Vacation exercise. Or not.

I have dutifully worn my fitbit every day of our vacation. I've also catalogued all of my food and drink. I even went to the gym. Once. But at least I went. I am eager to get home to Minneapolis because you know what you learn when you where your FitBit on vacation? I move more when I'm at work. What a vacation slug!

Sure it helps to be exercising every day at home, and eating well and yes, I know, it's vacation. It's not reasonable, or fun, to completely deny myself rule breaking but I know I've been indulgent. Donuts and fried chicken for breakfast? Yep. It's been rough on my skin, my gut and my sleep. I am excited to get back to regular foods and exercise.

I think hitting the gym when I visit in the winter may be easier. The humidity and never quite being able to be fully cooled has been a deterrent on the mornings I could go. Plus, there's the late nights, bad food and snuggling with my dude to keep me in bed. Life could be worse!

Oh FitBit, you will be as rewarding when I get home as your were silently chiding me while on vacation. I look forward to keeping those digits in check! And, admittedly, knowing I would log everything I eat has kept me closer to not-crazy. Which is nice. It's been a delicious debauchery....

Philadelphia Freedom, I loooooove you... Yes I do.

Swiftly approaching our last few hours in Philly and I am right where I want to be: sitting on the couch enjoying a little downtime with my dude, mentally prepping for our last dinner in town before heading home in the morning. This week has been awesome.

First off: Dude is a hit. My parents like him, my friends think he's cute, they like how happy I am with him, they fully support his gloriously beardedness. (His mother keeps threatening to chop it off, so, this means something extra to me.) 

We've been running around like mad, with days and nights coming in mini-series split between Philly and NJ. We have eaten many delicious things. Some twice. We have visits, frolicked, tripped down memory lane, snuck in a little nooky here and there and generally, had a lovely time. I forget how lucky I am sometimes. Having my friends and family point out things about my dude or the way we are together reminds me how lucky I am. He is nice, he pays attention, he relaxes and stays himself, he's affectionate and makes me feel comfortable doing all the same things in return. That may sound a lot like, Well, duh! territory but I've been in a few relationships where I felt constantly at odds with my own desires, shut out or down by my partner, more concerned with whether or not they would shake loose of my displays of affection. It's a nice change. Sometimes I'm so happy I take it for granted. Not altogether awful.

Anywho, here are some highlights of our adventures thus far:

-met the parents, all my step brothers and 9 good friends. Whoah.

-witnessed a sauced family night and hardly abtted an eye

-ate at Han Dynasty in Old City and, oh, I just love it so much...!

-ate: Phó, Sabrina's, Mediterra, Federal Donuts (TWICE!!!) family home cooking and tonight we head to Honey's

-oh, and, Dude got his very first tattoo! Making him the sexiest creature on the planet. I am not allowed to reveal photos of his tattoo yet. But I got a new one, too!

The picture isn't great, but it's still amazing to me that I can keep up with my blog on the go from just a tablet. Awesome. My newest tattoos are a Liberty Bell and a cherry. A little Philly and a little Minneapolis. One of my other tattoos is a Claus Oldenberg scultpure, The Embrace (aka The Clothespin) which lives over the entrance to Suburban Station in Philadelphia. Minneapolis boasts a fine Oldenberg of its own: The Spoonbridge Cherry which consists of an enormous spoon with an equally enormous cherry sitting in its bowl. The stem sprays water over the handle and the whole work lives in the Walker Sculpture Garden. So, a cherry for my new home, and the bell for my roots and my freedom to explore the world.

Having a wonderful time, but can't wait to come home!

Little Fitbit, you intrigue me.

You may recall I wrote just a short while ago of my interest in getting a fitness tracker. After reading many reviews and calling in the opinion-giving assistance of my dude I landed on the Fitbit One. There are features about the other front-runner devices I considered that I do wish I could have captured in this purchase, such as:

The Jawbone Up-

-sleek design aesthetic

-idleness activity alarm

-in-built ability to tell the difference between your waking and sleeping activity

The Fitbit Zip-

-no need to recharge more than every few months (SOOO set and forget!)

Okay, it's not a long list. When I first started looking at devices I hadn't realized a non-wrist-strap option was really out there. Besides traditional pedometers it seemed like all the popular devices were wrist-babies (Nike Fuelband, Jawbone Up, Fitbit Flex) but in a classic episode of cognitive dissonance (where your brain works to reinforce your decisons and make you feel good about them) I am very happy to have chosen a device that no one has to see except my boyfriend or people at the gym. I wear it clipped to my bra when wearing  normal clothes so it's super James-Bond-esque invisble to common passerby.

On days I work out it's been very easy to hit the daily 10k step goal and I excited to see how I do with it while on vacation. Although I have a goal to hit the gym the mornings we are in Philly (it's not close enough to parents place in Jersey) I want tombe able to stay somewhat on track with my fitness plans.  Having the fitbit track my activity and show whether I've been a slug will help me make better decisions about that second beer or those tasty french fries! Excited!

Up, up and away.

We're in the air! En route to Philadelphia, PA for a whirlwind of hugging, delicious foods and introducing the dude to my (metaphorically? emotionally?) nearest and dearest. Although we've been together more than a year and a half I have not before had the opportunity to introduce him to the majority of my family. Last summer he did get to my one of my brothers (I have 4, more on that later perhaps. We representthe beauty of the blended family, for sure!) but today will be the first time he meets my parents.

Our friends in MN have all layered heavy meaning and impact on our current adventure. Having not just met dude's family but helped him move his mom out of their childhood home, dined with all of his siblings, etc I feel like we are really just catching up to where we would be if my family were a reasonable drive away, instead of 1500 miles away.

All that aside... I am WICKED PUMPED!!!!!

We have plans to see my family, meet friends, tour my childhood stomping grounds and eat at many delicious restaurants. Oddly, the two things I am most concerned about are what he will think of the restaurants I've been yearning for and whether he will actually tell me when he needs a break. I want this to feel like a vacation for him, not a chore. Here's hoping!

I will do my best to capture the highlights of our trip in a later post. Yummmmmmm...

Fitness tracker debate.

When I first joined the gym I told myself it was a big step. It was. I changed my daily schedule to include a 5am wake-up every weekday and a whole lot more energy to get through my days. I've been tracking my calories and my general food intake and I'm seeing a difference. I'm down an acceptable 7lbs so far. Many more to go.

I motivate myself with all sorts of things. Not food. I am surprised to say I actually ENJOY exercising. Which is a big wow moment for me. I buy workout pants and socks and sneakers to make getting dressed to work more appealing. I download music. I revel in sleeping late on the weekends when I don't have to get up at the crack to fit my gym time in. 

Time for a mini-success highlight along the journey. I think my skin feels better. Tighter, firmer. Yes, I am still rocking the cellulite and the under arm jiggle. But I am also feeling firmer skin covering all that jiggle. My dude says he can already see a shifting in my upper body. I'm pretty pumped to give my tattoos a better canvas to live on.

Onto this week's internal debate: do I want a fitness tracker?





Have you used any of these? I have heard through the grapevine that the Up is a little glitchy, prone to breakage. Which stinks since I generally LOVE Jawbone product (the Jambox I have, for instance, is AMAZING!) the Fitbit devices seem promising, though with different functionality and wearability for each...

So, my questions:

-best battery life?

-best ease of syncing?

-comfort in use

-will look good over time? (Ie- no white rubber picking up gray yick all the time)

-has a sleep alarm

-easy to use interface

-can I buy it through my company (since I will get a discount that way)

My next stop on the research tour is tomfind out if I can have my health insurance pay for it. Then, Apple, tomsee if they have any such devices on their site (implying endorsement of said product.) wish me luck! Updates coming soon!

Hoping for a normal day.

Since returning home from dude's mom's house/new house we've been on a strange little roller coaster ride. We got together to unload his fancy, original, supremely heavy victrola from the car, took little lady J to dinner and had a nice, quiet night. I was eager to get home and take care of a few things of my own but was just too tired when I got home.

Little did I know it would be the last quiet for days. I woke up at some very late hour feeling ill. By late morning I'd been sick several times and learned that my dude was also sick. It was one of those rare times I've been grateful we still live separately. We spent the day texting support and checking in on each other. Nothing pretty.

We both tried getting back to work on Friday and found it... challenging. Couldn't keep much down (bananas, crackers, ginger ale... yay...) and both left early. Thought some chicken noodle soup was the order of the evening.

Just as I had the pot about ready to eat a storm started rolling in, whipping trees around like Willow Smith's hair and Shakira's gyrating hips. Howling wind and pounding rain. Didn't know if I should look out the windows or hide in a closet. And dude was just about to come home from work.

My place lost power. We both felt yucky. We packed up my pot of soup and headed to his place in the hopes of power (or at least some cool air without my wall-to-wall carpets). No power for him, either.

I got power back last night but he's still without power today. Blows. We could use a day toward normalcy. It would be restive.

So here are the things I am focusing on at the start of this week:
-dude is amazingly patient and supportive
-he makes annoying situations better
-got new, neon gym sneakers on our "power's out, let's go shopping" trip
-went back to the gym and had a good workout
-calling the trainer to set up my next appt today
-get to go back to Kabbalah Sparks tonight (I haven't been in three months! More on that another time)

Making it work.

This evening brought to you by the corny chicken dance.

Chester Chicken's here to say, don't you dare try to dress me up that way! Chicken fingers, tenders or sticks aren't for you, they make you sick! Grill me, roast me, pan-fry me crisp, serve me with salad or a lemon twist! But please, oh please, just leave alone, those goofy fingers that gots no bones.

Back to work and normal life today, good. Didn't get to grocery shop this week so I picked up a salad, some soup and some chicken fingers for lunch in the cafe at work. They were yummy, but later on it felt like I had a herd of buffalo migrating through my belly. No bueno.  No bueno burrito. I know better. It was the icing on the road trip cake of less-than-great food choices and options.

If you've read my early entries you might remember my elimination diet and that corn and cow's milk dairy are my primary food-distress culprits. That means all forms of either. Corn syrup, maltodextrin, dextrose, on and on. The milk products are easier to spot and since my trouble is mostly with casein I can still enjoy butter. I generally won't risk it with other dairy except in very planned circumstances. If you want to know more about just what happens shoot me a comment or an email and we can chat. So I knew the chicken was a bad idea. I'm sure it's got corn in it. It'll be many weeks before I make a major slip like that again. I say weeks as I being realistic. The slips are further and further apart as they seem more unpleasant each time. Why wouldn't they? I feel so good the rest of the time that my body has developed higher standards. And it takes days for all the symptoms to really clear up. Itchy skin, achy belly, buffalos.

So, I hope you're having a better belly night than I am. A bad day does not mean a bad week! Here we go go!

Not every day is amazing.

If every day started like today it would be hard to keep motivated and going to the gym.  Takes 21 days to make a habit but only three to break it, right? Well...

I spent the last three days driving 14 hours roundtrip to Wisconsin to help my dude's mom pack up the home dude grew up in, where they lived for over 30 years. It was a really good trip, we took the little lady J (my dude's daughter) and got to see all of the cousins and have lots of hugs. There were a few high tension moments but overall really good, productive. 

For me personally it was great to be there, to support his family, to keep building my relationship with his mom and sisters. But it also meant a vegetable desert, fried foods as far as the eye can see, awkward body work and poor sleep.  Coming home to sleep in my own bed and get back on the normal food train is really nice. 

Getting up this morning after our long car ride home and awesome parade of road food and pastries,  I had a hard time.  My trainer didn't show up for our appointment. I could barely hack 5 minutes in the stair climber. I did some walking on the treadmill and a good bit of cycling but trudged home feeling super tired and blah. 

Tomorrow will be better. I might need some pinterest time today. And maybe some window shopping on lucy or lululemon, too. Tomorrow will be better. Getting back in the swing.

Did you know I'm on Pinterest, too?

On Pinterest I while away the minutes (hours?) finding inspiration, motivation, food, and that sweet, tickly feeling I get from seeing and learning new things. My "Healthy" board is one of my most busy lately. Though I admit to using Pinterest a fair amount for work also and you can see my interests range fairly wide for subjects to hunt down. I don't super often pin things about my own fashion tastes or desires but I do have a "My Style" board where a few gems like this one are:

My aspirational hair.  Assymmetrical with big curls tumbling down one side... It's motivating to look at the picture occasionally since I've got a few months to go. Here's a progress shot, er, collage!

And my favorite hair product of the moment.  My boss also has very curly hair and said this stuff wasn't a great fit for her. It's amazing for me! Free hair product for me!

Anywho, I heart Pinterest and I invite you to follow my boards or live vicariously through my pins if you don't have an account yourself! http://pinterest.com/biscuit_buster Happy Pinning!

Adventures in shopping and the daily grind.

Since I joined a gym on May 20th I have gone every weekday morning at about 515am. I've been tracking my calories (which I never thought I would do) and my exercise. I am doing my best to not be "that girl" in my day to day life but I've also been pleasantly surprised by the support that I have gotten from friends, coworkers and family.

I continue to find motivation wandering through the cyber highways of pretty, pretty Pinterest and also picked up a couple of new pairs of workout pants. I've been on the hunt for a second pair of gym shoes but I am finding that if you do not fit in New Balance or Nike's concept of an athletic foot (long and narrow?) the market is a little hard to shop. I also admit to trolling Marshall's and similar stores with a rabid determination only further validated when I found that my friend M has my SAME Saucony Grids and that on Zappos they are still $75. I picked mine up for $40 at Marshall's. WIN!

The other thing I've recently embarked on (and my head is still not fully wrapped around it) is meeting with a trainer. I went in for my initial consultation and he was actually very nice. Encouraging and enthusiastic without being slimy or creepy (unlike my experience with the first sales guy, ugh!) so here I am in this meeting and suddenly I've signed up to meet once a week (not sneaky in any way, just one of those got-swept-up kinda things) and I've quadrupled my monthly gym costs. And I remind myself: this is an investment. In me. In my future. My health. My sex life! 

That first meeting made realize how very little I know and that although I've got a weighty (yes, I went there) goal I can do it. It will take time. And energy. And it's a better investment than lunches out and Starbucks.

So back to the important bit on shopping: the best pair of shoes I've found are Brooks. They are super comfy. But they are brown and seafoam green. I wear 90% black and grey when I work out. I bought them. They are on my kitchen table staring me down. I'm just not sure about the brown. What would YOU do?