Home Sweet... When is my next vacation?

I survived my week in Florida, visiting one of my best friends and her estranged mother. The mother and her constant nagging and Wal-Mart trips aside, the vacation was a wonderful respite from the daily grind of working my mundane job here in Indiana. The weather in Florida was beautiful, the beaches I visited were beautiful, the people in Florida were beautiful. The women with their flowing sundresses and the men with their board shorts and toned surfer's abs.... tanned skin everywhere!

Tourists could feel tropical and exotic and the locals feed off our esteemed admiration for their sculpted beach bum bodies and sun-darkened skin. I could get used to vacationing in Florida. I never did so as a kid, and my first trip to Florida didn't happen until I was eighteen. Four years later I still wouldn't want to live in Florida, but taking week-long vacations there seems to strike my fancy.

I stayed in Palm Coast, which is conveniently only a half hour drive from both St. Augustine (the nation's oldest city) and Daytona (one of the tourist capitals of the world). St. Augustine is full of rich history and vibrant museums and Daytona has that beautiful world-famous beach! I enjoyed both cities very much, and wish I could have spent more time in both of them.

If you're curious to know more about my trip, visit my Picasa web album here, and sift through the pictures I snapped along the way.

Although every vacation always feels like it's never long enough, I am glad to be home. Sleeping in my own bed (despite the excruciating pain of my sunburn) was comforting and felt like home. It's nice to know where everything is when I need it, and being in my own surroundings feels so nice after being so far away from it all for a little while. I am not looking forward to work this afternoon, but then when am I ever looking forward to work?

The good things I have gathered from this vacation was my relaxing times at the beach, the learning experiences on the many tours and museums I perused and getting to wear my new bathing suit and sundress and shorts in public and not feeling like a beached whale. Spending time with my friend that I haven't seen in a few years was icing on the cake, and despite her mother's efforts to keep us working for her as opposed to vacationing, we managed to get in good laughs and good stories in between her indiscriminate cries for Elaine's help doing various (unnecessary) tasks.

I also met a really nice woman on the plane ride home, and got to hear her stories of traveling to Australia to meet a man! It was uplifting and inspiring to know that I am not alone in such endeavors and that some turn out so successfully! I joked that we should start a club, and perhaps a shared blog will be the result of our meeting. I'll keep you updated on that.

The only cons of the trip is the sunburn I now have on my back that is so painful it's hard to move at all, let alone put on clothes! I also gained a pound, but that's a lot better than how much I felt I was gaining. (We only had home cooked meals twice, and ate out at restaurants the rest of the time. I was so worried I would come home ten pounds heavier, so I am super relieved to have only gained one pound.) The last con is how much money I spent, but I could afford it and it didn't break me, so I should be fine.

I really enjoyed the trip over all and loved seeing my friend Elaine and spending that time with her. I'm glad to be home, but I'll be drifting back to those sandy beaches and tourist trap shops and museum hallways in my mind when my boss gets on my case too much at work... I can hear the ocean now....

Having an ok time in Florida!

Unfortunately I'm spending a lot of time running errands for my friend's mother while here in sunny warm Palm Coast, Florida, but even that seems to be better than going to work everyday back home.

The weather here is a bit hot to me, but back home somehow felt even hotter, I guess because the humidity is always so high in southern Indiana.

The plane rides in weren't bad, and I'm glad I took that route rather than driving in a rented car, I would have been miserable and believe it or not, renting a car would have cost far more than the plane tickets did.

My friend has a great house her and her family are renting here in Palm Coast. It's big and has a huge outdoor pool that we've only been able to take advantage of at night, but that's the best time because the weather is cooler, the alcohol can flow, and we don't have to deal with her ten-year-old brother trying to dunk us and assault us with water guns. So the vacation isn't all running errands, we've been able to skinny dip and drink in her pool under the moon, too, which is great.

The way this vacation fits into my journey toward happiness and healthiness is that my self-image seems to be vastly improving. I'm wearing shorts, sundresses, a bathing suit, and even going swimming in my skivvies, and not feeling as self-conscious about it. I feel proud of how far I've come and how much weight I've lost, and since I'm managing to feel this good at 240 pounds, I can't wait to see how I feel at 180 or even 150 pounds.

So while this vacation is fun, its also teaching me a lot about my perception of myself and where I am now versus where I've been. I'm even more determined now to dive back into my workout regimes and weight loss goals harder than ever when I get home, so I can feel more and more comfortable with my body! Life is so much more enjoyable when you're not constantly worried about how fat you may look, or what other people are thinking about your body or your weight... I love this feeling and I'm not letting go. I'm going to keep pushing to get better and better!

Frustrated

I, most unfortunately, have been asked to work first shift this week as opposed to my usual second shift, for relatively unnecessary training and "hands-on" experience. The reason this is exceedingly frustrating to me is that my entire schedule is flipped upside down and is now backwards. Instead of working out before I get to work and then on my lunch break at work, I get up only an hour before I have to leave for work, can't work out while at work, and then have to wait until I get home in the evenings to do any work out and by then I'm tired. My eating and sleeping schedules are also topsy turvy and everything just seems to be getting thrown off balance.

I was getting back into my groove, working out before and after work, sticking to my eating and sleeping schedule, I was doing so well! Now, it's all gone awry. I did manage to force my feet out the door this afternoon and did a nice 30 minute walk/jog around the neighborhood. It was incredibly hot, but tolerable, and I felt quite good afterward, especially as I took an ice cold shower immediately after. Tomorrow, I plan to do the same, and I hope to jog the majority of the way.

Here's my issue with jogging:
I worry too much that I look stupid doing it. I worry that I jiggle and wobble and look horrid attempting to do it. And for some reason, I worry that if I jog a bit and stop for breath and to walk instead of jog, someone will see and be judging the whale trying to flop down the street and couldn't make it all the way...

Now I know these views are ridiculous, but every runner I've ever seen on the streets and sidewalks is fit, already in shape, and has a great gait and pace set that looks like it's easy and perfect. Do I look this way running? I'm sure I don't! But I need to force myself to do it.

Running was my initial goal anyway. I wanted to get into running every day and eventually run in the Mini Marathon in Louisville next April. That sounds like a long way off, but I still haven't got the courage to jog a single block let along run five miles! So tomorrow, that is my goal. I am going to JOG, not just briskly walk, the majority of my half hour outside after work. I don't care who sees or who is watching. They aren't out there jogging or exercising, so why should I feel their (imaginary) judgment matters?

But it does to me, for some reason. Maybe it's just another excuse to keep from running, but I do want to as I'm out there, I just glace around and see someone mowing their grass or kids playing in their yards and I just swallow and briskly walk right past them, never getting past a walking pace.

But tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the day. Even if I have to listen to music and run during the choruses and walk during the verses of songs, just as long as I'm moving past a walk, I will feel so good and be working toward my ultimate goal of becoming a runner.

Next week I'm going to Florida. Unfortunately, I missed my goal of losing another twenty pounds by then. In fact, I've barely kept a pound off this whole week, but I'm not giving up. Even though while I'm in Florida, I probably won't exercise much save for swimming and walking, I will be prepared to pick up the momentum and jump right back into high gear when I return! For the rest of this week, I will do the same, and keep kicking myself in the keester so I can get my metabolism high and running and get that fat melted off of me and the muscle built onto me.

Testing Blogging from My Phone

This is just to test out how well the Blogger app does or doesn't work.
Random picture of a squirrel my man took while the squirrel rummaged around his backyard. :D

Kohl's Haul August 2011

So yesterday was the big day... the first time I've been seriously clothes shopping since I started losing weight last April. I'm forty pounds lighter, and ready to face the dressing rooms!

My main motive was summer clothing, since I'm going to Florida for a week's vacation soon, and also new work clothes because the clothes I wear to work now are embarrassingly big on me. I ventured into Kohl's in the later hours of the afternoon, having spent the previous night staying up too late watching X Files episodes with my man, and had my head held high and a pretty positive attitude. I was mostly worried about finding a bathing suit, considering I haven't bought one in years and had no idea what size I might need... plus the thought of wearing a bathing suit, in public, makes my stomach twist and my mouth go dry...

But I'm going to be spending a week on beautiful Florida beaches and I can't possibly do that in jeans and t-shirts, not after all this amazing work I've done to shed the forty pounds that I've shed. This is a time to celebrate, to measure my success with garments, not just the scale. And I promised myself at the beginning of this excursion to buy a bathing suit this year, and dresses, and shorts.

So I went into Kohl's, determined to find some suitable summer clothes for my upcoming vacation and some work clothes so I didn't have to go into work tripping on my oversize khaki pants and feeling minuscule in my bulky large shirts. I managed to purchase some nice additions to my wardrobe and swept up some amazing deals in the meantime!

Here's my haul:

Forgetting Facebook

I've decided to delete my Facebook account... at least for a week and see how life feels without it. I find myself relying too much on using Facebook to interact and relate to my friends and family. I feel I would connect far more deeply with people without the medium of Facebook as a sort of conduit between us. I hate that the only time I hear from most of my friends is through Facebook and I hate that new friends never make it past the acquaintance stage because once they find me on Facebook, that seems to be as far as any new friendships go.

Life before Facebook was a happy life, a healthy life. Life after Facebook can be the same, and better. I'm not saying Faceboook has hindered my happiness and healthiness to a deprecating degree, I just think it can only be a positive thing to be done with it. I'm 22 years old now, I don't want to have spent more years on Facebook than off. I don't want to be wrapped up in the advertising schemes and information selling schemes that Facebook is obviously engaging in. I don't want my thoughts, my ideas, my personality, being monitored and sold for financial profit. I'm not saying that posting on blogs is any different, but I think that posting on blogs will hinder me from posting so quickly the mundane personal things that are really no one's business.

I don't have to have "followers" or "subscribers" or "facebook friends" to be a valid and interesting person. I don't need a daily description of 180 characters or less to feel like my day was worth having. I can validate myself, I can make myself interesting to the people I physically meet, not people who just keep tabs on my well-being through Facebook. Those aren't true friends anyway. True friends come and visit with a random piece of pie just because they were in a bakery and saw your favorite flavor and brought you a slice... friends are people who call you on the phone just to talk about nothing and everything because they like the sound of your voice and your perspective on things and know that you also appreciate theirs... friends are people to cry with, laugh with, share with, love with, fall down and get back up with... friends are people you can express things to with a glance and a smile and they'll know exactly what you mean... friends are people you can watch a movie with and pause at an important scene that reminded you of a good joke about Jesus and then you spend the next half hour debating religion versus science before remembering you were watching a movie... friends are people to get lost with on a long road trip... friends are people who let you listen to bad music and don't judge you for it, but bop along with a roll of the eyes and a sighful smile....

You can't share those things through the medium of Facebook. I feel that instead of connecting my friends and I, Facebook alienates us. Facebook gives us an illusion of closeness, it sweeps in and makes it seem that unless people read everything you have to say and look at all your pictures, they don't care about you. But I feel that unless they pick up the phone or knock on your door every so often, they don't care at all. Glancing at a row of status updates and uploaded pictures is lazy, plain and simple. They don't care about you, they are just seeking to be noticed as much as you are. Facebook is a selfish place where friendships go to die or morph into twisted shells of lifeless exposure.

I'm turning away from it. I want to become a better and more whole person who can relate, enjoy, and love my friends and family beyond clicking "like" on a status update or commenting on a picture of the meal someone made today.

Let's see how this goes. I may be singing a different tune when in a week I feel alone and forgotten and useless because no one has seen my internet presence! This is a study in health and happiness, but by deleting Facebook, I'm researching the results of being a member of a generation defined by their internet presence as opposed to the realization of their personal goals, dreams, and desires. Each person is unique, special, and exquisite. Should that only be expressed online?

No. Communication is key in expressing oneself. If your only way of communication and outreach is through Facebook, you're not communicating at all because communication is a two-way street. Pay attention to how people communicate these days. Everything from a simple telephone conversation to a family member to meeting a new person in line at a bank to conversations with old friends. It's all different. You either discuss Facebook, or mention a status someone put on Facebook, or check your phone in the middle of a conversation for Facebook updates, or even look up a mutual friend on Facebook to discuss their recent pictures or updates...

I want to be able to talk to someone without that impeding and holding back the conversation from getting anywhere real. I want to be real again. I don't want to be binary code on a screen....

So I'll be utilizing this blog, still as a way of expressing my feelings, thoughts, and emotions during my journey to becoming a happier and healthier me, but also sliding into the more personal realm of thoughts, questions, and desires that have everything to do with learning, growing, and dreaming as much as losing weight, getting healthier, and becoming happier. Enjoy!

Beginning Again

Last week was a total bust. Save for a few kayaking trips, I didn't do a single workout the whole week. This weekend, I did nothing but sleep in and eat terrible food, including pizza, and I'm seriously disgusted with myself for sliding down the slippery slope of laziness.

But I can't continue this. I can't go back to 280 pounds. I can't stay here at 240 pounds. The only other option is to keep losing weight. I have at least 60 more pounds to lose to meet my initial goal of losing one hundred pounds this year. I have five months to do it. Losing roughly ten pounds a month, as I've been doing, would put me right at that goal. But no more slacking off, no more wasting days without exercising, no more being lazy.

Today, I technically slept in, but I'm not going to change my sleeping patterns in a day. Tomorrow I am setting the alarm for 10:30 AM and I am getting up NO MATTER WHAT. As soon as I finish this blog, I'm going to do my belly dancing DVD. I figure it will be a workout, but not so much jumping around and intense cardio as my other workouts, and will be a nice transition from a week of no workouts, to going back to working out twice a day. Tonight at work, I'm either doing 25 minutes on the elliptical or Level One of Jillian Micheal's 30 Day Shred. I was enjoying that workout, and can't wait to get back into it.

I've been sticking to eating my three salads a week, but with all the bad food choices on the weekends, I feel like I've negated any positives that eating salads has given me. I'm going to keep that habit going, minus the eating of fast food on the weekends, because I'm starting to enjoy salads more, and I've started looking forward to the creative ways of making them and trying out new salad recipes every week.

I didn't know what a scallion was at the beginning of this week. Now I know it's a green onion. :D I'm learning and developing more healthier eating habits and that's exciting! Plus, salads seem to give me energy and make me feel better throughout the day. I'm ready to face the day and be active after eating a filling nutritious fresh salad.

So here I go, I'm essentially starting over, because even though a week doesn't seem like a long time, my body is already resenting the thought of working out, and it's going to be a fuss to get back into hard cardio workouts. Just the thought of getting sweaty and tired and achy doesn't sound fun at all, but I can't give up now. I've come too far and have too far to go to check out and give up.

So let me know any  motivations you use to get going back on the right track!