Ok, so I lied

I keep promising to post, and then don't. I'm just going to accept that I'll update sporadically and whenever I feel like it.

I did walk/jog the 5k and felt pretty proud of myself. I've been going to the gym almost every day since then. My workouts are usually only 20ish minutes of cardio + 10ish minutes of weights and abs, but I'm trying to slowly work my way up. I don't think I've lost much weight, but I haven't weighed myself in a bit. I'm trying to focus more on just being healthy and pushing myself without getting discouraged by a number. I'll weigh myself in the next week or two and hopefully take measurements to see my progress.

Anyway, here are my goals for November:

1. Keep going to the gym at least 5 days a week, try to stay for 30 to 40 minutes.
2. Work toward running a mile without stopping
3. Eat healthy and limit carbs and fats more.
4. Save money and only buy produce and dairy...use the dry and frozen stuff I have before buying more.
6. Be 110 pounds by the end of the month.

I'm running a 5k tomorrow

It should be interesting since I'm in terrible shape and only signed up for it on Thursday. It will be fun though, and a great way to kick-start my new fitness routine. I'll be back with the details later this weekend.

New Goal

Since planning the conference has consumed my life, I haven't been as focused on my eating and exercising. I have also decided not to weigh myself until at least a week after the conference is over. So I'm amending my original goal of being 110 by the end of September.

New Goal: 110 by October 15

That's all for now.

Busy Bee

The conference I'm planning is 2 weeks away, so my life is crazy hectic.

Luckily, I've had a little bit of progress.

I was down to 110.4, but I've been too busy to exercise and too stressed to eat well. I'm hoping I can be down to 110 by the end of September, but since my conference is October 1, I'm not counting on it. I'll at least try to eat healthier until then and start a better exercise routine once the conference is over.

So my current stats are:

Weight: 111.6 (lost 2.4 pounds)
Waist: 25.5 inches (lost .5 inches)
Thighs: 18.5 inches (stayed the same)
Hips: 35.5 inches (stayed the same)
Bust: 33.5 inches (stayed the same)

I'm not unhappy with my progress given how stressful and busy my life has been. I would like to see more progress though, especially once the conference is over. I'm still aiming for 110 by the end of September and maybe 105 by Thanksgiving? I'm trying to give myself good goals that will push me but are realistic enough that I don't feel hopeless or feel like I need to do anything unhealthy to reach them.

I'll take a new photo of my body once I reach 110.

Slow Progress

Well, life has been crazy. I won't apologize for not posting since I'm my only reader. Instead, I'll give my update.

Because life has been crazy, I haven't been exercising as much as I would like. I plan to change that starting tomorrow though. My diet has been pretty good for the most part though. I need to make sure I can keep it up.

And....

Tada!

I'm not going to get too excited about this loss, since I know my weight fluctuates and I need to see consistent downward progress before I can be sure. It sure beats gaining weight though. I'm hoping to be  at 110 by the end of September. I think that is a good, realistic goal.

That's all for now!

What is art, really?

I've decided to share one of my favorite pieces of art that I've made with you all (and by "you all" I really mean the empty void of cyberspace I'm apparently blogging to).

When I started my AP art class in high school, we were all told to bring in our favorite piece of art that we had made so far, and I brought in Mr. ferret here. My teacher proceeded to compare it unfavorably to another person's piece by saying Mr. ferret was too centered and there was not enough interesting negative space in the picture. For a while, I felt pretty bad about myself. But "negative space" is not really worth feeling bad about, and I'm really proud of myself for creating Mr. ferret.

I'm sure there was a lesson in all of that. I guess maybe that other people's opinions shouldn't have the power to make us doubt ourselves. I haven't made any art in a while, partly because I'm insanely busy, but partly because I think people never really liked my art enough and it discouraged me. And that is stupid. So while being insanely busy with school is a good excuse, being afraid that people will judge my art negatively is not a good enough reason to stop painting and drawing if I feel like doing it.

On that note, I leave you to go do some packing.

Initial Stats

I still don't have good before pictures, besides the one in my last post. I'll try to take some soon.

In the meantime, here are my initial stats:

Weight: 114 pounds
Waist: 26 inches
Thighs: 18.5 inches
Hips: 35.5 inches
Bust: 33.5 inches

I'm not measuring my arms, wrists (...etc) because I am happy with their size. These are the measurements I care about for now. I would like to tone my whole body and make it firmer, but my upper body is already fairly slim so measurements don't matter to me.

Goals:

1. Lose a couple pounds. I would like to get back down to 110 by the end of September, which is entirely reasonable.

2. Tone up my entire body.

3. Lose some inches in my waist, thighs, and hips, yet somehow maintain my bust (I know that might not be possible, but here's to hoping...).

4. Gain strength (keeping it broad for now).

5. Gain energy.

I'm driving back down to school Tuesday and Wednesday. Once I get down there, I will go to the gym and/or do Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred at least 5 days a week. I will also be in charge of my own food, so I will make sure to eat mostly clean and healthy.

Making Changes

I was hesitant to make this post since I know the healthy eating blog world doesn't always embrace weight loss since we are all supposed to be happy with ourselves as we are right now. But in all honesty, I am not completely happy right now. And if I'm going to have a blog, I might as well be honest. Plus, I have no readers right now, so there is no one to judge me. This is like my own personal journal, but I will use it to keep myself accountable.


I am not fat and I am not overweight. I am, however, out of shape. I  would like to tone up, lose some fat, and maybe a couple pounds. But more than the weight, I want to have energy, I want to be happy with the shape of my body, and I want to be strong and toned. So starting today, I am committing to making changes in my life.

To start off, I will exercise at least 5 days a week, even if only for 15 minutes. I will cut all junk food out of my life for a while, and focus on eating healthy. I need to stay away from white flours and sugars, and I need to say no when people in my life want me to eat unhealthy food with them.

This is my starting point:

The picture isn't great, I know. I'll try to take real "before" pictures soon and post them with all my stats, so I can use them to track my progress. But you can see from this shot that I'm fairly slim and curvy, but much too untoned and wobbly and basically lacking any real muscle. I hope to change this over the next few weeks and months. If anyone is reading, I would love support, encouragement, motivation, and advice.

August Goals

Alright, so I've been a bad blogger and haven't updated in forever. But hey, it's my blog right?

So without anymore apologies....

My August Goals:

1. Drink more water every single day

2. Eat healthy at least 5 full days a week

3. Work out at least 5 days a week

4. Keep all my clothes and papers organized

5. Work out a monthly budget

I'll let you know how it goes

Snapshots

Well, life has been pretty crazy recently. Crazy seems to be my new status quo, actually. So rather than do any full recaps, I'll just show you a few snapshots of what has been happening in my life lately.

 This is a tasty veggie/tofu stir fry with rice and a peanut butter protein ball with chocolate chips for dessert (I used a variation of different blog recipes i've seen for peanut butter protein bars. Mine contained peanut butter, honey, vanilla protein powder, and chocolate chips).

This is from a barbeque my friends and I had. I was in charge of lighting the fire. It took me a ridiculously long time, so I can probably cross arsonist off my list of career possibilities.

This is the salad we made for the same barbeque. I stopped using my camera after this point and didn't capture all the rest of the food. But there was tons, including my delicious foil packets of veggies and couscous seasoned with lemon, cilantro, salt and pepper. Seriously, try it. Just add everything into a foil packet with enough water to cook the couscous. Seal it tight and throw it on the grill. Trust me.

These here are pictures of a giant hole that formed in our front yard after a ridiculous rainstorm. I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm hoping we don't get any sink holes that swallow the house. This was a really big hole, and it took us a while to fill it back up with stones and dirt. Sadly, it happened right inside our little garden that surrounds our well. We get all our water from the well so we are really hoping no more weird holes appear.

Please let me know if you have any idea what would cause something like this.

This was my tasty breakfast of a baked apply topped with cinnamon, nutmeg, greek yogurt, and honey. I know it sounds like a winter breakfast, but it was exactly what I was craving.

I'll try to be at least slightly more consistent with my blogging, but my crazy life has to come first. I'm already interviewing for summer jobs for next summer, which seems crazy to me. It is hard to think so far in advance, especially when I have so much going on in the here and now. I hope you are all enjoying your summers though.

Employed-ish

Well, I found employment, sorta. I started an internship at a District Attorney's office last week. It is unpaid, but I'm really enjoying the work. They assigned me to one of the Special Victims attorneys (think Law and Order SVU), which is something I think I would really enjoy doing with my life, or at least for a decade or two.

I've been doing pretty well with going to the gym and eating healthy. I've been busy and broke, but my summer has been pretty enjoyable so far. I have plans to go to the beach with friends on Friday, so it will finally really feel like summer has started.

I feel a little displaced without a job right now, but I'm still looking and staying hopeful. I have a couple leads on volunteer opportunities that sound amazing. Plus, I've been keeping busy with planning a public interest law conference for next year, doing chores and errands, cooking, gardening, and spending time with my best girl, Apricot.

Sometimes I think that I like her more than she likes me. Then she tries to stick her tongue in my mouth and I realize that I was wrong.

I've also had time to hit up the gym, which is great since I was worried I wouldn't be able to put my summer membership to use when I was working those crazy hours. I am sadly out of shape and can barely run for 20 minutes, but I have plans to fix that by the end of summer. 

I'm off to be productive. Enjoy your tuesdays!

Quitting

After only 2 weeks, I quit my job at a law firm for the summer. I debated whether to post this online, but I don't mind people knowing what happened.

 I had been told I would be paid, which I assumed would be at least minimum wage. It turned out they wanted to pay me less than $2 an hour. I explained that I have rent and bill payments over the summer, but they said they couldn't pay me more than that, even though they were billing my time out to clients.  I told them I understood, but could I possibly work only 8 hours a day instead of the 10 to 12 hours they were having me stay, or work fewer days per week? Again, I was told no. So I quit.

I feel I made the right decision, since what they were doing was not only illegal, but really taking advantage of me. These were not people I wanted to work with for any period of time.

So right now I am jobless and searching for both a paying job and some public interest law internship. I've realized that public interest is what I really want to do anyway.

Have you ever quit a job? Do you think it was the right decision?

Snapshots

Rather than do a full recap of my past few days, I'll show you a few quick pictures of how I've been spending my time.

 My pretty (but neglected) garden

I've been busy in the yard, pulling all those weirds out of the flower gardens and planting some vegetables in the other gardens. Some of the seeds have started sprouting, and I'm already looking forward to having fresh produce from our garden. I'll have to keep a lookout though, because we have lots of critters in our yard, including an obese woodchuck who enjoys munching on everything we plant. 

A wildflower

I've also been going on walks and bike rides, trying to enjoy the sunny weather and the beauty of nature as much as possible. My summer job starts tomorrow and I'll be working a ton of hours, so I'll have less opportunity to enjoy the beautiful sunshine.

My love

I've also spent some quality time with my puppy love, Apricot. She is the sweetest little dog on the face of the earth. She enjoys napping for 20 hours, then running around in a hyper fit for the other 4 hours. Excuse her dirty face, I had just taken her out to play before this photo.

I've also been enjoying wearing casual clothing. I'm pretty sure my job will involve wearing suits every day, so I've been enjoying my comfort and freedom in jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers. These are my new everyday sneakers I got from RueLaLa on sale for really cheap and I think they are adorable.

And finally, I've been enjoying the farmer's market. Since the farmer's market is on thursday mornings/early afternoons, I won't be able to make it again this summer. So I really enjoyed walking around all the stalls and selecting the freshest produce and the best little homemade treats. These are two mini pies I bought because thy just looked too adorable and tasty to pass up. They also sold mini loaves of bread too and I picked up a mini zucchini bread that was demolished in one second flat.

My vacation portion of summer has come to an end, but it was fun while it lasted. I'm excited and a tiny bit terrified to start my job tomorrow. 

How do you like to spend your free time?

BluePrintCleanse Review

I survived my three day juice fast with BluePrintCleanse and overall, I have a very mixed reaction to it. The cleanse involved drinking six juices each day (a green juice, a pineapple/apple/mint juice, another green juice, a spicy lemonade, a beet/carrot juice, and finally a cashew milk). The pineapple juice and the cashew milk were delicious and I intend to try and replicate them myself. The spicy lemonade was decent, the beet juice was not very good, and the green juice was just awful. In fact, the green juice was so awful that I was only able to have a few sips of each before I would start gagging and wouldn't be able to finish it. I actually love salads and veggies, but these green drinks tasted to me like I was chewing on the front lawn.

Other than the terrible tasting green juices, the cleanse went smoother than I expected. I was hungry, but not nearly as hungry as I thought I would be. I did have vivid fantasies about cheese and chocolate pudding, rather than healthy salads like the BluePrint website suggests is likely.

Overall, I'm glad I did it. Since the cleanse, I've been more mindful of my eating habits and have been eating mostly healthy foods. I did lose a little weight, but I know that juice fasting is not meant primarily for weight loss. I wouldn't try BluePrint again, mostly because of the price (and also those terrible green juices). If I do try a juice fast again, I will make my own homemade juices and hopefully find a way to make a palatable green juice.

For dinner today, I made a homemade miso soup with tofu, cilantro, spinach, and scallions. I served it over soba noodles and garnished it with roasted cashews. It was delicious and quite pretty, but I forgot to take a picture of it until I had already finished and put away the leftovers.

I also baked a delicious banana bread!

Have you ever had a green juice? Did you enjoy it?

Return to Blogging

Hi there! I'm back, after a much longer than anticipated break from blogging. To make a long story short, law school completely consumed my life, and I've also been dealing with anemia which has left me exhausted most of the time. But I survived my first year of law school and now I'm back home in New York for the summer. I still have about two weeks before my summer job at a firm starts, so I'm going to take this time to relax and get my life back in order.

It would be a difficult task to recap everything that's happened in my life, but maybe I'll do a couple posts to give you an idea.

The most exciting thing going on right now is that I start a 3-day juice fast (the insanely overpriced BluePrintCleanse that my mom is treating me to) which I hope will help jumpstart my healthy eating and exercise routine for the summer.

I hope you are all having an amazing start to your summer.

Have you ever tried a juice fast or cleanse before? Do you believe that cleanses are effective?

On Hiatus

So I'm not sure if anyone reads this blog (yet :) ) but if you do, I'm sure you've noticed that I've been MIA for a while. This is because law school and some health problems have been taking up my time and energy and I don't want to blog my complaints. But there have been some good things happening in my life. I plan to be back and better than ever after I get my health issues under control and finish with finals.

In the meantime, I'm still reading blogs and commenting occasionally.

See you soon!

Social Butterflies

My brain might explode soon. Along with all all our regular reading and writing the draft of our brief for legal writing, our Con Law professor wants us to memorize the constitution (including all the amendments) for a quiz on Tuesday. I know memorizing doesn't include much deep thought or brain power, but it kind of feels like the straw that might very well break the camel's back.

On a more positive note, I've been doing some fun social things lately. On thursday night some friends and I got prettied up and went to see Alvin Ailey. It was opening night and the 50 year anniversary of Revelations, so it was particularly fun. We even ran into our dean at the theater. The show was amazing and the dancers were ridiculously talented. I would definitely recommend you see them if they come to your city. We managed to score $10 student tickets, so it is worth checking out.

All dressed up at the Fox Theater

Friday night a group of us went to a local gourmet burger joint called Farm Burger. They had vegetarian quinoa burgers (which I had...it was fantastic) and grass-fed beef burgers with a range of really interesting toppings.

Last night my roomie and I went to see The Roommate with our friends/neighbors/classmates who are also roommates. It was fun and just the right amount of scary, but certainly didn't qualify as a good (or deep) movie.

Tonight a group of us single gals and gents are going out to a Valentine's/ Anti-Valentine's dinner. I'm looking forward to it. This has been a great weekend, but a spendy one as well. I'm looking forward to eating cheaply and healthily over the next week or two since I stocked up on produce today at Publix. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and has a great Valentine's Day!

Waiting For Spring

I'm seriously over winter. I'm done with snow. I'm done with dark layered clothing. Spring can't come soon enough. I'm ready to pull out the sun dresses and spend some time outdoors. I'm not much of a tanner, but I do miss the feel of sunshine on my skin and I can't wait to see flowers.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I've been too busy to spend much time out in the dreary weather anyway. I didn't think it was possible, but this semester is even harder than last semester. My biggest struggle has been to keep the positives in mind and not feel sorry for myself. I'm here because this is where I want to be, and I'm working towards my goals. So I have every reason in the world to embrace life and live joyfully. But I might still complain every now and then :)

I'm really looking forward to Thursday, when some friends and I are going to watch Alvin Ailey. They are doing revelations and had student tickets on sale for only $10!

Sleep

Unfortunately, I can't give a real review of the Iberian Pig. When we got there, we were told the kitchen was closed for the night so we just ordered some sangria. It was pretty awesome sangria though.

My sleep has been suffering lately. And by lately, I mean since law school started. Honestly, I think we all could use a few more hours of sleep. Sleep is so important for our health. I find a real difference in my skin, hair, mood, and general health when I consistently get enough sleep. Sadly, it is just not possible at the moment since I have so much work. I could probably get in a few more hours each week by not socializing, exercising, or relaxing between reading assignments, but it is important to have a life other than work and sleep. So for now, I rely on way too much caffeine to get me through my days.

On a more positive note, the weather this weekend was amazing. It was up between 60 and 70 on both Saturday and Sunday. I am already fantasizing about spring and sun dresses and lying out by the pool at our apartment complex.

Shout out to Meg and Christina: You were both right about Naturally More Almond Butter! Thanks for the recommendation.

Blogging Schedule

Working out a blogging schedule is more difficult than I realized it would be. I am going to try to work it into my routine, which has been off whack this past week anyway. This whole week has been stressful, but  also pretty boring. We finally got most of our first semester grades, which makes everyone look around at each other suspiciously and talk vaguely, trying to figure out where everyone else stands. I've also been feeling sick and got a bit behind in my reading. My plan is to get completely caught up with everything tomorrow.

On a more positive note, my roomie, another friend, and I went to the local farmer's market yesterday. It is actually more like a giant Cosco-sized building filled with fresh foods. My favorite part is that you can choose your own pineapple, and they will peel and core it for you. I always feel better when I have fresh produce.

We are going out tonight to a cool local bar/restaurant called the Iberian Pig. I've heard good things, so I'll be sure to update you all after tonight.

Bollywood Party

So, I had a snow week and it was awesome. It was really great to have time to clean the apartment and watch mindless television. I feel very refreshed from this break, but I'm still not mentally prepared to go back to school tomorrow.

Yeah, I was using a stick to clean snow off the car...


My friends and I decided to take advantage of our rare free time and had a Bollywood party on Friday. It was ridiculously fun. We dressed up in clothes that one of my friends brought back from her year in India, ate some incredible masala mix snacks that are kind of like indian cheetos, watched Rang De Basanti, ordered in some indian food, and ate a homemade mango mousse pie.

This has been a really great week, but I need to go back to reality and finish up some reading and start memorizing the Constitution.

Snow Week

I feel like the south is in a completely different universe from the north. Here I am in Georgia, and my school just announced that tomorrow will be our fourth snow day in a row. Contrast that to my college in Massachusetts, where I had one snow day my entire time there. Ridiculous. I'm not complaining though, and I'm really enjoying lounging about in my pajamas and taking tv breaks whenever I don't feel like studying. My food supplies are running low though, so this city better buy a couple plows soon...

Luckily, I made a Trader Joe's run right before the storm hit this weekend, or I would already be starving. Trader Joe's might be my favorite store ever (well, besides Lululemon, Anthropologie, maybe J. Crew...) but it is 20 minutes away so I don't go as often as I would like. However, that might change because of:

Trader Joe's Macarons. These are seriously amazing and only cost $5 for a box of 6 vanilla and 6 chocolate. I suggest you run immediately to your nearest Trader Joe's and buy a box immediately. They are in the frozen dessert section. As soon as driving is feasible, I'm going to stock up. Oh, and did I mention they only have 45 calories per cookie?

Do you have any Trader Joe favorites?

Roofies and Almond Butter

Don't worry... the two are totally unrelated as far as I know.

I'm staying in tonight and relaxing and doing reading for classes. My plan was to go out as much as I could at the beginning of the semester as possible since it is basically impossible to leave the library at the end of the semester, but I had a scare on Thursday night and I feel like spending this weekend relaxing instead of going out.  Thursday was my roommate's birthday and a group of us went out to celebrate. While we were at the club, I suddenly felt very dizzy and my vision started to blur. Luckily, I have good friends who got me out of there and back home safely. Now, I'm not sure if someone slipped something into my drink or if I was sick or needed some air. I wasn't drunk and I had a full dinner, so it was definitely strange. Either way, it is definitely a reminder to always be vigilant and not to trust that people aren't psychopaths who drug other people.

On a totally unrelated note, I have a deep love for almonds in pretty much every form (except for those gross Almond Joy bars). While grocery shopping the other day, I picked up a small jar of almond butter as an impulse purchase. I guess I just assumed it couldn't be more than $5 since it was so tiny. WRONG. I looked at my receipt when I got home and it was $12. Maybe I just have a lot to learn about the cost of food, but that seems insanely high to me. I guess I'll just have to really enjoy this jar and learn to live with only peanut butter. I'm on the hunt for some tasty, yet inexpensive almond butter though, so please let me know if you know where I can find it.

I resolve to...

Well, I'm a little bit late, but I want to make some resolutions for 2011. I'm hoping that writing them here will make me hold myself accountable. So, without further ado...

1. Stop procrastinating. This is a big one, since I tend to procrastinate when I have a big project that intimidates me. Of course, the more I procrastinate, the more intimidating it gets. So my plan is to at least get started on every assignment immediate so it seems less intimidating.

2. Exercise more. I basically gave up on exercise completely over the last two months as I became completely absorbed by law school finals. I gained a couple pounds and feel really sluggish. So my plan is to slowly work myself up to exercising more and not let myself make any excuses for skipping. My plan is to exercise 3 to 4 days a week, hopefully in the mornings before class. I'm going to start with the treadmill and Jillian Michael's 30-Day Shred.

3. Have more confidence. This one is sort of vague, but I think that I'm a pretty awesome person and I should acknowledge that more often instead of being upset for not being perfect. That's just silly and counterproductive.

4. Be more organized. I love making schedules and lists, but I don't stick with them often enough. It is great to be spontaneous, but being more organized will make me a lot less stressed.

I think that's enough for me to work on for the time being. The first two days of classes are already kicking my butt, so I need to go study.