "Wow, it sure looks like he's putting a lot of metal on there"
Me: "Yeah he's well into the third stick"
K: "It doesn't look like he's doing a very good job of welding, look at
the color of those spark--"
Me: "Holy shit, the dude caught himself on FIRE!"

Now if you'll imagine a man with a full beard, standing on a backhoe
bucket, 10 feet in the air, holding his head as far back as he can to
keep from catching his full beard on fire, and beating on his (flaming)
chest like Tarzan, it would be of great help to me, as I lack the words
to describe the sight. To his credit, the guy didn't fall, and he did
put his shirt out, but it was an impressive feat to see him throw down
the welding torch and frantically pat himself out.

A few more welding sticks later the guy was satisfied that the repair
had been made, the welder was lowered, and the guy got out of the
backhoe bucket. Efforts to unstick the drill resumed, but ended ten
minutes later, when they snapped the auger off of the drill again. By
this point however, the excavator was elsewhere on the jobsite, and to
cut a long story short, they lifted the welder with the crane again, but
this time the guy sat ON TOP OF THE WELDER. I kid you not. This time
we were a bit more prepared, and Steve took a picture with his cell
phone. It's a bit blurry, but you can clearly see a guy, sitting on top
of the welder, welding the auger back on to the drill.

http://vorlon.case.edu/~ebd2/oopspics/welder.jpg

That was Friday two weeks ago (October 28th). Fast forward to last
Wednesday.

Nick (my boss) came in from lunch announcing: "Guys, come quick, they've
got the excavator stuck in the canal." We all grabbed our jackets and
ran outside to the car bridge over the canal to watch the proceedings.

Sure enough, one of their excavators was down in the canal, tracks
perpendicular to the banks of the canal, leaning precariously forward,
with foul muddy water coming up to the bottom of the cab. The boom was
stretched out pushing against a firm piece of ground holding the
excavator out of further trouble. At this point somebody had the
presence of mind to ask Matt if he had his camera.

Matt ran back to the office to grab his camera, but sadly did not get
back in time to get a picture of the excavator at its most pitiful. By
the time he had gotten back, the guy running the stuck excavator had
used the boom to lift the stuck track out of the mud, and a second
excavator had begun shoveling pieces of concrete under the now airborne
track.

A fair number of large chunks of concrete later, the operator of the
stuck excavator let himself back down onto his newly firm perch, and
carefully drove and clawed (with the bucket) his way back up the bank.
No harm done to either excavator, but the fish remaining in the mostly
drained canal didn't appear to be enjoying the sediment that was being
stirred up.

Pictures of the excavator and the fish can be seen here:

http://vorlon.case.edu/~ebd2/oopspics/shovel/

Of course a minor mishap like that could happen at any muddy jobsite,
and the construction workers did an admirable and profesional job of
recovering their equipment without further endangering the excavator or
human life.

At this point, I'm sure you're expecting this rather extended email to
end. In truth, while the aforementioned incidents were pretty damn
funny, I wasn't really sure they warranted a retelling to the cycling
club email list. Mostly I've just been lazy about actually typing this
up for everybody's enjoyment. Then today happened, and it was like a
sign from god/goddess/whoever that the tales of this (doomed?)
construction project needed to be shared with the world.

Today's story starts with Nick at his desk, by the window overlooking
the bikepath. By this point, a fair amount of progress has been made.
A number of holes had been drilled and the rig had been moved to the
other side of the road to start drilling over there. A pretty
substantial hole had been dug out around some of the pilings to pour a
concrete footer for the bridge. Sharing our building is a company that
makes stone countertops, and a fair amount of their raw material was
sitting out in the parking lot adjacent to the bike path awaiting a
kitchen to but cut and polished for. Between the hole with the formwork
and rebar and the stone slabs was the muddy remnants of the bike path.
It wouldn't be too hard to drive a car down it, but a full size cement
mixer would be a bit of a tight squeeze. Now that we've set the
somewhat narrow scene, let's cut to Nick:

Overheard from outside (through our window) "whoa, Whoa! WHOA!"
followed by a loud crash.
Nick turns his head to his right to get a view out the window and
exclaims: "Holy shit, they tipped over a cement mixer!"

Immediately, everybody in the office (about a dozen of us) comes running
to the window to get a look. By this point, minor catastrophes are
becoming routine, and Matt has his camera in hand long before I turn to
ask him about it. He shot a couple pictures from our window while we're
all laughing our heads off. At this point, somebody noticed that the
engine was still running, the driveshaft was still turning, and the
wheels were still going. This was, of course, cause for further mirth
that was only surpassed by the observation that the engine was
hemorrhaging oil from the oil pan all over the ground. Of course the
office is in pandemonium with laughter, and the realization of how
fucked they are has just begun to sink in with the construction workers.

Several of us go outside to get better pictures of the cement mixer.
Fortunately, the mixer had fallen from the bank into the form work and
rebar where nobody was standing. We got a couple of good shots of the
mixer laying on its side. Without further delay, here are a couple of
my favorites:

http://vorlon.case.edu/~ebd2/oopspics/cement/IMG_2030.JPG
http://vorlon.case.edu/~ebd2/oopspics/cement/IMG_2031.JPG
http://vorlon.case.edu/~ebd2/oopspics/cement/IMG_2032.JPG
http://vorlon.case.edu/~ebd2/oopspics/cement/IMG_2029.JPG

From the head on shot you can see that the bank appears to have
collapsed under the passenger side rear tires which caused the cement
mixer to go tumbling over. Whether the bank collapsed because the
slipped a wheel over the edge, or because the cement shifted, I don't
know. I can speak from first hand experience that the result was
hilarious beyond compare. We went back inside when it became obvious
that we weren't at any risk of missing the salvage operation in the near
future, but not before cars from three different police departments, the
metroparks, and a laughably undersized towtruck had all shown up and a
small crowd had gathered in the parking lot of the restaurant across the
street.

Nick and Matt left for lunch leaving us with a standing order to take
pictures if anything happened while they were gone. Nothing major
happened during lunch, a couple enormous wreckers showed up, but they
weren't ready to pull until after Nick and Matt got back. Matt took not
only pictures, but also video. Sadly that part of the story will have
to wait until tomorrow, as I didn't have any blank CD's to burn the
videos to today.

Moral of the story, when you go to put cement in forms, be sure to
remove it from the cement mixer first.

More of the story tomorrow!

Until then, all the photos I have of the incidents can be found at:

http://vorlon.case.edu/~ebd2/oopspics/

~Eric

2005-11-14T16:33:00.000-08:00

Hmmm. I seem to have lost a couple of pounds. somewhere between 2 and 4. I wasn't keeping track of what I was eating or exercising, so I have no idea why I lost weight. Could be the dance classes. They're not really a work out, but they do keep me moving for three hours a week. Could be a side effect of the dance classes, I'm happier so maybe that triggers some hormone, or maybe just that I'm eating less because I'm happier. Could be the jogging regularly. 5 miles two to three times a week. Come to think of it, that is when I really started losing weight last year, when I hit the treadmill every third day religiously. Could be that I've started going to spinning classes again, and in fact went to two of them last week. or maybe the week before. But I definitely double up on monday nights to go to the muscle conditioning class for an hour and then the spin class for an hour. I had sweat dripping off my hair by the end of class tonight. The instructor is awesome. That guy must have like 8% bodyfat on him. Could be that the muscle conditioning instructor has decided to add more cardio to her class. Could also be the 90 minute yoga class on sunday mornings (with my favorite instructor who I started yoga basics with a year ago), which generally makes me sweat (I follow up later in the day by going jogging). Could be the switch to more organic food, which tends to be less processed and have more whole grain ingredients, which in turn is lower calorie and more filling than other food. I've started experimenting with different greens. This week it is kale. I have never tried to eat kale before, but I figure I'll give it a shot. Last week it was some other dark leafy veggie that I can't remember the name of at the moment. It was actually pretty good. If I can keep this up, I may be down to 160 by winter break. How cool would that be?

2005-11-03T20:03:00.000-08:00

Today was a 2100 calorie day. I was just really hungry. All healthy food though. My drink in the morning, two eggs, and spinach with salsa on tortillas for lunch, a piece of toast, peanutbutter (that's what really did me in), some cereal as a snack (that too, I have to get some lower calorie cereal), a few walnuts, and for dinner, some fried tofu with blackbeans and salsa on a tortilla. Ok, these don't sound that appetizing, but they're actually pretty darn good. Spent an hour at the gym. The elliptical machine said I burned 700 calories based on my weight. I finished drenched is sweat, as usual. Interesting, the spell checker for blogger doesn't include blackbeans or tortillas.

2005-11-02T19:29:00.000-08:00

The problem with eating light on Wednesdays (and mondays as well I suppose) is that I do the muscle conditioning class immediately followed by the cycle class. So I am doing a pretty intense two hour workout that falls right about the time dinner would be. So I have to eat before I start or I'll never make it through the whole two hours. On the other hand, I can't eat dinner at 330 pm either. So I have a snack which tends to up my total calorie intake for the day. Ok, so where Am I? Breakfast was only 240 calories and truly awful. I had made my eggplant dish in my blender the night before and I had just put the entire thing in the fridge, so I couldn't make my drink this morning, which meant I just added protein to a glass of orange juice. Ugh. Never again. I think I had an apple mid morning. 50 Lunch was the leftover eggplant stuff and a pita. I'm going to guess a total of 250. I think I had a small bowl of cereal 200 and an apple 50 too. Snack was a half cup 100 of cereal and some tofu 250. And dinner was a salad 100 with blackbeans 150 in it and some orange juice 120. That would make my total 1510. That is only 10 over my range. I can live with that. Actually, I have a vague recollection of having some peanut butter as well, so add 100 calories to that, which puts me over. But on the up side, I did 1 hour of muscle conditioning and 60 minutes of a cycle class. That still puts me well under a 1000 calorie deficit for the day, which is where I want to be.

2005-11-01T19:47:00.000-08:00

My Tuesday night dance classes are rapidly becoming my favorite part of the week. It certainly doesn't hurt that two of the three classes are taught by a guy who is a total cutie. The funny part about the classes is that no matter how uncoordinated I am in the class, I am still more coordinated than most of the guys there (with the exception of the ones who have been taking classes for awhile of course). The other interesting thing is that I am actually in pretty good shape. Every previous attempt to dance has had a sort of clunky result. Dancing now doesn't appear (at least to me) to be nearly as clunky. Yeah, dancing as a smaller size definitely makes it easier. Not that I am anywhere near graceful, but I suspect I'll get there eventually. Every once in awhile, everything goes exactly right, and the guy leads and I follow and the frames are right, and everyone's tension is just right and it feels amazing. today was a 2000 calorie day (as it should be). But remarkably low fat. My protein drink in the morning (no fat). Cereal for a snack (I think the soy milk has some fat in it, but it is a good kind of fat). Lunch was salad with blackbeans and some mac and cheese (ok, the cheese was high in fat, but I didn't use much of it). Dinner was an eggplant dish. I guess that has tahini in it, which is high in fat, but again, it is nut based fat, and so much healthier. I spent three hours in dance classes AND did cardio at the gym for 60 minutes. I think I might have to start taking lessons on another day of the week. I never feel this good during the rest of the week.

2005-10-31T19:50:00.000-08:00

breakfast 300, lunch was a salad with fried tofu. the tofu was 250. I'll put the salad dressing and everything else as 150, so 400. Dinner was a salad with blackbeans and some mac and cheese. 400 for the mac and cheese. probably about 200 for the salad. That puts me at 1250. plus two apples, so 1350. Didn't go to the gym, but did go jogging.

2005-10-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

Today I went to some hearings before the Ohio industrial commission (they decide whether workers get workmans comp benefits). It was interesting. Very informal. Saw a couple of very mentally disturbed individuals. But who knows, I might be very disturbed as well if I watched my fingers get severed by a punch press that went up and down multiple times before I could get my hands out. The lawyers would sit there an argue before a hearing officer for five to fifteen minutes, and then the hearing officer or the lawyers would ask the claimant a few questions, and that would be the end of it. You have to wonder what the claimant is thinking. Certainly they don't understand the legal jargon. The mentally disturbed ones often can barely keep it together. All they know is to show up when the lawyer tells them to, and then at the end, the lawyer tells them their benefits have been denied or granted. They can't possibly know whether the lawyer is any good or not. And this is just the first step in a potentially long process to determining how much money they will get in state benefits. Watching this, I'm glad I went to law school. At the very least, I know how to find a good lawyer when I need one.
Today I baked two cheesecakes, a chocolate bunt cake, a pumpkin bunt cake, an apple pie, some chocolate peanutbutter brownies, and some cupcakes. I am definitely ready for bed.

2005-10-28T07:35:00.000-07:00

I have decided that laptops are not for me. I should have a desktop and forgo laptops alltogether. I am simply too hard on my equipment to take care of a laptop. They've caused me nothing but grief. And what do I really need a laptop for? To check my email during class? to take notes that I will never look at? To check my email from bed? I've spent way WAY too much time in front of my laptop in the past two years. I really don't need to use the online chat services. I have like 3000 rollover anytime minutes at this point. And I think it would be good to limit my computer time to time I am willing to sit at a desk.

2005-10-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

So much for a heavy eating day. I woke up late and so didn't have time to make my drink. I had an absolutely horrible tasting protein bar. 15g of protein at 170 calories. When I got home from class I had a bowl of cereal at about 200 calories. Lunch wasn't until 3:30, and I had enchiladas at 260 calories and some almonds at 100 calories. I might have had some cereal too. I don't remember. I'll throw in 200 calories then it was back out to class and to the gym for 80 minutes of cardio and about 15 minutes of weight training. Dinner wasn't untill nearly 10pm. that was a fake turkey sandwich at about 350 calories and a glass of orange juice at 120 calories. later I had another glass of orange juice and a piece of toast at 220 calories. That puts me at 1620 for the day. I also might have had another glass of orange juice. that would put me at 1740 which is in my range for a thursdays, even if just barely.

notes of today. My macintosh is broken and apple help is useless. Not buying a mac again.

magically, my thinkpad is fully functional again. ???!!!????!

Random act of politeness when a guy at the lawschool held a door open for me this morning. It was particularly nice because I was running late to class. You don't see that often at the lawschool.

Second random act was in the gym locker room. I got there and realized I had grabbed my textbook rather than my hair rubberband out of my car. Normally, you would think I would notice this, but I didn't. As I was standing there, I said "darn it. I forgot my hair rubberband." A girl changing clothes nearby said "oh, I hate it when that happens, do you need one?" I asked if she had an extra one and she handed me the one that had been in her hair and said she had several at home, and she was done working out. Ok, so normally I'm not into using other people's hair products, but not having my hair pulled back totally messes up my workout. Again, not a really big deal, but just nice.

Workers comp law was actually interesting tonight. The professor brought in another lawyer and a doctor that teaches at the medical school and often testifies as an expert witness, and they presented him as a witness and asked him questions and cross examined him as they would do in a trial.

My pumpkin cheesecake is ready to take out of the oven, so I'm going to do that and go to bed.

2005-10-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

ok. so breakfast was about 500. Lunch was about 350. Followed by a good 600 in mid meal eating. Dinner was around 350. Then I had a snack later at about 200. that puts me at 1950 which is right on target for a Tuesday. Not bad. I didn't go to the gym. I did however go to dance classes for three hours. I don't think these classes are going to justify my skipping a workout all together. The only class that even got my heart rate up at all was the mambo. Although I suppose that since I do two hours on Mondays generally, I could. The first class was the waltz and the tango. These were a lot of fun. The second class was the bolero and the mambo. These were also fun. The third class was the Lindy Hop, and that was a whole lot of fun. Definitely my favorite of the bunch. Yep, getting out of Cleveland was definitely a good idea. It is kind of a long drive, but psychologically, it is completely worth it.

2005-10-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

Well, time to try a new approach. I've been attempting this limiting my calorie intake on a daily basis since last May and although I dropped a clothing size with the 1500 miles I put on my bike this summer, I haven't lost any weight. I think the problem is that when I actually succeed in consuming the number I want to, it takes me too low, my body feels deprived and I then over consume. Obviously I can maintain my weight. I have maintained without any problem since last may. My base level of calorie burning is 1750 per day. You add an hour of intense cardio a day, and I am at 2300 a day. That is a fairly easy number to maintain. The problem is actually loosing the weight. My new routine is going to alternate days. M,W,F, I'll go low calorie. 1200-1500 a day. T,R, and on weekends, I'll focus on just maintaining a balance of 2000-2200 a day. This should result in a weightloss of about 1 pound per week but allows me to eat normally four days per week. I think I can handle that. Of course, I will have to adjust downward slightly on the calories once I actually lose the weight because theoretically, when I weigh less, the amount needed to sustain me will be less. But five -10 pounds shouldn't make that much of a difference. So yes, today was monday. I didn't have any orange juice so I had a protein bar for breakfast. 170 calories and 15 grams of protein. Lunch was curried tofu scramble with baby spinach on two tortillas with salsa, cheese, and olives. Probably around 450. Had two afternoon snacks of ice cream (I know, its a low calorie day, but I had a super low calorie breakfast) at about 200 calories, and some cereal and soymilk at about 230 calories. See, I went to my gym class at 430 and so had to eat something before I left so that I'd have energy for my classes. I did a muscle conditioning class for 60 minutes that included and abnormally high amount of cardio (I was sweating pretty much the entire class), and then I did a cycle class for 60 minutes. Since I was sweating when I started the class, I was drenched by the end. Drenched as in puddle forming around me on the floor. Dinner was my protein drink that I didn't have this morning at about 450 calories (added some extra protein to it (I was craving it when I got home from the gym ) plus a piece of whole wheat toast at 100 calories. that puts my total at 1570. Which is only 70 over my goal. But I needed those extra calories to get through my intense two hour workout today. I feel good though. I know I'm going to hurt tomorrow from the muscle conditioning class.

Tomorrow is tuesday. dance classes start tomorrow.
In other news, cute guy I had an amazing first date with followed by positive emails is history.

And I just found that that pretty much every state is having its summer bar exam at the same time so I will actually have to decide where I want to practice before I register.

My living room is nearly clean. All my clean laundry is folded up and stacked on top of the table. all unnecesary documents have been shredded.

I am hopelessly behind on my note. My first draft will not be anywhere close to what I was hoping for it to be.

I bought jeans that I love. They're so comfy. I also bought some midcalf black boots that I am fond of.

Lately I've been on a listening to phantom of the opera kick.

2005-10-19T09:27:00.000-07:00

I've been waking up in the worst mood lately. I don't want to do anything when I wake up and getting out of bed is quite an ordeal. So I've been sleeping a lot. Not to the extent that I've missed class, or even to the extent that I am behind on my reading, but to the extent that I wait until the very last minute to do anything. Once I'm up and moving, I'm pretty much good to go, although sometimes it takes awhile for it to kick in. Monday was a classic example. I was struggling up until I went home at 10am and went jogging. then I felt better. Similarly yesterday, I felt a lot better after my yoga class. I was thinking I need to move my workouts earlier in the day so that I can get on the day. Curious about this link with waking up and depression, I googling "wake up depressed". I came across an interesting article and REM sleep and depression. Depressed people are more likely to spend time in REM sleep because that is the stage of sleep that deals with stress, and so depressed people tend to wake up exhausted. (this is of course assuming that insomia is not one of the individual's symptoms) In addition to that, seratonin is not released while in REM sleep. I've been sleeping a lot lately, and I've had very strange dreams. I've also noticed that I have been sleeping heavier than before (probably because I've upped my workout level and so am more physically tired). It also might be related to the blackout curtains I bought. There was light shining into my room at night that was keeping me awake. However, now the sunlight in the morning doesn't wake me up. So it would make sense that if I've been sleeping more solidly, for a longer period of time and spending more time in REM sleep, I would wake up tired and cranky in spite of a solid night's sleep. Maybe the solution is just to get up earlier.

2005-10-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

I've decided I need a pair of black boots. Now I just have to find comfortable ones that I like.
for breakfast was my protein drink. Lentil soup and bread for lunch, and lentils on tortillas with salsa for dinner. yeah, I'm on a lentils kick. Eh probably around 1400. oh, plus a cup of orange juice with dinner (love citrus drinks with lentils) so more around 1550. That's not bad.
I love lentils. Exercise was a 60 minute yoga class and 60 minutes of cardio. I noticed in yoga that I am really starting to develop thighs. I am quite pleased.

2005-10-17T12:15:00.000-07:00

my last post was the 12th. That would have been wedensday. thursday I ate well and went to the gym but I don't remember what I ate or how long I was at the gym. I do know I ate way to much ice cream that night. That started me on a bender that went through Sunday. Friday I had to catch a 650 am flight and so ate airport food for breakfast. I had a tomazzo which is theoretically a bagel with tomato sauce and cheese on top. Somehow I didn't have much tomato sauce or cheese, just a bagel. I'd estimate this had around 400 calories. This left me hungry. Lunch was supposed to be at noon, but the food was late. However, the dessert was there on time, so I had like two cookies and a brownie on top of a veggie wrap and a salad and some fruit salad. Probably around a 1500 calorie lunch. yikes. Dinner was just as bad. pasta with veggies in a cream sauce, a salad, bread, and carrot cake for desert. Probably around 1200 calories. Somehow, people think that it is necessary to make up for not having meat by adding a ton of carbs and fat to vegetarian food. And the worst part was that i was still hungry because there was very little protein. Wow. is it even possible to eat 3200 calories in one day?

Saturday was only nominally better. Break fast was scrambled eggs and toast and fruit salad and cottage cheese. Probably around 450 - 500
Lunch was a mushroom fritata (which was good but unquestionably high in fat), a salad, and a piece of cake. probably around 1000 -1100 calories.
Dinner was where things went down hill. the conference ended around 530 but I wasn't leaving for the airport until 7pm. and of course I was hungry. So I had like five cookies. And some potato chips. Then I went to the airport and the only vegetarian food that was still open was a cheese pizza. That puts at at what, around 2000 calories for dinner? and if that weren't enough, I came home and had icecream. around 500 calories
yeah. talk about binge eating. I think the problem is that if I don't get my protein drink, I am insanely hungry all day long.

Sunday I didn't get up in time to eat breakfast. I think I had tofu for lunch. some cereal a little later in the day. About 1500 calories worth of candy, and dinner of vegetable bean soup, around 400 calories. Well, at least I kept that day below 2500.

talk about falling off the wagon.
All that and I didn't even work out. All I wanted to do was sleep. probably a result of all the sugar. I think there is something seriously wrong with society that doesn't offer practical eating options.

Getting out of bed today was nearly impossible. I went off to class and then came back home and went jogging. I felt so much better after going jogging. And I'll go to a muscle conditioning class at 4pm. I might stay for 30-60 minutes of cardio, depending on how I feel.
Food has been my morning drink, and curry tofu scramble for lunch plus an apple. dinner was lentil soup and toast. did my muscle conditioning class and 30 min of cardio

2005-10-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

shake. salad and curry tofu scramble and toast, blackbean and tofu on corn tortillas. soy crackers. about 1300. 3 apples. 1 hour cardio - elliptical machine.

2005-10-11T18:37:00.000-07:00

Today I knew I would go back to sleep after my 8am class was over, and I was feeling lazy, so I grabbed an energy bar for breakfast rather than making my drink. I just wasn't hungry when I woke back up so I had a bowl of cereal with soymilk. In the evening, I figured that since I had eaten lightly, I could have pizza and ate a frozen mini pizza (which counts as two servings). I was just under 1200 calories for the day, so I figured I'd be fine, but I think I need to consume more calories earlier in the day. I felt awful in my yoga class (pizza and yoga just don't mix). I then did my 60 minutes of light cardio on the recumbent bike, and did some upper body weight training. I still feel icky. I think my body is objecting to pizza 3 times in 4 days. Once I got home, I had about 150 calories worth of a snack. Ugh. I still don't feel so well.

2005-10-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

Today was overall not a bad day. The NLRB had a table set up at the sort of alternative career tables thing. Now everyone knows that those tables never result in jobs. However, in my case, the guy at the table happened to be the supervising attorney for pretty much all the cases I worked on in DC this summer, so we chatted. And apparently the NLRB is pushing the regional office to hire bilingual attorneys. So that actually looks promising. (see? that 10 month vacation that I took in South America after undergrad wasn't a total waste of time afterall)
Foodwise, well, things were going well until the pizza tonight. My group for admin law met at Mama Santas and ordered a couple of pizzas. I had two pieces. That would have been fine except that I had already eaten dinner (we met kinda late). At least I had a low calorie lunch (black bean enchiladas) and dinner (blackbean nachos). So even assuming each slice of pizza had 300 calories (they were fairly small slices), that still puts my total at about 1550, which isn't bad given that I effectively had dinner twice. Plus, my muscle conditioning class today had a substitute instructor who thought it was a cardio muscle class. So while we did some work with the free weights and squats, she also had us hopping, jumping, skipping, etc around the room. So after an hour of that, I did 30 additional minutes of cardio on the stationary bike (since I haven't gotten out to ride my bike lately). Oh wait. forgot about the toast. Make that around 1800 for the day. None the less, if my resting metabolic rate is around 1750, and I did 90 minutes of cardio, theoretically, I still burned more calories than I consumed for the day.

2005-10-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

So once I managed to get out of bed at 1045, the day went fine. Had brunch around noon. organic greens topped with feta cheese, toast, and two scrambled eggs with salsa. Dinner was bean soup and toast (yeah, I'm on a toast kick. buttered toast is one of my favorite foods). Hmm. puts my total just below 1200. Didn't go the the gym, but did go jogging. I am starting to be able to pick up the pace a little (meaning I don't get passed by speedwalkers anymore). But hey, progress is progress. No candy or ice cream today (cept for a small piece of dark ghiradelli's chocolate). Definitely an improvement over yesterday. article in the news today about people suing Dr. Phil because his diet plan didn't work for them. Where do they find lawyers to take these cases? The people apparently claim that they thought that all they had to do was take the supplements to lose weight, and so accordingly spent 120 dollars a month on these supplements. I'd looked at the website and read my mom's book of Dr. Phil's 7 steps to weightloss, and I never saw anything about supplements at all. Just commonsense stuff. I'm not sure what is worse, people that stupid, lawyers that desperate, or society's obsession with weight that would lead people to pay ridiculous amounts for items that have no proven effect. But then again, I did have a very bright friend buy "The Stick." No, this was no sex toy (although the name would certainly make one think it was). It was a stick. A rather expensive plastic stick. The stick was to help relax sore muscles (no, not a sex toy really!). You ran The Stick over sore muscles (ie your calves) and it helped to relieve muscle tension. Yep. a $40-$50 plastic stick. We are a country of trusting consumers.

2005-10-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday went ok. I had my drink plus 2 pieces of sourdough toast for breakfast ( I had just bought the loaf of sourdough at the market and had to sample it. probably won't bother buying sourdough again in Ohio). Lunch kinda did me in. I went to the California Pizza kitchen with MK. We split a veggie pizza and a salad. Both were very good. But the Salad had a lot of fat on it. Field of Greens which had greens, pears, candied walnuts and blue cheese on it. Plus it was soaked in dressing. Very tastey. I had three pieces of pizza. It was really good too. Then we split dessert. A rather high calorie lunch. For dinner I had a bean soup and bread. (it is finally getting cold so soup season is upon us). Yeah. so about 2300 calories for the day. That wouldn't be so bad except that I didn't work out either. The weather is changing and it just takes me a week or two to adjust. Eh. have to eat out occasionally. And the food was pretty good.

2005-10-07T20:25:00.000-07:00

Hmm haven't updated since Wednesday. Wednesday was going well until one of my professors was running behind in his student meetings. My meeting was supposed to be 4-415. This would have put me home by 445. I didn't get into the meeting until just before five. I had not had a mid morning snack or an afternoon snack. And I had had a light lunch (instant Thai). I could tell I was fading when I walked into the meeting. I decided I had to eat before I rode my bike home. So I did (falafel salad), and I felt better, but I was still struggling. I had some sherbet. I felt better. I went to the gym, but only worked out for 45 minutes. I felt horrible. I can't be at 600 calories for the day at 5pm, especially if I am riding. With the sherbet, I was probably at around 1700 calories for the day.

I have no recollection of what I ate yesterday. Oh wait. yeah I do. Yesterday was rough. I didn't have time to make my drink, so I grabbed a cliff bar for breakfast. Black bean nachos for lunch. And for dinner too. I was really feeling lazy. I didn't go to the gym but I rode my bike to school and walked home. I just didn't feel like riding. I had sent an email to a classmate suggesting we get coffee sometime. Where I'm from, that is relatively normal. Not a date. Just social. My classmate read the email, and then no joke, shut down his computer. It was about 20 minutes before class ended. Heh. Good thing I didn't send the email at the beginning of class, he wouldn't have been able to take any notes at all. Ok, it is entirely possible that he was shutting his computer down anyway, and it was just coincidence that he happened to check his email right before then (note, I am not stalking him, but he sits in front of me in the class. Can't help but see his screen (and sometimes it is pretty entertaining, one morning he spent the class looking at dresses). Anyway, I've had people be social and I've had people politely decline, but I've never had someone shut down his computer before. Or maybe I have. How would I know? Anyway, it took me about 10 hours to see the humor in the situation.

Then I went to see Mending Spirits at the Cedar Lee. I went to the reception briefly but avoided the junk food. I got hit on by an 18 year old girl. Insanely young. I told her I was too older for her. And she said I wasn't and asked how old I was and I said 26 and she said, she was 18, she was legal. You've got to admire her persistence. My friend decided to walk me to my car after that, lest I get assaulted by anymore 18 year old women.

Anyway, total calories for the day probably around 1250 plus an apple or two. No gym workout, but I did ride to school and walk home.

Today. kind of a rainy miserable day. Not a lot going on. Spent most of my day asleep. From about 1230 through about 500. Obviously didn't eat lunch. I try not to skip meals, but I suspect that attempting to eat while asleep may be dangerous. Breakfast was my usual shake. I'm starting to wonder if it was the pineapple that was creating the skin problems. I switched out the pineapple for frozen berries. And I don't itch. Of course the weather changed as well and it was quite chilly. But yesterday it was hot, and I didn't itch, and the day before I had used part pineapple part berries, and I didn't itch then either. It would actually sort of make sense because I was not only eating pineapple in my drinks, but was eating dried pineapple too (I love dried pineapple). So maybe I just OD'd on pineapple. For dinner I had some curried tofu (now out of curry powder), a very small serving of mac and cheese, and toast (love toast). I also had some toast later at night because I was hungry. Probably around 800 total. That puts me around 1150 for the day plus a few apples (probably around 4). Usually I'd say that wasn't enough, but given that I slept half the day, I'm not concerned. Oh yeah, I got custard on the square, so add in about 120 calories there. 55 minutes of cardio at the gym.

2005-10-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

My shake for breakfast. Blackbean enchiladas for lunch. Plus a salad. Some sherbet as a snack. Fried curry scramble tofu with brocoli plus bread for dinner. Plus two apples. About 1550. Not bad. Went jogging this morning. Went to a yoga class this evening. and then did 50 minutes of Cardio ( to make up for slacking yesterday). Day two with no candy (icecream doesn't count as candy if you only eat one serving). Speaking of ice cream, they do not sell my favorite kind here. I like Bryeres mint chip light. They don't sell light ice cream out here. Maybe light icecream is a california thing. They've started selling low carb Breyers out here, but not light. I grew up on light. It just tastes better.

2005-10-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. Given that today was my first day (well not really) I didn't do so well. Breakfast went fine. My regular protein drink. But then I skipped my class to do some work I needed to get done. Lunch went well. Black bean nachos made with organic blue corn chips. I then went to my afternoon class. Had an afternoon snack. But then waited too long to eat dinner and ended up eating an energy bar while I was making dinner. That wouldn't have been so much of a problem except that it has a whopping 250 calories. Dinner was curried tofu scramble and broccoli (no that isn't a health fanatic thing, curried tofu scramble is one of my favorite foods and my typical sunday morning breakfast). Along with some rye bread. That actually would have been fine in and of itself, but I added a couple more pieces of bread. Not because I was hungry, but because I really didn't want to work on the project I was working on. Topped off with an apple. About 1800 calories. Which wouldn't have been a problem if I had actually gone to the gym today. I never miss a day at the gym. But I just had other things that had to be done. I didn't even get things done well. Ugh. And I have to meet with the professor on Wednesday. Tomorrow will not be fun because I'll have to do everything I should have done today and didn't. Oh well. Two days off isn't going to kill me (didn't work out yesterday either). At least I managed to not eat candy today. One step at a time I suppose.

2005-10-03T07:29:00.000-07:00

I think the government is on crack with its views on who is overweight and who is not. It seems to think that 65% of American adults are overweight. However, by its standards, I am overweight as well. Ok, lets think about this. I am 24.9 % bodyfat. By the government's standards, at my height, I can weigh no more than 158 and not be overweight. 158 is 12 pounds less than what I weight now. If I lost twelve pounds of bodyfat, to get down to their maximum acceptible weight for my height, I would be at 19.2% bodyfat. Some women might be healthy at 19% bodyfat. You know the type. The ones without breasts or hips. You've seen them. They're a size 4 and still have rolls around their stomach. I'm not one of them. I wear a 36D bra size. I've worn a 36D bra size since I was 13 years old. The only other bra size I have worn since then was a 36DD for a brief time when I was really overweight. My breasts aren't going anywhere. And I have size 10 feet. And quite honestly, I don't want to be one of those women who is always complaining about how cold it is because I have no bodyfat to help insulate me from temperature changes. I like being hearty. I'm not fat and I'm tired of the government teliing me I am.

2005-10-02T19:22:00.000-07:00

On March 20, 2004 I went to my friend's wedding in Bolivia. I took a picture with her. I was shocked when i saw the picture. I was fat. I don't mean a couple of extra pounds, I mean, at 24 years old, I looked like a frumpy middle aged woman. I was shocked. I knew that I weighed 220 pounds, but I had never realized what I looked like. So I decided to lose weight. But it was getting close to finals time. so my weight loss waited until summer.

That summer I lost 25 pounds. However, by October 20th, 2004, I had put it all right back on. That was it. That was the end. I signed up for gym membership and vowed to go at least four times a week. But Monday I'd say I'd go TWRF. Tuesday I'd say I'd go WRFS. and So on. Then it would be Monday again and I wouldn't have gone at all. So I decided I would go every day. At least six days a week. I didn't have to work out hard if I didn't want to, but I would go. I was so overweight that exercising didn't feel good. It wasn't pleasant at all. And I was still eating too much. Then one day I was talking with a friend about protein. He was on a mission to consume an insane amount of protein every day. About 150 grams. I decided to calculate how much protein I consumed in a day. After watching what I ate, I realized that on a good day I might get 15 grams of protein maybe. Most days it was more around 7. So I started making a protein drink in the morning. That made all the difference in the world. My appetite stabilized. I had more energy. And by May 2005 I lost 50 pounds.

I then spent the summer in DC. I was committed to taking off the last 20 pounds. I decided to ride my bike to work and home every day, rain or shine. and I did. Put well over 1000 miles on my bike. And sometimes I'd do an extra work out on top of that. I did not lose even one pound. Although I did drop a dress size. So, as life would have it, I still weigh 170 pounds. I am at 24.9 percent bodyfat. I wear a size 10-12. I like how I look. I look much better than I did at 220 pounds. But lately, I've been consuming a massive amount of junk food. I've looked at why. Part of it is I'm not particularly happy. I had friends who weren't very nice, so I stopped hanging out with them. But now I have no one to socialize with. And finding someone to date seems even less likely. There is only one guy at school who has been even remotely interesting, and I have not, since a year and a half ago when I first noticed him been able to engage him in conversation. Which is bizarre because he seems friendly enough. To everyone else. And in fact hijacked my conversation with someone else the other day. But won't speak to me. Very strange. I met another guy. Non student. He's a possibility, but it is really too early to tell. So all in all, I am in Cleveland, heading into my third winter here, with a total of two friends from the law school who I talk to regularly and zero prospects for dating. The rest of my friends and family are at least 2000 miles away.

Ok. so why is losing this last 20 pounds so important to me? Because my primary motivation (in addition to looking horrible at my friend's wedding) was to be able to ride up hills on my bicycle. And I'll be damned, but I still can't do it. I can ride faster than I could at 220 of course, but I hit a hill and drop down below ten miles an hour. I don't have the strength to haul 170 pounds up a hill very fast. I'm hoping 150 will be easier.
Ok, so why a blog
?
I figure if I have to write down what I am eating, I will stop this ridiculous consumption of massive amounts of candy. I have become re-addicted to fastbreak bars. I have always had a thing for peanut butter.

I'm not as neurotic as some of my friends, so it will only be partly insanely detailed. But nonetheless, the will serve as a exercise/diet journal for anyone interested.